Forced Entry (1973 film)

Lore & Background

The film opens with newspaper articles, footage, and quotes about the Vietnam War and returning soldiers, then shows authorities investigating a crime scene where a man was shot in the head. In flashback, the man is a gas station attendant who coerces a female customer into giving her address, then watches her have sex with her husband before breaking in, forcing oral sex, and slitting her throat after climax. He later follows a lost motorist to her home, drags her from the shower, forces fellatio at gunpoint, sodomizes her, stabs her, and kisses her as she dies. A third attack involves a hippie driver and her hitchhiker companion; the attendant tricks the driver into giving her address, then breaks in while they are intoxicated and having sex. The pair are too high to take him seriously, causing him to have a psychotic break with flashbacks to war and his crimes, after which he screams 'Stay away from me!' and shoots himself in the head. The film returns to the opening scene as his body is covered and hauled away.

Reader's Guide

Forced Entry is significant as an early example of the serial killer subgenre in pornography and as a film that explicitly links sexual violence to the trauma of the Vietnam War. Scholar Robert Cettl, in his analysis 'Forced Entry: Serial Killer Pornography as Patriarchical Paradox,' argues the film subverts American patriarchy by highlighting a paradox in hegemonic masculinity, turning pornography into self-conscious political discourse that critiques patriarchal reaction to second-wave feminism as grounded in war-mongering and doomed to self-implosion. The film's star, Harry Reems, wrote in his autobiography that Forced Entry was the one film he regretted doing. DVD Talk gave it zero stars, calling it 'morally repugnant.' However, Ed Demko notes it is 'the first film to show a disturbed war vet coming home from Vietnam' and calls it 'one of the more important and relevant films to ever come out of that age of pornography,' arguing it transcends its time. The film had an R-rated remake in 1975 starring Tanya Roberts and Ron Max.

Did You Know?

• The film was written and directed by Shaun Costello under the pseudonym Helmuth Richler.
• Harry Reems, the star, is credited as Tim Long in the film.
• The film uses actual footage of the Vietnam War, predominantly in the rape and murder sequences.
• Despite some claims, 'Forced Entry' was not the first film to depict a disturbed Vietnam vet returning home; earlier films such as 'The Born Losers' (1967) and 'The Hard Ride' (1971) explored that theme.