By the early 1980s, Troma wasn’t the only studio producing sex comedies as Hollywood soon followed in their wake. In 1982, 20th Century Fox released Bob Clark’s Porky’s, which became the fifth highest-grossing film of the year. This success led to a wave of teen sex comedies, including Risky Business, Bachelor Party, The Last American Virgin, etc. Seeing this as the end of their run, Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz decided to produce one more sex comedy. For inspiration, Herz remembered how he met his wife while attending summer camp as a child. Since summer camp is a time most people remember fondly, they chose to base their movie around that. With their small cast and crew, they filmed in parts of New York and Pennsylvania for this summer camp romp. After screening at Cannes in May 1983, The First Turn-On made its way onto screens that November.

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Synopsis

It’s the last day of summer at Camp Big-Tee-Pee, and the kids can’t wait to go home. Before that, hippie counselor Michelle Farmer (Georgia Harrell) takes some of the campers on a hiking trip. Four campers – Mitch (Michael Sanville), Henry (Googy Gress), Danny (John Flood), and Annie (Heidi Miller) – decide to break off. They go to a remote cave to smoke some marijuana, only for Michelle to catch them in the act. Unfortunately, a freak landslide causes a cave-in, trapping our stoned-out campers and their counselor with little hope of escape. To pass the time, they decide to each tell the story of how they lost their virginity. Mitch talks about losing it to a hooker, Danny meeting his dream girl, and Annie frolicking in a barn. As further hijinks ensue at the camp, our five heroes recount how they had their first turn-on!

 

Review

While Lloyd Kaufman considers Stuck on You the best of the sex comedies, fans say The First Turn-On is superior. As ambitious as the previous movie was, I agree with the fans who prefer this one over the last three. Like the previous film, this one is an anthology movie, but the stories here actually involve the central characters. Because of this, the stories feel more personal instead of random sketches with nothing relevant to the overall narrative. However, one problem with this film is that it frequently cuts away to what’s happening at camp. These scenes hardly further the story and feel like they’re out of a completely different movie. What we get is a weird cross between a summer camp movie and a sex anthology you’d find on Cinemax. It doesn’t help that, without spoiling too much, the stories ultimately have an unsatisfying payoff.

The acting is about what you’d expect from this kind of film, with everyone constantly mugging for the camera. While most of the cast is relatively unknown, there are a few stand-outs for Troma fans. Mark Torgl, who later played Melvin in The Toxic Avenger, has a memorable role as a disgusting ex-lover of Michelle. Speaking of, one of the mayor’s goons in that film was actor Al Pia, who played the camp director here. Probably the biggest name here is a then-unknown Vincent D’Onofrio, four years before his iconic role in Full Metal Jacket. While he’s only on-screen briefly, you can see some of the manic energy he’d bring to the Kubrick classic. There’s so much nudity, crass humor, and tasteless gags that it becomes overkill, which might be why they stopped. Overall, The First Turn-On is arguably the best of the four, but it’s more of the same.

 

Buy The First Turn-On from Amazon: https://amzn.to/4fNXZl1.

Disclosure: The above link is an affiliate link, which means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

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