When I was 16, a friend of mine and I attended a film called Joy of Sex. We were all secretive about it, too, like we were getting away with something. Forbidden fruit obtained, woohoo! Come to think of it, they shouldn’t have let me in as I wasn’t yet 17.
I wish they hadn’t.
Joy of Sex contained neither. Nor was it funny or even titillating. On top of that, I later had to admit to my mother where I’d been that afternoon and did so rather sheepishly to eyes best described as “disappointed”. And you know what? It would have been worth it if there were anything to recommend itself about the film. It was kind of like getting caught reading Playboy’s special “All Articles” edition. What a rip.
A Good Old Fashioned Orgy wasn’t that bad, but it certainly puts one more in the mind of Joy of Sex than, say, something truly indulgent. First off, like Joy of Sex or Zack and Miri Make a Porno, I can’t believe this thing was green-lit. Makes no sense. Americans are still Puritan at heart. We like our sex only public to besmirch a celebrity. Heavy violence? PG stuff. Bare breasts = R rating. “Orgy” in the title means you’ve eliminated all families and everybody who pretends to be above such carnal virtue (and that’s a ton of Americans). Even among those of us who gladly tell Puritanical America to go stuff itself with a hypocrite-n-chess on rye, nobody 
wants to walk to a ticket window and ask for “two to see Orgy.” You want people to feel like dirty old men, the kind of guys who slink in-and-out of porn theaters in the inner city? Do you want this picture to lose money?
Oh yeah, the picture. OK, lessee … Eric (Jason Sudeikis) leads a pack of eternally adolescent thirtysomething losers. Their lives are spent focusing on one ridiculous theme party after another at the summer home owned by Jason’s father (an uncredited Don Johnson). When father tells of his intentions to sell the house, Jason’s people plan one last summer bash – an orgy on Labor Day weekend. Does Orgy at least deliver? Yes and mostly no. Plenty of suggested sex. And plenty of suggestive clothing or less from the leads – and people clearly having sex. Plenty of gratuitous Tyler Labine (do we need that?) But those looking for wall-to-wall graphic nudity or a big pile of indulgence or even some pervy star skin scene will be sadly disappointed. The most indulgent moment in the film is a shallow kiss between Sudeikis and Labine. If you go looking for a movie, well, that will fall short too. In the big picture, however, both plot and porn in Orgy beat the Hell out of Joy of Sex. I got gypped.
Rated R, 95 Minutes
D: Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck
W: Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck
Genre: PG-13 pornography
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: People who love to be teased.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Hard-core porn fans.
