Porky’s II: The Next Day (1983)

(In French, On Cable TV, January 2020) Considering that the original Porky’s is one of the best-known sex comedies of the early 1980s (a somewhat amusing Canadian contribution to movie history, and the second of director Bob Clark’s three main claims to fame in-between launching the slasher genre with Black Christmas and directing the very different A Christmas Story), it makes sense that sequel Porky’s II would begin the very next day, with the gang of friends still teasing “Peewee” about his sex life. Much of the first half of the film is in more or less the same vein of sex humiliation comedy, with plenty of nudity and compromising positions. But as the movie advances, the early scenes featuring the characters playing in Shakespeare’s plays (!) lead to the development of a more ambitious plot taking aim at the local preachers and politicians, all revealed to be hypocritical racists with a side order of lusting after underage girls. The amount of nudity also goes down as the film advances, to the point of a third act that is gross and vulgar (with series MVP Kaki Hunter delivering an extended takedown of a sleazy politician in a very public place) but plays nudity for laughs rather than titillation. The mixture between taking aim at racists and hypocrites doesn’t entirely blend very well with the sex farce of the series, but it does make Porky’s II: The Next Day more interesting for any 1980s completists watching the series.