In the mid-1990s, the erotic thriller boom was in full swing, spurred on by the mainstream success of Basic Instinct and the explosion of late-night cable programming. It was a time when producers would grab any public domain character and thrust them (often literally) into a softcore scenario. Enter Tarzan X , a film that attempts to answer the question no one asked: What if Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Lord of the Apes was reimagined as a hunky, leather-clad, amnesiac action hero with a penchant for steamy jungle trysts?
The pacing is glacial. Long stretches of the film involve characters walking through the jungle, Tarzan grunting monosyllabically, or the villains arguing in a poorly decorated cave set. The action scenes are laughably staged: a "fierce" fight with a crocodile involves a man in a rubber suit flopping on the ground, and Tarzan’s famous vine-swinging is reduced to a single, unconvincing shot on a soundstage. tarzan x 1995
The film opens with a young woman, Karen (Angela D’Angelo), searching for her missing anthropologist father in the African jungle. She stumbles upon a wild man known as Tarzan (Rocco Siffredi, legendary adult film star, here billed as "Rocco"), who lives in a treetop paradise with his chimpanzee companion, Cheeta (a real chimp, looking perpetually unimpressed). Tarzan has amnesia – a convenient plot device that allows for endless exposition dumps. He doesn’t know if he’s a lord or a lost city guardian. In the mid-1990s, the erotic thriller boom was
(1 point for the unintentional comedy, 0.5 for the chimp’s professionalism) The pacing is glacial
Let’s address the elephant – or rather, the erect gorilla – in the room. Tarzan X is essentially a 95-minute vehicle for softcore sex scenes padded with jungle footage. The erotic sequences, which are plentiful, are shot with the same flat lighting and static camera work as the dialogue scenes. There is little passion; instead, there is a clinical, almost mechanical quality to them. Siffredi, known for his intense performances in adult cinema, seems oddly subdued here, going through the motions as if waiting for a paycheck. The female leads, while conventionally attractive, are given nothing to work with besides breathy sighs and strategically placed foliage.