Getting It On

Not as distasteful as “Porky’s” but not as good as “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”

A 14 years-old teen in Hickory, North Carolina, gets ahold of some video recording equipment and wastes no time taping his attractive neighbor and other females.

"Getting It On" (1983) was shot in twenty-four days in October, 1982, under the more accurate name “American Voyeur” for $220,000, which would be about $693,000 today (factoring inflation). It’s a teen sex dramedy that’s not as raunchy as "Porky's” from two years prior, but it’s not as palatable as “Valley Girl.” It lands somewhere in between.

It has some appeal as a coming-of-age in the 80s flick and there are a few attractive females (with three briefly shown top nude, just a heads up). Plus, it seems to have a good heart underneath the sometimes awkward sex-oriented material, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the great "Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

Still, it's preferable to the offensive "American Pie" flicks. And there are inspired bits, like when the protagonist, his best friend, and the latter's older brother sneak into a local community costume party for adults dressed as Ku Klux Klansmen and no one bats an eye!

It runs 1 hour, 35 minutes, and was shot in Hickory, which is an hour’s drive northwest of Charlotte on the western side of the state.

GRADE: C