Claude Goddard’s Winter Heat belongs to the sub-genre of 70s porn and sexploitation known as “roughies” — movies focused on terrorizing, degrading and often raping women — which immediately makes it not everyone’s cup of tea. I add this disclaimer because these tend to make me feel quite uncomfortable and I’m not their biggest fan; but hey, we’re here to talk classic porn, and like it or not, this kind of movie still belongs in that category.

The movie starts with four wandering friends — three guys and one girl — hanging out, and trying to find shelter from the snowy, cold weather. Sex seems to be a recurring subject in their conversations, and the girl seems to be accommodating everyone’s needs perfectly. In the beginning, though, there’s nothing that any one of us wouldn’t do with their friends; just lots of ball-busting — figuratively, of course. I feel like I have to specify this kind of thing with this genre.

While walking around the woods, they found a cabin where three unsuspecting girls were spending the weekend. Without any attempt to mask this as anything else, the gang just came in and took what they wanted. This is largely represented by blow jobs and tears.

Jamie Gillis plays Stevie, their unquestionable and fearless leader. Once again Gillis proves why he’s one of the best actors in the history of adult cinema. He plays demanding, scary assholes better than anyone, and this was no exception. He manages to intimidate, but alternating that with the promise of a nicer outcome, which is hard to pull off.

There’s a scene with Gillis force-feeding oatmeal to one of the girls that gets particularly humiliating — and kind of disgusting, really; it’s not for everyone’s boner. A couple of the girls seemed genuinely terrorized in a couple of moments, which makes me either gladly impressed by their acting chops, or uneasy with the thought that some of this might not be all that made up when it comes down to the filming stages.

Fortunately for all you fellow consensual sex enthusiasts, a couple of the scenes leave the rape-y vibe behind and get fairly hot and intense, including one with Gillis and a very young-looking girl simply named Jenny.

The soundtrack, full of well-utilized deep soul and funk, is excellent, if a little out of place with the story. Still, it’s one of the strongest points of the movie.

The ending feels pretty abrupt — to put it mildly. A smoother transition would have helped ease the tension and make it a bit more real, especially since the characters were mostly very believable and the storyline — if limited to the forced nature of the relationships — made sense.

Overall, it’s not a bad movie, though certainly not for everyone. There are certainly worse roughies, and this is one of the most famous ones.