Abducted by the Daleks (2005)

If something is around long enough, or becomes popular enough, then it will inevitably spawn a porn or sex comedy cash in.  So it is somewhat surprising that the BBC's venerable science fiction series Dr Who didn't get one until 2005's Abducted by the Daleks, clearly made to exploit the series revival that year.  Perhaps there had been previous cash ins - I can't say that I keep up with such things, although I fondly remember Katy Manning's nude photoshoot with a Dalek for a men's magazine while she was still a regular in the series back in the seventies - but if there were, they didn't create the furore that Abducted by the Daleks made at the time.  Indeed, the level of outrage in some circles created by the film seems hardly justified by what, in reality, is a crudely made skin flick, apparently made on a budget only slightly less than that of its progenitor.  But, of course, that's the point of this type of exploitation: the free publicity that can be generated by riding the coat tails of a 'legit' property to drive sales of a shoddy product that otherwise slip by unnoticed.  The thing about Abducted by the Daleks, though, is that not only is it the most basic of parodies of its source, but it doesn't even work as porn.  The sex is minimal, confined to a couple of perfunctory lesbian encounters, with the film instead presenting a parade of bare female flesh as its main titillation.  Most disappointingly, they don't even exploit the pornographic potential of the Daleks to the full - I mean, they look like a bunch of huge, knobbly self-propelled dildoes, for goodness sake.  We don't get any sucker-groping from their appendages, (nor any bottom pinching from the one with a pincer rather than a sucker).  Not to mention the fact that their ray guns bear a certain resemblance to a vibrator.

Of course, Abducted by the Daleks is part of a long tradition of taking something relatively innocuous and innocent and 'sexing it up' to produce something aimed fairly and squarely at an adult audience.  It lies in the same continuum as all those porno versions of children's fairy tales, or adaptations of children's novels - 'Alice in Wonderland' being, as I recall, a popular subject for porn adaptations.  Ultimately, I suppose, it's a variation on the male fantasy of deflowering innocent young virgins, corrupting them with sensuality.  Abducted by the Daleks is an interesting case, though, as its source material is itself not entirely innocent and has, arguably, been itself guilty of playing on male fantasies, with its succession of increasingly sexually attractive young female assistants, (not infrequently to be seen in various states of undress), who are clearly there to attract the older male viewer.  At the same time, the casting of younger actors in the title role would seem to be aimed at attracting the older female audience.  Indeed, Dr Who does seem to have stirred various erotic fantasies among fans long before Abduction of the Daleks, if we are to believe Tom Baker's autobiography, where he recalls an encounter with a female groupie in a hotel room, who leapt on him demanding 'Take me through time Doctor!'.  (Actually, it would have been funnier if she'd lunged at his genitals with an egg-whisk in one hand, a sink plunger in the other, shouting 'Fornicate!').  

Sadly though, Abduction of the Daleks never really builds on any of these underlying sexual currents in the source material, instead seeming to feel that the mere presence of the titular monsters is sufficient exploitation in itself.  Which is surprising, as the makers do appear to have more than a passing familiarity of Dr Who, with the Daleks we see apparently modelled on those seen in the sixties Amicus film adaptations in terms of colour schemes and equipment, while crew members are variously billed as 'Billy Hartnell', 'Patrick Baker' and 'Dan Skaro'.  Nonetheless, it makes no real attempt to parody the source series plot-wise, design-wise (apart from the Daleks) or character-wise.  (Doubtless, they felt that they were infringing copyright enough by using the Dalek design and name).  The plot and its execution are, even by porn parody standards, pretty idiotic - four girls are driving through some woods at night, when they hit something on the road, (an alien, as it turns out) and, naturally, investigate by wandering around the woods, which have already been established as the haunt of a murderer of young women known as the 'Serial Skinner'.  For some reason, one of them gets separated from her friends and for no good reason takes her clothes off - at which point she is transported aboard the Dalek space ship, to be examined as a specimen of humanity in order to help their invasion plans.  Pretty soon, the other two follow suit, stripping off and being abducted, while the fourth turns out to be a Dalek agent and is beamed aboard to help torture the others.  Much mayhem ensues, before the fourth girl escapes back to the woods and survives encounters with an alien hunter and the 'Serial Skinner' (who turns out to be an alien), before a 'twist' ending.

Production values are crude in the extreme - the interior of the Dalek ship has walls and doors that wobble dangerously, while in the final scene, the police station interior consists of a desk with a flashing blue light on it.  The acting is universally awful, especially the four girls, who, I strongly suspect, weren't cast on the basis of acting ability.  All have strong Eastern European accents which, unfortunately, mask much of their dialogue.  (To be fair, I'm sure it wasn't worth hearing in the first place and understanding it really isn't necessary to following the 'plot').  Actually, on further consideration, I think that the guy playing the policeman in the last scene is the worst actor in the film - he isn't from Eastern Europe so we can hear clearly every word of his poorly delivered, idiotic, dialogue. There's one interesting casting development in the film: when she teleports back to Earth, the fourth girl is suddenly played by a different actress.  This change in appearance is addressed in the film, with the girl speculating that a fault with the matter transmitted could have changed her DNA.  There has been much discussion as to why this change of actress mid-film took place, with speculation that the original actress didn't want to do the nude scenes required for her character once she was back on Earth.  Personally, I think the reason is far more obvious: a homage to Dr Who itself, where the lead actor regularly regenerates into someone else.

But Abducted by the Daleks isn't entirely bad - the scenes in the woods are surprisingly well shot and quite atmospheric, while the Dalek props, although clearly homemade, are, in their shonky way, quite impressive.  Even if they are of varying heights and too thin, not to mention that in low shots you can see their castors.  Overall, though, I can't help but feel that Abducted by the Daleks represents a missed opportunity in terms of creating Dr Who-related erotica.  If only it had been made in the seventies, I can't help but feel, it would have made a fine sex comedy with Robin Askwith as the Doctor, perhaps, and a frequently naked Linda Hayden as his assistant.  Doubtless there would have been a scene where a Dalek casing popped open to reveal a naked woman inside, ('Bloody 'Ell, missus!').  As I noted at the start, I'm only surprised that thee haven't been more examples of Dr Who porn.  I'd like to believe that during the series long hiatus in the nineties and early noughties, various former members of the production team spirited various props away from the BBC in order to produce sex films featuring dilapidated looking Cybermen and tatty Sea Devils threatening buxom young women with all manner of intergalactic sexual depravities.  Perhaps they could have established a whole new genre of porn, exploring inter-species sexual relations, with one lot of rubber suited aliens copulating with another race of rubber suited aliens in quarries.  Ultimately, I suppose, the threat of legal action over copyright would have put them off - the BBC took action over Abducted by the Daleks, forcing a title change to Abducted by the Daloids, although the title monsters remained in the film.