Adventures Into the Woods: A Sexy Musical (a.k.a. Emmanuelle in Wonderland エマニュエル・イン・ワンダーランド)

Good morning everyone,

Today’s review will cover a sexy musical with fairy tale-derived size changing.

“Adventures Into the Woods: A Sexy Musical” was initially produced in 2012 as part of the “Emmanuelle Through Time” series. Years later it was released as “Adventures Into the Woods: A Sexy Musical.” The 2014 death of Alain Siritzky, one of the producers, delayed this release as issues regarding his estate had to be resolved. The name change may have been intended to capitalize on Disney’s 2014 musical “Into the Woods.”

This was directed and written by Rolfe Kanefsky. Rolfe has worked on many low budget productions in the horror, soft-core erotica, and science-fiction genres. Examples include “Art of the Dead,” “Predator World,” and “Sex Files: Alien Erotica II.” One of his first films was the micro-budget horror “There’s Nothing Out There,” which was released in 1991 when he was only 20 years old! Although, the fact that his father was in the movie industry undoubtedly helped him make a movie at such a young age. Notably, There’s Nothing Out There included a character who tries using their knowledge of scary movies to survive a deadly situation, similar to characters in 1996’s “Scream.” There’s Nothing Out There preceded Scream by five years and Rolfe compared it to Scream in the book “How to Make Movies: Low-Budget/No-Budget Indie Experts Tell All” by Kevin J. Lindenmuth. Lastly, and of particular interest to size fans, Rolfe was listed as one of the associate producers for “Giantess Attack!“

The lead performer was Allie Haze (a.k.a. Brittany Joy). Her body of work consists of adult films such as “A Couples Guide to Erotic Submission,” “Fifty Shades of Grey: A XXX Adaptation,” and “Girls Night.” She performed in a few films released in 2020 and presumably is still working in the industry now. All in all, I enjoyed Allie’s performance in this movie. She came across as likable and possessed decent acting skills. Now, onto the the film itself!

The opening credits state that this film was based on Emmanuelle Arsan’s fictional character “Emmanuelle.” However, this film’s narrative details a woman jumping from one fairy tale to the next so it wasn’t obvious how much inspiration was actually taken from Emmanuelle Arsan’s stories. There were no mentions of this Emmanuelle being a unsatisfied wife of a French engineer for example. Instead, it appears that the only things taken from those original stories was the character’s beauty, her name, and her sexual openness. Although, given the popularity of the books and subsequent film adaptations, just the name Emmanuelle by itself is a strong selling point.

Adventures Into The Woods begins with a few scientists telling Colonel Saunders that Emmanuelle is “… absorbing all of the energy and that a wormhole is forming inside of her.” Not for nothing, but I’d have appreciated if the camera had not been moving around constantly during this initial sequence. Although, admittedly this bit was very brief and was merely justification for the fantastic events which were to follow. (NOTE: “Colonel Saunders” might have been a reference to Kentucky Fried Chicken creator “Colonel Harland Sanders.” However, no one calls the character by name and if you don’t recognize his rank insignia then the reference might be missed.)

No idea what the purpose of this experiment was. Whatever their mysterious intent, the folks running the test apparently needed Emmanuelle to stand naked by some equipment. (FULL DISCLOSURE: If I was a fancy scientist I’d have naked women in my lab as much as possible… 😉 ) I have not watched any other films in this series; so, perhaps earlier ones provided background and presumably this was meant to be watched in order.

Thankfully for growth and shrink fans, the first setting in which our pretty protagonist arrived was a recreation of the hallway from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice In Wonderland” with doors of multiple sizes. Of special interest, the music played during the growth sequence felt very familiar. In fact, I believe they’re the same sounds which were played during the iconic growing scene from 1965’s “Village of the Giants“!

Our growing lady strikes her head against the ceiling, but does not break through. She was already nude, so no clothing destruction was involved during her transformation into a giantess. The size-changing process was simulated by playing appropriate sounds, moving the camera, and zooming in. The transformation itself wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t a fan of the simplistic CGI setting.

I appreciated the props used at this juncture. For example, the key was tiny within her palm when she was a giantess, and an equally diminutive bottle represented the shrinking formula.

After she herself became tiny, the key was portrayed as the size of a spear.

After leaving the hallway, Emmanuelle wanders around for a bit amongst a garden.

She discovers a tent in which the Mad Hatter, shirtless and entertaining a trio of beautiful blondes, is holding a tea party. (NOTE: At this juncture, a necklace suddenly appeared around the actress’s neck. It’s surprise materialization was never explained and was presumably a mistake.) Also present at the tea party was “Timothy the Tit-Mouse,” a fellow who earns his moniker by periodically suckling on a woman’s nipples. This bit concludes with the first song, “Do The Jiggle,” which describes the roles and responsibilities of a gigolo. Gigolo being the line of work pursued by the Mad Hatter in this universe.

Speaking of songs, most of them were unremarkable. Although, “Christmas Turkey” was catchy. It was written by Rick Novak and performed by Lovely Lise and The Bucky Burro Band. However, the lip-syncing was poor and it was obvious that the actress, Jules Hartley playing “Shirley Pumpkin-Eater,” was not actually singing. On that topic, dialogue was also lip-synced in dismal quality.

At the end there was a confrontation between the Evil Queen and Emmanuelle. The Evil Queen tries to convince our protagonist to eat an apple by promising that it will make her more well-endowed. This was partly done via a song entitled “New Boobs,” sung by Esther Goodstein. At this point, the editor cut and pasted breast expansion scenes from other films to provide visual effects. Like this:

Throughout the film the costuming was crude. The “Wolf” was obviously a man in a cheap costume, “Humpty Dumpty” was a man with a painted face wearing a homemade getup, etc. That noted, these are fairy tales represented on a shoestring budget so viewers should not expect world-class effects.

Overall, this was a fun watch, much nudity was on display as well as simulated sex scenes. The story included conflict and the lead had a goal, returning home, to achieve. That’s not to say that it was full of drama and nail-biting tension, but it had enough plot to carry the performers from scene to scene and to enable a satisfactory ending. Potential viewers should not expect a deep narrative, realistic SFX, or rich dialogue. Nonetheless, this had amusing size changing transformations, and the antagonist was eventually overcome by way of excessive breast expansion! That’s enough to warrant a watch in my opinion. Furthermore, director Rolfe Kanefsky stated:

“The task was to make seven 90 minute feature films all in for $300,000.00 which was impossible! The only way this could even be attempted was to shoot all these movies simultaneously and that’s what we did. In 54 days, myself, my producer, Esther Goodstein, the cast, and a few dedicated crew members made the entire series.“

The above quote was taken from an interview posted at the web site Daily Grindhouse.

The final effort was not bad when you consider that not only this, but also six other films were all produced for the relatively small budget of three hundred thousand dollars and in less than two months.

That’s it for today. Stay tuned for Thursday’s article looking at supernaturally small and extraordinarily big characters from those first super hero comics published during the Golden Age. Until then, keep growing!

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