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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Preppies (1984): Review

Three ivy league students (Dennis Darke, Steven Holt and Peter Brady Reardon) have to pass their big economics exam in order to become the successful young men they are destined to be, but the dastardly Blackwel hires three sexy sirens hell bent on ruining everything.
This lesser sex comedy, produced by Playboy, is the one of the better offerings from the lower end of the spectrum. While there isn't an awful lot of actual sexiness going on at all, a misnomer considering all the boobs that are on display, it's plenty funny enough for it to almost not matter. Even if the two funniest characters get the least screen time. the money grubbing, sexual deviant Blackwel spends most of his screen time either in chains or toting a tommy gun, whilst sneering in that oh-so-villainous way. The other is a deluded idiot of a soap actor who interjects in the films climax to show how he might have performed it differently.

It's not new, it's not different, but it works. The gaggle of beauties include Linda Weismeier, who racked up appearance in Avenging Angel, Joysticks and Malibu Express. While she has little to do except look pretty and act like the biggest bimbo going, she is joined by The Toxic Avenger's Cindy Manion, Nitchie Barrett, who you may recognise from Shannon Tweed classic A Time To Die, and director of the oft-overlooked Stripped to Kill movies Katt Shea in the part of the ridiculous waspy girlfriend of our hero.
While the acting ranges from mediocre to just plain laughable, it's clear everyone is having the time of their lives at the various country clubs and mansion houses (and dive bars) that populate this little flick. It's also worth noting, for Gentlemen everywhere, that one of the girls turns up to party with a full case of J&B.

Chuck Vincent, as I am sure you are aware (you pervert), was a porn director for most of his career, racking up titles like Porn Flakes, Babes in Joyland and Dirty Lily. Vincent makes a good go at trying to direct but it's all a bit point-and-shoot for my tastes. There is a severe lack of any interesting visual flair, Vincent clearly has learnt to rely on his actors to provide the excitement, through his years shooting the likes of Samatha Fox and Vanessa del Rio. While this isn't his only production outside of the X rating, it's probably his best.
I mean, sure, it's terrible, but it's got a streak of innocence running through it that is almost entirely carried by lead, Dennis Drake. His wide eyed, open face approach to non-acting is so unnatural, it's actually gone full circle to the point where you wouldn't believe that an actor could be so naive and therefore it must be the character. It's an interesting approach, and one I am sure is entirely not intentional.

Because the film stands at about 82 minutes, when the inevitable climax is been and gone, you won't feel much. Maybe a warm sense of a quickly paced and reasonably enjoyable romp-com will keep you going for a few minutes, but in the end Preppies is ultimately forgettable aside from a few key scenes.
MVT: Obviously the only reason to watch this is for the laughs and the girls. The girls don't do a whole lot apart from connive, prostitute themselves, and occasionally get out their coveted mammaries, so the MVT has to go to the script. Really. Like all good 80s comedies it's a joke a minute, so even if two thirds of the jokes don't land right, you're still laughing.

Make or Break: While the lack of any originality, and the lack of much true raunch, should technically break this, there were two moments that really made it. The first was early on when a female character exclaims "I would love, just for one minute, to sit on that guy's face!"
The other is when the wasp chicks realise the have to put out or lose out, Katt Shea's character leads her bimbo buddy on a fake orgasm masterclass. It's truly hilarious and that image of two girls laid on separate beds, swinging their arms and cooing like it was some kind of Beetlejuice-esque haunting will stick with me for a long time to come.

Score: 7.25/10

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