The Wasp Woman (1995)

Directed by: Jim Wynors
Run Time: 84 minutes

Today's review is a remake of  Roger Corman's 1959 The Wasp Woman. Thought the lord of low budget B movies produced this one instead directing , it still has all the cheese one can expect of a B movie. Without further padding on to the review.

The story centers around Janice (Jennifer Rubin), a woman that created a successful cosmetics company, is the CEO of the company she made, and is the model of the product line. However declining sales and nervous investors are forcing her just to step down from being the company's model. Though not all hope is lost as Dr. Zinthorp has a plot convenient solution to Janice's age issue. Dr. Zinthorp, a disgraced medical researcher, has made a breakthrough in anti-aging by sciencing the  hell out of wasp stuff. He also is running low on research funds and is clueless on how to sell the research he has done so far.

This becomes painfully obvious when Janice meets Dr. Zinthorp in person and all he has as a presentation is a lot science jargon and no test results. Not wanting the next big thing in anti-aging to slip through her fingers Janice has Zinthorp test his serum on his cat. A few days later the cat reverts to a kitten and Janice wants to move to testing this serum on herself. A move that has nothing to do with the new young model that was hired to replace Janice. The doctor starts with a small dose to start the human testing phase of this serum. Though Janice may experience feelings of paranoia and have random hallucinations it will make her look younger in two or three months.

Playing it safe is not something Janice is willing to do and sneaks back into lab to increase her dosage.  This does have the effect of making her look like she is in her late twenties. It also makes her think that her boyfriend is romantically involved with other women and that she is turning into a human wasp monster. Back at Dr. Zinthorp's lab, the test kitty has mutated into a killer wasp cat. This monster cat then lures and kill Dr. Zinthorp in a near by service tunnel. Then is promptly forgotten.

Things get worse for Janice as well. Her paranoia has gone from annoying to dialed past eleven. She also starts seducing men that called her old, trying to destroy her business, and who betrayed her trust. This leads to her turning into a human wasp monster with bad nineties CGI effects. Followed by tame but horrific murder of the people in question. The third act see Janice sort of embracing her monstrous nature and forcing a final conflict between herself and the few surviving people left in her life.

At of the end of the day it's fun cheesy monster movie made for cable. Because it was made in the nineties for cable so there is more nudity and the killing is more graphic than the 1959 edition. There is not a lot to this movie outside of it being a fun monster movie. It's a fun movie if there is nothing on, the weather outside is crappy, or you can't sleep. If it shows up on cable or a streaming service give it a watch.

MVT: The monster suit is rather impressive for a low budget production like this.

Make or Break: Every time there was a office scene the background sound track included a nonstop ringing phone. At times it got on my nerves to the point I did yell out "Answer the fucking phone already."

Score: 5.9 out of 10

 

Death Race 2050 (2017)

Directed by: G.J. Echternkamp
Run time: 90 minutes

Let's address the bloody and beaten elephant in the room. It's a remake. Or a reboot, or any other R word that Hollywood uses as justification for remaking movies instead of making something new and different. Much like 1975 Death Race it has the same cars that would not survive running over a twig let alone a person, the same weird and colourful drivers, and a similar plot. Unlike the original, the satire is dark and dialed up to twelve. It also funny as hell.

The year is 2050. Junk food is combined with anti-depression medication. Winter is a myth that no one wants to talk about. Also the abundance of automation has driven unemployment to 99.9% and the only thing to do is watch the Death Race. The gimmick to the race this year the race is virtual reality transmission that allows one to see, feel, and smell like you are in the race.

The first racer introduced is Tammy the Terrorist. Creator and leader of her own cult that is based on the worst aspects of religion and American popular culture. She also uses her cultist as quick and easy way to rack up kills. Next is Minerva Jefferson. She has a best selling sex tape, numerous gold records and is in the Death Race to promote her new single "Drive, Drive, Kill, Kill". Next driver is Jed Prefectus. A genetically engineered human who's narcissistic, insecure, and extremely confused about his sexual identity. The next car and driver is ABE. An artificial intelligence with all the bugs and problems of a triple A video game on release. And finally the man and 60% cyborg, it's Frankenstein. A complex man who feels his only talents are wining the death race and rescuing stray dogs and cats.

The goal of the race is to get from Nuevo York to New Los Angeles as quickly as possible while killing as many people as possible. While speeding and killing the racers pass through charmingly renamed states like Eastern Fallout Zone (New Jersey), The Appalachian Desert (Kentucky), Walmatique (Arkansas), and Kirkland Tenements (Tennessee). All while people either inveterately die due to bad luck or throwing themselves in the path of the race for a second of fame and the chance to be run over by their hero.

This is a movie that should not exist. There's good looking practical effects on a budget, random female nudity, and irreverent black humor make this feel like a refugee movie from the 1970's. Not something expected from a movie made in 2017. It's not a work of great cinema but it's funny and entertaining as hell. It is a solid rental or streaming movie for fans of 70's movies and fans of Roger Corman's produced movies.

MVT: The scene were Annie Sullivan (Frankenstein's navigator) and Minerva Jefferson having character building scene in the Bechdel bar. While in another room Frankenstein and Jed are having a vicious fight.

Make or Break: The dark and irreverent humour of the writing made the two viewings of this movie for me. My manic laughing at the movie made people around me to ensure that 911 was set to speed dial.

Score: 6.1 out of 10

Sorceress (1982)

The Corsican Brothers is a story by Alexandre Dumas which first saw print in 1844.  In it, the brothers de Franchi, Louis and Lucien, are former conjoined twins who still share a bond that allows (you could argue suffers) them to feel each other’s pain.  If this sounds familiar, it should.  The idea has been adapted to numerous ends over the years.  Of course, there is the eponymous 1941 film starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr (and it should be stated, cinematic adaptations of the novella go back as far as 1898 according to my research), as well as the comedic reworking from Cheech & Chong (of these two, this is the one I’ve watched, for better or worse).  Then there are the maleficent twins Tomax and Xamot from the G.I. Joe cartoons, comics, et cetera.  Even the classic children’s educational show The Electric Company got into the act, though the brothers were renamed Miguel and Ramon and taught us how to form words using sounds like “ow.”  Outside of the obvious comic appeal of the concept, the conceit is intriguing.  It shows us, quite dramatically, that the bonds of family, of blood, are stronger than anything else, and this connection can never be severed, despite our possible desire to do so.  Jack Hill’s (aka Brian Stuart, a pseudonym used after a falling out between the director and Roger Corman, the film’s producer; if memory serves, it’s the name of Corman’s nephew, but don’t quote me on that) Sorceress also deals with the core of The Corsican Brothers, though one would be hard-pressed to say that it handles it even half as carefully or intelligently as Messrs. Chong and Marin.

On a sultry, fog-shrouded night, Traigon (Roberto Ballesteros) and his cronies hunt down Traigon’s wife, who has fled with their newborn twin daughters.  Unable to tell which of the two is the first born (this is crucial for Traigon’s sacrificial plans, though not nearly as crucial as you’d think, as we will learn later), the nefarious sorcerer is thwarted by aged magician and martial artist Krona (Martin LaSalle), who spirits the girls away, gives them some ill-defined superpowers, and spouts some prophetic gunk about them being “the two who are one.”  Fast forward to Mara and Mira’s (Lynette and Leigh Harris, respectively) voluptuous young adulthood, where they inevitably find themselves on the path to slay Traigon and stop his plan along with a small group of disparate allies (Baldar, a Viking [Bruno Rey], Pando, a satyr [David Millbern], and Erlick, a barbarian [Roberto Nelson]).

I know I made a big deal about the Corsican Brothers angle, but aside from the constant reference to “the two who are one” (a phrase which characters spout as if it had been drilled into their heads from birth but without any other context than that it’s important; it’s not), there is only one allusion to the psychic/sensual bond that the sisters share.  Of course, it takes place when one of the twins is having sex, and it gives the filmmakers the impetus to have the other sibling writhe on the ground in orgasmic ecstasy (it should be stated that screenwriter Jim Wynorski’s fingerprints are all over this film, this being one of the larger marks left on it).  So, why make the girls be cosmically/mystically conjoined?  Outside of the standard prophecy angle of the Sword and Sorcery genre, the answer is novelty.  More precisely, it’s the novelty of having two beautiful twins who aren’t afraid to doff their clothes in this milieu.  There is nothing going on in this story that in any way expands on this idea of bonding (at least not that I could see).  Fair play, since the film was a financial hit for Corman and New World Pictures, so the absolute minimum you can say is that one, it is distinguished from other efforts in this genre in this regard, and two, the producers certainly knew their target demographic.

To no one’s surprise, I’m about to labor a point, so bear with me.  There is a heavy religious angle at work in Sorceress, and it all starts at the opening.  The twins are being spirited away from religious zealots who would kill them, shades of the story of Moses (no floating them off down a river, however).  Krona is a Judeo-Christian God parallel with his long beard and mane of hair, his simple attire, and his invulnerability to things like fire.  Krona gives the twins to a couple of lowly goat herders to raise, and these two form a correlation to Joseph and Mary, the lowly carpenter and his wife who reared Jesus to adulthood at the request of God.  Naturally, this being a Sword and Sorcery film, Traigon’s religion is considered evil, calling as it does for the sacrifice of a human being in order to attain some nefarious end.  This also circles back around to more Christian references (are you tired of them yet?).  The face of Kalghara (Germaine Simiens), Traigon’s bad deity, is half serpentine, a Satan reference.  The good deity, Vital (Vitara?  I couldn’t tell completely), is a winged, lion-esque creature.  In combination with the sacrificial element of the film, he and the twins symbolize the duology of Jesus, who was referred to at one point as both the “conquering Lion” and “the Lamb who was slain.”  These are not exactly straight lines I’m drawing between this picture and its biblical references (and I would be shocked as all hell if they were overtly intended, but I believe this is likely one of those times when themes and motifs appear unconsciously in a piece of work for any number of reasons).  After all, the film has to satisfy its generic requirements.  But they seemed pretty obvious to me (and I haven’t opened a Bible in decades).  Nevertheless, I don’t recall horny satyrs or horny ape creatures in the Bible, so I could be wrong about all of it.    

Sorceress has enough interesting things going on, at least from a visual angle to make it worth seeing.  Unfortunately, it’s also pretty slapdash in a lot of ways, and there are dollops of broad humor that make a pie in the face look like a Lenny Bruce monologue (an ape gets shot in the ass with an arrow, a troop of zombies molest a gaggle of vestal virgins to a “what can you do?” aside from Baldar).  This is the type of film wherein every character will believe absolutely anything they’re told.  Mara and Mira believe they are boys, despite the obvious physical differences (even if they had never seen a man in their entire lives, did they never notice or question the differences between their parents?), and don’t know quite what to make of Pando’s engorged penis (okay, that was actually kind of funny).  Worse, the other characters believe the twins are boys up until they disrobe in front of them.  No one is that naïve.  No one.  Traigon’s whole scheme calls for the virginal sacrifice of the first born of the twins but after she’s been impregnated (huh?!).  One of Traigon’s soldiers commands the girls be taken alive and then commands their deaths not even a minute later.  

Still and all, there are things to enjoy, as well (one could argue that the things I just mentioned are some of them).  You get a medieval set of nunchucks.  You get a decent amount of female nudity (and even some male butt).  But more than that, you get a movie that feels like a rollicking, carefree adventure, not so much because you’re glued to your seat following its progression in peaks and valleys, but because you can enjoy the gleefully madcap, thrown-in-a-blender nuttiness that occurs constantly throughout it.  Yes, Sorceress is a mud puddle of a film, but it’s a mud puddle that’s kind of fun to slop around in from time to time.

MVT:  John Carl Buechler’s creature and makeup effects are imaginative and skillfully done.

Make or Break:  Honestly, for this film I have to go with the skinnydipping scene.  It has a little nudity, a little creature effects work, and a little juvenile humor that just about works.  Something for everyone.

Score: 6/10

Black Scorpion II: Aftershock (1997)

Directed by: Jonathan Winfrey
Runtime: 86 minutes

This is the last of the Black Scorpion movies. It is cheesy, the hero has a tendency to kill villains, has nudity to encourage rental sales, and it is low budget. Despite this it is fun, feels like a comic book hero movie, and does not require antidepressants after viewing.

The opening title sequence also doubles as a montage to show what happened in the last film. Which leads into the movie proper with villains dressed as newly weds in a car chase with police. So of course the Black Scorpion shows up right after the only marked police car crashes and she goes after the newly wed bandits. Once she catches up to the bandits she promptly blows up the car because the villains just ran out of plot immunity.

This movie has three plots running at the same time. Plot A involves the Gangster Prankster. A low budget version of the Joker that has half of his face damaged and uses clown makeup to cover the scaring. He and his gang are out to cause as much mayhem as possible and destroy the Black Scorpion. Plot B involves Darcy and her relationship with her alter ego the Black Scorpion. Darcy is wanting to be cop less and being the Black Scorpion more. This is leads to all kinds of problems at work and in her personal life. At work her partner is not sure if he can trust her as she seems to be unwilling to go into dangerous situations. Her personal life is just as complicated as she wants her partner in bed without the aid of a costume and a taser. Finally Plot C deals with the fact that Angel City is broke due to the mayor stealing money from city and is hoping for earthquakes and federal disaster funds will help hide his crimes. However a scientist has found a way to stop earthquakes and the mayor can't have that. So he send some yes men to destroy the scientist machine and end up turn the scientist in the villain Aftershock.

In short that is the whole movie. There is not much else to talk about plot wise. A few scenes of female nudity at the beginning to sucker anyone who rented back when movie rental was a thing. There is no rape in this movie unlike the first movie. Also the villains suck in this movie the Gangster Prankster is an insufferable tool that is annoying in every scene he is in. Aftershock is just boring, she was created by a lab accident and mcguffin radiation and doesn't do much other than to advance Plot A.

Unless you are a hardcore Black Scorpion fan or suffer from clinical completion syndrome I can't really recommend owning this movie. This is a great movie if it happens to show up on one of the movie streaming sites or randomly on cable. Also if you are trapped inside due to heavy rain, snow, or a media circus has  taken up camp on your front lawn.

MVT: They use the 67 Stingray in this movie as well.

Make or Break: Every scene that has the Gangster Prankster is annoying and painful. Best way to put how annoying he is into words, a twelve year old high on sugar and adderall screaming fifty year old jokes and hitting you about the head with the book he got them from. 

Score: 4.3 out of 10

The Cheerleaders (1973)

Director: Paul Glickler
Starring: Stephanie Fondue, Denise Dillaway, Jovita Bush

Young Jeannie has a problem: at fifteen years of age, she is still, tragically, a virgin. She figures the best way to lick this problem is by taking the advice of a couple friends and trying out for the cheerleading squad. She makes it, but her efforts to deflower herself at the hands of some virile young lad continue to be stymied when the squad captain Claudia has made a bet that she can foil Jeannie's noble plans for the entire season. Wacky hijinks ensue and require the cheerleaders to take off all their clothes as often as possible, all in the name of sexual liberation and freedom and America!

Oh yeah, the sleazy janitor is also planning to fix the next game, because someone always has to be fixing the game in these cheerleader movies. Unfortunately for him, the cheerleaders have their own plan to help the team by sapping the opponents of all their strength. Can you guess how? Remember, this was back in the days when football players were dedicated gridiron gladiators who never fooled around before the game and could have their strength instantly sapped by them by having sex the night before. Too bad the cheerleaders also had a big orgy with their own players, making everyone on the field so very sleepy! But wait! Is that a fourth string running back the other team has? The cheerleaders missed him! Can anyone but Jeannie come to the rescue and save Amorosa from the shame of losing a high school football game?

The Cheerleaders is unrelenting and indefensible sleaze. And predictably enough, to that we say, "Rah rah rah!" The biggest complaint that you can lodge against this film isn't that it features gratuitous nudity or horrible acting,. No, the biggest flaw in this film is that the cheerleading is really quite bad. Nothing rhymes. None of the cheers are catchy. Opening narration explains how the Amorosa High football team is on a winning streak and school spirit is at an all-time high. What could be causing this is a mystery. And though the film implies it's all thanks to the cheerleaders, when you actually see them cheer, you'll realize that the upturn in school spirit is still a mystery. The cheerleaders aren't even performing in unison. How can the team go on to win the big game when the cheerleading is so shoddy?

So you know, what with the cheering being so bad and all, it just sort of shattered the illusion of reality for me that this film could have otherwise created. Everything else is pretty true to life, after all, like how the cheerleaders drive around in their convertible sports car all the time in their cheerleader outfits and still doing cheers, even when they're just going to eat hotdogs, or how the cheerleaders are always having naked slumber parties, or how they always save the day -- usually by employing sex. These parts of the film take on an almost cinema verite reflection of real life which is undermined whenever we're asked to believe that these are the greatest cheerleaders in all the land.

Needless to say, this is very much a "what you see is what you get" type of film, and believe me you see a lot. This film is a prime example of what you could get away with in the carefree and easy 70s that would get you locked up today. Consider, first of all, that the crisis presented to us is that a fifteen-year-old girl hasn't gotten laid yet. No one leaps up and says, "Well, you should wait until you get older anyway." Nah, the general reaction is more along the lines of, "Weird! Let's get you some sex!" In addition, you have older teachers, male and female, both getting it on with underage (according to the script, remember) girls, and that's cool, too. And then you have Jeannie's own dad who leers at his naked daughter from time to time before also having sex with one of the cheerleaders. And then you have the scene in which Jeannie's initiation to the squad involves her having to shower in the boys' locker room, just when the team comes running in with their minds on a gangbang. Har har har! And then Claudia teaches Jeannie that the best way to seduce thugs is to pretend you want to be treated rough. These are all valuable lessons for young girls to learn, of course.

Tasteless doesn't even begin to describe The Cheerleaders. But like most oddball skin flicks from the 1970s, there's such an exuberant..."innocence" certainly isn't the word I'm looking for...such a joyously perverse celebration of all things tawdry. If you are going to be offended, then you're better off being offended by the lack of a plot or the amazing absence of acting skill from every performer. But at the same time, you should just be ashamed of yourself if you sit down to watch The Cheerleaders and expect taut plotting, engrossing characters, and stand-out performances. If that's the case, then frankly you deserve to have sat through a scene of a fat guy in a jock strap crawling around on the floor while a cheerleader licks a baseball bat.

Since this is technically supposed to be a sex comedy, the movie does have to take time out from all the nudity for crude humor the likes of which would make even Benny Hill shake his head in embarrassment. Ho ho ho! The janitor is a peeping tom! Oh, the hilarity! Jeannie's dad is willing to let the cheerleading team stay over for a slumber party, and he offers them grilled wieners! And, um...well, really that's about it. Most of the gags involved cheerleaders eating phallic shaped food items or bending over.

Curiously, almost no one form this cast went on to bigger and better things. In fact, most of them never went on to anything, period, and this remains the sole entry in their filmography. Cheerleader Kimbery Hyde went on to star in a couple of those naughty nurse movies, but the only familiar face, if you can call it that, is Pat Wright as the football team's coach. He starred in a stack of films including Revenge of the Cheerleaders, the hillbilly sexploitation comedy Sassy Sue, Caged Heat, I Spit on Your Corpse (yes, the sleazy follow-up to I Spit on Your Grave), Candy Tangerine Man, and Russ Meyer's Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. In 1992, he got back to his roots with a part in The Bikini Car Wash Company. Curiously, almost all his roles cast him as a coach, a cop, or a creepy in-law.

As a skin flick, though, you'd really have a hard time beating The Cheerleaders. Or maybe, you wouldn't have a hard time beating it. The cheerleading outfits are tiny, but that's not of much concern since they come off in almost every scene. Everyone gets naked all the time, and sex is had in cheesy bachelor pads, fast food restaurants (nothing turns you on like have sex on a dirty deep fryer), car washes, locker rooms, trophy rooms, gardens, and well eventually you just lose track.

Make or Break: The willingness to commit to irredeemable sleaze without ironic armor or "we're all a satire" attempts to justify how tasteless it all is. This is about as "pure" as X-rated exploitation comes.

MVT: Stephanie Fondue as Jeannie. Not just because she's cute and willing to indulge this nonsense, but because she has a 70s glam rock mullet that would make Suzi Quatro proud.

Black Scorpion (1995)

Directed by Jonathan Winfrey

Runtime: 92 minutes

Have you preformed parkour training on rooftops and fought off ten local hoodlums in high heels and still look great? Don't worry, neither have the writers of this movie and any guy who writes comic books. So on to the review of Black Scorpion.

The movie opens with The Lieutenant (IMDb lists the character as Lt. Stan Walker but throughout the movie the character is only ever referred to as The Lieutenant) is telling his daughter Darcy the story about the scorpion and the frog. This is cut short when a call on the police radio alerts The Lieutenant to a high speed pursuit near where he lives. So The Lieutenant tells Darcy to lock the door and go to bed and The Lieutenant goes out to do what the thing he does best being a bad ass cop.

Not only does he get ahead of the pursuit but he has time to have a quick smoke break. He then proceeds to shoot out the criminals tires with his off hand and shoot a eight rounds out of a revolver. This takes out the criminal's car and The Lieutenant had the forethought to call ahead for an ambulance. Unfortunately hospitals are The Lieutenant's kryptonite and everything goes wrong for him. The two criminals he caught feel that a car crash is not enough to slow them down so they steal some near by weapons to start some trouble.

The Lieutenant shoots and kills both criminals. He also shoots a doctor who was being used as a human shield and this act end his career as a bad ass cop. The movie jumps to seventeen years later were we see that Darcy is a cop just like her dad. She is a vice cop in Angel City and trying to arrest a pimp named Easy Street. Before Easy Street can say or do anything criminal, Darcy's partner Michael decides to play the white knight at the wrong time and destroys the investigation. 

Darcy's day gets worse as she has a birthday drink with her father when the district attorney walks into the bar. He take a puff of asthma medication and then opens fire and kills The Lieutenant. When the district attorney is arrested he can't remember anything that happened or why he would want to gun down the Lieutenant. Darcy does not buy the amnesia defence and takes an unloaded firearm into the holding area and has a gunpoint interrogation with the district attorney.

This gets her suspended and motivates her to take up masked vigilantism. So Darcy dresses up as a cross between a scorpion and a dominatrix and starts cleaning up the streets. First she walks into the strip club Easy Street uses to meet and hire new staff and throws him out a window killing him. Then she moves her reign of crime fighting to asthmatic criminals plaguing Angel City. As the Black Scorpion, Darcy fights yet more odd and wacky asthmatic criminals and draws the attention of the police.

After a run with the vice squad, Darcy's 1967 cherry red Stingray gets shot several times. This forces her to see Angus a reformed car thief, a genius with cars and technology, and owner and operator of a local chop shop. When Darcy tells Angus about being the Black Scorpion, Angus fixes her Stingray with stolen military technology that reorganizes matter into whatever you want. In short the Stingray becomes the Batmoblie.

This leads into the third act where the Black Scorpion ambushes Michael and rapes him. The Black Scorpion works out who is behind the wacky asthmatic criminals and Darcy comes to terms with being a vigilante. This causes the cliched final battle and resolution. The End.

Make or Break: What makes this movie for me is the over the top insanity of the characters and their abilities. It give the movie a comic book feel and add to my entertainment. What breaks it for me the the heroin of the movie raping her partner. Sure she feels bad about rapping and tasering him but it is was really unnecessary.

MVT: At one point Darcy throws away the Black Scorpion costume and this homeless guy find the costume in a dumpster. When she comes back to collect the costume and she wants to know why he was picking up the costume. To which he says that he is looking for the woman that goes with it. I thought it was the funniest part of the movie.

Score: 6.75 out of 10

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Candy Stripe Nurses (1974)

Writer and Director Alan Holleb

Runtime: 76 minutes

This is the kind of movie that got me interested in midnight movies in the first place. Lots of topless actresses, a plot you can take or leave and funky bass guitar for background music. And my b movie hero Roger Corman produced this movie through New World Pictures.

The movie opens with a cartoonish opening showing candy stripe nurses getting into sexual high jinks with the doctors and patients. Sadly the opening music has more in common with a dental drill than music. I strongly suggest hitting mute through this as it gets annoying quick.

The first candy striper we are introduced to is Marisa (played by María Rojo). Marisa is a rebel because she is wooden stake and ignoring the stereotypical nice guy trying to ask her out to a Owen Boles concert. She is forced into becoming a candy striper because a teacher took away her stake carving knife so she beats the living daylights out of that teacher.

Our stereotypical nice guy then introduces the second candy striper Dianne (played by Robin Mattson). A hipster, soon to be medical student and all around art snob. She is becoming a candy striper to gain experience in the medical field. Dianne blows off the nice guy by saying Owen Boles has never been able to sing the right note.

The last candy striper is Sandy (played by Candice Rialson). She meets the stereotypical nice guy off screen and he gives both tickets to her because she is nicest girl he talked to all day. She explains all this to her doctor boyfriend and then tells him about how he is taking to that same concert. Sandy is a straight A student who has her doctor boyfriend do her homework and always willing to hop into bed with any guy as part of her candy striper duties.

The boob free plot is straight forward and in three sections. Section one is Marisa carrying out her punishment as a candy striper. She meets a guy wrong fully accused of a gas station robbery and decides to help clear the guy's name for no real reason. During her investigation she finds a reluctant witness to the robbery, the guys that committed the gas station robbery and gets shot. All of this leads to the charges being dropped and Marisa being less of rebel.

In section two, Dianne starts her candy striper career by annoying the living daylights out of a doctor stupid enough to allow her to follow him around. This leads her to meet the college basket ball star who comes her love interest. He is addicted to amphetamines and Dianne saves his life after his drug addiction actions lead  to another trip to the hospital.

In the last section, Sandy takes a break from sleeping with the doctors and patients. Instead she volunteers to be the sectary for the hospital’s sex clinic. While there she sets herself up as a sex therapist so she can sleep with  Owen Boles (played by Kendrew Lascelle). Owen had to go to the sex clinic because his music was suffering due to getting too much willing sex from groupies. Sandy helps him by first rejecting him and nearly getting raped by him as well.

This movie is billed as a comedy thriller but fails at both. The comedic part are forced and stupid for the sake of being stupid. The best example of this is the cop at the end of the movie that can't get his gun out of the holster and need the criminal to help him. This movie also is about as thrilling as an episode of Scooby-Doo.

MVT: Well shot, cast who give a damn about being there and some beautiful actresses.

Make or Break: The opening and closing music (it is the same damn song) broke it for me. I know licensing music is expensive even back in the 1970's. But for the love of Cthulhu hire someone who can sing without being annoying.

Score: 5.25/10

Battle Beyond The Stars (1980)

Let's talk for a moment about how not to pull off an evil scheme. In 1980, Nick Perry had been the host of the nightly Pennsylvania Lottery drawing for three years on WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Along with the Maragos brothers, Peter and Jack, with whom Perry was in the vending business, Perry hatched a plot to exchange the official lottery balls for ping pong balls, all of which were weighted with the exception of the numbers 4 and 6. Ergo, the winning numbers would have to be any of eight combinations of the two numbers. On the evening of April 24, 1980, the winning number for the lottery was 666 (yes, really). This, of course, set officials' and authorities' bullshit-meters into the red. 

On the day of the drawing, the Brothers Maragos (proving themselves to be more like the Brothers Malachi than anything else) traveled around Pennsylvania, buying lottery tickets using the eight number combinations. At one of the ticket sellers' establishments, one of the brothers made a phone call and even held the receiver up, so the listener could hear the sound of the tickets being printed. Naturally, this call was traced back to the studio where the drawing was shot. Needless to say, the three were caught and Perry served time after the Maragos brothers testified against him. Even if the winning number wasn't statistically highly improbable, the fact that these three yutzes ran around, all but announcing their scheme (and sometimes flat-out announcing it) insured its eventual failure. So when Sador's (John Saxon) holographic head appears over the populace of the planet Akir in Jimmy T Murakami's Battle Beyond The Stars, you just know he's going down for the count. After all, according to Aleister Crowley, "It is the mark of the mind untrained to take its own processes as valid for all men, and its own judgments for absolute truth."

Anyway, after the aforementioned giant Oz-esque head appears to the Akira, Sandor orders his minions to open fire just to keep the natives on their toes. The vile warlord (is there any other kind?) declares he will return for the planet's crops in seven days time. Young Shad (Richard Thomas) affirms to the people's council that he will go into space and find warriors who will fight Sandor on behalf of the Akira. Setting off aboard the sentient starship, Nell (voiced by Lynn Carlin), Shad wends through the universe assembling a ragtag team of spacefarers which winds up numbering seven (there's that pesky number again). But can even the likes of Gelt (Robert Vaughn), Space Cowboy (George Peppard), and Saint-Exmin of the Valkyrie (Sybil Danning) stand up to Sandor's ultimate weapon, the Stellar Converter? What do you think?

After Star Wars sealed the deal on summer blockbusters begun in 1975 with JAWS, Science Fiction became big business in Hollywood (to be certain, it had been so beforehand as well, but normally this sort of genre picture was more often than not the province of the B-movie producers of the day). It also didn't hurt any when The Empire Strikes Back was released earlier in 1980 and reinforced the franchise's stranglehold on the youth of the day's disposable income. And so it was that Roger Corman got in on the act, but just as Lucas was influenced in his original movie by Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, Corman decided to borrow the plot structure of John Sturges's The Magnificent Seven, the American retelling of Kurosawa's superlative Seven Samurai. And just to be sure that gormless audiences wouldn't be able to tell the difference between his film and Kershner's (though I have yet to encounter anyone who ever mistook the two for each other), he also took elements from Lucas's original film and put his own twist on them. So, the Stellar Converter is like Murakami's Death Star. Shad visits a planet which mirrors the Mos Eisley cantina, but this one is scary and deep underground. The Akira create a series of precise canyons in their planet (like, say, the trench on a certain Death Star), but the fighting that takes place in this ditch is strictly on the ground level. None of the correlations are exactly direct, but they are just non-specific enough that the viewer gets the idea loud and clear. 

Along this same thought process, the filmmakers still use the Assemble The Team aspect of the Kurosawa/Sturges films, but not all of the characters remain true in spirit to their forebears. For example, Shad the boy farmer is now as much a fighter as any of the others (he is included in the seven and at least partly fulfills the Katsushiro Okamoto character). The lizard man Cayman (Morgan Woodward) has a personal grudge against Sandor and is aided by the Kelvins (Lawrence Steven Meyers and Lara Cody). Peppard's unlikely Space Cowboy (some people call him) is the Tanner/Katayama stand-in. The role of women is also far more prominent in this film with the inclusions of Nanelia (Darlanne Fluegel) and Saint-Exmin. Of the two, Saint-Exmin is the more intriguing, because she not only partly fills the Kikuchiyo/Chico role of the brash, frank warrior, but she also is a character straight out of Norse mythology (the Valkyrie, of course, being the escorts of the worthy dead into Valhalla). It goes without saying that Vaughn is more or less reprising his role of Lee from the Sturges film, even sort of playing it as the same character years into the future (and in a galaxy far, far away). He has scads of money from the killings he has perpetrated (his name is even synonymous with money), but he seeks a place to hide out from the innumerable enemies he has amassed.

In essence though, Battle Beyond The Stars plays very much like an epic fable, and it is geared toward a family audience. Yet there are still exploitation aspects that the filmmakers threw in just to be sure and have some slight semblance of sleaze. Hence, we get a spaceship with boobies on the front. The planet where Gelt lives has such amenities as Dial-A-Drug and Dial-A-Date (the results of the latter proving especially dispiriting). Two of Sandor's cronies crash a wedding and kidnap the bride (Julia Duffy), who it is then heavily implied they rape. The very presence of Danning in skimpy outfits is enough to get any adolescent male's mind wondering about space exploration. There is even some mild gore when Sandor's sonic weapon makes its victims' ears bleed profusely. And yet, many of the story elements are depicted so lightly, so offhandedly, it detracts from the impact that the brave heroes' deaths have unlike in the Sturges/Kurosawa films. The film is still a fast, fun adventure romp, but compared to the films it's based on(perhaps unfairly, perhaps not, seeing as it's so heavily pervaded by them), this one's not going to touch you on the same core level. But have fun, anyway.

MVT: The special effects (especially those involving the spaceship shots) are highly effective and are on a level with the best Hollywood could put out on budgets much higher than the one for this film.

Make Or Break: The first shot in outer space displays the attention to detail, craft, and care that the filmmakers put into this film (or at the very least, its special effects). Despite the derivative nature of just about everything in it, the filmmakers still took their work seriously, and it shows.

Score: 7.25/10
 

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Brain Dead (1990)

I’ll give credit where credit is due. Adam Simon is able to handle Charles Beaumont’s trippy script and make sure the plot makes sense. “Brain Dead” is one of those films that is a mind warp. It’s intention is to send the viewer on a psychedelic journey into madness and it does just that. Best of all, Simon is able to confuse the audience, but make everything tie together nicely. Most directors simply hurl content haphazardly at the audience simply because they can.

The only problem is I didn’t care. By the time the craziness strolled around, I myself felt like I was going through a lobotomy. I’ll admit, Simon did his best to hook me back in. I went from a comatose state of boredom to a drifting stupor. Not much of an improvement, but at least I was paying attention. That’s better than nothing, I suppose.

The film opens with Dr. Rex Martin (Bill Pullman) being approached by his old college roommate, Jim Reston (Bill Paxton), to help him out with a case at the Hillside Mental Institution. That’s right, both Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton are in a film together. Those of the belief that they are the same person will have their minds blown (at least somebody will). One of Jim’s partners, Jack Halsey (Bud Cort), went insane and murdered his wife and children. Reston doesn’t care about this, but of the information he’s holding in his brain for a project he was working on. He needs Rex, a successful brain surgeon, to perform a lobotomy on him and extract the information from him.

Sounds simple enough. For the first half of the film, it is. Nothing kooky or strange occurs. Bill Pullman slogs his way through the proceedings, seeming bored out of his mind (I could relate). Bill Paxton seems as if he’d rather be anywhere else. Bud Cort, on the other hand, brings an eccentric charm to his performance. He’s the only person who seemingly wants to be on set and livens up the proceedings. Granted, Pullman does get energized once the wackiness kicks in. By then, it’s too little too late.

Which is the best way to describe how I felt once said wackiness occurred. I won’t go into full detail of what transpires, as to not ruin it for those of you who still want to see this film. Let’s just say Rex Martin isn’t who he thinks he is and Jack Halsey may or may not exist. Jim Reston is still portrayed as a slimy bastard, though.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I didn’t appreciate this half of the film. I applaud Adam Simon for making the trip bizarre, yet comprehensible. I also applaud him for harkening back to events from earlier in the film. I know he found Beaumont’s script at a garage sale, so I’m pretty certain he tweaked to his liking. Whether or not that is the case, he’s responsible for wisely connecting every twist, all the while putting the viewer in Martin’s shoes. When he’s confused, we’re confused. We never know anything more than he does.

I’ll even admit that the ending is exceptional. It’s slightly unpredictable and makes sense in the grand scheme of things. This too is a task many directors fail to accomplish when dealing with a mindfuck such as this. As I mentioned in the beginning of this review, I’ll give credit where credit is due.

All the credit in the world still won’t allow me to give this film a positive review. This isn’t a highly negative review, mind you. Simply a lukewarm one. For all that’s good in the second half, there was nothing in the first half to hook me. If you can’t hook me from the start, it’ll be an uphill battle to draw me in near the end. Simon gives a valiant effort, but slips and falls.

MVT: Bud Cort. He’s the only actor in the film who felt he wanted to be there (the entire time). I enjoyed his performance and he was a welcome surprise.

Make or Break: The first half itself. It all drags and did nothing but push me away. Simon may have grabbed me from falling, but he never fully pulled me back in.

Final Score: 5.5/10

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)

I only ever had detention once in high school, that I can recall (the actual number may be greater, but that's my story, and I'm sticking to it). The sad part is I genuinely didn't do anything to land there that time (yes, really). You see, I was in Algebra class, seated in the back. Some kid sitting next to me passed a comment about a certain biological process that only women go through with regard to a girl in the class. Meanwhile, I was watching a different kid in front of me doing something stupid and let out a little chuckle. So when the girl complained about this guy's comment (and rightfully so), I was implicated, because I had been smiling when it went down. Of course, the vice principal didn't want to hear any of my explanation, and I spent that Saturday picking up garbage around the school grounds. I guess the vice principal never heard Abraham Lincoln's quote, "I have always found that mercy bears richer fruit than strict justice."

At Vince Lombardi High School, where "winning isn't the most important thing…it's the only thing," the student population…actually seems relatively well-behaved. Nevertheless, the school board has decided to elect Miss Togar (the severe-looking but still exquisite Mary Woronov) to be the new principal. Along with her henchman-esque hall monitors, Fritz Hansel (Loren Lester) and Fritz Gretel (Daniel Davies), she plans to bring the school under the iron heel of discipline. Opposing her is Riff Randall (P.J. Soles), a hardcore rock 'n' roller, whose only wish in life is to get her songs into the hands of her favorite band, The Ramones. With Riff is nerdy best friend, Kate Rambeau (Dey Young), who wants to get together with the drab Tom Roberts (Vincent Van Patten). Needless to say, the arrival of the actual, honest-to-God Ramones eventually brings everything to a head.

I would wager, when you inquire about non-concert films centered on bands, most people will cite either Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park or Can't Stop The Music. Often, they will do this in a groan-tinged voice while lifting their heads up to the heavens, pleading for mercy. The reason is obvious. Musicians, while still entertainers, do not necessarily (and more often than not just don't) make very good actors (Gene Simmons's role in Runaway excepted, of course – "They're loaded with ACID!"). Just watch one of the two films listed above, if you doubt me. That producer Roger Corman decided to change Allan Arkush's film from Disco High to Rock 'n' Roll High School (at the director's behest) and center it ostensibly on one of the progenitors of punk was a wise move, I think (though who wouldn't want to watch Disco High?). It goes without saying, the Ramones were no thespians either, but their attitude helps the film work when they're onscreen. They obviously don't take any of this seriously, and honestly, do you think Lee Mouton would allow himself to be force fed wheat germ and Brussels sprouts? Maybe. But Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Marky are just having a good time, playing their music, and collecting a paycheck, and their performances work for the film.

Like the Ramones' appearance and musical attitude, the film is styled after the "juvenile delinquent movies" of the 1950s (Rebel Set, Bloody Brood, and so forth). However, rather than commit heinous acts of violence in rejection of the rules of society, the teens in Rock 'n' Roll High School rebel through (silly as it sounds) fun. This, then, is the other side of the juvenile delinquency coin, because the kids don't want to destroy, they just want the freedom to do what they want to do, yet their rebellion is still overt. Similar to Footloose a few years later and so many others, it's the uptight (nay, Nazi-esque) bureaucracy that needs to be overcome. And it's the power of music which will do it. Of course, once the revolution starts, there's no stopping it, and anarchy reigns in the hallowed halls of academia. Playing into the wish fulfillment every teenager secretly harbors, Arkush goes down a list of things we all wish we could have/should have done while we were in high school. I mean, who wouldn't want to take a chainsaw to the permanent records we were all threatened with constantly? Who wouldn't want to throw the crappy food served in the cafeteria back at the servers (granted, they were just working with what they were given, but here you get the sense they enjoyed inflicting culinary crimes on students)? 

There's a ton of destruction on hand, but it's all fairly harmless. No one dies or (with two notable exceptions) even gets hurt. There's a gleeful sensibility at play in every frame of the film. Essentially, the filmmakers entice the viewers to just turn off, relax, and let the merriment wash over them. Arkush and company fill the frame with all kinds of visual treats, and the tight editing (the director was an editor for Corman, as seemingly almost everyone was at one point or another) keeps the pace fast. You're so busy trying to catch everything, the film has already moved three bits ahead of you by the time you've ingested the first one. So if the last joke didn't work for you, maybe the next one will, and there's not enough space between them to be sure whether you liked it or not, anyway.

Teenagers feel "different" (well, many do, at least). Even among their own peers, feelings of being an outsider are prevalent. This is something the Ramones have always reflected. They were unlike anything else in music at the time. They were freaks, and they capitalized on this to the betterment of all the other freaks around the world. That said, since a film solely about the Ramones being in town for a concert (wouldn't it have been interesting to have this film end like the Stones' Altamont concert? Maybe it does on some level) would probably not be enough to sustain itself (it would to me, but I'm weird like that and besides, it would pretty much be a documentary), we have the romantic subplots of Kate and Tom. Some slight sense of tension is attempted with Tom wanting Riff (even trying to tempt her into one of the finest "shaggin' wagons" I have ever seen) and Kate wanting Tom, but it's all a non-issue, really. We know exactly how everything will play out, and that's just fine and dandy, because when the Ramones are playing, we're all having a blast. Gabba gabba hey!

MVT: I'd like to give it to Woronov for her terrific performance as Miss Togar (just watch her subtle reactions to everything around her, and tell me she's not fantastic here), but I need to give it to the Ramones, if only out of respect for what this band did for rock 'n' roll and in memory of Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee. Rest in peace, guys.

Make Or Break: The Make is a terrific, extended scene involving a paper airplane flying impossibly throughout the school. It ends in a punchline so grievously bad (delivered by the late, great Paul Bartel), you can't help but laugh and love it.

Score: 7/10

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