Twins of Evil (1971)

Directed by John Hough
Starring Mary Collinson, Madeleine Collinson, Peter Cushing
Rated R
UK

"The devil has sent me twins...of evil!"

Mary and Madeleine Collinson were two button-nosed identical twins from Malta (apparently it's a tiny country in Southern Europe) who initially made a splash when they arrived in late 60's Britain and shot a few racy 8mm loops with Satan-bearded nudie-cutie pioneer Harrison Marks. They quickly graduated to full-length softcore scuzz (Groupie Girl, 1970; She'll Follow You Anywhere, 1971) before landing this plum gig at the then red hot House of Hammer.

Although largely forgotten by everyone except for hardcore horror/sleaze scholars at this point, the Collinson sisters were two of the most remarkable actresses of the sleazy 70's. The sheer sexual potency of these exotic ingénues cannot be overstated. They were gorgeous, voluptuous, ethereal creatures, literally stunning to look at, and genuinely bewitching. A man could forget his name and worse in their company. Given these hypnotic powers over my weak-willed gender, it is entirely appropriate that their finest cinematic hour would be here, in a film about two irresistible twin sisters leading hapless Puritans to their Satanic undoing. That shit probably happened everyday back in Malta.

The scene? Like all Hammer scenes, really. Foggy and Victorian. Peter Cushing - already ancient at the dawn of the 70's - stars as Gustav Wiel, a maniacal witch burner specializing in young, pretty harlots. As our story opens, he's yanking one such forest-dwelling cleavage queen out of her hovel and setting her alight with nary a whiff of evidence of any devil-doing. He's got a gang of black-cloaked goons with him as well, and surely, they'd burn down the whole fuckin' village where it not for fear of incurring the unseen emperor's wrath. Said emperor has a best pal in town, Count Karstein (Egyptian actor Damien Thomas), a flouncing Satanic dandy fond of ravishing the local nubiles, usually moments before that asshole Gustav shows up to barbeque them.

Aside from his close ties to the big man around town, the Count is also a vampire (aren't all Counts?), which may explain the piles of bloodless corpses littering the nearby woods. This is all quite vexing, as you would imagine, for Man-of-God Gustav.

Into this Draconian nightmare enters Gustav's nieces, Maria and Frieda Gellhorn (Mary and Madeleine, respectively). Identical twins from liberal Venice, the matching head-turners have been dumped into Uncle Gus's bony lap after their parents suffered an unfortunate and unexplained fatal accident. Gorgeous, flirty, and fashionably attired, the girls cause an immediate sensation in the village. At first, the colorful sisters attempt to fit in with their drab neighbors, even joining a choir class taught by local stud Anton Hoffer (David Warbeck, RIP). This half-hearted attempt at assimilation is abandoned almost immediately by Frieda - clearly the evil twin - who starts rebelling against her tyrannical uncle and the evangelical villagers. She sneaks out nightly to God-knows-where, leaving her innocent, virginal sister to endure nightly thrashings from Gustav for her absent sister's insolence.

Inevitably, Frieda crosses paths with the lecherous Count, and he smooth-talks her back to his castle on the hill for a little drinky-drink. Once she's in his grips, he reveals his true nature to her, and pitches the wicked sister on joining him, pushing the immortality angle. Of course, she could still be staked or beheaded, or fatally wounded by a crucifix, and sunlight is no help either. So, there's a lot of stipulations to this particular brand of eternal life. Still, she's pretty evil already, so she goes for it.

Lacking the Count's sense of decorum, the be-vamped Freida goes on a murder spree, and quickly finds herself being hunted by her own dear uncle. The undead can be pretty crafty, however, so she manages to pull the ol' switcheroo with her long-suffering sibling. Will Gustav and his henchmen figure out which one's the virgin and which one's the vampire, before an innocent girl is staked and baked?

I will leave that for you to find out, but I will say that the grand finale is full-on Gonzo, with startling lashes of gore, a gruesome decapitation, and a gooey vamp meltdown. I guess the latter detail is a bit of a spoiler, but honestly, how do these things usually end? Dracula always dies at the end of a Hammer film, even Hammer films that aren't even about vampires.

One of the bloodiest, hammiest, and horniest of Hammer's horrors, Twins of Evil is a minor masterpiece of campy 70's horror, and one of the best evil twin movies ever. Not counting evil twin porn, of course. That stuff rules.

Sadly, this was the Collinson sisters' last film. After a minor US media blitz - including an October, 1970 Playboy layout and a memorable spot on Johnny Carson, the twins withdrew from the spotlight and went on to marry rich dudes who live in castles, not unlike Count Karstein. Mary lives in Malta, and Madeleine in Venice. No word on whether Maddy's still the evil twin, but she probably is.

- Ken McIntyre

The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)

AKA Les demoiselles de Rochefort
Directed by Jaques Demy
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Francoise Dorleac, Gene Kelly
Rated G

"You're very beautiful."
"So I've been told."

Francoise Dorleac was Catherine Deneuve's older sister. A gorgeous, freckle-faced charmer and a versatile, natural actress, Dorleac starred in a dozen films by her early 20's, including Truffaut's La peau douce and Roman Polanski's Cul-de-Sac. Although she acted once before with her sister - 1960's Les portes claquent - The Young Girls of Rochefort was their biggest film together, a lush and lavish musical co-starring Gene Kelly and half the dancers in Paris. Sadly, it was also Dorleac's last film. She died in a car wreck in 1969, en route to Rochefort's London premiere.

That, clearly, is the bad news. The good news is that we at least have this deliriously joyful film to remember her by. Dorleac and Deneuve play fraternal twins Solange and Delphine, two musically inclined dreamers who run a children's ballet school in the tiny burg of Rochefort. One sun-soaked, summery day, a fair comes to town, and two amorous carnies (George Chakiris and Grover Dale) invite them to join their traveling circus as a performers, "The Legendary Garnier Sisters".
But what is a career without true love, especially to two beautiful French girls in the springtime of their lives? A lonesome sailor, Maxence (Jaques Perrin), is stationed in Rochefort. Max is a fledgling artist, and his latest painting, "My Feminine Ideal", hangs in a local gallery. He is unsure if he will ever meet the radiant blonde his imagination conjured up, but one thing is for certain - the girl in the painting bares a striking resemblance to Delphine.

Likewise, songwriter Solange has plans to send her latest composition to a famous American band leader, Andy (Gene Kelly) she yet to meet. One afternoon, while picking up her younger brother from school, she literally runs into a suave (and dance-y) American. The two fall instantly in love, but never actually exchange names. Could the dreamy Yank actually be the famous band-leader she's looking for?

Yeah, absolutely.

And will they all find each other before the Garnier Sisters ship off to Paris?

Also yes. It's a French musical with Gene Kelly, man. Everything's going to work out just fine. There is a mad slasher on the loose, though.

The Young Girls of Rochefort is by no means a perfect confection. Michel Legrand's (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) score - despite being nominated for an Academy Award - is sluggish and same-y, and none of the principal players, apart from Gene Kelly, actually sing their parts. For a musical, those are both potentially lethal blows. But the film rises above it's sometimes turgid musical numbers on the wings of its two stars. Effervescent and enchanting, Dorleac and Deneuve are literally a joy to watch, as is the nearly non-stop array of in-the-streets dance numbers and the inspired pastel-colored sets and costumes. There are just too many amazing things happening at once for this film to fall flat. From the lovely sisters to the pop-art inspired production design to the breathless beauty of France in the swinging 60's, The Young Girls of Rochefort is a rare and delicious treat.

Obviously, a G-rated musical is a hard-sell for committed sleaze-beasts, but I would invite you to watch Deneuve and Dorleac perform their signature number "Twins of Gemini", and then decide. My guess is, some part of you will melt, if even just a little.

- Ken McIntyre

Hanna D: The Girl From Vondel Park

Directed by Rino Di Silvestro
Starring Ann Gisel Glass, Karin Schubert, Tony Lombardo
Unrated
Italy

"It's not enough that you gave me the Clap?"

Directed by notorious cheese dealer Rino Di Silvestro (Women in Cell Block 7, Werewolf Woman), Hanna D is an amusingly overwrought riff on Christiane F, the '81 movie based on the '62 youth-gone-wild autobio about a Euro-teen flipped out on heroin. Starring wispy Ann Gisel Glass (Rats: Night of Terror) as the wayward waif, this lurid melodrama drags wide-eyed Hanna down the thorny path to Loserville with a remarkable lack of subtlety, humiliating and degrading her at every turn until she is reduced to a quivering, self-destructing mess of abused flesh.

And then it turns into a love story.

Hanna lives with her mother (Karin Schubert, Black Emanuelle) in a relatively fancy apartment. Mom used to be some sort of dancer/beauty queen, so now she spends all her spare time guzzling hooch, pawing at her sagging boobs in the mirror, and blaming her teenage daughter for everything.

Mom really does drink an enormous amount of booze, so Hanna is forced to blow guys on trains just to pay for it all. She's also started dabbling in intoxicants herself - mostly coke nipped from rich clients. Even though her mom knows exactly what she's up to, whenever Hanna heads home, she strips off the slut-ware before she goes in, always presenting herself as a fresh-faced, flat-chested innocent to her soused mother. That ruse cannot hold much longer, however, because Hanna is quickly sinking into the muck of the heroin underground. She hooks up with an aggro pimp who gets her hooked on the hard stuff and forces her to make porn to support her habit and his lifestyle.

One day while riding the crosstown bus, Hanna meets a nice guy, for once. She's sorta beyond the nice guy phase at this point, but she accepts his offer to make her dinner and ends up having a pleasant little date with the young gentleman. And then she abruptly splits, because there's drugs to do and penises to suckle for cash. Eventually, our bedraggled heroine gets tossed into jail and, while kicking the lethal cocktail of drugs swimming around in her system, adopts all manner of strange behaviors, including tap-faucet-sucking and slurping her own blood. Naturally, this freaked out her roommate something awful.

While she's waiting for her hearing, the still-twitchy Hanna is offered a hit from one of the other jailbirds, who had the stuff jammed up her ass. By the way, they graphically show that bit. It's pretty alarming.
"No one could guess the things we have hidden in our asses," says the girl with the heroin in her ass.

Hanna eventually gets out and goes back to her life of sin, but her true love Axel has not forgotten her. Can he make a respectable woman out of this "Dope and Syphilis filled" whore?

Maybe. Seems like a long shot, though.

Hanna D manages to somehow seem like sleazy grindhouse trash and a ham-fisted, G-rated, TV Movie-of-the-Week at the same time. Even when it's deep in exploito-scuzz territory - hooker beating, asshole extracting, puke-kissing, drunk mom fondling - a heavy morality play vibe lingers over the proceedings. It's like a long buildup to a bloody Charles Bronson revenge spree that never happens.

While it may be missing the bone-cracking justice of similarly themed films, Hanna D does, however, have its own demented charm, thanks largely to a going-for-it cast that never treats the preposterous story as anything less than a Shakespearean tragedy. Even in this (largely unobtrusive) dubbed edition, it's obvious that Gisel Glass figured she had the role of a lifetime on her hands, and she is pretty fearless here, going from lovesick high school girl to dopesick demon-bitch in the blink of an eye.

Hopelessly weird, wrong-headed, overheated and undercooked, Hanna D: The Girl from Vondel Park is well worth a look for Euro-sleaze fans and 80's hooker-gone-wrong enthusiasts.

Hanna D is available on DVD in a pristine new print from Severin, complete with an illuminating (and half-mad) interview with Director Di Silverstro.

- Ken McIntyre

The Pig Keeper's Daughter (1972)

Directed by Bethel Buckalew
Starring Terry Gibson, Peggy Church, Gina Paluzzi
Rated R
USA

"I kinda like rough lookin' girls."

Directed by softcore mogul Bethel Buckalew and produced by exploitation giant Harry Novak, The Pig Keeper's Daughter takes a sliver-thin premise - the salesman and the farmer's daughter joke - and stretches it out to feature length with a seemingly endless series of dusty, farm-bound sex romps. Cheap, brainless, gleefully grimy, and littered with buoyant double-D's, The Pig Keeper's Daughter was clearly influenced by Russ Meyer. In fact, if ol' Russ was a moonshine guzzling yokel with holes in his shoes and a two-dollar budget, this is exactly the movie he'd make.

Skinny, carrot-topped podunk Moonbeam (Terry Gibson) wishes her pet pig Lord Hamilton was a little taller, so he could take her to the movies. Until that fateful day, the lonely Pigfarm girl is content to let Hammy nuzzle her denim-clad crotch until local stud Jasper (John Keith, A Scream in the Streets) shows up to bone her in the hay. And that's Moonbeam's life, pretty much.

Jasper doesn't even like Moonbeam all that much. Truth be told, his heart belongs to willowy Pretty Patty (Peggy Church, A Touch of Sweden), but she won't put out. She will, however, happily masturbate on the barn roof while she watches Jasper and Moonbeam rut like...well, like pigs, pretty much.
A happy-go-lucky panty salesman zooms into this sleepy glen to peddle his wares, singing a cheerful ditty as goes. He happens upon a poor soul who's been hogtied to his own ankles by a thieving hitchhiker and forced to walk along the rode bent over in a very compromising position. The salesman pulls over to find out what happened, and the man tells him his sorry tale. "Well," says the salesman, pulling down his zipper, "I guess this is your unlucky day."

Sometime after raping the poor bastard on the side of the road, Mr. Salesman picks up a busty hitchhiker, who turns out to be a prostitute. At first he scoffs at her advances - he did just fuck a guy, after all - but then she takes off her t-shirt, letting her ample milkjugs bob in the breeze, and he cannot resist. They pull off to some nearby woods and have very awkward 70's sex in the grass. Once they're finished, the girl demands $50, twice as much as they agreed on. When the salesman balks, she says, "Hey man, I'm only fifteen. You wouldn't want anyone to know you raped a fifteen year old girl, would you?"

So he pays her. Of course, even a cursory glance would tell you she's closer to 30, but whatever. That guy sorta deserved it.

The salesman ends up at the pig farm. He tries to sell his powders and lotions to Moonbeam's top-heavy mom, Molly (Gina Palluzi), but she keeps slipping out of clothes and convincing him to just give her stuff until they're both naked and he's out of things to sell. And then they fuck, awkwardly, on the sofa. This whole movie is about awkward sex. He's pretty happy with the way things are going until he finally pops, and then he's just bummed that he gave away all his stuff. Molly, however, has a proposition for him, and if he plays his cards right, he may just get all his garbage back.
Meanwhile, Jasper goes to visit Pretty Patty. Well, first he beats up her little brother and rolls him around in the mud. Then he visits her. She tells him to wait until she changes into her new outfit, which turns out to be an eye-bleeding, midriff-baring, blue daisy-festooned monstrosity. Strangely, this works for Jasper. They decide to consummate their love on a haystack. He promises to only put it in a little. Ladies, never believe that line.

So, with Jasper and Patty rutting away, Moonbeam is free to smooch with Lord Hamilton. And that's exactly what she does, until the salesman wanders over to her and lures her into his web of lust with the promise of "store bought stockings". Before you know it, the two of 'em are splashing away together in an outdoor bath tub, and Moonbeam is happily over her porcine sex obsession. The end.

Well, not exactly. Turns out this entire film has been leading up to a gag. Long fuckin' way to go for a laugh, man.

If you are looking for anything resembling a sensible piece of filmmaking, than you should probably stay away from The Pig Keeper's Daughter. But if you really like looking at busty 70's chicks with full bush and no shame, then run-don't-walk to your nearest discount website/physical media dealer and snap this minor masterpiece of southern fried filth up. Senseless and sleazy, it strips softcore of all its erotic pretensions, and just lets it all hang out. Street-level sleaze hounds will love it.

The Pig Keepers Daughter is available from Something Weird Video.

- Ken McIntyre

Plaguers (2008)

Directed by Brad Sykes
Starring Steve Railsback, Alexis Zobolis, Noelle Perris, Paige Le Pierre
Rated R
USA

"You're more trouble dead than alive."

In the gooey, slime-dripping vein of 80's sci-fi/horror-mash-up Aliens (or, more accurately, dimestore Aliens knock-offs like Galaxy of Terror, Creepozoids, and Contamination) comes Plaguers, a spunky bit of outlandish space camp that pits sexy space pirates - disguised as mini-skirted, go-go booted nurses - against extra-dimensional, face-eating demons.

The story involves a fuel-transport ship called Pandora, which is listlessly floating back to Earth to bury its dead captain. Said deceased cap's girlfriend Darian Holloway (Alexis Zibolis) is now running the show, much to the chagrin of her motley crew. One fateful day, the Pandora gets a distress call from another ship nearby. They stop to investigate, and find a crew of gorgeous girls dressed in tight dresses and knee high boots wandering around the ship, dirty and disoriented. As it is lonely in space, Darian allows them to board the Pandora. Bad move.

Besides their new guests, the Pandora also picked up another stray along the way - a glowing green orb with mystical powers called Thanatos. The nurses, who are actually pirates in disguise, attempt to take over the ship, disturbing the magical ball. Somehow or another, it starts turning everyone into slavering cannibal demons. Mayhem ensues.

Toplined by Steve Railsback as a sympathetic man-droid, Plaguers is clearly a very low-budget effort - the ship miniatures are almost Ed Wood-ian - but it makes up for its threadbare qualities with a stripped-down, always-moving script and a cast of good-looking, enthusiastic newcomers.

Strangely, with one glaring exception, the actors all play this absurd premise as straight as possible, derailing the film's potential high-camp factor. And then there's Paige La Pierre. As Sadie, the most aggressive of the sexy space nurse/pirate crew, La Pierre chews the scenery wildly and gloriously, rampaging through the ship like a lusty, wild-eyed glamazon. Even with half her face ripped off, she's the hottest, wildest space-girl in this demon-possessed galaxy, and she tips the film over from agreeable time-waster to potential cult classic.

Plaguers may be the first DVD-era film that would actually make more sense on VHS, since everything about it positively screams Saturday night at Blockbuster Video in 1987. Egg crate spaceship? Check. Copious gore? Got it. Rampaging monsters? Sure, half a dozen of 'em.

In fact, the only missing factor is a high-profile scream queen (Tiffany Shepis must have been booked that weekend) and a slathering of gratuitous nudity. Luckily, according to the lengthy behind-the-scenes featurette included on the DVD, director Sykes claims that two sequels may eventually surface, so perhaps those glaring omissions will be rectified then. In the meantime, if you're looking to scratch that old retro junk-horror itch, Plaguers should do the trick.

Visit the official Plaguers Website!

- Ken McIntyre

Happy Holidays!

Hi everybody. We just want to wish everybody a Merry Whatever-you-want.
It's a been a great year, and we appreciate everyone who read the blog or listened to the podcast.
If you're looking for us, we'll be guzzling Nyquil and eggnog and listening to Blowfly does Christmas.


And also watching psychedelic Mexican Xmas movies.

See you on the 26th!

- Ken, Stacey and the whole gang at Movies About Girls

Swinging Sorority (1976)

Directed by Don Trendall
Starring Ann Marie, Donna Hart, Susie Carlson
Rated X
USA

"There's a good chance you'll get to ride on the float."

Ok, so nobody's expecting high quality filmmaking from no-budget, mid 70's grindhouse scuzz like this, but I don't think Don Trendall was even trying with this one. Getting through the first half-hour of Swinging Sorority feels more like an act of defiance than anything else - the random, aimless footage, the awkward, fumbling porn sequence, the laughable voice-looping - it basically dares you to keep watching, despite the fact that you know, deep in your heart-of-hearts, that it will offer no payoff for your precious wasted time.

So why bother at all? Because this is - supposedly - the only other (semi) legit place to peep Miss Eufala Roop herself, gravity-defying Russ Meyer girl Ann Marie*. The runaway star of 1979's Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens, Ann Marie's breathless, innuendo-jammed orations and awe-inspiring curves turned many boys into men over the decades. Tragically, it was her last role, and besides a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in Russ Meyer's magnum opus Supervixens, Swinging Sorority Girls is the only other film she did. And it's horrible. But it's apparently got Ann Marie in it, so we must endure it.

There's this dive bar where all the local frat assholes go to swill Schlitz. That's where most of this ugly mess takes place. Apparently there's a bedroom in the back, because two hippies go back there to fuck. The sound goes out midway through, so it looks like a silent 8MM loop. In the bar, a couple of fledgling sorority sisters complain about school.

"I wish I could join the sorority," says Karen, the round-faced, Rachel Ray-esque girl. "But I'm not sure I'll be able to.I'm not doing too good with my grades. I'm just not that into studying."
"Well," says her bra-less friend Lynn, "Maybe you should just, like...make it with your professors."
"Yeah, maybe I will," says Karen. "That's a good idea."
Exactly three minutes later, this same conversation is looped back in, presumably to pad out the scene.

So then, the frat brothers tell a skinny girl with a brassy wig named Marybeth that they've chosen her for homecoming queen, but if she wants to ride on the float with the football team, she'll have to endure the initiation ceremony. She agrees, so they take her back to the frat house and spray paint her gold.

And then they gang bang her on a waterbed. Once again, this scene is loaded with sound-loops. Some dude says, "C'mon guys, give Poochie a turn!" about 17 times during this scene. Also, it's shot so that all you can really see during the gang bang is the ass of whichever dude is fucking her. And this all goes on for about ten solid minutes.

One of the gangbang guys looks like Abbie Hoffman. Another one is a deadringer for a skinny Glenn Danzig. So that's at least amusing.

Karen decides that yes, she will fuck her biology professor in order to pass his class and then be eligible for the sorority, but she chickens out at the last moment, and bails. So he just bangs some other coed. Luckily for Karen, she barges in on them when she returns later to pick up her missing book, and the prof gives her an A in the class in exchange for her silence. So she gets into the sorority. So does Lynn, who has since become a weed dealer.

With the scholastic/financial heat off, everybody fucks, half of them in a closet. There's also a lesbian hair brushing situation going on. And then everybody goes to the prom. All the guys that gangbanged her show up to take Marybeth. That's the big gag. The end.

But wait, where's Ann Marie?

Dunno. Didn't see her.

I paid $8.00 for this thing. This is turning out to be a bad day.

*Ann Marie's "real name" was Kathy Ayers. In the 70's, she reportedly made $4,000 a night as a stripper. You could buy a house with four grand in the 70's. Shortly after her Russ Meyer adventures, she moved with her family to Norway, where she most likely is right now, ice fishing and listening to Turbonegro and scoffing at idiots like us trying to find her in fuzzy X-rated movies from 1976.


PS: Here's 57 seconds of Ann Marie doing aerobics. Merry Christmas!

- Ken McIntyre