View from the Top (2003)

Directed by Bruno Barreto
Starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Mike Meyers, Christina Applegate, Kelly Preston, Candice Bergen
Rated PG-13
USA

"You're breaking up with me in a birthday card? Why?"
"Because they don't make breaking-up cards."

View From the Top is probably the most Roger Corman-esque film of the past decade. In fact, with just a very slight change in uniform, it could easily fit in with his Nursesploitation cycle of the early 70's, as the elements are all there: a group of strong-willed women involved in a career that requires them to wear sexy uniforms, navigating through love, life, and friendship with steely determination. There's laughs and adventure and cleavage, and perhaps a modicum of a message in there, as well. Pure 70's drive-in fluff, really. So it's surprising to me that View was never embraced, or even considered, by cult-film fans. This probably has something to do with its cast. A-list actors don't usually make B-movies, unless their careers have hit the skids, so it is pretty surprising to see Gwyneth Paltrow - a frou-frou actor usually involved some British-accented bullshit - top-lining this one. Mike Meyers is generally pretty selective about the films he's in as well, preferring characters of his own creation, ala Austin Powers, Wayne Campbell, and whatever that Guru bullshit from a couple years back was. And, you know, Candice Bergen doesn't exactly signify trashy B-movie fun. But forget all that, because under the gloss, that's exactly what this film is, a gleeful throwback to the simple delights of girls in tight outfits and the crazy jams they get into.

By the way, if you're a sleaze-beast like yours cruelly, than you probably haven't seen a whole lot of Gwyneth Paltrow before. Besides this one, Iron Man, and Duets (where she played Huey Lewis's half-retarded daughter, sang like an angel, and wore purple leather pants), I haven't seen a whole lot of her, but I can tell you this: she possesses a strong amount of girl-magic. She's like that one girlfriend you had 20 years ago that you still think about once a week. She leaves an afterglow that you can bask in for days. No wonder she's a zillionaire. Also, on more practical terms, she has an amazing ass. I mean, I'm still not gonna sit through Shakespeare in Love to ogle it, but still, it's pretty awesome.

Donna Jensen (Paltrow) is from a white-trash family in a Podunk Nevada town. From a young age, she dreams about getting out and seeing the world. After her boyfriend dumps her - via birthday card - she heads over to a bar to drown her sorrows and sees Sally Weston (Candice Bergen), "The world's most famous flight attendant" on a TV talk show, peddling her self-help book. Donna reads it and is inspired to land a job as a stewardess, even though she's never been on a plane before. She gets a job at Sierra Airlines, a small, shabby local company where the stews are required to puff up their hair and wear skin-tight mini-dresses.

Sherry (a seriously bosomy Kelly Preston), the senior stewardess, takes her under her wing and she helps her through her disastrous training period, as does affable co-pilot Steve (Rob Lowe). Eventually Donna gets over her fear of flying and becomes a confident stewardess herself. She even trains a new stew, high-school dropout Christine (Christina Applegate, doing a thirty-something Kelly Bundy).

Donna, Sherry, and Christine all become friends, and on the weekends, they stay with Sherry, who's negligent boyfriend has a beach house.

While sunbathing one afternoon, Donna's bikini top breaks, and while searching for a clasp in the boat house, she runs into coast guard officer Ted (Mark Ruffalo). They are instantly attracted to each other, and he takes her for a ride on his boat. Clearly missing the signals, Christine tags along and clumsily attempts to seduce Ted.

Later on, while having breakfast one morning at a diner, the three girls run into a trio of well-coiffed stewardesses from a major airline, who are appalled to be stuck in our heroines' tiny town for even the short time it takes to refuel. Their casual dismissal of the local girls sets off a spark in Donna, and she convinces the other girls that they should all apply for jobs at Royalty, a prestigious international airline.

The girls dress in their best denim miniskirts and attend the Royalty job fair, where they are interviewed by John Witney (Mike Meyers), a loony super-stew trainer with a lazy eye.

Christine and Donna both get invited the Royalty Learning Center in Texas. Sherry and her giant boobs, sadly, do not make the grade, and so she is left back in Nevada, as is our man Ted. That fuckin' Cindi Lauper song plays while they say their goodbyes.

On her first night at Stewardess School, Donna is thrilled to find out that she'll be attending a new-recruits dinner with none other than her mentor, Sally Weston, at her gaudy and cavernous mansion. Sally regales the girls with stories about stewing in the 70's. Her eager young charges eat it up, asking pertinent questions along the way.
"I heard all European guys are uncircumcised," Christine says. "Is that true?"
"How do you get on international flights?" Asks Donna.
"You need seniority," Sally answers.
"Oh. Should I apply now?"
Etc.

Later on, Sally pulls Donna aside and takes her to her room, where she shows her some of her old uniforms and tells her that if she works hard enough, she can make it to the very apex of stewardessing: Paris, First Class, International.
"It's your destiny," Sally tells her.

But first, there's Stewardess School to get through. This gives Mike Myers ample opportunity to riff ("Yes, I have held a polar bear's balls, and they're quite toasty"), and for the girls (including new recruit Stacey Dash) to jiggle as they jog around the mock-plane in tight t-shirts, attending to invisible disgruntled passengers.

Eventually, the girls take their final exams. Christine gets a sweet gig in New York, but Donna somehow ends up on the "Royalty Express" - i.e. local commuter flights - list. She complains to Witney, reminding him that she was at that the top of her class.
"This is bullshit!" She protests.
"I'll tell you what's bullshit," says the lazy-eyed Witney. "Eye exams."

Donna takes her lower-class gig in Cleveland. Life gets infinitely better when Ted suddenly shows up. He decided to go back to law school and for some reason chose Cleveland to do it, so at least they have each other. Still, Donna is not convinced that things went the way they should have in stewardess school. She starts to harbor suspicions that her test results were somehow tampered with.

One day, Christine ends up stuck in Cleveland for the night, so she gets together with Donna. They reminisce about old times and Christine talks about a recent spat she had with a customer. She said she did what she thought Donna would do - toss the fucker off the plane. Donna is perplexed. Not only is that not what she'd do, that very question was the last item on the final exam, the one that Donna supposedly did so badly on, and the normally numb-nutted Christine aced.

Donna visits Sally Weston and begs her to take another look at the tests. When she does, Donna finds out that Christine switched them while she was passing them in, and took credit for Donna's good grades. That treacherous shrew! Donna gets to take the test over again, and naturally, she aces it. And then she walks out of there wearing an awesome pair of tight white jeans. It's almost worth the price of admission right there.

Convinced she's finally fulfilling her destiny, Donna gives ol' Ted the kiss-off, despite the fact that they were inching ever closer to marriage. She takes the job on the international flight, and on her first day, Christine - who has just gotten fired for stealing tiny vodka bottles, to say nothing of the test cheat thing - shows up to say goodbye and maybe punch Donna in the face. They have a pretty sweet girl-fight, and then Christine is carted off by security to jail or the loony bin or wherever.

Donna finally makes it to Paris. She wanders around the city wearing a beret. Buy she misses Ted, and these French passengers are nothin' but problems. Has she made the right choice? Is this what she really wants? Will love win out over ambition?

No. It actually ends in a fiery runway crash and everybody dies.

Just kidding. It actually ends with Gwyneth and Christina disco-dancing in cut-off jeans.

Listen, Kelly Preston looks like she just stepped off the dusty set of a mid-70's Russ Meyer flick, Applegate is a in a bikini more often then not, and it's impossible to peel your eyes off of Paltrow. The script is funny and crisp, and moves along nicely. My only gripe is that Stacey Dash gets no lines. I think they just decided at the last minute that they needed a black chick in there somewhere. At least she offsets Paltrow's clunky moves in the end-credits dance-off.

Director Barreto is a bit of a mystery to me. All I know is that he's dated Amy Irving for 20 years, and that he prefers shooting in Brazil. How he ended up doing this film is anybody's guess, but I'm glad he did. I would easily place in the upper echelon of Stewardess movies, somewhere between Stewardess School and umm, The Stewardesses, at least. Definitely recommended.

View from the Top is available on DVD.

- Ken McIntyre

Dagmar's Hot Pants (1971)

Directed by Vernon P. Becker
Starring Diana Kjær, Anne Grete, Anne-Lise Alexandersson, Robert Strauss
Rated R
Denmark/Sweden

"You're the cleanest broad I've ever known."

From what I've read - this one hit the screens a decade or so before my time, so I wasn't there - Dagmar's Hot Pants did brisk business on 42nd Street and in drive-ins, for two reasons: it arrived at the height of hot pants mania, and it featured then-notable US character-actor Robert Strauss, clearly slumming it in Euro-sploitation land. Also, it was originally rated X, but so was everything in 1971. Well, I am sad to report that there are no hot pants involved, and Robert Strauss (RIP), a near-constant presence on TV screens in the 1960's, is no longer much of a draw. So, what's left? Swedish tits. Also some Danish tits. And that's nothin' to sniff at.

Dagmar (Diana Kjær, RIP) is your average hooker with a heart of gold, a big-eyed, red-headed Swedish beauty slumming it in Copenhagen for reasons unknown, entertaining an assortment of sophisticated world travelers for a handsome fee and occasionally brokering a budget deal with a local. We meet Dagmar on a very momentous day in her life - her very last day working as a prostitute.

Dagmar is woken from a sound sleep by the phone. On the other end is Johnny (Robert Strauss), one of her clients. A high-rolling American just shy of retirement age, Johnny tells Dagmar he's just got to see her later that day. She knows it's going to be some bullshit about how in love he is with her, but she figures she's leaving town tonight anyway, so she might as well give him a proper send off. She makes plans for later, and then calls her best pal Vivi (Anne-Lise Alexandersson) a va-va-voomy platinum blonde who's still fucking last night's 'date' when Dagmar calls.

Vivi's going to be moving into Dag's spacious pad when she splits, so amidst grunts and groans, she makes plans to meet with her friend at the lawyer's office later that day to sign the lease. And then Jack, Dagmar's brother calls. He's got some fuckin' problem, too. So she makes plans with him, as well. It's a very hectic day for our girl Dagmar.

Compounding Dagmar's troubles, her pal Ingrid (Anne Grete) calls her up just as she's about to leave and asks her to come over and help her out with two double-booked clients, leaning heavy on the 'I-helped-you-plenty-times' guilt trip. Dagmar simply cannot make it, so she dials up every other whore in town and tries to get one of them to make the gig, but everyone is a busy.

"I can't, I'm just too beat," says one girl, as she gets whipped by a client. "I'd love to, but I'm tied up right now," says another, as she struggles against the ropes that bind her. A third girl is, frankly, insulted by the phone call. "I've found someone I love, and I've given up that sick, perverted life," she says, hanging up the phone. Then she goes back to fucking her voluptuous blonde lesbian lover.

You know, stuff like that. Sure, it's not really funny. But you've gotta see these girls!

Since no one else will do it, Dagmar calls Ingrid back and tells her that she'll try and make it. Then she puts on a kicky white mini-dress and goes to see the doctor, who tells her the "Test results are negative." So that's good news. I'm assuming it's good news. Then he says, "You know, all these tests cost you girls a lot of money, but I know how you can get all your medical needs taken care of free, Dagmar..." And then he squeezes her boobs.

Dagmar manages to escape the creepy doc's clutches and visits her stockbroker, who tells her she's still rich, and then asks her to cure his goofy teenage son of his nagging virginity. Dagmar's in a good mood, so she agrees. Then she drops by her lawyer's office, where she meets up with Vivi. Not only does Vivi buy Dagmar's apartment, but her generous friend throws in her little black book, as well, complete with notations on how much to charge each of the johns. So that was sweet of her.

Meanwhile, Ingrid's stalling with her two Japanese businessmen clients.
"In Japan, if a Geisha girl is late," says one of the men, "The next day, she's back in the factory making transistor radios."
"Don't worry," Ingrid tells him, "She's worth the wait. She's Swedish!"
Dagmar finally shows up and they pose for pictures. Then the four of them have a groovy dance party before getting down to business.

Unfortunately, that drunken bastard Igor Romanoff barges in halfway through, yelling about his 'missing rubles' and threatening to ruin the party. Mr. Suzuki tells him to beat it, unless he wants to be the "Next Russian in orbit", and then karate-chops a table in half to show him he means business. Igor gets the drift and splits.

After the party breaks up, Dagmar and Ingrid share a quiet moment together. Dagmar tells her she's quitting the business for good and leaves. Then she heads over to some nutty fat maestro's pad and has gross, sweaty sex with him while classical music blares away, threatening to bring the whole house down. Then she puts her dress back on and heads out for more adventures. She runs into her pal Brita (Helli Louise), who has a moped and what has to be the world's first mobile phone. She tells Dagmar it's her new business model. She's a hooker on wheels. I guess that's supposed to be funny. Hard to tell at this point.

Dagmar has lunch with her deadbeat brother Jack (it's still only lunchtime?), a shaggy-haired musician who asks her for 35,000 crowns to pay for his girlfriend's abortion. Dagmar figures she's never gonna see this chump again, so why not? She gives him a travelers check.

Then she meets up with a dude on the vice squad. They gulp whiskey, smoke weed, and fuck. Again, I think that's supposed to be a gag. Then Dagmar says goodbye to the guy who hides in her closet to watch her fuck other dudes. He pays her $200, and when she tells him she thinks he gave her too much, he tells her, "No, it's a going-away gift. Over the past two years, you've become like a daughter to me."
Like the daughter you watch have sex with strange men? Gross.

And then Dagmar takes a much-needed bath. Afterward, she packs her bags, grabs her teddy bear, and calls a cab to take her to the airport.

And then her pimp Vince shows up, and fuckin' ruins everything. She has sex with him and then encourages him to shower off his sex-stink. He takes her advice, and while he's soaping up, she snatches up all her stuff and takes off down a side staircase, still in her towel. She gets dressed on the way down. Cleverly, she took Vince's clothes with her too, so he can't chase her. He runs out into the hall naked and scares a bunch of biddies half to death. Then he locks himself out of the apartment. So he's all messed up.

Dagmar gets off the plane in Sweden and runs into the arms of Lenny, her true love. There's a sort of melodramatic twist ending that explains how Dagmar ended up a whore in Denmark, but it's so dumb I'll let you find out for yourself what it is, so that you can also roll your eyes and chuckle at the lameness/idiocy of it all, like I did.

Dagmar's Hot Pants is a pretty strange movie. I am almost sure it's meant to be a comedy, but the jokes land so far off the mark that you can practically hear them wooshing as they fly by. You can see how certain scenes would play out if more capable hands were involved - Benny Hill in the grabby doctor scene, for example, or Russ Meyer directing the horny Japanese businessmen vs. the drunk Russian bit - and it makes you realize that there was the potential for Dagmar to be a very funny and sexy little film. As it is, it's more of a naughty drama with an awkward comic tone. It's a slow-burning oddity saved from the dustbin just because Kjær is so lovely to look at, and she's naked in nearly every scene, as are most of the other women in the cast. Les Baxter's score is pretty swingin' as well, and the mod décor and groovy outfits are boss.

I guess what I'm saying is...thanks for the boobs, Sweden.

One thing, though: why's Dagmar's Hot Pants? She doesn't wear pants once. Maybe it's a euphemism.

All in all, director Vernon P Becker had a pretty great run. In fact, he's probably Sweden's all-time greatest (or at least most prolific) sexploitation peddler. Prior to Dagmar, he produced The Seduction of Inga (1971), and he followed this one up with Swedish Wildcats ( producer, 1972), and 3D softcore foolishness The Groove Room (director,1975). In 1979, he produced the legendary Nocturna (aka the disco Dracula), and finished his career producing the rarely-seen Love Scenes (1984), which boasted a pretty incredible cast: Tiffany Bolling, Julie Newmar, and Britt Ekland! Who knows where he is now. Probably in Gothenberg somewhere, chasing the maid around the room.

- Ken McIntyre

Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (1987)

Directed by Ken Dixon
Starring Elizabeth Kaitan, Cindy Beal, Brinke Stevens
Rated R
USA

"Something tells me there's more in this jungle than meets the eye."

First of all, we're going to need to issue an All Points Bulletin for director Ken Dixon. Where could this fever-dream visionary be? Mr. Dixon had his hand in soft-X back in the 70's (Erotic Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1975), but is most well-known for a quadrilogy of truly epic clip-comps: The Best of Sex and Violence (1981), Famous T&A (1982), Filmgore (1983), and Zombiethon (1986). All four are must-have collections of best-bits from 70's and 80's grindhouse flicks that anticipated YouTube's only-the-good-parts approach 20 years ahead of their time. Slave Girls was Dixon's only narrative feature of the 80's, and his trail, shockingly, runs cold from there. So if anybody's seen him, please tell him to call/write immediately. Because we have a lot of questions about this one.

Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity arrived smack-dab in the middle of a dizzying wave of post-apoc/space opera/sexploitation mash-ups that blew minds and dampened crotches for much of the mid 80's. Other notable titles in the cycle include Robot Holocaust (1986), Roller Blade (1986), Hell Comes to Frogtown (1987), and Creepozoids (1987). I'm pretty sure every movie in this micro-genre utilized the same Corman knock-off sets and the same leather bikinis, because they all start to blur into one hallucinogenic gang-bang of tits, robots, and laser-blasts after awhile. Slave Girls has all of those in abundance, and may very well be the apex of 80's Leather Bikini Cinema.

The film opens with a hot, big-titted blonde in a leather cave-girl outfit running, barefoot, through some underbrush.

A mutant - he looks like the Gwar dude with an octopus on his head and a hookah attached to his arm - lumbers awkwardly behind her, in not-so-hot pursuit. He shoots purple lasers at her, but is zapped (with blue lasers) by a dude with a crossbow.

Cut to: Slave ship in outer space. Daria (Elizabeth Kaitain) is in some sort of dank pit, chained to the floor. She tugs on her shackles, trying in vain to pull them loose.
"Don't bother," says Tisa (Cindy Beal), the other hot blonde in cavegirl leather chained to the floor, "I've already tried. The only chance we've got is no chance at all."

Determined, Daria eventually yanks her chain right out of the floor, than helps Tisa pull hers out as well. Daria tells her that all they need to do is "reverse the polarity" on the cell's lock, and they can escape. Then they can take over the ship. She's a very industrious slave girl. They reverse the polarity, climb out of the cell, bash the guards with pipes, and goddamn it, they take over the ship and fly the fuck out of there.

A word about Elizabeth Kaitain, before we continue. One of the more memorable shlock-queens of the 80's, Liz was a European import known both for her exquisite beauty and her earnest acting style. It did not matter how stupid the scripts got, she'd play them straight, as if irony was for lesser actresses than herself.

While it is impressive to watch someone act their hearts out, she needn't have bothered. Every film she was in required skimpy outfits that emphasized the almost impossible roundness of her breasts and ass, so who, I ask you, was paying attention to her acting? Still, she gave it her all, and for that - and for the cleavage - she deserves a round of applause. Her last film was the Gary Graver directed Veronica 2030 in 1999. She apparently got married and quit the biz soon after. We miss her. And not just parts of her, either.

Anyway, back to the space madness. The girls zip around space for awhile and then end up in a tractor beam which crash-lands them on a mysterious planet. Daria wakes up on the beach and notices a clunky robot staring at her. She follows him to a castle with animal heads and zebra-skin rugs on the walls.

Zed (Don Scribner), a Christian Bale-looking dude with greased-back hair and tight leather pants dramatically descends a staircase and introduces himself. Tisa's already there, and Zed's got a dinner party planned. Turns out he's got a whole bunch of 'guests' who have 'accidentally' crash-landed on his planet. He gives Daria a slinky black dress to wear, and she cleans up nicely.

They go downstairs and meet the other guests - wiseguy Rik (Carl Horner) and his sister Shala (Brinke Stevens). Shala informs Daria that their ship is being 'worked on', and they won't be able to get off the planet/island/jungle-bound fortress/whatever it is until it's fixed. Zed starts yapping about how awesome hunting is, which creeps everybody out a bit. There's taxidermied animals all over the place, so he apparently does a lot of it. Rik asks Daria if she wants to go for some air. She agrees, and they walk approximately 10 feet to the other side of the room and start gossiping about Zed.

Rik tells Daria that there were originally four people in their group, but that Zed took the pilot and the navigator into the 'trophy room' (a large door that appears to be covered in black contact paper), and they were never seen from again. He also says that he knows the ship has already been fixed, but Zed's lying to them about it, because he wants to keep them around to hunt them.

Everybody retires for the evening, but Daria is woken by sounds of lasers and a man screaming. She hears someone rushing towards her room and picks up a vase to bonk the intruder with, but it turns out to be Rik. He tells her Shala is missing, and he thinks Zed has taken her to the 'trophy room'. They slink downstairs to investigate. While they walk around, a bassoon plays on the soundtrack. You don't hear that everyday.

Despite being the secret, forbidden room, they manage to walk right in and search the joint. There's a bone throne in there and more dead animals on the walls. Tisa's Scooby-Dooing around in there, as well. She's wearing fetching white lingerie at this point. Says she snuck into his room and stole the key, which explains why the door was open. Daria asks what's down an unseen corridor, and Tisa says "He's got an escape hatch stashed back there." Rik wants to jump down it and bail, but Daria won't leave without Shala. They hear Zed coming back from the jungle with his robots, and scurry back upstairs.

Zed's robots dump a bloody sheet on the floor, and Zed picks up a dude's severed head. Tonight's trophy, apparently. Meanwhile Daria starts barking orders for the escape plan, which involves her and Rik going outside and booby-trapping the jungle. Or something. She talks an awful lot, this one.

So, Zed has Shala chained to a wall. Then, as far as I can tell, he strips her, shackles her to a slab, and then rapes her. Afterward, his robot gives him a back massage.

While he enjoys a post forced-coital smoke, he tells his robot to go upstairs and make sure everybody are in their rooms. Tisa intercepts the 'bot and tells him she wants to go skinny-dipping, and he should come watch.

Despite being a robot (and a very femme-sounding one, at that), he cannot resist the allure of a naked Tisa, so he follows her out. While Tisa strips down and frolics on the beach, the other robot shows up and yells at the first one for not following orders.

Meanwhile, Rik and Daria take a little time out to fuck. When they're finished, Rik says he's the happiest guy in the world. Considering he just banged Elizabeth Kaitain in her prime, that sounds about right.

Later on, Rik gets konked on the head by one of the robots, and when he comes to, he's out in the jungle. Zed gives him a gun and tells him that it activates in ten minutes. He has to survive the night in the jungle - with Zed hunting him - to win his freedom. And so off he goes.

Almost immediately, Rik gets caught in a giant spider web, and Zed blasts him with his laser crossbow. And then the robot cuts him up into bite-sized chunks.

At some point later that evening, the girls wake up. They are all in the leather slave girl outfits and chained to the wall. Zed points out his new trophy - Rik's head. This upsets Shala quite a bit.
"There was no need for you to show her that," says Daria.

"We all have different needs," explains Zed. And then he spouts a bunch of gibberish about the meaning of life before getting to his point.
"I intend to hunt you," he hisses.
He lets all three girls loose, and tells them that there's a tower on the other side of the jungle with laser cannons that they can use against them if they can reach them. As they're about to split, he also gives them a warning: "Try not to get lost in the phantom zone."
That's always good advice, really.

Shala wants to just wait in the bushes for Zed to show up so she can stab him, but bossy Daria makes them trudge through the jungle instead. She entrusts Tisa to hold the map. Tisa shoves it into her bikini top, and when Daria asks for it later, Tisa realizes she dropped it somewhere along the way.
"I should have known better," says Diara, staring at Tisa's tiny tits. "I should have just held it myself."
So that was pretty mean.

Jungle hijinks ensue. Poor Shala gets crossbowed to death - does Brinke Stevens ever catch a break in these movies? - and Zed gets a spike through the leg, which at least slows him down. Daria and Tisa make it to the laser-cannon tower and try to figure out how to get in. Daria says something about "the other panel must be adjacent to this one", which made me laugh. Slave girls from outer space say 'adjacent'? Anyway, it works, and they make it inside. When they get in there, there's a lot of smoke, and their voices echo.

"This must be the phantom zone Zed warned us about," Daria points out.
"I get the feeling the normal laws of time and space no longer apply."

Then they both get attacked by dudes in chintzy zombie masks. And then one of those mutant fuckers from the beginning shows up and attacks Tisa.

But by this point, Daria 's got the laser cannon, and all hell breaks loose.

Turns out, though, that the girls aren't so good at wielding laser cannons. Tisa gets caught and nearly raped by Zed back at the castle before Daria shows up wearing armor and a brandishing a shield and sword. Can our plucky, leather-bikini clad warrior-women defeat this evil monster, his robot henchmen, and that mutant dude and blast off this accursed planet/island/b-movie set?


Clearly, that's for me to know and you to find out.

Although there are no truly jaw-dropping scenes in Slave Girls, it is nonetheless a joy to watch from the first frame to the last. Part of this is due to Tom Callaway's cinematography. It's as if he wasn't actually given any direction from Dixon, and so he just naturally follows Katain's mesmerizing ass wherever it wiggles. I can't think of another movie that spends so much time behind the actresses. Carl Dante's score is also amazing, a fully orchestrated wonder full of flittering flutes and flatulent tubas. It's much more ornate than need be, and the sound track is peppered with incessant 'jungle sounds' that appear to be ripped right from an old Tarzan serial. The script is a mouthful, and none of the actors ever quite come to grips with it, especially Hungarian beauty Kaitan, who is forced to spout crazy bullshit about "off-beam quadrants" every five minutes. The mutants and zombies are laughably cheap, the jungle is somebody's backyard, and the space footage is from another film entirely.

In other words, it's awesome.

Availability: Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity is available on DVD.

- Ken McIntyre