The Pink Chiquitas (1987)

Directed by Anthony Currie
Starring Frank Stallone, Claudia Udy, John Hemphill
Rated PG-13
Canada

"My God, man, you're a meteorologist. That's got to count for something."

"And," you can hear them add during the pitch-from-hell that got this film made, "It's also going to have original songs by Frank Stallone!"
Man, you can sell the Canadians anything, can't you?

On the surface, things look pretty good, in a kitcshy sorta way, at the start of Pink Chiquitas. Sly's even more wooden brother Frank, dressed in a ridiculous cream-colored suit, sluices down the highway in a gleaming white Cadillac convertible (with steer horns on the grill), stopping to pick up a gum-snapping hitchhiker in hotpants (Heather Smith).

Suddenly, outta nowhere, a couple mobsters bear down on them, guns blazing. "Get your head down, now!" Frank says to his startled guest. The only part she hears is "Head, now!", so she dutifully sticks her face in his lap and gets to gobbling. Ever the professional, Frank manages to elude the gangsters while enjoying impromptu oral. Looking for someplace to hide until the heat is off, he pulls into a drive-in theater. They're playing Zombie Beach Party III. And that's like, the best Zombie Beach Party movie ever.

While the movie rolls on, Frank, er...Tony Mareda, Jr...runs around the drive-in with a giant cartoony revolver shooting dudes. Meanwhile, a glowing pink meteor screams through the sky and crash-lands into some woods behind the movie screen. A group of oddly 1950's-esque teenagers speed off to investigate. They find a giant glowing rock that purrs and emits cheesy Blue Oyster Cult lasers.

The meteor has a strange effect on the kids' girlfriends: their eyes pulse with purple light and they become instatiably horny, tearing off their shirts and making sweet 80's love to their men. At least that's what I think happened. It woulda been nice if someone brought some lights to the shoot.

So that's your set-up. This rock makes all the women in town (Beamsville) warm-in-the-pants, and it's up to the bumbling, Barney Fife-esque deputy Drum (Don Lake, go-to bald/mustachioed buffoon in a zillion films) and Tony, the cool-as-ice private dick who gets all the chicks, to figure this bullshit out. Along the way, there's the usual gang of idiots to contend with, including overambitious weatherman Clip Bacardi (Bruce Pirrie), his girlfriend, librarian/mayoral candidate Maryann Dubrowski (Elizabeth Edwards), and corrupt mayor Bodine (John Hemphill, Goofballs), plus various assorted nuts. You know the drill.

Soon, most of the women in town are dressing up like extras in an early 80's Motley Crue video and wandering around town seducing men for whatever reason. Meanwhile, Frank Stallone waterskis while fishing, and later on, goes to a nightclub where Cindy Valentine performs (weirdly, she has a dude in spandex workout gear dancing behind her) to let off some steam. Tony/Frank spies some bosomy blonde he wants to dance with. so he somersaults off the balcony and lands on his feet. This is a running gag in the movie, this superhuman Frank Stallone business. It really doesn't make any sense in the context of the story, and it's certainly not funny, so I'm not sure why any of it is there. Probably Frank's idea.

Maryann and Trudy (Laura Robinson, Goofballs), the local TV anchor, become the dominant figures in town, as all the men devolve into fucked-stupid zombies. Clip and Tony sneak into the woods to investigate the Pink Chiquita and find a gaggle of Amazons dressed like Kiss in their Music from the Elder era. They fight them off with a broom, save a gay cameraman, and pick up a disoriented nurse (Claudia Udy) who was wandering down the highway in her heavy metal underwear.

Then the four attempt to get out of town, but are cut off by more lingerie-clad women, including a squadron in a pink-camouflaged tank. By the way, the tank girls wear red cut-off t-shirts, and if you look really hard, you can spy some under-boob. I know, that's a long way to go for a thrill, but you've got to take them where you can in this movie.

Somewhere along the way, the fellas figure out the rock's weakness, and they battle the possessed glamazons for control of the town. Because God forbid a bunch of women run some backwater fuckin' Canadian town, right?

The basic premise of Pink Chiquitas - horny Canadian chicks driven to bone by a throbbing pink rock from outer space - is a pretty good one. You think it'd be hard to fuck that up. Ah, but then there's the Frank Stallone factor. And the PG-13 rating. And that clammy feeling you often get while watching a creaky Canadian comedy that promises boners but delivers only tedium. I was pretty amazed that they made it all the way through without showing even one pair of tits. For a movie that's actually about sex, that's astounding. That's like making a movie about drunks without any bars in it, or a nerd flick without calculators. I almost feel like director Currie should have been penalized somehow for this miscarriage of mammaries, especially when you consider that, hiding somewhere in the pile of garter belts and headbands lurked Lolita Davidovich, perhaps the greatest topless Canadian that's ever lived.

So, there's that. The other major problem with Pink Chiquitas is its star, Frank Stallone. In order for this movie to work, it needs a funny, charismatic leading man, someone to make sense of the madness, save the gays and damsels, and crack wise along the way. Instead, we got Frank Stallone, who mostly grunts and let's the stuntmen do all the heavy lifting. Frank got the hell out of Canada right after this was over, and has since managed to do less flamboyant work in more high-profile films like Barfly and, um...Legend of the Rollerblade Seven, but this one remains his very own Vietnam, a truly wince-worthy performance from a man clearly over his head.

Not that it mattered, really. I mean, who's even seen this piece of junk, besides me and you and Canada?

In summation: Next, please.

Availability: Pink Chiquitas is available on DVD.

-Ken McIntyre