Bikini Drive In (1995)

Directed by Fred Olen Ray
Starring Ashlie Rhey, Sarah Bellomo, Nikki Fritz
Rated R
USA

"I'm gonna take you to jail. I might also shoot your friend. But first, I'm gonna get a Coke."

When you think of all the garbage that's been dumped on DVD over the years, it's a tragedy that Olen Ray's magnum opus Bikini Drive-in is still awaiting it's digital rebirth. An amiable, everybody-wins homage to goofy 70's T&A flicks, Bikini Drive-in packs the screen with cult-star cameos, wall-to-wall breast-baring, and a barrel full of groan-worthy gags. It is literally all you could possibly ask for in a B movie, and it probably only cost Fred about fifty bucks to make. He's returned to the bikini well many times since, and will most likely continue to do so, but with this one, his heart really appeared to be into it. In fact, this could almost pass for a particularly saucy entry in the 60's beach party series.

As our story opens, Kim (Ashlie Rhey) and her best friend Carrie (Sarah Bellomo) are sunbathing, topless, on the beach, and contemplating what to do with their summer.
"We could get jobs," Kim suggests.
"Get real!" Says Carrie.

They're not the most productive bimbos on the beach, these two.
Luckily, fate intervenes in the shape of a shlubby lawyer, who stomps up to our half-naked heroines with good-ish news. Seems Kim's grandpa, who died a month before, left her his business, a creaky old drive-in just outside of LA. And, just like that, she's a business owner.
"What am I supposed to do with a drive in?" She asks Grandpa's lawyer. Seeing as it's 1995, a good fifteen years after most drive-ins went bust, it's a reasonable question.

The El Monte is a once-glorious Ozoner that's gone to seed. Kim and Carrie (wearing impossibly high-waisted Levis) go to check the old place out. At first it appears abandoned but then Oscar (Ed Wood alumni Conrad Brooks), the weird old projectionist, pops open a creaky window and hands her the keys to the joint.
"Now that you're here, things will run much better," he tells her. But what does he know?

Meanwhile (there's always a meanwhile in these things), a ruthless land developer, JB Winston (exploitation legend David F Friedman) has been buying up every piece of land around the drive in to build a Super Mall. The shabby old El Monte is the only bit of property that he doesn't own. Grandpa wouldn't sell it to him. After hearing about Kim's inheritance, Winston dispatches his two old-school stooges, Harry (Ross Hagen, Satan's Sadists) and Carl (Peter Spellos, Dinosaur Island), and his young, business-minded son Brian (Richard Gabai, director of Assault of the Party Nerds and Virgin High) to try and 'gently persuade' her to sell.

So while that's going on, Kim's arguing with her blockhead boyfriend Darryl (George Cost, who's hairline recedes practically to the back of his head) about helping her fix up the drive in ("It's summertime, babe. I got stuff to do") while Carrie bones her boyfriend in a hot tub upstairs. By the way, softcore hot tub bonings are generally pretty lame, but I must tell you, Bellomo fakes it quite well. This might be the hottest softcore hot tub boning ever. Anyway, Darryl storms out, which makes Kim cry.
"How can you do this to me?" She whines. "I gave you the best three months of my life!"

Soldiering on despite her broken heart, Kim starts her first day as the new owner of the El Monte, and finds out that her grandfather was $25.000 in debt with the bank. If she doesn't come up with the money in three days, she loses the drive-in. Kim finds out from her two geeky employees Tom (Tom Shell, Surf Nazis Must Die) and Susan (softcore legend Nikki Fritz, dressed in a dowdy library-nerd get-up) that the drive-in averages about fifty bucks a night, but she still thinks spit-shining the joint might save the day.

Carrie calls up her sorority sisters (who else?), who show up in Daisy Dukes to help out during the classic 80's style cleaning-the-place-up montage. Somebody pulls out a hose, and naturally, the girls end up wrestling around topless.

Brian and the boys show up to put the pressure on Kim, but she sends them packing, feeling confident that everything's going to work out just fine.

Despite the makeover, no one shows up for the Friday night showing of The Wilderness Gang. Dejected, Kim strolls solemnly along the beach in the dark, searching for answers. Brian shows up and professes his love for Kim, and tells her wants to help, regardless of what his dad wants. And so they make out on the beach and, after a few seagulls close-ups, they end up at Kim's, where they make sweet 80's love, providing you with ample opportunity to ogle Rhey's hard plastic Frankenboobs.

The next morning, Brian takes over as creative director at the El Monte. He tosses out all the family films and digs through the archives, promising a quadruple feature of blood n' boobs epics like Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, I was a Teenage Tree, The Apeman Cometh, and Sorority Sister Slaughterouse.

And then he books a guest celebrity to make an appearance: scream queen Dyanne Lynn (real-life scream queen Michelle Bauer). Of course, you can't just get a scream queen of Lynn's stature to show up at your ratty drive-in, so Brian lies and tells her he's from 'Hollywood Tonight', and that they've planned an 'extravaganza' for her. She does not know what extravaganza means, but likes the sound of it, and when Brian tells her that the President of the United States will be there - he's a big fan - how can she say no?

You may be wondering, with all of this nonsense going on, where, exactly, the bikinis come in. Well, Brian's got that covered, too. He hires Candy (Becky Lebeau, Joyticks, Hollywood Hot Tubs) and Mandy (Tane McClure, Death Spa) to drum up business. In bikinis.

Mandy visits local FM DJ Randy Rocket (director Fred Olen Ray), and after nearly choking him with her oversized bra, he agrees to promote the drive-in on the air. When she gets back, Brian hands out bikinis to all the girls - including Kim, Carrie, and Susan - and gives Tom a rubber monster suit to wear.

Oh, and if you're wondering: the Nikki Fritz transformation is, indeed, awesome.

And so, the El Monte is transformed to Bikini Drive-in. Mandy and Candy go-go dance on the marquee platform while the sorority sisters take tickets dressed in itty-bitty bathing suits and Kim, Carrie and Susan - all half-naked, of course - run the concession stand.

On screen, a non-stop orgy of pure trash, including trailers for wish-they-were-real Z-epics like "Gator Babes" and "Goliath Versus the Cheerleaders" (starring Hercules himself, Gordon Mitchell!), and in the crowd, all manner of weirdo and cult hero, including Forrest J Ackeman, who nearly blows up his car with bug repellent from 1964, and Claire Polan (Angel's Wild Women), as his date. There's also a horse clopping around, for whatever reason, plus what looks like a very playful biker gang.

At one point, Mandy dances on the hood of some dude's car while cartoons are projected on her chest, and afterward, she wails on Carl (who is now in the monster suit) and then douses him in gasoline. Oh, and Susan and Tom make sweet love while covered in loops of film. Essentially, it's every cult-film geek's wildest fantasy come true.

The money starts rolling in, and it looks like Kim might just get to keep the drive-in after all.

But then Harry and JP and crooked ol' Sheriff Bloodstone (Steve Barkett) show up to bust the party up. Will they succeed in bringing down Bikini Drive-in?

Not likely. Everybody knows villainous land developers and crooked cops are no match for well-intentioned trash film fans, bubble-headed bikini girls, and Conrad Brooks.

Quite possibly Fred Olen Ray's greatest moment, Bikini Drive-in is well worth the effort it will take to dig it up from the VHS graveyard. Funny, warm, sexy and weird, it's an affectionate tribute to a bygone era that will have you pining for the good ol' days of drive-ins, monster-flicks, and big-haired girls in acid-wash jeans, whether you've actually lived through them, or not.

Thanks for this one, Fred.

Availability: Bikini Drive-in is available on VHS.

- Ken McIntyre

Losin' It (1983)

Directed by Curtis Hanson
Starring Tom Cruise, Jackie Earle Haley, Shelley Long
Rated R
USA

"I forgot my rubber."
"Did you remember to bring your dick?"

If you were to ask me, in 1982, which member of the Losin' It cast would go on to become spectacularly rich/famous/weird, I would have easily chosen Jackie Earle Haley, who really is the star of this witty little film. Tom Cruise, in comparison, is just a plank of wood. Granted, his aw-shucks virgin is the least interesting character in the entire movie, but still, if Cruise has some level of greatness to him, it is surely not in evidence here. Haley, on the other hand, nearly gulps this film down whole. And he went on to a long and lonely 13-year stretch of unemployment and obscurity. Life's a bitch, man.

Released in the wake of Porky's considerable success, Losin' It also takes place in the warm and fuzzy mid 60's. Three Californian high school kids - Woody (Cruise), Big Dave (Haley) and Spider (John Stockwell) - decide to drive down to Tijuana for the weekend, to drink their faces off and lose their virginity. Trouble brews early and often, however. When one of their other buddies drops out, Big Dave is forced, under protest, to take his conniving younger brother Wimp (John P Navin, Jr.) along.
"We can't take a kid along," Dave whines."I told you, we're going into the mouth of hell."

Wimp is a young capitalist, and wants to go to purchase cheap fireworks to resell to his idiot friends. He bribes Big Dave with a sizable loan, and joins the gang. After school, they all pile into Dave's convertible, and hit the road.

The boys stop at a mom and pop grocery store to shoplift supplies for the trip at exactly the time 'mom' and 'pop' are splitting up. Kathy (Shelley Long) makes off with the store van as her husband Larry (Kale Browne) chases after her. She almost immediately crashes it into the front door, destroying half the store. Determined to get the hell out of town, she hops into the convertible with the boys and demands they take her with them, telling her husband she's going to Tijuana to get a divorce. Since they've just robbed her store, they don't figure they've got much choice in the matter.

The motley crew makes it into Mexico without incident - it's always easier getting in than getting out - and everyone wanders off to their respective fates. Kathy finds the cheapest lawyer she can, Wimp goes off in search of illegal explosives, and our trio of high school heartbreakers visit a lively bar/whorehouse to become men.

After eyeballing their first strip show and clapping along to the bawdy ballads of piano-basher/loudouth/lounge entertainer Johnny Hotrocks ("Bring Your Mother to the Gang Bang"), the fellas meet three attractive chicas who eventually lure them upstairs, where they are greeted by a line of beat-up old whores idly watching porn loops on a Super 8 projector.

But what the hell, the price is right. Everybody picks a girl, and they take off to their respective rooms. While Big Dave (so named for his extra large member, which is clearly outlined in his pants for the duration of the film) nearly burns a hole through his Mexican mistress next door, the ever-sensitive Woody just can't bring himself to do 'it'. Luckily, despite being in the bowels of Tijuana, Woody ends up with an ethical hooker. Sensing that he's not quite ready to lose his virginity to a skinny, middle-aged whore with fried-egg tits, the saint-like prostie actually hands him his money back and sends him on his way.

A depressed Woody shuffles down to the bar, where he attempts to drink away his shame. His now-experienced pals soon join him, as does a frazzled and conflicted Kathy, her dubiously legal divorce papers in hand.
"Let's drink to mission accomplished," she says
"And I've got great news. In Tijuana, they sell penicillin over the counter."

From there, various levels of Tijuana-styled hijinks ensure. Dave and Wimp hook up with a crooked taxi driver who takes them all over town in search of "Spanish Fly". Spider gets loaded, starts a bar brawl with a bunch of American soldiers, and ends up in jail. Woody and Kathy discover that they're kindred souls - two delicate flowers lost in the jungle - and so they decide to grab a bottle of something stiff and get drunk and cry together.

Later on, they get a motel room and fuck. Gently, I imagine. By the way: it's not like I was expected Shelley Long to get naked or anything, but her aversion to showing skin reaches epic heights here. We get a shot of her back when she takes her shirt off, and when she turns around, the camera is locked on a close-up that starts at her shoulders. A bra strap. That's what we get. Ms Long, this is an outrage.

Anyway, you know how these things go. By the end of the evening, basically everyone in Tijuana ends up chasing the fellas to the border. Will they make it home before the Tijuana cops, the angry soldiers, and various incensed locals tear our gringo heroes to bits?

Of course they will, although it did look hairy for a moment. Joe "Maniac" Spinell was the border guard, and who knows what that guy is gonna do?

Although pretty chaste for a teen sex comedy - Mexican stripper tits don't really count in these sorts of things - Losin' It is still worth a look. Haley's great as the boisterous, always-up-for-it Big Dave, the script is witty and sharp, the production values are well above the norm for this kind of film, and Cruise is not in it enough to ruin the fun. I was disappointed that we didn't get to see a little more of Shelley, though. Remember her in Night Shift? We coulda used a little of that here.

Availability: Losin' It is available on DVD.

- Ken McIntyre

American High School (2009)

Directed by Sean Patrick Cannon
Starring Jillian Murray, Aubrey O'Day, Nikki Ziering
Rated R
USA

"Talk back again, and the next time you have your period, it'll be through your mouth."

There's a fundamental flaw to American High School's premise that it never quite shakes. The story, in essence, is about a pretty high school senior named Gwen (Murray). She's married to Holden (Talan Torriero), the school's resident Ferris Buehler, and her father, Kip Dick (Hoyt Richards) is a famous, Hasselhoff-esque actor. She's running for prom queen, and her hobby is public sex. She also happens to be adorable. So what's the problem? Well, she's the most unpopular girl in the whole school, that's what. Why? Because her dad's famous, and she married the cool guy, and she likes to fuck in the bushes.

I know, I'm as confused about it as you are. We are thrust headlong into this bizarre world of ceaseless hostility with no real explanation for why any of this is happening. Perhaps sensing that his core conflict makes no sense, director Cannon just makes his actors pour the abuse on relentlessly, as if we will finally crack, ala Lord of the Flies, and just go along with Gwen's stoning. I'm sure this kind of approach works wonders in religious cults and sleeper cells, but it's pretty off-putting in a teen sex comedy.

Perhaps I should paint a picture of the wild, wild world of American High School for you. Two over-aged knobs, Jonny Awesome (Brian Drolet) and Matt Mysterio (James Foley) represent the male populace of this could-be-anywhere institution. Instantly repellent, these two rule the school with such an iron fist that Awesome doesn't even wear a shirt to class, and they are free to hurl insults at anyone, without consequence. It goes without saying that they've had sex with most of the girls in school, including Hillary (Christine Aguilera doppelganger O'Day), Trixie (Davida Williams), and Dixie (Alex Murrel), the resident mean girls. Crazy-eyed Hillary has sights set on two things: the prom queen title, and Gwen's husband.

I'm not sure why Gwen and Holden are husband and wife in this fractured fairy tale. If it is to add dramatic weight, then it fails, because you never really see any affection between the two of them. Sure, they fuck in weird places, and Gwen is afraid she might be pregnant with Holden's baby, but when they eventually split - they even take other people to the prom -they exhibit zero heartache over the break-up. That's not a spoiler, by the way. American High School is virtually plotless, so there's nothing to give away.

As noted, Gwen and Holden are drifting apart, and since blonde-bombshell Hillary has the hots for him anyway, Holden drifts towards Gwen's arch-nemesis. This prompts her to run for prom queen, out of pure spite. She is, however, unpopular, so she'll have to cheat to win. For some, this could prove to be a torturous moral dilemma. Not so for our Gwen. You see, Gwen comes from a very fucked-up family.

Gwen's dad Kip is the kind of guy that routinely bangs his daughter's friends. In fact, he always seems to be just on the verge of making out with/fucking her, as well. Kip's character is simply id run wild, and he offers no comfort or protection whatsoever for his child. In fact, he often joins in on the verbal abuse.

Her brother Buzz (Kyle Sabihy) is tattooed vermin who would rather have sex with a prostitute than attempt a relationship. She has no mother and no friends, and the only one who will listen to her is the pervy school nurse, Doogy (Scotty Kyle, the only truly funny actor in the entire film), who doles out sensible advice and gentle encouragement between inappropriate shoulder rubs and requests for oral sex.

Oh right, the faculty. American High School always hovers on the edge of absurdity, especially when the teachers are involved. Perhaps that's why the history teacher is named Mr. Seuss (Pat Jankiewicz, who plays the role as though he's either deaf or mentally challenged). There is almost no attempt to ground the school day in reality.

The principal is a lecherous dwarf (Martin Klebba) and the art teacher/vice principal, Miss Apple (Zeiring) is frequently topless sexpot who is married to the nerdy Seuss but willing to swing with anyone in eyesight. Gwen's father is often seen in class, as well, usually with a student on his lap. In fact, all of the school-bound scenes look exactly like 80's porn set-ups, only without the payoff.

So there you go. That's pretty much it. As I mentioned, there's no actual plot, but there are a few sequential events, none of which seem important enough to mention. There is, however, a "Bikini Prom", which seems like an idea whose time has come. Crazily enough, Trini Lopez shows up to perform La Bamba. Gwen stuffs the ballot boxes and steals the prom queen title from Hillary, much to the shock and dismay of Hillary and her cabal of mean girls.

After the prom, she gets into a car with prom king Jonny Awesome - she went with him to the prom to make her estranged husband jealous - and he tries to goad her into a blowjob. When she rebuffs him and splits, he starts bawling. And so we are left there, with King Nozzle crying his eyes out. There's just simply no way out of this wretched scene, and so we just fade to black, as if we're watching an overwrought television melodrama from 1976. And perhaps, on some level, that's what this is. After all, at its tiny, barely beating heart, this story is about one girl's uphill struggle to reach adulthood while navigating through a bad marriage, a dysfunctional relationship with her careless father, and the indifference and outright hostility of her peers. Minus the leaden shock humor, this could easily be an afterschool special starring Kristy McNichol. It is certainly as depressing.

And so, Gwen circles Graduation Day on her calendar, and we are treated to the about-face we have apparently been searching for. Hillary attempts to walk away from her botched prom queen effort and this whole dastardly school with some dignity intact, but her former friends will not let her. She is pushed to the ground, where she splays out like a murder victim. Jonny Awesome and his crew of psychotics hurl typically insightful insults at her ("You've got a fat ass!"). When she is clearly shattered to tiny blonde shards, they wander off to have casual sex with one another.

Afterward, there's an everybody-wins epilogue detailing the post high-school successes of the main characters, including a lucrative career as a boy band for Awesome and his cronies. Not surprisingly, given the level of humor we're working with, they're called the Awesome Street Boys. No one receives any retribution, karmic or otherwise, for their past cruelties. This is not mandatory, of course, but this fuck-everybody worldview is pretty bleak. Then again, the 27 year old director is much closer in age to actual high school kids than I am, so perhaps he's got the modern-youth vibe nailed. If so, then the 'kids' are total douchebags.

We are left, then, with a wholly unsatisfying conclusion. The bad guys not only get away, but they continue to thrive. Where, I ask you, is the revenge of the nerd? In the last scene, we are in Gwen's bedroom, where she talks to the world via her webcam.
"Sometimes life blows," she tells us, while she chews on a Popsicle.
"So you just have to sit back, relax, and enjoy the blowjob."

Say what now?

There was a time, really, when young filmmakers and artists had insight, and empathy, and the ability to touch hearts, minds, and funny bones with their craft. If Sean Patrick Cannon is any sort of indicator, those days, sadly, appear to be over. Soulless and witless, American High School has only the attractiveness of it's young cast to recommend it. Sure man, we were dumber and uglier in the 80's. But at least we had heart. And we knew how to tell a joke.

Availability: American High School is available on DVD.

Clip: American High School trailer

- Ken McIntyre

Cheerleaders Wild Weekend (1979)

AKA The Great American Girl Robbery
AKA Bus 17 is Missing
Directed by Jeff Werner
Starring Kristine DeBell, Marilyn Joi, Jason Williams, Elizabeth Halsey
Rated R
USA

"Now that's what I call a fine, foxy frame of femininity!"

As you may have noticed, this obscure entry in the 70's cheersploitation cycle has gone by a host of different titles. I suppose that if you take this title at face value, it is pretty accurate. The cheerleaders do, in fact, have a wild weekend. Not only that, but it's a wild weekend that's pretty wall-to-wall with naked hijinks. Still, with a title like Cheerleaders Wild Weekend, you expect a teen sex comedy, not a kidnapping drama. I can only imagine the looks of utter confusion on the faces of party-hearty drive-in goers in the summer of '79 when the booby gags suddenly dry up and we're left with sobbing cheerleaders huddled together in the dark corner of isolated cabin in the woods.

That craziness comes later, though. The opening is prime cheer-flick raunch.
In a scene that approximates Russ Meyer's hyperkinetic panic-sex vibe better than any teen cinema flick I've ever seen, a school bus full of warring cheerleader squads on their way to a state competition try their best to run the hillbilly in the pick-up behind them off the road using their distracting feminine wiles. Thigh and panty is flashed in escalating one-upsmanship, but the delighted redneck somehow manages to right his rickety truck at the last second every time.

This high-speed game of pervy chicken comes to an abrupt end when one of the more buxom blonde cheerleaders takes the nuclear option, popping her top and mushing her ample teenage sweater-puppies up against the bus's back window. The 'billy can take no more, and so he crashes, headlong, into a roadside fruit stand. Apples and chicken feathers fly everywhere.

This lusty-busty froth does not last long, however. Minutes later, the bus is stopped by a police officer. When the driver gets off to find out what's wrong, he's conked on the head and dragged into the bushes, never to be seen from again. The drawling faux-cop, a criminal-in-disguise named Wayne (Flesh Gordon himself, Jason Williams, who also co-wrote the screenplay) and a thick-necked tough guy named George (Anthony Lewis) commandeer the vehicle, assuring the girls that all will, eventually, be well. They drive all night in silence, and finally stop at a seemingly abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere. The cheerleaders are threatened with dogs and guns and forced off the bus. They're corralled into the cabin and told to sit quietly on the floor. And then one of the thugs gives their busty nurse/chaperone Frankie (Courtney Sands) a gun. She flashes an evil grin and takes it.

What?

Turns out, she's a member of the National American Army of Freedom, as are the other dudes. Apparently Mr. Werner was fascinated with the Patty Heart saga, and thought, what's better than kidnapping one pretty debutante? Well, how about a whole bus full of fuckin' cheerleaders, man?

Although most of them aren't given much to do, this hodge-podge of cheer-crews (there's a gum-snapping inner-city squad, uppity private school girls, and a third team of apple-cheeked suburban blondes) is rife with genre vets. Head cheerleader Debbie is essayed by the amazing Kristine DeBell, who should be instantly recognizable to genre fans from her roles in Meatballs in the X-rated Alice in Wonderland. Look close and you'll also spot Ann Wharton from Last Resort and Up in Smoke, Shell Kepler (RIP) from Homework, Elizabeth Halsey from loony erotic-musical Cinderella (1977), Leslie King from Gas Pump Girls, the amazing Marilyn Joi (The Student Teachers, Coffy, Blazing Stewardesses, Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Shieks), Janet Blythe (Eaten Alive, Hills Have Eyes), Janie Squire (Piranha) etc. It may be the greatest gang-pile of T&A actresses ever.

A plot eventually begins to unravel. The three revolutionaries - plus Wayne's semi-retarded brother Billy (Robert Houston, not the prolific X-director) - want $2 million for the safe return of the girls. They issue their demands to a smooth-talking FM radio DJ, Joyful Jerome (Leon Isaac), and then spend the majority of the film fiddling with the cheerleaders. Bored and horny, George stages a beauty contest.

The winner gets to make a phone call. Although the girls are at first coy and embarrassed about the situation, it quickly escalates into a topless free-for-all. Shortly thereafter, Frankie plucks one of the girls from the line-up and soaps her up in the bathtub.

Meanwhile, Debbie finds herself caught in the grips of Stockholm Syndrome, playfully flirting with Wayne, who is also smitten with his perky young hostage. Still, he leaves the man-handling and girl-watching to his crew. It should be mentioned that after the girls' initial shock and horror, the threat of violence and/or rape vanishes almost immediately, and the film's tone is almost always light and airy. Sure, they've been kidnapped, threatened, forced to strip nude and nuzzled by lesbian nurses and halfwit creeps, but the cheerleaders usually appear to be having a fantastic time. This is pretty unique for a 70's exploitation film. Most girl-napping movies from the era wallowed in sadism and sexual abuse, but this is more of a lusty romp than a roughie.

Wayne has constructed an intricate, Die Hard-esque bait and switch scheme to get the ransom loot and outmaneuver the cops. While he instructs Joyful Jerome to ping pong from one scene to another with the paper bag full of dough, the girls creep around the cabin, slowly connecting the pieces to their Scooby Doo escape attempt. Will good-bad guy Wayne get away with the money, and with Deb? Will the cheerleaders thwart the kidnappers and win the day? Well, you'll have to watch to find out, but I will say this much: it does involve a rigorous bout of girl-on-girl wrestling.

Despite the film's abrupt turn into crime drama, Cheerleaders Wild Weekend is still a certified genre classic, a crowd-pleasing, kitchen-sink exploiter that knows exactly what the audience wants and gives it to 'em in fleshly fistfuls. If you're being especially intellectually generous, you could call this one 'politically charged', but aside from the gang's surface revolution-now trappings, it never really explores the notion of the kidnappers as political extremists. They appear to just be using the guise of revolution as an excuse to extort money from panicked parents. There are a few murky flashbacks along the way that suggest some sort of ex-jock revenge scheme as well, but again, not really what this movie is about. This movie, quite simply, is about 70's tits. And therefore, it is awesome.

PS: Kristine DeBell, please come back. Thank you.

Availability: Cheerleaders Wild Weekend is available on VHS.


- Ken McIntyre

Evil Toons (1992)

Directed by Fred Olen Ray
Starring Monique Gabrielle, Barbara Dare, Madison, David Carradine
Rated R
USA

"You little bitch! I'll get you in the sequel for this!"

Any Fred Olen Ray film offers up a good amount of what-the-fuck, but Evil Toons seriously pours the weirdness on. It's possible that Mr. Ray was inspired by the then-startling cartoon-human interaction in Who Killed Roger Rabbit? (1988), and decided he could do pretty much the same job - and with way more tits - for peanuts. Of course, he could not, and the result is so laughable, so piss-poor in design and execution, that you really do question your sanity - or Ray's - when you first see the evil toon in question. I don't know how or why it happened, but the animated ghoulie was designed by none other than Chas Balun, the beloved, weird-bearded hippy horror-journalist responsible for seminal 80's splatter movie guide Gore Score and the influential horror-mag Deep Red. That's just the first of many cult-figure appearances here, but it's definitely the most left-field addition to this motley crew. I don't know much about Balun's artistic background, but one thing is for sure: you probably drew a better monster on the cover of your notebook in seventh grade.

So, forget the monster. It's barely in the film anyway. The real draw here is the crazy cast: Kung Fu's David Carradine, long before his Tarantino resurrection, Laugh In's own Tyrone F Hornheigh himself, Arte Johnson, Corman's go-to bit actor, Dick Miller, scrumptious scream queen Michelle Bauer, Penthouse Pet and 80's b-queen Monique Gabrielle, and two of the 90's bigger porn starlets, Barbara Dare and Madison, are all on deck for this goofy haunted house romp. With a cast like that, you hardly need a story. Which is good, because you hardly get one.


In the typically senseless prologue, the awesomely named Gideon Fisk (Carradine) receives helpful advice from Evil Dead-esque monster-faced book and then walks into a stately mansion and promptly hangs himself. Fast-forward several hundred years.

Sleazeball Burt (Miller) runs a cleaning service staffed by four floozies (well, three floozies and a nerd-girl), and snags a pearly gig spiffing up the long-abandoned mansion where Fisk offed himself. In one of the worst day labor deals I've ever heard, Burt drops the girls off on a Friday afternoon. They're instructed to clean the house - and live in it while they're doing so - and when he returns on Monday morning, he'll pay them all $100 each.

Roxanne (Madison) is the gum-snapping wiseacre. Megan (Gabrielle), is the four-eyed geek. Jan (Dare) is the bossy leader of the group, and Terry (Suzanne Ager) is the...other blonde one, I guess. Besides Megan, who dresses in sweatpants and oversized shirts, the girls report for duty wearing halter-tops and cut-off shorts.

They load up on essentials (Wonder Bread and Budweiser), and head into the spooky house for long their weekend of sweeping, dusting, and demon-slaying. Mr. Hinchlow (Johnson) the creepy next-door neighbor, shows up to get the this-house-is-cursed ball rolling ("I just wanted to see your faces, in case I have to identify your bodies for the cops later," he tells them), and after he splits, the girls head down to the basement to start cleaning.

Maybe they're miffed about the low wages, but it should be noted that the girls never actually do any cleaning. They do snoop a lot, though, and when they're down in the basement, they find a ceremonial dagger. This seems like a satisfying enough turn of events for them, so they quit work early and go upstairs to dance.

Well, Roxanne dances, at least, eventually doffing her top and showing the girls her not-so-subtle powers of seduction. She attempts to get mousy Megan to join in the fun, but Meg flips out and runs upstairs, wherein she strips and fondles herself in the mirror for awhile.

While Meg self-explores upstairs, the other girls are visited by Carradine, who hands them the skin-mask book. They cannot read it, but seem to enjoy the ridiculously adolescent demon-sex drawings. When Megan finally comes downstairs, they show her the book, and being the intellectual of the bunch, she's able to decipher the weird writing. Turns out it's one of those 'invocation of demonic evil' type tomes, but Meg figures this out too late, and after everyone else has gone to sleep, Roxanne not only unleashes a cartoon demon, but gets raped and then possessed by it.

If this film is remembered for anything, it's for Madison's lingerie modeling display right before she's confronted by the wolf-monster cartoon thing. You may have heard about it at some point. Well, I am happy to confirm that it is, indeed, as fucking awesome as you imagine.

Right, so Roxanne is possessed, and she spends the next hour or so chasing the girls around the house with an axe. Amazingly, though, the girls still find the time to pose topless every ten or so minutes.

Various slasher movie hiijinks ensue and then the girls call up Mr. Hinchlow, who, thankfully, knows exactly how to combat cartoon evil.

The everybody-wins climax is so sugary that is could put you into diabetic shock, but how could Ray finish this delirious mess, really, except in a puff of smoke and a retarded happy ending that neatly erases everything that happened before? I suppose you could cite the Wizard of Oz as an inspiration for the what-the-fuck finale. Why not?

Evil Toons was made relatively early in Fred Olen Ray's long and winding career in bimbosploitation, and you can feel the heat of his momentum here. The VHS market was blazing away, Ray finally had the budget to snag well-known actors (if only for a day), and the porn star crossover assured him maximum skin for minimum effort. He was clearly firing on all cylinders at this point, and along with a few other seminal titles like Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988) and Bikini Drive-in (1995), Evil Toons is a mandatory watch for potential and confirmed F.O.R. fans. It's not as (intentionally) funny as some of his other films, but it's delightfully loony, and many boners will surely be popped.

Interestingly, this was the only non-sex appearance for both Barbara Dare and Madison. A bit of shame, really, since both of them show considerable acting potential. Ok, so neither of them were destined for Oscars, but surely, scream queendom was easily within their grasp. Considering Olen Ray's frugality, I imagine porn was just more lucrative. It appears that Arte Johnson enjoyed slumming it with B-movie auteur, because he also shot the oddly titled Munchies sequel 'Munchie' with Jim Wynorski in 1992. Then again, maybe he just had a boner for Monique Gabrielle, since she co-starred with him in that deathless epic. All four girls seem to have finally sputtered out at this point, but they leave long and boner-popping resumes full of juicy B, Z, and XXX films behind them. And Fred, well, odds are you'll quit whatever it is you do long before Fred ever stops making trashy movies.

Availability: Evil Toons is available on DVD.

Clip: Evil Toons trailer!

- Ken McIntyre