Caged Heat (1974)

Directed by Jonathon Demme
Starring Erica Gavin, Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith, Roberta Collins, Juanita Brown
Rated R
USA


"I'm already on double parole!"

Jonathon Demme was one of the many soon-to-be Hollywood moguls who got his start in Roger Corman's dimestore dream factory. Decades before Silence of the Lambs, Manchurian Candidate, Philadelphia, Something Wild, before all of that bullshit, he cut his cinematic teeth on this crowd-pleasing Women in Prison micro-epic.

The story, in keeping with Corman's cheap n' dirty template, is bare-bones: Russ Meyer girl Erica Gavin (Vixen, 1968) is Jackie Wilson, a rich girl with a sleazy boyfriend who gets her caught up in the glamorous world of armed robbery. She gets popped on a caper and, since she won't rat out on her man, gets tossed into a grungy women's prison.

Former 60's horror queen Barbara Steele is Superintendent McQueen, a wheelchair-bound sadist who doles out brutal punishment to satisfy her own twisted cravings.

The inmates are a fleshy grab-bag of exploitation vets, including good girl gone bad Belle (Roberta Collins, Hardbodies,1984; Hardbodies 2, 1986; Death Race 2000, 1975; Vendetta,1986; etc. etc), stunned angel Levelle (Rainbeaux Smith, Swinging Cheerleaders, 1974; Revenge of the Cheerleaders, 1976; Slumber Party '57, 1976; etc.) and queen bee Maggie (Jaunita Brown, Willie Dynamite, 1974; Foxy Brown, also 1974 - she had a busy year!).

Jackie does her best to fit in. At first, things do not go well. She ends up wrestling naked with Maggie in the shower, and, as punishment, both girls are shocked into a stupor by the wacko prison doctor. And so on. You know how it goes in lady jail, man.

Eventually, Maggie and Jackie can bear the beatings, humiliation, and shock therapy no longer, and they make a break for it during outdoor work routine.

They manage to escape in a prison truck and quickly vanish into the ether. Maggie hooks up with her old pal Crazy (Crystin Sinclaire, Hustler Squad, 1976; Eaten Alive, 1977), and the trio knock off a bank - or, more accurately, the rob a couple of Disney-mask wearing bank robbers, when they accidentally show up at the same branch Mickey and Donald are holding up.

The plan is to split the dough and then split up, but Jackie feels pangs of guilt for leaving their cellmates behind, so naturally, the two escaped inmates and the crazy girl named Crazy plan a daring prison break.

An enduring drive-in classic, Caged Heat is a violent, nihilistic 70's action flick that's tempered with tongue-in-cheek melodrama. There are a few misfires along the way -the prison 'talent show' - including Barbara Steele's kicky dance sequence - is like some never-ending anti-comedy purgatory, the soundtrack and camera angles often veer into useless arthouse excess, and it takes a good half-hour to get moving, but c'mon...what other movie gives you vicious girlfight and a tits-out shower scene - at the same time?
A must-see for B-movie buffs, Caged Heat provided the blueprint not only for it's own series of sequels and spin-offs, but also for the dozens of similarly-themed Women in Prison flicks that followed in its wake.

Demme, of course, went on to become a wildly successful Hollywood director. The cast, unfortunately, were not so lucky. Jaunita Brown stopped acting soon after. Caged Heat was also Erica Gavin's last film for 34 years. Rainbeaux Smith - one of the all time greatest 70's B-queens - quit acting in the early 80's, and, tragically, died of Hepatitis in 2002. Roberta Collins left the business in 1986 and died of a drug overdose in 2008. But I'll tell you this much: they were both crackling with life in 1974.



- Ken McIntyre

Savage Sisters (1974)

Directed by Eddie Romero
Starring Cheri Caffaro, Gloria Hendry, John Ashley, Sid Haig
Rated R
Phillipines

"No comment, porkchop."

Still-kicking Fillipino B-movie auteur Eddie Romero cut his teeth by writing, producing, and/or directing dozens of home-grown productions in the 40's and 50's before branching off into the lucrative world of cheapo exploitation in the mid 1960's. His most enduring foray into exploitation is his "Blood" trilogy: Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Brides of Blood (1968), and Beast of Blood (1971), but, aside from some berserk trailers narrated by Brother Theodore, his monsters-in-the-jungle flicks are virtually interchangeable with his women-in-prison flicks (Big Doll House, 1971; Black Mama, White Mama (1973) or his war flicks (The Ravagers, 1965) or, indeed, Savage Sisters, which is all of that mashed together, pretty much.

The war, in this case, is of the guerilla variety. A charismatic (but strangely absent) rebel leader has recruited his beautiful American girlfriend Jo (Professional sourpuss Cheri Caffaro) into his gang of bridge-blowing insurrectionists. Jo and native girl Mai Ling (Rosanna Ortiz) have assembled a crack gang of panicky teenage girls to help them explode the bridge that divides....actually, that part is never really explained. At any rate, they get nabbed by the local policia and tossed in the clink, where they are interrogated by hard-assed secret operative Lynn (blaxploitation vet Gloria Hendry). Eventually, the three "Savage Sisters" band together to kill...well, somebody.

Meanwhile, Romero's go-to leading man John Ashley (RIP) saunters around the island, making dirty deals with whoever's willing, including a full-tilt gonzo Sid Haig, who gulps down huge chunks of scenery as crazed Mexican (!) bandit Malevael, who has his squinty eyes on a missing suitcase stuffed with one million US dollars. Where'd the money come from? Hard to say, but everybody, including the crooked cops, the savage sisters, smooth-talking huckster WP Billingsly (Ashley), a drunken airplane pilot, a wheelchair bound skipper named Peg Leg, and Haig and his not-so-merry men (including Fillipino b-flick vet Victor Diaz, in an eyepatch and too-small pants) are out to get it.

Confusing - but always entertaining - mayhem ensues.

OK, so Savage Sisters makes no sense. But the actual story is incidental to the film's wild, raw energy. In many ways, Savage Sisters is like a two-dollar Filipino Apocalypse Now, or at least Hearts of Darkness, Apoc's blood n' guts making-of documentary. That same anything-goes vibe is present in both films. You get the feeling that all this craziness would probably be happening anyway. It just so happens they had cameras around to film it. Surely, if there really was a million dollars in a suitcase somewhere on the island, and Sid Haig was tanked to the tits on Tequila and weed (which seems quite likely, given his eyeball-bulging performance here) and dressed up in that Sombrero and poncho outfit, he'd recruit a bunch of machete-wielding locals and hack his way through the competition to get it. This, I am sure of. Every one in the film looks, and acts, half-mad, as if they are loaded on painkillers, high on hallucinogenic jungle roots, suffering from mild Malaria, and pondering their miserable fates as garbage-movie makers while baking under a merciless summer sun. On the surface, it's typical mid 70's bottom-of-the-bill drive-in junk. Simmering underneath, though? Bug-fuck madness. It's awe-inspiring stuff.

Cheri Cafarro, who was still riding high as a trash-film cult queen at the time, took three years before making another movie - 1977's Hot to Handle, an unofficial semi-sequel to her Ginger superspy thrillogy. And that was it for her. Exploitation fans the world over still wait patiently for her eventual comeback. As far everyone else, Savage Sisters was merely a lost weekend among many. Sadly, it remains one of Eddie Romero's most obscure films. There was a spotty VHS release in the 80's - the source for the few prints still floating around - and it's never received a DVD release. That's a shame because, while it never achieves - or even grasps for - greatness, Savage Sisters' cult-baiting cast and its loony-tunes verve would surely please hardcore sleaze beasts. They most definitely don't make them like this anymore. There's laws in place now.



- Ken McIntyre


PS: You can watch the whole film on large-screen Youtube HERE!

Down and Out with the Dolls (2003)

Directed by Kurt Voss
Starring Zoe Poledouris, Kinnie Starr, Nicole Barrett, Melody Moore
Unrated
USA

Although not necessary for your enjoyment of this plucky little rock and roll movie, it might help if you remember the early 80's twin no-budget epics Desperate Teenage Lovedolls and Lovedolls Superstar, starring Redd Kross and just about every LA punk without a day-job, because they are quite similar in both spirit and story, being about the rise and eventual demise of an all-girl rock band desperate to make it to the top, or at least the middle, of their local scene. Unlike those seminal shlock-fests, however, Down and Out With the Dolls is actually accomplished, well-written, and full of funny, believable performances from the young cast. Plus, no Redd Kross. Coyote Shivers is a main character, though, and if you squint hard enough, you'll even see former Nymph Inger Lorre, so there's still plenty of LA rock star cameos to go around.

The story takes place in the hip, funky hamlet of Portland, Oregon, which looks a lot like Boston, only rainier, filled with record stores, rock dives, coffee shops, and punk rockers on bicycles. Fauna (Poledouris), a screechy, peroxided Courtney-mighta-been has just been tossed out of her goth-lite band 'the Snogs' by her suddenly gay and probably always insufferably Eurotrash guitarist and boyfriend Paolo (Mikeal Jehanno). Being the reigning rock and roll bitch queen in town, she's quickly recruited by Kali (Barrett), an earnest young rocker grrrl looking to form a new all-chick band, the Paper Dolls. The Dolls are soon rounded out by by fledgling lesbian drummer Reggie (Starr) and curly haired scenester sweetheart Lavender (Moore) on bass. They dig into the dirty work of rock stardom, but tragedy soon strikes when they get tossed out of their rehearsal space because one of them broke the rules and shit in a bucket. With no place to play, the overly optimistic Kali gets the brilliant idea to have them all rent a house together, so they can live and work in harmony. Bad move.

Each of the girls have their own little dramedies to contend with. Reggie has just discovered that she likes kissing girls, and no one's filled her boyfriend in yet. Lavender's been neglecting her record store job and her record store boyfriend for a band with increasingly diminishing returns. Then there's the love triangle. Seems that Kali's main inspiration in music and life is Levi (Shivers), Portland's own slacker-sleaze punk rock legend. She's even written a gushing love song for him, detailing her days as a moon-eyed teen idolizing him from afar, back when they grew up in the same tiny suburb (forget the fact that there's got to be a 15 year age gap between Shivers and Barrett- it's only a movie, baby). Kali dreams of forming a side project with Levi, or to have the Paper Dolls open up for his band, or just to hang out and talk rock with him. Of course, Fauna's fucking him behind Kali's back. She's also fucking the local record label honcho, and just about anybody else she thinks will further her career.

Add an all-inclusive, all-weekend keg party at the Paper Dolls house to this volatile situation, and watch the bittersweet chaos erupt. Hearts are broken, guitars are smashed, Lemmy hides in the closet, and it all ends up with an accidental death and some hard lessons learned. Along the way, though, we're treated to one of the most honest, funniest portrayals of what it's really like to be in a rock and roll band that I've ever seen.  Down and Out with the Dolls is filled with quirky characters (the climactic party is like the Cantina scene in Star Wars, only with slumming rockers instead of aliens), enough monkeywrench sub-plots to fuel half a dozen gossip sections in a local rock fanzine, and a truly bitchin' rock and roll band. Aided greatly by it's use of Portland as a suitably soggy, cozy little rock hide-out, the movie is as poignant and charming as it is loud and trashy. Just like rock and roll, really.



- Ken McIntyre

Battle Girl: Living Dead in Tokyo Bay (1991)

Directed by Kazuo Komizu
Starring Dynamite Kansai, Shinobu Kandori, Katsuhiro Fukudo
Unrated
Japan

"You are...so gross!"

A paper mâché meteor slams into Tokyo Bay, instantly submerging most of Tokyo. That's not the worst of it, though. The dust and debris, combined with the outer space "heavy metals", causes a chemical reaction called "Cosmo-Amphetamine" (!), which reanimates the dead as kill-crazy "Flesh robots". These green-blooded ghouls feast on the living while the military attempts to seal off the area. K-Lo, the daughter of a high-ranking Colonel, slips quietly into the warzone to retrieve the special "Battle Suit" her father stashed for her. Seems that a renegade colonel has set up a mutant "Human Hunters" squad inside Tokyo to massacre every shuffling creature, whether they be still-breathing or undead. It's up to K-Lo, the Battle Girl herself, to make it safely to the survivor camps and bring the still-living back to safety beyond Tokyo's doomed borders. But with zombies, human hunters, and crooked soldiers all gunning for, does Battle Girl have a chance?

Oh, she'll live through it, sure. The viewer? That's a different story.

Battle Girl clearly aims for a Road Warrior/Day of the Dead mash-up with it's post-apoc punks and mad scientist zombie experiments, but it's so cheap and grubby and sluggish that it's actually a lot closer to bottom-shelf 80's VHS gunk like Neon Maniacs or Warriors of the Wasteland. Filled with ugly make-up and laughable special effects and saddled with a muddy, confusing script, Battle Girl is a merciless, sleep-inducing slog. Even at its bare-bones 74 minute running time, it feels like an eternity.

Undiscerning zom-flick completists may want to check this snoozer out, but sleaze-beasts and skin-fans are encouraged to use the hour and fourteen minutes more wisely. Porn, perhaps, or a nice nap.

- Ken McIntyre

Vampire Sisters (2004)

Vampire Sisters
Directed Joe Ripple
Starring Darla Albornoz, Jeanie Jameson, Syn Devil, George Stover 
Unrated
USA

"I feel like a hooker."
"You should. You look like a hooker."

The name Don Dohler oughta strike fear into the hearts of Z movie-watchers everywhere, if the ultra-dismal Fiend (1980) is any indication of what the cat has up his sleeve. If you haven't had the displeasure, you're probably better off- I think that film has the ability to literally bore you to death. Luckily, the Dohler-penned Vampire Sisters- while being about as by-the-numbers, softgore schlocky as ya can get- is still about 666 times more watchable than Fiend, and, if you're in a god enough mood, it may even provide a few ghastly chuckles, or perhaps an equally ghastly boner.

The premise- the whole  plotline, really- is neatly summed up in the film's title. Darla Albornoz, Jeanie Jameson, and busty goth pin-up queen Syn Devil (who I interviewed a few years back) star as the sisters in question, who run a pay-porn website together. Their highest paying customers are privy to special "Bonuses", which means that when they get hungry, they invite said shlubs over to their non-descript suburban home and suck 'em dry. Literally. 'Cuz they're vampires, see?

Although I am confused as to why the guys that are paying the most to see their dirty pictures are the ones that get offed- you think they'd wanna keep those guys around to help pay the rent- the rest of the film is a very linear affair, with dope after dope (a few chicks, too) arriving at the house, getting' teased by the sexy gals, and then getting stalked, slashed, and vamped. Occasionally, there's a hint of wit- when vet Dohler actor George Stover shows up at the girls' house, he brings 'em a box of Stover chocolates- but there's very little in the way of character development, and the only way to distinguish between one girl and the next is exactly the way you do it in porn flicks- hair color and breast size. There's a sub-plot involving a private detective (or undercover reporter, maybe, I couldn't really tell which) who decides to infiltrate the vampish cabal, and there's a monster in the garage, too, but otherwise, it's a standard blood and jiggle-fest.

But, you know, I like blood and jiggling, so this one was alright with me. Don't expect a nightmare of depravity- or hardcore goreporn- but if yer lookin' for a goofy, kinda sexy, old fashioned b-movie, then you just found one.

- Ken McIntyre

The Crush (1993)

Directed by Alan Shapiro
Starring Alicia Silverstone, Amber Benson, Jennifer Rubin
Rated R
USA

"Nick, ever do a virgin?"

An exceptionally silly dollop of stalker-lite starring a radiant, apple-cheeked, pre-Clueless Alicia Silverstone as Adrienne Forrester, a fourteen year old (Silverstone was 17 at the time) child prodigy adept at entomology, horseback riding and piano, but horrible at making friends. When magazine writer Nick Eliot (Cary Elwes, Saw) moves into the family's spare guest house, she quickly develops a crush on him, and their innocent flirting takes an ugly turn into obsession.

Kurtwood Smith (That 70's Show, RoboCop) plays Adrienne's sad-sack dad, who has spent the last decade assembling and restoring an entire carnival carousel in his attic just to amuse his couldn't-care-less daughter. Jennifer Rubin (Bad Dreams) is Amy, Nick's co-worker/love interest, and Amber Benson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is Cheyenne, Adrienne's sorta-friend. Eventually, everyone ends up entangled in smarty-pants Adrienne's web of warped affection.

As in any self-respecting stalker flick, there's a few scenes where the pangs of unrequited love spill over into mayhem and violence - Adrienne scratches "Cock sucker" into the hood of Nick's newly restored vintage convertible and erases the hard drive on his computer, causing him to lose the big story he'd been working on; she sics a nest of wasps after Amy and hobbles Cheyenne during a horserace. Finally, when Nick spurns her advances for the last time, she just has herself beat up, calls the cops, and blames Nick for the assault.

Out on bail, Nick and Cheyenne band together to defeat this beatific-looking monstress. And that's pretty much what happens, although most of the climax is just people yelling each other's names: "Adrienne!" "Cheyenne!" "Dad!" "Nick!"

Filmed with an absurdly light touch by Alan Shapiro - who would go on to helm the '96 Flipper remake - The Crush has all the earmarks of a soapy Lifetime movie (or, going back aways, an ABC Afterschool Special). Sure, our Adrienne is a rampaging, mad-genius psychopath, but she's portrayed by the frothiest actress since Sandra Dee. Alicia Silverstone could pluck out the eyeballs of a bunny rabbit and eat them, and she'd still look adorable doing it. She just cannot radiate menace, which makes The Crush more of an eye-rolling teenage drama about a poor little rich girl than the sexy, nail-biting thriller it was clearly supposed to be. Elwes gingerly walks the fine line between put-upon nice guy and lecherous sleaze, and Smith is great as always in his signature angry-dad role, but ultimately, The Crush is just too cute for it's own good.

- Ken McIntyre

Skyscraper (1996)

Directed by Raymond Martino
Starring Anna Nicole Smith and her ridiculous breasts
Rated R
USA

"Well, excuse me for still believing in Sunday walks in the park and little babies!"

An out-of-shape and constantly befuddled Anna Nicole Smith "stars" as helicopter pilot Carrie Wisk. Carrie's got a pretty plum gig - shuttling millionaires from one rooftop to another in Los Angeles or wherever they are - as well as a swank penthouse apartment, a sex-crazy cop husband, Gordy (TV dude Richard Steinmetz), and a propensity for child-like whining. All of these elements will collide in one fateful afternoon, when Carrie finds herself caught in the middle of a terrorist plot to...assemble several pieces of a briefcase together. Said assembled briefcase will then blow up the planet. I think that's what's supposed to happen. It was difficult to pay much attention.

First, though, Carrie has to go home, mid-morning, to take a shower. And that's what she does. Now, I think everyone - including the director - was expecting the Guess Jeans girl to show up on set.

But the Guess jeans girl was long-gone by 1996, replaced with a dazed, overweight simpleton halfway to oblivion. When she was thin and functional, Anna Nicole's boobs were already oversized, but by '96, her silicone-swollen teats were just humongous. They do not look like movie star tits. They don't even look like Playboy tits. They look like bottom-shelf gonzo porn tits. It is alarming to see porn boobs in a non-porn movie. It makes you feel like you should be watching it in the basement.

So anyway, she takes a long, lingering shower, so that you have ample time to ogle her ample breasts. And then Gordo slips in there with her, and then they continue their gross love-making in the bedroom. As soon as they're finished, Carrie starts whining about wanting a baby, and Gordon makes a hasty exit. You would, too.

Long story short, some terrorists take over a building to put the briefcase together. It's a motley assortment of vaguely foreign dudes - a black guy with a British accent who spouts Shakespeare, a long-haired Frenchman, a long-haired Fabio type guy with tits nearly as big as Anna's, some South Africans, and a German chick who, for whatever reason, happens to be cross-eyed.

Together they seal off all the exits, grab a bunch of hostages, and randomly shoot at things for the next hour or so. It's up to Anna Nicole and a Don Knotts-like security guard to thwart them.

And that's pretty much it. Oh, and mid-film, there's a flashback barnyard sex scene which allows the viewer more Anna Nicole tit-time and also looks suspiciously like an out-take from one her Penthouse videos.

Also, Anna gets raped by one of the dudes, at one point, but then she throws him out the window. In fact, several people get thrown out of the window. There are also a few massive explosions, and a scene where Anna Nicole repels down the side of the building on a cable. The stuntwoman who actually does the rope-work is about 75 pounds lighter than the woman she's doubling for.

Stuff like that goes on throughout the film - you get the feeling that everyone in the cast and crew is working doubly-hard to make up for the fact that the star of the film can't act and is too sluggish to perform anything remotely physical. It's the cinematic equivalent of pitching underhand for the slow kid in Little League.

Promoted as "Die Hard meets Barb Wire", Skyscaper might be one of the most ill-starred films of all time. Without Anna Nicole's bull-in-a-China-shop performance, it would have been merely lousy: a muddy, weirdly cast, flimsily plotted bit of basic-cable weekend fodder. But throw in the palpable ick factor of the doomed, dumbstruck, spaced-out starlet up front, and you've got one seriously queasy cinematic experience. It's not often that you can actually smell the flop sweat radiating off a film, but this one reeks of it.

Brainless and charmless - even for a 90's C-level action flick - Skyscaper probably would have slithered quietly into oblivion were it not for Nicole Smith's reality show notoriety just a few years later. Morbid curiosity will keep it afloat in perpetuity, but trash-flick fans beware: this is bad-bad, not awesome-bad.

- Ken McIntyre

Summer School (1987)

Directed by Carl Reiner
Starring Mark Harmon, Kirstie Alley, Shawnee Smith
Rated PG-13
USA

"Please take your seats."
"Where should we take 'em?"

Laid-back, surf-loving gym teacher named Shoop (Mark Harmon) is all set for a summer vacation in Hawaii with his young blonde girlfriend when he gets asked to teach English to a class of slow-learners who failed to make the grade that year because the teacher who was supposed to take the class (played by Director Carl Reiner) wins the lottery in an opening scene, thereby leaving the position vacant. Shoop is coming up for tenure and is more or less press-ganged into the job.

The class consists of a diverse mixture of underachievers and after a tough first class a deal is struck whereby the students will attend and work in exchange for help with each of their personal problems outside of class. For example, a pregnant single girl named Rhonda played by Shawnee Smith (star of the 'Saw' movies) needs a partner for her birth classes as the possible fathers (including David Lee Roth!) are not around. Meanwhile, laid-back and sexy surfer-chick Pam House, played by Courtney Thorne-Smith (Ally MacBeal, Melrose Place) has a crush on Shoop and wants to move into his home.

Also in the class is pretty Italian exchange student Anna-Maria Mazarelli (Fabiana Udenio, who also starred as Alotta Fagina in Austin Powers). Other noteable characters include a big guy who leaves class to use the lavatory but never returns, and a zany double act consisting of slasher-flick obsessed Francis "Chain Saw" Gremp (played byDean Cameron from Ski School/Ski School 2) and his slacker side-kick Dave Frazier (Gary Riley, who you may recognize from Stand By me).

During the tough first class, a female History Professor, Robin Bishop (played by Kirstie Alley from Cheers, etc) visits the classroom and Shoop falls for her although she does not welcome his advances and it transpires that she is already dating Shoop's nemisis, Assistant Vice-Principal Phil Gills, intensifying the rivalry between Shoop and Gills.

The movie includes sub-plots about each of the student bribes, including a hopeless driving lesson in which Shoop's car gets trashed, a party at Shoop's house which results in fire, and surfer chick Pam arriving on Shoop's doorstep hoping for a place to stay - cue a mis-timed visit by love interest Robin who gets the wrong idea and wrongly assumes that Shoop is having an affair with the student.

To cap it all off, Shoop even ends up in the jailhouse in his roller skates, wrongly accused of purchasing alcohol for minors attempting to help Chainsaw and Dave escape arrest for drinking in public. This provides a stand-out scene is when Chainsaw and Dave show their fake ID to the judge.

Other highlights include a class outing to a petting zoo/theme park, a day at the beach, and an in-class screening of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But when the school administration discover what has been going on, Shoop's days look numbered and a substitute teacher takes over the class. The delinquent class respond by staging their own version of a chainsaw massacre, utilizing novelty gore and horror movie props to great effect!

Shoop and the class realize they have grown close and the kids promise to do their best to pass the exam if Shoop comes back. They study hard and on the day of the exam the student who 'went to the lavatory' returns after being absent for the entire summer, stating "My zipper got stuck." The drama intensifies when pregnant student Rhonda goes into labor during the exam.
The movie skips to the day that the exam results are announced, the students, their parents and Shoop are on campus and it transpires that not all the students have made the grade, despite all making a vast improvement. As a result Assistant Vice Principal Gills wants to fire Shoop. However, the parents of the students come to Mr. Shoop's defense on the basis of the vast improvement of their offsprings' performance. At this point Principal Kelban (Francis X. McCarthy) agrees that this is the most important thing and grants Mr. Shoop tenure. As for the romantic sub-plot between Shoop and Robin? The movie ends with them laying together on the beach together, kissing in the surf.

To sum it all up this is a great movie and one of my favorite of that whole 1980s High School genre. Sure, it isn't the most fashionable, neither is it the zaniest, crudest, or most famous. In fact it is kind of dorky and unlike many other films in the genre (or on this website) there isn't any nudity.

However, with such an impressive line-up of future starlets such as Courtney Thorne-Smith, Fabiana Udenio and Shawnee Smith this makes the grade as a 'movie about girls'. The great casting , characters and various sub-plots keep the pace fast and fun to make this a timeless movie despite the overall predictability and 80s cheesiness. All in all this is a movie which doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't and delivers enough laughs and good vibes to make it a cult classic. To paraphrase Chainsaw and Dave, "it has plucky spirit and character....two thumbs up!".

The Soundtrack is good too and includes the Moviesaboutgirls.com playlisted "Mind Over Matter" by our favorite E.G. Daily, in fact the promo video starring the Summer School cast was an MTV hit at the time.

- Alex Eruptor

Angel of Destruction (1994)

Directed by Dan Golden
Starring Maria Ford, Charlie Spradling, Jessica Mark, Chanda Fayme Rated R
USA

"The broken nose is for the girl - the vasectomy's free."

Topless action flicks are the cinematic equivalent of a late-night Taco Bell run. While they have, in fact, been greedily and happily consumed by just about everyone - and usually during a giddy alcoholic stupor - they are practically never praised in public. Worse still, "erotic thrillers" have none of the cult appeal of similar subgenres. There's dozens of books and hundreds of blogs dedicated to slasher movies, but sexy action flicks? They get no respect, man.

They do, however, have their own kings and queens, and Maria Ford is one of them. Ford's hazy star never shined quite as brightly as her contemporaries - Z-action perennials like Shannon Tweed or Julie Strain - but she may be the most remarkable actress of the bunch. The Morticia eyebrows, the sand dollar sized nipples, the stubborn refusal to register emotion of any kind, it all adds up to one deliciously ridiculous package that's impossible to resist. She is probably most well known for 1995's audacious Stripteaser - another no-budget Roger Corman-produced quickie - but Angel of Destruction is just as over-the-top, and infinitely weirder.

Set in Hawaii, but filmed in the Phillipines - and in some of the grungiest, least Hawaii-esque locations imaginable - Angel of Destruction tells the tawdry tale of Delilah (one-time actress Jessica Mark), a topless cabaret performer/glam-metal singer from Honolulu. With her career on the skids, Delilah launches a racy comeback at a local S&M club, performing her songs wearing heavy metal lingerie and cavorting with her lover/co-conspirator Reena (Chanda Fayme, Emmanuelle, Queen of the Galaxy) on an electric chair prop while smoke bombs go off and scantily-clad locals writhe in a cage behind them. This audacious display attracts the attention of berserk bleach-blonde man-mountain Robert Kell (Jimmy Broome), a sexual predator/mercenary/ex-military man in town to waste a bunch of underworld fat cats who "left his men to die in Angola", whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean.

Kell sends Delilah a finger in the box, which prompts her to seek out a bodyguard, private investigator Brit Alwood (Charlie Spradling, Ski School). She doesn't want to bring her troubles to the cops because she doesn't like the police - as she tells Brit, her dad was a cop, and he raped her. Ouch!

Brit does her best to keep Delilah safe, but then Kell snaps her neck, and that's the end of that. It's a pretty disorienting moment in the film. Isn't Britt the Angel of Destruction? What? She has a sister?

Yep. Brit's step-sister Jo (Maria Ford), an undercover cop, shows up to bury her older sister and exact bloody revenge on the beast who killed her. And also to take over bodyguarding duties for Delilah. And also to do a striptease dressed as cat.

Oh, and to have a house-destroying karate fight with half a dozen mustachioed Filipino dudes while wearing nothing but a thong.

But that's not all. Heavens, no. There's also mob hijinks, a super- slo-mo sex scene with a gay guy (also mustachioed), an extravagant and shameless misuse of spandex and half-shirts, over the top car explosions, and slasher movie psycho bullshit, just to name just a few of Angel of Destruction's singular delights.

The plot is mostly non-existent, the production values grubby and threadbare, and the film's adherence to any functional form of reality is mostly tenuous, but the rewards are so great with this one that all these deficits can easily be overlooked. A heaping, piled-high plate of pure gut-bucket 90's exploitation, this is the sort of deliriously cheeseball 3AM pay cable time-filler that teenage sleaze-beasts dream of, but rarely ever witness. A glittering pearl amongst the tedious muck of artless 90's erotic-thrillers, the undeservedly obscure Angel of Destruction is well-worth the hunt. A minor masterpiece of old-school drive-in trash.

Director Dan Golden has spent most of the past decade working as a DP, shooting softcore for T&A legends like Jim Wynorski and Donald F Glut. The odds are, if you've watched a titty-flick that was made in the past ten years - Countess Dracula's Orgy of Blood, The Witches of Breastwick, Bikini a Go Go, Cheerleader Massacre, etc. etc. - it was our man Dan behind the camera. As for Maria Ford, she's mostly abandoned her exploitation roots as of late, preferring family TV drama like 7th Heaven and kidflicks like Beethoven's Fifth (2003). But if she ever wants wallop some sleazy mustache dudes in a thong again, there will surely be legions of bleary-eyed sleaze-beasts tuning in.

- Ken McIntyre