Teenage Exorcist (1991)

Directed by Grant Austin Waldman
Starring Brinke Stevens, Eddie Deezen, Robert Quarry
Unrated

"Look deep into my eyes. What do you see?"
"Too much mascara?"

The first thing we probably need to address here is that there aren't actually any teenagers in this film, exorcist or otherwise. Initially, the pivotal role of the spazzy pizza boy was written for a teenage girl, but those plans were scrapped along the way, and the role went to rubber-faced doofus Eddie Deezen. This last-minute shake-up rendered the film's title useless, but the posters were already printed, so what the hell.

Teenage Exorcist was one of the few screenplays written by still in-demand 80's scream-queen Brinke Stevens. Stevens also stars in the film as nerdy, uptight grad student Diane, who rents a creaky old mansion (producer Fred Olen Ray's house, a frequent location for many of his films) from creepy Michael Berryman for $50.

Naturally, the house is haunted, in this case by the spirit of the former owner, one Baron DesSade (!). As such, as soon as Diane starts snooping around the joint, scary stuff happens. There's a snake in her closet! Or is there?  And then an invisible man squeezes the milk!

And then she eats bloody lettuce! Diane survives these initial ghostly assaults, but calls her sister Sally (Elena Sahagun, who does actually look like she could be Stevens' biological sibling) and begs her to come over and keep the frightened college girl company. And the lights go out, so she goes downstairs to the basement to hit the circuit breaker. When she gets down there, she sees Satan lurking by the furnace.

And then her sister and her dopey husband Mike (Jay Richardson, Bikini Chain Gang) drop by to check on her, and she has somehow transformed into a lingerie-clad, man-eating vixen.

Sally assumes Diane's blood sugar is off, and offers to make some guacamole, which seems a little random. Diane uses the opportunity to hit on Mike, but he manages to wriggle out of her silky web of seduction. Then Diane grabs a chainsaw and chases her sister around with it.

And then Sally goes to take a shower and Satan scrubs her back.

Eventually, Sally and Mike figure out what's happening. They call a priest (Robert Quarry), but he accidentally turns Diane into a dog. And then she goes down to the cellar and transforms into a leather-clad dominatrix. Unsure of how to proceed, the priest calls the monsignor, but accidentally calls a pizza place instead. Dopey pizza boy Eddie (Deezen) shows up with $50 worth of pies, and they dupe him into fighting the demon.

She takes him downstairs and introduces him to Satan, They seem to get along ok. But Satan wants to sacrifice Eddie so that he can live forever, and he bashes pizza boy on the skull. Long story short, Diane ends up having slipper-sex with him, so he is useless for a virgin sacrifice. Satan decides to go with Mike instead, even though he's not a virgin. Might as well. A not-so-epic battle between good and evil - complete with a handful of zombies - ensues.

True, Teenage Exorcist lacks a plot, has no production values, and appears to have been thrown together in one afternoon. But it also boasts a very likeable cast, moves along with speedfreak abandon, and features a fully-ripe Brinke Stevens in revealing clothing for nearly all of it's running time. If you've seen any of Fred Olen Ray's other films - Evil Toons, Star Slammer, Bikini Drive-in, etc - than you know exactly what to expect here. Mindless 80's VHS-style trash, perfect for a lazy afternoon of poppin' boners and cheap laughs.

- Ken McIntyre

Cheerleader Massacre (2003)

Directed by Jim Wynorski
Starring Charity Rahmer, Tamie Sheffield, Summer Williams, Lunk Johnson
Rated R
USA
“This pep squad has nothing to cheer about!”

Mcpherson (John Colton) is a ruthless, serial killing beast of a man running loose in the ‘woods up north’. Bodies are piling up in the campgrounds and the sheriff is on the hunt. Meanwhile, a group of jiggly 29-32 year old high school cheerleaders are getting picked off, Slumber Party Massacre style, in their own locker room. And if that’s not bad enough, they are headed - you guessed it -up North.

But first, an ass-first shower scene to get the juices flowing.

Written by longtime Wynorski cohort Lenny “Lunk Johnson” Juliano - AKA annoying reality show host/perv Cliff Probate from Bare Naked Survivor - and littered with Wynorski’s usual gang of booby girls, Cheerleader Massacre is theoretically the fourth film in the Slumber Party Massacre series. Hence, the SPM poster redux, and the opening locker room kill scene, which pays homage to Brinke Stevens’ similar demise in the 1982 original. Stevens even returns as her original character in a brief, witless cameo. However, there is no slumber party. You’d think that would be the first plot point you’d write in. Perhaps that’s why the title changed midstream from “Slumber Party Massacre IV” to “Cheerleader Massacre”. Of course, that title is a little misleading as well. The main characters are, theoretically, cheerleaders, but they don’t have uniforms, and they never actually perform any cheers.

But, you know, let’s not get bogged down in ephemera.

Detective Demarco (caustic Lusty Busty Babe-a-Que host Melissa Brasselle) peers at a Fresno map (fun fact: Cheerleader Massacre was actually shot in Alaska) and promises the chief that she’ll get her man by the end of the day. Meanwhile, busty hiker Debbie (Nikki Fritz, Bikini Drive-in, Evil Toons), still rocking an ‘87 era Walkman as she strolls the woods, gets a frantic phone call from her mother about the killer in her midst. Mom wants her to hoof it home the short way - via the rickety rope bridge. Against her better judgment, top-heavy Fritz does exactly that, but is undone by McPherson, who cuts the rope and sends her sailing to her death on the rocks below. This effect appears to have been achieved by tossing the camera off the bridge.
Buzzy (Juliano) has foolishly agreed to drive the cheerleader squad to their game up north. Clearly, his intentions are carnal - he figures if her plays this right, he can score with the fetching Coach Hendricks (knockout Tamie Sheffield, who is not only a former cheerleader, but attended Fresno State University - clearly, she was born for this role).

Unfortunately, his boner parry is put on hold when the van is stopped at a highway roadblock.. Seems there was a nasty accident, so he’ll have to find an alternate route. Luckily, he knows a shortcut - right through the woods, naturally.

There is a lot of police procedural bullshit in this movie. You should probably know that up front. Half of the movie is dudes in rented cop uniforms getting in and out of their cars. This is a shame, because there’s a whole van full of superhot girls (Charity Rahmer, April Flowers, Erin Byron, Summer Williams) who could be taking showers or lez-zing out, instead.
Speaking of which said van runs out of gas before the crew reaches the highway, forcing them to brave the cold and snow (Is Fresno in the arctic part of California?) on foot.

One of the rangers figures out that the murders at the high school and in the woods are all related. Basically, Mcpherson is responsible for every murder in California, including several of the cops who are chasing him around in the woods. He even steals a cop car. Holy smokes.

The ranger heads over to see Linda (Brinke Stevens), Mcpherson’s first victim from Slumber Party Massacre. She clearly died in that movie, but whatever. At least it affords us an opportunity to watch a five minute clip of the first film. Ah, remember production values? After the flashback, the ranger splits. Did we learn anything? No. Well, we learned that Brinke Stevens is pretty far away from her shower scenes days at this point. That’s about it.

Rahmer, Flowers: "So, we can't find a phone...but we did find some board games!"

So, the cheerleaders stumble upon sheriff Monty’s cabin. Monty is the one who caught Mcpherson in the first movie. He’s not the same actor, though. Neither is Mcpherson. Anyway, he’s not home when they get there, so they guzzle his booze and play Scrabble.

46 minutes in, Wynorski awards you for your patience with a glorious Tami Sheffield shower scene. It’s as if he knew that you were about to shut this drivel off to surf Tube 8. Jim Wynorski knows what he’s doing, man.

Slasher movie hijinks ensue. Former porn starlet Flowers has a pretty good sex scene and then a headless guy knocks on the door, prompting the girls to find whatever weapons they can and prepare for a battle to the death with the crazed killer from 1982.

You know the rest, right? No need to belabor the obvious. There’s a goofy twist and the inevitable sequel set-up.

Cheerleader Massacre is a slapdash slasher with no gore to speak of, bizarre seasonal changes from one scene to the next, no real connection to the films it’s supposed to be following up, and a look that suggests consumer grade camcorder. In other words, just another lost weekend in the wild, wild world of Jim Wynorski. Trash fiends will dig its junky flavors, Fritz's prat-falling, and Sheffield's breathtaking rack. Anyone expecting anything featured in the poster, however - chainsaws or cheerleaders or an actual massacre - are in for a disappointment. You’ll get over it, though.

Clip: Cheerleader Massacre trailer!

- Ken McIntyre

PS: Late breaking news: Cheerleader Massacre 2 will be out soon! And it's X-rated!

Repligator (2000)

Directed by Bret McCormick
Starring Brinke Stevens, Gunnar Hansen
Unrated
USA

In some top secret warehouse/military complex, a bunch of bumbling officers with names like General Mills and Colonel Sanders team up with some crackpot scientists for a series of Nazis on acid genetic experiments. The Replicator doesn't actually replicate anything, but it does transmit matter from one place to another, you know, like in the Fly. And just like in the Fly, it doesn't work right. So, instead of sending a soldier through a wall, it turns him into a hot chick. And when said hot chick gets horny, she turns into an alligator. Only the alligator in question has a dinosaur head. And when someone gets bitten by the alligator/dinosaur girl, they turn into gay zombies.

I don't believe for a second that a script was involved in the production of this movie, as the plot twists and turns at every corner, with the sleazy scientist and barking military man coming up with increasingly absurd explanations for the mayhem as they go along. It does, however, have plenty of topless chicks, including Brinke Stevens and her age-defying puppies for 2 minutes or so, and somehow or another, tits make even the most ridiculous movies all fuckin' right.

Repligator is a fun, nonsensical throwback to the goofy trashfilm "Urban Classics" howlers like Galactic Gigolo and Assault of the Killer Bimbos - mindless, horny, kitchen sink comedies destined to fry stoned teenage minds on the USA network for years to come. As an added bonus, Leatherface himself, Gunnar Hansen, embarrasses himself but good as "Dr. Kildare", inventor of the X-Ray spex, among other, less useful things.

Umm, note: the VHS copy I had disintegrated when I tried to digitize it, so no screen grabs. However, here is a totally fuckin' hot early pic of Brinke that I've been saving for a rainy/screen grab-less day.


- Ken McIntyre

Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

Directed by Amy Holden Jones
Starring Robin Rochelle, Brinke Stevens, Jennifer Meyers
Rated R
USA

"You know, I think your tits are getting bigger."

When Slumber Party Massacre was released in 1982, it garnered a goodly amount of ink for being the first "Feminist" slasher movie. The assumption was, since it was written and directed by two women, the film would have a pro-femme slant, a rarity in the largely misogynist world of teen-kill flicks. Well, maybe. Certainly, the overtly phallic murder weapon would suggest a little more self-awareness than usual, but if there's a feminist subtext in this goofy mess, it's pretty well-hidden. Girls get naked and die here, same as it ever was.

One thing I'll say for it - Slumber Party Massacre knows how to be economical in its narrative. For example, it opens at dawn, with a kid delivering newspapers. He tosses one onto someone's frontyard and the camera zooms in on the paper's headline: "Mass Murderer of 5 Russ Thorn Escapes." Blam. There's your fuckin' story, pal. It also lets us know early on that, despite the assertion that this is a sly slasher send-up, it still plans on following the rules. And so, we get our first topless girl at the two-minute mark.

After Trish (Michelle Michaels) is done showing us her boobs, she gets dressed and sees her parents off. They're going on vacation for a few days, leaving Trish to fend for herself. Mom informs Trish that nextdoor neighbor, Mr. Contant (Rigg Kennedy) will be around to keep an eye on her.

As her parents drive off, Trish tosses a bag of belongings into the trash, childhood trinkets like her old Barbie doll. She's just turned 18, and naturally thinks she's over kid's stuff like dolls. As she walks off to school, a hand digs into the trash, and snatches up the doll. This seems significant, but it's not, really.

Cut to: high school. Goofball Jeff (David Millbern) hits on Mary (Jean Vargas), a pretty telephone repair lady. He gets rebuffed, and as he's walking away, she opens up the sliding door of her work van. Someone inside the van grabs her, pulls her in, and slams the door shut. The unseen assailant pulls out an oversized drill, and jams it through her skull.

Cut to: girls' gym class, which quickly follows with a shower scene, complete with ample nudity, including a lingering shot of Brinke Stevens' impossibly tight rear-end.

Over the course of the steamy showers and catty chit-chat, a plan for the evening develops. Given that she's got a parentless house for the weekend, Trish is going to throw a slumber party with her snotty clique of girls. She may also ask Valerie (Robin Rochelle, RIP), the resident gitl-who-nobody-likes-for-no-good-reason, as well. Why not?

"She drinks too much milk," grouses Diane.
"Maybe you just have to get to know her," offers Trish.
"I hate people I have to get to know," hisses Diane.

The kids all head off for her home, blissfully unaware that there's a killer in their midst. Mary's body lies in the school dumpster, and the driller killer is still sitting in her van, waiting for his next victim. He does not have to wait for long.

Studious Linda (Brinke Stevens) forgot one her schoolbooks in her locker, and she heads back to retrieve it. Her gym teacher, Coach Rachel (Pamela Roylance) warns her that the doors are about to chained up for the night, and Linda soon finds herself locked in the school. Naturally, she's not alone.

While Linda is out getting snuffed and the gym teacher is busy getting a new peephole drilled into her front door, Trish is at home, banging on the piano, waiting for her party to start. She hears a noise outside her door and creeps over to investigate, but is startled when a hand grabs her from behind. She whirls around to find that it's just ol' Hawaiian-shirted goofball Mr. Contant, checking up on her. He apologizes for spooking her and offers to stay there with her until her friends arrive. Alright, so he's clearly not the denim-demon driller killer, but this fucker is up to something, that's for sure.

Meanwhile next door, Valerie wears Sergio Valente jeans and makes a pitcher of Kool Aid with her little sister, Courtney (Jennifer Meyers). So, that's happening. The party is on at this point.

So far, it's just three chicks smoking weed and talkin' about penises. Then the girls strip off their clothes and slip into something more comfortable, which is nice.

Unfortunately, that's the last significant event for many grueling minutes. False scares abound: Diane runs into Mr. Contant, Valerie's sister 'playfully' stalks her with a knife, and the guys come over to Trish's and yank out electrical fuses, throwing them into darkness. Later on, Diane's boyfriend shows up, and she agrees to make out with him in Trish's garage. He actually gets one of his mitts on her meaty right breast, so we get to see that, at least. But then the driller killer rips his fuckin' head off.

By the way, there's never any question that all the killing are being committed by Russ Thorn (Michael Villella), so all the red herrings along the way are pretty useless. Mr. Contant, for example, only exists to arouse suspicion in viewers, and yet we know he's not the killer, because we've already seen the killer half a dozen times. So why bother?

Anyway, in of the most iconic shots in horror history, Thorn next sets his sights on Diane. She crumples to the floor and cowers in the corner. The killer stands over her, his oversized weapon/penis substitute dangling menacingly from between his legs. Feminism!

And then the pizza guy shows up - with both his eyes drilled out. The guys try to run for help. One of 'em starts banging away at Valerie's door, but she's too involved in a scary movie to notice. So, that dude got massacred. The girls, meanwhile, get hungry, so they eat the dead pizza guy's pizza. Why not?

While they're chowing away, their boyfriends are outside getting sliced and diced. Jackie, the gregarious black chick (Andree Honore), pokes her head out the door to see what's happening, and she gets a drill to the jugular for her efforts. In another classic shot, Valerie and Courtney show up at the house to see what's going on. Courtney suggests they raid the fridge for beer, and when she opens it, one of the dead girls flops out.

Mr. Thorn wanders around the house, dragging all the bodies down to the basement. Then, his grisly work finished, he grabs a blanket and takes a nap on the living room floor. Coach Rachel shows up and wakes our slumbering serial killer so that she might fight him with a poker. Valerie, meanwhile, is zooming up the basement stairs, wielding a circular saw. But will the electric cord be long enough? Or should she just pluck that inconspicuous machete from the wall and hack the fucker into little bits?

In conclusion: top notch cinematography, pretty girls, generous lashings of slasher gore, and an often witty script still cannot make up for the meandering script. Also, we never get any sort of back-story or motivation for the killer. Ok, I get the power drill, but why the tight denim and the cowboy boots? And what's your problem anyway, Mr Thorn? What's with all the lady killin'?

You would imagine these questions would be answered in the sequels, but sadly, they are not. Worth it for the pervasive 80's atmosphere, some very nice photography, and a naked Brinke Stevens in her prime, but not the classic slasher you might expect.

Director Jones went on to make Maid to Order (1987), a clunky fish-out-of-water comedy starring Ally Sheedy. Then she wrote a bunch of dog movies. Cinematographer Steve Posey shot a lot of 80's sleaze, including Savage Streets (1984), Hellhole (1985), American Drive-in (1985) and Welcome to 18 (1986), and then spent the next decade directing genre TV, including episodes of Buffy and Deep Space Nine.

Clip: Slumber Party Massacre trailer.

Availability: Slumber Party Massacre is available on DVD.

- Ken McIntyre

Nightmare Sisters (1987)

Directed by David DeCoteau
Starring Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, Michelle Bauer
Rated R
USA

"You guys queerin' off down there?"

Nightmare Sisters is the 80's equivalent of Universal's last-gasp 40's monster mash-ups, when ideas were running so thin they'd just throw Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman into the same film and let them mindlessly duke it out. In this case, our monsters are much comelier, but the intent is the same. Brinke Stevens, Linnea Quigley, and Michelle Bauer were the reigning scream queens of 80's era B-horror, and if you liked watching one of them in a movie, well, perhaps your head would just fuckin' fall off if you had all three of them jammed together - naked in a bathtub, no less. It's not the worst idea David DeCoteau has ever had, but then again, we are talking about the man that brought us Voodoo Academy (2000) and Leeches! (2003), so adjust your expectations accordingly.

In comparison to some of DeCoteau's other notable films of the era, like Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl O Rama (1988) and Dr. Alien (1989), Nightmare Sisters is cheaper, grubbier, and uglier than usual, with hastily pasted-together sets, a hap-hazard script, and clothes dredged up from the dusty corners of the actresses' own closets . This is mostly the result of its Corman-esque origins: Nightmare Sisters was shot in four days, for the measly sum of $40,000, using whatever was left of the cast, crew and film stock from Sorority Babes.
The payoff of the film - the ugly nerd girls are actually gorgeous - requires that you slosh around a z-movie dead zone for nearly an hour, watching Michelle Bauer frump around in a "fat suit" (sweat pants, a headband, cotton balls in her cheeks) and Linnea Quigley chatter nervously through dimestore buck teeth. Sure, the girls all act their hearts out, but without anything else going for it, it starts to strike you that it may not be worth it to sit through the tedious set-up just to see the triple-threat of scream queens naked when, even in 1987, there were dozens of other places to see their ripe, bare flesh, without wasting an hour first.

Ah, but maybe I'm being too hard on the film. Let's poke around a little, see what we've got to work with.

A woman named Amanda (Sandy Brooke, Star Slammer) visits an oddball fortuneteller named Omar (Dukey Flyswatter). She spins him a spooky tale about her missing husband, Clinton. The story goes that Clinton went away on business and never came back. After some digging, she found out he was last seen at a hotel with a mystery woman. He never checked out, and when they searched his room, all they found was a pile of ashes - and his wristwatch - in the bed. The trail went cold from there.

Omar channels Clint via his crystal ball, and Amanda finds out that he did, in fact, pick up a strange floozy, take her back to the hotel, and have sex with her. But then something horrible happened, which included, but was not limited to, penis dismemberment.
And then the foul spirit reaches right through the crystal ball, grabs Omar's head, tears it off, and taunts Amanda with it.

Roll credits.

So, there's three unlikely sorority sisters, Melody (Linnea Quigley), Marci (Brinke Stevens), and Mickey (Michelle Bauer). They are not popular girls. Melody has buck-teeth, Marci's pack-rat nerd, and Mickey is fat. Well, you can tell she's supposed to be fat, but clearly isn't. She wears oversized sweats, at any rate. When we meet our homely heroines, Marci has just come back from a yard sale, where she's picked up, among other treasures, a monkey head carved out of a coconut, an upside-down skull goblet, and a crystal ball. The last item, it turns out, was once owned by a medium. He's dead now. Mysterious circumstances.

The rest of the sorority girls are gone for the weekend, so the nerdy trio decide to throw a party. Melody recently had a disastrous date with a shy fratboy named Kevin (Richard Gabai). Since she's the only one who knows any boys at all, she tells her friends she'll call him and demand he come over with his two of his buddies.

Kevin agrees and then talks his two geeky pals Freddy (Marcus Vaughter) and Dwayne (William Dristas) into going. After tangling with their alpha-male frat brothers, the fellas make it over the girls' house for the awkward get-together.

Kevin and Melody play the piano and sing together, very badly. Marci bores Dwayne into a stupor with her family photo album. Freddy and Mickey just shovel junk food into their maws. After everyone gets to know one another a bit, they settle in for a sexy game of Twister in the backyard. It ends when Mickey lands on top of everybody, squishing them. So that was over quick. Scrambling for ideas to keep the party going, Marci suggests a séance. Everybody agrees, so she whips out her crystal ball and her copy of "The Compleat Witch", and before you know it, Omar pops up inside the ball, telling the girls they're in grave danger unless they grab the crystal with both hands. They do, and suddenly the room fills with smoke and flashing lights. When the dust clears, the nerdy college girls have been transformed into gorgeous topless supervixens.

The boys are, naturally, confused, but since they have penises, they roll with it. The girls lead them into the kitchen where they all share some peach pie. I'm not speaking metaphorically, they really do eat pie. But they do it sexily! And then they suggest everybody go upstairs to take a bath.

The fellas decline, even after Marci suggests that they can "Soap our backsides." What a bunch of maroons. The girls go upstairs and goddamn it, they all fit into the bathtub. They giggle and lather each other up. And then, suddenly, the previous 47 minutes of tedium is completely forgotten.

After their bath, the girls all adopt seductive new personas. Marci becomes a lollipop-licking Lolita in pigtails, Mickey a leather bikini clad jungle girl, and Melody, a slutty punk rocker.

She actually performers a crunchy, Runaways-esque number, "Santa Monica Blvd Boy", an old chestnut from her days in LA punk band The Skirts, while she stomps around the room topless.

Initially, the girls aim to launch their demon-fury on the geeks, but the fratboys kidnap them and toss them in a closet and take their place. She-demons are not historically picky when it comes to victims, so they go ahead and seduce the alpha-males instead.

After the girls are done gulping down the jerks, they turn their attentions back to the geeks, so they wisely call up an exorcist - he was in the Yellow Pages - who manages to bully the demon-spirit out of the girls, but then it manifests itself as one of those 80's cheapo-horror hand-puppets (with a platinum blonde wig), and now they've got a whole new problem to deal with.

Will the boozy old exorcist and the trio of spazzes defeat the demon?


Will Michelle Bauer wake up from this savage dream to find herself fake-fat again? Will Linnea warble her way through another tune?

Only one way to find out, right?

Nightmare Sisters was a huge cult item in the late 80's, mostly because it was so hard to find. The company that originally released it went tits-up, and only a couple thousand VHS copies ended up in circulation. Thanks mostly to the star power of the scream queens and rumors of its lavish nudity, it was on every sleaze-beast's wanted list for many years. I dunno, we weren't that sophisticated back in the 80's, and I do remember thinking it was pretty incredible the first time I saw it. It was released on DVD in 2003, a good dozen or so years after Nigtmare Sisters Mania passed, but what the hell, better late than never. It's a curiosity item, for sure, but it's also much junkier than most of the era's scream queen flicks, of interest mostly for the infamous bathtub scene and the rare Linnea musical performance.

That being said, the 1987 version of myself wants you to know that this movie is "Fucking awesome", and that Haunted Garage also "Fucking rule, man."

Nightmare Sisters is available on DVD.

- Ken McIntyre