Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens (1979)

Directed by Russ Meyer
Starring Kitten Natividad, Ann Marie, Sharon Hill, June Mack
Rated X
USA

"I don't eat pussy. It's un-American."

Unless you count 2001's glorified tit-loop Pandora Peaks - and no one does, really - Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens is Russ Meyer's last official film. There are conflicting reports why. Some say Meyer felt that he'd already gone as far as he could go with his sex n' violence epics without tipping over into hardcore territory, something he vowed never to do. While it is true that Ultra Vixens is as close as he ever went to showing full-on penetration, sex scenes were hardly the biggest attraction to Meyer's films. This hitting-the-wall-of-X argument seems a little too convenient, especially since Russ himself announced his next proposed film - The Jaws of Vixen - at the end of this one. He'd also announced a fistful of other film projects around this period of time, as well, including Up the Valley of the Beyond, Blitzen, Vixen, and Harry, Mondo Topless II, and the Breast of Russ Meyer, an often threatened but never produced twelve hour videography/auto-biography. More likely, Meyer just couldn't raise the necessary funds to get any of these films off the ground. Certainly, the market had changed quite a bit at the dawn of the video age, and sexploitation films were being made on a sliver of the average Meyer budget by part-time pornographers like Chuck Vincent and Ed Hansen.

At any rate, this premature end to Russ's filmmaking resume did not do the old boy much harm. He made millions in the 80's and 90's selling his films to the home video market, and this more leisurely lifestyle afforded him the opportunity to spend more time doing what he loved best - banging big-breasted women. But as career finales go, Ultra Vixens is a bit of a letdown, especially in light of his two previous efforts, Supervixens (1975) and Up! (1976). Both of those films were drive-in classics, filled with epically beautiful women, two-fisted macho men, and an extraordinary amount of gratuitous nudity and violence. They also had intricate, metaphor-laden plots. Sure, neither one made much sense, but it was obvious that Meyer had some specific vision in mind when he made them. In contrast, Ultra Vixens seems trite and episodic. Written by frequent Meyer collaborator Roger Ebert, it's a thinly-veiled statement of Meyer's inherent homophobia stretched into 92 minutes of grinding monologues and pointless softcore sex scenes. On the plus side, it's absolutely the best place to see Kitten Nativadid strut her stuff, since she's in nearly every scene, usually naked, and on pneumatic sexual overdrive. It's also the best place to ogle the jaw-dropping Ann Marie (AKA Kathy Ayers), a truly gravity-defying freak of nature/science. Gorgeous and impossible all at once, Ann Marie is worth the price of admission all on her own. It is a pity that her filmic resume amounts to this, a cameo in Supervixens, and the little-seen '76 sexploiter Swinging Sorority Girls, because I could pretty much watch Ann Marie do her thing everyday. Just not in this movie.

Russ's cinematic arch nemesis, elusive ex-Nazi Martin Borman (Henry Rowland, RIP) is alive and well in Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. This time around, he's the owner of a funeral home. As our story opens, we get a glimpse into his particular sexual dysfunction - he likes to cover himself up with a sheet and fuck chicks in coffins. The chick in question is busty blonde radio evangelist Miss Eufala Roop (Ann Marie), who mounts Mr. Borman in his favorite casket after a vigorous game of Pong on her Odyssey console. Hardcore video game nerds will be confused as to what parts to freeze-frame when they furiously masturbate to this scene.

Cut to: The Man from Small Town, USA (long-standing Meyer troupe member Stuart Lancaster, RIP), who introduces all of the film's character's in one of Russ Meyer's most long-winded, tongue twisting monologues. As it is with most of Russ's "Small towns", the population hovers at around a dozen people, at least half of which are oversexed women with painfully inflated chests.

Lamar (Ken Kerr), is our tragic hero. He doesn't want any problems, really. It's late at night, and he's got to do the books. And that's exactly what he's doing, carefully crunching numbers at the kitchen table, using his new-fangled beeping calculator. His bosomy wife Lavonia (Kitten Natividad, acting exactly like an alley cat overdosing on catnip) waits for him in bed, but when he ignores her fully-nude come-ons, she gets positively aggressive, climbing under the table to slobber on his crotch while he works. Lamar can take it no longer. He bends Lavonia over the table and forcibly sodomizes her. That's his thing, you see. Lavonia is not happy about this rear-entry bullshit, so she throws on a mini-dress and takes off into the night, presumably to find a bag of ice to sit down on.

Well, first she stops by the junkyard, where Small Town's "Garbage Czar", Mr. Peterbuilt (Pat Wright, Bikini Car Wash Company) bones her in a more socially acceptable manner. In the front seat of his garbage truck.

The message of this scene, and indeed the whole film, is that Lamar's predilection for butt sex is the source of all his problems. If he could only learn to "fuck straight", as our narrator suggests, everything would be ok. So, let's see if he can be pummeled and girl-raped enough to suit Meyer's heterosexual ideal by the end of this story, shall we?

While lonely Lamar snoozes and Lavonia exercises her vagina, Eufala Roop is busy at the Rio Dio 100,000 Watts AM Christian radio station, practicing what she refers to as 'Radio Healing'. Just put your afflicted body part against the speaker, and she'll fix it right up for you. Seems valid.

The next morning, everything's back to normal. Lamar heads off to work at Junkyard Sal's, while Lavonia goes skinny-dipping and bangs Rhett (Steve Tracey, Class Reunion) a 14 year old kid who was swimming the backstroke in the creek. He was relatively easy to find, since his penis was sticking up above the water like a periscope. Lamar, once again, tries to stay out of trouble, but after a hard day of whatever it is you do at a junkyard, he is called into Sal's office/boudoir to work some overtime. If you know what I mean, and I think you do.

A word, before we continue, about June Mack, AKA Junkyard Sal. Mack was not, by any stretch, one of Meyer's classic beauties. A 250 lb cosmetic surgery addict, Mack was a notorious and well-known figure on the seedier streets of Hollywood, both for her specialty modeling spreads - readily available in grubby mags catering to plus sized women - and for her lucrative phone sex service. Despite her rather braying performance in UltraVixens, Mack was known far and wide for her uncanny ability to bring men to trembling orgasms via the telephone. Her phone sex business was so lucrative that she zipped around town in a purple Rolls Royce, dressed in elaborate dresses and wigs, her 66 Double G bras stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash. Clearly, Miss Mack was a woman who knew how to party, which is probably what attracted Russ Meyer. That and her gigantic tits, I imagine. Sadly, this much larger than life LA fixture - an actual, living, breathing Ultra Vixen - was gunned down in the street in 1984, the victim of multiple murderer William Mentzer, an "occult superstar" tenuously linked to Charlie Manson, the Son of Sam, and the Zodiac Killer.

Umm, sorry to bring everybody down. June Mack, RIP. Now, back to the antics.

Lamar allows Sal to sit on his face - she pretty much swallows it whole - and in exchange, she lets him bang her in the ass. That seems fair to me. However, halfway through his backdoor romp, he is interrupted by his two idiot co-workers, Tyrone (Aram Katcher, RIP) and Badger (Don Scarborough), who were peeping through the window the entire time. Lamar kicks their asses all over the junkyard. Tyrone, being a coward by nature, bleeds yellow. Badger, a jealous and petty man, bleeds green. At least, that's they idea. They really just look like they're spitting up baby food.

Sal's had enough of everybody's hijinks, so she fires the lot of 'em. Good thing Lavonia - after an eventful visit with a traveling lingerie salesman and a "Spanish Made Simple" book - has taken up stripping at a Mexican gentleman's club. Of course, Lamar doesn't know this - yet. But take it from a man who's been fired from every job he's ever had: a strip club and a cold beer is a fine way to dull the sting of sudden dismissal. Lamar heads into bordertown nudie bar The Other Ball to drown his sorrows, only to find Lavonia shaking her ample maracas for the local riff raff. Here's the thing, though - Lamar doesn't recognize her. This is possibly because she's facing him, and he's generally an ass-first sort of guy. Seizing her chance to fix her fucked-up hubby, she slips the dope a Mickey. He immediately passes out, and she drags him into a squalid bedroom upstairs, where she proceeds to tie him to the bed and sleep-bang him, hoping that this will somehow cure him of his anal obsession.

After she's finished with him - and after he's dutifully flooded the old "black sock" - Lavonia shocks him awake with smelling salts. She jabbers away in excited Spanish, convincing the groggy and confused Lamar that he's with another woman, and her angry Mexican husband - and his death squad posse - are due back home any minute now. Miraculously, this bullshit seems to work. Lamar dives out the window and gets out of Dodge.

Unfortunately, by the time Lamar gets home, Lavonia is already fucking Peterbuilt again. Lamar catches them in the act but Lavonia thinks quickly, burning Peterbuilt's balls with a lightbulb and trying to convince Lamar he'd forced himself on her. Even a dimwit like Lamar can see through that, so he drags his wayward wife to see Dr Lavender (Robert Pearson), Small Town's resident marriage counselor/dentist. As his name would imply, the kindly Doc is a flouncing, Rip Taylor-esque caricature of a gay man, complete with a lisp and a cigarette holder.

Lamar explains his problem to the doc. Lavender is sure he can get to the bottom of things, but first he has to clean Lavonia's teeth. This affords his gorgeous assistant, Nurse Flovilla Thatch (Sharon Hill, perhaps best known as the nurse zombie in Dawn of the Dead), the opportunity to give Lamar a thorough check-up.

This turns out to be a bad idea for everybody. Dr Lavender, presumably because he doesn't like girls, intentionally hurts Lavonia when he's working on her teeth. Meanwhile, Lamar throws Flovilla on the desk and butt-rapes her. When she protests, he laments, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?"

Hearing this cry for help, Doc Lavender decides they should all change places. Flovilla busts out a double-dildo and gets to work on Lavonia, while Lavender rips off his trousers and attempts to bone Lamar. Lamar calls the doctor a 'fag' and runs for it. Naturally, he ends up hiding in the closet. Where else? While the girls pleasure one another in a spectacularly shot girl-girl scene (if only Russ could've lingered there, instead of cross-cutting with the Tom and Jerry bullshit, he might have been able to pass this whole mess off as erotica!), the Doc uses a series of cartoon weapons - crowbar, mallet, shotgun, chainsaw - to get Lamar out of the closet. When he finally rips the door off, Lamar hits him so hard his toupee falls off. He bleeds pink, natch. Then Lamar yanks his wife off of the nurse and splits.

Desperate, Lamar drives over to see Sister Eufala Roop,hoping that perhaps she can save him with her considerable healing powers. She throws him into a bathtub and baptizes/fucks him, her giant boobs clanging against his head like church bells. It seems to do the trick, and he literally runs home to his wife.

As you might expect, given her track record, she's busy having sex with Peterbuilt, although he's showing signs of boredom with this particular routine.

To make an extremely long story slightly shorter, Lamar comes home, punches out Peterbuilt, and satisfies his wife and her vagina.

Oh, and then there's a gratuitous Russ Meyer cameo.

And then there's a gratuitous Ushi Digard (Supervixens, CB Hustlers, The Car Hops) cameo, as our yappy narrator slips back into his Supervixens role as a chicken-fucking farmer with a hot Austrian mail-order bride.

If just about any other filmmaker created Ultra Vixens, it would be their high water mark, their mesmerizing, desert-bound, all-nude masterpiece. But some other fucker did not make it, Russ Meyer did, and for a giant like him, this is clearly one of his lower-tier films. To call a Russ Meyer film tedious feels like heresy, but unfortunately, it fits the bill here. While it is still worth a look - pants on or off, your choice - for the breathtaking charms of Ann Marie, the sunny 70's supergirl beauty of Sharon Hill, and the power-packed fuck n' roll energy of Kitten Natividad, all the bullshit in-between is a slog to get through, and the homophobic vibe threaded throughout the film just feels square. A rare miss for the King of Skin Cinema, and a badly timed one, as well. I guess the moral here is: Make every film as if it's your last. Because it may very well be.

- Ken McIntyre

Sex Pot (2009)

Directed by Eric Forsberg
Starring Rollin Perry, Seth Cassell, Michelle Penick, Rana Davis
Unrated
USA

"It's ok. Most guys fuck their sisters at least once."

The Asylum is an independent production house/distributor known mostly for their series of "Mockbusters", hastily produced rip-offs of popular films that usually hit the DVD shelves a week or so before the films they are aping. See Transmorphers, Terminators, or Snakes on a Train for three typical examples. Sex Pot follows the same basic formula. It grabs fistfuls of Superbad and Sex Drive for inspiration, shakes out any subtlety, and adds Mad Magazine-esque gross-out humor to the mix. The results are, at first glance, revolting. But as the movie slogs ever onwards, some twinkles of charm begin to pop up amidst all the toilet, sperm, and dick gags.

Spanky (Rollin Perry) and Mert (Seth Cassell, 18 Year Old Virgin) are two horny teenage goofballs who scheme their way into an adults-free weekend. Mert has his big brother's beer-and-porn filled apartment all to himself, and convinces the uptight Spanky to join him for two days worth of unbridled debauchery. And so it begins.

Their first order of business is to peep on the two girls who live next door. After peeking through the keyhole to watch the girls get dressed, they decide to take their voyeurism even further. They climb out of the window and on to the 'fire ledge' and get an eyeful of Cindy (Christine Nguyen, Bitch Slap), who walks into the bathroom and peels off her robe. Mert can't take the pressure, and starts masturbating wildly right there, but his boner is thwarted when Cindy plops down on the toilet seat and lets loose with a torrent of grunts. Confused and frightened at the sight of the pretty girl on the toilet, the boys rush back to the apartment, but find that the window was somehow closed on them, so they're stuck.

Cindy, finished with her bowel movement, looks out the window to see what the fuss is, and finds our two hapless heroes. She tells them they can go through her window to get home, but then she and her roommate Julie (Sarah Agor, Scream Queens, PG Porn) strip down to their lingerie and grant the two boys an impromptu lesbian S&M show.

And then they mace them and kick them in the nuts and throw them out.

So, the boys go back to Mert's brother's place, where they root around in his piles of junk until they find a box full of weed and "Caribbean porn". They light up and pop in the DVD. A woman on the video tells them the weed they're smoking is some special blend laced with an aphrodisiac, and the next thing you know, they're fucking watermelons and bagels.
"Ugg," grunts Spanky. "I'm fucking a bagel."
And indeed, he is.

They wake up several hours later cuddled together on the couch, covered in cream cheese and watermelon juice.
"What the fuck just happened?" Asks Spanky, as he yanks his pants up.
"That mumbo jumbo grass made us go homo," Mert decides, wiping the cream cheese off his lips. "Now you've got to suck my dick, so we're even."

Luckily, that homoerotic moment is interrupted when the girls next door ring the doorbell. Seems they're sorry for whaling on these idiots and invite them to a pool party at a friend's house. They hand Mert the address and split. Naturally, the fellas want to party, so they gather up all the drugs they can find. Mert wants to take his brother's SUV, but it's been splattered with gorilla shit by his bro's ex-girlfriend, a loony zoo keeper(!) named Pinky (Lindsey Ahern). It's ok, though. There's a bikini carwash around the corner.

It costs them $40, and the girls hated them, but I will agree with Mert, it was worth it.

Mert stops at a liquor store to pick up some tequila for the party (he plans on using his fishing license as an ID) while Spanky, suffering from a raging boner caused by the handful of Viagra his helpful buddy handed him, starts hallucinating about a mysterious sexy blonde who he thinks is calling him on Mert's brother's cellphone/GPS. It's actually Pinky the zookeeper/stalker. So she squawks at him, which does nothing for his erection. Meanwhile, Mert's fishing license scheme fizzles, so he asks a drunk guy in front of the liquor store to buy him booze. Of course, the guy takes the money and scrambles. Spanky wanders off and almost ends up sucking off a tranny hooker named Strawberry (Rana Davis). It's hijinks galore with these two.

Strawberry ends up getting their Tequila for them. In exchange, she and her galpal Princess (Michelle Penick, Dorm of the Dead) want a ride across town. So, off zooms this motley crew. Princess, who it turns out is still a whore-in-training, offers to blow Spanky for practice. He agrees, but before they get anywhere, a cop starts chasing them down. They toss the weed out the window, and when she lets them go, they go back looking for it. Mert and Spanky end up at a foul-mouthed three year old's party - they think some kids who found their pot are in the house - and Spanky is forced to give the kid a piggyback ride, while still suffering from a throbbing purple penis.

The kid is pretty annoying, but the mom (Elina Madison) is hot, and she offers to bone either or both of 'em. An inviting offer, but she's also got a daughter who's having a teenage house party in the basement. The fellas are sure that's where their weed went, so they go downstairs to look for it. Various bits of mayhem ensue. Spanky ends up in a bizarre game of spin the bottle with the teen creeps, who are all blitzed on the horny weed. A teenage Caligula orgy starts to develop. Upstairs, Mert ends up getting a face full of fat old lady boob, and then wrestles a 13 year old girl for the rest of the weed.

Spanky finally gets his turn at Spin the Bottle, and it lands on "Five minutes with the skank". Said skank is in an unlit room. Spanky enters the murk and proceeds to flop his still throbbing erection in said Skank's mouth. And then Mert comes roaring in, and flips on the light. Turns out the skank is Spanky's own sister, Ellen (Teryl Brouilette). Yikes.
"You're such a loser, Spanky", spits Ellen. "You don't even know how to eat pussy."

Spanky's a little woozy from that encounter, but Mert encourages him to shake it off. Pinky shows up to kill them with a shovel, but changes her mind when Mert sweet-talks her. "Plenty of guys would suck an elephant's balls to get with a sweet piece of ass like you," he says.
"You're so nice!" Coos Pinky.
So, Pinky, Strawberry, Princess, and the boys all pile into the car and head to the party in Malibu.

The soiree is happening at a swank estate somewhere. Mert finds Cindy and Julie and prepares to coax them into sex with weed and dildos. He sees Spanky wooing Princess in a hot tub, and so he stomps over there to ask him if he remembers that they had a fuckin' plan. Spanky is clearly smitten, however, so he ditches Mert and funds a cozy bubble bath to make sweet would-be hooker love with Princess. This does not make Mert happy, but, you know, fuck that guy.

Mert gives the girls the horny weed and then rushes off to the bathroom to chub up with a penis pump. Outside, the expected orgy ensues. Will he accidentally mutilate his genitals and miss the whole party? Will Spanky fall in love with Princess and live happily ever after? Will Pinky find a gun in some closet and massacre everybody?

Hey man, it's an 80's style teen sex comedy. Everything works out in the end. Except maybe for that going-down-on-your-sister thing. That's gonna take some therapy.


Sex Pot was shot in 3D, and was released in both 3D and 2D editions. Having watched the standard version, I can't say how the gimmick works, but to director Fosberg's credit, you can't really tell it was shot with a third dimension in mind. There aren't any glaring poky bits. So my guess is that the 3D is pretty subtle. It would be the only subtle thing about the entire film. The very definition of crass, Sex Pot piles on enough filthy language for a dozen South Park episodes. While there's nothing wrong with over-the-top cussing, Sex Pot uses dirty words like a crutch, often mistaking crudity for humor. It's a shame, because this really is a fitfully funny film, and certainly fun to watch. It just could have been a lot funnier with just a modicum of restraint. Just as Animal House had it's half-retarded, potty-mouthed offspring - hello, King Frat - so too does Superbad. Sex Pot is loud, dumb, and ugly, but that's not necessarily a criticism. There are times when loud, dumb, and ugly is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Clip: Sex Pot trailer

- Ken McIntyre

Just One of the Girls (1993)

AKA Anything for Love
Directed by Michael Keusch
Starring Corey Haim, Nicole Eggert
Rated R
Canada

"This is all your fault. You wouldn't let him play with guns."

Further proof that it was still the 80's in Canada until at least 1997, Just One of the Girls is a gender-flipped take on 1985's boy-is-girl classic Just One of the Guys, only this one substitutes Joyce Hyser's amazing rack for Corey Haim in a cheerleader outfit. Crazy Canucks. Four years past his last (modest) hit Dream a Little Dream, and clearly suffering from Two Coreys separation anxiety, a 22-year old Haim stars as...well, Corey Haim, really. His character, Chris, is amiable but dimwitted, just like the real thing. He's obsessed with keyboards and the horrible 80's synthpop they're capable of (again, just like Haim), and Nicole Eggert is his love interest. I can imagine the pitch:
"It's the Corey Haim Story, only with cross-dressing!"

You know, if that kid stayed off drugs, he would've never made movies like this.

Just One of the Girls is so alarmingly childish that you really wonder whether it was originally written for actors ten years younger. The story - Chris vs. the neighborhood bully - seems like something out of a Little Rascals episode. Dad gives his spindly son boxing lessons in the basement, but, lacking the guts to take the lumbering giant in the Metallica shirt on, he opts for more drastic measures: borrowing his sister's clothes and dressing in drag to safely get through the school's front door every morning. In what crazy universe (besides the 80's teen movie universe, of course) would this be a viable option to a bully situation?

Surprisingly, given that he looks like Corey Haim in lipstick, Chris manages to saunter right past his tormentor wearing a wig and a polka dot dress. Not surprisingly, given the confused sexuality of most high school bullies, Kurt-the-asshole (Cameron Bancroft) finds himself powerfully attracted to this mysterious new boy-girl.
"Give me a week," he says to his cronies, after Chris/Chrissy rebuffs his advances.
So, that's creepy.

Chris has just transferred to this new school, so no one, save for his childhood chum Dan (Gabe Khouth) actually knows who he is. After all, his name is "Chris", right? That could go either way. Never mind that his school records would clearly mark him as a male, or that it's fucking obvious he's a boy. Chris just wills himself into the land of the ladies, and so it is done.He makes fast friends with cheerleader Marie (Nicole Eggert) and then tries to negotiate his way out of gym class. Dan forges a doctor's note, so his gym teacher, Ms Glatt (Rachel Hayward, Breaking All the Rules) puts him on locker-room mop duty.

Crazily, given the squeaky-clean proceedings thus far, the locker room soon fills up with nude girls, providing us with several sets of perky boobs as well as a few flashes of full-frontal. Chris can't take it, and promptly passes out. I don't blame him, really. Nothing is fresher than Canadian cantaloupes.

Marie encourages Chris/Chrissy to join the cheerleading squad. Since Chris wants to bone Marie, he agrees, and they start spending a lot of time together. Turns out, Marie is Kurt-the-bully's sister, so that's happening, as well. At one point, Chris is over Marie's house studying when Kurt barges in and starts hitting on the drag-princess.
"Kurtis, Blow!" Says Marie. It's the funniest line in the film, by far.

So, then you get to watch Corey Haim shave his legs. But, right after, you get to watch the girls' gym class jog in very bouncy slow motion. So it's a pain/pleasure sort of segment. Ms Glatt notices the thin line of drool on Chris/Chrissy's lower lip, which means either the jig is nearly up, or that she thinks there's a teenage lesbian in her ranks. She schedules a meeting after class to figure out what's going on, and he accidentally admits he's a boy, but then conjures up a backstory about trying on his sister's dress when he was 11, and the confusing mess his life's been ever since. Teach, being the understanding type, offers to counsel him, and to keep his identity secret. He's no longer allowed in the girl's locker room, however.

And so on. Dad finds a bra in Chris's room, and thinks he's gay. Ms Glatt is sure he's a mixed-up transvestite. Kurt wants to fuck him, regardless of what he's packing under his skirt. Marie has no idea her best friend is a dude. Clearly, this flimsy house of cards cannot stand. One night at cheerleading camp (!), Chris/Chrissy tries to kiss Marie, and things quickly devolve into low-grade mayhem from there. Don't worry, though. It's Canada. They're quite liberal up there, so everything works out in the end. In fact, Alanis Morrissette even shows up to jam with Haim!

There are exactly two reasons to watch this lame movie: the aforementioned shower scene (neatly clipped out of TV prints, which is where most people saw this), and Nicole Eggert in a cheerleader outfit.

I imagine it might be some sort of cult item among teenage transvestites, but T&A fans will just walk away woozy. At one point, when a justifiably pissed-off Marie faces off against her former best friend-turned sleazeball dude, Haim looks at the ground and says, "Maybe I'll get it right in the next life."

So far, the next life still looks like his best bet.
I'll keep rooting for him, though. He is my favorite Corey.

Availability: Just One of the Girls is available on DVD.


- Ken McIntyre

Getting Lucky (1990)

Directed by Michael Paul Girard
Starring Steven Cooke, Lezley Z McCraw, Rick McDowell
Rated R
USA

"Some stupid nerd threw puke water on me and Tony. This is Tony, by the way."

One of the more amateurish bits of teensploitation flotsam out there, Getting Lucky is a very low-level Troma pick-up about a nerdy high school kid named Bill (Steven Cooke), who is in love with a terminally depressed cheerleader named Krissi (Lezley Z McCraw), and is constantly menaced by a possibly gay bully/rapist/big man on campus named Tony (Rick McDowell). Like all nerds, Bill's always thinking ahead, so he looks for a part-time job to help pay for his college tuition, and that's where the trouble/story/wonderfulness starts.

Bill snags a job as the football team's towel boy, a job no one's held for more than a week. Bill finds out why pretty quickly. In a scene that is looking more and more like a gay gang rape, Tony drops his towel and demands that Bill pick it up - with his teeth.
"I think my hand would be more effective," he stammers.
"Yeah well, I bet I've got something your hand would be pretty effective on," Tony says, grabbing his crotch.
Where the fuck are we going with this, Mr. Girard?
Tony takes a thermos full of spoiled milk he found in his locker and pours it on the floor. That's got to be some sort of semen reference. Anyway, he makes Bill clean it up while the other dudes crowd around him screaming "Towel boy!" like it's some sort of slur. I fully expected Tony to pull out his angry penis next and hit Bill in the eye with it, but instead, he manages to pull himself away from the man-on-towel-boy hijinks long enough to meet Krissi at the back of the school. She's got the hots for him, for some reason. Masochistic tendencies, maybe. Or brain damage.
"I thought you were going to stand me up," pouts Krissi.
"Hey, it would take a real dildo-brain to stand up a babe as hot looking as you," Tony says, planting a wet one on her.
"Oh Tony, you know how to say just the right things," says Krissi.

The two start rolling around on the grass. Tony manages to get Krissi's panties off. She tells him she's a virgin and isn't sure she wants to go through with it - perhaps getting fucked on the ground by the school asshole wasn't exactly how she envisioned her first time - but Tony keeps up a steady stream of bullshit ("It'll be like the greatest wave you've ever felt crashing down on you"), so she decides to just let 'em at it. But before he can penetrate this ripe young beauty, Bill comes bounding out of the locker room and accidentally douses the two lovers with his bucketful of bad milk. And so ends his career as a towel boy.

Later on, Bill's wandering around picking up trash (it's his thing, recycling) when he finds a leprechaun, Lepkey (Garry Kluger), in a beer bottle. I know, who hasn't, right? So, as they are wont to do, the tiny man in the bottle (that's actually a genie, but whatever) grants him three wishes. By the way, if you're envisioning a Warwick Davis-type Leprechaun, sadly, that's not the case here. Our magical midget is just a regular dude in a costume-shop Robin Hood outfit. Bill first asks for world peace, but Lepkey admits he's not a very good leprechaun, so that's probably thinking too big. His next wish is a date with Krissi. Lepkey thinks he can handle that one. Or can he? At that exact moment, Tony and Krissi are scheming on the phone about how to hook up away from the prying eyes of Krissi's overprotective mom. The plan is for Krissi to ask nerd-boy Bill out, and then bail on him to fuck Tony. And so, just when Lepkey claims to have granted Bill's wish, the phone rings.

Dopey Bill accepts the date, of course. He takes Krissi to the drive-in. They're showing Princess Warrior, which looks way more interesting than this. She asks Bill to get her some popcorn, and then sneaks away to Tony's car. After fumbling around with condoms forever, he settles on a handjob, but is rudely interrupted by Bill, who taps on the glass and tells his date that it's time to go home. They drive home in silence.

You may be wondering, at this point, where the laughs are. Well, me too. If Getting Lucky is actually some sort of existential horror film, then it's doing a bang-up job, because this is one of the most depressing, soul-sucking movies I think I've ever seen. If it's supposed to be a comedy, holy smokes, things are going badly.

Having failed at the date, Lepkey grants Bill a wish for a car (he asks for a Ferrari, but gets a Pinto), and when he's getting bullied by Tony, the leprechaun causes the asshole to beat himself with his own tennis racket, and then to shove it up his own ass. He gets carried away by paramedics, the racket tucked firmly but safely between his thighs.

A word, if I may, about Lezlie Z McCraw. You get used to bad, amateurish acting in these kinds of movies, but our girl Lezlie goes way beyond bad into this somnambulant non-acting fugue state. Her delivery is so distant, so eerily not-there-at-all that you start to wonder just what drugs she's on. My guess is a Nyquil/Valium cocktail. Also, in three-quarters of her scenes, she's being mauled by Tony. He almost always has his fingers jammed deep into her crotch. And yet, she never shows any signs of discomfort, even when the scene calls for it. Almost as if she's used to such brutish behavior. She's just fuckin' bizarre, man. Just what is your game, Lezlie Z? Please let me know, because you are freaking me out.

Anyway, Krissi has a change of heart and starts dating Bill. He takes her out for a round of miniature golf, and things go pretty swell. Afterward, however, he starts to wonder if she's really over Tony. Lepkey turns him into a cat, so he can spy on her. So, there he is, in cat form, getting stroked by Krissi, when Tony barges in.
"When I was in the hospital this afternoon and they were pulling the tennis racket out, all I could think of was you."
He actually says that. She rebuffs him and he tries to rape her while Bill-the-cat watches. Does any of this sound funny yet? Well, just wait until you hear what's next.

The next day, after the attempted rape hubbub dies down, Bill and Krissi are going to ride their bicycles to school together. Bill wants to adjust her brakes or something first, and his wrench is the wrong size. He asks Lepkey to change it for him, and the drunken little moron screws it up and shrinks Bill down to microscopic size. So he's stuck on Krissi's bike seat. She thinks he bailed on her, so she jumps on her bike and heads to school, while tiny Bill holds on for dear life inside her underwear. This effect is achieved by what looks like two sheets slung from the ceiling and some dyed rope to represent her vagina hair. The fake Supertramp song on the soundtrack during all of this goes "We can't get much closer, we can't get much closer..." Krissi goes to class, and in his attempts to climb his way out of her panties, Bill stimulates Krissi with such fervor that she has a screamy orgasm right at her desk.

After class, Krissi has cheerleader practice, and then she hits the showers. So there's a shower scene, at least. At some point, Bill falls out of her vagina and lands on the shower floor. Then he rolls around in bubbles for awhile. Lepkey finally figures out how to get Bill back to normal size, but he realizes he left his glasses and wrench in Krissi's vagina. This could prove fatal, but luckily, the offending objects just materialize in her underwear.

I don't know how/why this happens, but in the next scene, Bill's getting paddled by the principal. It's shot like man-on-manPOV porn. Halfway through, Lepkey gives the principal a heart attack. And then we move on.

Etc.

I'll give Getting Lucky this much: the last half-hour is so loony, there's just no way you could predict any of it. It's incredibly random. Horse fights? Shish Kebab duels? It's pretty nuts. It's also pretty tedious. Clearly, Girard tried his damnedest to bash out an entertaining film on a shoestring, but there are so many things wrong with this film that it's just a lost cause, really. Still, the film has developed a fervent cult of badfilm enthusiasts who will gush with Troll 2-esque passion about the panty debacle or Bill's playin'-the-sax-while-skateboardin' buddy, or the barbarian (spoiler alert!), but the whole mess just gave me a headache.

That being said, I'm still going to dig up some of Girard's post-Lucky films. Bikini Med School has got to be awesome. Right?

PS: If you never want to see any of these actors again, then your wish - wink, wink - is granted. Most of them never acted again.

Availability: Getting Lucky is available on DVD.

- Ken McIntyre