Dracula AD 1972 (1972)

Directed by Alan Gibson
Starring Stephanie Beacham, Caroline Munro, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing
Rated PG
UK

"The operative word is....ecch!"

In an attempt to seem relevant to the 'kids', stodgy ol' Hammer films decided to update their musty Drac-flicks by dragging Christopher Lee's regal vamp into the psychedelic 70's and pitching him against his old nemesis's shag-haired, great-great-great grand daughter and her gang of funky friends.

The prologue is classic Hammer stuff. Back in Victorian England, Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and Dracula (Christopher Lee) battle it out on a runaway stage coach. Drac ends up impaled on a wheel spoke and then burns up into ash. The end.

Fast Forward exactly one hundred years. Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame) is a skinny, decadent glam-rocker with a gang of sexy followers (including Caroline Munro, Marsha Hunt - the girl Mick Jagger wrote Brown Sugar about, Janet Key, and the gorgeous Stephanie Beacham as Van Helsing Jr.) who gets his kicks crashing parties and splitting right before the cops show up. And, indeed, that's what he's doing when we first meet the Satanic bastard.

US hippie-prog jam band Stoneground (Faces were asked first, but reportedly, Rod Stewart read the occult-ridden script and balked) thunders through a couple groovy numbers at an upper-crusty party full of old squares while Jack and the gang dance, make out, gulp expensive booze, and generally have a swell time. This scene is fairly amazing, with lots of way-out fashions, including a very fetching aqua-blue hotpants/halter top outfit on one uncredited  dollybird, and some pretty effective rock n' roll.

Unfortunately, the cops show up, and the party is over. The kids gather at a local Clockwork Orange-y coffeeshop and ponder their next move. Jack - actually a witch of some kind in disguise - convinces the gang to meet him at a 'desanctified' church the following evening to, you know, goof around. They agree. "Might be good for a giggle."

Jessica Van Helsing goes home and bones up on the black arts in her grandpa's library. He catches her and starts blathering about the Van Helsings' long-standing commitment to fighting occult-y evil. Grand-dad is, naturally, played by Peter Cushing. Jess laughs him off and heads off to the church.

You see where this is going, right? The gang thinks this is just theater, but Johnny actually performs some sort of Satanic resurrection. It involved Caroline Munro on a stone slab, getting bright-red blood poured all over her heaving bosoms. Dracula returns, bites and drains Munro, and begins his usual reign of terror.

Cushing teams up with a couple of dubious cops to battle Dracula. Jessica gets snatched by Johnny and also ends up on a stone-slab. Her bosoms are quite heaving, as well.

Various bits of vampiric mayhem ensues, and then you get the usual gooey meltdown. The end. Until next time!

Listen, the fine folks at Hammer were many things, but hip was never one of them. The clothes, tunes (beside Stoneground, Manfred Mann guitarist Mike Vickers provided the with-it soundtrack) and hair (future Dynasty star Beacham's grown-out shag-mullet is a wonder to behold) are all expectionally groovy, and Neame makes for a fantastic low-rent libertine, but director Gibson cannot wait to get back the talky stuff.

Every ten or so minutes, Cushing pops back up to lull viewers to sleep with endless explanations about Van Helsings and Draculas and the devil and all the bullshit we've heard on zillion times before, already, in 1972. Also, bringing the Dracula mythos up to date is a fine idea, but why not take it all the way? No nudity in 1972, Hammer? No gore? I am aware that Hammer's blueprint was understated horror, but less yapping, more blood, and a little celebrity skin, and Dracula AD 1972 would be a bonafide 70's horror classic.

Still, a fitfully entertaining vampire romp slathered with tasty crumpet. Worth the effort for the camp value and a few seriously far-our set-designs.

- Ken McIntyre

Starhops (1978)

Directed by Barbara Peters
Starring Jillian Kesner, Sterling Frazier, Dorothy Burhman
Rated R
USA

"Don't you have any regular pies?"

Director Barbara Peters and screenwriter Stephanie Rothman - the creative team behind Starhops - were both responsible for an astonishing amount of girl-centric drive-in trash throughout the 1970's.  Between the two of them, their resume reads like a grindhouse marathon: It's a Bikini World (1967),  The Student Nurses (1970), Velvet Vampire (1971), Bury Me an Angel (1972), Terminal Island (1973),  Working Girls (1974 - AKA the movie-where-you-can-see-Elvira-naked), Summer School Teachers (1974), Humanoids from the Deep (1980).  Both were adept at making films fast and dirty, packing them with as many cheap thrills as their paltry budgets would allow. And so it was with Starhops.

A minor career blip for both women, Starhops borrowed liberally the then-popular nurse and cheerleader films, wrapping the age-old underdogs VS. creaky old corporate asshole plotline around a girl-powered cast of Karate-chopping, bikini-clad world-beaters, and then liberally shoe-horning then-relevant pop culture references on top.

Roger Corman's main-man Dick Miller is Jerry. He runs a drive-in burger joint called, sensibly enough, Jerry's. Problem is, business has nose-dived thanks to the rise of fast-food chains, and Jerry owes the bank so much dough that he's going to have to close down.

Naturally, he has to fire his waitresses, Angel (gorgeous Jillian Kesner, The Student Body) and Cupcake (spunky one-time actress Sterling Frazier). The enterprising carhops have a different idea, though - they want to buy the place.

The girls manages to charm the loan officer into giving them enough dough to buy the joint, and they commence to fixin' the place up. They even hire a nutty French chick, Danielle (Dorothy Burhman) as a chef.

Here's the problem, though. A sleazy oil baron, Carter Axe (Al Hopson, RIP) wants to build a gas station on Jerrys property. He saunters by to threaten the girls with some vague legal action, but they scoff at him. Then they head out to the disco.

The next morning, they start their new business. They call it Starhops, dress in space girl bikinis, and deliver the food on rollerskates, which is difficult, since none of them actually know how to skate.

Carter convinces his idiot son Norman (Paul Ryan) to get a job at Starhops so that he can spy on the girls and dig up dirt on them. Unfortunately for him, the girls are squeaky clean, although he does eavesdrop on a very suspicious, Three's Company-esque conversation. The old "Can you help me with my plumbing problem?" routine. Classic stuff.

Norman informs dad that the girls are running a legit operation. Determined to get that restaurant, Carter calls in an anonymous report about deplorable working conditions at Starhops, so the public health inspector shows up to investigate. Naturally, Norman attempts to sabotage the girls by sticking a live frog in the salad and tossing a dead rat in the soup. The health inspector gives them thirty days to clean up their act. The girls finally figure out that Norm's behind their troubles. To get him on their side, Cupcake seduces him, and he becomes part of their team. Undaunted, Carter calls in the big guns: Mad Dog.

Mad Dog figures the best way to fix the problem is by blowing the joint up. So that's what he does, with everybody in it. Blood, brains and burgers everywhere. The end.

 No. Not really. It was 1978. 1978 was all about happy endings.

For a film that's got gratuitous everything else - gratuitous Star Wars reference, gratuitous roller boogie, gratuitous Dick Miller - it's a surprisingly chaste affair. In fact, upon completion, the producers reportedly had to toss in some stunt-ass just to bump the film's rating up to an R, correctly assume that their intended audience - horny teens and drunkards - would scoff at a nudity-free 70's jiggle-com. So don't explain a sleaze-fest. Do, however, expect everything else - comic book-y bad guys, comic book-y bikers, bad French accents, a fixin' stuff up montage, groan-worthy sex gags, a heart-warming, friends-first message, a pseudo-feminist slant, and, naturally, a little kung-fu. While hardly a lost classic, Starhops nonetheless floats effortlessly on its fizzy 70's pop-culture bubble. If you like rollerskates, hotpants, and cheeseburgers - and who doesn't? - you may want to dig through the bottom of the VHS pile to find this one.

- Ken McIntyre

Dangerous Seductress (1992)

Directed by H. Tjut Djali

Starring Tonya Lawson, Kristin Anin, Amy Weber

Unrated

Indonesia

"This fuckin' thing won't stay broken!"

H. Tjut Djali is a legend amongst adventurous exploitation fans. He is the pioneer of the floating severed head gag, as evidenced by his too-weird-to-mention-in-daylight Mystics in Bali (1981), and he also helmed perhaps the most ridiculous, bloody, and over-the-top Terminator rip-off ever, Lady Terminator (1988). His films are cheap, nasty, and relentlessly bizarre, mixing Indonesian lore and mysticism with ham-fisted Hollywood bullshit. Dangerous Seductress is no different. On the surface, it's a slightly warped riff on the erotic horror-thriller genre, but as with all of Djali's films, it's about ten times weirder than it needs to be.

A bunch of Indonesian gangsters (and one white dude) have an ill-fated shoot out while zooming through a cemetery in a goofy pink car. They get blasted to smithereens, and in their haste to wrap up the case, the cops leave one lone finger from one of the baddies lying on the ground. Somehow or another, the finger comes to life, jogs among the tombstones for a bit, and then gets hit by lightning- lightning which reveals some sort of ethereal female spirit. Once the smoke clears, bones start popping out of the ground, and a body starts forming, ala Hellraiser, from a puddle of fleshy muck. Eventually - and much to her own dismay - the ugly mess turns into a woman (Amy Weber). Well, first a dog tries to make off with her femur bone, but she rips his head off. Then she turns into a fully-formed lady. She's naked, too, except there are balls of angry blue light covering up all the best parts.

Meanwhile, back in LA, blonde cutie Susie (Tonya Lawson) waits patiently for boyfriend John (Joseph Cassano) to come home. When he does, he presents her with an engagement ring - or some kind of ring - and, naturally, expects a little affection in return. When she spurns him, he punches her in the mouth and then attempts to rape her, right there on the dining room table. So she smacks him in the face with the hot wax from a dripping candle, and hauls ass out of there.

Also meanwhile, another blonde, Linda (Kristin Anin) does a song and dance number at some fancy-pants party. After it's over, a bunch of slobbering fans give her gifts, including a guy from New Guinea who gives her a rare book that's "vital to mystics of the East", which seems sort of inappropriate for a bubble-headed American singer, but whatever.

Turns out Susan is Linda's sister. She calls her up and tells her about John's man-handling, so Linda wires her sis some dough, and she jets off to Jakarta. Susie settles in with her sister and her weirdly accommodating boyfriend, but then Linda has to travel to Bali for a photoshoot.

She leaves Susie to her own devices, which turns out to be a bad idea, since she almost immediately gets into antics. Susie discovers the ancient spell book, and starts randomly reciting stuff; unfortunately for everybody, her first reading is from the Invocation of Demonic Evil page.

The queen of darkness shows up - as a floating severed head - and merges with Susie. Now Susie is the Queen of Darkness. So she's got that going for her.

Susie/QOD tries on various slutty outfits before hitting a local disco, where she picks up some jivey dude who brings her back to his houseboat. They get frisky, but before he can seal the deal, she spouts fangs and then nails him to the wall with a spear gun. And then she eats him.

And that's pretty much it for awhile. Susie chomps on a bunch of locals, and then her psycho ex comes to town, which is convenient, since she wanted to kill/eat that fucker, too.

Meanwhile - there's a lot of meanwhiles in this movie - Susie runs into some weird mystic type in Bali, who tells her to go home and sort shit out before her whole family is destroyed by demonic evil. She takes his advice.  When she gets home, Susie's babbling away again and Linda stops her mid-spell.
"But this makes me happier than I've ever been!" Protests Susie, in her frumpy, non-happy monotone.

A desperate fight for Susie's soul ensues. How's it all end? How's anything involving demons end? Laser fight!

And also a flying car and a machine gun.  And a magic mirror. And a chicken. And also magic beans.

Dangerous Seductress has two things going for it: an alarming, weird/gross prologue, and a hilariously shoddy and over-the-top finale. Both are must-sees for fans of far-out exploitation cinema. The rest of the film? Not so much. Hampered by a cultural taboo on female nudity and slowed down to a crawl in several spots to highlight the singing/dancing/posing prowess of one-time actress Kristin Anin, Dangerous Seductress constantly teeters on the edge of balls-out, but never quite gets there. Still, best glowing, floating car scene since Repo Man, and one of the most puke-worthy graveyard regeneration sequences ever. So we break even on this one, pretty much.

- Ken McIntyre

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