Bikini Summer (1991)

Directed by Robert Veze
Starring Melinda Armstrong, David Millbern, Kelli Konop
Rated R
USA

“Chester and his friends seem like fine, responsible young adults.”

Bikini Summer is not a film of many surprises. In fact, the most surprising thing about Bikini Summer is the fact that it took until 1991 for someone to make a film called Bikini Summer. Bikini Summer is about as generic a beach sex comedy as you could possibly make – and with all the fluoro bikinis and bleached blonde hair going around in 1991, you could make a very generic beach sex comedy indeed.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. Not every film needs to be filled with intratextual meta-referencing. Really, given the complete hash of that sort of thing most films tend to make, it might be better if very fewer films even attempted it. Luckily, Bikini Summer is so straight-forward that you could probably lay out the plot right now without even having to be told what it is.

It’s about bikinis. In summer.

It does, in its favour, look particularly good. That’s very likely less to do with one-time writer and director Robert Veze than it is to do with cinematographer Ken Blakey. The film was his first full-length feature after leaving the world of fashion and glamour photography, and it shows. Girls in bikinis are filmed in unbelievable, graphic close-up, with stringently careful lighting. If there was a blu-ray version, it’d blow your fucking mind, man.

Later on, things get a little less careful and more gloomily lit, as if the producers were running out of money and time. “Fuck the lighting and get this thing in the can, Blakey! We gotta ship this VHS out to video shops tomorrow!”

Anyway, there’s plenty of movie before the gloom sets in. The credit sequence alone features more jiggling and jogging bikini clad girls than some lesser sex comedies.

Sadly, it’s all a dream. Absurdly blue-eyed, good natured slacker Chet (David Millbern, Slumber Party Massacre) has been asleep, and wakes to this:

Old Mr Patterson, whose beach front property Chet and his friends are house-sitting and repainting over the summer, is going through the virtues of horizontal brush strokes versus vertical brushstrokes when using oil based paints. His wife, by the way, is played by Katherine Victor (RIP), star of The Wild World of Batwoman.

Chet rushes them out the door – and throws their bags after them. While they’re packing the car, Mrs Patterson says something you should really never say in a sex comedy: “Chester and his friends seem like fine, responsible young adults.” It’s like the antics and mayhem equivalent of saying Candyman into the mirror.

Back inside, Chet has lost his camera, which proves a convenient chance to introduce the rest of the characters. There’s annoying preachy environmentalist Richie (Alex Smith), rock and roll chick Jazz (Shelley Michelle), bikini designer Renee (Kelli Konop), blonde hottie Cheryl (Melinda Armstrong) and, last but not least, burping but otherwise silent fat party dude Mad Dog (Kent Lipham, RIP).

Even at this early point, you can already safely assume that Renee will end up making out with Chet and also wear a bikini by the end of the film, because she’s blonde and wears glasses.

Chet and his camera head for the beach, and so do Richie and Cheryl, though they all do so separately; it’s a segmented kinda film like that. Richie annoys innocent people by preaching about the dangers of UV rays and – bizarrely, given his environmental stance – handing out fliers to everyone he sees. Chet meets some girls and convinces them to pose for him, but forgets to take the lens cap off.

Cheryl meets a muscly guy with white shorts and a mullet named Brad. “Hi. I’m Brad,” he says gruffly. He asks her out to a party later on, and she accepts.

Also on the beach are requisite sex comedy nerds Larry (Thom DeLorenzo) and Gary (Tommy Heisler). Larry has, hands down, the funniest lines in the entire film, and says all of them in this single clip. Then he remains woefully underused for the next hour.

Incidentally, the girl they’re checking out is porn star Missy Warner, who had a similar beach related cameo in Bikini Car Wash Company.

Meanwhile, Jazz has just found a new rehearsal room for her all girl hard rock band, Jailbait. They’re renting a room in a warehouse from a sleazy landlord named Max (Ken Davitian), who looks very much like two Dom DeLuises jammed into an office chair.

Chet finds some more girls to photograph, and while he manages to run out of film, things do take a turn for the saucy. “Listen,” one of them says, “this is okay and everything, but if we could go back to your studio, we could do some really sexy stuff.”

He immediately heads out and buys $200 worth of studio equipment in anticipation of the girls coming over the next morning.

Richie continues to find more people to annoy. First he scares off poor Missy Warner by jabbering on about bacteria in sand. Then he finds two more girls to annoy, but it turns out they’re smarter than him.

They anticipate everything he’s got to say on numerous topics, including rainforests, dolphins, UV rays and native Americans. He gets bored of being made to look stupid, so he wanders off and manages to find a protest. Seems like someone is planning on building condominiums or something.

There’s only six people there and no one around to watch, but Richie joins in with enthusiasm anyway. However, it’s not long before the cops arrive to break things up, along with the local assistant DA, Rachel Greene (Rebekah Alfred). You can safely assume that she’ll also end up in a bikini by the end of the film because she wears glasses and is played by someone who spells Rebecca with a ‘k’ and an ‘h’.

Richie’s all for hanging around, but protest organiser and white bearded hippy Moondog (Michael Silverback) isn’t having a bar of it. “Listen,” he says. “I spent half the ‘60s in the slammer. I missed Woodstock. I missed Monterey. I don’t plan on missing the ‘90s.”

Sadly Richie can’t take a hint and ends up getting himself arrested. Renee bails him out and tells him that she can’t afford to do it again, but he just keeps mumbling about having to save the beach.

If Moondog knew the kind of music he was going to have to put up with for the rest of the decade, he probably wouldn’t have been so worried. As if to make that exact point, Jailbait’s rehearsal continues and Jazz sings a song with some of the most wretched lyrics outside of my high school notebooks: “Justice is blind, and you got cash/If you don’t, your head they’ll bash/Mr Bush does not tax the rich/Isn’t that sort of a bitch?”

Having perfected that number, one by one they celebrate with an after rehearsal shower. Max has a peephole installed in his office for just that sort of occasion, and we get to sit through each of them in there while he cackles away.

They eventually find out and go and confront him and then go home or something.

Meanwhile, Cheryl is at the party, but can’t find Brad. Turns out he’s up in one of the bedrooms banging some other girl. “C’mon Cheryl, be cool,” he says. “Cheryl, don’t be a downer.”

She doesn’t seem to think that’s a reasonable request, so she goes and gets hammered. Next morning, she wakes up on a deck chair by the pool, then strips off and goes for a swim.

Then we get five minutes of slow motion, fully naked splashing around. It’s pretty spectacular.

After she gets out, she finds out that she’s been watched the whole time by a piano playing guy named Bert Harden (Carmen Santa Maria) who appears to have stolen Bobby Dall from Poison’s hair.

He tries to explain that he was inspired by her nudity to finally finish the song he was writing, but she’s not into it and storms out.

Chet’s having more luck. The girls arrive for the photo session, only to find that they don’t have anything proper to wear. So Chet borrows two of Renee’s designs.

This turns out to be such an inspiringly good idea he becomes a silhouette.

Also a fancy backdrop and a water feature appear.

Or maybe that bit is a dream. Who knows. Anyway, when he next speaks to Renee (in the totally dark lounge room with everyone else) she’s despondent because she thinks her bikinis have been stolen. Nope – Chet’s sold them to the girls for double the price.

This leads him to come up with an idea: they should hold a bikini contest. Renee could sell her designs to the entrants, and Chet could take pictures! And they could use the money to save the beach! And Jazz’s shitty band could play! And Cheryl could wear a bikini! And Mad Dog could drink beer!

So they do just that.

Richie invites Missy Warner and the smart girls who made him look bad.

And Cheryl takes an invite to Bert’s, while wearing a sling bikini.

Then it’s time for the contest! Sadly, it’s the kind of gloomily lit part of the film, but nonetheless. Even Missy Warner enters, although she complains to Renee about her bikini in the dressing room. “There just seems to be so much fabric...”

Unfortunately, they’ve barely finished going through the contestants when the assistant DA and the cops show up, along with sleazy landlord and apparent condo developer Max. Renee defends her bikinis to the DA in an admirably eloquent fashion.

But will they get to continue the party? Will Renee end up wearing a bikini and making out with Chet? Will the DA wear a bikini? And hey wait, weren’t they meant to be painting a house or something?

Predictably, the answer to all four questions is yes, but the manner in which it all comes together is brilliantly and insanely coincidental, and provides the movie’s few surprises. It’s generic, segmented and silly, but Bikini Summer is still a lot of fun. It’s far from the best beach sex comedy, but it’s a long way from the worst too.

- Alistair Wallis

Number One Cheerleader Camp (2010)

Directed by Mark Quod
Starring Charlene Tilton, Seth Cassell, Jay Gillespie
Unrated
USA

"My parents sent it. It's a pommel horse."
"Your parents want you to be gay?"

A low-rent version of the underrated Fired Up from mockbuster opportunists The Asylum, #1 Cheerleader Camp follows the misadventures of two horny hetero dudes - Andy the sex-crazed slob (Seth Cassell)  and Michael the Haim-esque sensitive one (Jay Gillespie) - who luck into a sweet gig working as the maintenance crew in a cheerleader camp for the summer. While they run amuck ogling the talent and trying to get laid, a couple rival cheer squads attempt to sabotage each other. Also on deck, for no discernible reason, Dallas/Sweater Girls star Charlene Tilton as a boozy, bitter version of herself. Weird, right? I can't imagine our girl Charlene was all that pleased with the final product, especially since there's a topless girl bouncing away on a trampoline, tits flapping in the breeze, when her name pops up on the opening credits.

Oh, by the way, that's one thing I'll give this film credit for. There's plenty of boobs on display, including a shower scene that culminates in a who's-got-the-biggest-boobs contest.

The fellas also sneak into a strip club at one point, too. So that's good.

Oh, and antics? Sure, there's antics. Just like in Fired Up, the dudes end up losing all their clothes, and they have to go back to camp naked!

And also, they have a contest to see who can orchestrate a three-way first. Hey man, nobody said grandma was gonna be involved!

It all ends they way you think it will. The sensitive kid ends up with the misunderstood girl who started out as a mascot, and ended up a cheerleader (Erica Duke). And then her squad of underdogs takes on the mean-girl squad.

And then everybody dies.

Haha, no. Everybody gets laid!

All in all, not bad. 80% of the film is just shots of girls' asses in tiny shorts. The rest is padded with tits, masturbation jokes, and a matronly Charlene Tilton guzzling hooch and giving people the finger. There's worse ways to waste an afternoon.




- Ken McIntyre 

Wild Malibu Weekend (1995)

Directed by Kelly Gordon
Starring Barbara Ann Moore, Anastasia Rova, Avrey Masters
Rated R
USA

“So, do any of you girls like to sleep with big time TV game show hosts?”

There’s something a bit special about ‘90s sex comedies. Yeah, the decade was pretty much uniformly awful, but there’s a certain flair to the sex comedies produced then that’s really quite distinctive. They lack the innocence of ‘70s and ‘80s sex comedies, but make up for it with a certain kind of batshit charm: fluorescent bikinis, ridiculous hair, and some of the all time stupidest fake breasts ever. Repulsive and irresistible all at once. There’s plenty of all those things in Wild Malibu Weekend, you’ll be pleased to hear. The film was produced and its story written by Jason Williams, of Flesh Gordon and Cheerleaders Wild Weekend fame. It was then scripted by Gregory Poirier, who then went on to write Lion King 2 and National Treasure 2. So that’s kinda weird.

Also, I’m fairly certain the director, Kelly Gordon, doesn’t exist, as he/she has no other credits whatsoever. I’m almost equally sure that Williams directed it, given the surname Gordon, and the fact that he plays a director within the film itself. Maybe someone out there knows for sure.

Williams even opens the film, with a lengthy, William Castle/Reefer Madness style warning: “Bikinimania,” he warns us, “is real.”

During the title sequence, flyers are handed out to girls on beaches, presumably all over the United States. And the world. Or whatever. We only see one, but it’s strongly suggested that there’s numerous girls receiving them and entering, to be then whittled down to a field of just 10 for the actual TV show.


Once that’s over, we’re introduced to a few of those in the group. First up is Susan Mikka (Anastasia Rova, in her only film role). She’s a struggling actress, who has accepted a part in a play the wardrobe manager describes as “a musical comedy with deep social significance and commentary on the state of our society today”.

Mostly though, it just means the girls wear fake plastic breasts and underwear with fake pink pubic hair, then dance around on stage. Profound.


Next, we meet the first of the contestants actually on their way to the contest. There’s country girl Mary Johnson (Playboy Playmate Barbara Ann Moore, who goes to bizarre lengths not to show her boobs once in the entire film) and silicon-boobed Kelly Johnson (Kathy Pasmore) – no relation. After a short limo drive, they end up at the mansion all the girls are staying at, where the butler meets them at the front door. “Wow,” chirps Mary, “this place is keen!”


Unfortunately, the contest organisers haven’t clued in to the fact that the two aren’t related, and have put them in the same room. And the same bed. “C'mon, it'll be fun,” says Mary. “It'll be like a slumber party.”

“Keen,” sneers Kelly.

The two head up to their room, but on the way they run into Cliff Diver (David Salas Power in his only film role), a friend of the producer who’s there to act as chaperone. And also to act sleazy.


Eventually they shake him off and start talking about the competition. Not only is the prize $10,000, but there’s also a film role in it for the winner. Kelly’s reluctant to say anything more than she feels she has to win, but Mary’s quite willing to ramble on for some time about her motives.

Her grandmother wanted to be an actress, back in the ‘40s. “Now Granny's sick,” she sighs. She'll probably go home to Jesus soon.” By winning and becoming an actress, she hopes to fulfil her grandmother’s dream. Or something.

Finally, we meet the last two: Valley girls Gina Roberts (Karli Allen) and Natalie Woodman (Shauna O’Brien, aka Penthouse Pet Stevie Jean). They’re on the beach, where Gina runs an absurdly long distance with a cupped handful of water to splash on Natalie’s back.


“Ow,” says Natalie. “What are you doing?!”

Later, over lunch out on the balcony of the mansion, Cliff explains to a couple of the girls that he might be able to help them out with the contest. That is, if they’re willing to help him out later that night in his bedroom. Gina’s not real into the idea, but Kelly’s desperate enough to win that she’s entertaining the idea. And gives him a sexy look.


Meanwhile, Susan gets a call from her agent, who tells her about the contest. She’s unsure until she hears about the film role. I guess for some reason she gets to avoid the selection stage all the other girls have gone through. Or something.

Anyway, they all turn up at the studio, and end up in makeup with the show’s host, Marvelous Marv Thomas (Avrey Masters, in his only film role). “So,” he asks casually, “do any of you girls like to sleep with big time TV game show hosts?”

No response. The director of the show, Jeff Watts (as mentioned, Jason Williams) comes into the room. “This little sand crab trying to get you into bed?” he asks.


Then, everyone moves out to the stage, and it’s time to start ‘Bikini Showdown’!


Turns out, according to the credits, that’s not even The Ultramatics playing that song – it’s The Jeff Juliano Project. We hear a couple of Ultramatics originals later, and they sound exactly like you’d expect. In fact, turns out the singer is still going with totally bland rockabilly to this day.

Anyway, it’s time to meet the rest of the contestants. The ones we’ve already met are lined up first, which probably gives you an idea of exactly who’s going to do well, but never mind.

There’s also Tommie (Thomasina C. Ciela), non-English speaking Venezuelan Rosa (Claudia Taz), Dani (Dani Shore), token Swede Gunilla (Gunilla Dahlgren) and Joanie (Nikki Swanson). And out of all of them, only Dani ever had another film role. Beginning to notice a pattern here?


Also, Marv continues with his terrible lines and wheezy laughter too. It’s pretty grating after, oh, about a minute. Time for the first round, though: a game called shakedown. Each girl has numerous poker chips pressed onto her body, and then has to shake them off.


It’s not really clear who wins, but it’s probably not important so they just get on with the next game: musical chairs.


At one point Rosa scrambles for a chair and lands on Kelly’s lap. It’s pretty clear the scripting in this section is somewhat limited, because she falls off awkwardly.


Yikes. Anyway, Mary wins and it’s time for a song by The Ultramatics. Actually by The Ultramatics this time, too. Gina, Tommie and Natalie get up and dance with them.


Then it’s back to the games. This time they play “romp ‘n’ stomp”, in which the girls have a balloon attached to each foot, and have to attempt to burst the other girls’ balloons.


Natalie wins that one, and then it’s time for the final game of the episode: a limbo contest.

Natalie wins that one too, and Marv asks Mary why she didn’t do so well. “Well, gee willickers Marv, I don't know what happened,” she says. “I practised a lot with the hitching post back at the farm.”

So that’s the first round, and you can probably guess who doesn’t make it through to the final. Yeah, the girls last in the line who weren’t featured in the actual story.


The finalists go back to their dressing room (complete with Flesh Gordon poster) and talk about what they’ll spend their prize money on if they win. Well, all except for Kelly, who still won’t answer. “Who cares? It's none of your business anyway,” she says, and storms out.

Back at the mansion, Susan is busted practicing awards speeches by mansion owner and show producer Griffin Godfrey (Alan Roman in his only role ever). He takes a bit of a shine to her, and kind of maybe propositions her, but she shuts him down immediately, telling him she only wants roles for her talent.

Then there’s a party. The Ultramatics play some songs, and Natalie and Kelly discuss who they’d sleep with. “That's easy girlfriend,” Kelly explains. “You start with the lead singer, and you end with the drummer.” That’s true and also a good lesson.

Toward the end of the party, Kelly ends up back in Cliff’s room. “I'm really glad I could help you out like this,” he says. “Now I'm gonna give you something you'll never forget.” Then he climbs on top of her and pumps away for five seconds or so.


Kelly asks him what the events are for the next day so she can get an advantage. “They pick 'em from a hat,” he shrugs.

She storms out and heads back to her room, where Mary is. Finally, she explains why she needs the money. “My dad gambles. He owes some pretty serious people, and if I don't come up with the money, they're gonna hurt him real bad.”


Next day, they all head to the studio for the final rounds of the game show. Before Susan can head out though, Griffin shows up again and says he was impressed by her the day before. Then he grins in a really disconcerting manner.


There’s some more events, including put the condom on a cucumber.


And twister.


And spray each other with water pistols while wearing whipped cream.


Who wins? Well, you’ll have to see it yourself.

Suffice to say, it doesn’t really matter. Hell, let’s be honest, none of the plot really matters. The important part is, it’s movie about a completely insane boob and bikini filled game show, with laughs and a terrible host and a rockabilly band and cute girls.

If it was on TV, you’d watch it every single week. It’s not and probably never will be, so it’s just as well someone made a movie about it.

- Alistair Wallis

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

Directed by Todd Haynes
Starring A bunch of Barbie dolls
Unrated
USA

In a sense, Superstar, is like a modern day Nosferatu. Neither are supposed to exist. Like Nosferatu, Superstar was made without getting the proper licenses. And as a result of a lawsuit brought about by Richard Carpenter, all copies of Superstar were ordered destroyed. But now it lives and thrives on the internet, both on bit torrent sites and YouTube (last I checked).

If you have heard anything about Superstar, you have probably heard that it was filmed using modified Barbie dolls, and that is pretty much accurate. Also the film utilizes live action re-enactments, and stock footage of subjects contemporary to the Carpenters time, such as Nixon, and the Vietnam war.

But also, crucially, the film makes liberal use of the Carpenters music catalog. Which help ground the film in its pseudo-documentary style. It also was instrumental with getting the film yanked from circulation, and ordered destroyed, courtesy of Richard Carpenter.

There is pretty much nothing revealed in the film that cannot be gleaned from a quick glance at wikipedia. Karen Carpenter suffered from anorexia, and it led to her death. In the meantime, she was one-half of the superstar duo known as the Carpenters, and her death was mourned the world over, by shocked fans.

Directed by Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven), Superstar kicks off with a first person point-of-view shot of her mom finding Karen collapsed on the floor. This sets the tone for the rest of the movie. It is unrelentingly gloomy, which puts it into sharp contrast with the saccharine sweet pop hits that the Carpenters were known for.

From there we see the life of Karen as she achieves superstardom via the Carpenters, and all the while struggles with her eating disorder, which by some accounts was kicked of by her reaction to a concert review published in a Philadelphia newspaper, which called her "chubby". At any rate, as she continues down the road of life, the scenes are intercut with real footage of the holocaust, Vietnam, and Nixon/Watergate. Also we get a breakdown of what anorexia is, and how anorexics view their bodies. Which sheds some enlightenment on how Karen probably viewed her body as well.

Her family life is also addressed. Which appears to have been oppressive to say the least. Living with her parents until well into her twenties, Karen's home life was incongruent with her professional status. Also, bizarrely even perhaps, we are featured to clips of spankings. Presumably, we are to believe this is Karen being spanked by her dad. Which, when considering that this is a bare bottom spanking, also invokes ominous abusive overtones.

But on the bright side, plenty of good music is featured. We've Only Just Begun, Close To You, and my personal favorite Superstar get plenty of play. Superstar, which was co-penned by Leon Russell, and Bonnie Bramlett, is a song so solidly written, that not even Sonic Youth could fuck it up.

Needless to say, the movie ends on a down note. But, if your interested in the life of Karen Carpenter, or just like "Behind The Music" type programming, I'd check it out. The Barbie doll motif works. The music is good. It's only a little over forty minutes long. And it makes Richard Carpenter look gay, which is probably the real reason he sued it into oblivion.

-BoDuley

Vice Academy (1989)

Directed by Rick Sloane
Starring Linnea Quigley, Ginger Lynn Allen, Karen Russell
Rated R
USA

“I'm a horny stud; let me in. I want to rape you til you split in two.”

At the time of its release, Vice Academy was not only the highest rating film on USA Network’s late night schedule, but also the winner of a B-Movie Awards for Best Picture. Frankly, it makes you a little curious as to what the competition it was up against was like, but it’s probably less to do with an engaging and superior level of quality from director Rick Sloane than it is the fact that Vice Academy stars a fresh-out-of-porn Ginger Lynn Allen. Well; probably? Okay, definitely. Sure, she’s not in the film a great deal, despite receiving co-top billing alongside Linnea Quigley, but she’s there, and you only have to put yourself in the shoes of a cable watching young American in the late ‘80s for a second to realise – you’d totally watch it too, even just on the odd chance you might catch a glimpse of Ginger Lynn’s boobs on TV.

And you would have walked away disappointed. Lynn is stubbornly (and even somewhat inexplicably) clothed the whole movie, with the exception of an underwear-exposing moment toward the end. Her agent in Hollywood, one Charles Clay, once described her as “sweet like the girl next door, but she did everything the girl next door won't do”, but it’s interesting the lengths this film goes to in attempting to divorce her from that stated image.

Lynn is Holly Wells, the daughter of the city’s police chief, and a student at the titular vice academy. She’s an overachiever who uses her nights to ramp up her arrest quota, and possibly even misuses city funds to this end (although technically you’d think seeing as how she does manage the arrests, there’s nothing really improper about it). She’s the prissy school antagonist cliché, ribbing and jibing Quigley’s character Didi to the point that she really has no other purpose in the film. Not only is she all but alone in this task, but while all the other leads are outwardly libidinous, she stands out as curiously asexual. It’s understandable in a way, but comes across as intensely weird.

We’re introduced to the cast as whole after first witnessing one of Holly’s late night drug busts. She’s there in the vice academy classroom – its walls filled with driver’s ed signs, and its back rows filled with hilariously bored looking extras – to brag about it early the next day. Didi is late, along with the class’ sole male figure, Dwayne (Ken Abraham) and the outrageously hot Shawnee (Karen Russell).

The class, or academy – it’s never really made clear and doesn’t seem to entirely matter anyway – is run by Miss Devonshire (Jayne Hamil). She’s a strict, heavily made-up teacher stereotype whose comedic stylings seem to rest entirely upon speaking in a, well, strict manner. And, naturally, she has it in for Didi, Dwayne and Shawnee.

Graduation, she explains, is coming up, and it’s the duty of each academy attendee to make ten arrests in order to guarantee a position on the force. Turns out the class is only up to the point of teaching how to disarm an assailant though, which seems to be going about things a bit wrong. Either way, Dwayne and Shawnee are called upon to demonstrate proper technique. But Shawnee’s not exactly the brightest in the academy, so her technique is, essentially, just to pull down her top.

To be fair, it does work (mostly because Karen Russell has amazing boobs) but isn’t the answer Miss Devonshire was hoping for, so instead we’re forced to watch entire room of bored extras lining up to knee Dwayne in the balls one by one, complimented by comedy ‘ding’ sounds.
Following class, Holly’s police chief father inexplicably (and probably illegally) hosts a line-up of the previous night’s drug dealers in the corridor. They run away while everyone just kind of stands around a bit and looks like they haven’t quite been directed properly. Holly makes a petulant face and sighs and accuses everyone of letting them get away. End scene.

Next we’re treated to some trademark Rick Sloane padding: scenes of the academy attendees running around an obstacle course for a good minute and a half. Dwayne lies at the end of a line of tires peering upwards, despite the fact that all the girls seem to be wearing shorts. Then there’s some more training – a little bit more of Dwayne getting hit in the balls, and Shawnee fires a gun while the rest of the cast stand around behind her wondering what they should be doing.

This is followed by another classroom scene, in which the girls are instructed on how to quickly apply make-up, as “no pimp is going to wait an hour for his whore to put on her face”. Holly leaves for the day to make more arrests, while Didi and Shawnee leave just to have a little fun down Hollywood Blvd.

Just as in Angel, it’s a vivid setting that pulls you in with the promise of seedy life. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get quite the use in Vice Academy that it does in Angel (barely a minute of skipping, really) but it does set up a meeting between the two and a beaten young girl huddled in a theatre alcove.

She’s a thinly concealed underage Traci Lords parody going by the name of Cherry Pop (Allison Barron, billed as Christian Barr). “I recently tried to get out of the porno business,” she explains. “I released an exercise tape: ‘Boning Up with Cherry Pop’.”

Didi and Shawnee promise to help, and find themselves a target for their ten arrests. So off they head to the underage girl-employing porn studio.

Inside, she takes part in an interview with the casting agent (Mark Richardson), and meets her co-star Chuckie Long (Steven Steward). There’s another good couple of minutes of padding, then Didi finally finds herself on set.

The movie’s director, Desiree, is played by one Stephanie Bishop – better known as ‘80s porn star Viper – in her one and only non-porn role.

(Viper, tangentially, has an amazing life story: she was a dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, who went on to become a corporal in the Marines, but was expelled for ‘fraternising’ with superior officers. She moved to Baltimore, worked as a prostitute, got her trademark tattoo from a Philadelphia street gang member, headed to LA and made 70-odd pornos, then suddenly disappeared in 1991. It was only at the end of 2010, in her newspaper obituary, that it was revealed she’d gone back to her home town to work as a nurse.)

Didi has fully clothed sex with Chuckie, then Shawnee and Dwayne burst in to arrest the whole crew – although Didi drags Chuckie back to her place for mostly-clothed sex.

The next day, Didi attempts to rub the arrests in Holly’s face, but Miss Devonshire reveals that they may not be able to prosecute anyone because of the whole ‘having sex on film’ business. Didi flips out, and there’s one of the all time greatest movie catfights.




According to Sloane’s commentary, Quigley and Lynn had enough animosity for each other that all he had to do was point the camera at them and hope no one got too badly hurt. You can even see one of Quigley’s earrings going flying at one point. It’s pretty much the high point of the entire film.

But with the fight over, it looks like it’s back to square one for our heroes – without the arrests from the porn film, they can’t make the quota and graduate. Miss Devonshire has a suggestion though: a master criminal called the Queen Bee (Jean Carol) is running a prostitution ring from somewhere in the city.

So the trio go out to find said ring. They bust a couple of street walkers (who, bizarrely, seem to be part of the ring) and then stumble upon the base of operations. “Look!” Dwayne exclaims, after they drive around for a bit. “A laundromat posing as a front for prostitution.”

Sure. Easy enough to spot from the road. Dwayne heads in and does the kind of impression of a Middle Eastern man you could only have gotten away with in the ‘80s, then drags out every one of the prostitutes behind him. But while Didi is inside posing as a prostitue to rack up a few more arrests, Shawnee and Dwayne are captured and taken as prisoners to the Queen Bee herself.

And then? Well, there’s an escape and a chase scene on foot through what looks like two rooms of boxes, all padded out to about 20 minutes. Shawnee flashes her boobs again and looks kinda feisty while doing it.

And then there’s a graduation scene padded out to about 10 minutes. Although, as mentioned above, Holly’s clothes do fall off. So that’s something at least.

But by that point, you’re probably past caring. There’s enough padding throughout the film – particularly in the last half – that it’s all a bit of a drag really. The dialogue isn’t crazy enough to be funny, or funny enough to be entertaining. And as great as Karen Russell’s boobs are, they’re not enough to make Vice Academy worth watching. It’s an interesting curio in terms of its stars, but mostly? It’s just dull.

- Alistair Wallis