The Vampire Lovers (1970)

Directed by Roy Ward Baker
Starring Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, Pippa Steel, Madeline Smith 
Rated R
UK

“This is a silly story.”

The first film in Hammer’s infamous boobs n’ blood soaked lesbian vampire trilogy, The Vampire Lovers is based on Carmilla, a novel by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. The film – like its loosely-connected follow-ups, 1971’s Lust for a Vampire and 1972’s Twins of Evil, follows the be-fanged antics of the cursed Karnstein clan, a family of beautiful, busty vampire girls. The Vampire Lovers was Ingrid Pitt’s first film for Hammer, and along with 1971’s Countess Dracula, it propelled her into cult-horror stardom, and she remained a very active and popular figure in vampire film-lore until she died in 2010 at the age of 73. Directed by Roy Ward Baker (who also died in 2010, at the very ripe age of 93), who had previously made the creepy sci-fi flick Quatermass and the Pit for Hammer, The Vampire Lovers established the tone and intensity that the company would return to again and again for the rest of the decade, mixing steamy sex and graphic violence with pitch-black humor and a palpable sense of dread. It was a winning formula that made millions for Hammer, and many of the company’s signature flourishes started here.

Vampire Lovers boasts an awesomely cheeseball pre-credit sequence wherein a velvet-draped, middle-aged fop with deplorable haircut prowls around his cobweb-choked cardboard castle keeping a stoney eye out for the latest ghoul from the Karnstein clan to show up. After a very Scooby Doo-esque dance in the cemetery outside the castle walls, the shrouded apparition heads into town where he, she, or it chomps down on a local outside a busy tavern.

Then the Karnstein creep zooms back over to Hartog’s place. Our man is momentarily disarmed when the monster reveals itself, and turns out to be a gorgeous young blonde (Danish actress Kirsten Lindholm). As the toothy beauty attempts to embrace the transfixed Hartog, her heaving bosom touches the crucifix around his neck. Naturally, being a vampire, she recoils and sprouts fangs. Hartog responds by pulling out a sword and graphically cutting her fuckin’ head off. Roll credits!

Laura (the awesomely named Pippa Steel) is a wealthy young socialite, engaged to the dashing Carl (Jon Finch). We meet the young couple at Laura’s lavish birthday party, hosted by her uncle, General von Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing). There’s all sorts of dancing and twirling and sipping of beverages, and then The Countess (Dawn Addams) shows up - that’s her official name on the credits, btw, “The Countess – with her daughter, Marcilla (Ingrid Pitt). Apparently, they’ve just moved into the neighborhood. All the men are immediately drawn to Marcilla, except for Carl. He’s already got her sussed out.

Suddenly, some bone-white freak shows up at the party and whispers something into the Countess’s ear. She dismisses him and then tells the General she’s got to split, because a friend of hers is dying. She asks the General to look after Marcilla until she gets back. He agrees. He thinks she’ll get along good with Laura. Oh brother, will she ever, General!

Marcilla and the ashen weirdo exchange fiendish grins as he gallops off, leaving her in the care of the general.

The next day, Laura and Marcilla share a warm, cozy moment in the garden. Laura clearly forgot to turn on her gaydar. That night, Laura dreams about a giant cat and wakes up screaming. She screams for a really, really long time. Kind of an overreaction to a nightmare, if you ask me. Or maybe not, because Laura never recovers. She grows weaker everyday, and refuses to see anyone but Marcilla. The doctor things she’s anemic. And he’s totally right. Anyway, after a couple of days, she dies. The doc shows up, pulls out her boob, and listens to it with his ear-horn, just to make sure. That’s when he notices the bite marks. Can it be? Was Laura bitten by…a vampire?

Why yes, she was. And if you haven’t figured that out yet, they show you a close-up of Marcilla’s gravestone.

Meanwhile, somewhere nearby, a bosomy young woman saunters though a graveyard late at night, clutching a basket. This seems like an unwise thing to do in lesbian vamp-land. She doesn’t last long out there. There's a huntress on the prowl!

Emma (gorgeous 70’s scream queen Madeline Smith) was Laura’s best bud. She happens to be out for a horse ride in the woods with her dad when a carriage crashes in front of them. Long story short, the Countess and Marcilla – who the Countess now refers to as Carmilla – are in the carriage. The Countess pulls the same routine on Emma and her dad, and they fall for it. He insists they take Carmilla home while the Countess attends to her sick brother or whoever. She splits, and Carmilla suddenly has a sexy new plaything.

Things get a little crazy from there. Carmilla takes a bath and then Emma gets naked too, and they start chasing each other around the room. They become best buds after that.

Things are going pretty good until Emma starts having scary dreams, just like Laura did. Big cats and what have you. She starts feeling sick, just like Laura did, as well. Also like Laura, she doesn’t appear to pick up on any of Carmilla’s subtle sexual come-ons.

After awhile, you start to wonder if Emma might be retarded, because she just doesn’t get anything. Her recurring dreams about giant cats and getting fur in her mouth, and then kissing Carmilla and feeling “pin-pricks of pain” – I mean, what the fuck, Emma? You’re best friend is a vampire, dummy. A lesbian vampire!

So anyway, after Emma goes on and on about her dreams, Carmilla makes sweet lesbian vampire love to her, although Emma looks hypnotized through the whole thing, so it might be consensual. Also, immediately afterwards, Carmilla seduces Emma’s foxy governess, Mademoiselle Perrodot (Kate O’Mara, Dynasty). Unlike Emma, Mademoiselle understands girl-on-girl passion. By the way, there’s full-frontal happening in this scene. 1970 was fucking crazy.

Emma’s dad is away on business while all these sexy hijinks are going down, so he calls on Carl to head over there and make sure everything’s ok. Only by now, Mademoiselle is under Carmilla’s sway, so she shoos him away.

Emma, at this point, is at death’s door. Her dad’s butler, Renton, suggests they call the doctor, but Mademoiselle tells him she doesn’t think it’s necessary. So fuck it, he goes to the tavern to get loaded. While there, he starts blabbing about the goings-on at the house, and the barkeep suggests he may have bigger trouble than he imagines. Vampire trouble!

So fuck it, Renton calls a doctor-slash-vampire slayer, and he comes by to help out. He puts a crucifix around Emma’s neck, and Renton spruces the room up with garlic flowers. This works wonders for repelling both Carmilla and Mademoiselle. The doctor, on the other hand, is not so lucky. Carmilla hunts him down on his way home. You think he’d have stuffed some of that garlic in his pockets before he left. So really, there’s only one thing left to do. The General and Emma’s dad meet up with old man Hartog to end this lunacy.

The fellas head out to Karnstein castle while, back at the house, Renton bangs a gong. Not sure why. It’s possible that vampires don’t like gongs. Or maybe they do, because the next thing you know, he’s making out with Carmilla. Don’t fall for it Renton, she’s not into dudes!

Too late, Renton’s evil now. Unless something happens soon, Emma’s done for! Meanwhile, back at the castle, the senior citizen vampire killer brigade has located Carmilla’s grave, but not her coffin. If they can find it, they can just wait until she returns, and then blammo – stake through the heart.

Also meanwhile, Carmilla drags sickly Emma out of bed and tells her she’s taking her home. Mademoiselle wants to go too, but Carmilla’s finished with her already.

But just then, Carl shows up. With a sword, no less! Of course, it’s going to take more than that to end Carmilla’s reign of terror. It’s going to take…well, it’s going to take the usual bullshit, really.

Growing up as tyke in the 70’s, I remember seeing this and many other Hammer films on TV, during the Saturday afternoon “Creature Double Features”. Of course, those versions were chopped to bits, cutting out anything remotely salacious. Because of this, I spent a good amount of my adult life thinking Hammer horrors were boring and bloodless, since all I really remembered about them were British accents and pilgrim hats. Seeing them as 30 years later in their uncut and uncensored form, however, is an entirely different experience. Clearly, these were adult films, packed wall-to-wall with bare skin and grisly mayhem, and The Vampire Lovers delivers both in meaty fistfuls.

Although she was clearly ten years too old for the role, I can’t think of a more perfect actress than Ingrid Pitt to portray Camilla, the sad and horny vampire with the adorably unsophisticated Polish accent. Like every man and woman in this film, I was inexorably drawn to her, and it’s easy to see why she became a horror legend shortly after this was released. The lesbian vampire film is one of cinema’s greatest gift to hardcore girl-watchers, and the template for hundreds of girl-on-girl fangfests started here. Bloody, sexy, funny, shocking, and delightfully campy, The Vampire Lovers is a masterpiece of over-the-top horror. Highly recommended.

- Ken McIntyre

Stripperland! (2011)

Directed by Sean Skelding

Starring Ben Sheppard, Jamison Challeen, Maren McGuire, and Ileana Herrin

Guest appearances by Lloyd Kaufman, Linnea Quigley, Boyd Banks and Daniel Baldwin

Unrated

USA

"Pre-made bullshit! Everywhere I go: bad eggs, no milk, and only flour. Fuckin' dude."

Portland, Oregon based filmmaker Sean Skelding's shamelessly transparent parody of the Hollywood blockbuster, Zombieland ( the strikingly similarly titled, Stripperland!), manages to take the idea set forth by its predecessor, copy it almost whole-cloth, and still overwhelmingly come off a winner. And I'm not only saying that because it also happened to be filmed all over my stomping grounds in the "Great Northwest", but also because its entertaining, funny, well-shot, well-acted, and has a bountiful bevy of gore drenched hotties traipsing about in their under-panties eating helpless hornballs.

To be honest, I have never seen Zombieland, but I have talked to people who have and listened to 10s upon 10s of podcasts featuring people who have, and with such intense and backbreaking labor put into my research, I feel completely competent in pretending that I know what I'm talking about. So, here we go...

Stripperland! begins with main character Idaho (Ben Sheppard) taking a late night shopping trip at Lamb's Thriftway (which is located in Wilsonville, Oregon), dodging scantily clad, flesh-craving dancers (dancers for money) and narrating over said events with the details of his current plight and the "rules" of which he has created to survive in this post-apocalyptic wasteland (you know, like in Zombieland).

A few of the aforementioned rules set forth by Idaho are as such: Rule #1: Strippers never tell the truth (which by the end of the film is changed to "Strippers dance for tips and tips alone." for no apparent reason), Rule #8: Strippers love heels (which again, is changed to "Strippers love Hip Hop." later in the film - again for no apparent reason), and Rule #11: Never eat at a strip club."; the last being a great rule to live by, even sans a zombie apocalypse, I'd say.

While hanging out at Lamb's, a H3 Hummer comes barreling into the parking lot and out hops a cowboy hat, shotgun wielding bad-ass named Frisco (Jamison Challeen) whose current personal mission is to locate fresh-baked goods such as cakes, cookies and muffins (its what his now deceased "partner" used to make for him in the good old days, before the outbreak). Not finding any at the Thriftway, Idaho and Frisco decide to team up and go on a road trip for baked goodness.

Along the way, Idaho and Frisco stop at Camp 18 (which is a popular restaurant/camping spot on Highway 26 in Elsie, Oregon) and run into what appears to be the only 2 uninfected females left: Virginia (Maren McGuire) and her sister West (Ileana Herrin).

They end up joining the road trip, mostly because Idaho has a boner for Virginia and because the ladies promise Frisco a never-ending supply of yummies if he takes them to see their Grandbo (a tough-as-nails Linnea Quigley in a sweet cameo as the leader of the vigilante group G.A.S., which I believe stands for Grandparents Against Strippers) who resides with her posse on the Oregon Coast (actual location: Rockaway Beach).

On the way to their ultimate destination (which is made all the more deadly due to them needing to go through Portland, Oregon - also called "Stripper Alley" - which has the highest number, per capita, of strip clubs in the U.S. Go Portland!) they run across a Hip Hop star named Double D (Daniel Baldwin, in a (thankfully) short role) who has found a fan base by rapping to the zombies, effectively turning them into mindless, dancing groupies.

Then they eventually make it to the now abandoned Jantzen Beach Mall (which is quite near me in Portland, Oregon - please don't stalk me) where they run into a sweet pimp named Maestro (Boyd Banks) who has taken refuge inside. Some unfortunate stuff happens, and the Troupo De Quatro (that's "The Group of Four" in some language I just made up) has to move on.

And, in the penultimate showdown, they run across a casino owner/mad scientist named Dr. Logan (played by Thom Bray) who has been experimenting with the zombies in order to create "Retro-Housewives": women who only live to serve their male counterparts. Needless to say, stuff happens and they move on.

Also making an appearance is Lloyd Kaufman (playing Idaho's dad), who gives his son a briefcase to open "when everything's fucked".

No, Stripperland! will not change the world, but as someone who rarely finds a movie interesting enough to watch all the way through in one sitting (it could also be the ADD), I can totally vouch for this film and without reserve recommend you give this a view. If you're an Oregon local, you might even want to give it a few more.

Get Stripperland! from Cheezy Flicks or MVD; they're both great.

- Jeremy Vaca

The Heartbreak Kid (1972)

Directed by Elaine May
Starring Charles Grodin, Cybil Shepard, Eddie Albert
Rated PG
USA

"Meet somebody? There's nothing but jerks staying here."

Written by acclaimed playwright Neil Simon and directed by Academy Award nominated actress/screenwriter Elaine May, The Heartbreak Kid is one of the first and best examples of the 'Cringe-com'. Putting unlikeable characters in uncomfortable situations is fairly common at this point: Larry David has made bazillions doing it in Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, for example, and Ben Stiller has based his entire career, including a pretty good remake of this very film, on making audiences squirm along with him; but in 1972, this was still groundbreaking stuff, and in Charles Grodin, May found the ultimate anti-hero, a wormy, objectionable narcissist who is pretty much the living, breathing definition of “cringe”. In the Heartbreak Kid, Grodin’s clueless cad Lenny destroys at least two families in his ceaseless search for sexual/romantic gratification, and we cannot peel our eyes away. It’s like a 105 minute-long car-wreck with a few brief romps on the beach.

Uptight New Yorker Lenny (Grodin) has a whirlwind romance with Lila (Jeannie Berlin, director May’s daughter). Unfortunately, she won't have sex with him until they get married, so, what the hell, they get hitched. Lila's mom is Doris Roberts, by the way. That should be a clear sign that things aren't gonna work out, but what's done is done. Anyway, seems like a fun wedding. After it's over, they head to Miami Beach for their honeymoon, and that's when the trouble starts.

On the way, she sings badly. He doesn't like it. She shows him her boobs. He doesn't like that, either. Then they stop at a motel to have sex, and it turns out to be not so good. He doesn't even enjoy their post-coital cuddling. He hates how he she keeps telling him they’ll be together for "40 or 50 years". And it really drives him crazy when she eats a candy bar in bed.

Breakfast the next morning is no better. He doesn't like the way she eats egg salad sandwiches at all. Also, their second session in the sack in no better. But hey, they finally make it to Miami Beach. Everything should be good now, right? Except then he meets a bewitching blond on the beach, and things get complicated. Said blond is Kelly (Cybil Shepard), who toys with Lenny exactly the way a cat torments a mouse.

Once Kelly splits to splash around in the water, Lenny joins his wife for some sunbathing. Lila sits in the sun too long without suntan oil. Lenny tries to warn her but she doesn't listen, so she gets a terrible sunburn. She is, naturally, upset about all this. Lenny is less than sympathetic and screams at her until she cries. And then he leaves her, beet-red and miserable, in the hotel room.

Bored, he goes to the bar to get a drink. He runs into the Kelly again. They flirt a little. Well, she says random stuff, and he laughs like an idiot. At this point, it is clear that Lenny is smitten, although there is nothing remotely captivating or endearing about Kelly. She’s just super-hot, and Lenny happens to be super-shallow.
Once Kelly suggests they meet up at the beach the next morning, Lenny’s mind is made up. He’s gotta dump the wife and chase the blonde. When he gets back to the hotel room, Lila is, not surprisingly, suspicious. Lenny talks his way out of it.

The next morning, Lenny rushes out to meet Kelly, and they splash around in the water together. He tells her he's married, but she doesn't care.Well, she really just doesn't care about him one way or the other, but he just figures she's a free thinker.  They spend the day together. She tells him she’s from Minnesota, and that her dad (Eddie Albert)  is rich. Even after she opens up a little, she still seems vapid and sorta mean, but she's so good looking, Lenny doesn't notice or care.

It turns out that dad doesn't like the riff-raff at this joint, so they're splitting to “The Jockey Club”. Lenny makes a date to meet Kelly there for drinks that night, even though he already made dinner plans with Lila. So he makes up some bullshit about meeting one of his army buddies on the beach, and sneaks off for his illicit tryst. When he gets there,  he tells Kelly he's leaving his wife. Seems rash, but the heart wants what the heart wants, right?

At this point, Lenny’s  supposed to head back to meet Lila, but a bemused Kelly ropes him into staying for dinner with dad and mom (Mrs. Roper, Audra Lindley!) and their friends from Colorado. Dad hates him. They watch some weird unseen show where some guy goes yeah-de-dat-da while Kelly gropes him under the table. He also agrees to go sailing with them on their friend's yacht tomorrow. He comes back late that night and tells Lila he got into a car accident with his war buddy. He also tells her he has to go to court the next day to sign affidavits and whatnots. You can see the first signs of panic on Lila’s face – this scheming wretch is the man she married? – but she does her best to swallow his bullshit.

The next morning, dad tries to get the yacht  moving before Lenny can board, but he's too fast for him. After a day of sailing, he has dinner with Kelly's folks and tells them what's up.It's a five-minute long monologue, and it's one of the most painful scenes ever committed to film. Brilliantly cruel stuff. Naturally, dad is not happy, and tells Lenny he'd rather be hung from a tree than allow this cad to date his daughter.

So, that didn't work out well, but Lenny's  still pretty self-assured about all this. He takes Lila out to dinner so that he can tell her what's been happening. As you might expect, it's not a comfortable situation.Lila thinks he's dying of a disease, so he finally has to scream "I want out of the goddamn marriage!" at her in the middle of their romantic lobster dinner. She cries and pukes. Again, another hilariously sick, soul-crushing scene.

So, clueless creep Lenny gets out of the marriage and heads to Minneapolis where he lives happily ever after with Kelly.

No. That's not what happens. He shows up at Kelly's house and his dad threatens to kill him.  And of course, when she sees him, Kelly could not care less. So, he fucks off back to New York, and they never see each other again.

No, that's not what happens. They end up having sex.  And they both like it. And dad finally warms up to him.

No, that's not what happens, either.

Amazingly enough, before the film ends, Lenny does, in fact, get the girl. But as the open-ended last scene illustrates, some folks are never happy.

Heartbreak Kid is definitely not a perfect film – at 105 minutes, it’s longer than it needs to be, and the ambiguous ending is less-than-satisfying – but there is still much to recommend it. Grodin is amazing in this. Every role he took on after it, from Midnight Run to those stupid dog movies and even his Letterman appearances over the years had echoes of Lenny in them. Grodin is about 76% Lenny in real life now. But what’s so great about his character in Heartbreak Kid is that there’s a tiny bit of Lenny in all of us. Sensibly, we do our best to keep our inner-Lenny under wraps, which is why this film is such fun to watch – Grodin is us, if we completely lost our fuckin’ minds. Also, Cybil Shepard is perfectly cast as Kelly. Beautiful and bewildering, with just a casual fluttering of her eyebrows, she illuminates a very sad truth: men are idiots. That has not changed in the forty  years since this film was released, which is probably why Heartbreak Kid still seems so fresh and funny. Ranked number 91 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 funniest comedies, Heartbreak Kid is a classic slice of 70’s cynicism, alternately hilarious and painful. Prepare to laugh and wince in equal measure.



- Ken McIntyre

Scream Dream (1989)

Directed by Donald Farmer

Starring Carol Carr, Melissa Moore, Nikki Riggins

Unrated

USA

"Don't worry, I told Lou I'm not the devil worshiping type. I've never even been to a human sacrifice!"

From the bowels of consumer-grade camcorder-made straight-to-video micro budgeted horror hell comes a movie that with little sense of irony intended, may very well be one of the most inept attempts at cinematic thrills ever concocted.

Relying heavily on the "Satanic Panic" media scare and moral panic taking place throughout the 80's (or; prior to rap music coming along to take the blame for everything), Scream Dream truly has a way of convincing you that the devil is real and that, in addition to making the "2 girls, 1 cup"and "Double Rainbow!" videos, the rascally fellow also took a few seconds away from gutting infants to make this.

Michelle Shock (Carol Carr) is the lead singer of a "heavy metal" band who is suspected by many to not only use the imagery of scary evil stuff to sell records but is, in fact, a life demon possessed...well, demon. This is made all the more evident when she bites the dick off of a fan who came by afterwards to tell her how "rad" she is.

The industry folks have to keep their image clean (and for some reason dick-eating demon sluts weren't big money makers back in the day), so they kick Michelle to the curb and quickly snatch up Jamie Summers (Melissa Moore) to take her place (cuz no one will notice that).

Shit starts getting real when a dude from the band finds out that Michelle is for realsies a demon (and she loves rock and roll). He chops her arm off, but when it starts crawling around, homeboy with the righteous perm has to stab it. And then he takes off.

Later the same day, Jamie stops by Michelle's place to steal some clothes and ends up getting possessed by the demon that was all up in Michelle. The demon wants revenge and needless to say, some folk get fucked up along the way.

To top off the greatness of penis eating and scalp clawing, there are also 3 excruciatingly overlong music sequences,

some boobs,

...and incredibly frightening demon make-up!

Overall, this movie is a mess. But, with that said, I actually recommend it. That is, if you enjoy the very fact that movies this awful exist and that companies such as SRS Cinema are ensuring that they never go away. The acting is terrible, the quality is terrible, its a 15 minute short film dragged out to over an hour, but just owning this makes me feel like a steward for generations of bad movie lovers to come. And that's pretty awesome.

- Jeremy Vaca

Black Scorpion (1995)

Directed by Jonathan Winfrey
Starring Joan Severance, Bruce Abbott, Garrett Morris
Rated R
USA

“My name is my fame. They don't call me Tender Lovin' for nothing.”

Black Scorpion was far from the start of the working relationship between producer Roger Corman and writer Craig J. Nevius. The two had spent the years leading up to the film producing together, and the previous year had collaborated as producer and writer on the unreleased Fantastic Four movie. Apparently, it set off something super-hero related (though not, let’s be clear, licensed super-hero related) in both their minds, as Black Scorpion soon followed. And then a sequel followed. And then a TV series. Then they stopped working together, but anyway; it was fruitful while it lasted.

The opening of the film is set in 1975, when young Darcy is being told a bedtime story by her father, police Lt Stan Walker (Rick Rossovich, who according to his IMDB page is “considered one of the nicest people to work with”. In movies? In Hollywood? In America? Not clear, but good to know anyway, just in case you end up working with him). She wants to hear Cinderella, but he says he doesn’t know it and tells her some crazy story about a frog and a scorpion.

See, the scorpion wanted to cross a river and asked the frog to ride on his back. The frog was doubtful that the scorpion wouldn’t kill him, but she – the scorpion – promised not to. When they got midway however, she did because it was her nature and then they both drowned. The end.

She looks kinda unsure about this and also a bit disturbed, which seems fair. It’s a shitty story.

Suddenly, he’s called off to catch some crooks. There’s a ‘70s car chase but he gets them and takes them into the hospital, because they’re cut up pretty bad. “This could be a good opportunity to use some of those new experimental devices on these trauma patients,” says the doctor (Casey Siemaszko, 3D from Back to the Future).

He doesn’t get the chance though, because the crooks almost escape, and Stan is forced to shoot them. Unfortunately, he also hits the doctor and it looks like things are pretty much over for his police career.

We cut forward 18 years to find that Darcy (Joan Severance) is a cop herself. She’s undercover, along with actual prostitute Tender Lovin’ (Terri J. Vaughn) because her pimp is killing people. Or something.

Also, Darcy is wearing a clear plastic jacket.

Keeping an eye on them is Darcy’s partner, Michael (Bruce Abbott, Re-Animator). Darcy’s into him, but Tender Lovin’ doesn’t think it’s going to work out. And she should know, she says, because she’s a prostitute. “My name is my fame. They don't call me Tender Lovin' for nothing.”

They end up meeting the pimp, E-Z Street, at some ratty strip club nearby, and he takes Darcy into the back to see if she’s got what it takes to become a prostitute. “This is it,” he announces, “the honeymoon suite, baby.”

“Looks more like a storage room,” she replies.

“Yeah, I got something to store for you,” he says.

He starts trying to rape her on the bed. “It's just gonna be quick fast bang boom, baby,” he tells her.

Just then, Mike busts in and arrests the guy. Darcy’s pissed, because she’s sick of him trying to protect her, and also doesn’t think they have enough to hold him. That seems odd, because clearly they suspected him enough for her to go undercover in the first place. But never mind.

They take him back to the station, where Captain Strickland (Stephen Lee, who’s had bit parts in seemingly every TV show ever) and the asthmatic district attorney tells them they don’t have enough to hold him and they have to set him free. So that’s annoying.

Also at the station is jovial petty criminal Argyle (Garrett Morris, Saturday Night Live). Oh, and a ninja with a championship belt and powder blue face paint attacks and then Michael saves Darcy so she yells at him for protecting her again.

Later on, Darcy has a drink with her father, who’s a become security guard and also a bitter rambling drunk. Suddenly, the DA walks into the bar and shoots Stan. Once the DA is behind bars, Darcy comes by late at night to threaten him with a gun.

He can’t remember doing the crime though, and Captain Strickland kicks her off the force, which doesn’t seem unreasonably, really.

However, this leaves her unable to protect Tender Lovin’ (and apparently no one else on the force cares/wants to do it either) and she gets beaten by her pimp. So she heads over to Darcy’s house and guilt trips her. While she does that, Darcy wears a purple turtle neck and a high-waisted pair of pants with shoulder straps, which is brave.

Darcy decides she’s had enough, so she makes a costume from things she finds around the house. Apparently she also had material to make the mask too, or something like that. It’s up there with the all time worst super-hero masks, right alongside the one Shaq wore in Steel that made him look like a cross-eyed doofus.

She goes and confronts E-Z Street, who’s trying to rape another potential prostitute. Then she kicks him out a window and he dies.

While all this is happening, a mysterious villain named Breathtaker (voiced by Ed Gilbert, though it would be telling to say who he’s physically played by) is cooking up an evil plan involving some kind of mind control via asthma inhalers.

Next, Darcy manages to rescue Tender Lovin’, who’s being attacked by some kind of evil goth Yahoo Serious impersonator or something.

Later, or the same night or whatever, the mayor is in his car making out with some girl. “You ever made it with a mayor before?” he asks

“Only a couple of city councilmen,” she answers.

Just before things get heavy, they’re attacked by a gang of ninjas. You’d think the mayor would have somewhere he could safely make out with girls. Luckily, Darcy saves them too. The mayor is not impressed though, and orders her stopped, because it’s an election year.

So, next time she tries to stop crime – two ex-wrestling chicks robbing a jewellery store, naturally – the cops show up and try to arrest her. She ends up fighting on the roof-top with Michael, and then they kiss.

She manages to get away, but the door of her car – she’s been using her car to get around the whole time, which seems totally nuts considering the whole secret identity thing – gets shot a couple of times. So, Darcy heads over to see Argyle to get a new door and confesses to him that she’s the Black Scorpion.

He ends up replacing everything in the car and installing a computer and a device that can make it shape shift into a totally different black car by affecting the “atoms of the molecular structure”, which is probably a real thing.

Darcy also heads around to Michael’s for dinner and tries to kiss him, but he tells her that he’s in love with the Black Scorpion. “I thought you didn't like aggressive women,” she complains.

“I don't,” he says. “But there’s something about her.”

Breathtaker, meanwhile, has a further plan – he’s going to use the air purification towers, which were installed to combat smog, to inundate the city with mind control chemicals. So he heads to a chemical plant to steal some gear.

Michael shows up and almost gets killed, but Darcy saves him. Breathtaker gets away, and so does Darcy, thanks to Argyle’s driving and her magic car.

She ends up in a bar, where she overhears one of her old cop buddies talking about the Black Scorpion. “Man, that Black Scorpion is fine. I'd just like to do her for a one night stand. She leaves the mask on and you never know who she is. Perfect! I'd drill her like an oil derrick on the back forty.”

I don’t know what that means, but it gives Darcy an idea so she goes to Michael’s again. This time she’s dressed as Black Scorpion, and she has forceful sex with him with her mask on.

When they’re done, she uses her Taser ring right on his chest to knock him out. Frankly, that seems like a really bad idea that could do some pretty serious damage to the guy’s heart, but that’s what happens.

Next day, Darcy decides to quit being Black Scorpion and throws her costume in a dumpster. She’s just about ready to confess her secret identity to Michael when Breathtaker interrupts the TV news to put his plan into action, so she runs out and grabs the costume from the rubbish and heads off to stop him.

Will she foil his evil plan and find out the identity of Breathtaker? Will she then wear a goofy looking floppy hat while having dinner with Michael?

Spoilers: yes, yes and very yes.

It’s not bad exactly, just boring, which is probably worse. Joan Severance is cute enough, but then that’s kinda tempered by the supremely stupid looking costume. Garrett Morris is fun, but he’s not in it much. And there’s some laughs and good lines, but not many. For something that spawned a sequel and a TV series, it’s surprising how much of a non-event the whole thing is. Definitely missable.

- Alistair Wallis