Hot Splash (1988)

Directed by James Ingrassia
Starring Richard Steele, Andrea Thompson, Jeremy Whalen
Rated R
USA
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The first five minutes of Hot Splash manages to ape the average teen sex comedy so accurately that it takes a couple scenes before you realize there's anything wrong.
Our hero, Matt (Richard Steele), is a surfer dude living in Miami. He sleeps with a blow-up fuck doll. His friends are all loudmouth, bleached-blonde, beach-bum assholes. His first stop of the day is to a surf shop, where he gets to feel up a chick in the dressing room. Ok, so the film-stock looks like it came from K Mart, but so far, it all seems normal enough. We are next introduced to half-shirt wearing blonde Jennifer (Andrea Thompson), an aspiring singer with a rat-fink boyfriend. She's in a recording studio, laying down some backing tracks on a ballad the sounds like a new wave band with Downs Syndrome covering Sister Christian. That's the first inkling that something's awry. Inkling number two pops up when, a minute or two later, a synchronized aerobics routine breaks out at the beach.

Right. We are obviously dealing with a few first-time, last-time, and non-actors here. Nobody can deliver a realistic line. It's like folk art, this movie. And the script so very rarely delivers any jokes that you forget it's supposed to be a comedy. It almost seems like anti-comedy, like something Neil Hamburger would direct, just to make you suffer. But let us hold our opinions for the moment and travel a little further down this twisted path.

Jennifer gets her big break one night when she gets to sing with Lenny Macaluso's band at a cheeseball dance club called Jubilations. Lenny's a real guy (lord knows, you can't fake a guy who's willing to walk around with a two-tone white-fro), a successful songwriter who composed songs for bands like Rare Earth and movies like Thrashin'. Whatever talents he has are not evident in the bass-rumbling, headache-making live rendition of Gimme Some Lovin' you hear here. That's the consistently alarming thing about this film: why not just a dub a studio track in, like every single other movie ever made? Why use the actual live track, when it so obviously sounds like a train crashing into another train? Twenty minutes into the film, and I am convinced that director Ingrassia shot this entire film in one pill-fueled twenty-four hour frenzy. It's got that one-take, no overdubs, we'll-fix-it-in-editing vibe, like Harry Novak with Alzheimer's. I imagine most people would find this aggro-amateurism excruciating, but I actually found it sort of exciting, like absolutely anything could happen next.

Jennifer's friend says, "When are you gonna find a guy that will treat you right?"
"Don't you understand?" Jennifer replies. "That's what I like about Jimbo."
The camera cuts to Jimbo pouring a Budweiser on his head. And then it cuts to some girl with a bad perm and an even worse dress doing some sort of herky-jerky dance. And then Jennifer gets back up to help Lenny mangle Spirit's 'I Got a Line on You'. Halfway through, some kid on the dance floor gets grabby with her, so Jimbo pops him in the face, and they brawl. There is no humor whatsoever to any of this. Neither is there any dramatic tension. It's just two beer-powered assholes wailing on each other, like some grainy backyard wrestling clip from Youtube. They get tossed out, and Jennifer starts slapping Jimbo and calling him a cheating asshole. And then he pulls out her tit and starts making out with her on the hood of a car.

They take off, she gets completely nude, and they fuck in a hot tub. And suddenly, it hits you: Florida. Florida is a motherfucker on the soul. I was there two years ago - twenty years after this film was shot - and its still exactly like this. Florida is fucking demented. That must be the message of this movie. It may be a very expensive cry for help from the director.


A bizarre subplot emerges involving a low-level Mafia type named TJ (Jeremy Whalen) and the two fat idiots he employs as his stooges. Some old dude with a black panther for a pet tells him to "get the money or else" and the fat guys say, "Can we go to the pizzeria now?"
Matt and his buddy Woody (Richard Steinmetz) get a catering job, which happens to be at TJ's house. They blunder their way into his graces when they accidentally save his life, and suddenly, they become his new stooges. Later that night, Jennifer flirts with a liquor store clerk while "the gang" robs the place. Then they enjoy the fruits of their labor at a berserk house party. Again, this is supposed to look like kooky teenage fun, but it mostly looks like a bunch of angry alcoholics on a crime spree.

Does it really matter what happens next? Matt starts dating TJ's niece Kim (Kim is not listed anywhere in the credits, by the way). He and Woody get an assignment to deliver a package but, when they discover said package contains cocaine, they freak out and decide to hide out at the Dollhouse II strip club. Because no one will see them in a packed strip club. It is fairly obvious that this scene came to pass because the director knew some dude who worked there, since the club's neon sign is prominently displayed in a static shot that lasts nearly a minute. It's a cheap way to crowbar some extra tits in the film, at any rate. I mean, they were whipping 'em out anyway, right?

Around this point in the film, they start inserting music cues from what sounds like 1950's science fiction films. Invasion of the Saucermen, shit like that. It makes an already surreal cinematic experience even weirder. There's also a scene in Matt's bedroom where you can clearly see a poster for the 1984 military comedy Tank, starring James Garner. Even James Garner wouldn't have that poster on his wall. Anyway, the fat guys kidnap Jimbo because he's supposed to win a surfing contest that TJ is betting on. I'm not sure how that works, but whatever. So at one point, Woody runs up to Jennifer and says this:
"Listen, I found out where they hid him. He's at the Mystery Funhouse. I got the gang together, and we're supposed to meet them over there."
All I can say is, Zoinks.

A good half an hour of Hot Splash's running time is just shots of whatever the fuck was going on at Miami Beach at the time. The rest, however, is pure madness, a jumble of bad ideas sutured together with all the finesse of a battlefield surgeon. Ingrassia's kitchen-sink approach is just so mind-fryingly random that it nearly approaches genius in places. I mean, Matt and Kim escape the mobster's clutches in a goddamn hot air balloon. And then Uncle TJ ends up in jail, wearing a housedress.

I could not guess where James Ingrassia is now, but wherever he roams, I feel safe in assuming that he is quite proud of his handiwork here. He should be. Hot Splash is by no means a good film, but it is a spectacularly bad film, and that's almost better. Any half-wit with a decent crew can cobble together a watchable teen-sex flick, but it takes a certain breed of rugged individual to create a vision as singular as this one, where strippers and mafia goons and surfers and local drunks and bikini models and terrible actresses all get together and make one seriously hot mess.

Against all odds, several members of the Hot Splash cast have gone on to successful acting careers. Most prominently, Andrea "Jennifer" Thompson has done two decades' worth of high profile television, most recently on 24 and Heroes. Richard "Woody" Steinmetz has also enjoyed steady work on television, from whacked-out soap Passions to ratings juggernaut CSI. Paul Parducci, who played Sancho, the less-fat stooge, wrote, produced, and directed his own TV series, Nightmare Boss, in 2006. No idea where the rest of "the gang" is, but from their behavior in the film, I'd say their time is probably divided equally betwixt jail, rehab, and the Dollhouse II.

Availability: Although a chopped-to-bits version of Hot Splash (gross name, by the way) played a few times on basic-cable badfilm Valhalla USA Up All Night in the late 80's and early 90's, it doesn't appear that the film ever received a proper US video release. PAL versions exist, however, as Hot Splash did manage to surf it's way into the UK. Intrepid US garbage-heads will have to rely on either their weird cousin, the one who obsessively taped Up All Night for 13 years, or just, you know, search around your hipper torrent sites.

Links: Andrea Thompson official.
Lenny Macaluso sells soup now.

-Ken McIntyre

Party Camp (1987)

Directed by Gary Graver
Starring Andrew Ross, Jewel Shepard, Peter Jason, Billy Jacoby
Rated R
USA
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Guy falls asleep in the gutter with a burrito in his hand. Dreams about some hot chick with big hair. Wakes up to an alley cat licking his face. You'd think the cat'd be more interested in the burrito. So he looks around and finds a chewed-up brochure for a summer camp, and wouldn't you know it, the chick from his dreams is in the brochure. Suddenly, a school bus shows up. "Camp Chipmunk, here I come!" Says the dude. And here we all go. Hold on to your fuckin' balls.

Directed by prolific sex-com vet Gary Graver (Garage Girls, Coed Fever, Private Teacher, Nerds of a Feather, etc. etc) and produced by Mark Borde, the man who brought us Summer Camp, Lunch Wagon and Hollywood Hot Tubs, Party Camp seems like a can't-miss, especially with Jewel Shepard top-lining the cast. The name alone conjures up vivid teen fantasies of lakeside Bacchanalia, of underage boozing and whoring and cabins blowing up and uptight counselors getting ass-banged by grizzly bears. I mean, this is fucking PARTY CAMP, right?

Sigh. Let's just get to it.

Jerry (Andrew Ross) is the burrito guy. A slacker by trade, he's fibbed his way into a summer camp counselor gig. The camp is run by one Mrs. Beadle (the very Ruth Buzzi-esque Cherie Franklin) and silver-helmeted loudmouth Sarge (prolific asshole-authority figure character actor Peter Jason), who spend their spare time dressing in elaborate costumes and chasing each other around Beadle's cabin. There's two groups of kids: the Falcons, who look like Nazi youth, and our protagonists, the Squirrels. The squirrels are, of course, the freaks, losers, poor kids and weirdoes. You know, our people. Jerry ends up in charge of the Squirrels, and Tad (Kirk Cribb) runs the Nazi kids. They, of course, hate each other, and a series of escalating pranks ultimately ends in a do-or-die competition at film's end.

That's pretty much it. It's Meatballs with tits, although not nearly as many tits as you'd think. That's because there are only three of-age girls in the entire movie. There's Nurse Brenda (April Wayne), who is in the movie for about three minutes, Heather (Kerry Brennan) the aerobics instructor, and Dyanne (Jewel Shepard), who dates Tad and appears to be either manic-depressive or on pills.

That's the set-up. It is quickly followed by the expected camp activities montage, which is accompanied by the expected ear-battering theme song. It's by Dennis Dreith, and it goes "I'm going to party camp, gettin' loose is cool."
Indeed.

Best part of the movie, part one:
One of the Squirrels, Winslow (Silver Spoons' star Corky Pigeon) is a computer wiz, so he's somehow rigged up a camera to record the action in the girls' locker room. The boys watch while the female counselors towel off. There's half a dozen of them in there, which is more than we ever see in the movie, but whatever. The point is, while we all peep in, Dyanne stares into the mirror and admires her admittedly magnificent rack.
"Oh wow," she says. "Oh God. These really are amazing. I really was blessed at birth. I must have the best body in the entire town."

Jewel Shepard performs this monologue with such conviction, and with such a weird, off-kilter energy, that it transcends the entire movie. The other actresses completely disappear from the scene. It's practically Shakespearean. I'm not even kidding. Aspiring thespians should watch that shit in acting class, because it's the real thing.

Either that, or she really believes what she's saying. And who could blame her if she was?

Meanwhile, Jerry tries to convince the Squirrels that girls will dig them if they know how to play hackey-sack.
"Chicks see you doing this, they'll know you've got class," he says. "And good breeding."
I know it's not funny. That's the point. So let us fast forward to the...


Best Part of the Movie, Part Two:
While out in a nature walk, the Squirrels come across a patch of weeds that smart-alecky Corky Pigeon identifies as "Angelica Vulgaris", an herb known for it's aphrodisiac qualities. They waste no time in chopping it into a salad and feeding it to Jewel while they sit around the campfire. She fellates a marshmallow and then convinces her young charges to play a round of strip poker. Strangely enough, she loses every hand. And there she is, just standing there, tits-out, in the night air. It's pretty intense. Suddenly, a dude in a hockey mask emerges out the bushes. The chivalrous little brats take off running, leaving Jewel standing there in nothing but panties while hockey mask dude hovers over her. She yelps and bails into the darkness.
The menacing intruder lifts up his mask.
"Anybody seen my puck?" He asks.
Ok, so that's a really long way to go for a dumb gag, but the teenage me practically passed out during Jewel's big reveal. The adult me just felt bad for the actress, but I'm sure she's over it by now. At any rate, that scene is one for the fuckin' books, Jack. One for this book, anyway.

So concludes the boner-popping portion of Party Camp. Unfortunately, we still have an hour's worth of lame 'comedy' to slog through. So let's get it over with. Emboldened by their locker-room surveillance gag, The Squrrels bug (ahem) Mrs. Beadle's cabin while she's having a role-playing session with the Sarge (he's dressed like a fly, she's chasing him with a swatter) and play the tape over the loudspeakers the next morning. Beadle nearly has a heart attack over it. In retaliation, she has Tad and Dyanne confiscate Winslow's computer. Of course you realize, this means war.


Jerry and the Squirrels cook up a revenge scheme. Tad ends up in a pit, Silence of the Lambs style. Dyanne gets caught up in a net and hung from a tree. "Are you guys Iranians?" She asks. "Are you Libyans?"
They both get tossed into black bags, dragged through the mud, and left in a pigsty. For a second there, it looks like this movie is going to go into another direction entirely. If Party Camp was made today, surely, this pigsty business would quickly devolve into torture porn.
Tad finally frees them from their bags. Dyann thinks it was all Tad's idea.
"Is this your idea of a date, Mr. Kinkmeister?"
One of the pigs tells her it was the Squirrels. Seriously, the pig talks.
"It's ok," she says. "I kinda liked it."
I feel as though Jewel Shepard may have been having a nervous breakdown at this point. She definitely looks like she could use some Valium.

Some other things happen. They are not important. There's another locker room scene, at least. Eventually Party Camp ends, as summer camp movies must, with a competition that pits the scrappy underdogs against the overconfident overachievers.

I feel the need to point out the obvious here. The film is called Party Camp, and yet, there are no parties in this film, except for a limp dance at the end. And Jewel Shepard, the sole reason why anybody would ever want to watch this film, is mostly just abused. She's either being dragged through pig-shit or forced to undress in front of underage boys.
She even gets shoved out of the way by the other pretty girl - because there are only two, in this 'party' camp - when Tad finally stumbles at the last leg of the race, as we knew he would.

There are brief flashes of goodness in the muck. Dean Miller, who plays Cody, the camp's druggy bus driver, pops up every so often dressed like a teenage dirtbag Hunter Thompson, chomping on his cigarette holder and swilling fruity drinks. He has nothing to do, really, but makes the most of it anyway. Billy Jacoby's portrayal of the earnest, good-natured, poor-kid DA has a lot more gravity than the role really requires. The whole cast, in fact, takes the whole hopeless mess a lot more seriously than you'd expect. But Party Camp is hobbled by a lame script that refuses to get crazy. Its as if they wanted to please twelve year olds and horny teens alike, and ended up leaving them both wanting. Certainly, Gary Graver knew sleaze - there are ass-fucking movies in his resume, after all - but Party Camp is never really sleazy, and it should be. Creepy here and there, but never sleazy.

The fault may not lie with Graver's direction, but with studio tampering and...well, with decency laws. According to an absurdly detailed report on the internet's leading cinematic suckhole, IMDB, there are over twenty-five minutes of deleted scenes languishing in vaults out there, and most of them involve sex. If this obsessive report is to be believed, we are missing out on several Tad-on-Dyanne fuck scenes, a Dyanne shower-masturbation scene, and half a dozen sex scenes involving Nurse Brenda, including one wherein she sports a cheerleader outfit. There is one strange moment at the film's end where she's dressed in tight black leather and whipping young Mr. Jacoby; apparently, a whole sex scene was shot, but when the producers realized that the actor was only 17 at the time of shooting, they destroyed the footage. It is entirely possible that if the offending scenes were left in, and the forty-five or so minutes of tedious camper hijinks were excised, we would have the Greatest Camp Movie Ever. But we'll never know, will we? As it stands, we have a so-so T&A comedy with a mere wisp of T, no A to speak of, and a very broad definition of 'comedy'.

Party Camp remains a minor cult hit, mostly for the strip poker scene, but honestly, there are much sexier, and funnier, camps to party in. Like Crystal Lake. That place is nuts.

Availability: Party Camp is available on VHS.
Buy Party Camp at Amazon.
-Ken McIntyre

How to Seduce Your Teacher (1979)

AKA La Liceale seduce i professori
Directed by Mariano Laurenti
Starring Gloria Guida, Alvaro Vitale, Lino Banfi, Lorraine De Selle
Rated R
Italy

"I'm sorry sir, did I break the enchantment?"
"No, you broke my balls."

While the traditional teen sex comedy is largely the work of American ingenuity, borne of shopping malls, cheerleader squads, milkshakes, and muscle cars, it is by no means a purely American phenomenon. The Israelis have their Lemon Popsicle series, the Brits their Confessions of, the French have their Six Swedes movies, and the Germans...well, I'm not sure they've nailed the comedy part of the equation, but they've got stuff, too. So it stands to reason that the Italians, perhaps the lustiest non-Brazilian country on Earth, would have their own T&A comedy series, as well. In fact, they have several, but today, let us concentrate on this brain-flaying nugget of wonderfulness.

How to Seduce Your Teacher stars Euro softcore queen Gloria Guida. In 1975, she made a film called The Teasers, where she played a sexy schoolgirl who seduces virtually every man she bumps into. Given her obvious charms - a statuesque frame wrapped in porcelain skin and crowned with a beauty-queen face somewhere between Barbara Bach and Tanya Roberts - this was not a far-fetched fantasy.

It proved wildly popular and so, in proper Italo-sploitation tradition, half a dozen more were cranked out, all with the same basic storyline. By 1979, Gloria was clearly in her mid-twenties, so they upgraded her scholarly pursuits to college, but otherwise, the song remains the same.


As the story opens, we are introduced to Pasquale (Lino Banfi), a bald, middle-aged dean of a small, unruly Italian university. Lino likes two things: banging chicks, particularly young ones, and playing the tuba. The latter he does with the school band, although he would desperately like to conduct. Unfortunately, this year that honor has been bestowed on his arch rival Salvatore (Alvaro Vitale), the school janitor. You may scratch your chin and wonder how the janitor would end up as conductor, but I suggest just rolling with it. This film will go down much easier that way.

The students are always playing practical jokes on Pasquale. This running gag seems to pop up every five minutes, but most of the time, the pranks either don't make sense or are just mean-spirited. There's the slam-the-door-in-his-face gag, for example, which is exactly that. They do this to him three or four times in a row, until his bottom lip looks like a sausage, and his nose is oozing blood. And this just makes them laugh harder. There's another scene where they stick balloons in his tuba. I don't get it either. Anyway, that stuff takes up some time.


Eventually, we get to the crux of the story, which is this: Angela (Guida) is Pasquale's niece. She's come to live with him and her two cousins for a semester. And that's it, the entire story. You'd think this economy of plot would make it easy to follow, but you would be mistaken. At any rate, Angela's considerable beauty appears to affect every male she meets, regardless of their relationship to her, as we discover when Uncle Pasquale comes home from work and accidentally walks in on her showering. He bites his hand and leers like a fourteen-year old boy. It's too stupid to be disturbing but still, I mean, is there no end to this madness?


Pasquale also has a young girlfriend, Fedora (Lorraine De Selle, a battle-worn vet of several cannibal, zombie, and women-in-prison flicks). The two of them are constantly dressing up in weird costumes. There's a Tarzan and Jane scene, which ends with Pasquale - dressed like Fred Flintstone - fucking Fedora while he stabs viciously at some invisible enemy with a hunting knife. And they don't just dress up when they're having sex, either. At one point, Pasquale is walking around town with a bushy beard and black hat. Dunno if he's supposed to be Jewish or French. Fedora shows up in his office dressed like an Italian gangster, complete with a greasy mustache. That one goes awry when Sal, the janitor/music teacher, barges into the room just as they were about to kiss. It turns into a face-slapping fest, with Pasquale yelling, "Who's a faggot? You calling me a faggot? There's no faggots around here, pal!"



Afterwards, Sal goes to men's room. He attempts sitting down for a relaxing bowel movement, but those damn students stole the fucking toilet bowl, so he lands on his ass.
And they laugh and laugh.

I should mention that Banfi and Vitale were a long-running comedy team at that point, and had appeared in several films together already. You can tell, even with the idiotic dubbing, that they have great chemistry together. They also spit on each other a lot. I guess spitting is funny to Italians. It's kinda gross, though.

Speaking of dubbing, I'm pretty sure whoever did the English dub job on this was just making shit up as they went along. There's one scene where one of the students is facing some sort of scholastic board to convince them to let him pass a class, and this is part of the exchange:
Teacher: "Tell me everything you know about monkeys."
Student: "Monkeys don't speak French."
Teacher: "I tend to agree with that. Certainly Chinese monkeys don't."

That can't actually be in the original script, can it? I mean, that's fucking crazy. That's like an Aqua Teen Hunger Force bit. Here's another unexplainable exchange, in a seemingly random scene at an outdoor café:

Waiter: "Here you are, Doctor Mazzi. How have you been feeling lately?"
Dr. Mazzi: "Better. Ever since I started taking these tranquilizers I prescribed for myself, I haven't had hallucinations anymore."
Waiter: "Very good, sir. Have a nice day."


So, right. Angela. Angela flirts with her cousin, and gets him to take her to the local disco. Cousin happens to play in a four-guitar, one-organ Italian space disco band, called, interestingly enough, "I Phone". They are way groovier than you'd expect. Angela gets bored and asks if she can sing with them. She belts out a number in Italian. It's pretty bitchin', in an ABBA-on-drugs sorta way. No idea if it was really Guida singing, but why the fuck wouldn't it be?



Angela decides not to fuck her cousin though, and sets her sights on mustachioed professor Carlo (Dario Argento vet Fabrizio Moroni). She gets him to tutor her in whatever it is he teaches. That goes pretty good, so she convinces him to join her at the disco, where she performs another song, this time while dancing with him. And then, as the title suggests, she seduces her teacher. Although I'm not sure about the "How to". The title of this film implies that it's going to teach you how to seduce your teacher, and unless you look like Gloria Guida circa 1979 and can sing Euro-trash pop at druggy polyester discotheques, this way probably won't work for you.

That pretty much covers it, although there is a surprise ending. A lame one, but a surprise, none the less. Oh, and Angela's friend Irma (Donatella Damiani) ends up in Angela's bed at one point. I forget why. They might not even have explained why. Anyway, she's got huge breasts. I mean, Russ Meyer-esque mammaries. For whatever reason, they had her in baggy clothes until the big reveal at the end. Holy fuckin' crud, was it worth it.

A lot of people seem to dismiss these films as moronic slapstick junk, but for garbage-heads in search of hardcore jollies, this one really does the trick. It's like the Italians were living in some alternate universe back in the 70's, one where everybody's sense of propriety is based on the Three Stooges, where dangerous pranks are merely signs of affection, and where cousin-fucking is not only approved of, it's practically mandatory. I liked everything about this movie, and when it was over, I wanted to:
A. Ogle Gloria Guida some more.
B: Ogle Donatella Damiani some more.
C: Break out some Italian space disco 12" singles (oh yes, I have some)
D: Put balloons in some asshole's tuba.

Tits galore, shameless laffs at the expense of clueless adults, bitchin' tunes, and feathered hair-dos. Ladies and gentleman, we have arrived at boner-movie heaven.

Availability: If you live in the UK or Europe, you're in luck, because most of the Guida sex comedies are available on legit Region 2 DVDs. Otherwise, this film in sadly unavailable in the US. I bought a very grainy bootleg DVD-R at a local record shop. Swim around in the gray market soup or hipper torrent trackers, and mebbe you'll strike gold.

Link: Awesome Donatella Damiani gallery

-Ken McIntyre

Fast Food (1989)

Directed by Michael Simpson
Starring Jim Varney, Traci Lords, Pamela Springsteen
Rated PG-13
USA

"So, you into marine biology?"
"Well, I know how to swim."

Auggie (Clark Brandon) is one of those over-confident, constantly-scheming Ferris Bueller types. As the film opens, he's hosting a casino night fundraiser for his fraternity house. He has, of course, rigged all the games. And then he bangs a freshman who, it turns out, is the dean's daughter.

Let us pause here and examine this curious trend in 80's teen-flicks. In the wake of Ferris and the Cult of Guttenberg, a new character emerged: the charming prick. In the case of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Police Academy, the characters worked because the actors really were charming, and despite their rakish behavior, they never really did any harm. By 1989, there were dozens of films that employed a similar character in the lead role, minus the actual charm, wit, or heart. And so you are left with villains-turned-inside-out like this smug fucker Auggie who, in the first five minutes of the movie, has already wrecked several lives. Who's to blame for this alarming trend? Cocaine? Reagan? Hard to say, but one thing is for certain, the target demographic for these films were not womanizing alpha-jerks. Those assholes were into Top Gun. There were no Auggies watching low-ball junk like this. These movies were rented and adored by misfits, cellar-dwellars, shut-in nerdboys and nocturnal masturbators, not fuck-faces with Rick Springfield haircuts and wifebeaters. So, you know, there better be some decent nude scenes, because the hero is a zero.


So anyway, back to our story. Auggie and his middle-aged pal Drew (Randal Patrick) get summoned to the dean's office, who informs them that eight years of hijinks is quite enough. He gives 'em diplomas and sends them on their way. Meanwhile, Drew's cousin Samantha (Tracy Griffith) runs a rundown, in-the-hole gas station inherited from their grandfather. Bazillionaire fast food magnate Wrangler Bob (Jim Varney, RIP) wants to buy it and turn it into one of his hamburger joints, since it sits across the street from the college. You see where this is going? Smelling easy money, Auggie convinces Sam and Drew that they should open their own fast food place there instead. Fuck Wrangler Bob. And that's what happens. Pop's service station becomes Pop's Burgers. Cue the 80's fixing-the-place-up montage. It's your classic David versus Goliath story. But where's the boners come in? Well, there's a twist.

Back at the college, in some deep, dark lab, two scientists are doing research on Priapism, which we now know, from watching countless Viagra commercials, is a "constant, painful erection." So the scientist gets a whiff of the formula she's working on, and she goes sex-mad. She rips off the other scientist's clothes and bangs him into oblivion. Some bullshit happens, and Auggie ends up using the sex formula in Pop's special sauce. Who, after all, wouldn't want a hamburger that'll make your girlfriend horny?

They get a gig catering a fancy-pants sorority mixer at the college, and that's when they try out their fuck sauce for the first time. The upper-crusty bores start chomping on the sauce-slathered meat, and the lame-o dinner turns into a wild orgy of...well, it's hard to say what happens, really. Since Fast Food is hampered by a PG-13 rating, they don't actually show a whiff of sexy shenanigans. At one point, they line up a row of girls for a wet t-shirt contest...and then they never have the fucking contest. Rats. By the way, Mary Beth, the curly-haired sorority queen...boss...whatever they call her, is portrayed by Pamela "Sister-of-Bruce" Springteen. Pam is most remembered for her role as the gender-bending psycho killer in gonzo summer-camp slashers Sleepaway Camp II. & III. Micheal Simpson directed those as well, and if you look closely, you'll find half the cast of the Sleepway Camp movies wandering around in Fast Food. If only Simpson brought along some of the crazed energy, bizarre plot twists, and kinky sexuality of the Sleepaway Camp sequels as well, because this movie sorely needs them.

The very next day, business is booming, as evidenced by a montage wherein an old guy chases a nurse around a tree and two chubby lesbians in denim jackets rock a trailer. At one point a nun and a priest stare longingly in each other's eyes, but before they can tongue-kiss or whatever they had planned, God shoots them with lightning. Wrangler Bob hires Traci Lords on as a corporate spy. He calls her on his hamburger phone, by the way. So he was a good twenty years ahead of Juno on that one. Traci gets a job at Pop's Burgers and weird ol' Michael J Pollard - who works there in some unspecified capacity - spills the beans about the sauce.

Traci has to try it herself, of course, so that we can get a shot of her in her undies, when she attempts to seduce Auggie. But Auggie is now convinced that he's in love with Samantha, so he rebuffs her. Which, I guarantee you, has never, ever happened to Traci Lords in real life.

Wrangler Bob calls the FDA, they seize Pop's burgers, and everybody declares their hatred for Auggie. Dejected, he hangs himself. Later on, Sam finds his still-spinning corpse and sets it ablaze. The end.

Not really. The first part, yeah, but the end is a little different.


Fast Food is still a cable TV staple and a minor cult hit amongst squares, Traci Lords completists, and thirty five year old women with a lingering Clark Brandon crush, but for sleaze-beasts and tit-mongers, there is very little to grasp onto here. The acting is above par and so are the production values, but if you were expecting the standard Michael Simpson experience - full-tilt, balls-out lunacy - stick with his slashers. This was, by the way, the last film Simpson directed, and the last one that Clark Brandon acted in. Simpson's been writing and producing family fare ever since. Brandon, who knows. He's probably out there scamming chicks or something.

PS: Fear not, fried meat fans...there are far sleazier fast food-related jiggle-coms out there, and we'll get to 'em soon.

Availability: Fast Food is available on DVD.
Buy Fast Food at Amazon.
-Ken McIntyre

Hot Moves (1985)

Directed by Jim Sotos
Starring Jill Schoelen, Adam Sillbar, Michael Zorek
Rated R
USA
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What I like about the plot of this film is that it's relatable. It's about four high school dudes, out on summer break, who make a pact to lose their virginity before their senior year starts in September. What self-respecting teenage dirtbag hasn't made this self-same pact? And, indeed, how many of us bungled it, just like these jokers? Hot Moves, man. It's the naked truth.

The film opens with five or so minutes worth of 80's people at Venice Beach doin' 80's stuff, i.e. roller skating and riding BMX bikes and power-lifting. You know, showing off their 'hot moves'. Brit NWOBHM champs Raven, at that point attempting a hopeless American invasion, perform the blaring theme song. We are soon introduced to our four strapping young lads: Michael (Adam Sillbar), the doe-eyed leader of the gang; Barry (instantly recognizable go-to chubby sidekick Michael Zorek); Scotty (Johnny Timco), the uh...one with the fluffy hair; and Joey (Jeff Fishman), the twink. They make their pact and then lie around on the beach, ogling the local talent. Michael is currently dating Julie-Ann (Jill Schoelen), but she won't give up the puss, so he's thinking about ditching her. He decides to confront her on this burning issue, so he saunters over to her place.


First of all, 1985-ish Jill Schoelen is such a breathtaking vision of wide-eyed innocence that no dude would walk away from her, regardless of her aversion to pre-marital sex. So just listen to this clown:

Julie-Ann: "I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to my aunt Leslie's pool party on Friday night."
Michael: "I'd love to come with you Julie, but frankly, I don't think I can handle another date with you if I'm just going to go home frustrated."
Julie-Ann: "Frustrated? I'm the one who's frustrated, Michael. The only thing that matters to you is sex, isn't it?"
Michael: "No, it's not all that matters, but it does matter." Pause for dramatic effect. "I'll see you around."
And then he takes off. Mind you, the fucker is wearing tiny blue shorts the whole time. So he takes a few steps, and then he turns around and says,
"Oh, and Julie...I miss being with you."
What a manipulative cunt that kid is.


And so, the pact. Barry almost bangs a teddybear-obsessed waitress with a Sheena Easton haircut, but he accidentally kicks over a candle while they're making out and nearly burns her house down. Joey decides to just visit a whore and get it over with, but wants to buy a condom first. Instead of just popping in to the local pharmacy, all four guys slink into the darkest, dankest sex shop ever. The greasy creep behind the counter - a dead-ringer for Herman, the gun-obsessed, one-armed, army surplus store owner on the Simpsons - sells Joey a condom for $7.50. He also tries to sell him an edible jockstrap. "This one's penis flavored," he says.
So, they cruise around Hollywood looking for a discount hooker. They pass by a theater playing "Flashpants". Flashpants! Awesome. Anyway, the kid looks like he's twelve, so none of the streetwalkers will bite. So far, this pact is an abject failure.


Flash-forward a day or so. Scotty meets a vampish brunette wearing a slinky black nightgown while on his morning paper route. She invites him in to her home, and he's pretty sure he's got this one all sewn up. But then her wig falls off. Turns out, she's a tranny. Drats. He hightails it out of there, although you'd think, given his feathered hair and short-shorts, that this would be his sorta scene. Said tranny, by the way, is played by legendary porn actor/producer/director David "Pussyman" Christopher.

Meanwhile, Julie-Ann decides she's had enough of Michael's bullshit, so she makes a date with Roger, the lifeguard.

But first, we have to watch like ten minutes of some dudes breakdancing.

So Michael's older brother skates by, and suggests Michael ask out Heidi (Deborah Richter), because she's "dying to get in your pants, and she's got lots of horny friends." He even tells Mike that he can use his place. Mike's older brother is the balls.

So Mike does, in fact, call up Heidi, to see if he can get a group date type situation going with his dopey friends and her foxy posse. "Can you get booze?" She asks, while stretching her leg in sex-robic fashion. "Because that'll make it a lot easier. My friends like to drink." Suddenly, life is good again. Plans of action are hastily cobbled together.

But first, the fat kid has to drink a bottle of ketchup at the bowling alley.

Later that evening, they meet up with Heidi-the-minx and her friends. They go the arcade and a weird midget in a barbershop quartet outfit gives her a stuffed hippo. Later on, they swill warm beer and play miniature golf. I know, it sounds sorta pathetic, but take it from me, this is what passed for an eventful night out when you were a teenager in 1985.
Oh yeah, and somewhere in there, Roger-the-lifeguard smacks down Michael. Good. I hate that fuckin' kid.


So, somehow, all of these idiots end up getting the girls naked, but Michael's conscience kicks in at the last moment, so he can't fuck Heidi. And this is what he says:
"It's got nothing to do with you, Heidi. It's personal."
He says this to a girl he's in bed with. Did I mention that I hate him?
So he storms off to find Julie-Ann. Conveniently enough, she's just discovering that Roger is actually a grabby asshole. If only someone would save her from this masher!

Well, you know how it ends, right?

Hot Moves was directed by the mysterious Jim Sotos (AKA rock video super-producer Dimitri Sotirakis), best known for Forced Entry (1975) an R-rated pseudo-remake of the alarming 1972 XXX flick about a psycho 'Nam vet serial rapist/killer. He followed that up with the '83 slasher Sweet Sixteen. Looking back at this catalog of carnage, Sotos does not seem like the obvious choice for a fluffy teen boner-com, but serial rapists be damned, the talented sonofabitch crafted one of the most consistently entertaining and good-looking films of the era. Sotos shamelessly exploits his location here, seamlessly mixing the film's plot with what's already happening on Venice Beach, which means he can - and often does - cut away to sun-tanning beauties, preening muscle boys, and assorted colorful freaks and goons at will. He also has an eye for fetching females, so the film is fairly crammed with hot tail, including the scrumptious Jill Schoelen, smoldering cult siren Monique Gabriel, and Miss California 1975, Deborah Richter. Even with the jarring, bottom-shelf soundtrack (Supergroove?) Hot Moves is Boner popping perfection for teenage losers. One major sticking point, though: what's with the tiny shorts on the male leads, Mr. Sotos? Cut out the tits, and you could easily call this film Three Gay Hustlers and a Fat Kid.

PS: Come back Jill Schoelen. We miss you. Bring the polka dot bikini from Hot Moves.

Availability: Hot Moves is available on DVD.
Buy Hot Moves at Amazon.
-Sleaze

Party Plane (1988)

Directed by Ed Hansen
Starring Karen Annarino, Jill Johnson, Jacklyn Palmer
Rated R
USA
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"Why do you have laughing gas?"
"Hey, my sex life is my own business."

From the genius convention behind Party Favors and Takin' It Off comes Party Plane, a tawdry little tale of a tiny airline and the strippers who save it. It begins, as it should, with three stewardesses taking off their clothes. The dialogue goes like this:

Suzy: "That doesn't make any sense to me at all."
Renee: "Well, you're a dancer, Suzy. It doesn't need to make sense to you."
Laurie: "Yeah, Suzy. I think you need a working brain to understand it. Now, I'm getting into the hot tub."

The stewardess hot-tub scene should really be enough, but unfortunately, they shoehorned a threadbare plot in there, as well. Condor airlines (which consists, far as I can tell, of one propeller plane, The Albatross), was founded by one Ace Condor, currently deceased, to service the Big Boy Condom company, who apparently needed a rickety old plane to deliver their rubbers. But when Big Boy Condoms pulled out of the deal (groan), it left Condor Airlines to flounder. Ace's daughter Judy (Karen Annarino), who inherited the airline from her father, decides its time to shut operations down. Scheming asshole Lee (John F Goff, last seen as the mincing dance instructor in Party Favors), Ace's old business partner, offers to sell it to their rival, Cartel Airlines. For a pretty profit, of course.

But wait! Just when towels are being thrown in, roly-poly copilot Humongous (Travis McKenna) shows up at the somber meeting to announce that a whole busload of conventioneers just arrived, and they need to get to the city, pronto. Everybody rallies for one last flight.

I should mention here that whenever we spend time in the actual plane, every single move is punctuated by cartoony sound effects. The pilot presses a button of some sort: Boing! Somebody puts on their seatbelt: Skwoosh! The propeller starts to spin: Whanga-whanga-whanga! Who did the sound design on this movie, Tex fuckin' Avery?

During the flight - although I use 'flight' loosely, as there's never any indication that the plane is actually in the sky, and I'm pretty sure the set is made of cardboard - one of the conventioneers pays blonde stew Laurie (Jill Johnson), $300 for her uniform. She takes it, and spends the rest of the flight in her underwear. So that's fun for everybody. It also gives them an idea for saving the airline: what if the stewardesses strip on every flight? Your mind just got boggled, didn't it?

And so, The Albatross becomes the Party Plane. Humongous auditions stripper-stews. The crews redecorate the Albatross with palm trees and lawn furniture, and there's bikini parties and topless mud-wrestling matches during flights. The passengers are the usual motley crew of weirdos, including an elderly dude in jean shorts, suspenders, and Tiny Tim hair, who travels with his two Asian girlfriends, Toyota and Nissan. There's a horny nun in there somewhere, as well. "Just fuck me already," she says to Lee. Lee, however, has other things on his mind. He still wants to sell the plane to Cartel, so he and Hank Chisel (Lew Horn) a master-of-disguises hired by Cartel, attempt, over and over, to sabotage the Party Plane. It never works, of course, but it does allow Chisel to don a lot of dopey costumes, including a Scottish guy, a teenage girl, A Mexican dude holding a chicken in a cage, and an Indian spring water salesman ("Straight from the Ganges, it's the world's purest water. It does stink, though.") Eventually, Lee and Chisel come up with a plan to blow the plane up while it's sitting in the hangar overnight, but it goes awry, and everybody ends up on the plane, sluicing through the friendly skies, while a ticking bomb sits in an overheard compartment. Will they all die a fiery death at 10,000 feet?

No, they won't.

Stupider than usual - which is really saying something, given that it was directed by Ed Hansen and written by George "Buck" Flower, Party Plane is a one-way ticket to brain-ache. Its saving grace is its brief running time: a merciful 80 minutes, even with the low-fi end-credits scroll.


The tits were fantastic, though. So you could probably masturbate to it, in a pinch.

Availability: Party Plane is available on VHS.
Buy Party Plane at Amazon.
-Ken McIntyre