Lady Terminator

Directed by Jalil Jackson
Starring Barbara Anne Constable, Claudia Angelique Rademaker, Christopher J Hart
Rated R
Indonesia

"Me and Jack have seen more dead bodies than you've eaten hot dogs, so shut up and eat!"

Way down at the bottom of the sea, there's an evil - or possibly just horny - Indonesian queen with a voracious appetite for erections. Unfortunately for any dudes around at the bottom of the sea, whenever she has sex with one of 'em, an eel shoots out of her demonic vadge and bites the fella's penis off. No wonder they keep her down there. This pleasant little fable (reportedly taken as fact in Indonesian villages to this day) is played out in graphic, splattery detail in LT's show-stopping opener. But that's not even the weird part, really.

Sheena Easton lookalike Barbara Ann Constable plays an American anthropologist abroad in Indonesia, searching for some evidence of the legend of the South Sea Queen. What better place to look, than the South Seas? She charters a boat helmed by some salty old fucker, and after prancing around in a bitchin' black bikini, she dives into the water exactly where the South Sea Queen still resides, deep in her underwater sex grotto. The witch snatches the bewildered scientist, ties her down with green scarves and...well, logic gets fuzzy here, but Babs - now a Terminatin',  penis-eating killer, under the Queen's demonic spell - gets spit up onshore a few hundred miles away. She happens upon a cuppla losers with nothin' to do but drink beer and piss, and she fucks 'em both until they die a screaming, bloody death. Then she splits.

Meanwhile, Erica is a cute Indo-pop singer, who happens to be the great grand daughter of the guy whose penis was so hard-as-steel that it quelled the SS Queen's killing spree many years ago. The queen vowed she would get revenge on Iron Penis's offspring, and Erica is it. Cue the crazy ass white girl with the gun, the Lady Terminator herself, who is quite willing to waste 500 Indonesian cops and half a shopping mall to get to Erica. Toss in a dull-as-toast American cop as a half-hearted love interest/hero, his gung-ho buddies as comic relief, a few model helicopters and tanks to blow up, and more bullets than all three Rambos, and you've got one head-scratching mess of Indonesian weirdness on your hands.

Not that I'm complaining. I mean, watching a chick dressed up like Olivia Newton John at the end of Grease shoot cops for an hour is fun no matter where it comes from, but here's the thing. Obviously, they wanted to cash in on the Terminator name here, but the chick is possessed by a magic queen. She's not a android. Yet, she's wearing a fetish-y black leather ensemble and sporting a machine gun, just like cyborg Arnie did, and she gets shot about 7,000 times, but the bullets have no effect. Furthermore, later on in the film, she digs out her eyeball with a knife and cleans it in the sink. Then she pops it back in. Why? It's not a robot eyeball, for Chrissakes. Even if you've suspended all the disbelief you possibly can, you are still left going, "What the FUCK?!" half a dozen times here, even if it's just to keep your sanity.

Ah, but regardless of its gaping logic holes, Lady Terminator is such a bizarre mixture of legend and rip-off that it's impossible not to watch. As it rolls on, you become less concerned with the story, and more with the actual film- did the American actors say their lines in English, while the rest of the cast spouted off in their native tongue? Did anyone mention to the director that after the first thousand bullets, it no longer makes any sense to keep shooting at her? Was there even a script written before they started filming, or did they just patch it all together as they went along? And perhaps most importantly, why didn't Barbara Ann make another film after this one? Sure, it's a freakshow, but a career killer?

Good questions all, and hell, we don't even need the answers. Films like this are just snapshots of a time and place far from here, and you really can't get much farther away from here and now then the amazing Lady Terminator.

- Ken McIntyre 

The House Bunny (2008)

Directed by Fred Wolf
Starring Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Katherine McPhee
Rated PG-13
USA

"Instead of the Mahi-Mahi, can I get just the one Mahi, because I'm not that hungry?"

If you've seen the trailer, than you've seen the movie: loony-cartoony Anna Faris is Shelley, a relentlessly smiley Playboy model who lives an idyllic life at the mansion with Hef and his camera-clogging trio of indenti-blondes until a rival centerfold wanna-be cooks up a simple-but-effective plan to sabotage our plucky heroine, and she soon finds herself ousted from her fleshy Neverland. Lacking any skills besides boner-causing and make-overs, she soon stumbles her way into the very unlikely role of house mother for a dead-in-the-water sorority house populated by nerdy girls, feminists, a chick in a back brace, American Idol almost-winner Katherine McPhee in a giant prop pregnant belly, and gravelly Emma Stone (you know, Jules from Superbad) as the sorta-normal one. Of course, she takes them shopping, gives them glammy makeovers, and shows them how to attract boys using age-old techniques like washing a car in a bright pink bikini and bending over a lot. And just like that, Shazam! The Zeta-whatever sorority house is the most popular in the school and the mean alpha-bitches that tormented them get their comeuppance. But wait, now the once cool-but-nerdy girls are acting just as catty and wicked as the ice queens who rejected them in the first place, and Shelley can't make any time with good-guy Oliver (Colin Hanks) because, well, she's too dumb. Yikes! We need a fix-up-the-place montage quick!

Ok, so the premise is so thin it groans and splinters within the first five minutes, but only the cruelest of hearts could complain, really.  The House Bunny is a sweet, big-hearted homage to 80's teen comedies (Revenge of the Nerds, in particular) that practically radiates with goofball charm. Faris is perfect in the role of the clueless-but-kind Shelley, (although her rubbery vamping never quite translates to sexy when it's supposed to, even in the skimpiest of outfits), and the supporting cast hit all the right notes along the way.

Despite its PG-13 rating, there's nary a nipple to be ogled (although you do get a quick flash of Faris-ass), so look elsewhere for raunch, but if you're in the mood for an airy, candy-colored 80's throwback, The House Bunny will charm the pants right off you. Playboy girls are good at that, apparently.

One thing, though: as far as I can tell, the message of this movie is that your best shot at popularity, if you're young and female, is to be smart and pretty. That sounds like a lot of work. Good luck, ladies.

- Ken McIntyre

Club Dead (2000)

Directed by Mike Bowler
Starring: Tommy Kirk, Lisa Bawdon, Leonna Small, Ron Waldron
Unrated
USA

"Something's out there, and it stole my beans."

Low budget high weirdness. Club Dead is a feast of implausibility and pseudo-Satanic twists of Cain. Although it's copyrighted 2000 on the box, it looks to have been made in the early 90's, what with the gigantic computer room and the mind-blowing 80's holdout hair styles and fashions. It's an epic (110 minutes!) aerobic killer thriller about a shadowy, possibly Satanic Mafia that funnels money and influence into a fading beauty's low-rent gym. With a new look and modern equipment, "Benson's" gym guarantees that it's members will "lose weight and look great", or they'll never charge a penny, and their formerly ragged looking 50 year old proprietor, now a perky 30 year old, is walking, talking proof of the success of "Plan EX". Mr. Ex, the Phantom of the Nautilus that's running this whole wicked scheme, is a mysterious man in black who skulks around in the shadows of the gym and takes the whole weight loss thing so seriously that he's prone to cutting off body parts of people that refuse to get with the program and lose that unwanted flab quickly enough. A local college newspaper decides to do some undercover investigating, and their star reporter Doyle Shakespeare joins up to see what Mr. Ex is really up to. She finds a club full of hypnotized exercise zombies, and when Ex gets wind of her plans to blow his cover, he lays some witchcraft on her and soon she too, is under his spell. It's up to her editor and long-time friend Cathy to take on the demonic workout guru and liberate the world from the shackles of his exercise Nazis.

Despite the cavernous leaps of faith necessary to buy into the ultra-high concept plot, Club Dead is an entertaining, campy thriller, with plenty of quirky characters and a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek humor. Although low on nudity, saved for a brief shower scene, it's got an impressive body count. With multiple electrocutions, an impaling, and countless stabbings. I'm still not sure that when you get stabbed in the belly, blood immediately pours out of your mouth, but I'm not gonna experiment with it, either. Fans of old school slashers and striped leotards will have a field day with this one.

- Ken McIntyre

Dracula AD 1972 (1972)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Ken McIntyre

Starhops (1978)

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

"Don't you have any regular pies?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Ken McIntyre

Dangerous Seductress (1992)

Directed by H. Tjut Djali

Starring Tonya Lawson, Kristin Anin, Amy Weber

Unrated

Indonesia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Ken McIntyre

Caged Heat (1974)

Directed by Jonathon Demme
Starring Erica Gavin, Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith, Roberta Collins, Juanita Brown
Rated R
USA


"I'm already on double parole!"

Jonathon Demme was one of the many soon-to-be Hollywood moguls who got his start in Roger Corman's dimestore dream factory. Decades before Silence of the Lambs, Manchurian Candidate, Philadelphia, Something Wild, before all of that bullshit, he cut his cinematic teeth on this crowd-pleasing Women in Prison micro-epic.

The story, in keeping with Corman's cheap n' dirty template, is bare-bones: Russ Meyer girl Erica Gavin (Vixen, 1968) is Jackie Wilson, a rich girl with a sleazy boyfriend who gets her caught up in the glamorous world of armed robbery. She gets popped on a caper and, since she won't rat out on her man, gets tossed into a grungy women's prison.

Former 60's horror queen Barbara Steele is Superintendent McQueen, a wheelchair-bound sadist who doles out brutal punishment to satisfy her own twisted cravings.

The inmates are a fleshy grab-bag of exploitation vets, including good girl gone bad Belle (Roberta Collins, Hardbodies,1984; Hardbodies 2, 1986; Death Race 2000, 1975; Vendetta,1986; etc. etc), stunned angel Levelle (Rainbeaux Smith, Swinging Cheerleaders, 1974; Revenge of the Cheerleaders, 1976; Slumber Party '57, 1976; etc.) and queen bee Maggie (Jaunita Brown, Willie Dynamite, 1974; Foxy Brown, also 1974 - she had a busy year!).

Jackie does her best to fit in. At first, things do not go well. She ends up wrestling naked with Maggie in the shower, and, as punishment, both girls are shocked into a stupor by the wacko prison doctor. And so on. You know how it goes in lady jail, man.

Eventually, Maggie and Jackie can bear the beatings, humiliation, and shock therapy no longer, and they make a break for it during outdoor work routine.

They manage to escape in a prison truck and quickly vanish into the ether. Maggie hooks up with her old pal Crazy (Crystin Sinclaire, Hustler Squad, 1976; Eaten Alive, 1977), and the trio knock off a bank - or, more accurately, the rob a couple of Disney-mask wearing bank robbers, when they accidentally show up at the same branch Mickey and Donald are holding up.

The plan is to split the dough and then split up, but Jackie feels pangs of guilt for leaving their cellmates behind, so naturally, the two escaped inmates and the crazy girl named Crazy plan a daring prison break.

An enduring drive-in classic, Caged Heat is a violent, nihilistic 70's action flick that's tempered with tongue-in-cheek melodrama. There are a few misfires along the way -the prison 'talent show' - including Barbara Steele's kicky dance sequence - is like some never-ending anti-comedy purgatory, the soundtrack and camera angles often veer into useless arthouse excess, and it takes a good half-hour to get moving, but c'mon...what other movie gives you vicious girlfight and a tits-out shower scene - at the same time?
A must-see for B-movie buffs, Caged Heat provided the blueprint not only for it's own series of sequels and spin-offs, but also for the dozens of similarly-themed Women in Prison flicks that followed in its wake.

Demme, of course, went on to become a wildly successful Hollywood director. The cast, unfortunately, were not so lucky. Jaunita Brown stopped acting soon after. Caged Heat was also Erica Gavin's last film for 34 years. Rainbeaux Smith - one of the all time greatest 70's B-queens - quit acting in the early 80's, and, tragically, died of Hepatitis in 2002. Roberta Collins left the business in 1986 and died of a drug overdose in 2008. But I'll tell you this much: they were both crackling with life in 1974.



- Ken McIntyre

Savage Sisters (1974)

Directed by Eddie Romero
Starring Cheri Caffaro, Gloria Hendry, John Ashley, Sid Haig
Rated R
Phillipines

"No comment, porkchop."

Still-kicking Fillipino B-movie auteur Eddie Romero cut his teeth by writing, producing, and/or directing dozens of home-grown productions in the 40's and 50's before branching off into the lucrative world of cheapo exploitation in the mid 1960's. His most enduring foray into exploitation is his "Blood" trilogy: Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Brides of Blood (1968), and Beast of Blood (1971), but, aside from some berserk trailers narrated by Brother Theodore, his monsters-in-the-jungle flicks are virtually interchangeable with his women-in-prison flicks (Big Doll House, 1971; Black Mama, White Mama (1973) or his war flicks (The Ravagers, 1965) or, indeed, Savage Sisters, which is all of that mashed together, pretty much.

The war, in this case, is of the guerilla variety. A charismatic (but strangely absent) rebel leader has recruited his beautiful American girlfriend Jo (Professional sourpuss Cheri Caffaro) into his gang of bridge-blowing insurrectionists. Jo and native girl Mai Ling (Rosanna Ortiz) have assembled a crack gang of panicky teenage girls to help them explode the bridge that divides....actually, that part is never really explained. At any rate, they get nabbed by the local policia and tossed in the clink, where they are interrogated by hard-assed secret operative Lynn (blaxploitation vet Gloria Hendry). Eventually, the three "Savage Sisters" band together to kill...well, somebody.

Meanwhile, Romero's go-to leading man John Ashley (RIP) saunters around the island, making dirty deals with whoever's willing, including a full-tilt gonzo Sid Haig, who gulps down huge chunks of scenery as crazed Mexican (!) bandit Malevael, who has his squinty eyes on a missing suitcase stuffed with one million US dollars. Where'd the money come from? Hard to say, but everybody, including the crooked cops, the savage sisters, smooth-talking huckster WP Billingsly (Ashley), a drunken airplane pilot, a wheelchair bound skipper named Peg Leg, and Haig and his not-so-merry men (including Fillipino b-flick vet Victor Diaz, in an eyepatch and too-small pants) are out to get it.

Confusing - but always entertaining - mayhem ensues.

OK, so Savage Sisters makes no sense. But the actual story is incidental to the film's wild, raw energy. In many ways, Savage Sisters is like a two-dollar Filipino Apocalypse Now, or at least Hearts of Darkness, Apoc's blood n' guts making-of documentary. That same anything-goes vibe is present in both films. You get the feeling that all this craziness would probably be happening anyway. It just so happens they had cameras around to film it. Surely, if there really was a million dollars in a suitcase somewhere on the island, and Sid Haig was tanked to the tits on Tequila and weed (which seems quite likely, given his eyeball-bulging performance here) and dressed up in that Sombrero and poncho outfit, he'd recruit a bunch of machete-wielding locals and hack his way through the competition to get it. This, I am sure of. Every one in the film looks, and acts, half-mad, as if they are loaded on painkillers, high on hallucinogenic jungle roots, suffering from mild Malaria, and pondering their miserable fates as garbage-movie makers while baking under a merciless summer sun. On the surface, it's typical mid 70's bottom-of-the-bill drive-in junk. Simmering underneath, though? Bug-fuck madness. It's awe-inspiring stuff.

Cheri Cafarro, who was still riding high as a trash-film cult queen at the time, took three years before making another movie - 1977's Hot to Handle, an unofficial semi-sequel to her Ginger superspy thrillogy. And that was it for her. Exploitation fans the world over still wait patiently for her eventual comeback. As far everyone else, Savage Sisters was merely a lost weekend among many. Sadly, it remains one of Eddie Romero's most obscure films. There was a spotty VHS release in the 80's - the source for the few prints still floating around - and it's never received a DVD release. That's a shame because, while it never achieves - or even grasps for - greatness, Savage Sisters' cult-baiting cast and its loony-tunes verve would surely please hardcore sleaze beasts. They most definitely don't make them like this anymore. There's laws in place now.



- Ken McIntyre


PS: You can watch the whole film on large-screen Youtube HERE!