EDGE OF SANITY (UK/Hungary - 1989) Directed by Gerard Kikoine. Written by J.P. Felix and Ron Raley. Cast: Anthony Perkins, Glynis Barber, Sarah Maur-Thorp, David Lodge, Ben Cole, Ray Jewers, Jill Medford, Lisa Davis, Briony McRoberts, Claudia Udy. (R, 91 mins)
Taking on the dual roles of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has always been an opportunity for a distinguished actor to deliver a tour-de-force performance. Legends like John Barrymore, Fredric March (who won on Oscar for 1931's DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE), Spencer Tracy, Christopher Lee, Jack Palance, and John Malkovich among many others have taken a turn (even Jerry Lewis if you count the Jekyll & Hyde-inspired THE NUTTY PROFESSOR), but it was 1989's EDGE OF SANITY that provided the great Anthony Perkins with his contribution to the Jekyll & Hyde canon. After nearly 30 years of PSYCHO-derived typecasting as nervous, twitchy weirdos, Perkins had long since given up trying get out of Norman Bates' shadow by the time EDGE OF SANITY came along, with multiple PSYCHO sequels under his belt, including one he directed himself (1986's PSYCHO III). There's a case to be made that Perkins wasn't being very choosy about the gigs he was accepting by 1989, and EDGE OF SANITY is Exhibit A. Produced by the always-suspect Harry Alan Towers, who shepherded many a Jess Franco project in the late '60s and early '70s, EDGE OF SANITY is probably the most jawdroppingly sordid take on Robert Louis Stevenson's source novel that you'll ever see, the possible exception being Walerian Borowczyk's 1981 masterpiece THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MISS OSBOURNE, which was least artistic and genuinely disturbing in its shocking transgressions. EDGE OF SANITY, on the other hand, is an unabashed raunchfest that seems poised to break out into a hardcore porno at any given moment. Perhaps that's not surprising given that French director Gerard Kikoine had previously dabbled in European porn prior to joining the Towers stock company, where he was assigned several of the producer's dubious, apartheid-era South Africa-lensed projects like DRAGONARD (1987) and its simultaneously-shot companion piece MASTER OF DRAGONARD HILL (1987) and the Poesploitation dud BURIED ALIVE (1990). So feverishly perverse is EDGE OF SANITY that rumors have persisted for years that Jess Franco secretly co-wrote it. Even though the credited J.P. Felix doesn't really sound like a real person and has no other IMDb credits, it's not Franco, despite the name sounding very much like his occasional pseudonym "J.P. Fenix."
Shot using more tilted Dutch angles than a Hal Hartley wet dream, EDGE OF SANITY presents Perkins' Jekyll as a milquetoast London surgeon whose experimentation with a cocaine-based anesthetic ends up inadvertently creating Victorian-era crack. With himself as the subject, Jekyll transforms into a gaunt, pale, compulsively-masturbating, crackhead Jack Hyde, sucking on a glass pipe and cruising for Whitechapel streetwalkers. They tend to turn up brutally slaughtered as Hyde's drug-fueled spree of sex murders earns him the name "Jack the Ripper." It's an interesting angle to fuse Mr. Hyde with the Ripper mythos, but EDGE OF SANITY is more concerned with letting Perkins fly his freak flag, using all the tics and mannerisms in his arsenal and borrowing a lot of his leftover Rev. Peter Shayne histrionics from Ken Russell's CRIMES OF PASSION (1984). Jekyll already has some sexual hangups in his psyche, stemming from a childhood voyeurism incident involving a servant girl (Sarah Maur-Thorp), a figure who repeatedly turns up in various guises in Hyde's nightly travels. It's another interesting touch to have Maur-Thorp play a series of prostitutes who all look the same to the out-of-control Hyde, the id of the more outwardly proper Jekyll. But again, whatever deeper themes Fenix, co-writer Ron Raley, and director Kikoine are going for are obliterated by the garish lighting, a demeaning role for Maur-Thorp (who only made a couple of other movies before quitting acting) and Perkins' insane performance, which manages to be simultaneously fearless and embarrassing. As a goth-looking Hyde, Perkins grimaces, twists and contorts his body, moans, groans, and grunts while aggressively rubbing bare asses, sucks on a crack pipe, head-butts Cockney pimps, initiates threesomes, masturbates a prostitute with his walking stick, and repeatedly gropes and fondles himself throughout.
In what's certainly his last memorable--for better or for worse--role before his death from AIDS in 1992, Perkins simply doesn't know where to stop, and considering some of the peccadilloes he demonstrated in his direction of PSYCHO III, one can't help but wonder how much of Hyde's antics stemmed from the actor being given some wide latitude by Kikoine. You'll need to shower after watching EDGE OF SANITY, though on Shout! Factory's new double feature Blu-ray, where it's paired with 1988's haunted prison dud DESTROYER simply because Perkins co-stars in it, it ends up looking far better than it has any business being. Filmed in Budapest using some of the same sets and locations as the same year's Robert Englund-headlined PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (also produced by Towers), EDGE OF SANITY is opulent and ornate, looking deceptively high-end for the in-your-face, late '80s T&A grinder that it is. The Blu-ray features the uncensored 91-minute version, five minutes longer than the R-rated 86-minute theatrical cut released in the spring of 1989 by the short-lived Millimeter Films, an offshoot of Miramax and sort-of a precursor to the Weinsteins' later Dimension Films genre brand. It's hard to believe Perkins hit all the major promotional destinations to plug this thing, showing up to talk EDGE OF SANITY on ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT and some morning shows, as well as the late-night circuit with Johnny Carson, David Letterman, and Arsenio Hall.
One of the chintziest-looking major-studio sci-fi movies of the 1980s, MILLENNIUM spent over a decade in development before it was finally made as sloppily and ambivalently as possible. Written by John Varley and based on his short story "Air Raid," MILLENNIUM is thus far the only screenplay by the author, whose short story "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" became a 1981 AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE episode that later ended up on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000. MILLENNIUM was first put in pre-production as far back as 1979, with visual effects innovator Douglas Trumbull, best known for his work on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, set to direct and Paul Newman and Jane Fonda attached to star. That fell apart, putting it in turnaround and by the time it was ultimately made in 1989, the director was Michael Anderson (AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, LOGAN'S RUN, ORCA), with Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd starring. It's a time-jumping sci-fi would-be epic, opening with a mysterious plane crash in 1989 that's been engineered from 1000 years into the future, with the "victims" appearing to be burned to death even before the plane goes down in 1989 but actually transported to 2989 in a "timequake" for reasons that will become clear--relatively speaking--much later. Crash investigator Bill Smith (Kristofferson) finds a strange weapon--a "stunner"--amidst the wreckage, a piece of evidence left behind by Louise Baltimore (Ladd), a warrior from the future. Her mission is to stop Smith, who senses he's met Baltimore somewhere before (because, duh, he has), and Dr. Arnold Mayer (Daniel J. Travanti, his post-HILL STREET BLUES big screen career going nowhere), a nosy physicist investigating strange phenomena surrounding a series of plane crashes, from figuring out the purpose of the "stunner" and causing a paradox that will forever alter the future in a Butterfly Effect sort-of way.
MILLENNIUM has some interesting ideas along the lines of influential '80s sci-fi masterworks like THE TERMINATOR and TRANCERS, and prefigures later genre examples like 12 MONKEYS and SOURCE CODE, but the execution is somewhat lacking. The motivation for the whole "stealing people from 1000 years in the past" is never expressed very well and for a film released by 20th Century Fox, the visual effects look like something out of a corner-cutting 1970s TV show. The entire film would probably play better if it topped out at 80 minutes and came from Roger Corman's Concorde or better yet, Empire Pictures, and starred Tim Thomerson, Barbara Crampton, and Art LaFleur instead of Kristofferson, Ladd, and Travanti. Kristofferson isn't bad but he's miscast, especially if you consider that his character is, at most, a teenager in a 1963 plane crash flashback subplot, which would make Bill Smith 40 tops in 1989, with perpetually craggy 53-year-old Kristofferson not looking a day under 65. The ending is a wreck, but it's at least better than the laughable one used for the film's overseas release and included on Shout! Factory's new Blu-ray (where it's paired in a double feature set with the incredible R.O.T.O.R.), which has a nude Kristofferson and Ladd holding one another in a LIFEFORCE-style embrace as a timequake envelops them. MILLENNIUM is watchable but it could've been something more with a little care and some more money--it's hard to picture Newman and Fonda doing the movie MILLENNIUM ended up being. Shot in Toronto, it's populated by a who's who of Canadian Character Actor Hall of Famers in supporting roles, like Lloyd Bochner, Maury Chaykin, Robert Joy, Lawrence Dane, Peter Dvorsky, Gary Reineke, Michael J. Reynolds, Brent Carver, and Al Waxman. MILLENNIUM bombed in theaters, opening in the ass-end of summer on August 25, 1989 and landing in 12th place. (PG-13, 106 mins)
The GETEVEN of ROBOCOP ripoffs, the deliriously awful R.O.T.O.R. was a video store staple back in the '80s and '90s and if physical media is dead, somebody forgot to tell Shout! Factory, who just released this on a double feature Blu-ray with the 1989 time travel dud MILLENNIUM. A regional sci-fi actioner shot in Dallas, R.O.T.O.R. was a one-and-done venture into movies by producer and star Richard Gesswein, who's such a terrible actor that his performance ended up being dubbed by special effects artist and sometime actor Loren Bivens, who actually receives an onscreen credit for his work. Conceived by screenwriter Budd Lewis and director Cullen Blaine, a pair of veteran industry storyboard artists and occasional animators, R.O.T.O.R. looks like a bad home movie that somehow got a distribution deal. It's amateur hour across the board in terms of acting and filmmaking, and if anything deserves to be the next ROOM/TROLL 2/MIAMI CONNECTION bad movie phenomenon, it's R.O.T.O.R. The only thing that might be holding it back is that those other films are utterly sincere in their misguided cluelessness, but there's enough weird, goofy shit in R.O.T.O.R. to suggest that it's fully cognizant of its own shittiness. Whether it's ludicrous dei ex machina, overripe dialogue ("It's like a chainsaw set on frappe!"), the hero making coffee for his horse, or an ultra-serious corporate board meeting where nearly every line of dialogue has a blatant Beach Boys reference (people from "The Brian Wilson Institute" and "Jardine University" asking "Is there some good vibration to its molecular tonality..." and "God only knows..." and "I get around, but I've never seen anything like this"), Allen and Blaine seem to be winking at the audience and saying "Yeah, this is supposed to be stupid," but as a sci-fi action movie, it's an abomination. Gesswein, an actor who makes Phil Pitzer look like Daniel Day-Lewis, is Barrett Coldyron (pronounced "Cold-iron"), a laconic Buckaroo Banzai who's a Dallas police captain and a renowned scientist who runs his division and a high-tech scientific research facility where he's developing robot cops for a project dubbed R.O.T.O.R. (Robotic Officer Tactical Operation Research). Referred to as "Captain" or "Dr" depending on which job he's working in any given scene, Coldyron is booted off the R.O.T.O.R. project by irate politician Earl Bugler ("introducing" Michael Hunter), but the carelessness of those left in charge results in a mustached R.O.T.O.R. unit called "222" (played by three different actors, including awesomely-named stuntman Brad Overturf) activating itself and going on a rampage, singling out a young woman named Sonya (Margaret Trigg), killing her fiance and relentlessly pursuing her through the outskirts of suburban Dallas. She calls the cops, and is instructed by Coldyron to just keep moving, as he and muscle-bound, femulleted robotics engineer Dr. Steele (Jayne Smith) try to figure out how to regain control of 222 and shut it down.
Barrett Coldyron doesn't bother taking off
his shades for important board meetings
R.O.T.O.R. is insanely terrible. It takes 45 interminable minutes for Allen and Blaine to even introduce 222. Until then, the focus is on the gruff, mumbling Coldyron, the kind of guy who wears sunglasses in a board meeting and whose idea of tough talk is sleepily telling Bugler "You fire me and I'll make more noise than two skeletons makin' love in a tin coffin, brother!" The film opens with hard-boiled narration from Coldyron that's ultimately revealed to be him babbling in the backseat of a car until a cop in the front seat says "Uh, what? Huh?" (more evidence that at least some of the humor here is intentional). An absurd amount of time is spent on padding the establishing shots, where you see a character park their car and then walk all the way into a building as slowly as possible. The entire second half of the film is centered on 222's pursuit of Sonya (the character's name is misspelled "Sony" in the credits), but in order to keep it going, the filmmakers suddenly give 222 the ability of "sensor recall," where it can see which direction she's headed by replaying events it wasn't even there to record. R.O.T.O.R. is also the kind of film that drops a major character midway through (Coldyron's girlfriend) and introduces a new major one (Dr. Steele) with 15 minutes left in the movie.
Insane Beach Boys board meeting starts at 5:35.
Margaret Trigg (1964-2003)
Nobody in R.O.T.O.R. went on to anything of any significance, though Bastrup, TX-native Trigg did co-star in ABC's short-lived 1996 series ALIENS IN THE FAMILY, which was cancelled after eight episodes. She's the only star of R.O.T.O.R. who seemed like she might have some potential, but her life was tragically short: she died in 2003 at just 39, the cause of death listed as "heart attack resulting from prolonged amphetamine abuse." Smith appeared in one other movie, 1990's FLESH GORDON 2: FLESH GORDON MEETS THE COSMIC CHEERLEADERS. Lewis went on to script the 1990 Robert Z'dar/Michael Pare actioner DRAGONFIGHT and do some storyboard work before his death in 2014, while Blaine went back to storyboarding and was a co-director on 1998's straight-to-DVD Disney sequel BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: BELLE'S MAGICAL WORLD. R.O.T.O.R. ends with the promise of a R.O.T.O.R. II which, like Richard Gesswein's second acting role, has yet to materialize in the ensuing 28 years since the release of this groundbreaking sci-fi masterpiece. Where's the Criterion edition? (Unrated, 90 mins)
EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 (Italy/Spain - 1983; US release 1985) Directed by Jules Harrison (Giuliano Carnimeo). Written by Elisa Briganti, Dardano Sacchetti and Jose Truchado Reyes. Cast: Robert Jannucci (Robert Iannucci), Alicia Moro, Alan Collins (Luciano Pigozzi), Eduardo Fajardo, Fred Harris (Fernando Bilbao), Beryl Cunningham, Luca Venantini, Venantino Venantini, Anna Orso, Sergio Mioni, Jose Chinchilla, Goffredo Unger. (R, 90 mins)
One of the more stunt-crazed entries in the Italian post-nuke onslaught that followed the success of THE ROAD WARRIOR in 1982, EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 kicks off what appears to be a post-apocalypse revival of sorts on Blu-ray, apparently to coincide with George Miller's upcoming reboot MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. Shout! Factory recently released EXTERMINATORS on Blu-ray (they're also handling the original MAD MAX, and Blue Underground will be releasing 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS, ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX, and THE NEW BARBARIANS this summer) in an anamorphic widescreen transfer that's a significant upgrade to the decent-looking but cropped 1.33:1 edition released on DVD by Code Red in 2010. EXTERMINATORS is surprisingly good for its type, with director Giuliano Carnimeo--using the pseudonym "Jules Harrison"--indulging in some ridiculous stunts and car wrecks as well as keeping a distinct western motif to the proceedings--even shooting in and outside of Almeria, Spain, where most of the classic spaghettis were filmed--that echoes the numerous spaghetti westerns he made in the late '60s and early '70s under his usual "Anthony Ascott" nom de plume. Carnimeo dabbled in various genres, as Italian journeymen were wont to do, but he was best known for his several SARTANA westerns with titles like SARTANA THE GRAVEDIGGER (1968), and the 1970 ellipses trio of SARTANA'S COMING...GET YOUR COFFINS READY, HAVE A GOOD FUNERAL, MY FRIEND...SARTANA WILL PAY, and LIGHT THE FUSE...SARTANA IS COMING.
Presumably set in the year 3000, where cars from the late 1970s are still surprisingly functional after 1020 or so years, EXTERMINATORS centers on nomadic, lone-wolf road warrior Alien (Robert Iannucci, billed as "Robert Jannucci"), who reluctantly finds himself helping young Tommy (CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD's Luca Venantini). Tommy and his family are part of a ragtag community overseen by a Bible-thumper calling himself The Senator (Eduardo Fajardo), and he stowed away on a recon mission in search of both water and Tommy's father, who's been missing and presumed dead weeks after being sent on the same hunt for water. The recon mission, led by Tommy's father's best friend (Venantino Venantini), is promptly ambushed by a band of marauding lunatics led by Crazy Bull (Fernando Bilbao, billed as "Fred Harris") and Shadow (Beryl Cunningham) in a truly memorable sequence filled with amazing stunt driving and exploding cars and craniums. Tommy, who has a biomechanical right arm (this is never really explained--he just has it) teams up with Alien, who's already pissed off Crazy Bull by stealing his beloved car "The Exterminator," and they make their way to grizzled old astronaut-turned-mechanic Papillon (Luciano Pigozzi, under his usual "Alan Collins" pseudonym). Papillon tweaks Tommy's bionic arm to make it super-powerful, capable of throwing something to split someone's skull at 200 yards. Into this impromptu group of Humanity's Only Hope comes Trash (Alicia Moro), Alien's car-stealing ex, and the four team up to gather water from a nearby mutant stronghold while constantly fighting off attacks by Crazy Bull and his "Mothergrabbers," as he calls them. It's mostly typical Italian post-nuke silliness, but EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 has an undeniable energy to it with some of the best action sequences in the entire subgenre. Before the script--co-written by Italian horror stalwarts Elisa Briganti and Dardano Sacchetti--falls apart and stupidity takes over (Alien and Trash find the scarce, precious water and of course, start playfully splashing one another with it), there's actually some legitimate attempts at character development. Alien, Trash, Tommy, and Papillon form a classic spaghetti western "unholy alliance" that puts the film firmly into Carnimeo's wheelhouse.
Carnimeo got out of spaghetti westerns as the genre started slowing down in the early '70s. He dabbled in gialli (THE CASE OF THE BLOODY IRIS) and erotic dramas (the Edwige Fenech vehicle SECRETS OF A CALL GIRL) before directing several "Butch and Toby" buddy comedy actioners starring Paul Smith and "Michael Coby" (actually Italian actor Antonio Cantafora), who had a brief run in Italy as the second-string Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. 1975's CONVOY BUDDIES was released in the US in 1978 by Film Ventures, and Smith filed a lawsuit against the company when he and Cantafora were billed in the advertising as "Bob Spencer" and "Terrence Hall" in an effort to fool hopefully inattentive moviegoers into thinking it was the latest film from the popular TRINITY duo. Carnimeo made a few obscure sex comedies before directing EXTERMINATORS, but the now 82-year-old director has been inactive since 1988's RATMAN, which has attained minor cult status thanks to the presence of Nelson de la Rosa as a half-monkey/half-rat mutant running loose on a Caribbean island. De la Rosa would go on to play Marlon Brando's "Mini-Me"-inspiring sidekick in 1996's ill-fated THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU and those connections generated some belated interest in RATMAN years after it was made, and his involvement was enough to get it released on DVD in the UK with the tagline "He's the critter from the shitter." RATMAN sounds a lot more fun than it really is, and it seems to be the final chapter in Carnimeo's career.
EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 was a one-and-done venture into acting for Ohio-born Calvin Klein model Iannucci, unless you count a bit part in the 1982 comedy YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE. He looks the part, though he's dubbed by veteran voice artist Larry Dolgin. The towering Bilbao, also known to Eurotrash fans for his appearances as the Frankenstein monster in Jess Franco's 1972 double-shot of DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN, makes an imposing villain with his very Wez-like look, though dubber Robert Sommer carries a lot of the weight, bellowing Ron Burgundy-isms like "By the beard of the prophet!" EXTERMINATORS was picked up by New Line Cinema and released in the US in January 1985, after which the Thorn/EMI VHS could be found in any video store in America.
Unfortunately, Shout! Factory's otherwise fine edition of EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000 features the 2010 Code Red commentary track with Iannucci and temperamental Code Red head Bill Olsen. True to form as the worst commentary figure in the biz, Olsen torpedoes it almost immediately by grumbling "I'm only putting this out to prove that it doesn't sell" before indulging in his usual unfunny schtick of intentionally mispronouncing names ("Anna Onion!" he says when he sees the name "Anna Onori") or taking shots at things like Detto Mariano's score and Cunningham's "big ass," and spending almost the entire track complaining about how much he dislikes the movie and how "boring" it is (less than five minutes in, Olsen gripes "No offense, Bob, but this needs more action"). At first, Iannucci seems eager to talk about EXTERMINATORS and has a good memory for the details of the shoot, but his sincerity quickly succumbs to Olsen's cynicism and he joins him in the mockery and the bitching ("Any last words?" Olsen asks at the end, to which Iannucci replies "Thank God it's over"). If you've ever experienced a Bill Olsen commentary track or witnessed his behavior online and on social media, where he claims nothing he releases sells and he frequently berates his customers, it's hard to tell if it's some kind of Andy Kaufman performance art or if he's genuinely mentally unstable. Olsen has released some fine product through Code Red and for that he should be commended, but reputable companies like Shout! and Scorpion (the latter run by Olsen's more even-tempered and socially adept brother Walter) continuing to showcase his tiresome antics on commentary tracks, ruining potentially serious discussions and good-natured reminiscing with his inane questions, pathetic jokes, and shitty attitude, is a practice that needs to stop.
THE FINAL OPTION aka WHO DARES WINS (UK/Switzerland - 1982; US release 1983) Directed by Ian Sharp. Written by Reginald Rose. Cast: Lewis Collins, Judy Davis, Richard Widmark, Edward Woodward, Robert Webber, Ingrid Pitt, Tony Doyle, John Duttine, Kenneth Griffith, Rosalind Lloyd, Norman Rodway, Paul Freeman, Aharon Ipale, Patrick Allen, Maurice Roeves, Bob Sherman, Albert Fortell, Mark Ryan, Nick Brimble. (R, 125 mins)
Created in 1941 for the duration of WWII and reactivated in 1947, the Special Air Service (SAS) is a Special Forces division of the British Army that enjoyed its height of fame after the six-day Iranian Embassy siege in London from April 30 to May 5, 1980. Globally, the event was overshadowed by the 444-day hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran that began in November 1979 and ended moments after President Ronald Reagan's inauguration in January 1981. But in England, the SAS' swift and precise action after being deployed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the London incident, where Arab terrorists took over the Iranian embassy to demand the release of Arab prisoners from jails in Khuzestan, brought the SAS into the mainstream, making them Thatcher-era national heroes not unlike the 9/11 first responders in America two decades later. Now involved primarily in counter-terrorism efforts, the SAS' motto has always been "Who Dares Wins," and WHO DARES WINS was the name of the 1982 film inspired by their actions at the Iranian Embassy. Retitled THE FINAL OPTION for its fall 1983 US release from MGM/UA, WHO DARES WINS was the brainchild of producer Euan Lloyd, best known for shepherding the 1978 mercenary classic THE WILD GEESE, a film that was a huge hit everywhere in the world except America, where it was acquired by Allied Artists during their final days on life support. Consequently, the film was a flop in the States, despite being headlined by Richard Burton, Roger Moore, and Richard Harris. Nevertheless, it went on to find an audience on TV, and later, on video and is now regarded as a top action film as well as an influence on such all-star action extravaganzas as THE EXPENDABLES.
THE FINAL OPTION opens with a nuclear disarmament protest march in London, with a member of the militant domestic terror outfit The People's Lobby brutally murdered from a distance with a crossbow arrow through the mouth. The dead man was an undercover government operative who infiltrated the organization and was obviously discovered. SAS administrators Cmdr. Powell (Edward Woodward) and Col. Hadley (Tony Doyle) opt to send in Capt. Peter Skellen (Lewis Collins), going so far as to stage an elaborate, airtight cover that involves him purposely getting booted out of the SAS and, with the help of his handler Ryan (Norman Rodway), posing as someone who's disillusioned and bitter and has an axe to grind with the British government. The cover works for People's Lobby leader Frankie Leith (Judy Davis), who's powerless against Skellen's seductive charms and almost immediately offers to let him move into her place, much to the disapproval of her cohorts Helga (Ingrid Pitt) and Rod (John Duttine). Helga and Rod aren't sold on Skellen or the expertise that he brings as one who knows their enemy, and they follow him to see him having clandestine meetings not just with Ryan but also with his wife Jenny (Lloyd's daughter Rosalind) and their baby daughter. Exposed as a plant, and left on his own once go-between Ryan is offed by Helga, Skellen is forced to tag along with Frankie's half-assed plot to commandeer the home of the US Ambassador to England, where a formal dinner is taking place with US Secretary of State Currie (Richard Widmark) and top-ranking American military official Gen. Potter (Robert Webber) in attendance. Frankie and the People's Lobby have one demand: for the US to detonate a nuclear weapon at the Holy Loch Naval Base in Scotland, a move that she somehow believes will bring about "peace."
Frankie's plan isn't the most logical, but then, neither is most of this film. Davis, in between her breakout debut performance in 1979's MY BRILLIANT CAREER and her Oscar-nominated turn in 1984's A PASSAGE TO INDIA, turns in a committed performance even though she would later denounce the film over its political messaging. When it was released in the UK as a slobbering, shoot 'em up love letter to the SAS, the glorification caused a fair amount of controversy for those opposed to the actions of the SAS and the general culture of Thatcher's England. THE FINAL OPTION was labeled "right-wing propaganda," and there's no denying where its politics lie: the nuclear disarmament crowd is portrayed across-the-board as broad-stroked, frothing-at-the-mouth lunatics; the SAS are largely "shoot first and ask questions later"; Frankie, calm and collected in the early part of the siege, quickly turns emotional and frazzled when she's grilled by Currie, Potter, and a bunch of angry, old American men (Widmark gets the film's best line when he barks "Why don't you hijack a plane? It's more fun. Hell, kids can hijack a dinner!"), and, in its most hysterical and over-the-top plot development, after Skellen and the SAS save the day and blow everyone in The People's Lobby away, a left-wing politico (Paul Freeman) is seen complaining about the level of violence in the raid and questioning why the SAS instigate such an extreme level of national pride just before he meets Malik (Aharon Ipale) for lunch. Malik is seen very early and is established as the key source of funding for The People's Lobby. So here's the end of the film, with the left-wing member of Parliament literally walking arm-in-arm with the primary money man who's bankrolling domestic terror, not just sympathizing with his cause but clearly conspiring with him as both men chuckle over future terrorist plots against England. There's no mistaking the message there: you're either onboard with the actions and the philosophy of the SAS, or you hate England and want to see it burn.
WHO DARES WINS was released in the UK in the summer of 1982, and it would be over a year later before MGM/UA released it in the US in September 1983 as THE FINAL OPTION. Perhaps MGM felt that the action and the notoriety of the two Iran-related hostage situations would trump the sections of British politics that many potential American moviegoers likely didn't follow too closely. While the film certainly delivers on the action in the climax--with the SAS raiding the US Ambassador's house in a relentless, ferocious barrage of explosions, grenades, splattery squibs, shoulder-rolls, Skellen going on a Rambo-esque rampage against the People's Lobby stooges shortly before anyone knew who Rambo was; and even several shots from the through-the-helmet POV of an SAS officer that presciently foresees later first-person shooter video games, all propelled by Roy Budd's catchy, waka-jawaka-tinged score--it nevertheless bombed in US theaters, opening in 12th place with $750,000. To put that in perspective, FLASHDANCE landed in seventh place that same weekend, grossing $1.4 million in its 23rd week of release. THE FINAL OPTION made a quick turnaround to VHS and cable, where it developed a cult following through seemingly constant airings on HBO throughout the '80s. While the film didn't catch on in America during its brief theatrical run, it did manage to find one unexpected fan who got a special screening at his residence arranged by producer Lloyd and cited it as the most realistic depiction of a terrorist situation and a counter-terrorism response that he'd ever seen on the big screen. Who was this FINAL OPTION superfan? President Reagan.
Regardless of your political leanings (if this were released today, it would be a Fox News wet dream), THE FINAL OPTION is a solid action thriller, especially in its nail-biting climactic rescue sequence, which even the film's detractors will usually reluctantly admit is brilliantly-handled by director Ian Sharp, a TV vet who worked on THE PROFESSIONALS and was brought in by Lloyd because he already had a solid working relationship with series co-star Collins. Sharp never distinguished himself beyond this film other than with the acclaimed 1988 Showtime espionage miniseries CODENAME: KYRIL, which reunited him with Woodward, who's sadly underused here. THE FINAL OPTION was originally conceived as a story by journalist and espionage writer George Markstein, best known for writing some early episodes of the 1960s series THE PRISONER. Markstein's outline was commissioned by Lloyd and simultaneously turned into the novel The Tiptoe Boys by James Follett and a script by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Reginald Rose, who honed his skills in the early days of TV drama before writing Sidney Lumet's classic 12 ANGRY MEN (1957). Rose also scripted THE WILD GEESE, and when that became a hit everywhere in the world but America, the same creative team--Lloyd, Rose, star Moore, and director Andrew V. McLaglen (MITCHELL)--reunited in 1980 for the WWII actioner THE SEA WOLVES, another "old guys kicking ass" EXPENDABLES prototype, where the still relatively youthful Moore (then 53) joined forces with 64-year-old Gregory Peck, 70-year-old David Niven, 67-year-old Trevor Howard, and 58-year-old Patrick Macnee. Rose had entered the hired-gun phase of his career by this point, but found a late-career niche with Lloyd, and after WHO DARES WINS/THE FINAL OPTION, they planned a sequel for Collins that would've involved his Capt. Skellen character in the ten-week Falklands War between the UK and Argentina in 1982, but it never materialized. Instead, Lloyd and Rose went to work on WILD GEESE II (1985), directed by Peter Hunt (ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE), and starring Scott Glenn, Barbara Carrera, Laurence Olivier, and Edward Fox, a last-minute replacement for Richard Burton, who died shortly before filming began. The film flopped in the UK and was barely released in the US, and Lloyd retired from the movie industry. Now 91, Lloyd was most recently heard on a WILD GEESE DVD commentary track with Moore in 2004. Rose scripted the 1987 CBS TV-movie ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR and took a few freelance gigs before his death in 2002 at 82.
With THE FINAL OPTION, Lloyd didn't go for the geezer adventure approach of THE WILD GEESE and THE SEA WOLVES and instead tried to make a movie star of British TV actor Collins (1946-2013), who was nearing the end of a six-year run on the popular adventure series THE PROFESSIONALS, from AVENGERS creator Brian Clemens. THE FINAL OPTION marked Collins' first starring role in a feature film and for a brief period in 1982, Lewis Colllins almost happened when he auditioned to take over the role of James Bond. After 1981's FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, Roger Moore informed 007 producer Albert R. Broccoli that felt he was getting too old to play Bond and wanted to quit, and the search was on for a replacement. Collins and Ian Ogilvy (who already had experience replacing Moore--he was best known at the time for playing Simon Templar on TV's RETURN OF THE SAINT) were on the short list, and Collins would later say that Broccoli found his presence "too aggressive." Broccoli went with the wild-card pick of none other than American James Brolin, who was cast as 007 and set to star in 1983's OCTOPUSSY until an eleventh-hour deal was struck with Moore, who begrudgingly returned for OCTOPUSSY and 1985's A VIEW TO A KILL before leaving the franchise for good at age 58. Despite WHO DARES WINS' success in the UK and his TV popularity, Collins' career never really picked up after losing out on the 007 role. Having played an SAS officer on THE PROFESSIONALS and in THE FINAL OPTION, Collins was essentially the UK's celebrity face of the Special Air Service, even passing the physical endurance test required to join. For a while, Collins parlayed his SAS persona into steady work in a trilogy of West German/Italian WILD GEESE knockoffs from director Antonio Margheriti and producer Erwin C. Dietrich: CODENAME: WILDGEESE (1984), COMMANDO LEOPARD (1985), and THE COMMANDER (1988). CODENAME was released in the US in 1986 by New World, but the other two never found American distribution. After displaying some convincing action chops in THE FINAL OPTION and still stinging from losing the Bond gig (he frequently called it his biggest career missed opportunity), a wooden Collins doesn't even camouflage his boredom in the Margheriti films and his deflated disappointment over the direction of his career. THE COMMANDER proved to be Collins' final feature film role, and other than co-starring with Michael Caine and Armand Assante in the 1988 CBS TV-movie JACK THE RIPPER, he drifted into increasingly sporadic TV guest spots. He eventually retired from acting in 2002, when he moved his family to Los Angeles and became a 56-year-old college student, enrolling in UCLA to study screenwriting, eventually moving on to create an L.A.-based computer sales and equipment company. He survived a 2008 bout with cancer and was attempting an acting comeback in 2012 when his illness made an aggressive return. He died in November 2013 at the age of 67.
THE FINAL OPTION was recently released on DVD as part of Shout! Factory's latest four-film "Action Adventure Marathon" set, along with I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND (1973), SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL (1959), and TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS (1983). They also released it as a double feature Blu-ray with I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND.
Written and directed by Kevin S. Tenney. Cast: Todd Allen, Tawny Kitaen, Stephen Nichols, Rose Marie, Kathleen Wilhoite, Burke Byrnes, J.P. Luebsen, James W. Quinn, Judy Tatum. (R, 98 mins)
With countless iconic slasher films and monster movies with then-state of the art makeup effects to cut their teeth on, horror fans who came of age in the '80s are perhaps the most sentimental about their movies. But with that comes the risk of being sentimental for the era rather than the movies themselves. There's no doubt that the '80s were a great time to be a horror fan, but--and we're all guilty of it--sometimes we champion films today that play a lot better in our memories than they do in present-day reality. Sometimes this nostalgia backfires and you find something you held dear really isn't all that good. Do you leave it alone or do you risk taking another look? I hadn't seen 1986's WITCHBOARD since perhaps 1990. I had no strong affinity for it but recall it being a competently-done B-movie from back in the day. It was recently released on Blu-ray by Shout! Factory and I decided to give it another look after approximately 25 years.
Anyway, how does WITCHBOARD hold up? Fairly well. Some of it is obviously dated (check out Steel Breeze's closing credits tune "Bump in the Night"), some of the smartass quips Tenney supplies his actors with are real groaners (when told he's rude, the hero huffs "I got a D in manners!"), some attempts at humor fall embarrassingly flat (what's with Burke Byrnes' detective teaching himself to juggle?), and the "falling" effect used in the climax (hooking star Todd Allen up to a rig and slowly pushing him out of a second story window and lowering him onto a car) is laughable. But Tenney does a commendable job with cheap jump scares and building suspense. There's always an inherent unease in any situation where people are communicating with spirits and Tenney handles these elements like an experienced pro. All hell breaks loose when Linda (Kitaen) starts putzing around with a Ouija board left at her house after a party by her ex-boyfriend Brandon (Stephen Nichols, then a popular star of DAYS OF OUR LIVES). Brandon and Linda were communicating with David, the spirit of a murdered eight-year-old boy, much to the dismissive derision of her boyfriend Jim (Allen) and his blue collar buddies. Using the Ouija board on her own, Linda thinks she's communicating with David, thus ignoring Brandon's warnings to never do the Ouija alone and that spirits often lie. It turns out she's communicating with the spirit of axe murderer Malfeitor (J.P. Luebsen), who then uses Linda as a portal to re-enter the world and off those closest to her.
One thing that's legitimately surprising in WITCHBOARD (other than the presence of '60s TV star Rose Marie as Linda's landlady) is the little bait-and-switch Tenney pulls with the two male leads. It's established that the two were once best friends who became bitter enemies when Linda started dating Jim. When introduced as "Brandon Sinclair of the Sinclair Vineyards," there's practically a flashing neon sign that Nichols' character is going to be a stuffy, condescending asshole and a sort-of James Spader prototype, if you will. But as the film proceeds, Brandon emerges as the sympathetic voice of reason who's acting in Linda's best interests while Jim comes off as an increasingly abrasive prick. I'm even willing to entertain the possibility that the dismal one-liners that Tenney gives to Allen's Jim are intentionally so, as if to illustrate that Jim is a smug dick who isn't nearly as funny as he thinks he is (Tenney has said that he based Jim on his own personality, so interpret that how you will). Additionally, once Linda starts showing signs of possession--what Brandon calls "progressive entrapment"--Kitaen is essentially relegated to the background while Jim and Brandon set aside their differences to find out what's happening to her. Another big surprise is how little screen time Luebsen has as Malfeitor. In the two and a half decades since I last watched this, his grinning, axe-wielding visage is really the only thing I recalled, with the possible exception of Kathleen Wilhoite (who had just teamed up with Charles Bronson in MURPHY'S LAW) totally Wilhoiting it up as a medium with her "psychic humor." What a shock to see that he's onscreen for a total of maybe five seconds in a dream sequence where Linda sees herself being decapitated. It's such an effective shock, and Luebsen is made up in such a memorably creepy fashion that his appearance, however brief, really sticks with you.
WITCHBOARD isn't as stylish as a lot of its contemporaries but it works well within the confines of its budget. It often looks like a TV-movie, but the score by Dennis Michael Tenney (the director's brother) has a nice Italian horror feel to it that lends the film some big-screen personality. Of course, the murder scenes are nicely splattery but not too over-the-top. As far as '80s horror classics go, it's no FRIDAY THE 13TH or A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, but WITCHBOARD proves to be a case where, other than the hair and the fashions, time has generally been kind. It's harmless, cheesy fun that never takes itself too seriously but is refreshingly lacking the sense of ironic self-consciousness that would permeate it if it were made (or, God forbid, remade) today. That sense of fun is infectious on the Blu-ray's newly-recorded commentary track with Tenney, Nichols, Wilhoite, and co-star James D. Quinn (who plays Jim's buddy, an early Malfeitor victim). They share a lot of production memories and get a lot of laughs out of the big cordless phones, the big answering machines, and Kitaen's big hair ("She looks like a lion!"), but they do have a tendency to have so much fun that they're sometimes reduced to just giggling. There's quite a bit of vintage on-set interviews and a making-of, plus a commentary track with Tenney and the producers that was ported over from Anchor Bay's DVD from a decade ago. There's also a newly-filmed, 45-minute retrospective titled "Progressive Entrapment" that features all the main players, including Allen reminiscing about Kitaen's "great bod and great boobs," Luebsen, who now actually looks like Malfeitor, and likably self-deprecating comments by Nichols, Wilhoite ("I was gonna be a rock star, I was gonna win Academy Awards!"), and Quinn ("Looking back twenty-some years...long hair, sunglasses on all the time...what was I thinking?"). Kitaen, who's had some cosmetic work done, also appears through the Barbara Walters/Diane Sawyer lens filter. The extras on this release are seemingly bottomless, and with the HD transfer making it look as good as it possibly can, this is as close as WITCHBOARD fans will get to a Criterion-level package.
"This Time, It's Not a Sequel"
WITCHBOARD was successful enough that it made Tenney a "name" B-lister for several years. His 1988 film NIGHT OF THE DEMONS has enjoyed a similar cult following, and he directed the Robert Forster/Robert Davi sci-fi outing PEACEMAKER in 1990. In 1989, Tenney made WITCHTRAP, which featured Luebsen, Quinn, and others who had smaller bits in WITCHBOARD, plus cult horror favorite Linnea Quigley. It wasn't a sequel to WITCHBOARD but everyone did their damnedest to make it appear so. Magnum Entertainment's VHS box boasted artwork that blatantly imitated WITCHBOARD's but also contained a stipulation that "This film is not a sequel to WITCHBOARD." Tenney delivered a belated official sequel with 1993's WITCHBOARD 2: THE DEVIL'S DOORWAY, which featured no returning cast members. Tenney scripted 1995's WITCHBOARD: THE POSSESSION, but handed directing chores off to Peter Svatek. Tenney's career seems to be more or less on hiatus as his last film of note--and dubious note at that--is the straight-to-video, Charlie Sheen-less sequel ARRIVAL II (1998). He hasn't made a film since the PG-rated, family-friendly teen movie BIGFOOT (2009), where the title creature appears to be the tattered remains of a HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS costume that Tenney found in a dumpster on the Universal backlot.
Shout! Factory's second "Cult Movie Marathon" set gets off to an inauspicious start with ANGELS FROM HELL, a loose follow-up to 1967's essential HELL'S ANGELS ON WHEELS, and one of the dullest entries in the late '60s biker subgenre. After supporting roles in films like THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965) and THE DEVIL'S BRIGADE (1968), Tom Stern was about to find a brief niche in these things with ANGELS FROM HELL and HELL'S ANGELS '69, but his time in the spotlight was over before it started. Here, Stern plays Mike, the leader of the Madcaps of Bakersfield motorcycle club who returns from Vietnam to take his MC to the next level. He hangs with a hippie commune, gets involved with a Hollywood producer and tangles with local sheriff Bingham (Jack Starrett), who, interestingly, is actually sympathetic to bikers and reminds his deputies that they have the same rights as everyone else. Tensions keep flaring, but nothing really happens, Stern is a terrible actor, and the dialogue is atrocious (Mike, laying out his agenda to the rest of the club: "I'm gonna lay some jazz on your minds..."), though it does have a memorably nasty leg break and a gut-punch of a final shot that might make you think you saw a better film than you did. But for 85 of its 86 minutes, ANGELS FROM HELL is a snore-inducing drag and Jerry Wish's script lays the verbiage of the era on so thickly that it starts to sound like it's trying entirely too hard. Also with Ted Markland and Arlene Martel, and songs by The Peanut Butter Conspiracy. Director Bruce Kessler only made a few features, most notably 1969's THE GAY DECEIVERS, a sort-of proto-I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY where two buddies pretend to be gay to avoid the draft, and the 1971 cult horror film SIMON, KING OF THE WITCHES, and went on to become a busy TV director until the late '90s. Most of these biker movies haven't aged very well, but this one especially feels like it was laughably dated the moment it was released. (R, 86 mins)
CHATTERBOX! (US - 1977)
Easily cinema's all-time greatest talking vagina film, CHATTERBOX! is mildly amusing at times and plays like an R-rated sitcom pilot. Nice hairdresser Penelope Pittman ('70s drive-in icon Candice Rialson) finds her vagina (called "Virginia") is suddenly capable of talking, singing, and in the case of her overconfident boyfriend Ted (Perry Bullington), roasting ("You call that a fuck?" Virginia screeches after Penelope and Ted have sex). Virginia initially causes all sorts of problems for Penelope, especially at her job (Rip Taylor plays her boss!), but the pair soon become a media sensation, going on the game show The Mating Game, appearing at the Rose Bowl parade, and performing such elaborate musical numbers as "Cock-a-Doodle Doo," and "Wang Dang Doodle." CHATTERBOX! has quite a B-movie pedigree: the screenwriters were involved in such films as THE GREAT TEXAS DYNAMITE CHASE and SAVAGE STREETS, director Tom De Simone went on to make HELL NIGHT (1981), THE CONCRETE JUNGLE (1982), REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS (1986) and ANGEL III: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1988), and doubled as a gay porn director using the name "Lancer Brooks." And of course, Rialson (1951-2006) logged time in several Roger Corman productions, like CANDY STRIPE NURSES (1974) and HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD (1976) before retiring from movies in 1979 to focus on raising her family. CHATTERBOX! is pretty bad, but it has some entertainment value as a nice snapshot of late '70s softcore porn in the guise of a markedly less-sophisticated Mel Brooks-style smutty comedy. It's nothing spectacular, but if you see only one talking vajayjay movie in your life, it should probably be CHATTERBOX! Also with Larry Gelman (THE BOB NEWHART SHOW, MAUDE) as Penelope's doctor, Jane Kean as her mother, and Professor Irwin Corey as himself. 1.33:1 (R, 73 mins)
THE NAKED CAGE (US - 1986)
Three years after his legendary 1983 cult classic CHAINED HEAT, director Paul Nicholas, a pseudonym for German exploitation vet Lutz Schaarwachter, returned to the women-in-prison genre with this entertaining trash for Cannon. Nice girl Michelle (Shari Shattuck) is in the wrong place at the wrong time when her ex (John Terlesky) and psycho bad girl Rita (Christina Whitaker) rob the bank where she works. The ex is killed and the cops think Michelle was in on it, so like most WIP protagonists, she's a dewy-eyed innocent (and she has a horse!) who's about to get schooled. And of course, it's a prison filled with rape by drooling male guards, drugs, racial conflicts, and the corrupt warden (Angel Tompkins) has lesbian hookups with inmates. Not quite on the level of CHAINED HEAT, but really, what is? This could probably use a slumming big name or two, but there's enough hilarious dialogue and nasty violence (one inmate is force-fed a large mirror shard) to make it required viewing for fans of such delightful sleaze. Also with Lucinda Crosby, Aude Charles, the frightening Faith Minton (who looks like a roid-raging Mark Gregory), the inevitable Carole Ita White, and "Tuff Enuff" by the Fabulous Thunderbirds, thereby fulfilling THE NAKED CAGE's apparently ASCAP-mandated obligation that it be featured in every film released in 1986. 1.33:1 (R, 97 mins)
SAVAGE ISLAND (US - 1985)
Empire Pictures and future Full Moon honcho Charles Band acquired two sleazy Italian/Spanish women-in-prison films from 1980--ESCAPE FROM HELL and ORINOCO: PRISON OF SEX--both shot back-to-back by Italian exploitation vet Edoardo Mulargia with much of the same cast (Anthony Steffen, Cristina Lai, and transsexual Eurotrash icon Ajita Wilson), and had them re-edited into one film. The resulting cut-and-paste hack job, was then bookended with new footage shot five years later in Los Angeles with Linda Blair and HOGAN'S HEROES co-star Leon Askin, and released to drive-ins and grindhouses in 1985 as SAVAGE ISLAND--probably to cash in on Blair's 1984 drive-in hit SAVAGE STREETS. It's as much of an incoherent mess as you can imagine, but bad-movie lovers will rejoice at such sights as night switching to day in the middle of the same action scene, constant back-and-forth wardrobe and hairstyle changes, the same actor playing two different characters, and one character getting killed only to have same actor turn up later and get killed again--all the inevitable results of carelessly trying to fuse two movies into one. The credited director on SAVAGE ISLAND is Nicholas Beardsley, who has no other IMDb credits before or since, so it may very well be a pseudonym for someone in the Empire stock company. Empire, or Beardsley, or whomever, obviously didn't even know who some of the actors were. Wilson is credited as Maria and Lai as Muriel, when it's vice versa, the venerable Luciano Pigozzi is credited as "Paco," but plays the prison warden, and not the guy everyone calls "Paco." Luciano Rossi also seems to be playing the warden in some scenes, because he was in ORINOCO and Pigozzi wasn't.
Blair and Askin worked one day on the wraparound scenes. A slumming, career-in-the-toilet Blair, who claims she was "conned" into appearing in this and urged fans to stay away from it while happily starring in things like the wretched POLICE ACADEMY ripoff NIGHT PATROL, plays Daly, a former inmate in a South American prison who shows up at the office of emerald dealer Luker (Askin) after killing his security guard (Penn Jillette!). She's there to explain that women forced into slave labor are procuring his precious jewels, and then the two haphazardly-assembled Mulargia films proceed, with intermittent voiceover from Blair in a hapless attempt to pull the plot together. It's all for naught, and Beardsley eliminates most of the sleazier elements. He does leave some nudity--Lai plays an entire action sequence with her breasts popped out of her top--but the focus is ultimately more on action, with some nice over-the-top gunshot splatter near the end. Also with Stelio Candelli and WIP sleaze fixture Serafino Profumo, who looks like the Italian Sid Haig, and played similar sadistic guard roles in such dubious Nazisploitation gems as S.S. EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP and S.S. CAMP: WOMEN'S HELL. Barely watchable and feeling endless even at 79 minutes, but aficionados of truly awful cinema will have a strange appreciation for it. 1.33:1 (R, 79 mins)
This drive-in and late-night TV staple was previously released on DVD by MGM as part of the late, great "Midnite Movies" line but is back on DVD once more, kicking off a rather random four-film Shout! Factory "Cult Movie Collection." A sci-fi satire on Women's Lib, INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS is a sterling example of early '70s exploitation trash as men in a college town are being screwed to death by a hot-and-heavy band of radiation-mutated hotties under the command of entomologist Dr. Susan Harris (Anitra Ford). The government sends in State Department security agent Neil Agar (legendary B-movie badass William Smith) to investigate. Teaming up with campus librarian Julie Zorn (Victoria Vetri, aka Angela Dorian, 1968's Playmate of the Year), and local cop Peters (Cliff Osmond), Agar is expectedly one step behind as one lecherous prof after another turns up dead. BEE GIRLS was directed by Denis Sanders, whose credits include 1962's WAR HUNT (the film debut of Robert Redford) and the 1970 concert film ELVIS: THAT'S THE WAY IT IS, and written by Nicholas Meyer, who would go on to direct such highly-regarded films as TIME AFTER TIME (1979) and STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982). It's silly and stupid, but it seems to know it's silly and stupid, which really helps. 1.78 anamorphic. (R, 86 mins)
Cranked out quickly to cash-in on MGM's Raquel Welch hit KANSAS CITY BOMBER, the Roger Corman production THE UNHOLY ROLLERS is a meaner, grittier look at the world of Roller Derby. Chronicling the rise and inevitable fall of Karen (Claudia Jennings) as she quits her job at a cat food factory and aces a tryout for the L.A. Avengers, THE UNHOLY ROLLERS doesn't really break any new ground as far as these kinds of stories go, and gets off to a slow start, but director Vernon Zimmerman (best known for the 1980 cult horror film FADE TO BLACK) and veteran Corman screenwriter Howard R. Cohen eventually find their groove. It's helped by a strong performance by Jennings, the troubled 1970 Playmate of the Year who would die in a tragic car accident in 1979 at just 29. Zimmerman and Cohen take a risk in making Jennings' Karen a frankly unlikable, self-absorbed bitch from the start, and it makes a little too easy to see her downfall coming, especially when team owner Mr. Stern (Louis Quinn) makes obviously prophetic statements like "Every #1 started out as a #2." So, just the way Karen toppled the team's star player Mickey (Betty Anne Rees), so shall happen to her with the introduction of Beverly (Charlene Jones). Karen soon becomes an out-of-control liability as her success turns her into a monster and alienates her from her teammates. Jennings does a great job playing a thoroughly despicable person, and Zimmerman handles the Roller Derby sequences very well, probably with some assistance from editor Martin Scorsese, who made BOXCAR BERTHA for Corman the same year and would soon hit the big time with 1973's MEAN STREETS. Also with Roberta Collins, Alan Vint, Candice Roman, Victor Argo, and Kathleen Freeman as Karen's trailer-trash mother, who rejects a kiss from her estranged daughter and responds to her financial gift with "I got my cigarettes, I got my TV...what more do I need?" The packaging indicates full-frame, but it's actually 1.78 anamorphic. (R, 88 mins)
VICIOUS LIPS is still early Pyun, and he's already in decline in his only film for Empire Pictures. A sort-of companion piece to his 1986 film RADIOACTIVE DREAMS, VICIOUS LIPS centers on an all-girl new wave band called Vicious Lips, who've just hired a new singer, Judy Jetson (Dru-Anne Perry), rechristening her "Ace Lucas" before taking a lucrative gig on a distant planet. On the way, they crash-land and they're chased around the ship by a crazed wolfman-type creature. There's also a lot of fighting and yelling, and some extended rock montages. The whole thing ends up being some weird fever dream about Judy being driven mad by her quest to be a star. There's about ten minutes of plot stretched out to an interminable 81 minutes, though in all fairness, the songs are pretty good. VICIOUS LIPS is pretty much an amateur-night endurance test across the board, and it's hard to believe that it's by the same Pyun who showed so much promise just five years earlier with SWORD AND THE SORCERER. Like the similarly-derided Uwe Boll, Pyun can be a competent director-for-hire when he wants to be, but he seems to have self-deprecatingly embraced this whole "straight-to-video-era Ed Wood" niche he's carved for himself over the years. With its '80s time capsule look, effects work by Empire mainstay John Buechler, with contributions from the Chiodo Brothers (who went on to direct the immortal KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE the next year), I suppose VICIOUS LIPS is campy enough to have attained a small cult, and the climactic production number features a club MC who looks like ALF's hard-drinking uncle, but other than some of the music, there's nothing here. Still, Pyun's recent announcement that he's retiring from filmmaking due to health issues related to multiple sclerosis was sad to hear. The guy's been such a regular fixture in bad movies for so long that it seems unthinkable that he won't be cranking out any more. But he made one very good one and a small handful of decent ones, so we'll always have those, and fans of bad cinema will have...well, just peruse his IMDb page and pick something. VICIOUS LIPS may be terrible, but a part of me is glad that it exists. 1.78 anamorphic. (R, 81 mins)
