BAD, BAD GANG! (1971) **

Two couples named Adam and Eve and Jane and Abel head to the “Garden of Eden” campsite for a vacation.  While Adam and Abel are busy fishing and playing cards, Eve and Jane sneak off to the camper to bone.  Eve and Jane then go down to the lake for some sunbathing where they are kidnapped and raped by some bikers.  As Adam and Abel stand by powerless to do anything, the jealous biker mamas decide to rape them too. 

Not to be confused with The Hard Riders, another biker skin flick starring Rene Bond, Bad, Bad Gang! was directed by Jon Donne AKA: Donn Greer.  His handling of the porn scenes leave something to be desired as they are indifferently filmed for the most part.  Although the grungy feel is perfect for a biker-themed roughie, most of the hardcore scenes are a bust.  The lesbian scene in the camper between the two leading ladies is decent, however. 

I had a little trouble trying to figure out the whole religious angle.  Okay, our main characters are called “Adam” and Eve”, and the campsite is called the “Garden of Eden”, right?  So, if that’s the case, then who are the bikers supposed to represent?  The snake?  Or are they meant to be the apple?  If so, having Eve being taken against her will goes against the whole idea of Original Sin.  (If that’s indeed what’s intended.).  A Christian scholar I am not, but sheesh.  Maybe I should just repeat to myself “It’s just a crummy fuck flick from the ‘70s and I should really just relax”. 

The use of an instrumental of “Amazing Grace” in some scenes is pretty hilarious too.  Donne might’ve thought added to the religious symbolism, but it just seems goofy more than anything.   Still, fans of Bond (I’m including myself here) will probably check it out just to see her in action. 

Greer later made the incredible WTF classic, The Rare Blue Apes of Cannibal Island. 

STARLET! (1969) **

Starlet! was written by legendary exploitation producer David F. (A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine) Friedman.  The film sometimes feels like an attempt by Friedman to break out of the nudie business and make a “real” movie.  He used the old Hollywood axiom of “write what you know” and wrote a story about making low-budget skin flicks.  The results are quite uneven. 

Carol (Dee Lockwood) is an aspiring actress working in softcore nudies who hides her profession from her roommates.  Linda (Chris Mathis) is uptight, and Allison (Shari Mann) will practically jump anything that moves.  Linda’s director boyfriend Forrest (Victor Brandt) is appalled when she is raped at a Hollywood party by a producer but is powerless to do anything for fear of losing his big break.  Meanwhile, Allison strikes up a romance with aging starlet Maxine (Kathi Cole) while Carol begins sleeping her way to starring in a sleazy producer’s big budget epic. 

Some of this plays like a half-assed version of Valley of the Dolls, but it’s all pretty cheap.  The scenes set inside Friedman’s own studio feel like a cost-cutting measure more than anything.  Even though Starlet! is more serious than most of his efforts, there’s still people with names like “Phil Latio” running around, which seemingly runs against the grain of his dramatic intentions. 

I admire the fact that the opening scene shows the skin flick world in an unflattering light, or at the very least, depicts it in a realistic manner.  The director constantly yells at the actress while she’s just going through the motions with her co-star in bed.  Had the screenplay concentrated more on this sort of behind-the-scenes minutia than the standard cliched dramatic tropes, it might’ve worked. 

While there’s enough T & A here to pass it off as a skin flick, Friedman’s strive for legitimacy takes some of the fun out of the proceedings.  It’s also severely lacking the charm of his more disreputable efforts.  Still, there are some memorable moments (like the Pilgrim-themed bondage movie) and a few legitimately funny lines.  (“Be obscene and not heard!”)  It also benefits from the presence of Stuart (Faster, Pussycat!  Kill!  Kill!) Lancaster as a sleazy producer.  Oh, and Friedman even shows up playing himself!  

Ultimately, the film suffers from a needlessly bloated running time.  It probably also has too many unnecessary supporting characters.  Because of its ambling nature, Starlet! never quite reaches the top. 

AKA:  Hollywood Sex Slaves. 

AMITYVILLE BACKROOMS (2024) **

Hey guys, have you heard about this Backrooms movie everyone is talking about?  Well, it was all sold out at the theater, so I watched this one on Tubi instead.  I admit I’m not all that familiar with the whole “Backrooms” concept.  The only Backrooms I’ve ever been to were located behind the beaded curtain in the back of the video store.  But I digress. 

Anyway, an unscrupulous realtor strongarms his client into buying the old Amityville house.  After he closes the deal, the realtor finds himself trapped inside the house with no way to escape.  Later, his boss arrives at the house to check on him and gets lost inside too. 

I guess the whole Backrooms deal involves someone being trapped inside an endless loop of liminal spaces.  I suppose the mundane look and long static shots are part of what goes into making a Backrooms thing work.  However, there were times I thought my Tubi had frozen up on me because the takes were held so long. 

I can’t say the Backrooms concept works for me as a whole, but I can see how it could appeal to some people.  I can certainly understand why the idea of combining a Backrooms video with an Amityville movie would appeal to indie filmmakers with limited means.  It shows you can take a simple premise and make a watchable movie with a minimum number of locations, a small cast (there are no women to be found in this one) and mere pocket change at their disposal.  That said, this never really approaches becoming a “good” movie.  The acting is bad and the ending is awful.  Still, it’s all downright Shakespearean compared to some of the other low-budget Amityville flicks that are out there.  You also have to deal with a lot of cheap-looking news reports that help to pad out the running time.  (These kinds of scenarios are almost a given in fake Amityville rip-offs nowadays.)

The burly realtor gets the best line of the movie when he says, “Amityville sucks!”

OBSESSION (2026) ***

This low-budget horror flick was a surprise blockbuster at the box office.  It has a simple but effective premise that manages to breathe new life into the shopworn “Monkey Paw” cliché.  Remember that one Tales from the Crypt episode with Andrew McCarthy?  It’s sort of like a 21st century variation on that. 

Bear (Michael Johnston) gets put into the dreaded Friend Zone by his coworker Nikki (Inde Navarrette).  Frustrated by the fact that he can’t express his feelings towards her, Bear buys a wishing stick and wishes for her to fall madly in love with him.  Well, it works… a little too well. 

First time director Curry Barker favors creating an unsettling mood rather than out and out shocks.  He fills the frame with drab colors, and the muted palette lends the picture an ominous feel.  While I kind of wish (heh… perhaps a poor choice of words) he went for the jugular a bit more often (there’s a scene with a steering wheel that is a real crowd pleaser), he nevertheless does a solid job setting the creepy tone early on.  Even more impressive is the fact he is able to sustain it for much of the film’s running time.  It does wear on a bit long at 107 minutes, and while it would’ve benefited from some tighter editing, Obsession remains a heck of a debut. 

The real MVP is Navarrette.  The reason the audience buys the premise is thanks largely to her total commitment to the crazed lengths her character will go through to be loved.  She does some of her best work hidden in silhouette, but she is equally fine when she goes into full-tilt nutzo mode.  We’ve had a lot of great acting performances by women in horror over the past couple of years, and Navarrette’s ranks right there with the best of them.

Barker didn’t reinvent the wheel with this one.  Sometimes, you don’t have to.  You just have to keep it spinning.

And yes, that’s Conan O’Brien’s sidekick Andy Richter as Johnston and Navarrette’s boss. 

OBSCENE HOUSE (1969) ** ½

Four naked women lay in bed and proceed to get nipple to nipple while the narrator makes cheeky comments about business and industry.  (Of course, she’s referring to the world’s oldest profession.)  After about fifteen minutes of hot lesbian action, the narrator is revealed to be none other than “Fat Mama”, the girls’ 400 lbs. madam.  (Imagine if Divine was born a biological woman and that might give you an idea of her stature.)  Soon, male clients arrive to the house, and Fat Mama has the girls line up for inspection before they are paired off for some hanky-panky. 

The production values of Obscene House leave something to be desired.  The sound drops out constantly, several actresses stand around awkwardly at the beginning of scenes waiting for the director to yell “Action!”, and they stare directly at the camera while doing the horizontal mambo.  That said, the color cinematography is surprisingly good, especially considering the film looks like a cross between a stag loop and someone’s home movies.  The narration is essentially a one-joke premise as Fat Mama brings all the innuendo back to running a small business.  It isn’t exactly “funny”, but it’s more fun than say, taking business classes down at the community college. 

While the opening lesbian orgy starts things off with a bang (literally), I will say the scenes of the hookers and their Johns aren’t nearly as hot.  That’s not to say they aren’t memorable.  The three-way scene is especially odd.  There’s a bit where a gal deep throats her client’s hand that is rather strange.  (She also really seems to be into palm licking.)  I guess they couldn’t get away with showing actual hardcore action, so this was presented as a substitute.  It also helps that the girls are all pretty sexy (aside from Big Mama, of course), although the actress with the best chest has the worst teeth.  (Fortunately, she didn’t show off her oral know-how or there could’ve been bloodshed.)

Despite the title, the hand sucking scene is about as “obscene” as this one gets.  It’s a watchable enough effort for the most part. The quirky elements are enough to guarantee that you won’t forget it any time soon.  Whether or not it’s a “good” movie is an entirely different matter.

SCARLET WARNING 666 (1974) NO STARS

You know the term “Stream of Consciousness”?  Scarlet Warning 666 might be the first Stream of Unconsciousness movie.  It is the mad cinematic ramblings of a filmmaker who has no idea what he’s doing and just keeps filling the picture with more… stuff.  It’s a movie so befuddling to an audience that it probably only makes sense to one person:  Director/writer/star/musician Palmer Rockey. 

Say what you will about Neil Breen and Tommy Wiseau.  Even though their films are largely ego-stroking diasterpieces, they still can make a movie that has a plot that goes from A to B (more or less).  The same can’t be said for Rockey.  You never know who’s doing what or where they are in conjunction to other characters or even what’s going on with the plot (or what passes for plot in this movie).  So please excuse me if I refrain from featuring the customary plot summary in this review as words like “plot” only exist as the vaguest of notions in Rockey’s world. 

I have a spray bottle by my couch that I use on my cats.  Whenever they do something wrong like claw the furniture or try to jump on the bookcase, I squirt them.  If I sprayed the movie every time Palmer Rockey did something wrong, I would’ve short-circuited my television and flooded out the Man Cave before the second act. 

The behind-the-scenes drama is a lot more interesting than what occurs on screen.  Apparently Rockey mooched off his wife so he could make this thing.  When it was laughed off the screen at the premiere, he went back and re-edited it and added new footage along with narration insulting the critics who dared to… uh… criticize his lack of talent.  (“Flick you!”  “What’s that mean?”  “It means knock it off, Cletus!”)

Since Rockey kept adding bits over the course of a decade, he visibly ages and changes from scene to scene.  He also plays his own twin brother, but it’s all so incoherent you probably won’t even pick up on it till the movie’s halfway over.  Sure, there’s some genuinely strange imagery along the way, like when the cult of bikini-clad women tortures our hero on a spiked wheel.  You might not make it that far though. 

The movie also boasts that this was the first time that the star performed “54” roles on screen and off in a motion picture.  To say Rockey was spread thin is a massive understatement.  Yes, he did 54 jobs on the film, but he did a terrible fucking job at each and every one of them.  I guess if you’re in the record books, they can’t take that away from you; even if it’s for all the wrong reasons. 

I’m giving this NO STARS mostly as an attention-getter.  For sheer entertainment value, it’s probably worth a *** rating as it’s ultimately too long (107 minutes) and can’t consistently maintain its WTF momentum.   Be sure, I laughed long and hard during the film and doubted my sanity at least four or five times, which is quite a feat in itself.  However, believe me when I tell you that speaking strictly in terms of technical merit, screenwriting, acting, direction, and general competence, Scarlet Warning 666 is the worst movie I have ever seen. 

AKA:  It Happened One Weekend.  AKA:  It Happened One Sunday.  AKA:  Love is Deep Inside.  AKA:  Rockey’s Style.  AKA:  Scarlet Love.  AKA:  Scarlet Love 666. 

MY PLEASURE IS MY BUSINESS (1975) **

Remember all those Happy Hooker movies from the ‘70s?  They were based on the books by real-life hooker Xaviera Hollander and caused a minor scandal back in the day.  While Hollywood was in the process of churning out the first adaptation of The Happy Hooker starring Lynn Redgrave, Canada was busy making this flick with the real Xaviera in her first and only starring role. 

Xaviera stars as a porn star named Gabriele who has had numerous affairs with several politicians.  Fearing she could potentially ruin their careers, they get together and run her out of America.  The fictional country of Gestalt is the only nation who will offer her asylum, mostly because the crooked dictator thinks her arrival will draw attention away from his shady dealings. 

This is a fairly weak sex farce, but the participation of Hollander makes it notable.  The title sequence is fun as Xaviera’s plane is denied access to several countries as she is deemed “too sexy” to land.  After that, it’s basically a collection of half-hearted subplots strung together. 

Most of the humor is unfunny, but it’s nothing too painful (aside from some lame gay stereotypes).  There are some oddball asides (like the “International Detective” who has his own theme song) and at least one amusing sight gag.  However, there’s way too much time spent on a dumb bicycle chase.  Also, the movie ends with a pie fight, which should really tell you something. 

It’s hard to imagine why Xaviera didn’t become a B-movie star as she’s pretty good in this.  She looks the part and is quite sexy.  Heck, she probably could’ve played herself in The Happy Hooker movie (or at least in one of the sequels).  Maybe the thought was her accent was too thick for some viewers, but I didn’t mind it.  If only her brief topless scenes had better staging.  (She spends way too much time with her back to the camera.) 

Ultimately, My Pleasure is My Business is an OK slice of softcore hokum.  Your average moviegoer will likely be unamused, but it’ll be worth watching if you’re a fan of the Happy Hooker movies.  I can’t guarantee you’ll be as happy as Xaviera though.