THE COLLECTOR (2009) **

A thief named Arkin (Josh Stewart) must crack his employers’ safe to get the dough necessary to pay off his ex-wife’s debt.  Once he breaks in, he finds the place isn’t what it appears to be.  Someone else is in there and has set deadly booby traps throughout the home.  He then must try to save the family before they fall prey to a black-masked killer (Juan Fernandez) who “collects” his victims.  

The Collector was the brainchild of Feast and Saw sequel writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton.  It’s a grisly, yet generic mix of Saw, Don’t Breathe, and (checks notes) Home Alone.  It’s certainly has some grisly moments (there’s a gnarly bear trap scene) and touches of surprising atmosphere in the early scenes.  (There are shots that evoke both Argento and De Palma.)  

Once the action switches to the house, it becomes yet another darkened, dreary, unimaginative torture porn-type of horror flick.  The solid set-up eventually gives way to ho-hum execution and the doldrums set in well before the finale.  Dunstan shows enough promise as a director in the early scenes though to make you want to see something else from him down the road.  

The script however leaves a little something to be desired.  Dunstan and Melton originally conceived it to be a prequel to Saw, but they reworked it to be its own thing.  I guess if you could excuse the rampant lapses in logic (like how the hell the Collector could rig up all those elaborate traps on such short notice) and eye-rolling clichés in the third act, you might find this one worthy of your collection.

DUMBO (2019) *** ½

Ever since I was a kid, Dumbo has been my favorite Disney movie.  As a teenager, it resonated even more.  Dumbo was relentlessly teased and bullied by his peers and the only way he dealt with it was to get drunk and wake up the next morning in a tree.  I can relate.  (I never quite got to the point where I was able to rise above the bullies and reign down a hail of fire-roasted peanuts on my tormentors though.)

The good news is, I can relate to this new Dumbo just as much.  It’s quite an inspirational tale.  It’s the film that shows us that if you try your best to overcome the obstacles life throws at you, one day Eva Green will climb on top of you and ride you like there’s no tomorrow.  I think there’s a message there for all of us.  

Tim Burton’s take on the Disney classic hits the familiar beats from the original.  The big difference is that the human characters are split 50-50 in the good and evil department.  In the original, they were pretty much bastards all around.  

Instead of Timothy (who at least has a cameo) as Dumbo’s best pal and champion, we have Colin Farrell and his kids.  Farrell comes home from the war missing an arm, with his career in the circus uncertain.  He gets put in charge of the elephants, and it’s up to him and his kids to make sure the big-eared elephant Dumbo is their next star attraction.  

The first half sticks fairly close to the original.  (There were no singing crows, though.)  I especially loved the way the old songs creeped into Danny Elfman’s score (especially “Casey Jr.”).  The second half, in which the circus gets bought out by a big corporation who wants to exploit Dumbo isn’t nearly as good, but it’s not without its charms.  I guess Burton’s message is that even if a major conglomerate owns your ass, you can still be an edgy outcast who is able to flourish and (literally) rise above your confines.    

As much as I love the original, I was glad this wasn’t a shot-for-shot remake, like what that newfangled Aladdin looks to be.  This is Tim Burton’s take on the classic tale.  There is one sequence in particular (the escape from “Devil’s Island”) that is one of the most Tim Burton-y things Tim Burton has ever done.  

The big emotional beats are taken from the original.  The new stuff is sweet and all, but not a patch on the original.  That said, those heart-tugging moments still work (mostly because the CGI Dumbo is freaking adorable), and the “Baby Mine” sequence has the power to get the waterworks going with minimum effort.  

The human cast, superfluous as they are, are still quite good.  Green is great as the trapeze artist who goes from corporate arm candy to carny mother hen.  Farrell is strong as the family man hesitant to step up and become a leader.  Danny DeVito is fun as the crotchety ringleader who’s tempted by the almighty dollar.  

Michael Keaton is probably the most interesting as the evil sleazebag.  If you notice, his accent slightly changes from scene to scene.  Sometimes he sounds French, other times, English.  Heck, there are times when you don’t know where his accent is from.  It sort of clues you in that this guy is a phony from the get-go.  

The best scene though is a cameo (which I will not spoil) that is so gratuitous, outlandish, and out of place that it almost feels like it came out of an episode of The Simpsons.  It’s so crazy that it almost takes you out of the movie.  However, it is quite hilarious (one of the biggest I’ve had at the movies in some time), so I’ll allow it.

CECILIA (1983) ** ½

The titles say Cecilia is “Jesus Franco’s Film”, but there’s also a card earlier that reads “Directed by Olivier Mathot”.  It definitely has all the pointless zooms (including one into the crotch of a cherub statue) and rampant nudity Franco is known for.  Mathot (who also appears in a supporting role) also helped Franco direct Diamonds of Kilimanjaro, so I guess it’s legit.  I’m not sure how much Mathot brought to the table, but Cecilia is a decent enough Franco/Mathot outing.  

Cecilia (Muriel Montosse) is a bored, wealthy woman who gets her kicks from stripping in the back of her limo and letting her chauffeur watch in the rear-view mirror while droning organ music plays on the soundtrack.  He gets tired of her endless teasing, so he picks up his brothers (who were fired by Cecilia for spying on her while undressing) for an unscheduled gangbang.  When she returns home, Cecilia confides to her husband (Antonio Mayans) about the attack.  He’s at first appalled by her casualness in enjoying the encounter, but she assures him, she’s more than happy to allow him to go off on his own sexual misadventures.  Eventually, all their promiscuousness threatens to pull them apart.

The opening sequence immediately gets your attention.  As with Diary of a Nymphomaniac, the rest of the movie has a hard time keeping up that level of excellence.  In fact, it’s all sort of a formless mishmash of half-assed flashbacks and sex scenes.  Some are good, like when Cecilia catches her husband making love to a woman and eventually joins in.  Others never really work up any rhythm or intensity.

Still, there’s enough Franco weirdness here to make it memorable.  There’s an orgy scene where a swami (who has eyeballs painted on his eyelids) sits crisscross-applesauce and meditates while getting a blowjob from Lina Romay.  We learn after the fact they’re a mother-son act (!) which adds to the overall oddness of the scene.  

Montosse’s willingness to parade around naked is appreciated.  Whether she’s getting into gangbangs, wandering around nude, or riding naked horseback on the beach, she’s quite a sight to behold.  Romay is equally fun to watch, although her role is rather small.

Cecilia is overlong to a fault.  It gets particularly rambling and unfocused in the third act.  The music often sounds like it came out of a skating rink, which does the sex scenes no favors.  Regardless, folks frenzying for a Franco fix will find fleeting fun from it.  

AKA:  Diary of a Desperate Housewife.  AKA:  Sexual Aberrations of a Housewife.

DIARY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC (1973) ***

Cortez (Manuel Pereiro) watches a girl on girl show in a nightclub.  A sexy prostitute named Linda (Montserrat Prous) picks him and they go back to her hotel for some drunken sex.  Things get complicated when she calls the police to report her own murder!  

People can say what they will about Jess Franco, but this set-up is worthy of Hitchcock.  I’m not saying Franco executes it as well as The Master.  However, the opening has an undeniable kick to it.  

The rest of the plot revolves around Cortez’s wife Rosa (Jacqueline Lauret) searching for Linda’s diary, which might just prove her husband’s innocence.  When Rosa reads the diary, she learns of the poor girl’s descent into the seamy world of prostitutes and strippers.  Meanwhile, we see flashbacks of Linda’s checkered past and learn how she came into her profession.  

This all sort of threatens to spin out of control, especially during the last act where Prous begins to get caught up in drugs.  Despite that, there’s enough Franco goodness here for fans to gravitate to.  The opening lesbian club scene is classic Franco (who also appears as a police captain who sits in an office that is nothing more than a poorly disguised hotel room).  Women roll around in ecstasy under red lights for a static camera until it all achieves an almost Zen quality.  Sure, there are moments where he uses unnecessary zooms and weird camera placements, but there’s at least one Ferris wheel shot that feels right out of The Third Man.

So far, I’ve compared Franco’s work in this movie to Alfred Hitchcock and Carrol Reed.  Make of that what you will.  Those hoping for a typical Franco sleaze-fest may be disappointed.  Those hoping for evidence that Franco was capable of more than a typical sleaze-fest will not.  (Although, to be sure, there is plenty of sleaze here.)  I’m not saying it all works.  The narrative is choppy, and the film never quite tops that doozy of an opening sequence.  Warts and all, Diary of a Nymphomaniac has enough eye-popping moments for Francophiles to enjoy.

Franco vet Howard Vernon appears late in the game as a doctor who gets the best line of the movie.  He tries to help our poor little nymphomaniac, and when she doesn’t respond to the treatment, he says, “Since you’re nothing more than a prostitute, you’re going to pay my bill like a prostitute!”  

AKA:  Sinner.  AKA:  Sinner:  The Secret Diary of a Nymphomaniac.  

AROUND THE WORLD WITH FANNY HILL (1974) ** ½

In director Mac Ahlberg’s sequel to 1968’s Fanny Hill, Fanny (Shirley Corrigan, taking over for Diana Kjaer) becomes unhappy in her marriage and wants a divorce from her commercial director husband Roger (Peter Bonke).  She gets her girlfriend Monica (Gaby Fuchs) to seduce Roger, so she can catch him in the act.  Together, they take the alimony and fund a trip to Hollywood.  They visit the Chinese Theater (playing The Long Goodbye) and Fanny sets her sights on getting it on with a famous actor.  She winds up being discovered, gets a big acting role, and goes from Hong Kong to Venice with the movie crew.  Along the way, Fanny wonders if she didn’t make a mistake by dumping Roger.

Around the World with Fanny Hill is a typically uneven Swedish sex comedy.  It has the same basic set-ups as most bedroom farces.  (Like the scene where Fanny tries to catch Roger in bed with Monica, unaware he’s already in bed with someone else.)  Even though the locations change, Fanny’s shenanigans get repetitive after a while.  Many of her sexual misadventures stop short of being laugh-out-loud funny, but the scene where Fanny poses as a man to seduce a bisexual marquis is quite amusing.  Too bad it ends abruptly just when it was picking up steam.

The third act kicks off with a big swinging orgy that offers up plenty of free love and nudity, although it’s not exactly hot or anything.  This is followed by a fast-motion comedy scene of Fanny trying to catch various officials in compromising positions that’s not very funny.  In fact, this the whole sequence probably could’ve been cut altogether and saved us all about ten minutes.  

Corrigan is fun to watch.  She spends a lot of time winding up naked and being found in compromising positions.  Her efforts keep you involved even when the tired comedy sputters out.  We also get to see the ever-enchanting Christina (Thriller:  A Cruel Picture) Lindberg popping up in a bit part as one of Bonke’s models.

Ahlberg went on to be the cinematographer for everyone from Charles Band to John Landis.  

AKA:  Around the World with Sex.

THE PRINCE (2014) ** ½

Jason Patric stars as a seemingly ordinary mechanic whose daughter (Gina Mantegna) disappears without a trace.  He gets her friend (Jessica Lowndes) to help him look for her down in New Orleans.  He quickly stirs up a shitstorm of attention from beating up pushers left and right, which catches the eye of mobster Bruce Willis.  Because of the Seemingly Unrelated but Very Important Opening Scene, we know the two have unfinished business together, and it’s only a matter of time before they’re on a collision course.  

The very appearance of Bruce Willis and John Cusack in a DTV movie often will be the subject of derision.  Both men have been accused of not giving a shit recently.  I can’t say it’s the best work of either of them, but they look like they’re trying a bit harder than they’ve been given credit for.  

Willis seems more engaged than he’s been in a while, especially in the early scenes with his young daughter.  He reverts to Scowling Bruce later in the film, but he stops short of going into cruise control.  Likewise, Cusack (who plays one of Patric’s old street cronies) tries a smidge harder than his recent output would suggest.  In most of his newer movies, he shows up wearing either a ballcap, sunglasses, or hoodie.  In The Prince, he sports a hoodie, but it stays down throughout the course of the picture.  That’s a metaphor for his effort or some shit.

Is it sad that I just spent an entire paragraph assuring you that two-thirds of the leading men are trying?  Probably.  To DTV devotees like myself, it’s a signpost of sorts to let you know the level of quality we’re dealing with.  As such, The Prince is better than expected  

Oh.  Would it surprise you that Jonathon Schaech and 50 Cent are also in this movie?  Probably not.

I haven’t even mentioned Patric, who is excellent.  He particularly excels in the first act where he goes all kinds of Taken on a bunch of hoods.  Some could accuse Willis and Cusack of phoning it in, but Patric came to fucking play.  He’s intense, brooding, and is quite credible in his ass-kicking scenes.

Director Brian A. Miller handles the various shootouts and fight scenes competently enough.  Only a rough looking car chase suffers from the typical DTV ADD over-editing and herky-jerky camerawork.  However, the second act doesn’t have the fire of the early scenes, and Patric’s final siege on Willis’ headquarters feels like a retread of the ending of ‘04’s The Punisher.  

Willis and Miller later reteamed for Vice and Reprisal.

  

AKA:  The Prince:  Only God Forgives.

GODZILLA: THE PLANET EATER (2019) * ½

The third (and thankfully, final) in the series of Godzilla animated adventures for Netflix is one of the worst Godzilla movies on record.  It’s certainly nowhere near as good as the old cartoons, that’s for sure.  I mean, would it have hurt the animators to toss in Godzooky?

The explorers of a doomed space mission are stranded on Earth.  Still smarting from not being able to defeat Godzilla in the previous installment, they set out to find a way to stop him once and for all.  They turn to a cult of religious fanatics for help, whose “Golden God” winds up being none other than Ghidrah himself.  Naturally, it turns out to be a big mistake for all involved.

The Planet Eater starts slowly as it spends a lot of time playing catch-up with various exposition dumps and arguments about what to do with Godzilla.  Godzilla lies dormant for most of the movie, which means, like the other films in the series, we’re stuck sitting through a lot of talk.  This one is particularly heavy on boring religious discussions that clumsily try to equate Godzilla as some sort of God substitute.  

The new design on Ghidrah is… uh… different.  While it sort of retains the same golden dragon look we all know and love, it has this new ability to transform itself into this snakelike entity made of energy… or something.  The big confrontation between the two titans of terror is a letdown too as Ghidrah spends much of the fight leeching energy out of Godzilla.  The final fight is also abrupt and anticlimactic.  Even after it’s over, the movie continues on mercilessly for another ten minutes.

While it’s not quite as bad as the last entry, City on the Edge of Battle, The Planet Eater is definitely one of the lowlights of Godzilla’s long and illustrious career.  The filmmakers never give him anything worthwhile to do and he spends too much of the movie in a goddamned coma.  I wouldn’t blame you if you did too.  

AKA:  Godzilla:  Eater of Stars.

DIXIE RAY: HOLLYWOOD STAR (1983) **

What the heck is Cameron Mitchell doing in a porno?  Apparently, he didn’t know he was appearing in a XXX flick until he already shot his scenes.  You can’t really blame him for thinking it was a legitimate picture though because director Anthony (Sweat) Spinelli does a great job mimicking the look and feel of old film noir detective movies.  That’s about the best compliment I can give him.   

Detective Nick Popodopolis (John Leslie) is in a pickle when he shoots a client (Juliet Anderson) in self-defense.  The lieutenant (Mitchell) wants to know what happened, and Nick relates a series of flashbacks leading up to her death.  Turns out he was hired by a fading movie star named Dixie Ray (Lisa De Leeuw) to find her missing husband.  Naturally, the dame isn’t on the level, so Nick has to keep on his toes while putting a series of ladies on their backs.

Even though this is a porno, the production values are quite good.  Leslie gives an intense performance and holds his own with Mitchell.  As one of the biggest Cameron Mitchell fans on the planet, I have to say it was an honest thrill to see him in something like this (even if he was in a strictly non-sex performance).  Dixie Ray:  Hollywood Star may be a hardcore film, but it’s far from the skeeviest movie Mitchell’s appeared in.  

While the camerawork and cinematography during the dialogue scenes is quite professional, some of the sex scenes suffer from poor camera placement.  Because of that, it’s hard to see the “good stuff”.  The best scenes are mostly weighted toward the beginning too, which doesn’t help.  Leslie’s scene with Juliet Anderson is solid though, as is his tryst with De Leeuw.  The sex also gets more sporadic as it goes along, and once the plot begins to take over, things start to get a bit dull.  It clocks in at over a hundred minutes too.  That might not sound as serious as murder, but it’s still a crime to make a porno that runs over a hundred minutes.

Leslie is strong enough to suggest he could’ve made the transition from porn to “legitimate” movies.  He does a fine job with the hardboiled narration too.  He’s also given the majority of the sex scenes, which is great for him, but it doesn’t offer the audience much in the way of variety.

Leslie also gets the best line of the movie; a clever riff on The Maltese Falcon:  “It’s the stuff wet dreams are made of!”

AKA:  It’s Called Murder, Baby.

MOIST FURY (2011) ** ½

“Moist” is one of those oddball words that incur a violent reaction inside certain people.  When they hear the word “moist”, they either freak out, act disgusted, or almost vomit.  Writer/director Chris (Return to Bloodfart Lake) Seaver knows this and gets some cheap mileage out of it.  I myself am one of those people who automatically thinks “moist” is hilarious, so I was probably already inclined to enjoy it.

Moist Fury follows a quartet of tough-talking post-apocalyptic lady brawlers who are in a gang called “The Crimson Queafs”.  When their leader Dewback (Hester Prynne) is ambushed and killed by a rival gang led by Doom Blade (Bill Thomas), her lover Andromeda (Desiree Saetia) goes out for revenge.  Aiding the gang in their quest is a badass named Death Bone (Billy Garberina, who talks like Stallone) who is vying to have the coolest name in the wasteland.  

If you’ve seen a Chris Seaver movie or two in your time, you may already know what to expect.  This one is a little more grounded in reality than many of his others (although it still has some outrageous characters spewing a stream of improbable obscenities).   It kind of resembles a Troma version of an all-female Warriors rip-off mixed with your standard DTV action movie.  

Seaver stages the action efficiently enough, especially considering the low budget.  Even though it’s closer to a “real” movie than what he normally makes, there is still plenty of funny moments along the way.  (I liked the fact that it took place in a post-apocalyptic world where Toblerone bars sell on the black market for seven bucks apiece.)  The overblown heavy metal music on the soundtrack is sometimes good for a laugh too.  

Moist Fury is a little light the gore department compared to some of Seaver’s other films, but I guess that’s expected since it’s more of an action flick.  That said, one girl gets stabbed in her lactating breasts.  So, there’s that.  

Is Moist Fury mostly a mess?  Kinda.  For every funny bit, there’s two or three clunky moments.  The mercifully short running time (it’s barely an hour long) certainly helps though.  

Best line, “You’re a bona fide member of the Clitterati!”  

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA (2015) **

In the Heart of the Sea tells the story behind Moby Dick.  It begins with Herman Melville tracking down the last survivor of the Essex, the notorious ship that was attacked by a giant white whale.  There was a smidgeon of a good idea here, but unfortunately, the story it inspired is a lot more entertaining than the real deal. 

Is there a reason to tell this tale?  Did anyone really ask for a realistic version of Moby Dick?  I mean who UNDERSELLS a fish story?  Fish stories are SUPPOSED to be tall tales that are larger than life.  What the fuck, Opie?

Thor, Spider-Man and Scarecrow go out into the middle of the ocean looking for whale oil.  The captain is a rich boy who’s never captained a boat before. They run into the monstrous whale that attacks the boat and shipwrecks the crew. 

What surprised me most about In the Heart of the Sea was that the whale attack happens halfway through the film.  From there, it becomes a tale of survival.  Think Alive in a lifeboat.  This could’ve worked, but Howard is too much of a nice guy to go all out during these scenes.  I mean, if you’re going to have cannibalism in a movie, show the damned cannibalism!  Don’t pussy out and cut back to the narrator.  

I get why this material resonated with Howard.  It’s thematically similar to Apollo 13.  It’s another historical tale of survival.  That doesn’t mean it’s very good though.

The camerawork is often odd.  He uses a lot of weird camera angles aboard the boat for no good reason.  (Unless Howard was trying to make us seasick.)  It’s also a really ugly looking movie too.  Much of the film has a garish yellow tint to it.  It almost looks as if someone pissed on the camera lens or something.

There is one gnarly moment when Spider-Man crawls into a dead whale’s blowhole to dig out the last bits of oil.  If anything, Howard does a good job showing the lengths men would go through to get oil back in the 1820s.  It’s a good thing men stopped doing shady shit for oil after this incident.

As far as Ron Howard movies go, it’s no Gung Ho.

SHARK EXORCIST (2015) * ½

A killer nun (named Linda Blair!) makes a human sacrifice at a lake.  One year later, a giant shark with glowing eyes starts eating swimmers.  A trio of friends go to the lake, and one of them is bitten by the phantom shark.  Her bite miraculously disappears a few days later and she begins acting strange.  A priest, whose brother was also a victim of the shark, comes to town looking to send the shark’s spirit back to Hell.

The early scenes have sort of a screwball charm to them.  Unfortunately, the plot is all over the place, and things get increasingly incoherent as it goes along.  It sometimes feels like writer/director Donald (Hooker with a Hacksaw) Farmer just strung a bunch of unrelated short films together as he keeps introducing more and more characters who never intersect (and very few of them were even necessary).  

The most memorable character is Nancy (Roni Jonah), a sexy redhead reality show host.  She’s the star of “Ghost Whackers” and tries to make a mental connection with the shark.  The sight of Jonah (who kind of looks like Bella Thorne) writhing around on the ground, arms flailing, and yelling, “Spirit, come inside me!” is amusing, but that’s about as good as it gets, I’m afraid.

The shark itself isn’t bad, especially compared to the sharks featured in so many of the other movies from the ‘10s that have the word “Shark” in the title.  It just doesn’t have a lot of personality.  We also don’t see enough of it to make much of a difference anyway.

Farmer spends most of the running time on the various subplots.  Once he finally sets his sights on the usual Exorcist-type shenanigans (there is a pea soup-puking scene), it still comes up short.  The big exorcism finale winds up being nothing more than a priest exorcising a girl who’s possessed by a shark.  This is disappointing, especially for anyone hoping the priest would be exorcising an actual shark.

Shark Exorcist is far from Farmer’s worse, but it never lives up to the potential.  It also suffers from offscreen kills and skimpy gore.  (In one scene, a shark bite is signified by a dollop of fake blood on a girl’s leg.)  It’s only seventy minutes, but it feels much longer.  There’s not one but two post-credits scenes (one features a girl wandering around an aquarium gift shop), which helps to pad out the running time. Both of them are equally pointless.

As bad as most of Shark Exorcist is, I have to tip my hat to Farmer for writing such howlers as, “That’s the thing about almost dying, Emily:  It’s a real buzz kill!”

NOTHING PERSONAL (1980) **

Donald Sutherland stars as a professor who is outraged that baby seals are being bludgeoned with baseball bats by the government who want to install a military base on the seals’ breeding ground in Alaska.  No one wants to take on the big corporation holding the government contract, so he resorts to looking in the phone book for a lawyer.  He winds up choosing Suzanne Somers and together they team up to stick it to the man and save some seals.

Nothing Personal is a weird movie.  I don’t know who the intended audience was.  It seems like an ‘80s updating of a ‘60s counterculture comedy with a dash of ‘70s political thriller, but the subject matter is so specific that it’s hard to generate any laughs.  

What you’re left with is the sight of Somers flirting with Sutherland in between causing a ruckus with corporate execs over the seals.  They aren’t bad together either.  In fact, they’re interesting enough to make you wish they had better material to work with.  (There’s a scene where Sutherland goes on and on about Somers’ pussy that is surprising, considering the PG rating.)

The reason why none of this works was probably because it was never intended to.  It was made as a Canadian tax shelter movie (the accents are a dead giveaways), so the producers could write it off and still come out ahead, even if it was a flop.  The ending is a washout and some scenes feel like they were almost stapled together.  Perhaps there was a longer cut somewhere that got whittled down because so much of it is choppy.  (Obviously looped dialogue like, “Let’s stop back at the hotel and change our clothes” is clumsily added in to prevent obvious continuity errors in between scenes.)  

Director George Bloomfield also did a lot of episodes of SCTV, which explains why Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, and Joe Flaherty appear in bit parts.

EDUCATING NINA (1984) ** ½

Nina Hartley and her friends put out a personal ad offering to act out people’s kinkiest desires.  They then videotape the fantasies and sell them directly to the customer.  It’s all under the guise of a college study of sexuality, but we know it’s just a way for Nina and her pals to get their rocks off.  

The first scene has a guy watching his wife (Karen Summer) get it on with their maid (Nina) while he eats his breakfast in bed.  Nina looks hot in her outfit, although she doesn’t stay in it for very long.  Summer and Hartley are clearly enjoying themselves and their chemistry helps to elevate this scene, which is the easily the best of the bunch.

In the next sequence, Nina goes to a strip club where the dancer pulls her up on stage, strips her down, and bangs her in front of the entire club.  Nina is hot once she finally is able to do her thing.  (I liked it when she looked directly at the camera while performing oral.)  Unfortunately, the stuff with the male dancer strutting around the club and collecting tips just goes on far too long.  Besides, the sight of his legwarmers alone is enough to keep anyone from getting a chub.

A guy comes home early from work and finds his wife getting double teamed by two gardeners in the next scene.  Naturally, he doesn’t get mad.  He’s actually proud of her!  This scene has a nice unrushed feel and features a foxy turn by Lili Marlene as the sex-starved housewife.

Karen Summer appears once again in the next sequence.  She seduces a jogger in the park and takes him back to the ladies’ locker room for a quick romp.  Summer’s enthusiasm is infectious, but that doesn’t disguise the fact that this is a fairly ordinary scene in just about every way.

In the last scene, a phone sex caller gets his wish when he gets it on with Juliet Anderson (who also directed) and Marlene.  This scene has a good set-up, but it’s undone by some truly shitty camerawork.  Juliet must’ve been too busy having fun in front of the camera to worry about quality control behind it.

Educating Nina has all the quirks (I hesitate to use the word “charms”) of an early ‘80s production.  The camerawork is cheap, and the editing is rough in places.  The music sounds like it came out of a local morning talk show, and the computer-generated titles are chintzy.  Still, as an early look at a legend in the making, it’s sort of fun.  Hartley is quite hot here, and she’d only get better as time went on.  So, if you’re a fan of Nina, you’ll probably want to check out the flick that got the ball rolling on her long-lasting career.

PRISONER OF PARADISE (1980) ***

Joe (John C. Holmes) is an American sailor who washes ashore on a deserted island after a German U-boat sinks his battleship.  He decides to explore the island and finds a stream where two nude women (Seka and Sue Carol) are bathing.  He follows them back to their camp where he is disgusted to learn they are Nazis.  (That would be just my luck too.)  They, along with their superior (Heinz Mueller) get their kicks by torturing American women POW’s and forcing them to have sex.  Joe tries to help the POW’s, but after a failed escape attempt, the Nazis have their way with Joe too.  

Directed by Gail Palmer and Bob Chinn, Prisoner of Paradise has a couple of wild scenes that help to catapult it to the top of the Nazi porno charts.  I’m thinking specifically of the scene where a POW is tied up and the Nazis make her say, “I love the Fuhrer!” while Seka eats her pussy.  Later, Seka put a gun to John Holmes’ head and makes him fuck her while “Ride of the Valkyries” plays.  (This came out a year after Apocalypse Now.)  Meanwhile, Carol watches them as she masturbates using the butt of her pistol.  Before poor John can finish, Seka yells, “Don’t you cum in me, you American swine!”  

Seka, it must be said, looks incredible in her Nazi uniform, although I’m not sure gold belly chains were standard issue for Nazi women soldiers.  I mean I’ve always had a thing for Seka.  I’ve always had a thing for a woman in uniform too.  Because of that, Prisoner of Paradise was kind of right up my alley.  

Even though Holmes had the biggest cock in the business, he still becomes the butt of many funny jokes.  The best moment comes when Seka searches him and mistakes his dick for a concealed weapon.  She also degrades him by calling him names like, “American wiener schnitzel” and “American frankfurter”, which is pretty funny.

You have to give credit to Chinn and Palmer.  The decent production design and use of extras in the flashback scenes make Prisoner of Paradise almost look like a real movie.  At least for a while, as the dilapidated shack on the island is right in line with a porn budget.

If you’re in the mood for kinky, dirty, nasty Nazi sex, along with a healthy dose of S & M, Prisoner of Paradise should fit the bill.  There are times throughout the film where you get the feeling that maybe you shouldn’t be watching it, which is about the highest praise you can give a Nazi porno.  Too bad about the awful theme song though.

AKA:  Nazi Love Island.  AKA:  Nassau.

FRAULEINS IN UNIFORM (1973) ** ½

It’s Recruitment Day at the SS.  Young girls are lining up in droves to join Hitler’s army.  Dr. Kuhn (Carl Mohner) gives them a cursory look-see and deems many unfit for duty.  As a consequence, he is thrown into active service and his daughters Marga (Elisabeth Felchner) and Eva (Karin Heske) are forced to join the army.  They join the SS girls and board a train on their way to the front where horny German soldiers are only too eager to take them to the bathroom for a quickie.  The girls then decide they like serving officers and ask Himmler for permission to keep the German end up, so to speak.  They then spend most their time jumping on Jerry’s jimmy.  

Director Erwin C. Dietrich, the legendary sleaze merchant who produced many Jess Franco movies, gives Frauleins in Uniform a light touch.  I know a Naziploitation flick with a “light touch” is sort of an oxymoron, but it makes sense since it was a German production.  To them, this must’ve seemed just like an ordinary army sex comedy.

I mean, you still get some of the usual Nazi movie clichés.  There are shower scenes, forced lesbianism, not-so forced lesbianism, balling on the battlefield, and rape.  Naturally, all this Nazi nastiness leads to an outbreak of VD throughout camp.  It’s not quite as outlandish and depraved as your typical Third Reich raunch-fest, which may disappoint some viewers.

The examination scene early in the film where the girls are forced to strip is a classic though.  One of the recruits refuses to take off her garter, and the matron asks her if she’s wearing a chastity belt.  She replies, “Yes!  I’m saving myself for the Fuhrer!”

Ultimately, most of this is just too all over the place to work.  The scenes of rampant Nazi sex are sometimes interrupted with an inexplicable bout of seriousness (like the leukemia subplot) that runs against the grain of the silliness.  For every dramatic scene, there’s at least two or three moments of sheer stupidity (like the scene where the Frauleins get it on with some Nazi officers and rub their guns suggestively until they symbolically fire in the air).  I mean it’s hard not to like any movie in which Nazi schoolgirls turn their headquarters into a brothel.  

At a hundred minutes, it’s probably about ten minutes too long.  The fractured plot spins its wheels a bit too much in the second half too.  It particularly falls apart whenever it tries to become a serious war movie late in the game, and the ending is abrupt.  

The best line comes when a Nazi phone operator gets all hot and bothered while looking at dirty pictures and her co-worker chastises her by saying, “You’re going to strain an ovary!”

AKA:  She Devils of the SS.  AKA:  Frauleins Without Uniform.  AKA:  SS Cutthroats.  AKA:  The Cutthroats.  

SWAMP ZOMBIES 2 (2018) ** ½

I only watched the original Swamp Zombies because I bought the DVD from Jasmin St. Claire at a horror convention.  It wasn’t bad, but I remember it being long as fuck.  Returning director Len Kabasinki obviously heard my criticism because this thirteen-years-later sequel runs a tight seventy-two minutes.  

The plot is one of those Escape from New York deals where a dangerous criminal is sent into hostile territory to complete a suicide mission.  In this case, Swann (horror host Mr. Lobo) sends Jack (Kabasinki) into a zombified zone to retrieve Mouse (Crystal Quin), the leader of P.E.T.Z. (People for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies.)  She has information that could potentially halt production on Swann’s zombie reality show, so he wants her silenced.

Swamp Zombies 2 is fun for a while, but it ultimately loses steam once the action switches over to the villain’s dark warehouse compound.  Still, it’s a big improvement on the original in many ways.  The fake commercials are especially funny and help lighten the mood.  The gore (which includes head squishing, gut ripping, face ripping, and more) is quite juicy, and the topless zombie (complete with nipple piercings) from the opening scene is probably the sexiest zombie lady since Mindy Clarke in Return of the Living Dead 3.  As someone who’s sat through a slew of bad shot-on-video zombie comedy sequels, you learn to appreciate one that almost gets it right.

Mr. Lobo gets the best line of the movie when he refers to a zombie’s walk as “The Pittsburgh Shuffle”.

DISCREET (2008) **

Discreet tells the story of a successful twentysomething insurance salesman named Thomas (James Gracie, who also wrote the script) who happens to be a virgin.  Me makes a date with a beautiful working girl named Monique (Anel Alexander) and pays her for an hour and a half to just talk.  She is perplexed by his request, but she obliges him.  Things get complicated as they get to know one another, and predictably, they wind up learning a little bit about themselves too.

Discreet is based on a play, which is obvious since the bulk of the movie is set in one location with two people having awkward conversations about life, relationships, religion, and sex.  The leads are rather good, have a decent amount of chemistry, and help to keep you engaged in the thoroughly familiar material.  Director Joshua Rous does a fine job at keeping the pace moving along at a steady clip.  You have to give him credit.  He finds a few ways, through camera movement and blocking, to prevent it from feeling overly stagey.

The will-they-or-won’t-they tension is built up adequately enough between the actors.  There are a few funny moments along the way too, and a one or two insightful bits, which prevent it from being totally forgettable.  Once things take a turn for the dramatic, the film falters, mostly because it just seems too arbitrary.  It’s almost like Gracie needed an excuse for his characters to have an argument, and instead of letting it occur naturally, it comes off as forced.  

Discreet isn’t bad as an exercise in low budget filmmaking.  It seems as if everyone did their best with what they were given.  However, there just isn’t enough worthwhile drama here to push it into the win column.  

LEPRECHAUN RETURNS (2018) ***

Not long into Leprechaun Returns, the Leprechaun (Linden Porco, taking over for Hornswoggle and Warwick Davis, respectively) says:

“It’s been 25 years.
I’ve lost me knack.
Some fresh killing
Oughta bring it back!”

That about sums it up.

Right away, we’re made aware by director Steven (Manborg) Kostanski that this is a direct sequel to the original.  Like Halloween (2018), it ignores everything from Part 2 on and starts with a clean slate.  I was initially against this idea.  I mean, how are you going to erase the Leprechaun’s jaunt to Vegas, his trip to outer space, and not one but TWO journeys into the hood?  Surprisingly enough, my qualms disappeared after Ozzie (Mark Holton), the handyman from the original accidentally drinks water from the well where the Leprechaun was imprisoned.  Before long, the Leprechaun erupts out of his belly in gory fashion.  It was here where I thought to myself, “Okay, I think we’re going to be all right.  This is going to be a good one.”

This is (if you’re keeping score at home) the second time in a row the series has tried to reboot itself.  Leprechaun:  Origins wasn’t bad.  In fact, the gore was quite good.  However, since the Leprechaun didn’t talk (or rhyme) it wasn’t a whole lot of fun.  The serious tone didn’t do it any favors either.  I’m happy to report Returns recaptures that old Leprechaun magic.

Lila (Taylor Spreitler), the daughter of Jennifer Aniston’s character in the original, returns to the house where the events of the first film took place.  Along with her sorority sisters, she tries to renovate the place into an environmentally-friendly sorority house.  (Get it?  They’re going GREEN!)  Naturally, it doesn’t take long before the Leprechaun comes back to get his gold and kill lots of dumb teens.

This new guy, Linden Porco is no Warwick Davis, but you probably knew that already.  The make-up isn’t quite up to snuff with the original design either.  However, to give Porco credit, he doesn’t try to emulate Davis.  He makes the character his own.  By the end of the movie, I had embraced his interpretation of the character and I look forward to seeing how he will fare in (hopefully) future installments.

Kostanski retains the look and feel of the original, which means it looked right at home on The SyFy Channel as part of the St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun marathon.  He updates the material for present-day audiences (everyone wants to take a selfie with the Leprechaun, death by drone, etc.), but he keeps one foot firmly planted in tradition.  There’s a scene where a guy captures the Leprechaun on film with his night vision camera (the footage is tinted green, of course) that feels like it came right out of a ‘90s horror movie. 

There’s a bit of CGI, but for the most part, the gore was au natural, which was greatly appreciated.  There’s head squashing, gut ripping, decapitation, and an Army of Darkness homage I wasn’t expecting.  The showstopper is the scene where a dumbass gets vivisected by a solar panel and his girlfriend asks, “Do you think he’s really dead? I know he was split down the coronal plane and all...” 

Sure, there’s some lame moments here.  Some of the scenes of wishes backfiring on people could’ve had a better outcome (like the death by sprinkler).  Still, it does have a part where a guy Saran Wraps his stomach to keep his guts from falling out, so there’s that.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that Leprechaun Returns is one of the better Leprechaun films in the series.  It’s more fun than that new Halloween, that’s for damned sure.  

THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER (2018) ** ½

Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as Lisa, a lonely kindergarten teacher stuck in a dreary everyday existence.  When her student Jimmy (Parker Sevak) writes a beautiful poem, it snaps her out of her rut.  Her homelife is a wreck.  Her children are indifferent, and her husband is boring.  The only spark in her life comes from this kid in her class.  Lisa soon becomes obsessed with him and keeps pestering Jimmy for more and more poetry.  Frustrated with her own poetry, she begins passing it off as her own.  Her obsession soon goes off the rails when she begins taking him into the city without his parents’ knowledge to attend poetry slams.

Part indie character study drama, part From Hell thriller, The Kindergarten Teacher is an odd duck to say the least.  It’s buoyed by an eccentric performance by Gyllenhaal, who’s stalkerish actions sometimes border on uncomfortable (especially where a child is concerned).  The way she gets too close to the boy and prattling on and on while the kid takes no interest in her is unsettling to say the least.  So are the scenes where she pulls him away from the class at naptime so she can get him alone in the bathroom to talk about poetry.  (I’m pretty sure this a big no-no in the public-school system).  

If this was a male teacher, it would be a whole different vibe.  Red flags would be flying left and right.  As a woman, she can pass herself off as being motherly and attentive without causing too much attention to her increasingly bizarre behavior.  

As a parent, it’s okay to think anything your kid does is great.  When it’s your student, you can encourage them up to a point.  The unhinged Gyllenhaal crosses that line very early on and never looks back.  (She even gives him her phone number!)

Gael Garcia Bernal has some good scenes as Gyllenhaal’s creative writing teacher.  Rosa (Alita:  Battle Angel) Salazar also leaves a memorable impression in her small amount of screen time as the kid’s nanny.  However, this is Maggie’s show through and through.  Her wild-eyed antics aren’t enough to save the movie, but they will surely raise your eyebrow a time or two.  (Wait till you see how her sex life is impacted by her obsession.)

Directed by Sara Colangelo, The Kindergarten Teacher is too slow moving and deliberately paced to function as a thriller and it feels too lurid to work as a portrait of mental illness.  As it is, it kind of falls somewhere in between.  There’s more social awkwardness than out and out tension and Gyllenhaal’s actions are more head-shaking than heart-stopping.  Still, if you’re a fan of Gyllenhaal’s, you owe it to yourself to see it, just on the strength of her performance alone.

THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (2016) ** ½

Brian Cox is a coroner teaching his son Emile Hirsch the family trade.  One night, the cops bring in a corpse of an unidentified woman (Olwen Kelly) who died under, shall we say, unprecedented circumstances.  The sheriff wants answers FAST and Cox and Hirsch roll up their sleeves and prepare for an all-nighter.  As the duo search for answers, it soon becomes apparent that this ain’t no ordinary corpse.

Director Andre (Trollhunter) Ovredal expertly builds up the mystery surrounding the curious corpse.  As Cox digs deeper (both literally and figuratively) he finds more and more bizarre inconsistencies in the body.  Ovredal is able to wring a lot of suspense and atmosphere out of the autopsy room scenes, and the coroners’ grisly discoveries gives the early sequences quite a kick.

The set-up is intriguing and instantly gets your attention.  Once things move out of the autopsy room, it gets decidedly less effective as it goes along.  It’s here where Ovredel eschews the creepy vibe of the early scenes in favor of some fairly standard who-goes-there scenes set in dark hallways, which gets quite frustrating.  The ending is predictable, and a bit of a letdown, especially considering how eerie the first half was.

Cox and Hirsch make for a great team.  They have some fine moments together as they try to piece together what happened to the corpse.  Kelly is able to create a sinister presence, a feat that’s made even more impressive when you consider all she does is lay there.  Unfortunately, so does the climax. 

AKA:  The Morgue.