TWO FEMALE SPIES WITH FLOWERED PANTIES (1980) **

Lina Romay and Nadine Pascal star as strippers who are busted and turned into spies by the government.  Meanwhile, a couple kidnaps a girl and holds her hostage.  They repeatedly rape her, hypnotize her, and sell her into white slavery.  It’s then up to the strippers-turned-spies to rescue her.

Jess Franco’s Two Female Spies with Flowered Panties is a lighthearted, cheap, and fitfully amusing exploitation item.  While it’s not always successful, there’s always a lot of skin on display.  The opening sequence in which our two heroines are forced to do an impromptu striptease to prove their credentials is pretty funny.  

Not all the humor works though.  The scene where Pascal “rapes” a gay guy is played for laughs, but is more bizarre than anything.  For every amusing bit of business, there’s a dull sequence or two where Franco basically lets the pacing up and die.

Ultimately, the indifferent pacing in the second half squanders any potential the first half contained.  Franco never finds a consistent rhythm or tone, which further hampers things.  Even when he’s piling on the sleaze, there are sequences that flounder.  Take for instance the long striptease scene that just has the strippers slowly rocking back and forth while looking completely spaced out.  It goes on forever and isn’t very sexy at all.  

Fans of Franco and Romay probably won’t be deterred.  Romay is naked enough that it will more than likely get a pass from most of her ardent admirers.  For newcomers, there are plenty other of their collaborations you could waste your time with.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: PLAY MOTEL (1979) ***

A wealthy man frequents the titular establishment that caters to couples seeking kinky sex.  He is then blackmailed with photos of himself and a beautiful blonde in some compromising positions.  When both the blonde AND his nagging wife wind up dead, he becomes the top suspect.  A cop then hires an out-of-work actor and his sexy girlfriend to investigate the hotel and hopefully draw out the real blackmailers.  

Play Motel is filled with wall-to-wall sleaziness.  There are plenty of S & M scenes (I especially liked the scene where a guy dressed up like a devil and poked a woman dressed like a nun with a pitchfork) and frequent nude model shoots.  The hilarious folk-rock theme song, which sounds suspiciously like “Like a Rolling Stone” doesn’t fit the action at all and is good for a few giggles.  That of course, means it’s awesome.  The awful dubbing provides a handful of laughs as well.

The plot gets in the way of the fun as the film enters the final reel.  It’s here where the movie actually has to deal with all the varied plot threads and loose ends that have piled up while it was busy tossing out endless sleazy scenes.  It manages to tie them up in a satisfying manner too.  It’s just that the movie isn’t nearly as much fun when everyone’s clothes are on.

NOON SUNDAY (1970) *

Noon Sunday was the first movie filmed in Guam.  I'm sure they're all proud of that.  While the exteriors are certainly picturesque, most of the claustrophobic interiors look like they were shot in someone's aunt’s house.

It’s also notable for starring Mark Lenard, who of course, is most famous for playing Spock’s dad on Star Trek.  How many movies can boast that?  Sadly, the film’s location and its star are the only two reasons to watch it and those are awfully thin reasons to begin with.

Lenard plays a government agent working in the Pacific.  His mission is to stop a rocket launch that could spell doom for most of the free world.  I can’t guarantee you’ll care or anything.

Noon Sunday is a boring and slow-moving actioner that skimps on the action.  What action we do get is mostly weighted towards the end.  It is pretty bloody in some places, but that doesn't make it, you know, good.  There is one brief topless lovemaking scene, but the flick really needed more exploitation elements if it was to be memorable or successful.

A lot of the problem has to do with Lenard.  He is a dullard of the highest order and does little to infuse his character with any machismo or charisma.  Heck, he showed more emotion when he was playing a Vulcan.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: JIGSAW (2017) **

Every horror franchise has that one “Final Chapter” installment that is immediately followed by a sequel that undoes all of that and continues the series full-steam ahead.  I’m not sure why they waited seven years to make another Saw movie after The Final Chapter.  I’m not even sure why they bothered to call it Jigsaw either.  I guess all horror franchises need to bring the killer’s name into the title at some point.

Do you really need to know the plot?  It’s just more of the same.  Why they waited this long to tell this particular story is beyond me as it’s almost indistinguishable from the last couple of installments.  Die-hard fans of the saga will undoubtedly dig it, but it left me kind of cold.  If you’ve seen one Saw, you’ve pretty much seen them all.  It contains all the booby-traps, self-mutilations, and hacked-off legs you’ve come to expect by now. By now though, there really isn’t much of a point to all the Jigsawing shenanigans. 

In fact, throughout most of the movie, I was clocking this at about a * ½ rating, which would put it close to the bottom of the barrel as far as the series is concerned.  Luckily, it climaxed with an insane bit of disgustingness when a guy’s face is lasered off in sections so that it unfolds into a squirming mass of what looks like a cross between octopus tentacles and an Outback blooming onion.  For that bravura scene alone, it’s getting **.  Other than that, I think it’s safe to let Jigsaw and the Saw series rest in peace for a while.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: THE WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL (2013) **

The WNUF Halloween Special is the next logical step of the faux grindhouse movies.  Instead of recapturing the feeling of old exploitation films, it more or less accurately replicates the feeling of watching an old videotaped TV show.  It’s not great or anything, but the way the filmmakers reproduce the video age of the ‘80s is something to see.

It all revolves around a live local news broadcast where a reporter and some paranormalists enter a supposedly haunted house.  The main focus leaves a little something to be desired as you have to wait until the very end for most of the horrific stuff to happen.  Either that, or they go to a commercial break right before something goes bump in the night.  

Speaking of which, the fake commercials are easily the best parts.  The filmmakers expertly captured the feeling of old regional ads and the anti-drug spots are particularly great.  It’s just a shame that the stuff inside the haunted house is so weak.  In fact, the news segments (where the anchors wear Halloween costumes) are a lot more fun than the main thrust of the story.

It’s a clever idea and all, but in the end, they just string you along way too long.  One neat touch is when the tape is fast-forwarded in some scenes.  However, you’ll wish you were the one who could control the fast-forward button, so you could get through some of the talky sections of the newscast.  

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: NIGHT OF THE DEVILS (1972) **

Gianni Garko is found unconscious beside a river.  The doctor runs some tests, which causes him to see visions of exploding heads and still-beating hearts being ripped out of people's chests.  So far, so good.  Once the flashback starts up to explain why Garko was left for dead, things slowly go downhill.

The central story is yet another variation on “The Wurdulak”.  It was told much better and more concisely in Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath.  As part of a horror anthology, the story crackled.  Stretched out to a feature length, there’s just not enough meat here to make it work.

The opening is appropriately gory, but it feels tacked on, not only to pad the running time, but to hold you over until something horrific happens.  Unfortunately, it's a good hour before anything really happens.  When it finally does, it's juicy enough I guess. We get some staking, clawing, and face melting.  The gore isn’t bad or anything, but it’s not enough though to justify the long wait. 

Director Giorgio (Mill of the Stone Women) Ferroni just can’t find a way to make the elements gel.  The wraparound scenes never feel like an organic part of the film and the middle section that retells The Wurdulak is low on chills.  So, if you’ve seen Black Sabbath, there’s really no reason to check this one out.  

SAVAGE DAWN (1985) **

Lance Henriksen is Stryker.  He comes to a dying mining town to watch the annual bare-knuckle contest.  A gang of bikers called the Savages, led by Pig Iron (William Forsythe) ride into town and wreak havoc.  It’s up to Stryker to protect his old buddy (George Kennedy) and his family from the bikers.  He then takes it upon himself to rid the town of the Savages too. 

Savage Dawn’s main strength is its incredible cast.  In addition to reliable genre vets Henriksen, Forsythe, and Kennedy we also have Richard Lynch (the town mayor/priest), Karen Black (Forsythe’s biker mama), and scream queen Elizabeth Kaitan (a victim).  Their efforts keep you watching throughout the draggier sections of the film, of which there are many.

Despite the terrific cast, the movie itself never really kicks into gear.  The scenes of mass biker carnage are well-choreographed, but curiously lacking the piss and vinegar to make them memorable.  There are times where it seems to want to be a biker version of Shane.  The big stumbling block is that Henriksen is never fully utilized.  He’s kept off screen throughout much of the picture and whenever he is on screen, he isn’t given much to work with.  It’s almost as if the filmmakers forgot to have the hero do something, you know, heroic.  At least Shane had plenty of opportunities to be a badass.  Henriksen, unfortunately, gets lost in the shuffle.