BAT PUSSY (1973) ****

Just when I thought I’d seen everything, along comes Bat Pussy.  I have seen some jaw-dropping monuments of WTF Cinema in my time.  Nothing could have prepared me for this.

It is on the surface, a porn parody of Batman.  I’m sure you’ve all seen XXX versions of superhero movies (or at the very least know one or two of them by title alone).  This one was the first.  

Let’s just say they hadn’t worked the bugs out yet.

In fact, I’m not sure that anyone involved knew how to make a movie.  In fact, I’m not sure that anyone involved knew how to have sex.  To say Bat Pussy features the least sexiest sex scenes in motion picture history is an understatement of immense proportions.  

This isn’t a “So Bad It’s Good” movie.  This thing goes beyond mere labels.  It exists as a portal into a time in the early ‘70s when someone filmed two ugly human beings writhing around repeating the same lines of dialogue over and over while failing time and again to complete the most basic of sex acts on a beat-up mattress.  Sometimes, you can hear the director talking.  Sometimes, you can hear him belching.  Sometimes, the off-camera chatter is clumsily edited out, leading to odd, soundless sections of film.  Sometimes, the actors can’t hear what the director is saying, so they look directly at the camera and ask, “HUH?”

Folks, Tonya Harding’s sex tape had better sex choreography than this.

There’s something to Bat Pussy that makes it more than a sum of its parts.  Maybe it’s the Robert Altmanesque overlapping dialogue combined with Ed Wood’s patented one-take philosophy.  Maybe it was the John Waters knack for casting coupled with Tommy Wiseau’s penchant for ass shots.  Whatever it is, you can’t take your eyes off it, even when your eyes are threatening a revolt.

The actors, Buddy and Sam keep repeating the same dialogue over and over.  It’s as if they forgot what line came next, so they keep saying it again and again.  The thing is, the way they accuse each other of their various philandering and sexual inadequacies is almost unnerving.  Since their sexual inadequacies are in plain sight for all to see, it makes you feel as if you’re peering into a window that never should’ve been opened.  

You get a feeling early on that there’s more going on with these two than just the filming of a movie.  Often you feel like you’re getting a glimpse of their martial counseling sessions.  Or maybe a look backstage before they go on Jerry Springer.  When Buddy can’t get it up, the obscenities are hurled left and right, creating drama of the highest order.  I think Tennessee Williams himself would’ve admired it.

I haven’t even gotten around to talking about Bat Pussy herself yet.  She’s played by Dora Dildo.  She hangs around on a couch until her twat begins to twitch.  This is obviously the sign that someone is making a smut movie in her town.  She then takes it upon herself to stop it.

It is here where we are treated to a long scene of putting on her costume.  The costume itself isn’t bad.  I’ve certainly seen worse.  It’s her mode of transportation that will have your jaw hanging agape.  The filmmakers apparently couldn’t afford a Batmobile, so instead, they give her a Hippity Hop to get around on.  I’m not making this up.  If the endless scenes of Buddy and Sam bickering back and forth didn’t make you doubt your sanity, the scenes of Bat Pussy on her Hippity Hop (accompanied by a hilarious “boing-boing” sound effect) will.

It gets better.  Once Bat Pussy finally finds Buddy and Sam, they have a three-way.  Throughout the menage a trois, Buddy keeps calling her “Bat Woman”.  He is corrected several times (by people in front of AND behind the camera), but never seems to be able to keep it straight.

In short, if you have fifty minutes of your life to devote to watching one of the most awesome pieces of celluloid ever discovered, then you should by all means watch Bat Pussy.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: GHOSTHOUSE (1989) **

A little girl named Henrietta (Kristen Fougerousse) kills her pet on her birthday.  Dad tries to punish her and gets an axe in the brain for his trouble.  Then a mirror shatters in her mom’s face before she’s stabbed in the throat.  

Okay, movie, you’ve got my attention.

Twenty years later, a guy starts picking up weird messages on his ham radio.  Okay, when you bring ham radios into the plot, you’re gonna lose me, movie.  Anyway, he tracks down the signal, which naturally, is coming from the house where the little girl Henrietta murdered her parents.

Director Umberto (Nightmare City) Lenzi gets a lot of mileage from the scenes of Henrietta hanging out with her creepy clown doll.  The clown attack scenes are reminiscent of the ones in Poltergeist.  If it was nothing more than a ghost girl with her killer clown, it might’ve worked.  However, he tosses in a lot of other subplots (killer caretakers and zombies among them) that gum up the works.  Lenzi tries for an anything goes approach.  While anything goes, nothing really sticks.

One upshot to having a lot of unnecessary subplots and side characters:  Some bastard comes to an untimely end every ten minutes or so.  I can’t say you’ll miss them or anything, but at least Lenzi keeps the pace moving.  

This was billed in some areas as Evil Dead 3.  The only connection though is someone named Henrietta killing people in a cellar.  That, and an exploding lightbulb I suppose.

A hitchhiker gets the best line of the movie when he says, “Hitching’s okay, it’s the hiking part that sucks!”

AKA:  Evil Dead 3.

HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: TBK: TOOLBOX MURDERS 2 (2015) *

The Toolbox Killer (Christopher Doyle) captures a woman (Chauntel Lewis) and holds her captive in a dank basement where he makes her watch other victims being tortured and mutilated.  Slowly, she begins losing her sanity as she doubts she’ll ever escape her predicament.  Will the cop (Sleepwalkers’ Brian Krause) investigating the disappearances get to her in time?

The awful, shaky camerawork, seizure-inducing editing, and useless titles marking the passing of time (which are accompanied by annoying screeching on the soundtrack) is a recipe for disaster.  There’s plenty of gore here (leg hacking, a guy cut in half, heart ripping, etc.), however thanks to the amateurish way the death scenes are filmed, it looks phony.  I mean, Lewis, is a real-life amputee.  You’d think the scene where her hand is cut off would look more convincing given that fact.   

All of this is generally unpleasant and repetitive.  It also goes on for what feels like forever until the frustrating non-ending comes along to further piss you off.  I did like the scene where the Toolbox Killer hands Lewis some popcorn to eat while she watches him torment another victim.

Oh, and did I mention Bruce Dern is in this?!?  What the hell is he doing here?  I mean he filmed this the same year he was nominated for an Oscar for Nebraska!!!  WTF?!?

AKA:  Coffin Baby.  AKA:  Toolbox Murders 2.  AKA:  Coffin Baby:  The Toolbox Killer is Back.

THE GODFATHER’S DAUGHTER MAFIA BLUES (1991) **

A Chinese gangster takes a shine to a street-smart kid because they both served in the same army regiment.  He gives him the job of bodyguard for his headstrong daughter.  When she learns her father is being muscled out of his business by an upstart Japanese rival, she and her bodyguard set out to take him down.

The Godfather’s Daughter Mafia Blues starts off well enough.  The scene where our hero gets into a barroom brawl because his buddy insults a nightclub singer has a couple of laughs.  (“She's raping my ears!”)  The back and forth between them and the gangster nightclub owner is pretty funny too.  At one point, the gangster’s men poison their fish, and our heroes set out to avenge them.  I mean, when’s the last time you saw a movie about people going on a Death Wish because of some fish?  (Does that make it a Fish Wish?) 

Once our hero takes his post as the Godfather’s daughter’s bodyguard, it all goes downhill.  It doesn’t help that the daughter grates on the nerves almost instantly.  Most of the fights and shootouts are weighted towards the end, and when we finally get around to them, they're nothing write home about.  If only the filmmakers had kept the playful tone of the early scenes, this might’ve been a winner.

AKA:  The Godfather’s Daughter Mafia Blues.

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.