BODY FLASH (1984) ****

This is the kind of ‘80s erotica I enjoy.  We live in an age where you can find virtually any XXX movie on your phone.  However, I’d rather dig up and revisit relics like this from a bygone age of simpler, cheekier smut.  One thing is for sure:  They don’t make them like this anymore.

Body Flash was made for the Playboy Channel, and it is a mash-up of the music video, dance, and workout video formats.  (When it was released on home video, it was sometimes paired with the lame sketch comedy special, The Sex and Violence Family Hour, which starred a young Jim Carrey.)  It was meant to capitalize on MTV and the workout video crazes while simultaneously giving the viewer lots of T & A.  It’s only a half-hour long, but it sure packs a lot into that small time frame.

First up is Kim Morris, who does a sexy dance in heels to Taco’s cover of “Puttin’ on the Ritz”.  Kim is interviewed afterwards about her taste in men (“To me, a sexy man is Mick Jagger!”) and her first sexual encounter.  She then drinks fizzing champagne suggestively until it foams all over her and she is forced to do the rest of the interview in the nude.  This is by far the longest segment (about twice the length of the other sequences on the tape), but it kicks things off in fine fashion and sets a pretty high bar for the rest of the performers.  

Yazoo’s “Situation” accompanies the next segment, where Toni Allessandrini appears in a geisha outfit.  Before anyone can make claims of cultural appropriation, she sheds the kimono in favor of a skimpy black leotard and starts to strut her stuff.  When she’s interviewed, Toni talks about her love of dance and sex.  (“Making love is a dance.  The dance of life!”)  

Return of the Living Dead’s Jewel Shepard is next, dancing to Tim Scott’s “Swear”.  She’s kinda dressed like a tomboy (except for her legwarmers) until she strips down to her Flashdance-inspired get-up of a ripped black T-shirt and sexy yellow thong.  Just when you think this segment can’t get any better, she seductively eats a banana.  

Afterwards, Cheryl Baker does an aerobics number while dressed like Olivia Newton-John in the “Physical” video.  This one is set to the tune of another Yazoo song, “Sweet Thing”.  She talks about her love of dancing before stripping down and telling the story of how she banged a rich German dude.  

Tamarah Park is the final dancer.  She does a wild and frenzied number set to Madonna’s “Burning Up”.  She then discusses fantasizing about dancing naked in a room full of strangers and talks about what she likes in her men.  Although this segment feels a little rushed compared to the other dances, Tamarah is hot, sexy, and feisty, and she ends the tape on a high note.  

TUBI CONTINUED… VIDEO VIOLENCE PART 2 (1988) ***

I reviewed the first Video Violence a while back for my collection of horror movie reviews, Bloody Book of Horror.  (Available on Amazon as we speak.)  That flick was all about a video store employee who found snuff movies returned in the overnight drop box.  Part 2 is a natural progression of that idea.  In addition, we get lots of T & A and blood and guts.  Heck, there’s even a few legitimate laughs this time around.  Overall, it’s a marked improvement over the original in just about every way.  As low budget, shot-on-video horror films go, this is one of the best.

Two sickos jam a local cable access channel and broadcast their own demented talk show over a pirate signal.  They encourage viewers to make their own snuff tapes and send them into the show with a chance of watching their videos on live TV.  They also lure unsuspecting actresses on the show to “audition” for a movie, unaware that they’re actually auditioning for a snuff flick.  

If Herschell Gordon Lewis was making movies in the ‘80s, I have a feeling the results would’ve looked something like Video Violence Part 2.  (I mean that as a sincere compliment.)  The flick opens with a great sequence where an actress working on a vampire movie complains to the director that the heart she just staked doesn’t look realistic.  He then stakes her to show her what a real heart looks like.  

Along the way, the film is peppered with amusing commercial breaks that deftly parody the low budget local commercials of the era.  My favorite was for a pet named “Wilbur” (he looks like the love child of the Grinch and a Ghoulie) who eats a kid under the tree on Christmas morning while his mother looks on approvingly.  There’s also a Ron Popeil-inspired guy who demonstrates handy kitchen implements that will help you off unwanted dinner guests.  

The snuff videos themselves are really enjoyable too.  An ex-cop and his ditzy wife make a homemade electric chair to fry a mugger.  A group of college girls grow weary of watching horror movies where the women are helpless victims, so they decide to lure an unsuspecting pizza boy to his death.  There’s also a fun sequence where an out-of-towner realizes just how hard it is to rent from a locally owned mom and pop video store.  (Titles like I Spit on Your Grave, The Gore Gore Girls, and the original Video Violence are proudly on display on the shelves.)  

One of the college girls gets the best line of the movie when she says the snuff TV show is, “The best thing to hit cable since Fraggle Rock!” 

AKA:  Video Violence Part 2:  The Exploitation!

TUBI CONTINUED… ALL JACKED UP AND FULL OF WORMS (2022) NO STARS

In 1977, Herb Robins directed The Worm Eaters.  It was one of the worst movies ever made.  It was so bad that I thought no one would dare to make another film in which worms were ingested ever again.  I was wrong.  

Forty-five years later, here comes All Jacked Up and Full of Worms.  Incredibly enough, it is so monumentally bad that it makes Robins’ film look like Citizen Kane.  This is without a doubt one of the most loathsome movies I have seen in quite some time.

The plot (such as it is) follows a bunch of losers who get high from eating worms.  That’s about it as far as the plot goes.  In fact, I’m not even sure what was going on besides the worm eating as the film is so ineptly and incoherently put together.  

If the movie was nothing more than a series of scenes of people getting high from eating worms, it would’ve been stupid, sure.  Then, a scene so tasteless came along that I was almost tempted to turn the whole thing off.  Said scene involves a guy receiving a sex doll in the mail.  That doesn’t sound all that bad, does it?  That is, until it’s revealed that the sex doll is in fact, a baby doll.  Ugh.  What’s worse is that later in the film, we see him having… uh… “relations” with it.  Sigh.  I guess worm eating alone wasn’t enough shock value.  The filmmakers had to drag this disgusting subplot into the mix to further add to the air of griminess.  

I think the “filmmakers” (note I put “filmmakers” in quotation marks) were going for a David Lynch Meets Troma vibe.  That sounds good in theory, but the rampant unpleasantness and awful acting sinks it before it can even get out of the gate.  I don’t want to overhype this by saying that it's the worst film I’ve seen on Tubi after five months of watching movies almost exclusively on the streaming service.  If I say that, then I know some of you who read this will be tempted to actually go out and watch it.  But yeah.  It’s even worse than Bikini Hackers.  

This worm will undoubtedly turn your stomach.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE VAMPIRE PROJECT (1995) ** ½

Four years before The Blair Witch Project was a massive box office hit, another Found Footage horror flick with the word “Project” in the title was released.  The good news is that the film only uses the Found Footage format sparingly as it alternates between what the cameras are capturing and what is happening to the characters in the “real” world as opposed to the “reel” world.  While it’s not great or anything, The Vampire Project is certainly a lot more fun than the glut of Found Footage flicks that followed in the wake of Blair Witch.  

A documentary film crew goes undercover with hidden cameras to do a story on illegal underground after hour nightclubs.  They get more than they bargained for when they capture footage of a vampire in action.  The director, Michelle (Kathleen Kelly), then decides to make like Anne Rice and sets out to interview herself a vampire.

The film has a dated ‘90s aesthetic that’s appealing to anyone who lived through the era.  The fashions, hairstyles, camera techniques, and filters make the whole thing look like a music video from the period.  I mean the vampire himself even resembles an alternative rocker.  All this makes for a slim, but notable source of amusement.  Too bad the vampire’s so wishy-washy that he never feels like a credible threat.

While the shaky-cam stuff wasn’t as prevalent as I initially feared, it’s not exactly effective either.  I’m tempted to say it would’ve worked much better without the whole Found Footage angle.  However, I will admit the sequence that plays like a tabloid TV news show a la America’s Most Wanted and/or A Current Affair is pretty spot-on.  

It's only forty-eight minutes long, which is also a bit of a relief.  Say what you will about The Vampire Project, but it knows when to quit, and that’s something that definitely can’t be said for most films working in the Found Footage milieu.  In fact, the short running time coupled with the tame level of violence makes me suspect that this might’ve been a TV pilot that didn’t get picked up.  

At any rate, this Project gets passing marks from me.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE LOVE STATUE (1965) **

Six years before he made the incredible one-two punch of I Drink Your Blood and Stigma, writer/director David E. Durston helmed this ho-hum mash-up of the skin flick and drug trip genres.  There isn’t much here that suggests the greatness to come however, as it’s pretty much your average, run-of-the-mill sexploitation flick.  It also doesn’t help that the sex scenes are all rather tame.  (We get a little bit of side boob, but that’s about it.)  I guess this would’ve been okay if the drug trip scenes were worth a damn, but even they are a big bust as the main special effect is the use of a fly eye lens and/or a blurry kaleidoscope filter on the camera.

Tyler (Peter Ratray) is a struggling artist who is stuck in a rut.  He feels stifled by his overbearing exotic dancer girlfriend, Lisa (Beti Seay) who treats him like garbage.  His friend Stan (Harvey J. Goldenberg) introduces him to a sexy Japanese club dancer named Mashiko (Hisako Tsukuba) who turns him onto LSD.  During his first trip, he imagines that a statute of a woman (Gigi Darlene from Bad Girls Go to Hell) comes to life and seduces him.  Once Tyler awakens from a three-day drug-induced stupor, he is shocked to learn Lisa has been murdered.  Did he kill her when he was trapped in an altered state?  Or is someone trying to frame him?  

The beatnik characters are all pretty loathsome and irritating.  Not even their silly slang-heavy dialogue can make it worthwhile.  The final confrontation is downright laughable too.  

Tsukuba is a real presence though, and her charisma makes The Love Statue at the very least, watchable.  She gave up acting shortly after starring in the movie and turned her sights to producing.  In fact, she went on to produce every single Piranha movie!  Seay is kinda hot too as the surly girlfriend, and Darlene is sexy as always, even if her talents are never fully utilized.

AKA:  The Love Drug.  AKA:  The Love Statue:  LSD Experience.  AKA:  The Stature.  

TUBI CONTINUED… FORTRESS OF THE DEAD (1965) ** ½

John Hackett stars as Frank, an American veteran who returns to the Philippines twenty years after being the lone survivor of a devastating military battle.  His buddy Joe (Conrad Parham) gives him a tour of the battlefield which has since become a national monument.  While Frank takes in the desolate scenery, he tries to reconcile his wartime trauma.  Once he forgives himself for not being able to save his fellow soldiers, he starts trying to live again.  Soon after, he meets a sexy fisherwoman (Anakorita) and takes her back to the site to show her around.  It's here where he begins to suspect something sinister is awaiting him on the island.  

Fortress of the Dead is a low key, bleak, and sporadically effective combination of WWII drama and ghost story.  While it mostly plays like an overlong episode of The Twilight Zone, it definitely has its moments, especially if you are a patient viewer.  Writer/director Ferde (The Day of the Wolves) Grofe Jr. gets a lot of mileage out of the war-torn locations as the hollowed-out structures and rusting military weaponry lends the film a unique sense of atmosphere.  It’s a slow burner to be sure, and nothing really supernatural happens until the closing minutes, but I must admit, I was relatively entertained throughout.

It's well-acted too, which certainly helps keep you invested when the plot is spinning its wheels.  Hackett, who resembles a mash-up of John Astin and Lee J. Cobb, doesn’t do anything showy in the lead role, but he hits his marks effectively, and gets the job done.  Anakorita also injects the movie with a lot of vivacious personality once her character enters the story.  She’s sexy and playful and looks terrific (especially in her wet T-shirt).  They have a lot of chemistry together, and their combined efforts help make the third act play a little better than expected.

AKA:  Soul of a Fortress.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE WITCH’S CURSE (1963) ** ½

After having a blast with Fire Monsters Against the Son of Hercules, I decided to give another Maciste adventure a try.  This one isn’t quite as “good” as that one, but I’ll be damned if there wasn’t some jaw-dropping, head-scratching, WTF shit going on here.  It ain’t any great shakes, but it’ll do in a pinch.  

Directed by Riccardo (The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock) Freda, the atmospheric opening owes a big debt to Black Sunday.  A witch is burned at the stake in 16th century Scotland, and with her dying breath, she places a curse on the town.  A hundred years goes by, and an ominous tree has now grown in the very spot where she was burned alive.  A descendent of the witch comes to town to spend her honeymoon, and when the locals learn of her heritage, they grab their pitchforks and set out to burn her at the stake too.  

Just when things seem at their bleakest, and there’s no hope in sight for the poor, innocent woman, out of nowhere comes… THE ITALIAN MUSCLEMAN MACISTE?  Yes!  He comes riding into the town square on horseback, leaps from his saddle, tosses guards around like ragdolls, bends her prison bars, and tries to rescue her.

This sequence is fucking nuts.  You’ll swear you accidentally changed the channel about twenty minutes into the movie.  It goes from Witchfinder General to Hercules Unchained in 0 to 60 flat.  It’s fucking ridiculous.  I loved it.  

Anyway, she’s put on trial for witchcraft, and the only way for Maciste to save her is to go to Hell… LITERALLY!  In the underworld, he fights lions, witnesses giant orgies, lifts heavy boulders, and brings down a burning gate.  Like most Hercules movies, there’s a hot babe who loves him and makes him have amnesia, so he’ll love her too.  Eventually, he looks into a pool and watches a clip show package from a bunch of other Hercules/Maciste movies, remembers who he is, and gets back down to business.  

The first half-hour or so had me thinking this was going to be a classic.  However, once Maciste goes to Hell, it becomes rather straightforward.  It checks all the usual peplum boxes, to be sure, and yet, it severely lacks the manic WTF energy of the early going.  Still, there’s enough cheesy moments here (like when Maciste singlehandedly fends off a cattle stampede using a log) to make it mostly worthwhile.

AKA:  Maciste in Hell.  AKA:  Maciste Fights for Survival.