HYPNOTIC (2023) ** ½

Ben Affleck stars as a detective whose daughter has been kidnapped.  While trying to foil a robbery, he finds a photo of her in a safety deposit box that may lead to her whereabouts.  However, the bank robber (William Fitchner) is no ordinary bandit.  He’s a “hypnotic”, a powerful telepath who can make weak-minded individuals do his bidding.  Ben eventually teams up with another hypnotic (Alice Braga) to find his daughter and stop Fitchner’s reign of terror. 

Directed by Robert Rodriguez, Hypnotic has the feel of an early ‘00s thriller, or maybe one of those telepathic flicks that came out in the late ‘70s in the wake of Carrie.  (It would make a passable Affleck-starring mind-bender double feature with Paycheck.)  The set-up is strong, but the follow through is a little on the cheesy side.  It doesn’t help that Affleck tries a little too hard and plays things in a deadly serious manner.  (It sometimes feels like he’s still doing his Batman voice.)  He’s not exactly bad, although I have to wonder if the film might’ve worked better if the leading man loosened up and embraced the goofy premise a bit. 

Rodriguez has no problem in the action department as the cat and mouse scenes are handled well enough.  The film is essentially a Fugitive-style thriller with some sci-fi touches sprinkled about. I could’ve also done without some of the Inception-inspired visuals.  By the time the third act rolls around, Rodriguez has tried a little too hard to pull the rug out from under us.  In doing so, he winds up pulling most of the carpeting and a little of the hardwood flooring.  I will say some of this is fun (like when the movie “resets”), and I enjoyed Rodriguez dropping in little nods to his previous work.  Ultimately, Hypnotic is a semi-enjoyable thriller, even if it never quite keeps you in its spell. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: VAMPIRE STRANGLER (1999) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

When Misty Mundae was a nubile young starlet, her then-boyfriend William Hellfire convinced her to make this low budget horror porno.  Overall, Vampire Strangler seems like Hellfire’s attempt to one-up a WAVE movie.  Those films were made for audiences with unusual fetishes and often contained bondage and horror elements, but they never featured out and out pornography.  This one features the novelty of Misty giving a couple of hummers.  Whatever criticism you can hurl at the film is pretty much null and void.  If you’re watching this to see a young Misty engage in some deep throat antics, then this will be critic-proof as it’s likely your only chance to see her in XXX action. 

The film begins with Misty taking a bubble bath when she is interrupted by a vampire who strangles her.  However, it was all a dream!  She’s then wakened by a projector that mysteriously appears and plays old stag movies on the wall before the vampire sneaks in and strangles her for real this time.  Miraculously, she survives and decides to leave Transylvania and move to the states with her cousin (Hellfire).  Before long, they’re banging each other, familial relations be damned. 

The plot is thin.  At one point, the characters can’t seem to remember if they’re cousins or siblings.  The inclusion of a witch doctor in the eleventh hour is pretty senseless too.  Not that it matters.  It could’ve honestly been about anything as long as Mundae was giving head. 

As for the sex scenes themselves?  Well, they’re as hot as they need to be.  The camerawork is a step above a homemade porn, but below your average amateur tape.  (It gets pretty erratic in the final scene though.)  The videography and editing leave something to be desired, although we do get plenty of opportunities to clearly see Misty giving sloppy.  And from what I could tell, she’s got some skills.  Oh, and although you don’t see any penetration in her sex scenes with Hellfire, from the looks of things it’s safe to assume they really “did it”.  

Overall, Vampire Strangler isn’t much of a movie.  Then again, it contains three solid blowjob scenes from a beloved Scream Queen, and that’s all it really needs.  I’m sure Misty probably wishes she never starred in this flick, but fans like me will be thankful she did. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE SILVER MUMMY (2004) *** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Writer/director William Hellfire’s sequel to The Duct Tape Killer finds Judy (Tina Krause) having nightmares of being chloroformed and duct taped by a madman (Hellfire).  Terrified, she asks her friend Cynthia (Misty Mundae) if she can spend the night with her.  Problem is, Cynthia’s boyfriend (also Hellfire) used to date Judy.  Jealous that the two may hook up, Cynthia goes out and buys a bunch of duct tape, chloroforms her pal, and duct tapes her, making her worst nightmare a reality. 

This sequel is leagues better than the original and has the added bonus of having Misty as the one who’s doing the majority of the chloroforming and duct taping.  Eventually, Hellfire gets in on the action as well (he just happened to have a shipment of chloroform delivered, don’t you know) and helps Misty pose Tina in odd positions.  Together, they bond over humiliating and torturing Tina, which gives it a totally different vibe than the original.  (There’s also a brief tickling scene too.)

The Silver Mummy also uses tinted scenes from The Duct Tape Killer as flashbacks.  Like the original, it has a “dream within a dream” structure, so we are never sure if what we are seeing is happening for real or if it’s all in Tina’s head.  It’s much shorter than the first one too, which means it has a snappier pace and feels less repetitive.  Then again, if you’re watching these movies just to see Misty and Tina do their thing, then you probably aren’t too concerned about repetition. 

The centerpiece comes when Misty crucifies Tina and wraps her from bottom to top in duct tape.  I don’t think I had a duct tape fetish before watching this scene, but when you have two of the hottest ladies in the business performing such a bizarre scene at their height of their hotness, it’s hard not to take notice.  I think they have may have made a new convert. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE DUCT TAPE KILLER (1998) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

The Duct Tape Killer begins with Tina Krause taking a shower in real time, and if there’s a better way to start a movie, I’ll be damned if I can think of it.  Afterwards, she is chloroformed by a creep (writer/director William Hellfire), who despite his perv status, sports a pretty sweet Ghidrah T-shirt.  Once she’s out cold, he undresses her and duct tapes her to a chair.  Later, the killer finds another victim (also played by Krause), chloroforms her, undresses her, and duct tapes her (this time on a sofa).  Then… SURPRISE!  It was all a dream!  Or was it a premonition?

This was the first volume of WAVE’s “Real Crime Videos”.  While it is basically just a skeevy fetish video parading as a true crime story, it is surprisingly effective.  The chloroforming and duct taping scenes are more or less shown in real time with few edits, which adds to the dingy atmosphere.  The crude videography also enhances the grimy feel and works much better than if they had used professional equipment.  I will say that some of the music in the second duct tape sequence feels out of place as it sounds like something you would hear in a kids’ movie when the clumsy villain tries to sneak up on a talking dog or something.  (Speaking of which, the same dog barks in the background throughout the entire movie, which adds to the homegrown feel.)

I’ll be the first to admit that a little of this goes a long way.  In fact, it might’ve been better if it was just a short and the second sequence had been removed entirely.  But let’s face it.  At the end of the day, this movie is solely designed as an excuse to show Tina Krause naked, and we’re grading it solely on those merits, then it’s pretty hard to beat. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: TORQUE (2004) *** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Torque is obviously trying to cash in on the Fast and the Furious movies, but… you know… with motorcycles.  It wants the audience to know right off the bat that these bikes are much faster and furiouser than anything in a Vin Diesel movie.  Torque hilariously makes its mission statement known right in the opening scene where Martin Henderson races his crotch rocket past two drag racing muscle cars.  He goes so fast (and furious) that his bike causes a street sign to spin around Looney Tunes-style.  So fast does it spin, that it not-so subliminally causes the sign to read, “CARS SUCK”!  [Insert Crying While Laughing Emoji here]

Later, when someone quotes the Fast and the Furious by saying, “I live my life a quarter mile at a time”, another character wrinkles their forehead and quips, “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!”

I guess I was already genetically predisposed to like this movie.

There are very few traditional camera set-ups in Torque.  Everything is amped up to 11 (or maybe 12).  It’s full of wild and weird camera shots that give the admittedly silly story an almost mythical feel.  Imagine if Sergio Leone slammed a case of Monster energy drink before making a biker flick and that might give you an idea of what to expect.  Even then, that really doesn’t come close to accurately describing it. 

You could say it’s brain dead, but I disagree.  It has a brain.  Of a four-year old. Who is maniacally obsessed with motorcycles.  Who also happens to be hopped up on Mountain Dew and Coco Puffs. 

The plot, such as it is, has Martin Henderson riding back into town to make amends with his estranged girlfriend.  A bad biker has a beef with him, and he frames him for the murder of ice Cube’s brother in hopes Cube will do his dirty work for him. 

The action scenes are ludicrous, which is another way of saying I dug them.  There’s a chase through a forest that plays like a motorcycle version of the speeder bike chase in Return of the Jedi.  The motorcycle chase that takes place on top of and inside of a moving train is a doozy too.  The highlight is when two biker babes fight each other not only on speeding motorcycles, but WITH speeding motorcycles.  It’s almost enough to make the motorcycle scenes in Mission:  Impossible 2 seem quaint and restrained. 

In fact, I have to wonder if producer Neal H. Moritz (who also produced the Fast and Furious movies) saw the dailies for Torque and was like, “Shit man we gotta up our game!” as the later Fast films seemingly take inspiration from the sheer lunacy found here.  (I will say the overly CGI-ed finale is kind of lame, but it does have a funny punchline.)

Surprisingly enough, when the movie succumbs to the temptation to have an actual car chase with actual cars, it’s just as silly and includes a great bit when a Humvee does a roll midair and lands on a Porsche.  You don’t see that every day. 

The performances are kind of mellow compared to the cinematic gymnastics of director Joseph Kahn.  Only Jaime Pressly as the sexy bad biker babe China really seems to know what kind of foolishness she signed up for.  This is probably her best performance since Poison Ivy 3, and that is indeed, about the highest praise I can bestow upon an actress. 

Oh, and in the Torque universe, there’s only one beer:  Budweiser. 

According to IMDb trivia, Kahn said he set out to make “A dumb movie for smart people”.  All I can say is… Mission accomplished! 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SHAFT’S BIG SCORE! (1972) ** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

Shaft (once again played by the charismatic Richard Roundtree) gets a late-night call from a friend in need.  When Shaft arrives too late, his buddy winds up dead.  It seems he was running numbers in the neighborhood and his crooked business partner might just be the one who rubbed him out.  There’s also the matter of a missing chunk of change totaling a quarter of a million dollars, which the Mob is keen to get their hands on.  Complicating matters is the reappearance of Shaft’s shady old nemesis, Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn), who sticks his mitts in the action 

Shaft’s Big Score! is a decent enough Blaxploitation flick.  It just suffers from comparison to the iconic original.  Then again, maybe that’s unfair since Shaft was such a watershed moment for black cinema.  However, Shaft’s Big Score always seems like it’s in catch-up mode.  Director Gordon Parks made things look cool and effortless in the original, but here, everything seems a little too laid back for its own good. 

The action is lackluster too.  What action we do get is rather sparse and lacking the punch of the original.  (One fight also uses way too much slow motion.)  The car chase sequence in the third act is well done though, but the finale as a whole kinda drags. 

The music is a step down too.  While an OK theme song in its own right, “Blowin’ Your Mind” is nowhere near the bop the original Shaft theme was.  I guess Parks had a falling out with Isaac Hayes, which prevented him from contributing the main theme (he does have one song on the soundtrack though), but his presence is sorely missed. 

I definitely can’t fault Roundtree who is smooth and badass as only he could be.  He just doesn’t seem to drive the action the way he did in the original as there’s just too many side characters and subplots that prevent the film from really getting into gear.  I know I’ve spent a lot of time griping that it’s not as good as Shaft, but then again, few Blaxploitation flicks are.  It’s solid and moderately entertaining, but it just never really catches fire. 

ELECTRIC BLUE 17 (1984) ** ½

When I was growing up, there was nothing better than when The Playboy Channel had a free preview.  9 times out of 10, you would see an episode of Electric Blue.  While the series itself was hit and miss, the theme song was a straight-up banger that will stay in your head for decades to come.  This episode is kind of standard, despite the participation of some of the ‘80s hottest talent, but it definitely brought back some fond memories. 

Sexy student Ginger Lynn hijacks a dull Sex Ed class in the “Wraparound Segments” (** ½) which serves as the episode’s framework. 

The first segment, “Memories of Marrakech” (**) is a take-off on Casablanca.  A dude sits around moping in a club while imitating Humphrey Bogart.  Finally, the woman of his dreams (Ginger) shows up so he can ball her.  Sure, it’s not great, but if you’re gonna steal from somebody, steal from the best.  (They even do a riff on Casablanca’s famous ending.)  However, even with the presence of Ginger, it’s still not that hot.  

That’s followed by a comic “How-To Presentation” (**) which teaches you how to arouse your lover.  This scene is narrated by Ginger, but it offers no laughs and isn’t very sexy either.  Then, Candy Samples visits a “Canadian Rodeo” (****).  The presence of the luscious Candy, combined with the cheeky narration (“Her mammoth mammaries make Mount Rushmore look like a molehill!”) make this segment loads of fun. 

The next sequence (**) finds a blonde surprising her boyfriend with a little sex.  This one isn’t all that hot and suffers from a generic set-up and cheesy performances.  “The Birthday Present” (**) centers around a bored housewife who hires a professional photographer (Robert Kerman) to take nude shots of her for her husband’s birthday.  Naturally, they end up balling.  As with the previous scene, the plot isn’t much to write home about, and it winds up feeling rushed. 

“Critics Corner” (***) takes a look at a couple of Cecil Howard’s films, including Platinum Paradise and Scoundrels.  What makes this segment so fun is how seriously the critic takes his job.  Then there’s a segment set at “Lovers Lane” (** ½) where two necking couples in a convertible decide to swap partners.  (Two in the backseat and two in the front.)  Like most scenes in this episode, it feels rushed, but it’s solid nonetheless. 

Then, Candy is back at the “Rodeo” (****).  A sexy dancer does a dance with a bullwhip and there’s even a breakdancing exhibition!  If you grew up in the ‘80s like me, you’ll remember the decade was all about bullwhips and breakdancing.  Because of that, this segment is a fun trip down memory (or mammary) lane. 

“Victorian Antics” (**) is a period piece where a cultured lady seduces a hunky gardener.  Meanwhile, her meek husband gets it on with the sexy maid.  This one is very generic and cliched, but at least the production values are nice.  Then, Veronica Hart shows up at the end as “Dr. Ruth” (**) to warn about the dangers of fucking while driving.  (The couple instead pull off to the side of the road to do it.).  While it’s fun seeing Hart popping up, there’s not much to this segment.  Finally, Ginger says “Let’s Get Naked!” (** ½) and invites the whole class to ball.  While this segment isn’t exactly hot, it’s silly and mostly fun, which pretty much describes Electric Blue 17 as a whole.