LET’S GET PHYSICAL: DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS (1975) ***

FORMAT:  DVD

A young writer rents a room in a boardinghouse from the sexy Zenobia (Helen Madigan).  His first night there, he hears all kinds of strange goings on.  He eventually learns that all the ladies of the house are Satanists.  (Gee, do you think the giant pentagram on the wall gave it away?)  When he tries to leave, they knock him out and force him to participate in a big Satanist orgy. 

Not to be confused with the erotic lesbian vampire classic of the same name, this is a surprisingly solid Satanic sex flick.  The highlight is the fucking awesome scene where Zenobia plays with her pussy… literally!  She has her pet cat on top of her and while she’s petting it, the frisky feline turns into a horny blonde!  Then they fuck!  I guess it’s true what they say… You are what you eat!   What made this scene great for me was the fact that the cat in the movie looked exactly like my cat!  I can only hope it’s just a matter of time before little Mooney turns into a sexy blonde bombshell for me.  Fans of gratuitous close-ups of gaping glistening genitalia will also be in Heaven during this scene. 

In another memorable sequence, Zenobia appears with a wild looking devil tattoo below her naval that lines up so that her vagina is the devil’s mouth.  When our hero bangs her, she yells, “Fuck the devil’s skull!”  Madigan is hot in all of her scenes and kinda reminded me of Lauren Graham a little bit.  The legendary Joey Silvera is also on hand in a supporting role as one of the Satanists. 

Admittedly, most of this is pretty shoddy.  There are visible boom mikes and crew member shadows.  And wait till you see the cheesy negative scratches effect when the Satanists hypnotize our hero.  

However, the Satanist orgy scene features some simple but effective set design.  The camera peers through a rope-woven spider web as the Satanists bang each other while a fog machine blows smoke into the proceedings.  It’s not much, but it works. 

The sex scenes are the main draw, naturally.  Fortunately, there’s a little something for everybody.  We have lesbians, interracial (there’s a guy who looks like Chuck Berry wearing a swami hat who bangs a white girl in a field), anal (on the bathroom floor), orgies, and rim jobs.  You can’t ask for much more out of a Satanic ‘70s porno. 

KINGDOM OF THE VAMPIRE (1991) ** ½

Jeff (Matthew Jason Walsh) is a young pathetic vampire who has to put up with his domineering mother (Cherie Patry) and clean up after her whenever she feeds on poor Girl Scouts who are unfortunate enough to try to sell her cookies.  If that wasn’t bad enough, she also forces her son to help lure trick or treaters to their death on Halloween night.  Naturally, only so many people can go missing before it brings the attention of the local sheriff.  Meanwhile, Jeff begins seeing a pretty girl (Shannon Doyle) and it’s only a matter of time before his meddling monster of a mother spoils his happiness. 

Directed by J.R. Bookwalter, Kingdom of the Vampire is more serious and downbeat than some of his other work (although he’s still able to work in an amusing reference to his previous flick, Robot Ninja).  It’s less a horror show and more of a sad portrait of someone trying to break free of an overbearing parent.  It’s just that… you know… the parent also happens to be a vampire. 

The performances are strong and help elevate the film from its low budget trappings.  Walsh, who also wrote the film and supplied the music (which is surprisingly good) makes for a solid lead.  I mean you wouldn’t expect a movie called Kingdom of the Vampire to put such a concentration on characters, but everyone fares well with the material.  It’s easy for a low budget horror movie to rely on cheap gore and laughs to carry it.  It’s rare to find one that focuses on performance driven horror. 

And for the most part, it works.  The biggest sticking point is the third act where everything comes to a head all at once.  I can’t help but think that Bookwalter and Walsh must’ve run out of time or money (or both) since things end so abruptly and unsatisfyingly.  It’s only seventy minutes long, but this is one of the few times I wished a low budget vampire movie was longer, if only to properly flesh out the finale and give its characters a send-off they deserve. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: MANIA (1971) *** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Suzanne (Penny King) is the latest addition to the home for wayward girls run by the “harsh disciplinarian” Ms. Wellington (Orita de Chadwick from Scorpion).  As soon as she arrives, a killer wearing black gloves begins picking off the girls one by one.  Could it be the creepy gardener?  Or perhaps it’s Ms. Wellington’s oddball son?

Mania is more concerned with the fucking than it is with the reveal of the killer.  Since the fucking is uniformly steamy from top to bottom, I’d say that’s a fair trade.  The first sex scene is an interracial coupling.  And by that, I mean it’s a lesbian scene featuring black and Asian actresses.  You don’t see that kind of combo very often in porn, even now.  So, for the film to start off with such a niche coupling already kind of bumps it up a notch in my book.  As a bonus, there are more “traditional” interracial pairings later in the film.  In fact, one lucky actor gets to bang a white, black, AND Asian gal throughout the movie.  I believe that’s called “hitting for the cycle”.

We also get a pretty hot incest scene involving Ms. Wellington and her son.  So, if you are into the big “I n’ I” (interracial and incest), you can probably add an extra Half Star to the movie’s rating.   There’s even a great scene where we witness Ms. Wellington’s disciplinarian skills firsthand when she spanks (and then seduces) a naughty schoolgirl.  Man, this one has something for everybody! 

That’s not even including the music (which features a non-sanctioned cover of The Eagles’ “Witchy Woman” and a Muzak version of “California Dreaming”) or the murder scenes, which are not bad, even if they are kind of brief.  The twist ending is kind of… uh… twisted too.  I just wish they showed the big reveal instead of having the characters only talk about it.  Oh well, that’s a relatively minor complaint to make about a minor classic of XXX horror. 

AKA:  School for Dead Girls.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953) ***

FORMAT:  4K UHD

The year before director Jack Arnold and star Richard Carlson teamed up to make the iconic classic Creature from the Black Lagoon, they worked together on this 3-D Sci-Fi flick for Universal.  It is usually mentioned in the same breath as Creature because of the personnel, studio, and 3-D gimmick, and because of that, it inevitably suffers from comparison.  Yes, it falls short of Creature in just about every way, but it still stands as a fine example of ‘50s science fiction. 

Carlson stars as an astronomer living out in the middle of the desert who witnesses a meteor crash near his home.  Of course, it ain’t no meteor but a UFO.  (It looks like a bouncy ball.)  Naturally, no one believes him.  The one-eyed monster inside the ship needs to take the form of humans so they can help repair the ship and prepare it for its voyage home.  The first person it duplicates is Russell Johnson, the professor from Gilligan’s Island!  Maybe he could use some coconuts to put it back together. 

The movie starts with a bang (literally) and has a great set-up.  The scenes of Carlson exploring the crater are quite good too.  Things do slow down around the second act.  Arnold also kind of overdoes it with the bubble-eyed alien POV shots.  The comely Kathleen Hughes is sadly underutilized too (although she participated in some of the film’s most memorable publicity shots).  While It Came from Outer Space is effective and entertaining, it must be said that the whole “aliens replacing townsfolk” thing was done better in other later films like Invaders from Mars and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 

Okay, now I got that off my chest this is still a strong Sci-Fi flick.  That last paragraph was just me nitpicking.  When the movie works, it really works.  Carlson is excellent and he carries the film over the slower stretches.  The ending is unique too as our hero is trying to stop the humans from destroying the aliens and not the other way around.  All in all, this is a thoughtful and compelling piece of 50s Sci-Fi.

4K UHD NOTES: 

I know I keep comparing this to Creature from the Black Lagoon, but since that and It Came from Outer Space are the only black and white movies in my 4K collection (so far), I honestly have nothing else to compare it to.  Fortunately, this looks and sounds just about as great as Creature did.  The swirling smoke billowing up from the crater of the ship looks hypnotic and the string on the meteor when it crashes is even more noticeable now in 4K.  I will say I wish that Universal had included an anaglyph 3-D version instead of a useless Blu-Ray 3-D disc, but oh well. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: COME DEADLY (1973) **

FORMAT:  DVD

A psycho who wears a big black hat and a black nylon stocking over his face is running around raping and killing women.  His latest victim is an actress in a small theater company.  A detective goes undercover as an actor to catch the killer but spends more time balling actresses than doing actual police work.  More women wind up dead and eventually, the cop-turned-thespian sets a trap for the serial sex maniac. 

Come Deadly is sort of a mix between an old school roughie and a horror porno.  The rapist looks like a cross between the killer in Blood and Black Lace and a goth beekeeper.  His memorable attire is about the best thing the movie has going for it.  While the theater setting is novel, the filmmakers don’t really exploit the possibilities to the fullest.  I mean you could’ve done a XXX version of Phantom of the Opera with this set-up and made it work.  Sadly, they just opted to make a rapey detective smut film. 

The detective scenes are pretty rote.  There’s a lot of scenes of the detective questioning suspects (before he fucks them), obvious red herrings, and a failed sting attempt.  This bare bones structure could’ve been a decent way to string together the sex scenes.  Since the rape scenes are mostly unpleasant and the so-called “normal” sex scenes are lackluster and uninspired, there’s just not much here to recommend one way or another.  At least it’s short.  (It’s only an hour long.)

You know you’re in for some cheap shit right from the title sequence, which is done with Crayola markers.  (I’d give the cursive penmanship a B+, which is shocking because the handwriting is the best thing about the movie.)  Honestly, your enjoyment of this one may depend on your tolerance for scenes where women are taken against their will and victimized.   For me, the incessant harp music during some of the sex scenes was even tougher to stomach. 

AKA:  The Harder They Fall.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: WALTZ OF THE BAT (1972) **

FORMAT:  DVD

Eric Fledermaus (Barry Vane) is a dude in a black cape and top hat who pays a chick fifty bucks to come back to his pad.  He then reveals to her he is The Bat, “The Master of the Ball” and bangs her.  His superpower is that all women are in his power after he fucks them.  Once they are his slaves, he uses them to turn tricks to make him a quick buck.  Meanwhile, “The Bee” (Kandi Johnson), the woman who gave him his powers, sets out to stop him from corrupting more women. 

Waltz of the Bat is an odd, uneven mash-up of the horror, superhero, and porno genres.  The elements are thrown together so randomly you have to wonder if they were just making it all up as they went along.  The scenes where the characters address the camera are more goofy than anything too.  

It’s all very cheap looking.  In fact, you can see crew members in some shots, and a phone rings in one scene while a couple are doing the deed.  The costumes are strictly dime store stuff, too.  The Bat basically just looks like Dracula, which is fine I guess, but The Bee, who is supposed to be some sort of half-assed superheroine, looks like a refugee from a cable access kids show.  And don’t even get me started on the Native American guys who double team The Bee in one scene. 

The sex scenes are about average for this sort of thing.  Most of them are tepid, but there is an occasional spark of energy here and there.  Too bad that spark gets extinguished before the scenes can really ignite.  I’m thinking specifically of the final confrontation between The Bee and The Bat, which starts off well enough, but ends much too abruptly.  The quick-cut montage at the end is borderline schizophrenic too. 

I did like the fact that there was a still from Rodan randomly hanging on the wall in one scene though.  The performances are pretty good too. Vane makes for a decent heavy and Johnson (who was also in Behind the Green Door) has a lot of spunk as The Bee.  As far as superhero skin flicks go, it’s certainly no Bat Pussy, that’s for sure. 

WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY (2022) ***

If this feels like a feature length Funny or Die spoof, it’s because that’s exactly what it is.  If you’re wondering if a Funny or Die sketch can become a viable motion picture, the answer is yes.  Mostly. 

Whereas Weird Al took regular songs and made them funny, the movie is essentially a comedy, but it plays things totally seriously.  You know, as if it was your average, run of the mill biopic of a famous musician.  This is a kind of tightrope act.  It’s something that would be easy to sustain for a five-minute short.  It’s another feat entirely to maintain the tone when you have to commit to the bit for nearly two hours.  And it succeeds.  Mostly.

Al (Daniel Radcliffe) wants to play polka, but his stern father (Toby Huss) forbids him in hopes he’ll someday work in the factory like his old man.  When Al gets recognition playing parody songs, he becomes an overnight success.  However, when his girlfriend Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) gets kidnapped by drug czar Pablo Escobar, Al must go into the jungle to rescue her. 

The deadpan seriousness of some scenes is amusing, especially when it’s sending up the conventional biopic tropes.  For example, the scene where Al finds inspiration for “My Bologna” while making a bologna sandwich as The Knack just so happens to be fatefully playing on the radio at that exact moment.  The scene where Al comes up with his “original” song “Eat It” is also a clever jab at the way biopics often fudge facts for dramatic effect. 

Along the way, there are plenty of cameos (including Weird Al himself), all of whom get plenty of mileage from the maudlin acting style typically seen in biopics.  Most of them pop up during a funny Boogie Nights-inspired party scene playing various pop culture figures.  (My favorite:  Conan O’Brien as Andy Warhol.)

Radcliffe seems to be having fun as Weird Al.  It’s certainly one way to shed his Harry Potter image, that’s for sure.  Evan Rachel Wood steals the movie though.  She’s pitch perfect as Madonna, who seduces Al so he will parody “Like a Virgin” and keep her in the public spotlight.  

The film kind of goes off the rails once Al tries to rescue Madonna from the clutches of Pablo Escobar.  (That’s a sentence I’d never thought I’d write.)  This jaunt into action movie territory is a bit of a stretch to say the least.  Overall, the movie would’ve worked like gangbusters at eighty-seven minutes.  However, at one-hundred-and-seven minutes, it has a tough time making it to the finish line. 

If you love Weird Al like I do, it’s easy to forgive the film for some of its third act lapses.  It’s no UHF or anything, but it’s got plenty of laughs.  In the end, that’s all that really matters.