SLAVE GIRLS FROM BEYOND INFINITY (1987) (Full Moon Blu-ray Review)

SLAVE GIRLS FROM BEYOND INFINITY (1987) 

Label: Full Moon Entertainment
Region Code: Region-FREE
Duration: 74 Minutes 
Rating: R
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 &amp 5.1 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1) 
Director: Ken Dixon
Cast: Elizabeth Kaitan, Cindy Beal, Brinke Stevens, Don Scribner, Carl Horner

Cheese-tastic sci-fi adventure film Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity (1987) is a fun bit of light-hearted space-fluff courtesy of director Ken Dixon (The Erotic Adventures of Robinson Crusoe), a real tongue in cheek space-romp custom made for love of b-movies. The film stars 80's blond-babes Elizabeth Kaitan (Friday the 13th VII) and Cindy Beal (My Chauffeur) as Daria and Tisa, both inmates on an intergalactic prison-ship. Together they manage to free themselves from what looks to be very medieval imprisonment, chained to the floor, and hot-wire a space craft, only to crash land on a nearby uncharted jungle planet. 

Surviving the crash the ladies - wearing bikinis naturally - arrive at a castle owned by aristocrat Zed (Don Scribner, The Cooler) who lives there with a pair of whirring androids who do his bidding. The seemingly generous host clothes them and introduces them to another shipwrecked couple who recently landed on the planet, siblings 
Shayla (Brinke Stevens, Sorority Babes in The Slimeball Bowl-A-Rama) and Rik (Carl Horner). The latter of whom lets on that their host is not as kind and benevolent as he first appears.

The rest of the film is pretty much a b-movie space-riff on the Richard Connell novel "The Most Dangerous Game" with Zed hunting each of his stranded guests through the jungle terrain outside of his castle. It's fun stuff, the film is very tongue-in-cheek and silly, it's not trying to do anything overly dramatic or serious, just having exploitative fun with tried and true premise, and being sure to show off plenty of T&A courtesy of starlets Elizabeth Kaitan, Cindy Beal and Brinke Stevens, who went not nude are strangely clad in rough-cut lambskin loins cloths or skimpy lingerie.

There's some fun sets throughout, the spaceships early on are cheesy, the jungle sets are fun, plus we get a couple of cool matte paintings that add production value. The castle fortress is realized rather well all things considered, they did a lot on what was surely a tiny budget. All three women deliver their unnatural sounding lines of dialogue woodenly, but this stilted delivery is pitch perfect for this bikini-clad b-movie. Don Scribner gets to chew the scenery a bit more with an overly-dramatic and campy reading as the baddie here, also tone perfect for this sort of film. 

The special effects while not great are surprisingly good, while there's no real bloodshed or gore, we do get some cool-looking androids, a vagina-mouthed alien and a pair of zombies that show up seemingly out of nowhere just for fun, these coming courtesy of John Carl Buechler (From Beyond) and Joe Reader (Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever). 

Audio/Video: Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity debuts on Blu-ray from Full Moon Features in 1080p HD framed in 1.78:1 widescreen. Grain is present if a bit uneven in places, colors are solid and blacks are much improved over the previous DVD version I've had for some time. It doesn't look like this is derived from the OCN, most likely a theatrical print in great shape or an interpositive. I thought it looked very good with decent clarity throughout, though we do get a a bit of dirt and debris in places, particularly in the optical effects shots, but overall this is a pleasing HD upgrade for this title.

Sadly we are only give lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 & 5.1 mixes, c'mon Full Moon, you need to commit to offering lossless audio on your Blu-rays, it's been ten years after the launch of the format! That said the lossy audio delivers the trite dialogue and effects well, clean and without hiss or distortion. The score from Carl Dante (Cellar Dweller) sounds decent too, adding atmosphere to the proceedings without really drawing attention to itself.

Extras on this one are slim, we get a 2-min trailer for the film plus a 6-min clip tribute to bombshell star Elizabeth Kaitan by the Exotic Movie House. The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the original movie poster, it's very cool-looking and is fairly accurate except for those one-eyed androids that aren't in the film. A commentary would have been appreciated for this one, the film garnered some notoriety in the early 90's after drawing the ire of North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms who attributed the delinquency of minors to having access to this sort of trash on late-night cable TV. 

Special Features:
- Trailer (1 min)
- Elizabeth Kaitan Tribute (6 min) 
- Full Moon Trailers: Subspecies 2 (2 min), Subspecies 3 (1 min), Castle Freak (2 min), Puppet Master III (2 min), Vampire Journals (2 min), Dark Angel (1 min), Trancers 2 (3 min), Spectres (2 min)

Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity (1987) is a fun bit of sci-fi adventure that should appeal to anyone with cheese-loving tastes that range from Malibu Express (1985) to Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-A-Rama (1987), highly recommended for fans of b-movie fromage and 80's babes. 

MORE SCREEN GRABS FROM THE BLU-RAY 

TROPHY HEADS (2014)

TROPHY HEADS (2014)

Label: Full Moon Features

Region Code: Region-FREE 

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 97 Minutes

Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 

Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 

Director: Charles Band

Cast: Adam Noble Roberts, Maria Olsen, Brinke Stevens, Linnea Quigley, Darcy DeMoss, Jacqueline Lovell, Michelle Bauer, Irena Murphy, Denice Duff

Max (Adam Noble Roberts) is a Full Moon Entertainment junkie who lives in his Mom's basement where he spends every waking hour pouring over his precious stacks vintage VHS horror. His love for b-movie scream queens runs very deep, a little more than your average horror fan. He obsesses over the fact that his beloved ladies of cult cinema are slowly fading into obscurity and the years wear on. This simply will not do and superfan Max hatches a diabolical scheme to kidnap and imprison six of he most famous scream queens of the 80s and 90s.

Max's mother (Maria Olsen) is only too happy to help her troubled son on his twisted scavenger hunt of b-movie scream queens. One by one he tracks down his favorite fright girls from the 80s and 90s and sets about capturing them.  We have Brinke Stevens (SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-A-RAMA), Linnea Quigley (RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD), Darcy DeMoss (JASON LIVES: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI), Jacqueline Lovell (HEAD OF THE FAMILY), Michelle Bauer (HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS), Denice Duff (BLOODSTONE: SUBSPECIES II).

It's silly and fun as Max and his mother devise ways of ambushing the scream queens whom have gone on to boring day jobs in the years since. They have careers selling smoothies on the beach, one's massage therapist, another is struggling to land roles in low-budget horror films and then we have Linnea Quigley as a born again Christian going door-to-door spreading the word. Max cattle prods them and imprisons them in a make shift basement prison back at mom's house, keeping them in cages like some bizarre scream queen petting zoo. The end game being that he takes the out one by one and forces them to re enact scenes from his favorite films before he cuts off their heads to display as trophies, now that's a true one of kind collectible!

I will admit that aside from Brinke Stevens and Linnea Quigley the other scream queens are not familiar to me, but that did not stop me from enjoying the film and the wisecracking dialogue exchanges in the least. I would never accuse them of being very good actresses but I think I can safely say these fine queens of horror are more notable for willingness to drop their tops and scream bloody murder than their acting chops, and that's just fine by me. 

It should be noted that none of the now middle-aged six scream queens appear in the nude but do showcase their top drawer assets with ample cleavage. Without being disrespectful to our scream queens I will say that's probably a good thing! To that end we have the voluptuous Irena Murphy (WEREWOLF RISING) appearing nude for pretty much the entirety of the film.  

My favorite scene would be a casting call with director Stuart Gordon (FROM BEYOND) who appears as a fictionalized version of himself. Here we have younger b-movie starlets Jean Louise (PUPPET MASTER X), Robin Sydney (THE LOST), Jessica Morris (THE HAUNTED CASINO), Amy Paffrath (EVIL BONG II), Jackie Lovell (THE KILLER EYE) mixing it up with scream queen Denice Duff (SUBSPECIES II). I love how they introduce each other by first and last name, just in case you may forgotten who they are if you ever knew to begin with. They play off each other with a fun mix of slight ditziness and cattiness, and are clearly having a blast. Pretty sure this is one of the better films any of these young starlets have featured in for quite some time. 

The gore hounds will be let down with just some digital blood spatter and a handful of practical decapitated heads,  but this is more to be enjoyed for the fun premise and inherent humor and not a gore-drenched movie, this is a comedy with a smattering of horror. Charles Band has created a fun, campy love letter to the scream queens of the past that is both and respectful and in a way sort of passes the torch to the younger generation of horror babes. 

It is Adam Noble Roberts and Maria Olsen as the demented b-movie nut and his mother who steal the show. These two are just awesome, a truly twisted depiction of a weirdo who lives in his mom's basement watching horror movies in his underwear while she entertains his every whim and putting up with his bratty outbursts. As he mounts his trophy heads he carries on strange little  conversations with the scream queens, he gives Max a soul and while I wouldn't say he was sympathetic he is a lot of fun. 

Surely not a classic slice of horror cinema or even one of the better horror-comedies this year but the film succeeds as a fun, low-budget homage to the scream queens of yesteryear and the cheesy b-movies that made them famous. 

Special Features:
- Audio commentary by stars Darcy DeMoss, Brinke Stevens, and Jacqueline Lovell and producer/director Charles Band
- VideoZone making-of featurette (10 Minutes)
- Uncut behind-the-scenes footage (23 Minutes)
- Full Moon Trailers
- "Submit Your Head" photo gallery

DVD Review: REPLIGATOR (1996)

REPLIGATOR (1996)

Label: Whacked Movies
Duration: 84 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Director: Bret McCormick
Cast: Gunnar Hansen, Brinke Stevens, Keith Kjornes, T.J. Meyers, Carl Merritt

Synopsis: An army experiment gone awry turns burly brutes into gorgeous nymphets who morph into gators when they reach orgasm. This crazy, erotic sci-fi romp tells the story of a top secret military experiment that turns burly soldiers into sexy nymphomaniac babes who turn into gators when they reach orgasm! The film stars Gunnar Hansen (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and scream queen Brinke Stevens who reveals her finest assets. A cult classic ripe for rediscovery, Repligator offers non-stop fun and plenty of topless babes.

There's not a lot I can add to that synopsis. If I did you just might go cross-eyed trying to make sense of it all and I certainly couldn't. In fact, that's probably why they stuffed it with glorious amounts of naked woman, just to turn the thinking part of the brain off so you could just enjoy how deliciously campy and fun this cornball b-movie is. It stars Gunnar Hansen (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) as Dr. Kildare and 80's scream queen Brink Stevens (The Slumber Party Massacre) as Dr. Goodbody, oh the names in this movie are something else. Both are scientist working for the military industrial complex. Goodbody has tapped into the horny thoughts of men and Kildare has invented a frikkin' laser beam that turns hard-nosed male soldiers into horny babes, now tell me what's not to love about that? There is however one very unfortunate side effect to all of this, once these horny babes are sexed-up they turn into alligator-women - that's right - glorious no budget alligators! 

So, yeah this is a pretty awful film but it's certainly entertaining in an eye-rolling sorta way, the comedy is juvenile and the sci-fi techno babble is mind certainly ridiculous but these guys did something that's rarely done well, they made a bad movie by design and it actually worked, for me anyway. 

The special effects are laugh-out-loud bad but the cast are just awful enough in that special way to make the screwball script work it's schlocky magic. Imagine if Frank Henelotter (Frankenhooker) penned a retro science fiction script and Jim Wynorski (Chopping Mall) directed it with Roger Corman producing, the bad movie making firing on all cylinders right there! To give credit were credit is due the film was actually written by Keith Kjorned and produced/directed by Texas b-movie auteur Bret McCormick and while I enjoyed this one I have so very little interest in watching any of his other films. I get the feeling this was sort like capturing lightning in a bottle and for others it might just be a jar full of piss.

The DVD from Whacked Movie features a a cool Behind the Scenes Featurette documenting the fun/problems of working on a low budget productions plus an Interview with Director, Bret McCormick who speaks about Roger Corman's influence on his career.

This is not quite a broad recommend to everyone because you have to seriously love bad cinema to get through it but if what you've read so far intrigues you seek it out. 2 Outta 5  

DVD Review: SCREAMING IN HIGH HEELS (2012)

SCREAMING IN HIGH HEELS 
- THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SCREAM QUEEN ERA -  (2012) 

Label: Vicious Circle Films

Rating: Not Rated 

Region:  1 NTSC
Duration: 63 Minutes 
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo 
Video: 16x9 Widescreen 

Director: Jason Paul Collum
Cast: Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer, Brinke Stevens, David DeCoteau, Richard Gabai, Fred Olen Ray

Synopsis: Three girls living in Los Angeles, CA, in the 1980s found cult fame when they "accidentally" transitioned from models to B-movie actresses, coinciding with the major direct-to-video horror film boom of the era. Known as "The Terrifying Trio," Linnea Quigley (The Return of the Living Dead), Brinke Stevens (The Slumber Party Massacre) and Michelle Bauer (The Tomb), headlined upwards of ten films per year, fending off men in rubber monster suits, pubescent teenage boys, and deadly showers. They joined together in campy cult films like Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988) and Nightmare Sisters (1987). They traveled all over the world, met President Reagan, and built mini-empires of trading cards, comic books, and model kits. Then it all came crashing down. This documentary remembers these actresses - and their most common collaborators - on how smart they were to play stupid.

The Film: What we have here is a fun documentary detailing the rise of three 80's scream queens beginning with a brief history lesson telling of the rise of the baby-boomer drive-in theater market and how it was a major outlet for indie films of the day including the seminal films of the Godfather of Gore - Herschel Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast). It's also the tale of  how the home video market more or less killed the drive-in culture when all these b-movies became readily available to anyone with a VHS player. This was a revelation at a time when only the most die-hard collector's could actually "own" a movie but with the advent of VHS cassettes and players you could watch it repeatedly - or at least until you wore the damn cassette out. I loved renting VHS in the early to mid-80's though I was content to rent and never once even thought of owning a video cassette - after viewing many a worn VHS it just seemed not a wise investment of my hard-earned teen dollars - until like so many others Tim Burton's Batman (1989) hit the shelves and even still then the idea of collecting films didn't really seem like a wise investment until the advent of DVD - after that it was game on. 

The film centers of the big three of 80's horror and what a lovely collection of ladies indeed. We have the brainy marine biologist turned scream queen Brink Stevens who I was most familiar with from Slumber Party Massacre (1982), car-wash employee turned Penthouse centerfold Michelle Bauer of The Tomb (1986) and a painfully shy teen and daughter of a college president turned horror royalty with turns in the exploitation rape-revenger Savage Streets (1985) and my personal favorite - "Trash" from Dan O'Bannon's iconic 80's punk-rocker zombie masterpiece The Return of the Living Dead (1985) 

We get the ladies themselves reflecting on their entries into the world of b-movie, their careers and legacies and the the plus some talking head interview with directors Ted Newson, David DeCoteau, Jason Paul Collin writer Ken Hall among others.

All in all it wasn't the most electrifying documentary ever but it's a decent watch for sure with a ton of fun clips from some truly obscure 80's and straight-to-video 90's b-movie titles. Honestly, aside from Linnea Quigley I didn't recognize either Stevens or Bauer by name but their faces (among other physical attributes) were readily familiar upon viewing clips from the films. This lack of recognition stemming from the fact that I've always been drawn to films by director's and not so much so the actors, it's not a dig it's just the way my mind works - the exception being Linnea who was burned into my mind from a young age following a titillating view of Return of the Living Dead on VHS from way back.

The screener sent my way didn't include any of the bonus content but the resale version of the film features the following:

Special Features: 

- Bonus Intreview footage with Linnea, Brinke, and Michelle

- Footage from the Flashback Weekend of Horror Q+A Sessionmart they were to play stupid.

Verdict: A fun scream-queen documentary but while not on par with Not Quite Hollwood, The Shark is Still Working or even Machete Maidens Unleashed in my opinion but a fun romp and definitely one featuring quite a few grinders from the 90's I've never seen, so at the very least there's some great clips of a few 80's favorites and a bunch more direct-to-video monstrosities awaiting a future viewing. Fun stuff, not essential but a decent Friday night watcher. 2.5 Outta 5