Hard Ticket To Hawaii

Title: Hard Ticket To Hawaii

Director: Andy Sidaris
Released: 1987
Starring: Ronn Moss, Dona Speir, Hope Marie Carlton, Harold Diamond, Rodrigo Obregon, Cynthia Brimhall, Patty Duffek, Wolf Larson, Lorry Green, Peter Bromilow

Plot: When two DEA agents are killed on a private Hawaiian island, Agents Donna (Speir) and Taryn (Carlton) soon intercept as part of their investigation a delivery of diamonds belonging to drug lord Seth Romero who plans to flood Hawaii with drugs by taking over the island of Molokai.

 

Review: The second film in director Andy Sidaris’s “Triple B” series (Boobs, Bullets and Bombs) of loosely attached films in which Sidaris casts Playmates / Penthouse Pets as the leads in his series of over the top action films with this film being one which I recently got to discuss on the “Exploding Helicopter” podcast. Now If you’ve ever seen any of Sidaris’s other films you will already know what to expect going into this film, as Sidaris essentially picked up were Russ Meyer left off as he shares Meyer’s love for amply breasted ladies, moulding his films around this love by casting them as his feisty leads in these otherwise by the book 80’s action fests with a healthy side order of cheese.

The plot is as paper thin as it is nonsensical with Sidaris padding out the plot with a healthy dose of nudity and softcore sex scenes, aswell as a random sub-plot involving a seemingly invincible killer snake. This however does not stop it from being a fun ride and all the more unsurprising that it has more recently gained a real cult following, if especially for some of the more truly bonkers scenes including the much discuss assassination attempt, by an assassin riding a skateboard and while holding a blow up sex doll!

While the girls are more than capable of handling things on their own, the girls are joined by fellow agents Rowdy (Moss) who can seemingly can only use a bazooka to hit anything (by his own confession no less) making me wonder what exactly the entrance requirements are for their agency, while Jade (Dimond) brings some killer kickboxing skills. Both 80’s action hero cut outs, yet still make for an amusing double act whenever they are left to their own devices or have one of the numerous attractive ladies to distract them.

The action scenes are one of the main selling points and other than the appeal of gratuitous nudity; Sidaris crafts several great action scenes which are so amusingly over the top it’s hard to not use these moments to see past the numerous other flawed parts of the film. After all what other film sees a bazooka being showcased as having so many uses, including being used at point blank range with zero effect on the shooter. Such leaps in realism are scattered throughout the film with the real jump the shark moment coming when Rowdy takes out a guard using a razorblade Frisbee in yet another standout moment. Still this is also a world where the characters have movie posters on the wall of the directors other films hanging on the wall.

The acting on show here is surprisingly better than you would expect from a cast which largely consists of glamour models. This is not to say that its Oscar worthy, but certainly its not being hammed up, with the general feeling being that the cast and director were genuinely trying to make a good movie, something only further reinforced by the introduction provided by Sidaris and Julie Strain, even Sidaris spends most of it complimenting the looks of his leading ladies.

True this might be abit of a cornball action movie, with more than a handful of outlandish moments, but then this really is all part of its charm and makes it only the easier to understand its cult appeal. This isn’t award winning film making but at the same time it’s a world apart from the intentionally bad efforts churned out by the likes of “The Asylum”, while it more than lives up to its triple b promise, with enough boobs, explosions and gunfire to keep things intresting. So watch it with an open mind and a few like-minded friends and it’s a blast. So buy a ticket and just enjoy the ride.

The Lost Empire

Title: The Lost Empire

Director: Jim Wynorski

Released: 1983

Starring: Melanie Vincz, Raven De La Croix, Angela Aames, Angus Scrimm, Paul Coufos, Robert Tessier, Angelique Pettyjohn

Plot: When Police officer Angel’s (Vincz) brother is killed trying to stop a trio of ninja’s robbing a jewellery story, her investigation soon leads her to the mysterious Dr. Sin Do who is holding a martial arts tournament on his secret island fortress. Now joined by the native American White Star (De La Croix) and Prison brawer Heather (Aames) they head to the tournament with the aim of avenging Angel’s brother.

Review: Please allow me to start by saying that his film really is a true shameless guilty pleasure, was well as that this is actually my first experience with the work of director Wynorski who like Albert Pyun unquestionably has his fans and who over the course of the last 25 years has churned out over 150 films to date including possibly his most well-known film “Chopping Mall”. Despite this legacy this film has until now always remained one of his most elusive even to the director himself, who began working with producer Bill Dever in 2007 to track it down and re-acquire the rights, which has now lead to it finally getting its release on DVD.

Almost certain that this film could be both his first and last, Wynorski crammed into this film everything he loved, which it would seem included feisty attractive ladies, ninja’s, martial arts and questionable gorilla suits to all but skim the surface of the sheer random fun this film is. It would only be fate that despite being originally made as a tax loss for Plitt Theatres owner Henry Plitt (something Wynorski reportedly didn’t know at the time) the film would be so liked by Plitt that he gave the film a theatrical release.

Essentially a sexed up version of “Enter the Dragon” the seemingly also fancies itself as a female James Bond spoof seeing how it opens with the familiar Bond peephole which this time draws focus on a pair of large breasts. It should be noted that this is essentially a hint of what is to come as like the films of David Sedaris and Russ Meyer, Wynorski is unashamedly also a fan of cramming as many beautiful women as he can into his films and generally finding provocative situation in which to film them something which continues with his work to date. 

Still despite this it would be wrong to dismiss this film as gratuitous T&A as there is atleast some attempt made at plotting, even if most of it is completely over the top, with the last half hour of this film being especially insane to the point were I was left questioning if they shot those scenes first or if Wynorski had just thrown caution completely to the wind knowing how random the rest of the film was already.

When it comes to the trio they are more a caricatures than with any form of realism as only highlighted by each of their introductions, hence Angel busting up a hostage situation at a school by riding a motorcycle down the hallway and punching out a random bad guy, while Heather is introduced by a prison yard brawl against a bull whip welding butch looking female dominatrix called whiplash, which essentially an excuse to include mud wrestling in the film. The weakest of the three though is White Star who just shows up on horse and spouts a bunch of Tonto-esq lines which I guess is kind of fitting seeing how Wynorski uses her character like a sexy version of Tonto.

It should also be worth noting that while the setup might be as a martial arts movie, there is actually very little martial arts action to be found here outside of the occasional kick or karate chop. This is especially amusing when it comes to the tournament were the competitors are told to expect a series of gratuitous challenges which will test their skills, only for the next scene to show the girls running around the grounds and through cones alongside shots of the girls being star jumps and pretty much anything else involving jumping to make the most of their general lack of clothing.  As such the whole competition plotline is quickly put on the backburner pretty much as soon as it starts, with only one fight actually taking place and that’s between Angel and one of Sin Do’s generic henchmen.

To balance things out from all the slap and tickle antics of the girls we do get a half-baked romance angle between Angel and Rick (Coufos) who with his classy porn star moustache is generally used for comedic value as he spends most of the film hamming things up which always seems to be the tradition for the romantic interest in these kind of girl gang movies. On the flip side he does also help balance out the amount of scantily clad ladies featured and pleases those of you who want to see shirtless Coufos.

While I might not be aware of Wynorski’s work before watching this film, I’m now keen to see what else is hiding in his back catalogue of work as this film really was a blast from the start. Ultimately though this film is  mindless fun and the sort of guilty pleasure to sit alongside the likes of “Faster Pussycat Kill Kill” and “Return to Savage Beach” and with the self-acknowledging cheese factor that most modern b-movies seem to aim for as seen especially with the recent direct to sci-fi channel releases from the likes of “The Asylum” and after all what other film can boast a phallus shaped laser cannon?

The Sexy Killer AKA The Drug Connection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: The Sexy Killer / The Drug Connection

Director: Chung Sun
Released: 1976
Starring: Chen Ping, Yueh Hua, Szu Wei, Tien Ching, Chaing Yang, Chan Shen, Lin Feng, Li Peng-fei

Plot: When nurse Wan Fei’s (Ping) sister is hooked on heroin and abused by local drug dealers, she takes justice into her own hands as she sets out to take on the Hong Kong crime syndicates responsible.

Review: With such a provocative title it’s more than obvious what caught my attention about this little seen exploitation movie from the legendry Shaw Brothers Studios who unknown to most people including myself until lately, didn’t just make the Kung Fu movies they are probebly best known for, but also dabbled in a number of other genres such as this exploitation cheapie.

Essentially a Hong Kong remake of Pam Grier classic “Coffy”, while the plotting here is paper thin and more of an excuse to show what frequently felt like a stream of nudity, soft-core sex and of course being the Shaw Brothers a healthy dose of Kung Fu action. This of course is the standard fodder for Ping who like Grier specialised in playing tough feisty ladies, while at the same time not adverse to the occasional  shedding her clothes, as we not only see here, but in the handful of sexploitation movies she did over the course of her career. True she might not be as strong an actress as Grier which it is hard to not draw comparisons to especially with the plotlines being so similar, let alone both ladies affection for a shotgun.

 

Opening with a particularly sleazy scene of Wan Fei’s sister being drugged and subsequently used by a couple of sleazy gangsters, the film essentially establishes the tone within the opening minutes, while Wan Fei sets out on her quest for revenge with a strangely confident stance which sees her not only being able to weld a mean shotgun but also infiltrate gangs disguised as a prostitute with little trouble despite from all apperences having any kind of training of any kind to assist her other than pure guts and grit it would seem. Okay perhaps the plot in this respect should be taken with a pinch of salt, especially when the plotting is as paper thin as it is, while Ping has enough presence on the screen to pull of the role even if Grier does it better.

Director Chung seems to relish the sleazy atmosphere he creates here, especially when he frequently seems to be finding new ways to add to the films already high sleaze quota including a drug baron who likes introducing prostitutes to his home torture chamber and while Chung occasionally pushes these more risqué moments, there is ultimately nothing too shocking almost as if he was keen to not lose the film amongst the ranks of the numerous Pink movies being produced during this era. Still with such focus on the exploitation elements.

Despite the care free attitude towards nudity it is pretty surprising how largely restrained the violence is here and never exceeds what we have to come to expect from the Kung Fu output of the Shaw Brothers. Still despite being more restrained with the violence, the action scenes are not hampered as a result with Wan Fei proving herself rather handy with her shotgun, aswell as her dagger bracelet. Needless to say Wan Fei does kick a lot of ass while the ending while perhaps more subtle than you expect from this kind of movie is none the less satisfying which includes an exploding waterbed none the less, as she proves not for the first time that hell truly hath no fury like a scorned Wan Fei.

While its true that other similar films may have done this better such as “Sex and the Fury” or the “Sister Street Fighter” trilogy, but there is fun to be had here none the less, even if it is disposable at best. Ideally watch this as a warm up in a double bill as on its own will no doubt leave you wanting something alittle more satisfying.

The WTF Book Club (August): Chemical Pink

It’s time for the first edition of a new feature here on the blog, which will be run in conjunction with “The WTF Book Club” which inturn was born out of the inspiration provided by Jenn over at "Cavalcade of Perversions" who has frequently been making attempts to showcase great cult fiction. The aim of the group being not only to get more people reading but will also help introduce those whose reading consists of more than what's currently in the top 20 list, find some new authors and read books you might not have heard of as over the course of the coming months, we will be looking at books from a wide variety of genres from social satire and horror to Bizzaro fiction and maybe even a few which will that make you stop and say "What the f**k is wrong with this person?", as we feature books by authors like Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahunik, Katherine Dunne, Edward Bunker, Charles Bukowski and more.

For the first selection the group members voted for “Chemical Pink” by Based around Aurora Jeanine Johnson an unwed mother desperate to sculpt a new life--and a new body-- in California were she meets Charles Worthington a wealthy eccentric, with an obsession for female bodybuilders while also rich enough to indulge his every decadent whim and fantasy. Finding his sexual ideal in Aurora he also sees in her the raw material from which he will shape his masterpiece.

“Chemical Pink” is a strange book to say the least, considering that it is really two books seemingly smashed together to create one surprisingly warped tale of obsession, sexual deviance and female bodybuilding, while comparable in many ways to the equally warped world view of Chuck Palahniuk whose name is frequently mentioned whenever anyone discusses this book, especially when he was writing the film adaptation of this book, which was at one time going to be the follow up project for David Fincher after the success of “Fight Club”. Sadly this now is pretty much considered a dead project with Fincher having long since moved onto other projects. Needless to say Arnoldi has remained at best a cult author and for the most people way off the radar of most readers, though as my first introduction to her work it is hard not to draw comparisons to Palahniuk, even if she lacks the black vein of humour which runs through his work, which does have the slightly detrimental effect of making this a much more sleazy read.

Based mainly around Charles and Aurora the story switches focus throughout between these two characters, while also making a slight and ultimately meaningless diversion to follow Aurora’s daughter Amy, whose view point only seemingly serves to further the idea of how obsessed Aurora is with her bodybuilding and her desire to be the best. Aurora is shown as the naive country girl brought to the big city with the prospect of making it in the bodybuilding big leagues, a goal which she pursues with religious devotion even at the cost of her child, whom now lives with Aurora’s mother. Still despite her efforts she is still struggling to make it and as a result it leads her to meet Charles, who might seem like another muscle fetishist, yet it soon becomes clear that this is really just a cover for his real perversions which are frequently nothing short of twisted, let alone the fact he is also carrying a whole heap of mummy issues and an obsession with sculpting the perfect specimen, no matter what the cost as especially seen as he turns Aurora into a guinea pig of sorts, as he teams up with trainer Henrik to help him fulfil his vision.

Originally starting off as a story about Charles, Aurora and her daughter Amy or so Arnoldi states in her authors note, with the bodybuilding aspects only being added later, I can’t help but feel that this would have been a much weaker book had that been the case, especially when non the characters we encounter are particularly likeable with Arnoldi making little attempt to improve on this, as the reader is frequently left feeling like they are nothing but ghosts in this world, only looking inwards but never truly involved in the lives of these characters. Meanwhile Arnoldi an enthusiast of body building in real life, she talks a lot about her research methods for the book in her authors note, which would explain the frequently clinical nature in which she approaches many of the bodybuilding sections, especially when she reels off drug names and body building supplements, with the same glee that Bret Easton Ellis does with brand names, only here she makes it seem ultimately cold and impersonal almost as if she was just regurgitating her research notes. 

The other main problem here is that we never seem to really go anywhere with the final competition, coming off anticlimactic almost as if she got bored and just decided to end the story suddenly, especially when the build up has you under the false belief that it is just the first of several competitions you expect to get, but never receive. What we do get though is copious amounts of deviant and unerotic sex, which only further highlights what a secondary thought the bodybuilding aspects were and perhaps only included so that Arnoldi could justify Aurora's character, which in an erotic novel context would only be heavily questioned. Meanwhile the bodybuilding parts are almost as shocking as some of the random OTT sex acts desired by Charles. Even more so when you consider how based on fact they are, especially when parts of the training regime are hard to distinguish from another of Charles's games which for myself brought back memories of the movie (and New French Extremity benchmark) "Martyrs". Yet reading reviews from bodybuilders who have read this book they all keenly note the accuracy of these scenes, even though Arnoldi chooses a grotesque viewpoint to show them from making it more of a horror show than a shining endorsement for the pursuit of the body beautiful.

While it might be easy to draw comparisons between Arnoldi and Palahunik, especially when they both choose to bring a warped world view to a society sub-culture, it is a comparison as lazy as comparing “The Wire” to “Braquo” on the basis that they are both gritty cop shows and even more so when she processes none of the talent, nor the black humour which makes Palahunik’s books so enjoyable. As my first introduction to her work I can hardly say that it has me rushing out to hunt down her other books, while it’s meandering plot frequently clinical prose, make this a slightly less gripping tale of obsession than first expected. 

Bikini Girls On Ice

 

Title: Bikini Girls On Ice

Director: Geoff Klein

Released: 2009

Staring: Cindel Chartrand, Danielle Doetsch, William Jarand, Suzi Lorraine, Christina Sciortino, Caroline Faille, Tarek Barone, Kerri Taylor, Ivan Peric

Plot: A bus load of bikini clad ladies are on their way to a car-wash fundraiser, when their bus breaks down in front of an abandoned gas station located on the edge of town, unaware that it is home to a homicidal mechanic called Moe (Jarand)

Review: I should really know by now that any film with the word “Bikini” in the title is often going to be far from the fun times and cheap thrills which the name would misleadingly give you the impression of. Needless to say this film is no exception to this rule.

A Canadian production from first time director Klein, who also is credited with co-producing aswell as co-writing this with fellow first timer Jeff Ross who thankfully gave up on the writing after this film, which like so many of the cast remains his sole IMDB credit. Still while aiming for a cheap and fun slasher, only one of these goals is really achieved (no prizes for guessing which one they achieve).

Plot wise this one does exactly what it says on the tin, unless you’re the sort of person brought up with holiday themed ice capades shows and have entered into it expecting to see a bunch of ice skating ladies in bikinis, you might be slightly disappointed to find that it’s yet another cheapie slasher abet one with a fun title, but still sadly little else to offer.

For some reason only known to Klein, the girls have seemingly only packed their bikini’s and while it’s a cheap thrill to have a movie full of attractive young actresses wearing pretty much nothing for the whole film, it’s a thrill which soon grows old way to quick, while towards the end even pushing the boundaries of plausibility as the girls run around in the dark, giving not even a passing thought to putting on more clothes. I don’t know perhaps Canadian girls are impervious to the cold, but Klein’s determination it would seem to get as much flesh on the screen as possible only took me out of the film, which by this point was struggling to keep what was left of my attention and something really also not helped by the fact that it’s nigh impossible most of the time to see what is happening during these night time scenes.

Such cheap titillation also extends to the cast, whose characters are left largely undeveloped except when it comes to what cheap thrill they happen to bring to the film (I.E: The slutty chick, the lesbians etc) and as such are largely disposable and there to make up the body count and as such it makes it really hard to care about what happens to any of them, especially when they are so interchangeable from each other. Still working with a cast of unknowns it soon becomes clear that many of them might have been hired for how good they look, rather than their acting ability but when some of them struggle to convincingly wash a car you know the film is in trouble.

The films psycho is beyond laughable, with Jarand clearly having delusions of being the next big slasher, especially from how he tries and fails to imitate Kane Hodder’s raging bull style, he brought to Friday the 13^th series from Part 7 – Jason X. Still looking like one of those deranged fans that generally turn up in videos for bands like “Slipknot”, with his greasy long hair permanently hanging over his face while contorting his face into a demented looking frown, as he comes across like the embodiment of every bad slasher cliché going. If this wasn’t bad enough, he is also lumbered with no kind of motive for his actions, so we never find out his motive for killing let alone why he is so obsessed with putting bodies into tubs of ice.

The other major failing of this film is with the gore quota which despite the films high body count is almost non existent. True we get a lot of violence with Moe swinging, hammering and stabbing away at his victims, but at the same time we don’t get to see any form of pay off, as Klein opts to keep the gore off screen and as such gives zero weight to any of the deaths, while only making Moe all the more of a laughable psycho, especially when every kill is the same as the last, with the victim stumbling into him, before falling over before he sets about doing his thing, with none of the victims providing anything resembling much of a fight. Still when we do see the aftermath of any of these kills, the damage is interchangeable with any other kill in the film, with the victim looking the same as before just now covered with buckets of fake blood, with the sole difference being the occasional slit throat. It’s this form of filming which really irks me, for on one hand Klein is trying to homage the splatter and violence of the 80’s slashers, yet at the same time under the delusion of what your not seeing is scarier, which arguably might be true and you really only need to look at the likes of “Psycho” for further proof. However this style really only works well in the hands of a master director, which it’s safe to say that Klein is not and hence is left with a bunch of weak death scenes, many of which have been done before only a lot better.

Despite having a short run time, this film still feels a lot longer than it is, which when you consider that it’s a film packed with scantily clad ladies only makes it much more worrying as it takes a real talent to make such a prospect as painful a viewing experience as Klein as here. Now normally I would recommend that movies this bad, are best enjoyed with a few cold beers, but considering the amount of alcohol required to make this a fun experience, I think you’d be best also packing a spare liver in the cooler, as it fails on even the most basic of levels, while proving once more that wall to wall cleavage does not make a movie, though perhaps more worrying is the fact that this film has spawned a sequel "Pin-up Dolls on Ice", though can't say that i'm going to be exactly rushing to see it anytime soon.

Flesh Gordon

Title: Flesh Gordon
Director: Michael Benveniste & Howard Ziehm

Released: 1974

Staring: Jason Williams, Suzanne Fields, Joseph Hudgins, William Dennis Hunt,

Rating: 5 / 5

Plot: Emperor Wang (Hunt), the leader of the planet Porno has sent his mighty "Sex Ray" towards Earth, turning everyone into sex-mad fiends. Now only one man can save the Earth, football player Flesh Gordon (Williams). Along with his girlfriend Dale Ardent (Fields) and Professor Flexi-Jerkoff (Hudgins), they set off towards the source of the Sex Ray, unaware of the perils that face them!

Review: I don’t what it is, but there are some movies, which just put you in a good mood, while you’re watching them, making them that cinematic equivalent of a grilled cheese sandwich or that great song “Shiny Happy People” by REM (especially with Beavis and Butthead commentary) and this film is truly one of those kinds of movie, as when I sat down to watch it, I could honestly say that I wasn’t in the best of moods, seeing how I was having one of those real grey kind of days, but all that changed while watching this, as something within this movie, just turned that frown upside down.
“Flesh Gordon” much like “Fritz the cat” (1972) was when I was growing up one of those movies that some of the kids, with slightly more liberal parents than my own, would often brag about seeing, mainly because of it’s rude content, it was a film that for one reason or another I only recently got around to watching for the first time and now I only wished I’d hunted it out sooner, as it truly is a film which is like a head on collision between 1950’s B-movies, Monty Python style animation and the sexploitation genre, as cheesy special effects are combined with gratuitous nudity, with a healthy splattering of humour throughout to hold the whole thing together and for some strange reason it works.

If you haven’t guessed already this film is basically a sexed up version of the classic Serial “Flash Gordon” which first appeared back in the 1930’s and whose own camp movie adaptation wouldn’t appear till 1980, a whole six years after the appearance of this raunchy bastard child of a movie, which still managed to cram in a whole heap of nods to the original series, with a similarly rousing orchestra score, aswell including those memorable cliff-hanger endings which provides one of the more humorous moments of the film, as the film cuts suddenly to an intermission, before restarting with “Part 2”, while also taking time for a sly dig at Flash’s costume and it’s these homage’s to the source material which help the film, to be more than a sexed up cash in, which ironically is how the film started, with the original plan of making an X rated version of “Flash Gordon” getting lost during production, to the point were it became this version of the film, though you can still see many moments, which were no doubt part of this original plan for the film, seeing how the audience is shown the passengers on a plane, having a spontaneous orgy after being hit with a blast from the sex ray pretty much within the opening ten minuites. Nudity (both male and female) is shown throughout with such abandon, that I almost thought that I had stumbled across one of the “Gore-Gore Girl” porn spoofs, in the same vain of “Jurassic Hump” and “These Something a butt Mary”. These continous moments of nudity also forms the basis of a running joke, for the character of Dale Ardent who like her namesake from the original series “Dale Arden” spends most of the film getting easily captured, but also seems to have a habit of frequently losing her clothes, meaning that she spends most of the film running around topless….not that it is an overly bad thing really.
Williams plays Flesh well as he portrays him with all the charm of the original flash and had all the nudity and sex jokes been edited out of this film, it could be shown as a similar style film to those original serials (while also being about 15 minutes long) his performance while wholesome, is never to the point were he grates, even with his apparent innocent image he portrays, when he's not off being seduced by strange space women, despite claiming to be madly in love with Dale, but such questions are really quite minor. However amongst the cast the performance which really stands out, is that of Hunt as Emperor Wang who is played almost like a sex crazed version of Fu Manchu, with him holding constant orgies in front of his throne, as well as celebrating the apparent demise of Flesh, with a spontaneous naked conga line (not something you see everyday), with Hunt, becoming all the more camp as the film goes on, to the point were I was almost drawing comparisons to Cesar Romero’s Joker in “Batman” (1966) as he frequently insults his overly stupid henchmen, by referring to them as dildo’s. It’s his performance that really helps put Emperor Wang into my top 10 cinema villains, even as random as he is.

For a film that is basically one joke, it never seems to get stretched to thin as you grow strangely accustomed to this bizarre and sexed up world, to the point, were you don’t even question the phallus shaped spaceship that Flesh travels around in, or the face that you get to see a one eyed monsters called “Penisaurus”, even if some of the jokes seem kind of obvious such as the planet being called porno, or the idea of “Emperor Wang” it all seems to fit quite naturally together, as it becomes an extremely random b-movie, something that is helped especially with the effects, which for those of you, who are fans of those classic movies from the 1950’s especially those directed by the likes of “Ed Wood” you will certainly get a kick out of the effects on show here, with many being similar to those used in the original serials, as spaceships are moved on strings, along with extensive use of miniatures as well as Stop motion animation, which in itself is truly a forgotten art and it was nice to see the majority of the film’s strange creatures being animated this way, rather than using a guy in a monster costume. While watching these effects, I couldn’t help but wonder how much of this was homage, rather than being down to lack of funds? More so especially during several of the sword fights were some of the cast never seemed to be putting any effort in. Thankfully it is assumed by the viewer that this is part of the joke and such things are easily over looked, even as you watch Professor Jerkoff and Flesh falling into a hole, which looks strangely like someone basically dropping two action figures.
What is especially worth noting about this film, is the early special effects work on show from the likes of Rick Baker and Jim Danforth (whose name is spelt backwards in the credits), while Craig T. Nelson also provides the voice of the monster seen at the end of the film, in an early film credit long before he became the voice of “Mr Incredible” in Pixar’s own superhero spoof “The Incredibles”, proof once again that genre cinema is often the launch pad to bigger things.

“Flesh Gordon” to summarise is a great fusing of two low budget genres, which creates a great fun film, which despite being extremely random, still provides a fun viewing experience, that is the cinematic equivalent of Prozac, while at the least a true forgotten gem of trash cinema.