Halloween Movie Time: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

The tension, atmosphere, the foreboding terror. Young Jaime Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance tangling with the Shape a.k.a. Michael Myers...will not be reviewed today. Hey gang welcome back as we tackle the Halloween spoken in whispers, loved by many and loathed by Michael fans.

This is Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Nancy Drew and the Brawny Man are on the case!!!

Okay let's not run away already. Criminy. Now many of you are wondering of all the Halloween flicks, why does Jake decide to do the third film? Well one, it doesn't involve Michael performing acts of superhuman strength levels and regeneration. Two, this film is still being debated to this very day and three, it has been on the request back burner for a while.

Writer and director Tommy Lee Wallace (Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Fright Night 2, Aloha Summer, It and The Comrades of Summer) had the audacity, the temerity to give us a Halloween WITHOUT MICHAEL MYERS??!! As many surmised, Michael and Loomis blew up in the hospital in Halloween II and that was...well pretty much all she wrote. The initial plan was John Carpenter would write a new Halloween movie each year telling a different tale of Gothic horror during the Halloween season thus bringing an anthology of horror and macabre to the American and overseas viewers.

Is barfing insects up a sign of illness?

Unfortunately due to the low attendance and ticket sales at the box office, the idea was completely shelved because the audiences of the time just wanted more Michael in the same fashion of their Friday the 13^th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. An immortal killer that cannot be stopped but only made dormant for a time and until he rises again. Yup, that sure sounds like something people have NEVER seen.

Stupid 80s audience!!! So rather than some potential terror we are left with the first and only installment in that new direction. Is it a complete waste of your time? Does it have some bizarre and astonishing effects? Let's take a look.

So our story begins with a disturbed old man and of course the best stories always do. Shop keeper Harry Grimbridge (Al Berry of The Last Starfighter, Re-Animator, Mad About You, Empty Nest, Nick Knight and Guns of Paradise) is being pursued on a lonely road by two men in black? Making his way to the gas station, the attendant offers to take him to the hospital noticing Harry clutching a Silver Shamrock mask screaming, "They're going to kill us!!" FYI we are actually shooting and existing in Northern California not faux Haddonfield Illinois. SHOCKING!!!

Dr. Challis (Tom Atkins of Baretta, The Fog, Escape from New York, Lethal Weapon, A Stranger Waits, Maniac Cop, Striking Distance, Oz and Shannon's Rainbow) is clearly our hard ass protagonist. I mean look at him. Rugged, focused and an don't mess with me attitude.

Cripes it's Buddy.  Act natural, honey and he'll go away.

Seeing demented Harry rambling, the doc springs into action. And by springs into action, I mean check his charts, blood levels and medical history. Another man in black attends to Harry in the form of killing him, nips out to the parking lot, dousing himself in a high octane fuel and lights up. Subtle. What? Air bubble in his I.V.not good enough?

Next morning Harry's daughter Ellie (Stacey Nelkin of Going Ape!, Yellowbeard, Bullets over Broadway, Ride with the Wind, Distant Cousins and 12 Floors Up) comes to ID dead pappy, get mildly weepy and confab with Challis that Harry's death clearly had something to do with what is going on in Santa Mira.

Apparently the doc had no other patients so it is off to channel Dick Van Dyke's Diagnosis Murder without a doofy detective for a son. Yeah I know it's off topic but did that kid every do his damn job as a homicide detective without daddy's help?

So Detective McCrae is hot on the trail finding that Harry stayed at the local motel and almost the whole town are working for The Old Man of Robocop?? OCP runs Santa Mira!!!  There will be ED-209s running amok in the streets!!   Okay okay, fine! It's Conal Cochran (Da O' Herlihy of Good Against Evil, MacArthur, The Bionic Woman, Deadly Game, The Last Starfighter, Robocop, Robocop II, VR.5 and The Rat Pack) whose mask factory has saved the whole town's economy...with three masks. A witch, jack-o-lantern and a skull. Variety!!!  Two of the shop owners I just wanted to slap though. Buddy and Betty Guttman who cruelly named their son, Little Buddy. Oh sure Buddy Jr or Buddy the Second is most likely his name but Little Buddy is too close to My Buddy. Probably lock him in the basement when he has an original thought of his own.

This whole time watching this I am thinking, leave the town to the ominous and obvious dark forces. That could just be I am not an action hero with mighty pecs, zingy one liners and infinite ammo. Challis won't be swayed from skulking about as the townsfolk seem blissfully unaware of the disturbingly calm and cold security force dressed in black suits and ties.

Old Man tells Challis his masks will wipe out children on a global level and he will save this planet by replacing them...with androids apparently. Yeah I'm not sure if he thought this through well enough. Could be he is eco-friendly and wants to create a race of beings with solar cells, won't encroach more on wild life and use up natural resources??

With the dark arts, robotic servitors and a kooky curse underway, Challis must save the world in time for the sake of the children?

Okay a few of the obvious points I will no doubt have to make or fans will ream me. The Silver Shamrock theme is completely based on London Bridges children song because it was public domain. Stonehenge druid stones where transported to the mask factory but never explained. One of those, "Eh, the audience will get it or they won't," scenarios and personally that makes it fun.

With effects ranging from animatronic prosthetic, gore gags and creepy crawlers I found this film to be fun, bizarre and really out there. Many in Carpenter's mindset would agree Michael's story was finished at 2 and it was ample time to move on. While others just want a mute stalker slashing teenyboppers, elder men and women with a cold and methodical fashion. You already have that with Jason Vorhees!!!

With a budget estimated at 2.5 million dollars this film still brought in $14.4 million at the box office. Okay it wasn't a huge success but clearly folks didn't crap all over as much as the hype wanted you to believe.

They are sticklers for signing the guest book.

Creature Features Extravaganza: Monster Island

Welcome back readers if I have any left after Missile to the Moon. Hahahahaha!!! I'm kidding. I would think the rape revenge and women in prison movies would have cost me readers instead of 50's B-movie nonsense. Well I sense from the overall vibe that many felt that yesterday's creature feature was simply not enough creature, in spite of rock monsters and giant spider puppet. Seriously, my mom is terrified of spiders and all that damn thing would have done is made her snort and belly laugh. So today we forge ahead to the far away time of 2004, where a contest to party in the Bermuda Triangle courtesy of MTV. This is Monster Island.

Obligatory cheesecake shot!

Our story follows Josh (Daniel Letterie of Camp, Debating Robert Lee, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green), a teen with his head in the clouds and slacker by nature is off to the Bermuda Triangle to party his time away, gathered with friends to rock out with special guest star hostess of this event, Carmen Electra. So yeah the kid is stoked, obviously to those around him. Of course things can always go bad as the dreaded Nick Carter of the Backdoor Boys is also in this event. Yeah and um giant fauna due to atomic mutations and genetic manipulation. Still Nick Carter? Chilling.

Yup the acid kicked in already.

With backstage passes to hang with Carmen, Josh is eyeballed by her security guard/ bodyguard Eightball (C. Ernst Harth of Thir13en Ghosts, Capote, Dead Rising, Scammerhead, Almost Human and Joe Finds Grace). Yup that is his name. No he is not black so that joke is lost. Guessing he is a speed freak perhaps and has a real Bulk of Bulk and Skull via Power Rangers look about him. Jinkies it turns out Carmen has thoughts, opinions and is like a real person. Hey give the lad a break, he's barely 20 or so. He was probably too gobsmack at her looks to kick his brain into high gear. With freak weather happening a giant stop animation bug causes havoc and scoops up Carmen carting her to places unknown.

With partakers fleeing left and right heading for the boats for safety, Josh and a group of devoted Electra fans journey into the unknown jungles to save her. Our party consisting of Maddy (Elizabeth Winstead of Sky High, Final Destination 3, Black Christmas, Death Proof, Live Free or Die Hard, The Thing, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Mercy Street) the gutsy brunette and ex-girlfriend of Josh, Jen C. (Chelan Simmons of It, Special Unit 2, Carrie, Snakehead Terror, Smallville, Chupacabra Terror, Supernatural, Final Destination 3, John Tucker Must Die and Love Under the Stars) the dingy but hopeful aspiring actress/musician, nerdy Andy (Cascy Beddow of Jeremiah, Carrie, The Mall Man, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Life As We Know It, Blade: Trinity and Colony), jock ass and self-centered Chase (Chris Harrison of Smallville, Black Sash, 11:11 and Monster Island)

K, we'll hang later. Peace.

This movie dips back into the 1950s grab bag of effects with scale model miniatures, large scale pneumatic armatures and stop motion capture effects of flying creatures. The film tries to play the tongue in cheek jobs with as much seriousness as allowed. Making their way to the caverns or in this case probably lava tubes, the lot encounters Doctor Harryhausen (the late, great Adam West of Batman, The Adventures of Batman and Robin, Superfriends, Zombie Nightmare, Return Fire, Night of the Kickfighters, Mad About You, Black Scorpion, Johnny Bravo, XIII, The Batman, Family Guy and Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders) a mad scientist responsible for most of the gigantic fauna roaming this island paradise and yes a nod to stop animation/visual effects creator Ray Harryhausen (The Animal World, Earth vs.the Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Strange World of Planet X, The 7^th Voyage of Sinbad, The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, Mysterious Island, Jason and the Argonauts, First Men in the Moon, One Million Years B.C., The Valley of Gwangi and Clash of the Titans).

The script is corny and it's meant to be. Giving love to those old Drive-In movies of the 1950s using the fades and dissolves to models scaled that were super imposed. Almost similar to Mysterious Island in its design.

You get the general vibe that all actors and performers in on this are there for a good time and a paycheck and well it seems just that. Carmen gets to embrace creature feature scream queen status akin to Fay Wray of King Kong or Joan Weldon of Them. It's campy, quirky, sarcastic and overall just damn odd. So naturally I felt a connection to it. Yup beat you all to the punchline, bitches!

Stop-motion animator David Bowes really captures the painstaking effect to make these beasties move along with life-size ant puppeteer George Groove making the ant rigs stomp their way through the kegger.

Yes it is once again slacker/outcast/rebel finds a cause, fights for it risking life and limb and may even get the girl.

Also I am so old I had to look up actress/producer/writer La La Anthony (Gun, Think Like a Man, 1982, Think Like a Man Too, Chi-Raq, Unforgettable and Power) and then it clicked with Unforgettable...but previously I forgot. False advertise, TV series! 

Gahh! You don't get my whimsy, childish behavior, girl!!

Creature Features Extravaganza: Missile to the Moon

Welcome back to the blog, girls and boys! So last week was me editing the crap out of two movie review videos. The links are up if you want to see them. This week I was looking at a wide range of creature features and thought we could enjoy those. And by "we" I mean me sitting through some of these turds, giving a humorous take on them and you enjoying the write up. This time around we hit a black & white from 1958.  With action, drama, scintillating dialogue...won't be in it.   But how about a mad scientist, two cons on the run and a rocket scheduled to go to the moon?  This is Missile to the Moon.

Sorority sisters rat out Cindy for stuffing her bra.

With director Richard Cunha (She Demons, Giant from the Unknown, Frankenstein's Daughter, Girl in Room 13 and When Strangers Meet)at the helm, what could possibly be to mock at?

For starters not only does this film feel like Catwomen of the Moon it actually has some of the props from it.

For more than 10 years, building and perfecting it, Dr. Dirk Green (MichaelWhalen of Wee Willie Winkie, The Poor Little Rich Girl, The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, The Dawn Express, My Three Sons and Sea Hunt) has been working with pre-NASA and the government to build better, superior rockets all the while, building his own rocket as well. Like in his backyard in Utah. No, that was not a joke. The colonel of this mission along with Dirk's assistant Steve (Richard Travis of The Man Who Came to Dinner, Mesa of the Lost Women, Cyborg 2087, Lassie, The Legend of Jesse James and Grand Jury) meet with the good doctor with a face-to-face on the news that the funding for his exploration dreams are getting pulled. Guess you don't want to drop that big of a bomb over the phone.

Hold me closer, tiny Colonel.

Arriving as a retirement dinner, Steve and his fiancee June (Cathy Downs of My Darling Clementine, The Amazing Colossal Man, Perry Mason, Surfside 6, Rawhide and Bat Masterson) feel booze and the dullest conversation possible will ease the tension. The tension that is so thick a f*cking lightsaber couldn't cut through it.   Meanwhile two cons have escaped the hoosegow and are looking for a place to hide on the lam.  Naturally Dirk's SPACESHIP isn't guarded, locked up or even inaccessible so those two thinking it was, I don't know maybe a tree fort hide there. Allegedly has an electric fence around it.  Still love they pull back the curtain to Dirk's pad and boom there's the rocket. So adequate engines, fuel, pounds per thrust and no shielding I saw, yeah his house will catch fire the moment of launch. Totally feasible.

With such craftsmanship one could hardly conclude it is a wooden rocket super imposed on a backdrop. Bet you also didn't know that most spaceships have lots of pegboard and flimsy restraints for car batteries as a means of additional electrics. Yeah me either. 

It's clobberin' time!

The sheriff in hot pursuit of these escaped crooks, just asks Dirk if he can look around his pad and is very noncommittal about the giant rocket in his backyard. I mean he had to have attempted some test flights, right? Calculations and preliminary gauging aside, what about the noise and racket of building the damn thing, prepping a launch platform...you know what? Fine, it is totally feasible. What the hell kind of permits would you need for that??!!!

Dirk looks up in the rocket spotting the two hoods and tells the sheriff no one is around. He bribes them with sandwiches, fruits and a few Cokes then tells them they are going into space whether they like it or not. Yeah Green couldn't build a one man rocket so why not make use of these young punks.

Steve and June start looking for Dirk when the pre-flight computer starts blaring, so they go TOWARDS THE BLAST ZONE!!!

Accidentally stowing away, regardless of extra weight, oxygen, fuel and....sorry sorry. TOTALLY FEASIBLE... The five of them are off to the moon. Thankfully they had just enough spacesuits, masks and O2 tanks at the ready. Funny how the moon looks an awful like region for the Vasquez Rocks and of course off to Griffith Park via the Bronson Canyon and the damn caves!!! Why not the 40 Acres in Culver City??!!

Dirk dies from car battery bonking him on the noodle and with his dying words to Steve he hands him this amulet McGuffin to assure them passage. The foolish foursome go and explore with guns. With scrub brush and cacti!!! Dreaded creatures composed of rock proceed to...walk very slowly but threatening our landing party so they proceed to try and drill them...with combustion pistols that has no atmosphere at all. A vacuum one might say. TOTALLY FEASIBLE!!!

Narrowly escaping the incredibly slow moving creatures our heroes head for the caves. Deep in this labyrinth of bat poop is an oxygenated area of the moon inhabited only by women. Con 1 and 2 start falling for the moon girls almost immediately. That's called being horny.

We need about 4,000 gallons of peppermint oil STAT!!!

So the queen mucky muck wants her space broads shipped to Earth and save their culture, blah blah blah. Oh did I mention diamonds just plentiful on the moon? Solves NASA's budget right there. Methinks Armstrong skipped that detail. Con 2 wants the diamonds and makes creeper eyes at all the girls. Seriously, this cat is a thug. This was shot in the seventies it would be Space exploration exploitation and his character would have raped more than half of the girls.

The plot is more thinly veiled than the moon girls, its subplots go really nowhere and ultimately no goal aside from get back home is even made. Also the killer spider puppet in this bit of nonsense is leftover from the 1955 Tarantula.

So good vs evil, Earth Men made mindless by hormones. Yeah there is no real redeeming value to this flick at all. An upside is Rifftrax via Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett of Mystery Science Theater 3000 made it bearable to watch and the riffs are damn funny.

Hey Lonnie, your balls hurt with your pants hiked up too?

Rotten Reelz Reviews Audio Review: Friday the 13th Part 2

Yeah, yeah.  I'll write something next week.   In the mean time, being Friday the 13th,  I present you a an audio review of Friday the 13th Part 2 and yes I swear I will work on some reviews of the written variety next week.   Now watch this and have fun!

Rotten Reelz Reviews Audio Review # 42: Vampire Journals

As a request I look into more Ted Nicolau movies, I made this review and who knows?  Perhaps I will do some more Subspecies.   It is entirely possible.  Vampire Journals is up and running, awaiting your peepers, comments and queries.   Have fun!

Rotten Reelz Reviews Audio Review #41: George Romero's Land of the Dead

Hey gang!  I screwed up again and forgot to put the review on here.   My apologies.

As always, the link is up and sorry again about that.   Stay tuned!  I will be posting a review on Vampire Journals as well.

Women in Prison...Again: The Concrete Jungle

Hiya guys and gals and welcome back to the week. Yup more Women in Prison films..whoopie...Goldberg. So shocking an innocent girl gets jailed in prison of a drug offense carrying decent weight worth of cocaine. Yeah color me shocked that they threw the book at her. 

 This is The Concrete Jungle.

Your gun is digging into my  hip.

With a lovely skiing holiday coming to an end, Elizabeth (Tracey Bregman of The Funny Farm, Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, Happy Birthday to Me, The Bold and the Beautiful, Sex & Mrs. X, Spyder Games and Low Lifes) is head over heels for her swell guy, Danny (Peter Brown of Lawnman, Laredo, One Life to Live, Loving, JAG, The Wedding Planner, Hell to Pay and Three Bad Men). Well he asks of Liz just one favor. To make sure his skis make it back into the country with no issues. Given how much flake is riding in those skis, Danny convinces her that the cops would never look twice at such a pretty, innocent girl and it will only be this one time. No truer words were spoken as the cops snag her at the airport with skis in hand. Rather than working with the kid and seeing if she is part of an outfit or maybe working for Mr. Big they just toss her springy ass into jail. Now that is a lazy cop and justice system. You could have actually tracked her whereabouts and cross-referenced with Interpol but nah, much easier to lob a kid into the jug.

Methinks she may have been in too long.

Well you know the score. The warden reads her the riot act and tells her to not rock the boat. Warden Fletcher(Jill St. John of The Lost World, Tony Rome, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Diamonds Are Forever, Out There, The Player, The Trip and Northpole) tolerates no insubordination but has to keep wary of the prison's alpha, Cat (Barbara Luna of Ship of Fools, Star Trek Mirror, Mirror episode, The Devil at 4 o' Clock, Hunter, Dragnet, Mission: Impossible and The Sandra West Diaries) a tough as nails yet easy on the eyes hellion who gets what she wants or who she wants. The coke deals go down through the prison and on to the streets. Cat blurts this out trying to nail Elizabeth that even the Warden is bought and paid for.

Yes, I am a Bond girl.

None of this can be proved as there is no paperwork, trail or any direct evidence proving her hand is in the cookie jar. Elizabeth volunteers to get her on tape, has to fend off guards sodomizing her, convicts trying to jump her or kill her and justice seeming far far away.

With the evidence piled up, no one listening to her, Elizabeth has to get tough. Yeah we have the cliche' rapey guards, the prison doctor with a heart of gold and multiple bunk and shower scenes. WooOoO something new there. Reminiscent of Chained Heat but not as well scripted, our film has all the tropes of the lesbians in jail, forced bisexuality, monstrous guards and hosing all the girls down during a riot.

Will Danny get pinched? Will the Warden face incarceration herself? Can the system be fixed?

Budweiser and cocaine: Breakfast of Sleazebags.

Now considering the subgenre, the acting is decent, the scenes are shot very well but the subject matter pisses me off to no end. How many of the same film has to be made over and over? Technically you could say that about every genre out there but for crying out loud, people.

Okay, rant over. You actually feel Elizabeth's desperation for survival, the villains are a bit over the top but having had previous examples of this, that fits the film well. Directed by Tom DeSimone (Chatterbox!, Reform School Girls, Hell Night, The Big Easy, Dark Justice and Swamp Thing) on a budget of 700k, this smut fest brought in over 11 million so yeah you can say it is successful. Simple formula of good girl stuck in a madhouse of bad girls and a corrupt system is easy enough to produce. I guess I could put this up there with Caged Fury and Chained Heat but not sure if that is the bar you need.  Incidentally no trailer due to I couldn't find one Safe For Work and others under 18.

Damn, that is a serious stare down.

Women in Prison...Again: Women in Cages

Welcome back to Women in Prison...Again Week. Again I apologize to those not thrilled with how this week will unfurl and it is hard to get around such but one must make do. Innuendos too subtle? Well today I found a Corman production in the Philippines were young innocent girls are being sold on the black market sex slave trade. Tasteful, I know. Hey you didn't have to sit through it. This is Women in Cages.

CATFIGHT!!!!

Man, the title just screams sexist piggies at work, doesn't it? Our story follows Carol "Jeff" Jefferies (Jennifer Gan of In Like Flint, Love, American Style, Nichols, Ironside, Naked Angels, Hello, Dollly and The Virginian) as she takes the fall for her boyfriend's criminal schemes on board his ship consisting of prostitution, gambling and smack trade (heroine for you, suckas). With the heat on his ass, Rudy (Charlie Davao of Bingbong: The Vincent Crisologo Story, Zhi fa wei long, Lethal Panther 2, Rosalinda, Darna and May bukas pa) hides almost a kilo of snow in Jeff's purse. Yeah who doesn't walk around town with that much dope in their purse?

Tossed in this hellhole filled with hellcats, Jeff of course is introduced to Alabama (Not Hot Pocket, Shawn but Pam Grier of The Big Bird Cage, Hit Man, Black Mama White Mama, Coffy, The Arena, Scream Blacula Scream, Foxy Brown, Sheba, Baby, Jackie Brown and Fortress 2) a lesbian torturous sadist of a prison guard...lesbian sadist? Anyway, she takes no crap, keeps girls in line and rewards those that tow the line.

Mmm, Pantene did wonders for your hair.

Seeing Rudy left her holding the bag and the other prisoners hold her in ill-regard, Jeff starts formulating a plan of escape. Stokes (Roberta Collins of The Big Doll House, Women in Cages, Caged Heat, Hardbodies, Hardbodies 2, School Spirit and Death Wish II), a smack addict thinks she can plot against Jeff for more smack. Reason and logic are probably not a heroin addict's best friend. Theresa (Sofia Moran of Playpen, Women in Cages, Batman and Robin (1972), The Smugglers, Bandolera, Secret Witness and Kingpin) is in bed with Alabama, in that she's her regular Saturday Night Thang...until they have a falling out. Guess she was the bad wife.

I'm confused. Her credit is head guard of the prison and yet Pam's role is almost the warden. So the formula of course is wrongly accused girls laboring in the fields, cat fights galore, load of showering and yup TORTURE! Pam has her own dungeon a.k.a. The Playpen. Less dom and more Spanish Inquisition though. These girls aren't walking away with a light paddling. I did start laughing realizing Pam owns her white girls, whipping them and making them slave in the hot sun. I'm weird that way.

The porn parody of The Great Escape is hard to follow.

Typical Grindhouse double feature with Emanuelle Escapes Hell you would almost wager. Granted, Emanuelle Escapes Hell came out in 1982 but my point remains.

With rough terrain, dense jungle and God only knows what lurks in the waters, Theresa, Jeff, Stokes and Sandy (Judy Brown of The Big Doll House, Threesome, A Woman for all Men, Toxic Zombies and House Calls) scheme to make their escape. Theresa guiding them tells the girls they can get help on the outside and hightail it outta there.

With violence and jiggly titties galore the men folk should be sated. Ladies, I have no idea what possible interest this film is for you...at all. I feel like I need a shower just from watching this sleazy, dismal hodge podge of sex and violence. It's grim and somber, our little flick and I really have no redeeming value for it. Um...the camera work was impressive.

Why are they in The Crimson Executioner's basement?

Women in Prison...Again: Caged Fury

And we are back big, bold and brassy. Welcome back to the blog folks and some of you...I won't be talking to. As it has been a request to do more Women in Prison flicks I am begrudgingly doing just that. Today's opus contains inmates being forced to wear lingerie and pass "favors" to the warden for early parole options. No board committee, apparently you just get freaky and your sentence gets lightened. This is Caged Fury.

Breasts? er um I mean Beer?

Shot in the Alabama Hills in Lone Pine California, hive of scum and villainy to the prisoners is never seen to the outside world what lengths the girls must go to survive. One girl can't take it any longer and somehow dug a way into the air ducts that has more room in it than Bruce Willis got in Die Hard. Seriously he could have had a ruck sack, a rifle, canteen and sidearms traipsing through this.

Blonde Escapee (Kascha of Hawaii Vice 2 through 8, Backdoor to Hollywood 6 and 7, Nina's Toys and Boys, Kascha's Days and Nights, Fade to Black, Girls of the Double D 5 and 8) you would think they could have given her character a name, dammit. So rather than alerting this escape, the poonhound higher ranking guard Spyder (Gregory Cummins of Cliffhanger, Last of the Dogmen, Evil Eye, The Italian Job, Bones, NCIS: Los Angeles and Bosch) slaps the guard assigned to watch the cellblock and pops a straight razor to slash his throat. Sensitivity training is coming your way, bubba.

Head Guard (Paul L. Smith of Popeye, Pieces, Dune, Midnight Express, Red Sonja, , Crossing the Line, Desert Kickboxer and Maverick) tends to Blonde Escapee and teaches the girls a lesson in why it's good to fall in line. He may also need to attend a sensitivity training class, or y'know be shot. Whichever works best.

Uh oh Bluto looks horny! Duck and cover!!

We pan shoot around a large ranch area meeting the Collins family. With Kathie (Roxanna Michaels of The Newlydeads, Baja, Glitch!, Playboy: Tales of Erotic Fantasies, David and Lola and Bikini Seasons 2) as her little sister Tracey (Elena Sahagun of Marked for Death, Stigmata, 44, Teenage Exorcist, Firetrap, Tremors 3: Back to Perfection and Magic Man) embarks to move out of the house to L.A. away from that awful, controlling Dad (Michael Parks of Walker, Texas Ranger, From Dusk Till Dawn, Wicked, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Kill Bill: Vol.2, Deathproof, Planet Terror, Street Poet, Red State and Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair). Oh Dad, you're just too old to get this free spirit. Tee hee. Well Dad is handling this as best as he can but he does raise his concern of bad people doing bad things.

A hitchhiker Rhonda (April Dawn Dollarhide of Party Favors, Caged Fury and Dark Vengeance a.k.a. Warforce 3000) as to bail on her ride given he is trying to jump her. She and Tracey make their way to L.A. without a montage. Bit of a let down. Expected some tossing of Cheese Puffs or soda guzzling and a sing along with the songs on the radio but I move on.

Yeah yeah I know. Who are these people aside from Michael Park? What is the point of the film? Will there be shower scenes and so on and so forth. Well relax a damn minute and I will clue you in.

Off to the strip for some lukewarm rock, jiggling and debauchery. God I sound like an old man as I write this but that band was limp. Even Fred Durst would have walked. Meanwhile ex-stuntman Victor (Erik Estrada of ChiPs, Guns, The Modern Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Shattered Dreams, The Bold and the Beautiful, Chupacabra vs. The Alamo and Viturous) is looking to get a creep off of a buddy of his.

The night comes to a crashing halt as the bar bust ends in a fist fight via Victor and his buddy with action mullet Dirk (creator of American Combat Karate and martial artist Richard Barathy) trash the Rainbow Room from the looks of it.

Lulu (Janine Lindemulder of Moving Target, Lauderdale, Caged Fury, Hidden Obsessions, The Coven, Blonde Justice,Killer Looks, Way of the Dragon and Pirates) a hard rocking club girl having a good old time and was a hand in the bar fight herself.

Ewww.  Rat poop. Grody.

This "shoots" set up are shockingly enough involve around porn. Go figure. It seemed more on the up in up. The girls get scooped up due to the porn kingpin was tired of their bitching and whining so off to the gray bar hotel. The prosecution breezes through the charges claiming Tracey was a prostitute offering herself and...this is really blown out of proportion. The hearing is flashing after sentence so you know that went well.

The Warden Sybil (Mindi Miller of Hell Up in Harlem, Body Double, Amazons and Deadly Embrace)suffers no fools, gives the lay of the land (PUN INTENDED!) and tells the new inmates of the chores they can do to lighten their sentence.

Detectives Stoner (character actor extraordinaire James Hong of Chinatown, Bladerunner, Big Trouble in Little China, Merlin, Wayne's World 2, The Shadow, Mulan, Bladerunner video game, Spawn, Jackie Chan Adventures and RIPD) and Elston (Hugh Farrington of T.J. Hooker, Arizona Heat, Airwolf, The Terminator and Caged Heat) look into Tracey's rushed arrest and there is none on the books. Like she wasn't even charged or processed.

Feeling something's hinky between the jail and the porn kingpin so it's time for a montage??? Nah they just start investigating but hitting the streets and contacts a little rougher.

Will Tracey be locked up indefinitely?? How the hell would a prison get away with this?? And why does Paul Smith speak his lines so softly?

So the crux is young girls goof and get used and abused. Crooked system, crooked guards and warden. Seen it. This is not Chained Heat, folks. Never thought I would be using that as a base of comparison but there it is. The creativity is there but not a lot of follow through. This doesn't feel like the prison isn't being observed and even if it wasn't, um California taxes pay attention if not just the justice system. The warden will have pay for all the lingerie plus her bondage outfits and boy that does show up on a credit card purchase. Not sure the theme is either reform school girls or wayward girls. No real direct distinction.

Is it a thriller or is just an excuse to parade girls around in Fredrick's of Hollywood apparel. Primarily this is a sex slave scenario of millionaires blowing into town, porking away on their dollar and off they go. There is some actual drama between Tracey and Rhonda as they have each others' backs but the tropes are a bit heavy in this one. And the warden is channeling her inner Dyanne Thorne of the Ilsa She-Wolf series. Hell her name is Sybil Thorn which many believe a nod to both Sybil Danning of Chained Heat and Dyanne Thorne of Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.

Exterior shots aside, my God California is some gorgeous country. From mountains, the desert and the forests, you forget how much of this nature beauty is there. Run time is 95 mins normally but there is an 85 min version.

Not my cup of tea but it has an audience somewhere and certainly not the darkest WIP film I have seen.

Critters 3 got kinky.