Author's Note: This is not a new column, per se, it's just what happens when all your articles get shifted over a day one week and you have a thing for alliteration, lol. Anyway, we'll hopefully be back to normal next week, especially as the termite-related work in the front and back is winding down, finally, with only the painting and an additional spraying left.
However, the weather here, as ever, remains unpredictable, so if anything happens in that regard, I'll just do what I did last week and shift things over a day. In other words: shift happens. 😏
Now, onto our main feature...
When is a debut feature not a debut feature? When it's a student film in disguise. Multi-hyphenate Rick Sloane was still a film student at Los Angeles City College when he made Blood Theatre (aka Movie House Massacre) and boy, does it show. He was just a teenager when he wrote the script, and, having already made several shorts, many of which are referenced in the film itself, he decided it was time for something a bit more ambitious. (His referenced shorts include: Clown Whores of Hollywood, Chainsaw Chicks, Amputee Hookers and Nightmare Of The Lost Whores, all of which sound awesome- only the first one crops up in the movie itself via actual footage.)
Knowing he'd never get the permission to make a feature-length film, he simply turned in a ten-page treatment of the script and passed it off as another short, getting the okay to shoot it- and more crucially, borrow the equipment he needed to do it- as a direct result. Using unpaid local talent for the most part- save the one star he could afford, cult actress Mary Woronov- he then set about making his first feature on the sly while he was still in college.
Never really intending it for theatrical release, even Sloane knew the end result was an amateurish mess, which is why he initially credited it to his assistant director, Alice Raley, who happily took the credit when he opted not to, for the film's brief theatrical release. It was later rectified for home video release, after Sloane had a modest hit with the film Hobgoblins.
For the record, it didn't do her much good, but then I can't imagine Sloane thought it would, or probably even Raley herself- though he did continue to work with her for Hobgoblins, which she served as a production assistant on and helped him edit. Haley also appears as one of the "popcorn victims"- aka one of the people that has popcorn thrown in her face by the wily Selena (Joanna Morales, aka Joanna "Foxx").
Rather than be impressed at his moxie, Sloane's professors were brutal, telling him he should have shot it as a short, as there wasn't enough material to sustain a feature in the first place. Well, they weren't entirely wrong, but they weren't entirely right, either, as Sloane managed to land a deal for a theatrical release, anyway, albeit a brief one, since slasher films were still all the rage at the time, and few studio-types turned down the opportunity to make a quick buck from a low budget horror flick.
Critics weren't much kinder, but that's perhaps to be expected. Over the years, the film has acquired a bit of a cult following, thanks to Sloane's then-admittedly inept filmmaking skills, which feature oddball sound effects- including what sounds like a flare going off every time a door is opened- Sloane says he was actually going for a Star Trek sliding door "woosh"- and the cry of a wildcat when several people are attacked; and the trademark bad student film editing, where Sloane holds each scene a beat too long going out of an edit and then again, as he switches to a new scene, making for some hilariously delayed reactions.
The film's cast is also just terrible- save the lone professional of the bunch, Woronov, of course (who is deceptively made to look like the killer on the DVD cover above- she isn't) - and the lead actress bailed on the film 2/3rds of the way through, forcing Sloane to have to reshoot all of her scenes with a different actress (Jenny Cunningham), while another had a Valley Girl-style voice so grating (Morales), that Sloane opted to completely redub her performance with that of another actress!
I've actually had to deal with some of this sort of thing myself and it's no joke- my leading man opted out of my final short project in film school just before we were set to shoot it, and I ended up having to play the role myself, since we were only working with a skeleton crew and no one else could do it on such short notice. Said my professor after viewing the project: "And this is why directors should never act in their own films," lol. 😖
The dialogue is also pretty bad, though Sloane does manage to land the occasional funny bit, notably Woronov's snarky lines and most anything that comes out of Selena's mouth- or rather, doesn't, given that her performance was completely overdubbed.
Whoever delivered her actual lines, though- nice going, as the Foxx-y Morales is undeniably a highlight, as she breaks every rule in the employee handbook, including knocking the popcorn out of filmgoer's hands and into their face, berating the audience at one film in hilariously foul-mouthed fashion, and even flashing her boobs at them! 😲 My kind of girl, lol.
Sloane says they were going for a kind of slasher film as directed by John Waters, which is a great idea, even if the execution here leaves a lot to be desired. Waters did sort of do a couple of films that could be considered slasher-adjacent, including Multiple Maniacs and Serial Mom, both of which are pretty great, but even Waters on his worst day couldn't make anything quite as bad as this. The bad knife "acting" alone is the stuff of bad movie nirvana, as it seems as if everyone concerned has never brandished a knife in their lives.
As to be expected, hardly anyone here, whether the cast or anyone else involved, went on to do much of anything. I've covered star Mary Woronov previously, in my reviews for Seizure and Rock and Roll High School, so you'll excuse me if I keep things short in talking about her again. (Click on the respective links for more, including lots of pics.)
A former model-turned-actress, Woronov made her name as part of artist Andy Warhol's so-called "Factory," and starred in several of his films, notably Chelsea Girls. In the early 70's, she married filmmaker Theodore Gershuny. Though the marriage was short-lived, the two made several memorable movies together, including Sugar Cookies and the proto-slasher Silent Night, Bloody Night, which featured a lot of "Factory" alum in the cast.
However, her best-known cohort was undeniably writer/director/actor Paul Bartel, with whom she made any number of cult favorites, including Death Race 2000, Cannonball and Eating Raoul, the film she was coming off of making when she did Blood Theatre. She's also worked with everyone from Joe Dante (Hollywood Boulevard) to Cheech & Chong (Get Out of My Room) to Jim Wynorski (Chopping Mall) to Warren Beatty (Dick Tracy) to Gregg Araki (The Living End) and Rob Zombie (The Devil's Rejects).
One thing I've always loved about Woronov was the fact that she gives her all to whatever project she does, even those with the lowest of budgets- and even lower evidence of talent. Indeed, she even attended a screening of this film at the New Beverly (aka Quentin Tarantino's theatre) and participated in a Q&A afterwards, and this is hardly one of her best efforts.
You can see excerpts of said Q&A, which also features Sloane, along with a commentary track by Sloane on the recent Blu-Ray/DVD release from Vinegar Syndrome, which also features a new transfer of the film, and other goodies. I still can't believe we're living in a world in which a film like this gets the deluxe treatment on home video, but here we are. And it's kind of awesome, really.
The only other really notable cast member is David Millbern, who plays the younger version of the theatre owner. Your guess is as good as mine as to why he ages later on- maybe it's not actually a ghost and he survived the fire? Or more likely, the actor who played the younger version wasn't available for the rest of the shoot, lol. Either way, Millbern went on to bigger and better things, including being nominated for an Emmy for his work as a producer.
Horror, sci-fi and fantasy fans probably recognize him best from movies like Sorceress, Slumber Party Massacre, Midnight Confessions, Amanda & The Alien, Dead Weekend, Cyberella: Forbidden Passions, Menno's Mind (with Campbells Billy and Bruce), Doomsday Rock, Storm Chasers: Revenge of the Twister, Sweetheart Murders, Error in Judgment, Nostradamus, Red Team, Sanctimony, 2001: A Space Travesty, Deep Freeze, A Light in the Forest, Zolar, Chupacabra Terror, Fatal Reunion, Ice Spiders, Murder Dot Com, Something Evil Comes, The Nurse and Hush Up Sweet Charlotte.
Star Jenny Cunningham was in the pre-Empire Records comedy Record City and was the lead in a movie called Christiana, which featured a young Liam Neeson (the trailer's worth watching to see him dressed as a pilgrim!); Andrew Cofrin, who played Adrian, was in Monster in the Closet and Over Exposure; Cynthia Hartline, who played Jamie, was in Scalps and Biohazard; Joni Barnes, who played Dee Dee, was in Nights of Terror- after that, all of them were done.
The rest are strictly one-and-done, save Carl Bressler, who crops up as a pimp in one brief scene- he's been in quite a few flicks, including Avenging Angel, Arthur 2, Doppelganger, The Usual Suspects, The Californians and Frat Party. I don't think he even has a line here, though. Probably for the best, given his outfit, which features a feathered cap! (One of the prostitutes is Joanna Morales, BTW- she has her back to the camera, so as to hide her identity.)
Blood Theatre is absolutely ridiculous. The plot makes no sense- if the theatre was basically burnt down, why is it basically intact and looks like nothing happened years later, dave a few cobwebs? Why does the manager basically give Selena and Darcy a promotion when they are, like, the worst employees ever? Yes, Miss Blackwell does slap Selena at one point- well deserved, I might add- but, as she says, the fake makeup bruise Selena applies to make it look like she was abused on the job is on the wrong side of her face!
Obviously, Sloane didn't quite get the coverage he needed for certain scenes, but that doesn't explain all the inconsistencies in general, and like I said, that editing is hilariously inept, directly landing the film firmly in Ed Wood territory. And that score, also by Sloane, sounds like it was recorded on a Casio in demo mode, which doesn't help matters.
That said, Sloane fully owns up to the fact that it's a terrible movie, and regularly embraces it in its awful-ness in interviews and the video commentary, and such honestly is admittedly refreshing, especially in an era in which B-Movie filmmakers doing these sorts of things in retrospect tend to rewrite history and act as if they made the Citizen Kane of B-Movies- just have a listen to the hilarious commentary for the movie Jack-O, for a great example of such revisionist history.
Not so with Sloane. He's a filmmaker that knows he made a stinker, but is able to look back and laugh at it for what it was, and that's pretty cool. Ditto Woronov, for that matter. And if you like a good bad movie, then you, too, will be in for treat with this perfectly horrendous flick. Even at only 75 minutes, it drags a bit, but there's enough terrible stuff here to keep you entertained.
And the deaths, though often horribly executed, are often a lot of fun, notably the death by popcorn machine, the decapitation, and the amusing fire scene at the beginning, where the extras can't even run away right and keep bumping directly into each other!
It's thoroughly ridiculous throughout the entire film, and I just loved it. If you like bad movies, you probably will, too. By all means, check it out, but only if you like this sort of thing, because whoo boy, is it pretty terrible. In this case, that's a compliment, though. 😂
If you grew up in the 80's or 90's, and you had access to HBO or, in particular, its sister channel Cinemax- affectionately known as "Skinemax" among those in the know, for its preponderance of movies with copious nudity and sex- then, even if you don't know the name Andy Sidaris, you probably know his work, which was in heavy rotation on TV during that time.
Sidaris started out as a sports guy, directing years of coverage of football, basketball and other such sporting events. He even won an Emmy for his efforts directing footage of the Olympics in 1968, and was perhaps best-known as the primary director for ABC's Wide World of Sports, a position he held for some 25 years. He also got some notice for pioneering the so-called "honey shot," aka spotlighting pretty girls on the field (as in cheerleaders) and off (those in the stands watching).
Knowing that, it makes perfect sense that once Sidaris turned his attention to proper filmmaking, he would make the kind of films he did. Amongst fans, they were known as "Triple B" movies, which stood for, depending who you asked, either "Bullets, Bombs and Babes" or, more commonly among the Skinemax contingent, "Bullets, Bombs and Boobs." If you tuned into a Sedaris film, then chances were you were getting a solid amount of all three, and you typically wouldn't have to wait long, either.
Critics dubbed his stuff trash and softcore pornography- which is fair- but Sedaris also knew exactly what he was doing and knew how to deliver the goods to a certain crowd, so few of his fans were complaining about the content of his films beyond said critics. Basically, if you're one of my younger readers, he was like Michael Bay, if he actually had the courage of his convictions. Sedaris was basically Russ Meyer by way of 70's-era Roger Corman, in that you knew exactly what you were going to get with his films going in.
Sedaris first proper feature film, after the racing documentary The Racing Scene, was 1973's Stacey, co-funded by Corman and Sidaris himself. Though crudely done, it set the stage for what was to come, establishing the formula right off the bat that would make his work a late-night cable staple for well over a decade, down to starring a Playboy Playmate in the lead (Anne Randall), playing an action-oriented role traditionally reserved for men. In Sidaris' world, women were the bad-asses, long before that was par for the course.
He honed his craft knocking out dramatic TV content for shows like Kojak and The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, before returning to filmmaking in 1979 with Seven, a far better, slicker film that showed how much he'd learned over the intervening years. This film also introduced some of his more oddball trademarks, such as offing bad guys in unique, unpredictable ways that were genuinely surprising and left-of-center.
Encouraged by his modest box office success, Sidaris went into filmmaking full-time in the mid-80's, which is when he started churning out the films that would make his name in earnest. Malibu Express, released in 1985, was the first in what became known as his "Triple B" series, sometimes also known as "L.E.T.H.A.L. Ladies." (Not sure what the "LETHAL" part is supposed to stand for. Anybody else?)
Sidaris would go onto to make twelve such films, with his wife Arlene T. Sidaris serving as his producer. All of his flicks have their respective followers, but it's the first four: Malibu Express, Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Picasso Trigger and Savage Beach- that he is arguably best-known for overall. All four films were in heavy rotation on cable during the late-80's-to-the-mid-90's, so if you were one of those guys (or same sex-leaning girls) that were prone to watching films that featured the tell-tale "N" (for nudity), "SC" or "SSC" (for sexual content, or the jackpot: strong sexual content) in the viewer's guides, then you almost certainly saw at least one of these, if not every one.
Other Sedaris films included: Guns, Do or Die, Hard Hunted, Fit to Kill (another popular one), Enemy Gold, The Dallas Connection, Day of the Warrior and L.E.T.H.A.L. Ladies: Return to Savage Beach, the sequel to Warrior and Sidaris' final film. After that, he retired in the late 90's and sadly passed away from throat cancer in 2007. Some of you might also remember his work being prominently featured on episodes of The Movie Channel's Joe-Bob's Drive-In Theater, circa '93-'95, as hosted by the legendary John "Joe Bob Briggs" Bloom, one of the few movie critics that "got it."
Malibu Express is essentially a reworking of his prior film, Stacey, only this time around he actually does make the lead a man: Darby Hinton plays private investigator Cody Abilene, a former Texan-turned-Californian with an eye for the ladies that sometimes gets him into hot water. The titular Malibu would be the beach of the same name, and the Malibu Express the name of the boat he resides on.
Amusingly, Sidaris opts to make his hero often less than heroic- he can't shoot a gun to save his life, despite toting one around that's the size of a small cannon; he loses several car races to these ridiculous rednecks that are constantly challenging him, save the last one (and he uses his father's souped-up car to pull it off, giving him an unfair advantage); he has his ass basically handed to him in the one big fight he gets into, and he doesn't even technically solve the case he's hired to until after he's jailed the wrong person and the culprit gets away scot-free! You had one job, Abilene!
Luckily, he's surrounded by a near-constant barrage of babes that are much more competent and often end up doing the lion's share of the work for him. For instance, he gets into multiple shoot-outs with rando bad guys, in which he misses his targets with astonishing regularity, forcing his cop girlfriend, Beverly (Lori Sutton) to literally constantly push him out of the way so that she can actually get the job done!
Granted, a lot of these ladies are mostly there for eye-candy purposes, but they certainly seem game for the job, as the nudity is wall-to-wall and most of them seem happy to do it. Understandable, being as how at least four of them are Playboy Playmates- and even identified as such in the hilariously retro-computer graphics opening credits.
The ladies in question are as follows: Kimberly McArthur (Faye), Barbara Edwards (May), Lorraine Michaels (Liza Chamberlain), and Lynda Wiesmeier (June Khnockers). Note the last name of Wiesmeier's character, which, naturally, is a running gag in the movie, though perhaps not quite in the way you think. (The "H" part is the gag, not the fact that she has considerable ones.)
Be all that as it may, like I said, most of these women are more competent at their respective jobs than Cody, who ceases to notice many of them double-crossing him or doing things behind his back until it's already too late to stop them- and someone even gets shot on his watch in the house he's living in for most of the film, so he's not very good at protecting those in danger, either.
To be fair, though, the plot is so convoluted and crazy, it's understandable that Cody doesn't figure it out until the very end- there's even a lifelike, Mission Impossible-style mask involved, and yes, a self-destructing cassette tape, and basically, the culprit gives themselves up, but only after leaving town and it's too late to do anything about it. So Cody really doesn't solve anything beyond following the clue trail the perpetrator left behind, just in case he didn't figure it out and someone else went down for a crime they didn't commit- which is indeed almost the case.
The cast is mostly made up of unknowns, but a few have some modest credits to their name worth mentioning. Leading man Darby Hinton was a child star best-known for playing Daniel Boone's son on NBC's popular Fess Parker-starring incarnation of the famed character. He was in 110 episodes of the popular series, which ran from 1964-1970.
He was mostly a TV actor until the mid-70's, at which point he started doing more movies in his twenties, beginning with a supporting role in 1974's The Treasure of Jamaica Reef (aka Evil in the Deep), alongside a young Cheryl Ladd, footballer Rosey Grier and his Malibu co-star Art Metrano.
Other notable films include: Mr. Sycamore (about a man who "decides" he'd rather be a tree!), Black Oak Conspiracy, Hi-Riders, Goodbye Franklin High, Angels' Brigade (aka Angels' Revenge), Do It in the Dirt, The Return, Without Warning (loved that one as a kid), Firecracker (see review here), Wacko, Dark Future, Stargames, They Crawl, Just for Kicks (with the Sprouse twins) and Wild Faith. He also continued to do lots of guest shots on TV throughout the 80's, 90's and 2000's.
Perhaps the movie's biggest name, however, at least if you regularly watched movies like this in the 70's and 80's, is undeniably co-star Sybil Danning, who gives new meaning to "supporting actress." Let's put it this way- that woman knows how to fill out a dress... and a bikini... and well, anything else, really. And I'm pretty sure they're the real deal, too, which is more than one can say for a lot of Playmates after a certain point- the 80's being said point.
Being as how Danning had been on the scene long before such things were common, I'm guessing she didn't have any help in that department. Russ Meyer would have loved her. Alas, he was done with filmmaking by the late 70's, so he never quite had the opportunity, which is a damn shame. At the very least, he was probably well aware of her- weren't we all, in terms of cult movie fans?
Born in Austria, Danning naturally started out making films in the region, though she did crop up in the early Robert DeNiro flick The Swap (aka Sam's Song) way back in 1969. Most of her early work was of the sexploitation variety, including several of the popular "Sex Report" series: the most popular were the "Schoolgirl Report" films, which spawned thirteen films in all (!) - Danning was in some of the spin-offs, including one of the "Housewife Report" films and one of the "Husband Report" films.
However, she did appear in one popular German action/fantasy flick, The Long Swift Sword of Siegfried (aka The Lustful Barbarian), which pointed the way towards her more successful endeavors in the future. She also fared well in the popular giallo films of the 70's, including Eye in the Labyrinth and the seminal The Red Queen Kills Seven Times.
But it was her turns in the more mainstream films Bluebeard and The Four Musketeers (and its sequel) that got her noticed in earnest in America, and she worked steadily after that in both Europe and the States, albeit for the most part as the requisite eye candy in a lot of films. Her credits during this period include: Operation Thunderbolt, Crossed Swords, The Concorde: Airport '79, Meteor, The Man with Bogart's Face, Separate Ways and How to Beat the High Cost of Living.
That said, it was undeniably her work in B-movies that she is best remembered for. Roger Corman cast her in his would-be sci-fi epic Battle Beyond the Stars, which led to even more memorable B-movie roles, such as in the classic Chained Heat, as well as films like Nightkill, Julie Darling, Hercules (with Lou Ferrigno), They're Playing with Fire (really dug that one as a kid), Jungle Warriors, The Panther Squad, Howling II, Young Lady Chatterley II (another Skinemax fave), Private Passions, The Tomb, the essential Reform School Girls (with punk rocker Wendy O. Williams, of the Plasmatics), Warrior Queen, Amazon Women on the Moon, The Phantom Empire, L.A. Bounty, Virus X and cameos in Rob Zombie's Halloween and his "Werewolf Women of the SS" faux trailer in Grindhouse. She's a freaking legend in my book.
Finally, there's character actor Art Metrano, a New York-based thespian known for playing bumbling comedic types, perhaps best-known as Mauser in the Police Academy series. His role here is no different- he's almost as incompetent as a villain as Cody is as a hero, but Metrano is so amusingly over-the-top, it's hard not to laugh at him.
Metrano's been a regular on TV since the early 60's, so chances are, if you're a certain age, you've seen him in something, whether it's Bewitched, Ironside, Baretta, L.A. Law, Party of Five or any number of guest shots on practically any popular show you can name.
Movie credits include: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, They Only Kill Their Masters, Slaughter's Big Rip-Off, Dirty O'Neil, Warhead, Matilda (the one with the kangaroo, not the Roald Dahl one), Sidaris' Seven, Cheaper to Keep Her, Going Ape!, History of the World: Part One, Breathless, Teachers, Beverly Hills Body Snatchers, Real Men Don't Eat Gummi Bears (great title!), Toys, Murder in Mind, How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Good Advice.
Aside from a tongue-in-cheek "cameo" (via the television) by Regis and Joy Philbin, who are indeed listed in the credits, most of the cast were only in a small handful of films, if that, but a few have credits worth a mention, I suppose. Let's start with the Playmates.
Kimberly McArthur (Faye, one the "girls next door") was in the medical movie spoof Young Doctors in Love, Easy Money (where she played another sexy "girl next door"), the TV-miniseries Elvis and Me and the TV soap Santa Barbara, but she is probably best-known to genre fans for her role in the camp-tastic Slumber Party Massacre II.
The other "girl next door," May, is played by Barbara Edwards, who wasn't just a monthly Playmate, she was Playmate of the Year in 1984. As such, she did loads of Playboy home videos, much more so than McArthur. She made her acting debut on an episode of the show Matt Houston and had a recurring role on The New Mike Hammer.
Malibu Express was her film debut, and she followed that up with a small role in Terminal Entry, another film dealing with computers and foreign terrorists; and a bigger role in the Bruce Greenwood/Vanessa Angel rom-com, Another Chance. Sadly, that was it for her acting career after that.
Lorraine Michaels, who played the sultry Liza Chamberlain, was born in England, and her father was in the Air Force, so she moved around a lot- living in no less than 22 states in America! She was working as a bank teller when a Playmate recommended her to try out for Playboy, where she became Playmate of the month in April of '81.
A brief acting career followed, as she made her debut in, appropriately enough, the Playboy-centric Star 80 (though the picture it paints isn't a rosy one, if you've seen the film). Other films include: Business as Usual, Distant Voices Still Lives and B.O.R.N.
Finally, there's the buxom Lynda Wiesmeier, as the goofily-named June Khnockers. A Playmate in July of '82, she had the most successful acting career of the bunch, with roles in movies like: Evil Town, Tricks of the Trade (with a young, pre-Prince Patty "Apollonia" Kotero), American Pop, Joysticks, Private School (with Phoebe Cates and Betsy Russell- another Skinemax fave), Preppies, Avenging Angel, Wheels of Fire, Touch and Go, Real Genius and Teen Wolf.
Shelley Taylor Morgan, who played Anita Chamberlain, the blonde troublemaker of the family, also had a solid acting career, appearing in the TV Movie Marilyn: The Untold Story, The Sword & The Sorcerer, My Tutor, Scarface, Cross My Heart and the TV shows Hunter and Tales from the Crypt. However, her main claim to fame is her turn on the long-running soap General Hospital, where she played Lorena Sharp for several years.
If the ill-fated tough guy Shane looks familiar, that's because Brett Baxter Clark was all over 80's cinema, including turns in Night Shift, Double Exposure, Bachelor Party, Young Lady Chatterley II (also with Sybil Danning), Alien Warrior, Last Resort, Off the Mark, Eye of the Eagle, Delta Force Commando, Cobra Mission 2 and the immortal Teen Witch. He continued to work through the 90's in lesser-known projects, but did work with Sidaris again in Fit to Kill in 1993. He retired from acting in the early 2000's.
Also worth a mention are Lori Sutton, who played Cody's police love interest and often saved his bacon in the clutch, and was in History of the World: Part One, Looker, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Up the Creek, A Polish Vampire in Burbank and Night Patrol; and Robyn Hilton, who played the leggy Maid Marian, had a memorable bit in Blazing Saddles as Mel Brooks' red-headed lady-friend, and was in The Single Girls (see review here), Those Mad, Mad Moviemakers, Video Vixens and Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze.
And fun fact: there's a reason Michael A. Andrews- who played the cross-dressing Stuart Chamberlain that is tougher than he looks- was so convincing in his role: turns out he was a professional drag queen, and even won a competition as such in 1977! (Yep, that's him in BOTH pics above.) He also crops up in Sidaris' Hard Ticket to Hawaii, and was in the films Avenging Angel, Talking Walls (also with Sybil Danning) and Surrender, with Sally Field.
While the film does have some unfortunately casual homophobia and the occasional racist commentary from the bad guys, it's made clear that it's the bad guys who feel that way, and that, as aforementioned, the actual gay character may be effeminate, but he's not above standing up to the tough guys- and even Cody mentions he's got great legs! To Sedaris' credit, he also has some racy shots of the fellas scattered throughout the film, though it's obvious where his real attention lies. Still, points for trying, at a time when such things were a bit iffy.
Malibu Express is admittedly pretty ridiculous at times, but it's also a film that knows exactly what it is. I like that it's all pretty tongue-in-cheek, from the wonky old-school computer graphics that open the film and the painfully 80's sequence that follows (Cody rolls up in a red DeLorean, with a cowboy hat, sunglasses and a 70's porn-tastic moustache, with a cowhide-covered suitcase containing a massive Dirty Harry-style gun in hand- later on, he even quotes the film), to the genuinely surprising denouement, which is better thought-out than it really needed to be.
Granted, it won't win any awards for subtlety, but then, it's not trying to, really. Sidaris packs on the T&A and the action, and there's rarely a dull moment, with the helicopter/car chase a definite highlight. Yes, there's some stereotypical characters and most of the girls are only there as eye candy, but such was the case for a lot of 80's films. You can either deal with it, or watch something else. If you're looking for political correctness, this is definitely not the place. As they say, it was a different time.
But having grown up watching a lot of this stuff, it was really fun revisiting it for the first time in many a moon. It really brought me back to my childhood, where I would absolutely watch stuff solely for the nudity, and, to a lesser extent, the action. That it managed to hold up, in spite of my having grown up since then, and actual porn being readily available online at any given moment, is a testament to Sidaris' inherent talents as a filmmaker that knew how to deliver the goods to a certain crowd. You know who you are- and I'm clearly still one of them! 😜😉
By all means, check this one out, and don't be surprised if I end up reviewing some more of Sidaris' work in the not-so-distant future- I have the DVD box set, after all, which I highly recommend. It's called "Guns, Girls and G-Strings," which seems about right, and contains a whopping twelve films. His films are also available on Blu-Ray as well. If you like this, you'll definitely dig the set as well. 😃
