Don’t let the low rating fool you; this film isn’t a total wash. It’s close, but there are a few rays of sunshine in an otherwise dismal piece of work. Let’s start with the positive.
The movie opens with a topless female fire dancer doing her thing under the credits. Topless females are always a nice touch in a horror/exploitation film, and there’s more nudity where that came from. Some of the sex is fairly explicit for this type of film, too. To add to that, the fairly explicit sex is all girl on girl. Again, a nice touch. That said, it’s not a porno, so there should be more to it … and there is. It’s just not very good.
If you decide to see the film solely for the naked ladies, here’s what you’ll have to sit through: poor acting; improbable sets and characters; a writer who has little sense of police procedures; intentionally funny moments that aren’t funny and unintentionally funny moments that are distracting; special effects, which (thankfully) are not computer generated, but are a step back to the days of “Blood Feast” (and the camera should never linger on bad special effects as it draws attention to that which you cannot do); out-of-sync sound, which may have been on purpose in spots; ridiculous (yet kind of inventive) murders; and an ending so abrupt you’ll be shaking your head in disbelief. That means that what could have been a promising exploitation movie seems like it never knows if it’s a Troma-like comedy or a more serious attempt at horror, thus failing at both, though the idea behind it has some merit.
The story focuses on a series of slayings of “underage” girls who are killed while attending various shows put on by The Jason Martinko Revue. (The band is actually pretty good, but the fact that the film is kind of used as one long commercial for it got annoying fairly quickly.) Detective Haynes (Jimmy Haynes — they didn’t have to go too far for his name) is investigating the murders. He has a drug and alcohol problem and he’s hard-bitten, but that doesn’t stop him from giving it the good ol’ college try.
The hints of a decent film are there. They’re just lost in the shuffle. There is hope, however, as I’ve received word that a sequel is in the works (with Lloyd Kaufman and Ron Jeremy both making appearances — and how you feel about them will probably give you a good idea of how you’ll feel about the sequel). My hope is that the questions presented in the first film will be answered (the fact that they aren’t answered in this movie feels a lot like a cheap cheat) and that the film itself will be better all the way around. Better acting, better special effects, better characters and so on. If not, well, I feel sorry for Kaufman and Jeremy.
