You know what’s so great about midnight movies? There’s plenty of time to get liquored up before they start. Believe me, the kind of silliness found in “SuperStarlet A.D.” will go down a lot smoother this way.
Anyway, sometime before our story begins there was one of those damn apocalypses. However, after the big nasty the world looks a bit less “Road Warrior” than Irving Klaw. What few men exist have been reduced to Neanderthals. On the other hand, all the ladies have transformed into glamour queens. So much so that the survivors in the lost city of Femphis went on the segregate themselves into beauty cults defined only by hair color. The blondes have formed the Phayrays (named for “King Kong” star Fay Wray), the brunettes have formed the Satanas (named for “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” star Tura Santana), and the redheads have become the Tempests (named for legendary burlesque star Tempest Storm). There is one gang that doesn’t discriminate by hair color. All descended from 1950’s burlesque stars, that group is SuperStarlet A.D. Oh, and since most clothes were apparently destroyed along with the men and common sense, all the women walk around carrying machine guns wearing only fetishistic 1950’s underwear.
Okay, once you’ve absorbed all this, the story gets much more complicated. Tempests leader Jezebel (Kerine Elkins) apparently killed Sarah, the lone redhead of the SuperStarlets. Brunette Superstarlets leader Naomi (Gina Velour) wants revenge, but not as much as the lost stag film of her stripper grandmother. She and her blonde companion Rachel (Helen Heaven) are searching for it in every abandoned movie-house they can find. Now Phayrays leader Ultramame (Rita D’Albert) and Satanas leader Verona (Michelle Carr) just want to crush their enemies any way they can. Then, following a musical number or two, it all gets much more complex. Or muddled, one of those two.
Yeah, this all sounds like a good time, but wait. Writer/director John Michæl McCarthy should be commended for at least pulling together such a fine-looking cast that was up for all this nuttiness. Unfortunately, he couldn’t hold up his end. I usually try to avoid bagging on beginning, no-budget filmmakers. They usually make stupid mistakes just because they haven’t yet figured out what they’re doing. However, McCarthy has a few films under his belt and should have known better. Dude, don’t just show up with a camera, STORYBOARD for Christ’s sakes. John Waters doesn’t just turn up and shoot from anywhere. Learn how to better edit for pace, while you’re at it. Next time just do a bunch of drugs (and you can’t tell me, based on this film, that you don’t do drugs) and keep watching all of Russ Meyer’s films over and over again until they sink in. A second opinion on the script couldn’t hurt either.
There’s nothing more maddening than watching a movie where only one key element seems to be missing. McCarthy got the chicks, the clothes, and the attitude. Too bad he forgot the competence.
