Posts tagged sex comedy

by Tim May

This is how you do a sex comedy/slasher! Nearly every woman in Rif Coogan’s The Invisible Maniac is naked at some point. The (admittedly dubious) anticipation which goes along with each reveal lends some fun to what could have been a relatively run-of-the-mill experience.

In a surprisingly effective opening credit sequence, a little dork named Kevin Dornwinkle is using his trusty telescope not to gaze at the boundless wonders of the universe, but rather those of the girl next door’s bosom. The scene is shot through the lens of the telescope, with the girl revealing more and more to li’l Kev during each interval between credits. When Kevin’s mother discovers her deviant of a son perving out with his 12^th birthday present, she forbids him from even thinking about girls. He’ll never become a scientist that way.

Twenty years later, and Kevin is indeed a professional scientist and is giving presentation at a conference about “molecular re-organization,” or invisibility. When he makes a failed attempt to use his invisibility serum on himself in front of the whole conference, he is laughed at and mocked by all of his colleagues (“I came all the way from Belgium for this?!” one of them offers in an American accent). This sets Kevin on a rampage. He kills four of his science friends and is sent to a prison for the criminally insane, which he quite easily breaks out of six months later.

Within a couple of weeks, Kevin secures a job at a high school teaching physics for summer school students under the alias “Dr. Kevin Smith.” After his first class, Kevin heads over to the gym to peep on the cheerleaders’ practice. Hmmm…

There’s your typical cast of high school dipshits—you’ve got dominant male monkey motherfuckers Chet and Gordon and their stupid girlfriends Bunny and Vicky, cheerleader April, uninteresting lackeys Bubba and Betty, and Miss Cello, the horny principal.

While he’s instilling young minds with the tenants of physics, Kevin is still moonlighting as a guy who creates invisibility serums. When he finally perfects the serum, the first thing he does is sneak into April’s bedroom to undress her while she’s asleep and kiss (that’s all it sounded like, anyway) her naked body. April’s a heavy sleeper, I guess.

All this time, Chet and his posse have been tormenting “Dr. Smith” by dropping their books all at once or trying to seduce him. Once a bucket of water is poured on his head, Kevin has had enough! So, he injects himself with a shitload of his serum and starts to pick off the students one by one (or two by two, as may be the case).

There are a lot of surprisingly good kills here—Bubba being force-fed a sandwich, Betty getting choked by a fire hose, Vicky’s electrocution by way of radio and shower. Kevin even pulls off a couple of decent Freddy-type lines, which could probably have slipped into a second draft of The Dream Child (my favorite: when he throws Gordon from the roof, Kevin quips, “Basic law of physics: What goes up, must come down!”).

It all comes down to Chet and Bunny. When Kevin runs out of serum and reappears to them, he cribs from everyone’s favorite wallcrawler and introduces himself saying, “’Tis I, your friendly neighborhood INVISIBLE MANIAC!” I love when the title of a movie is used contextually within the movie, especially if it’s that awesome.

The film was directed by “Rif Coogan,” or, more properly, Adam Rifkin, the director of Detroit Rock City and The Dark Backward. Rifkin has a gift for making propulsive, studio-style comedies with just enough personality to distinguish themselves. The movie features the porn star Savannah and the “scream queen” Melissa Moore, both of whom also starred in Sorority House Massacre II the same year (Moore also appears in the 1992 documentary Invasion of the Scream Queens).

The Invisible Maniac actually has a pretty great twist which I’m not gonna give away. Everyone reading this should seek this movie out. It’s a goofy, nudity-filled romp which kept me guessing until the very last shot.

The VHS was released in a slipcase by Republic Pictures Home Video, which mostly distributed library titles from the ‘30s/’40s/’50s independent film production company of the same name. It has yet to be released on DVD.

(Source: vhshitfest.com)

By Dan Kinem



What do you get when you mix three teen TV stars: Scott Baio (Happy Days, Charles in Charge), Willie Aames (Eight is Enough), and Felice Schachter (Facts of Life), with weed, alcohol, telekinesis, and horniness? You get Zapped!, one of the most fun teen sex comedies of all-time!



Barney (Baio) is a geek who has never had any luck with the ladies. He is the school’s leading scientist who experiments with mice in mini underwater diving suits and grows flowers for his principal. He’s never even be concerned with the females, but with prom quickly approaching, he must nab a babe or else his parents and friend will die of embarrassment. His best friend is Peyton (Aames), who can get any girl in the school, except for the one he truly wants, the currently-in-a-relationship, ridiculously attractive cheerleader, Jane (Heather Thomas, two years prior to her cocaine addiction). There’s also their baseball coach (who isn’t allowed to eat salami because his devil wife thinks it causes cancer), brilliantly played by Scatman Crothers, and Bernadette (Schachter), a girl who obviously has the hots for Barney.



One day, while Barney is experimenting with his mice, Scatman comes in and spills some weed juice into Barney’s potion, then Peyton comes in and dumps some alcohol in there. Somehow, whatever this potion is + weed + alcohol = telekinesis juice, because not only does a mouse get the ability to move stuff with his mind, but when Barney clumsily knocks the beaker off the table, he becomes infected as well. Zany hijinks ensue. The End.



Just kidding. That review could easily suffice if this were any other movie but Zapped!, because Zapped! takes zany hijinks to otherworldly levels of zaniness once believed not achievable. Think Porky’s II: The Next Day, Screwballs, a little bit of The Three Stooges, and you mix it all up with the final ingredient… Lloyd Kaufman’s brain. That’s Zapped! in a taco shell.

The second he realizes he has telekinesis, Barney goes around making ventriloquist dummies hump his mother’s leg, getting boners in class after he rips a girl’s blouse off, rigging baseball games so he hits homers, and making his father toss prune juice in his own face. It’s what Alex Mack would have done had she been a dude and a couple years older.



One of the film’s best zany moments happens when Barney is laying around making some weird half-Millennium Falcon, half-Enterprise toy fly through a fish tank. Now, the scene would have been cool enough, but this film takes it to the next level, having Spock and Kirk appear inside the toy and fly right into Barney’s dog’s mouth (watch the video below and be amazed).



The movie’s greatest scene, though, is easily when Barney burns all of his weed and the smoke engulfs Scatman. Scat’ begins hallucinating that he is riding bikes with Albert Einstein, then his wife comes riding behind them on four black stallions; She pulls out a rocket launcher that shoots salamis at him. It’s pure zany brilliance.



Throughout the film, Bernadette and Barney realize they are perfect for one another, but that’s only if Barney will stop using his powers for bad. Peyton keeps getting him into all kinds of sticky situations, whether it’s trying to get Jane to date him or to gamble against Jane’s boyfriend, nothing goes right for them. Bern’ does give up the snatch when Barney works his magic. No, by “magic” I don’t mean his smooth moves, I mean his actual magic. He moves both Bernadette and a bed into the lab and they do it on top of the experimenting table. He even uses his mind to make her remove her own top!

When it finally comes time to go to prom, Barney’s mom attempts to have an exorcism on him (ZAY-NEEE), which causes him to be late to the prom, but when he gets there all hell breaks loose. Peyton is about to get his ass beat by Jane’s boyfriend, so Barney steps in by causing a tornado to rip everyone at prom’s clothes off. It’s insane. Everyone is naked, flying around, bouncing off the walls. It’s hilarity defined. It also finals unveils Jane’s glorious rack. Sadly, after watching the film, I realized that was a body double’s titties and not Heather Thomas’. I am now dead inside.



If that wasn’t crazy enough, the film ends with a twist. During the tornado, Barney gets hit by a fire hose nozzle, this knocks him unconscious and when he wakes up he can’t move anything with his mind. That doesn’t last long, though, because one minute later him and Bernadette are literally flying through the air like Superman. Credits.



I cannot tell you how fucking amazing this movie is. It has everything you’d ever want. There’s tits, Scott Baio, and hijinks. The music is also top-notch 80s cheese. The film was directed by Robert Rosenthal, who sadly only worked on a few movies, all of which look amazing (Malibu Beach, which he directed, and The Van, which he wrote, are both on my “Must Watch” list now). There was a sequel that came out in 1990 called Zapped Again! It does use some of the same characters, like the teachers at the school, but all the kids are new. I know I own a copy, so when I find that, look out for a review! If it’s even half as good as this movie, it’ll be a blast. Do not sleep on this cult classic, it truly deserves to be seen by everyone.

The film was released through Embassy Home Entertainment, who was one of the most popular companies of the 1980s, releasing everything from Slumber Party Massacre to Blade Runner. Most of their tapes were put out in slipcases, but they also released a small number of clamshells, which are now highly coveted and seem to be strangely harder to find than they should be (like Humongous, Escape from New York, and Swamp Thing). In fact, I don’t even know all of the movies released in a clamshell. I do know that Zapped! was the fourth one put out and is the best release there is for the film. There was a DVD release, but it is utter trash and features a hideous cover with no special features. If you can find this tape, snatch it up instantly.

The full movie has been uploaded to YouTube, but I doubt it will be on there very long, so act quickly.

(Source: vhshitfest.com)

By Dan Kinem



It’s been way too long since the last sex comedy review, and what better way to kick it off then with the radical, racy, and reckless, Summer School! The whole three R’s thing doesn’t actually work for me. I would much rather go with my own list (which you need to learn, ‘cause there’ll be a test on it), “The Five B’s”… Babes, boobs, butts, bikinis, and beaches! All of which this movie is loaded with.



You know you’re off to a good start when a bunch of teens pull up in a van and go sprinting onto the beach and bust into a free-for-all frisbee match. No holds barred. Teens are diving, ripping off bikini tops in that fun, free-spirited sexual harassment kind of way, and getting mouthfuls of sand in the process. That’s how you know it’s intense. They even cut high school to do it. Our two leads are Steve (John Laughlin’s first role) and Anita (Shelly Horner’s only role). They don’t know each other, but fall in love instantly while at the beach. It’s no surprise why Steve likes her… she has huge boobs. You know who else has boobs, though? Steve’s girlfriend, who doesn’t take kindly to this new bitch’s flirtatious ways. She vows to ruin Anita’s life. And pretty much succeeds.



Now I should get this out of the way. I will never understand the whole 70s van culture, especially after seeing this movie. Correct me if I’m wrong, but, according to this movie, there were gangs of girls who were obsessed with pickup trucks and gangs of guys who were obsessed with vans, and they often would get in violent altercations because of it? This seems highly unlikely and completely ridiculous, which is why I like it so much.

Anita has it really hard, and I mean really, really hard. In her first week at her new job she gets raped by the sleazeball boss because she asks for her check, then Steve’s girlfriend and her friends chase Anita with their van and try to kill her by running her off the road, then she gets home and her dad flips out on her and won’t believe anything she tells him. Don’t worry, it gets worse. Her and Steve are hitting it off, despite the fact Steve still has a girlfriend. They go to a creek to make out and, of course, Steve tries to feel her up. She stops him, but he keeps forcing it. She says she doesn’t want to do it, so he “romantically” throws her into the creek and forces her to have sex.



Steve is as sexist and sleazy as they come. He not only basically forced Anita to have sex with him while he still is dating someone, he also delivered this brilliant exchange of ideas:

Steve: Chicks aren’t supposed to be tough!
Random girl: Why not?!
Steve: ‘Cause guys won’t like ‘em.
Random girl: I get laid once in a while.
Steve: If chicks were supposed to be tough, God would have given them muscles.
Random girl: We got muscles where it counts!

Did the head writer for Hustler magazine pen this movie?!



Steve’s idiotic girlfriend finds out they had sex, so she lies to the cops and says Steve is selling coke. When the cops bust Steve, she blames it on Anita. Instead of asking Anita if it’s true or confronting her, he and all of his friends RAPE HER. They literally have a high speed chase which involves jumping between the vans and pickups and crossing ropes, then they throw Anita to the ground and rip all of her clothes off and rape her.

In school the next day they happen to be discussing rape, which makes all of the people involved start arguing and results in a huge cat fight between Steve’s girlfriend and Anita, which Anita gets blamed and expelled for. Then, the pickup girls decide to have a “drag out” with the guys, which apparently is a tug o’ war between cars across a giant pit. The loser fucking dies. Yeah, this movie got even more fucking insane, but it doesn’t stop there. Anita still has feelings for Steve and in order to stop the rival gangs from killing one another, she drives her fucking car into the pit to commit suicide. Steve runs down there to see if she’s okay and finds out she’s still barely alive. Everyone jumps in the air because she is still breathing, and the movie ends. Yep, you heard me right. This is one of the most insane and fucked-up movies I’ve ever seen. I could not believe my eyes when I saw this suicide attempt or when I found out Anita still liked Steve after he raped her twice and almost killed all of her friends. I applaud this movie for being so ridiculous and highly recommend it to anyone into cult/exploitation cinema.



Summer School is also known as Mag Wheels (terrible title), and was the last movie from one of my favorite directors, Bethel Buckalew, and with a name like that it’s no surprise he got his start in the 70s directing hixploitation sex comedies like Midnight Plowboy, Country Cuzzins, and The Pigkeeper’s Daughter. In all of his movies he comes across as one of the most misogynistic, sexist, sleazeballs ever, but damn does he make entertaining films.

The movie is actually fairly rare on VHS and hard to come by. It was released in a big box through Active Home Video and has that fantastic cover art. Active tried to promote this like a straight-up hilarious comedy and even compared it to Porky’s and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. This movie is nothing like either of those. It’s in a category all by itself and honestly no one should try to compare it to anything. The movie was released on DVD in a Drive-In Grindhouse four-movie pack, with The Farmer’s Other Daughter, Psychedelic Fever, and Up Yours. I’d go with this VHS, though, because you not only get the great cover, you also get an excellent trailer reel from Active (linked at the bottom).

This movie literally has everything: rape, car chases, an original rock soundtrack by the band The Word, a nerdy pledge who gets paddled, pinball, skateboarding, and of course, The Five B’s. What were those again? You were supposed to fucking learn them! Babes, boobs, butts, bikinis, and beaches! What’s so hard to understand?! Go see this movie.

(The trailer features some great nudity!)

(Source: vhshitfest.com)

by Tim May

This is David DeCoteau’s third film featured on VHShitfest (and third name, too, he’s credited as Dave here), and his films are proving to be the most consistently watchable. Of course, that doesn’t mean they aren’t horrible, and Dr. Alien is no exception.

This is essentially a dumb ’80s teen sex comedy with sci-fi elements. Like Weird Science, except not funny. The protagonist is this asshole, Wesley.

Wesley’s science teacher keeps him after class for an experiment, and she injects him in the ass with some green liquid. A slug-like creature pops out of Wesley’s head that makes him irresistible to all women, including his professor, who proceeds to fuck him in silhouette for five minutes.

Here’s the problem. Wesley still can’t get the attention of the girl he actually wants. Fuuuuck. Instead of wallowing in his sorrows, Wesley gives into his new condition and fucks a few girls (there’s a lot of nudity in this flick, which went a long way to making it less boring), which only pisses off his potential love interest more.

In order to impress her, Wesley joins a fucking terrible ’80s pop metal band called The Sex Mutants. They perform for what feels like an hour, then his science teacher shows up and shows her true self:

Haha! Forgettable love interest then inexplicably forgives that douchebag Wesley, even though he’s still a fucking slut. And everyone lives happily ever after. Lame. The song in the end credits was cool.

Postscript: This film features a couple of references to the first movie featured on VHShitfest, Creepozoids (also directed by David DeCoteau). Here’s one of them: Creep-o-zoids cereal!