I love it when I find a movie I have never heard of, and it turns out to be good.

Video X: The Dwayne and Darla-Jean Story would have you believe that you are watching actual events from a video shot by a couple from Kentucky. You aren’t, but the film does a damn good job making you think you are. Dwayne and Darla-Jean are starting a new life and heading to Little River, and are video taping the escapade.  While at a campground, they are robbed and all of their money is stolen. They are nowhere near their destination, and Dwayne refuses to go back home, and be ridiculed for failing on day 1 of their journey. They resort to stealing from a convenience store, and the plan goes horribly awry, and their vacation becomes a completely different kind of road trip. I will summarize no further, so as not to ruin the pleasant progression that occurs.

I have yet to see a film shot in this hand held video style, ala Blair Witch Project, that successfully has me believe that the character(s) filming would not at some point stop filming as the events that are transpiring become bigger than them, and they should perhaps focus more on surviving than taping. This film is no exception. However it is the most realistic film of that style I have seen. There are no credits. At all. It just starts right in with the video until the tape runs out and then cuts to black. Not even a title card. The camera goes back and forth between Dwayne and Darla-Jean and even Billy, someone they pick up at a diner. The video is quite random in that it will just cut to another shot, sometimes in rapid succession. There are even a few shots of a birthday party that the couple were taping over.

I don’t know if Joey Gibson (Dwayne) and Michelle Moretti (Darla-Jean) improvised their parts at all, but they were both fascinating to watch. At no point did I think I was watching them “act.” It was literally like watching their home video. Unfortunately, no one in smaller roles could really act so it sort of ruined that effect, but overall, it did not detract that much from the film. Most of the smaller roles were confined to the beginning of the film so as it progresses, you forget about those performances. Dwayne’s transformation was absolutely believable and almost hypnotic. You see a complete journey from care free, to timid and frightened but somewhat in control, then losing all sense of hesitation and crossing that line that we wonder how ever gets crossed. Gibson plays him perfectly; panicked and making poor decisions under pressure. Just trying to accomplish one goal, and doing what he needs to do to make it happen. It was a great inside look at how someone gets to the point of doing things they never thought they would do. There are also genuinely funny moments between Dwayne and Darla-Jean that let you know how much like us they are. They even get engaged to be engaged, which makes you want things to turn out well for them.

I think what impressed me most about this film, is that there is nothing in it that would make it great. There are no special effects. There is no soundtrack. I mean, comparatively, these aren’t Oscar worthy performances (or are they?).  It came out after Blair Witch, so the idea isn’t new. It just exists. And yet I was quite impressed and pleased with it. This is a perfect example of how to make a decent film on a slim budget. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? You want to make a film about a southern couple who end up as killers, but you don’t have a lot of money? Give the camera to the actors. Have someone stand in front of their victim so you don’t have to show that much blood. Have something happen a little off camera if you can’t realistically show something happen.

Again, at some point, as I usually do, I said out loud, “Why are they still filming?” I don’t think you can really successfully make a film like this that would not have you ask that, but Video X came damn close, and even though I did, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Very much recommended.

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I had never actually seen the entirety of Team America: World Police until today. From the creators of South Park is an absolutely hilarious, offensive, politically themed action movie parody, complete with their song “Montage” in which the lyrics describe what a montage is during a montage. Also included is “America, Fuck Yeah!” and quotable lines like “Derka derka derka.” Also, the film includes perhaps one of the most disturbing sex scenes, ever. Did I mention that there are only voice actors, because everyone is a puppet? Completely over the top, but not without a valid message.

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Robert Schimmel has passed away last night at the age of 60. He was in a serious car accident last week, and died as a result of them. He was mostly famous for his quite colorful stand up acts, and was also in the films Blankman and Scary Movie 2. He also appeared on the Howard Stern show, and did voices on animated programs.

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Dave Parker, the writer/director of The Dead Hate the Living! said that he wanted to make the most un-Full Moon movie that he could. Full Moon Entertainment has brought us such delights as Puppet Master, Killjoy and was a distributor of Gingerbread Man 2: Passion of the Crust. What Parker meant was, he wanted to make a film without small creatures and make a film that felt as much like a real movie as he could make it. I assume he meant “real” literally, as he also said he purposely made the film referential of the low budget genre. Believe me, the film is full of references.

We have a group of young filmmakers shooting a zombie picture. Through some forced exposition we learn that this is the director, David Poe’s first movie. His best friend Paul is the effects guy, and his two sisters are actresses (although Nina Poe’s part was secretly given to Shelly Poe, because everyone hates Nina). The film location is an abandoned hospital, which, again through an awkward bit of dialogue, we learn they do not have permission to be there and it is illegal to film there. For reasons that normally would not necessitate a group of people to split up, they do. One group finds a room with a tv and and a video camera with a tape in it. The video shows a man talking directly to the camera before getting mauled by zombies. As plot formula would dictate they just assume it is part of the movie that they are making. Eventually they all come across a giant coffin. A dead guy (the one from the video) falls out. What happens next, I have dubbed, “The Weekend at Bernie’s Moment.” Someone suggests calling the cops, but David manages to convince everyone (except Shelly) not to. He claims that if they use the body, everyone will rush to see the movie with a real dead person (and I guess, also not call cops). I will assume the scene in which a re-write was done to include the coffin that they just found was cut from the real movie, as they immediately have lines and a plot that revolve around it. While shooting the scene the accidentally reanimate the dead guy and open some kind of portal to the world of the dead, thus trapping everyone in sort of in between land where time stands still. The dead guy was Dr. Eibon. His wife died from cancer and while trying to bring her back he created a bunch of zombies. They killed him (the scene from the video). Now that he is undead, he sends his undead henchmen to kill everyone so that he may continue his project. Everyone splits up and tries to survive, David and Paul using the director and special effects mastery to employ a few tricks. And the zombie film within a zombie film wanders off into the night.

The acting was terrible. The computer generated fire was almost insulting. The dialogue was outrageously bad. All of this paled in comparison to the almost checklist like insertion of horror movie references in nearly every scene. Allow me to share some of the more obvious ones:

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This movie is shocking! Yes, the fairly intriguing  premise and lackluster delivery is shocking to say the least.

Feed introduces us to Phillip Jackson, an Australian detective as he is on a case in Hamburg. We watch as he discovers a man feeding another man his own penis. We then watch as he and his partner Nigel, move on to another project. They comb the internet in a sloppily paced and sort of confusing 10 minutes or so looking for a cyber crime worth mouthing off to the Captain and putting their badges on the line for. They find a site that has a live web cam of a man feeding a 600 lb woman. Phillip (luckily for the audience) explains to Nigel how this fetish works, and what feeders and gainers are. As Phillip explores and tries to gain access to the site’s restricted areas, he figures out what is really going on. This man is force feeding woman and taking bets on how long they will live and how much weight they will gain. Hooray, a cyber crime to solve! In some pretty questionable tracing techniques (not morally questionable; plausible questionable), he discovers where the site is run, Ohio. Instead of being sent there to investigate, his sanity is questioned by his boss (after he is found crying in the bathroom) and he is put on a suspension. Does this stop him from going to America? Well that would make for a boring film, wouldn’t it? Don’t worry, he goes. Yes he still manages to make a boring film out of it.

If I had to pick the thing that bothered me the most about this film, it would be the seemingly over abundance of opportunities to disgust and sicken me, that failed to do anything of the sort. Well, the penis eating thing did, and that was at the beginning of the film so I assumed there would be much more horrible things to follow. Not that the concept isn’t horrible, it is. It’s also not a common plot for a film, which peaked my interest. In fact, so shock-less was it, that it wasn’t even until the film had ended that I realized I sort of witnessed cannibalism. I would rather have had that aspect played up a bit, and the pointless sex scenes between Phillip and his whore girlfriend toned down some. I realize that this was done to give us some idea of Phillip’s own sexual behavior, but it had absolutely no relevance to the rest of the film. Yes there is a morbidly obese woman eating and puking. Yes there is a man masturbating while smearing her with food. Yes, these ideas are quite disturbing, but the execution was not. To be honest with you, I am not sure where it failed. It certainly wasn’t the performance of  Alex O’Loughlin, as Michael, the feeder. He was quite good. I definitely believed his motives and psychosis as we learned about his childhood. Perhaps it was the abysmal dialogue and acting by everyone else. It was rather distracting. Maybe so distracting that it was more outrageous than funnel feeding a fat woman. Maybe because Phillip was the dumbest law enforcement agent I have ever met, aside from Proctor, of Police Academy “fame.” That too, was quite a distraction. Whatever it was, it’s a shame, as this film really could have been quite disturbingly good, but instead, pretty much failed. Another thing that bothered the shit out of me were the awful covers of songs like, “Tainted Love,” “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” and “Lips Like Sugar,” cleverly inserted in the appropriate spots.

Now  I am not suggesting that the only reason why this is a bad film is because it did not disgust me. That is one reason, but not the only. It isn’t really a positive however, that the film had the perfect recipe to do so, and yet did not. Once again, a film that may have been too ambitious for its budget. Perhaps if it had been given a director that didn’t have the least popular Highlander installment on his resume, he or she would have been given sufficient money to hire more than one decent actor (and obviously, it would have been more competently directed). Perhaps a re-imagining is in order.

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Nothing telegraphs an explosion better than the line, “Are those fuel tanks?”

Meat Market 2 takes place some time after the events of the first film. We see Argenta kill Shahrokh after he turns into a zombie. She, one of the vampires, and a random one eyed Asian wander around foraging for food and supplies. They find another survivor and at her suggestion follow her. She tells them that she heard a radio broadcast about a place to go for food and shower, etc. and was on the way there herself. Naturally, they ignore all sense of skepticism and follow her only to be tricked. The survivor is really a Lieutenant for a military concentration camp or cult or some such nonsense, and surprise; the three of them are the newest addition to the camp. The camp is run by the Reconstruction Commerce Association of North America (despite the heavy Canadian accents). Their goal is to rebuild society. They execute undesirables, perform experiments on some prisoners if acceptable for that sort of thing, and the healthy, attractive, and ethnically appropriate ones are put through orientation and processing to become part of “society.” How coincidental; 3 leads, 3 parts of the camp. As you might imagine, each one goes some place different. The camp is run by a white guy named Bill (first names for  everyone, it’s a people friendly cult) who wears a white button down shirt, a black tie and is a powerful public speaker. The Association, as it’s called, has its own symbol and tapestries that display this symbol all over the walls, to illustrate how much like another “cult” that had “camps” it is.

Much of the same from the first film happening here. Not a bad (albeit familiar) story, and considering the films budget, executed fairly well. The director seems to have access to a lot of buildings.  More atrocious acting. More sex with clothes on. Again, the zombies actually look pretty decent. I assume most of the budget went to the zombies.

There was a lot more focus on the story in this installment. The zombie action kind of serves as the bread of the film, mainly confined to the beginning and end. I had no issue with this choice, but it would have worked a lot better if the actors could act. In fact, this probably would be completely watchable with a bigger budget (mainly because the vampire’s laser gun died before she had a chance to use it). I could have dealt without yet another zombie movie reference. An Officer Romero is called over a loudspeaker. Yeah, I get it. You watch zombie films. You don’t have to spell it out, the deja vu is enough. I also probably would have been fine without the inclusion of a doctor fucking the eye socket of a skull. Didn’t really push the plot along, and I just assume every one that works at the camp is insane, so the skull fucking is not needed for character development either. At first, there seemed to be a lot of punk and or emo zombies about, what with the green and purple hair that a lot of them had. However, the main doctor, the chef and some others were pierced, so I made the assumption that the actors just did not want to change their appearances for the film, including the ones playing zombies. There also was a zombie that was wearing a shirt that said “straight edged Vegan” while eating someone. Damn scenesters. The ending leaves this film as clearly a middle of a larger story, as it concludes the “chapter,” but leaves plenty of room for the continuing adventures of Argenta and the vampire. I did like how at the very end, there was a black and white scene between the doctor from the first movie and the doctor from this one, prior to the zombie apocalypse giving a bit of story.

I have to categorize this as crap, mainly because when you combine horrible acting with a video camera, it rarely ends well. Brian Clement, the writer/director, clearly has a vision and is talented, and perhaps with better resources, he could produce some fine work.

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As I walked around the office today telling people that I had seen Piranha 3D…well, let’s be honest, bragging that I had seen it, every single person said the same thing to me: “Oh, that movie looks terrible.” Well, yes. Yes it is. It’s fucking Piranha.

As if the plot mattered, this incarnation of Piranha starts with Richard Dreyfuss playing Matt Boyd drinking an Amity beer. If you see this and don’t immediately understand that the following film will be nothing but a tongue in cheek, referenced ladened gore fest, then leave the theater immediately and go see Dinner for Schmucks. You obviously need your humor unfunny, and force fed to you. An underwater earthquake occurs and releases a swarm of a particular species of piranha that has not been seen in millions of years. Meanwhile, above the water at Lake Victoria, thousands flock for Spring Break, providing the obligatory hedonism required before a masked killer or hungry fish lay waste to the area. Loud music, wet t-shirt contests, booze, drugs, and a Girls Gone Wild type video being shot all provide the soon to be blood splattered red canvas that Alexandre Aja uses to paint the awesomest magic eye picture I have ever seen.  That’s right. Awesomest.

Inception has an interesting defense against supposed plot holes. There is one interpretation of it in which the entirety of the movie takes place in a dream, thus making plot holes, not holes at all, but rather part of some bizarre dream. Piranha 3D has a similar defense against its flaws. They’re supposed to be there. Bad acting? It’s Piranha. Formulaic horror tactics? Piranha! It’s because of this that it would be a waste of time to point out any flaws in this film. It’s part of a package. The gratuitous nudity and gore, the bad dialogue, the Jaws references. And while the 3D didn’t necessarily enhance the viewing experience, it was a genius move to convert it. This is the perfect movie to do that with. It was like the blood red bow on the package. I will admit, however, there was one instance in which I jumped due to a flying object coming at me. I remained motionless amidst dozens of decapitations and entrails galore, but a 3D object made me jump. All the acting was just above distraction level so as not to take you out of the film, but also so that there was no pointless deep characterizations. It’s all surface. I mean, really, the best advice I can give you is, don’t take the film seriously at all. Go into it expecting over the top ridiculousness. The audience Puck and I were in were clapping at some of the most disgusting things (when they weren’t yelling “1.21 gigawatts!” every time Christopher Lloyd was on screen).

Other cast include Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Eli Roth, Jerry O’Connell and a porn star (in 3D!).

Aja is fast becoming one of my favorite directors, what with High Tension, his remake of The Hills Have Eyes, and now this. This film delivers pure mindless entertainment and will most certainly leave its mark on you. Highly Recommended.

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As bad as this movie was, I kept telling myself, “At least it’s better than Flesh Freaks.” That was until the lesbian, laser toting vampires showed up.

Before raping my eyes, Meat Market sounded like a decent Zombie picture. There are bizarre attacks on humans that are thought to be animal attacks. Two former employees of a security agency figure out that they are not animal attacks, but zombies, and as it turns out, the company they used to work for is responsible. Not half bad, right? Well, I am angry at all who were involved with this.

Now, in this movie’s defense, there were some positives. The zombie make up was actually pretty decent for a film this low budget. If you can watch it long enough, you can find some fairly nice shots and scene transitions. In what I thought was a very clever touch (and I must have misunderstood this), I thought that this was going to be a sort of “A Modest Proposal” scenario, which would have explained the title of the film. At one point a zombie attacks a homeless person, and there is an interview with someone who states that he thinks that the attackers (I don’t recall if at this point the public still thinks it is animals or knows it zombies; the execution of the story line was rather convoluted) are doing the city a service by killing the homeless. In a pamphlet written by Johnathan Swift called (paraphrasingly) “A  Modest Proposal,” Swift suggested satirically that the children of Ireland’s poor families living in squalor should be sold into a meat market at the age of one. They would be fattened up and fed to rich land owners and this would help eliminate overpopulation, unemployment, etc. The prospect of Meat Market perhaps doing something similar excited me very much. That actually makes good (albeit evil) justification for the security company making these creatures. In addition to that: biting social satire! I was then ready to overlook the $2000 budget and sub-par acting to absorb this message! Then the lesbian vampires walked in.

By the way, that whole “A Modest Proposal” theory? Wrong. Never mentioned again. Well, it might have been, but the audio is such crap at some points I could not hear what people were saying. Like Flesh Freaks, Meat Market’s main competition in the worst film in the universe contest, this was shot with a video camera. I liked it in Market, though, because it worked a little better. The zombies were more like Romero zombies and thus more realistic (ha), so it sort of had that documentary look most of the time. Other times, however, it still had the, shitty low budget look. The acting most definitely was horrible. We have the whole man-woman thing going on, but the two leads suck so bad there is no chemistry. And naming the woman Argenta? Are you serious? In a shitty zombie movie, you are actually going to name a character Argenta? Nice job changing the last letter, no one will notice that at all. The male lead is named Shahrokh, which is a bird in Iranian mythology. I can’t find any really significance in naming your character that, with the possible exception that Rokh saved Sinbad in some gay story I never read (which therefore disqualifies me from calling it gay).

While the zombies looked good, the rest of the visual effects were a mixed bag. Most of the bite wounds looked good and as long at the blood was not splattering, that looked fine as well. But when brains were blown against the wall, that looked horrible. I outright laughed out loud when I saw a zombie eating a turkey leg, but then realized he was gnawing at a victim’s limb. The audio effects were kind of crap as well. When a zombie would bite someone, the foley artist clearly bit an apple.

There are 3 sex scenes in this movie. In the first one, the characters are clothed.

Now for the two most atrocious things that occurred  in this picture. The first one was that this was filmed in the city where there were a lot of regular people who were not a part of the production. However, the zombies only attacked the actors, so the zombie apocalypse looked a little bit like an unsuccessful high school party; not a lot of  participants.  It actually was funny because there was looting, but no chaos, so the looting looked unnecessary. I mean, they could have just walked in and paid for it. One could use the “A Modest Proposal” theory to say that the public was fine with the zombies eating the homeless and they just didn’t care, but they didn’t just eat the homeless.  The second major problem with this film is the 3 vampires. I don’t understand this one bit. For one, they have LASER GUNS. I don’t even have a clever remark, just why do they have lasers? They were also sex maniacs and apparently lesbian and/or bi sexual. One vampire has sex with a man, then one of the other vampires, so I assume the inclusion of these characters were an excuse for nudity. The man the vampire has sex with has a wound that he claims came from barbed wire, which is clearly a lie. So the vampire has sex with him and he turns in to a zombie. However, she doesn’t. So I guess since the vampires are already undead, they are immune to zombie attack. And if you do dare to watch this thing pay attention to the explanation of how people became zombies. Dumbest shit ever.

Also, there is a Mexican wrestler in this. His lines were dubbed for some reason.

Trash, yes. I think, however, compared to Flesh Freaks, this filmmaker made better use of his resources and limitations. There are two more of these films, and although this one is painful, I am curious to see if the series gets better.

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***THIS REVIEW MOST ASSUREDLY CONTAINS SPOILERS***

This is the second film where I have seen a zombie involved in a sex act. The first time I saw it was in Dead Alive. I will tell you this: it was far less comical this time.

Deadgirl starts during a fire drill at a  high school. J.T.  and Rickie are entertaining themselves with bad jokes and daydreams about girls. When it’s time to go back to class, J.T. and Rickie decide to ditch school and drink some beer. They go to “the asylum” which is an abandoned insane asylum. After being chased by a dog, they end up in a room with a door that is rusted shut. They force the door open and discover a nude woman wrapped in plastic, and strapped to a gurney. Naturally they assume she is dead, but they notice that she is breathing. Rickie freaks out a bit and wants to leave. J.T. however, has other plans. He wants to to have sex with her. He sends Rickie home and stays behind to have relations with a woman that has been locked in this room for who knows how long. Delightful.

Now, I should tell you that I am assuming that this woman is a zombie. I make this assumption based on several things. The day after they find her, J.T. brings Rickie back to the asylum. He tells Rickie that while he was having sex with her, she struggled, so he killed her. Yet she is still alive. To prove this, J.T.  shoots the girl in front of Ricki and she lives. In addition to this, when she bites someone, they seem to turn to the undead as well. One can argue that she is not a zombie, however, as zombies tend to have superhuman strength and while the girl could rip a metal door off the frame, she could not break free of her restraints. She also spared Rickie’s life when given an opportunity to bite him. Rickie never really approved of the continued rape of the girl, so one could suspect that she spared him as he did not violate her. That is kind of un-zombie like. Zombies generally are mindless. However there are no really established “rules” about the zombie world in the film. She is the only one and we are not told how she became the way she was, so for all we know, zombies might actually have a sense of reciprocity in this film’s universe.

There are a few things that I really like about this film. The biggest one is the fact that we have no idea how this girl became a zombie. Therefore, as I previously mentioned, we don’t know what the “rules” are. Obviously biting turns you, but apparently sex does not. I found that incredibly intriguing. Was she the last of a zombie apocalypse that happened? If so, why was she left alive, and what happened to the people that left her alive? Was she the first of a potential apocalypse, but contained before starting one? I very much liked the choice to leave that not addressed. I also liked Noah Segan, who played J.T. I like it when a psychopath is not played as over the top. He did not do this at all. He also had excellent comedic timing and delivery, as much of his later dialogue is evil funny.

The gripes are many. Until they find the girl, this film is VERY boring. I actually thought an hour passed but when I checked, it had only been twenty minutes. Absolutely no character development. This is especially annoying because Segan was so good. He is immediately a demented psychopath and sociopath.  There should have been a progression to that point. Also, there is no back story for anyone. The closest we get is seeing the drunk boyfriend of Rickie’s mother. This limits your emotional involvement. While the performances are enjoyable, you don’t really care who lives or dies. Also, demented as someone is, really? Sex is your first thought when finding a girl wrapped in plastic? I’m not even going to get in to why that doesn’t make sense. Here’s perhaps the most perplexing part of the film: the girl escapes and we see her running outside. However, the movie continues and life appears to be normal. Would there not be a FUCKING ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE GOING ON? Besides the fact that she escaped, she bit a guy in the dick, and he didn’t die. He went back to school, shit out an intestine and is referenced as being in the hospital or something, but surely he would have bitten some folks as well. There really should have been some more zombies by movie’s end.

This film deals with issues of peer pressure, alienation, love, popularity and control with one of the most bizarre story lines I have ever run across. I found myself liking some of it, but ultimately, its flaws outweigh it’s successes. I recommend a viewing of it, however. It is not a waste of time by any means, and you are sure to find some enjoyment out of it.

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In my attempt to escape the horror pattern I have been entrenched in, I selected Just One of the Guys as my next review. As it turns out, the director, Lisa Gottlieb, also directed an episode of Freddy’s Nightmares (the Nightmare on Elm Street television series). The film’s star, Joyce Hyser, appeared in that same episode.

Terry Griffith (Hyser) is a high school student who has almost everything she wants. Her parents are rich, she has a car, she’s beautiful, she goes out with a college dreamboat that is also rich. She dreams of becoming a journalist and the local paper is running a contest where students can submit articles for a chance to be published. The winning “reporter” will also get an awesome summer job at the paper. The article she submits does not get selected, and two male students’ work does. This coupled with a comment from her journalism teacher convinces her that she was not selected because she is a hot girl that no one will take seriously as a journalist. She becomes so distraught, that with the (sort of) help from her sex obsessed yet still virgin brother, she resorts to cross dressing and taking her article to another high school. She intends to submit it as a male to see if it gets selected simply because she is a boy. It doesn’t, but she stays at the school to find another story to write, and hilarious 80’s teen sex comedy ensues.

I also selected this film as sort of an easy 99th review so that we could quickly post the 100th review on the site. I happen to have it in my instant queue as it is a definite comfort movie of mine. Upon watching this, it would be quite easy to dismiss it for the one of a thousand standard 80’s teen sex comedies that it is at surface level. But watching it for the purpose of critical analysis, I realized that this is actually a pretty well put together movie, and really should stand out from the likes of Porky’s, Revenge of the Nerds, et al. There is only one scene with nudity, and it is rather brief. The main character is not obsessed with sex, in fact quite the opposite. Even the comedy is not largely based on sex. Really, the sex part of this is confined to Terry’s brother Buddy (played by Billy Jayne, and is quite hilarious) who is a virgin, determined to have sex while their parents are out of town. One could even argue that the categorization of “sex comedy” could even be a play on meanings where sex refers to gender, and not having sex.

There is a lot of interesting things going on in this film that you may miss if you just watch it for comfort, as I usually do. Terry is quite popular, but when she dresses as a boy and goes to a school where no one knows her, she is quite unpopular at first, as any new kid might be. As she befriends Rick, who himself has no friends, she takes him on as a sort of project, and gives him advice on how to dress and act, etc. in order to become popular and get a date. It’s actually borderline brilliant the way Hyser plays this; Terry the boy, trying to make friends, be hip and blend in, while at the same time Terry the popular girl, trying to help Rick do the exact same thing. You can actually see the back and forth she goes through. In a scene where Terry and Rick are talking about music in the cafeteria, you can see the genuine, yet subtle delight on Terry’s face in finding something in common, whereas in another scene, she is spouting off male things like, “this is what you call typical male bonding,” as if she is teaching Rick how to interact with other males. I found that this boy/girl, teacher/student conflict to be done quite well, especially when Terry falls in love with Rick, which only compounds the problem. I don’t know that there is any deep social commentary in this (other than the obvious), but not many (if any) films of this sort actually have anything worth looking at deeper than tits.

The film is is quite funny due largely to a decent script delivered with excellence by everyone that had a funny line. In addition to the few anachronisms, the film is sealed in the 80’s by an appearance from Willam Zabka as the (shocker) school bully. There are also appearances from Ayre Gross and Sherilyn Fenn to completely randomize the cast.

Now the film is not without its flaws of course. How a fight between 4 people at a prom could go on with not one member of faculty stopping it kind of baffles me. Also, as much ruckus as Zabka’s character caused in this film in general (much to the janitor’s dismay; pay attention to him in any scene he is in), I did not understand how no one gave him at least a detention. Also, I understand that even high school kids can have facial hair, but when you cast 30 year olds with mustaches as high school kids, they look 30. However, it feels almost pointless to pick apart a movie of this genre.

It may seem odd to write a review for this film, as it really is purely intended to be light and frothy, but it really is a decent comedy worth a watch. It is still very funny 25 years later, and deserves to enjoyed more than as just a teen sex romp.

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