July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??

Director, writer, producer, editor and composer John Valley made this comedy which is also tragedy, in the best of ways, and one that reminds me that in the last five years, the world has gotten so weird that even the conspiracies in this movie seem wonderfully wholesome by comparison to the reality we’re living in.

Well, I mean, as much as ritualistic lizard alien sex abuse can be wholesome.

First, let me explain something.

Pizzagate was a conspiracy theory that went viral in 2016. Supposedly, hacked emails between John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, and politician Anthony Weiner contained coded messages that connected several high-ranking Democratic Party officials and U.S. restaurants with an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring.

One of these places was Comet Ping Pong Pizza in our nation’s capital. The rumors of that place having a child sex ring were debunked, yet on December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, North Carolina, opened fire inside the building.  He told police that he planned to “self-investigate” the conspiracy theory and ended up in jail for four years, dying five years later when he pointed a gun at a cop when stopped.

An arsonist also tried to set the building on fire and fake customers even called to jam up the phone lines. Since then, Pizzagate morphed into Frazzledrip, which is all about Hillary Clinton killing a child and drinking its blood, as well as posts about giving children panda eyes. Amazingly — but not at all — these stories often come from white supremacist social media shared on Twitter, 4chan and Reddit before being reported by Alex Jones and his ilk. After all, who doesn’t want the kind of political firepower that comes from the left wing being exposed as a Satanic cabal of New World Order moving children all over the world for sex?

QAnon rose out of this and well, you know how that all went.

Depressed by the fact that the fun world of conspiracies was ruined, like everything else in the world, by these people? Well, maybe we can talk about this movie.

Karen Black (Alexandria Payne) used to work for Terri Lee (Lee Eddy), a very Alex Jones media person who is worshipped for telling the truth in the face of the mainstream (read that as Jew, they sure want to say it) media. Terri wants everyone to know that lizard aliens — or, more specifically, one soccer player who once thought he was Jesus– have a Road to Damascus moment, and this happens. They’re real and are eating children beneath an Austin, TX pizza place. Fired, Karen decides to prove her theory by filming at the pizza shop. But who can take her?

This brings her to a militia meeting, where she meets Duncan (Tinus Seaux) — the film was once called Duncan — a redneck, ultra-right man who believes Terri Lee, her cause, and her claims. He also has a rebel flag on the front and back bumpers, a huge Nazi tattoo and racist ideals, which soon take a backseat to how he feels about Karen. I mean, he shoots another white guy who calls her the n word, but is that because he sees himself as the hero in his own The Turner Diaries or is he truly noble?

The question is, once Karen and Duncan get there, will they find anything? The movie goes to black and doesn’t tell us exactly what happened. Were there lizard aliens? Did they make it to the basement? All we know is that Duncan has opened fire and killed plenty of people, at least one of whom we’ve watched on screen. Now he’s on the run and has nowhere to go but to be another lone nut killer.

That is, unless he can get to Terri Lee. She’ll know what to do.

But can even the people we depend on to guide us through conspiracies not be complicit? How did people feel when Alex Jones was figured out? And now he’s turned on the President, so what happens next? Man, at least Art Bell took a last ride to the other side before we’d have to hear him support that side or take another twentysomething wife so soon after the last one died. It’s hard to have heroes when everyone is bought.

I’ve never been more cynical or more sure that everyone is out to get me than right now, and yet here I sit, down deep in my movie basement, writing my little articles and making dick jokes. The Pizzagate Massacre is, however, a stunning work of art that gives me hope, that shows me that people get it and makes me miss the days when weirdos could just be weird and not running the show.

You can watch this on Tubi.

July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??

This whole thing started with “The Karate Rap” in 2012. Or 1986, when the video was made. 2012 seems to be the year it went online, according to Punching Day.

“Relax, and breath / Keep training, you′ll get it / Ich ni san shi, come on everybody / Train Karate / Ich ni san shi, come on everybody / Train Karate / (Karate train your body all the time)”

This video has a Karate Dog.

The man behind this is David Seeger, who followed that rap video with episodes of The All New Mickey Mouse Club and mixtapes of daytime soaps, like All My Children: Daytime’s Greatest Weddings, All About Erica, Luke and Laura Vol. 1: Love on the Run and Luke and Laura Vol. 2: Greatest Love of All.

It always comes back to Anthony Geary.

The son of Hal Seeger (a TV producer and the director of a cartoon, Batfink) and the brother of Susan (who wrote episodes of Blossom and Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper), Charbie Dahl (a creative consultant on Family Matters), Efrem (who produced and wrote Queer as Folk) and Mindy (34 episodes of The West Wing and Bloodfist VII: Manhunt), David directed, wrote and stars in this as Sensei Dave.

An evil martial artist named Tiger (Robert Scaglione) challenges every martial artist in the world to Kumite. Only Sensei Dave shows up, looking like the whitest of all great white hopes, a man who keeps his black belt in the freezer. Why? Look, that’s going to be the least of your questions after watching this.

Will this movie reuse footage from “Karate Rap?” Will footage from Batfink slow the plot to an absolute crawl? Will the entire Seeger family, including Dad, appear as one of the bad guys? Of course. But are you ready for the idea that Sensei Dave can heal any wound and can also send his spirit out of his body? Or that Tiger has a much cooler training facility complete with bikers and women in lingerie that looks like the VCA ripoff porn of Mortal Kombat? Let’s call that movie Mortal Kumbat. Oral Kombat? Oral Cumbat? Mortal Kumblast: Finish Her? Fourplay With Goro?

Anyways.

Tiger has been trying to kill Sensei Dave since he was a baby. He once kicked his baby carriage down the steps — someone alert Erica Shultz — and Dave also stopped him from beating up unhoused people, who revealed that he would be Karate Jesus someday.

That day is now.

Hal Gaudy (Dave’s dad, Hal) is funding Tiger, who has drug dealers in his karate school. Locker rooms — for reasons. He makes a fair amount of money betting on Tiger’s fights. They draw as well as indie pro wrestling, which is to say, not well. They also own a cable TV channel and keep Tiger on staff as a hitman, complete with a miniature scythe. A kama. A sickle. You get it. They have killed so many people along with Tiger that they need a map for their yard to remember where people are buried, which is totally not something the police would use against them in court.

Also: Thanks to Punching Day, I know Tiger’s rap that he says before he kills someone: “Do you know the truth about the tiger’s tooth? Does it cut, does it puncture, does it rip? Let me give you a tip!”

So many questions: Why does Tiger live above a porn store in a small apartment with giant pictures of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bart Simpson? Are we to infer that America is a fascist bully because the evil man’s girl wears a U.S. flag for lingerie? Or are we just to know that because it’s true?

Tiger and Sensei Dave battle on a boat, and by the end, Sensei Dave is left dead in the water. Literally. Drowning dead. Dave’s ghost leaves his body and visits his pregnant wife and his sister, Sister Sensei — now the movie makes sense and also you will scream yourself hoarse if you scream the secret word scream every time they say the title — to avenge his death. Or find his body. Or something.

Sister Sensei is a big Hollywood star — well, Mindy was trying — and doesn’t have time to avenge her brother’s death. So he starts haunting her, and sometimes, it feels like all of the images and sounds and effects overload to the point that you may think you licked one of those blue stars the teachers warned you weren’t stickers but instead LSD.

To get his sister — who has never done karate — to fight, his ghost pervs on her in the shower and does an impression of Max Headroom mixed with Garth Algar, complete with early 90s video effects. But whatever. It’s time for a montage, and Mindy becomes Sister Sensei and is given Dave’s belt, and no one is all that sad that Dave is dead.

Remember Exposed! Pro Wrestling’s Greatest Secrets? That same audience shows up for the fight between Tiger and Sensei Dave, who shows up, only for Sister Sensei to take the fight. Keep in mind that this is a comedy, and then watch these scenes and the aftermath, where Sister Sensei’s face looks like a hamburger. Funny!

Sam’s favorite trope: Sister Sensei’s tale of the tape photo is her publicity picture.

Instead of following all the signs in the crowd — where did these people get these signs and how did they know to bring “equal rights” signs when Sensei Dave was supposed to be there and there was no hint of Sister Sensei taking the booking — that empower women, Sensei Dave enters his sister’s body to fight, all while his very pregnant wife pulls a Mary in a manger and breaks water right there, giving birth backstage. Look, I have been backstage at MMA and pro wrestling shows. This is no place to be born. It’s also not the place to have a baby, but you wouldn’t be surprised how often that happens.

Sensei Dave leaves her body and causes it to wash up on shore after being dead and bloated in the river for five days, and he just gets up and lives, like two days better than Jesus’ record, and the unhoused people from his past proclaim him to be the karate messiah.

As for his sister, Tiger beats her so severely that she dies.

You read that right. His sister straight up gets killed, and her spirit also leaves her body. She goes “Into the Void” — “Rocket engines burning fuel so fast / Up into the night sky, they blast / Through the universe, the engines whine / Could it be the end of man and time?” — and is now in Karate Heaven.

You know who else is there?

Tiger.

Yes, the Karate Void is part of the Martial World, and anyone who fights can be in it at any time. Imagine how Sister Sensei feels, dying and being trapped there — I wish this had a Street Fighter II countdown screen with her bloody as it counted down from ten to one — and then the guy who karate killed you can just show up at any time to make fun of you for dying at his hands. Anyways, she knows Karate Magic and comes back to life, knocking him out.

Sensei Dave’s wife has the baby on the filthy concrete.

But wait…two years later, and Dave’s wife Holly spins to the camera and says, “Tiger?”

Yes, we’re getting a sequel. Sons of the Sensei.

But we never got it.

Yet.

Hellhammer taught us, “Only death is real.” But in this movie, even the final beyond is not infinite. These people die more than the X-Men when Chris Claremont wrote it.

This took 19 years to be released. It aged, like wine. Or stinky cheese.

Final review: Every star in the Karate Void.

You can watch this on YouTube.

July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??

Directed, written by and starring Rusty Nails, this starts with siblings Franny (Tracey Hayes) and Zoe (Nails) drinking tap water that causes giant zits to form on the tops of their heads. And if they don’t keep eating junk food, they become zombies. And oh yeah, those zits are constantly spraying people and making even more potential zombies, all because big business and the military-industrial complex spiked the town’s water.

The thing is, the kids are really alright. Sure, they have zit heads, but all they want to do is go to the mall or bowling. They didn’t ask for this.

I kind of love the one tough girl who keeps busting her boyfriend’s balls about him going bald. That’s the kind of playful banter that makes me marry someone.

Oh yeah — the movie.

It’s a 50s science-gone-wrong movie that somehow has disgusting moments of exploding zits and eating anything greasy, but has such a goofy and sweet heart that it feels like it struggles to find an audience. It’s too gross for normal people, not twisted enough for gore hounds. And man, the music is pretty great, but I was also the right age in the 90s to know most of it.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??

Also known as The Godfather and the Lady and Six Champions Go Wild, this starts with a girl — I should say dame, in the parlance of this movie — named Caress Softly (Sharynne Dale, The Runaways) learns that some hitmen want to rub out Johnny Stiletto. She quickly warns Stiletto’s gang, who box the hitmen with wacky sound design.

Oh yeah. So I should tell you who is in this.

Johnny is Peter Savage. A self-taught writer, actor and filmmaker, Savage wrote the book that Raging Bull is based on. He’d been friends with Jake La Motta since they were kids and the two boxed together. He directed, wrote, produced and stars in this. Johnny is the godfather to the Cauliflower Cupids gang, who are made up of six world boxing champions: Gentle Jim (Jake LaMotta), The Rocker (Rocky Graziano), Willie the Eye (Willie Pep), Bennie the Bug (Paddy DeMarco), Tony the Bomber (Tony Zale) and Dinty the Dope (Petey Scalzo).

Johnny wants to retire so that his daughter Paulette (Carol Walker) can have a better life than he did, especially because she’s pregnant with rich young man Armand’s (Joe Bennet) child. He demands that they get married, but his guardian, Aunt Nira (Jane Russell), is standing in the way of their enforced bliss.

She’s getting all of her money from Uncle Bruno (Bud Truland), who hates the rest of the family, who all use him for money. So Johnny gets made up like Bruno, they change the will, fake the old man’s death and Johnny and his boys — who keep refusing to allow him to retire — can go out in style.

That is, if John Bradley (Alan Dale) doesn’t arrest them first.

This ends with Johnny serving as Nira’s love slave, a role he expected from her, and is even forced to kiss her feet. That’s a pretty BDSM close for an early 70s mob movie.

Jane Russell is 45 in this (it was shot in 1966 and didn’t come out until 1970) and looks better than women twenty years younger. She’s way better than this movie deserves, and yet I love that she’s in it.

As for Savage, he comes off a lot like Duke Mitchell, which is a compliment. He’d already made The Runaways, but would go on to direct and write Hypnorotica (Jamie Gillis is in it!), the American version of The New Life Style (Just to Be Loved), Sylvia (an X-rated version of Sybil that has Sonny Landham in its cast) and They Shall Overcome. He’s in all of those films and also shows up as a john in Taxi Driver, as DeMarco in Crazy Joe, as a boss in Double Agent 73, as an assistant in New York, New York, as a lawyer in Firepower, as Jackie Curtie in Raging Bull and as Thomas “Mr. T” Stokely in Vigilante, a movie that William Lustig dedicated to him.

As for the boxers in this, several of them show up in other films:

Jake LeMotta was also in Firepower, Hangmen, Maniac Cop, The Runaways, Who Killed Mary Whats’ername?, The Hustler, Rebellion In Cuba, La Violenza dei Dannati, The Doctor and the Playgirl and, of course, Confessions of a Psycho Cat.

Rocky Graziano appeared in several films, including Tony Rome, The Doctor and the Playgirl, Teenage Millionaire, and Country Music Holiday, where he played himself alongside June Carter, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ferlin Husky, and numerous country musicians.

Willie Pep was only in one other film, Requiem for a Heavyweight, just like Tony Gale, who was also in The Golden Gloves Story. This is the only movie that Paddy DeMarco and Petey Scalzo were in.

I’ve been looking for this movie for years and am so excited that I finally found it. It’s by no means excellent or even good, but to me, it’s everything that I wanted it to be.

You can watch this on YouTube.

July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??

After being kicked out of art school. Greg Pead co-wrote, co-produced, edited and directed at his first film, Coaltown, “with the assistance of the Australian Film Institute.: It explores the social and political history of coal mining and was nothing like the rest of his films, of which he took on the name Yahoo Serious.

His first film, Young Einstein, was a $25 million dollar worldwide success on a $5 million dollar budget. Now, you can scoff at the idea that Einstein invented beer bubbles, rock music and surfing before dating Marie Curie, but it wasn’t a bad film. It did OK in the U.S., enough that his next film, Reckless Kelly, was released here and bombed. It did well enough in his native land of Australia for Mr. Accident to come out seven years later.

Directed, co-written, produced by and starring Serious, this movie has him playing Roger Crumpkin, who works in an egg factory and has learned that his boss is putting nicotine in the eggs. He also is in love with the UFO-loving Sunday Valentine (Helen Dallimore), who has found a rock shaped like a VW hubcap that she is sure came from another world. There’s also Roger’s roommate Lyndon (Grant Piro) and boss Duxton Chevalier (David Field), who is the evilldoer in this and yes, once dated Sunday and wants her back.

Serious’ films are very slapstick and surreal, but there are moments where it feels like the joke won’t land and then it doesn’t. They’re strange, however, and kind of endearing, even if they feel way more dated than 25 years old. It is kind of amazing that at one point, however, he was a hot item and able to take a movie all the way around the world before being nearly forgotten everywhere but where he came from.

Sadly, today Serious is 71, was kicked out of his apartment and hasn’t made a movie since this one. He’s pretty much faded away with random sightings being covered in Australia’s newspapers. His website is still up, but looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2003. He also tried to sue Yahoo in 2000 because they took his name. He lost that.

You can watch this on YouTube.

July 7-13 Teen Movie Hell Week: From the book description on the Bazillion Points website: All-seeing author Mike “McBeardo” McPadden (Heavy Metal Movies) passes righteous judgment over the entire (teen movie) genre, one boobs-and-boner opus at a time. In more than 350 reviews and sidebars, Teen Movie Hell lays the crucible of coming-of-age comedies bare, from party-hearty farces such as The Pom-Pom Girls, Up the Creek, and Fraternity Vacation to the extreme insanity exploding all over King Frat, Screwballs, The Party Animal, and Surf II: The End of the Trilogy.

Zapped is not a feel-good movie, especially as we realize that Scott Baio and Willie Aames grew up to be right-wing and super religious, respectively. Here, they turn the act of getting mental powers into the chance to torment people, and if not sexually harass, then outright sexually molest women.

Barney Springboro (Baio) wants to do scientific experiments. Peyton Nichols (Aames) wants to ball, starting with school administrator Connie Updike (Hilary Beane). Peyton is asked by yearbook editor Bernadette (Felice Schachter) to take pictures of Barney in front of his GMO orchids — again, evil — an accident causes the mice food to be ingested as a gas, and Barney gets the telekinesis, the ability to move things with his mind.

Everyone has a crush on Jane Mitchell (Heather Thomas), who has a college boyfriend, so when she crushes Barney’s dreams again, he’s able to rip the buttons off her top and show off her bra, which is a crime. He also torments his mother (Marya Small) with a ventriloquist dummy that he can control. Is he the Carrie of this or the bullies who abused her?

More crimes: Causing Jane’s college guy, Robert Wolcott (Greg Bradford), to lose a drinking contest, and then Peyton seducing her, taking photos of her with a hidden camera that he sells at graduation. There’s also Barney scaring away two priests by pulling off Exorcist ripoff tricks.

Principal Walter J. Coolidge (Robert Mandan, Chester Tate on Soap) ends up having public sex with another older person, Rose Burnhart (Sue Ane Langdon, the only actor to return for Zapped Again!), and Scatman Crothers, Eddie Deezen and LaWanda Page all show up.

There wasn’t enough nudity in this, so supposedly they sent the crew back to shoot more nude scenes. The filmmakers used a body-double for Heather Thomas’ nude scenes, but she filed a complaint when they pasted her head on another nude actress. That’s why there’s a disclaimer that says, “A double was used for Miss Thomas in her nude scene and in the photograph.”

Jewel Shepard, a girl in a car in this, had no such complaints after Barney’s mental male gaze power tore her top off.

As if that wasn’t sad enough, Felice Schachter skipped her prom to film the prom scene.

This was directed by Robert J. Rosenthal, who wrote The Pom-Pom Girls, The Van and Malibu Beach, which he also directed. He co-wrote this movie with Bruce Rubin, who also wrote Blood Rage.

You can watch this on Tubi.

July 7-13 Teen Movie Hell Week: From the book description on the Bazillion Points website: All-seeing author Mike “McBeardo” McPadden (Heavy Metal Movies) passes righteous judgment over the entire (teen movie) genre, one boobs-and-boner opus at a time. In more than 350 reviews and sidebars, Teen Movie Hell lays the crucible of coming-of-age comedies bare, from party-hearty farces such as The Pom-Pom Girls, Up the Creek, and Fraternity Vacation to the extreme insanity exploding all over King Frat, Screwballs, The Party Animal, and Surf II: The End of the Trilogy.

After The Cheerleaders and The Swinging Cheerleaders, where else was there to go?

This feels like porn without the penetration and by that, I mean it feels like amateur porn and somehow, David Hasselhoff is in it as a character named Boner. There’s a moment where the cafeteria spaghetti is dosed with LSD and the entire school freaks out, ending up in the gym showers as class is cancelled and the orgy begins. There’s also a moment where one of the cheerleaders gives one of the boys a rim job while he works in an ice cream stand, which feels way ahead of its time, seeing as how it was made in 1976.

Yes, there’s a story where the adults want to combine Aloha and Lincoln High to sell the school land and make money. Everyone dances whenever they feel it. Sex solves everything.

Speaking of sex, Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith is in this and was actually pregnant while it was being made. This is even worked into the plot, as much as the dinosaur theme park is. She’s holding her real son, Justin Sterling, at the end. His father, John, composed the music for this film.

Directed by Richard Lerner, who was involved in all of the cheerleaders series one way or another, this was written by Ted Greenwald, Nathaniel Dorsky and Ace Baandige, which, as I’ve said before, has to be their real name.

Beyond Rainbeaux, there’s also Penthouse July 1976 Pet Helen Lang, who was also in Tarz and Jane and Cheetah and Hot Nasties, which stars Susan Kiger, the first Playboy Playmate to do porn before she became a Playmate in January 1977; Jerri Woods (Toby from Switchblade Sisters); Patrice Rohmer (Harrad Summer) and Susie Elene.

You can watch this on Tubi.

July 7-13 Teen Movie Hell Week: From the book description on the Bazillion Points website: All-seeing author Mike “McBeardo” McPadden (Heavy Metal Movies) passes righteous judgment over the entire (teen movie) genre, one boobs-and-boner opus at a time. In more than 350 reviews and sidebars, Teen Movie Hell lays the crucible of coming-of-age comedies bare, from party-hearty farces such as The Pom-Pom Girls, Up the Creek, and Fraternity Vacation to the extreme insanity exploding all over King Frat, Screwballs, The Party Animal, and Surf II: The End of the Trilogy.

Man, the 70s.

Steve (John Laughlin) has a van.

Steve wants Anita (Shelly Horner).

Steve’s girlfriend Donna (Verkina Flower, who was also in The Capture of Bigfoot, The Witch Who Came from the Sea and Drive-In Massacre; she was also the costume designer for Top Dog and worked in the wardrobe department for Midnight, Frightmare, They’re Playing With Fire and Silent Night, Deadly Night) gets angry and tells the cops that Steve is a cocaine dealer and tells his friends that Anita was the one who set him up. They decide to sexually assault her, and she’s saved by lady truckers. Yes, this happens. Anita was also roughed up by her boss at The Boogie Bowl earlier, and she still came to work the next day.

The 70s.

Keep in mind that the rest of the movie features van sploitation, sex comedy hijinks, and a pillow fight war. And then, you get the gang rape and an ending that serves chicken race gloom and doom. Well, it looks like Anita is dead when she drives her dad’s station wagon off a cliff, but Steve yells, “She’s alive!” which is as convincing as when that ADR told us that Duke was going to live in the animated G.I. Joe: The Movie.

This was re-released as Summer School, long after the culture had died out due to gas prices. You know. The 70s. Today, too.

Director and writer Bethel Buckalew was a production manager on Deep Jaws, The Love Butcher, Lady Cocoa, The Black 6, Miss Nymphet’s Zap-In, and The Secret Sex Lives of Romeo and Juliet before directing Southern Comforts, Below the Belt, Country Cuzzins, A Scream In the Streets and Sassy Sue. George Barris, the maker of many custom cars, produced this one and also appears, along with several of his family members. He’s a shop owner; his wife, Shirley, is a housewife. Their son, Brett Barris, did stunts. The other son, Shotzi Barris, is a van driver, and Joji Barris is a van driver’s wife.

The skateboarders? Those are the Z-Boys.

The best character? Kim, played by Lynn Kuratomi, practices martial arts because it’s the 70s — did I say that before — and she’s Asian, but she’s still wonderful, despite this classic Hollywood cliche.

You can watch this on Tubi.

July 7-13 Teen Movie Hell Week: From the book description on the Bazillion Points website: All-seeing author Mike “McBeardo” McPadden (Heavy Metal Movies) passes righteous judgment over the entire (teen movie) genre, one boobs-and-boner opus at a time. In more than 350 reviews and sidebars, Teen Movie Hell lays the crucible of coming-of-age comedies bare, from party-hearty farces such as The Pom-Pom Girls, Up the Creek, and Fraternity Vacation to the extreme insanity exploding all over King Frat, Screwballs, The Party Animal, and Surf II: The End of the Trilogy.

Twenty-four years before, Connie Francis, Dolores Hart, Paula Prentiss, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux, Jim Hutton, and Frank Gorshin learned about Where the Boys Are. There were no topless scenes in that movie. There are in this one.

The last movie directed by Hy Averback — who kept directed TV for a few years after this; he also made I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!, Chamber of Horrors and The Girl, the Gold Watch & Dynamite — and the first Tri-Stars Pictures release, this reimagines the virginal beach film for a post-sexual revolution world, as four girls — Carole (Lorna Luft), taking a vacation for her preppie boyfriend Chip (Howard McGillin); Jennie (Lisa Hartman), who has liasons with a classical pianist (Daniel McDonald) and a rock star (Russell Todd); Sandra (Wendy Schaal), looking for Mr. Right and Laurie (Lynn-Holly Johnson), who wants to make love to a real man — go to Fort Lauderdale and stay with Aunt Barbara (Louise Sorel) and her friend Maggie (Alana Stewart).

Yes, Judy Garland’s daughter, grown-up Tabitha Stephens/Cathy Geary Rush from Knots Landing, Bonnie Rumsfield from The ‘Burbs and Bibi Dahl/Lexie Winston from Ice Castles are trying to get laid, just like the boys in the other teen sex comedies.

One of the boys in this is the future Shooter McGavin, Christopher McDonald, and another is Howard McGillin, the longest-running Phantom of the Opera. This was produced by Allen Carr, who managed to continue making movies after Grease 2 and Can’t Stop the Music. There was a party every day and the weed smoked in the beach scenes? Real.

You can watch this on Tubi.

July 7-13 Teen Movie Hell Week: From the book description on the Bazillion Points website: All-seeing author Mike “McBeardo” McPadden (Heavy Metal Movies) passes righteous judgment over the entire (teen movie) genre, one boobs-and-boner opus at a time. In more than 350 reviews and sidebars, Teen Movie Hell lays the crucible of coming-of-age comedies bare, from party-hearty farces such as The Pom-Pom Girls, Up the Creek, and Fraternity Vacation to the extreme insanity exploding all over King Frat, Screwballs, The Party Animal, and Surf II: The End of the Trilogy.

Michael (Adam Silbar), Barry (Michael Zorek), Scotty (Johnny Timko) and Joey (Jeff Fishman, who is now in the band Survivor and did the score for Gregory Dark’s Carnal Crimes) are four guys at the beach just looking to lose their virginity. Yes, it’s another Lemon Popsicle, doing that thing way before Porky’s and American Pie.

Michael already has a girlfriend, Julie Ann (Jill Schoelen!) who won’t put out, so he’s scheming with his friends and wondering if he should cheat. Now, Barry does hook up with Monique Gabrielle, so perhaps he has a point. But I kind of think Schoelen is worth waiting for. Debi Richter from Cybor is also in this, as is Virgil Frye as “the porno man,” the store owner who sells the guys condoms. A biker in Easy Rider, a survivor in Xtro 3, the father of Sean Frye and Soleil Moon Frye.

This was directed by Jim Sotos, who also made Sweet Sixteen, Little Scams on Golf, The Last Victim (AKA Forced Entry) and The Super Weapon. His real name? Dimitri Sotirakis.

It was written by Larry Anderson and Pete Foldy, who is still working in Hollywood, producing the TV movie Get Rich or Die Trying and directing Love Unleashed.

A breakdance scene, Venice Beach travelogue footage, nude ladies running in slow motion to Vangelis’ “Chariots of Fire” and the songs “Hot Moves” and “Ladykiller” by the British New Wave of Heavy Metal band Raven, who called their sound athletic rock and like Oasis, had two Gallagher brothers. Their drummer, Rob “Wacko” Hunter, would wear hockey gear and face paint; he’d throw himself into his drums. Today, he’s an audio engineer on jazz albums for artists such as Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis. Most of all, this is a movie about dudes trying to have an awkward ten seconds of sex and then apologizing after.

You can watch this on YouTube.