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.