EDITOR’S NOTE: Vice Academy 3 aired on USA Up All Night on August 15, 1992; December 31, 1993; June 10, 1995; February 23, 1996 and November 28, 1997.

The girls of Vice Academy are back again. Linnea Quigley’s Didi gets may be gone and Ginger Lynn’s Holly is in prison, but there’s a whole new environmental issue to deal with and the threat of Malathion (Julia Parton, who did many an adult magazine photoshoot and is the cousin of Dolly), who is out to ruin Earth Day — a holiday created by a murderer (for real).

Luckily, Didi’s little sister Candy (Elizabeth Kaitan, Robin from Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood) has joined the force. Jayne Hamil does not appear as Devonshire with Jordana Capra taking over the role.

I watched all three of these movies one after the other and my brain is completely mush. Thank you, Rick Sloane.

According to the IMDB’s Parents Guide, this movie only has mild sex and nudity with the examples being “female topless nudity in three scenes, including an extended sequence which takes place in a strip club” and “a man’s bare buttocks are seen briefly when two women walk in on him changing.”

I thought I was being so scummy when I watched it as a teenager on USA Up All Night.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Starhops aired on USA Up All Night on June 2, 1989; June 1, 1990 and April 26 and 27, 1991.

Stephanie Rothman was studying at UC Berkeley when The Seventh Seal made her want to become a filmmaker. She was the first woman to be awarded the Directors Guild of America fellowship, which was one of the reasons why Roger Corman hired her as his assistant (selecting her over another applicant, the woman who became his wife Julie).

She directed It’s a Bikini World, which was not the kind of movie she wanted to do and was semi-retired until working on the film Gas-s-s-s. She then directed The Student Nurses, an exploitation film that she was not aware was an exploitation film, as she had carte blanche to explore political and social issues in the film that interested her.

She said, “I went and did some research to find out exactly what exploitation films were, their history and so forth, and then I knew that’s what I was doing, because I was making low-budget films that were transgressive in that they showed more extreme things than what would be shown in a studio film, and whose success depended on their advertising, because they had no stars in them. It was dismaying to me, but at the same time I decided to make the best exploitation films I could. If that was going to be my lot, then that’s what I was going to try and do with it.”

She wasn’t interested in making a sequel to The Student Nurses or making The Big Doll House, but her next movie was The Velvet Vampire. Moving to Dimension Pictures, she directed Terminal Island, The Working Girls and Group Marriage.

However, attempts to go mainstream were stigmatized by the films that she had made. Before ending her movie-making career, the rumor was that she reshot some scenes in Ruby and definitely wrote Starhops before taking her name off it, as it was not the film she wanted it to be.

It is, however, directed by Barbara Peeters, the only other female director from New World Pictures. She famously warred with Corman over the additions to Humanoids from the Deep and directed favorites like Bury Me an Angel and the TV series The Powers of Matthew Star.

But what about the movie itself? Well, it’s a trifle, about three waitresses, Danielle, Cupcake and Angel, who all work together to stop their fast food restaurant from going broke. Of course, Dick Miller shows up, as this is a Roger Corman-associated film.

What’s interesting about Angel is that she’s played by Jillian Kesner-Graver, who was not only Fonzie’s girlfriend Lorraine on Happy Days, but worked with her husband Gary to preserve the films and legacy of Orson Welles.

Starhops isn’t really funny. Or sexy. It’s just kind of there. But sometimes, you watch a bad movie and learn about some interesting people.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cavegirl was on USA Up All Night on July 14 and 15 and December 15 and 16, 1989; April 6 and May 19, 1990; March 15 and 16, 1991; January 3, March 7 and June 27, 1992; April 23 and August 21, 1993; February 18 and May 21, 1994; July 12, 1996 and November 1, 1997.

As you stared across the shelves of Prime Time Video — or whatever the mom and pop in your town was called — as closing time grew near, you knew that you had to pick a movie. Cavegirl feels like one of those movies that was always there when you needed a rental.

Take it from someone who has seen enough cave and jungle girl movies to do nearly an entire week of them — this is no Caveman* with Ringo Starr. It is no 10,000 B.C. with Raquel Welch. Hell, it’s not even George Eastman in Ironmaster.

Daniel Roebuck, who always gets parts on Rob Zombie and Don Coscarelli movies, is our hero, such as it is. His name is Rex and he goes back in time “25,000 ago to the Stone Age” even though the Paleolithic period really was 3.3 million years ago. But that’s a minor quibble when this movie has a magic crystal that sends him back to the past. And when he gets there, all he wants to do is aardvark with Eba (Cynthia Thompson, Tomboy, Body Count), the Ayla of our story.

Seriously, that’s it. Instead of worrying about screwing up the history of the world, Rex is trying to teach her how to say, “I want you to sit on my face.” He may be evolved, but his definition of consent isn’t. Also, at this stage of evolution, Rex and Eba bam-bamming in the ham is pretty much bestiality.

Stacey Q is in this movie. Yes, the girl who sang “Two of Hearts.” She contributes a song to the soundtrack, “Synthicide,” which is probably the best reason to watch this, unless you’re a fan of direct to video actresses like Ms. Thompson. Actually, that’s a good reason to watch this, I guess.

Director David Oliver Pfeil made the music video for Steely Dan’s “Aja,” the credits for Knight Rider and made the titles for movies like Star Trek VI, Innerspace and Footloose. This was his one and only full movie and he went all out, writing, producing, doing the cinematography and even the aerial camera work for it. He should have realized he was making a movie for Crown International Pictures, who demanded that he insert the locker room scene in the beginning to ensure that his passion project had enough bare breasts.

*That said, in Spain, this movie is known as Cavegirl: Cavernicola 2, making it seem as if it were a sequel to Caveman.

EDITOR’S NOTE: One Million Years BC was on USA Up All Night on December 6, 1996 and September 27, 1997. 

Don Chaffey also directed Pete’s Dragon and Jason and the Argonauts, as well as Persecution AKA The Graveyard. Shot in Lanzarote and Tenerife in the Canary Islands as well as Elstree Studios, the real star of this movie is the image of Racquel Welch wearing a bikini that predates so much of our world’s history.

A remake of the 1940 movie One Million B.C., this movie is only sixty million years or so off from humans and dinosaurs living together. Then again, Ray Harryhausen, who did the stop motion effects, said that he wasn’t making this movie for professors who probably don’t go to see these kinds of movies anyway.

It starts with these words: “This is a story of long, long ago, when the world was just beginning… A young world, a world early in the morning of time. A hard, unfriendly world. Creatures who sit and wait. Creatures who must kill to live. And man, superior to the creatures only in his cunning. There are not many men yet. Just a few tribes scattered across the wilderness. Never venturing far, unaware that other tribes exist even. Too busy with their own lives to be curious. Too frightened of the unknown to wander. Their laws are simple: the strong take everything.”

We first meet the Rock tribe and Chief Akhoba (Robert Brown), who has two sons at one another’s throats, Tumak (John Richardson) and Sakana (Percy Herbert). Actually, everyone fights everyone as Tumak even goes after his dad over the fair share of the meat of a warthog. He gets banished into the wild lands filled with prehistoric beasts and nearly dies before being saved — and saving — Loana (Welch) of the Shell tribe.

However, Tumak is always trouble and when he fights for his spear, he is kicked out of the Shell tribe. Loana follows him home, where his brother has replaced his father who is a broken man. This is a movie filled with battles between dinosaurs — a Triceratops versus a Ceratosaurus made me go crazy as a kid and those same miniatures are in The Valley of Gwangi — but adult me is more interested in Welch and Martine Beswick going hand to hand.

Then a volcano made of wallpaper paste, oatmeal, dry ice and red dye kills nearly the entire task and forces the Rock and Shell people to stop fighting and become one tribe.

I dig what Harryhausen was going for here, using real animals in some scenes, including a vulture, a python, a green iguana, the warthog mentioned above, a Loaghtan (a type of sheep) and a tarantula. He thought that if people saw some real animals, they may think that everything was an actual animal.

EDITOR’S NOTE: State Park was on USA Up All Night on December 21, 1991; August 1, 1992; April 23 and October 16, 1993 and January 10, 1997.

Also known as Heavy Metal Summer, this movie seems to be about Johnny Rocket and drummer Louis, who are on their way to Los Angeles to be part of the Sunset Strip hair metal scene in the three years they have left before “Nevermind” comes out.

It’s also about Eve (Kim Myers, A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2) trying to win the Weewankah Wilderness Challenge so she can go to college. She’s helped by Linnie (Jennifer Inch, Screwballs) and Marsha (Isabelle Mejias, Julie Darling in the flesh!), but more. importantly, those two just want to hook up with guys.

This movie from Screwballs director Rafal Zielinski, who also made Last Resort, the one with the Coreys, not the one with Charles Grodin, and Recruits. Somehow, he was able to get Ted Nugent to show up for this movie, which shows how close Detroit and Canada really are. Actually, the movie is set in Michigan, despite being filmed up north. And by up north, I don’t mean Northern Michigan.

Man, that’s a joke you’d only get if you were from Michigan, which may be another reason why this movie isn’t so well known.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Clan of the White Lotus was on USA Up All Night on June 13, 1992.

It kind of blows my mind when a Shaw Brothers movie finds its way to USA Up All Night. Released as Fists of the White Lotus in the U.S., this is the sequel to Executioners from Shaolin (AKA Shaolin Executioners and Executioners of Death) and Abbot of Shaolin (AKA Shaolin Abbot and Slice of Death).

A white eyebrowed priest named Pai Mei battles brothers Hung Wei Ting (Gordon Liu) and Wu Ah Biu (King Lee King-Chu) and the fight costs him his life. However, Pai Met also had a brother, the monstrous White Lotus (Lo Lieh, who directed this movie) who shows up and murders Wu Ah Biu. Hung Wei Ting must study new techniques and learn how to fight a man who is stronger than anyone else in the world.

Perhaps the Tiger and Crane styles and more male-oriented martial arts can’t function against White Lotus. Hung Wei Ting is inspired by his sister-in-law Mei Ha (Kara Hui) to study her style, which she calls Embroidery Fist.

Now, two men who have lost their brothers to one another must finally face off in combat. This fight also involves acupuncture, which is almost the most awesome part of the Lau Kar Leung choreography but then I forgot that this has more nut punches than twp episodes of America’s Funniest Home Videos.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Vice Academy 2 aired on USA Up All Night on July 13 and December 27, 1991; August 14 and 15, 1992; May 22 and December 31, 1993; November 11, 1994; June 10, 1995 and October 19, 1996.

In this sequel, Honey Wells (Ginger Lynn) and Didi (Linnea Quigley) are back to battle Spanish Fly, who is about to dose the city with, well, Spanish Fly.

Miss Thelma Louise Devonshire is back as well. She’s played by Jayne Hamil, who was in all of these movies but the third one. The actress would go on to write for The Nanny and Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures, which seems quite far from Vice Academy.

Teagan — yes, the very same Teagan who was Alienator — is in this as BimboCop, who Honey dislikes so much that she blows up the cyborg cop and goes to jail at the end of the movie, just in time for Didi to graduate and leave Vice Academy behind.

Rick Sloane directed this one again. If you haven’t seen these, imagine a 1980s VCA film with all the lead up to the sex and none of the actual sex. It’s the best we could do before the internet, when all we had was USA Up All Night.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Hell Comes to Frogtown aired on USA Up All Night on June 24 and September 29, 1989; February 3 and July 28, 1990; January 11, May 11, July 19 and July 27, 1991.

Donald G. Jackson sure made a lot of post-apocalyptic films. Roller Blade, Roller Blade Warriors: Taken by Force, The Rollerblade Seven, The Legend of the Rollerblade Seven, Return of the Rollerblade Seven and three different movies in the Helltown series. He also made I Like To Hurt People, a movie all about pro wrestling. These things would all come together to create this film, where “Rowdy” Roddy Piper plays Sam Hell, the last fertile man on Earth.

In the post-apocalyptic wasteland of this film, atomic fallout has led to men and women being unable to breed. The government seeks out those that can make children and uses them to keep the human race alive. Meanwhile, frogs have become able to walk and talk like humans, all while falling for human women.

Sam Hell (Piper) has been located by the government as they followed the trail of pregnant women left in his wake. They wanted to use him to breed their collection of fertile women, but it turns out that the frogs took all of them. So now, he must use his fighting skills to break into Frogtown and rescue the women, then knock every single one of them up.

The team behind this operation — Spangle (Sandahl Bergman, who was also in the near-perfect post-apoc film She) and Centinella (Cec Verrell, Hollywood Vice Squad) — outfits Hell with a codpiece that will cause his junk to explode if he tries to run off.

Of course, hijinks ensue. A Frog lady named Arabella (Kristi Somers, Savage Streets, Girls Just Want to Have Fun) falls for Hell. Spangle is drugged and ensures the Dance of the Three Snakes for the Frog leader Commander Toty. And Nicholas Worth — serial killer and necrophiliac Kirk Smith from Don’t Answer the Phone — shows up as a Frog who tortures Hell.

This film is worlds better than I ever imagined that it could be. The part of Sam Hell was written with Tim Thomerson in mind, but New World wanted Daniel Stern. The final two actors considered for the role came down to Piper and Ed Marinaro. I think they made the right choice.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ellie aired on USA Up All Night on February 1 and October 19, 1991 and August 7, 1992.

If there’s a hicksploitation hall of fame, Shelley Winters should probably be in it. She’s in one of the movies that defines so many of the genre’s themes, The Night of the Hunter, as well as some of its best — and most exploitative examples — films, such as Bloody Mama and Poor Pretty Eddie. She also plays a housekeeper Katy who has also had a space baby sometime in the past in the astounding 70s blast of odd called The Visitor.

Somewhere in the Deep South, this is all about barefoot farmer’s daughter Ellie (Sheila Kennedy, Penthouse Pet of the Month for December 1981 and the 1983 Pet of the Year) getting revenge for her father’s murder at the hands of her stepmother (Winters) — who killed the kindly old man while she chowed down on fried chicken.

She only has one weapon. Her body. And she knows how to use it.

George Gobel, Edward Albert and Pat Paulsen all show up, but the main thrill of the film is its rampant nudity. Somehow, this movie is also a version of the Greek myth of Elektra, if you can wrap your mind around that.

Director Peter Wittman was also behind exactly one other movie, Play Dead, where a woman kills with her brain and her dog. It’s not great or even good, but it’s the kind of movie that you stayed up to watch on a Friday night on Cinemax. If you never did that, you’re probably going to hate this. If you did, you have a near-limitless capacity for enduring boring films. Not that I would know or anything.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cat People aired on USA Up All Night on September 17, 1993 and July 29, 1994.

Producer Milton Subotsky — all hail Amicus! — bought the rights to Cat People from RKO and began developing a remake, with the rights going to Universal eventually. Roger Vadim was going to be the director with Alan Ormsby and Bob Clark — all hail Children Shouldn’t Play With Death Things — working on several versions of the script.

Paul Schrader ended up making this, making a movie that is way more sexual — man, understatement of the year — than the film that inspired it.

Irena (Nastassja Kinski) and Paul (Malcolm McDowell) Gallier have been separated since their parents died. He’s now involved in a church in New Orleans and lives with his housekeeper Female (Ruby Dee), but has gone missing.

Of course, panther attacks start happening — look out Lynn Lowry (I Drink Your Blood, The Crazies) — and zoologists Oliver Yates (John Heard), Alice Perrin (Annette O’Toole) and Joe Creigh (Ed Begley Jr.) are on the case. They capture the panther, who Irena finds herself attracted to. If you think that this is the end of the animal and human sexual attraction in this film, well, stay tuned.

Joe ends up getting mauled by the panther, which disappears just as Paul reappears to make a Flowers In the Attic move on his sister. Oh yeah — that’s when we find out that his basement is filled with the remains of people, so everyone thinks the big cat belongs to him.

Oh man — where do we go now? We find out that in the mythology of this movie, any time one of these catpeople do the horizontal mambo with a human they turn into a cat and can only become human again by killing another person. Mama and papa Gallies were siblings because werecats are ancestrally incestuous and — oh yeah — only aardvarking between two catpeople doesn’t cause a transformation. So Paul tries to get with his sister again, just in time for Oliver to save her and her to shoot her brother.

This movie ends in perhaps the most insane way possible. Irena begs to be with her kind, so Paul ties her up and dips the stinger in the honey, as it were, until she transforms back into a panther, at which point he donates her to the zoo.

Holy cow, movies were absolutely insane in 1982. Wow and the soundtrack! Bowie and Giorgio Moroder? You can not get more absolutely 80’s than that. Oh yeah — and another RKO movie was remade in 1982. The Thing. Both failed at the box office, but only one is remembered quite so fondly.