All posts by Allan Mott

Girls Nite Out (1984)

How bad is the slasher movie suckfest that is Girls Nite Out? So bad that its very existence is a paradoxical phenomenon I have named the GNO Enigma. It works like this: The plot and characters of Girls Nite Out are so derivative that the film owes its entire creation to the filmmakers’ repeated viewings of Friday the 13th and National Lampoon’s Animal House, while at the same time, the film is so incompetently made that it actually becomes inconceivable that they have ever seen another movie, much less the ones they’re so transparently ripping off.

Ignoring such traditional bad-slasher-movie features such as terrible acting, repellent characters and a script (written by four people!) that wastes a full third of its running time on a romantic subplot that is never resolved and has nothing to do with the actual story, Girls Nite Out shows a remarkable ability to fuck up on virtually every technical level.

It would be impossible to list all of them in detail, but my favorite has to be the movie’s reliance on the only three songs its producers could afford to license. Imagine watching a movie where the entire soundtrack is comprised of Ohio Express’ “Yummy Yummy Yummy” and The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Do You Believe In Magic” and “Summer in the City.” Now imagine that a significant part of the movie’s narrative depends on the characters listening to their campus radio station, whose hip, cool-daddy DJ plays only those three terrible songs!

I’d summarize the plot, which involves a maniac killing college kids while dressed in an adorable bear mascot costume, but I refuse to spend more time thinking about it than the producers did. Don’t watch this movie. For the love of whatever deity you choose, do not watch this movie! —Allan Mott

Buy it at Amazon.

5 Movies I Saw in a Theater in 1999 and Only Barely Remember

1. Simply IrresistibleBuffy was awesome, huh? So awesome I paid actual money to see a terrible rom-com (by myself!) starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as a once-talentless chef who discovers her inner-Thomas Keller (Google him, non-foodies) via magical crustaceans.

2. Three to Tango — This might have been the one where the guy from Friends has to pretend he’s gay when hanging out with the girl from Party of Five, so the dude from The Practice doesn’t get jealous. Either that or it was the one the guy from Fools Rush In has to pretend he’s gay when hanging out with the girl from 54 so the dude from Texas Rangers doesn’t get jealous. I can’t remember which.

3. Eye of the Beholder — Ashley Judd plays a black-widow serial killer who offs men after fucking them. Insert male chauvinistic joke here (while I apologize for using the tired “insert _____ here” joke in place of an actual witticism).

4. Teaching Mrs. Tingle — Katie Holmes gets pissed at Helen Mirren for giving her a shitty grade. Twelve years later, she’s still pissed because Mirren’s an Oscar-winning GILF, while she’s just the chick who married Crazy McXenu.

5. The Muse — Albert Brooks plays a screenwriter who pays Sharon Stone to inspire him to greatness. I’m guessing the civil case is still in litigation. —Allan Mott

Buy them at Amazon.

Killer Workout (1987)

If there’s one thing I love more than fads-ploitation (movies based on short-lived and instantly dated cultural obsessions) or a good slasher flick, it would have to be terrible amalgams of both. Thank writer/director David A. Prior (Sledgehammer) for making me so happy with Killer Workout (also released with the much better title, Aerobicide), which is as wonderfully bad as a late-’80s movie about a maniac killing attractive people in an aerobics studio ever could hope to be.

Unlike other wannabe horror auteurs, Prior doesn’t feel beholden to such traditional cinematic crutches as suspense, character or plot. He’s happy instead to merely intercut random murders of folks we don’t give even the teeny-tiniest fuck about with extensive footage of hot, busty babes exercising enthusiastically in the kind of minimal outfits only the very fittest of us should ever be allowed to wear in public.

As fads-ploitation, Killer Workout is literally nothing more than 30-plus minutes of absurdly sexualized workout footage. As a slasher film, it’s a catastrophic failure. The secret identity of the scarred killer is obvious as soon as she appears onscreen and is the only one dressed in the aerobic version of a burka; nameless victims are introduced in the same scenes where they’re killed; and the hot instructor with the best butt and highest thong is clearly established as the probable protagonist until the screenplay suddenly forgets all about her and decides to kill her off-screen instead.

Combined, however, the result is almost hypnotic in its base appeal. Bouncing boobies. Kill. Thong-clad buttocks. Kill. Random karate fight. Kill. More boobies. Kill. More buttocks. Kill. Kill. Kill. And all I can say is, if you don’t understand the appeal of this, why the heck are you even reading this? —Allan Mott

Buy it at Amazon.

The Good Student (2006)

A few years ago, my former employer decided to produce a series of videos for the smartphone market and tasked me with writing them. I threw together 25 scripts centered on the concept of the “sport” of curling (their idea, not mine), handed them in and heard nothing about the project for four months.

Then I learned the videos were going to be directed by “exciting new talent” David Ostry, who was then at work on a feature film produced by Kevin Spacey, starring Hayden Panettiere, that cute cheerleader from Heroes. I was excited to find out my scripts were actually going to be produced, and looked forward to hearing from Ostry when he inevitably sought my feedback.

Four more months passed, and I was surprised when I was asked if I wanted to see the completed videos. My surprise turned to horror when I saw that the “exciting new talent” had managed to completely misinterpret all of my scripts, sometimes conveying the exact opposite point and tone I had intended. Adding insult to injury, the only credit that appeared in the videos was Ostry’s, completely negating my own contribution to the project.

So you can forgive me if I approached The Good Student with a distinct bias against it. I try to never start watching a movie wanting to hate it, but in this case, I was willing to make an exception. It’s so poorly made, it’s no wonder the film took so long to be released, even with such a well-known, talented cast, including Tim Daly, William Sadler and Dan Hedaya. Despite starting out as an editor, Ostry has difficulty getting shots that cut well together and the digital-video cinematography makes the work look and feel like an ambitious home movie.

But its biggest flaw is its inability to maintain a consistent tone. Clearly inspired by American Beauty, it loses focus midway through and ceases to be an unsuccessful social satire in favor of being an unsuccessful thriller. But you can’t take my word for it, since I have an admitted ax to grind, which means you’ll have to judge it for yourself.

You poor, poor bastards. —Allan Mott

Buy it at Amazon.

Posed for Murder (1989)

If you’re anything like me, then the first page of Playboy you always turn to is the centerfold’s fact sheet. “Who is she as a person?” you ask yourself as you enjoy her witty insights regarding her likes, dislikes, ambitions and turns both on and off. It’s only then — with some reluctance — that you take a look at the photographs that represent the rest of her appearance in the magazine and appreciate them in your own special way for a few brief, energetic minutes.

Thankfully, for those of us movie buffs who truly care about who our masturbation fantasies are as people, there’s Posed for Murder, a somewhat-forgotten, late-’80s thriller dedicated to the travails of a glamour model trying to make her way in a world full of asshole publishers, sleazy agents, sleazier movie directors, sick moms, convict ex-boyfriends and psychotic, body-building stalkers-cum-serial killers.

Charlotte Helmkamp (Miss December 1982) is clearly cast against type as Laura, a hot brunette with a bangin’ body whose photos in the low-rent Thrill have paid the bills, but who longs for the kind of respect that’s synonymous with being a terrible actress in low-budget horror films. While she pursues her dream in-between workouts and photo shoots, she barely has the time to notice that all of the people around her are turning up kinda dead.

Posed for Murder is one of those movies that does nothing right, yet still manages to be a fun time. Just sleazy enough to leave you tumescent, but not so much to make you feel guilty afterward, it’s a so-bad-it’s-good fiasco that deserves to be much better known among aficionados of this sort of thing. —Allan Mott

Buy it at Amazon.