You know how people (maybe even you) go apeshit over the Harry Potter movies? I don’t get it. That’s not to say it’s wrong — just not for me. When it comes to children’s-oriented fantasy, the vastly underrated Lemony Snicket movie is more my taste, and no one could be more surprised about that than me, because this adaptation looked like typical Jim Carrey crap.

Instead, it’s anything but. An admirably restrained Carrey plays the balding, fiendish Count Olaf, a would-be actor who lives in a spooky castle and becomes the legal guardian of three young children (a jailbait Emily Browning among them) distantly related to him, recently orphaned by a house fire. Olaf is no Super Nanny, but he’s eager to get his hands on their immense inheritance. But the kids escape, bouncing from one obscure relative to the next, with Olaf on their tail and sporting different disguises.

The chase isn’t as interesting as the film’s Tim Burton-esque bleakness and pervading sense of dark humor, both welcome elements to what could have been sheer kiddie junk (as the rather sly opening parodies, with a crudely animated “The Littlest Elf” cartoon). And I’d wager that the closing credits may be the most amazing cinema has ever seen.

Too bad this tanked, because I would’ve loved to see the sequels. That’s rather, er, unfortunate. *rimshot* —Rod Lott

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Ask any priapic teenage boy with an ounce of imagination what he would do if he could become invisible, and chances are, he’d blush so hard he’d actually achieve an ironic moment of flaccidity.

It’s a shame, then, that the filmmakers responsible for School Spirit didn’t ask a teenage boy to write their script, since it is as impotent an example of the teen titty comedy as the ’80s ever produced.

Made by the same East Indian investors who gave us the insane Sho Kosugi fiasco Nine Deaths of the Ninja, the film tells the tale of Billy Batson (Tom Nolan), a college cut-up who becomes the titular spirit when an emergency-condom run leads to a seemingly fatal car crash. With just a few hours left before he has to follow his spirit guide uncle into the light, Billy’s tangible ghost makes a valiant effort to get laid one last time — first with the frosty Elizabeth Foxx (in a performance that is the very definition of “leggy”) and then with convent-raised, French girl Daniele Arnaud — while also making an effort to honor the sacred college tradition of “Hog Day.”

Sadly, the movie’s chief gimmick is little more than an afterthought and Billy spends far more time as a regular douchebag than an invisible voyeur. The boredom is occasionally relieved by a fun performance from Marta Kober, who seems to be channeling Tatum O’Neal in her role as the dean’s braless jailbait daughter, but she alone can’t overcome everyone else’s lethargic disinterest. —Allan Mott

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As much as you may love movies, you’re human and only have so much time. Some movies are simply going to fall by the wayside, never to be seen by your eyes. That’s okay. You’re not a bad person. Unless you’re Rod Lott (the creator of this site) and that movie is Da’ Booty Shop. In that case, you’re going to suffer eternal torment in Hades for what you did.

See, a while back, someone sent a DVD copy of that film to Rod to review and he decided he could live the whole rest of his life without doing so. I mocked him for his refusal and suggested he was a coward. In retaliation, he sent it to me and dared me to watch and review it. And I did, first in video form (see below) and now here in print. Does this make me a better person than him? Yes. Yes it does.

An “urban comedy” (that means it’s about black people), Da’ Booty Shop recounts the adventures of a stripper named Yolanda (Trina McGee), who reluctantly inherits the responsibilities of an “urban” hair salon (that means it’s for black people) after her brother (Marcello Thedford) is sent to jail for undisclosed reasons. Yolanda is an idiot and is no way prepared to deal with the mess her brother has left for her to deal with. For some reason, she decides to hire her stripper friends to work at the salon, and it all ends happily.

The plot is unimportant. All that matters is that Da’ Booty Shop really sucks and I was man enough to watch it and someone else wasn’t. Remember that. I know I will. —Allan Mott

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A zombie virus breaks out in the lab, and a team of military specialists goes in to take control of the situation, in Zombie Strippers. Of course, they do a piss-poor job and someone who’s been infected escapes and heads for the nearest illegal strip club, Rhino’s, owned by a fast-talking sleazoid named Ian Essko (Robert Englund).

The girls are a mixed lot containing a virgin from Sartre, Neb.; nasty rivals; one who reads Nietzsche (after she becomes the walking dead, she says, “Now this stuff makes so much more sense”) and star attraction Kat (Jenna Jameson). The male audience goes nuts for the girls after they become zombies, and the limbo bimbos turn into the super-strippers.

The picture was written, directed, shot and edited by Jay Lee, with dialogue assistance from Zarathustra. Supposedly inspired by Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist play Rhinoceros, in which everyone is eager to conform by becoming the title beast, Lee’s script is a grab bag of horror movie parodies — one zombie begging to be shot in the head is a dead-on poke at The Fly — and some kind of commentary on people who love the dead a little too much. As if that’s even possible.

Mostly, however, the whole thing is an upraised middle finger pointed at mainstream filmmakers who enjoy slumming by making imitation down-and-dirty exploitation movies while maintaining their memberships in the Cahiers du Cinéma fan club. You ain’t gonna catch Robert De Niro in the sequel to this puppy. —Doug Bentin

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Disjointed but markedly entertaining (maybe it’s all the breasts) is The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, the ninth entry in AIP’s highly successful Beach Party series. There’s nary a Frankie nor an Annette, but their absence matters not. Hell, in my book, nothing else matters when you have super-stacked Susan Hart (Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine) in your movie. It’s just too bad her damned bikini is invisible!

She fills the spiritual role of a recently departed, but still totally hot soul who hangs around the haunted mansion of newly dead Hiram Stokely (Boris Karloff), whom Hart tells can gain entrance into heaven and be young again if he can do a good deed within 24 hours. Four of his potential heirs — including a golly-gee Tommy Kirk and corrupt lawyer Basil Rathbone — show up at the house for the reading of his will and to find his hidden million-dollar fortune.

Coinciding is the arrival of a busload (literally, a busload!) of teenagers in their swimsuits, shaking their tailfeathers to the groovy tunes of the Bobby Fuller Four, who experience seizure-like jerks as they perform. A MILFy Nancy Sinatra is among the bunch, and she belts out a number of her own. There’s a plant among the teens in the form — and oh, what a form! — of Quinn O’Hara as Sinestra, a curvy, busty, nearsighted redhead who plots to kill one of the young men on the hunt for the treasure. What is it about attempted murder that makes for lighthearted comedy?

I don’t even have room to mention the gang of bikers led by Eric Von Zipper (Harvey Lembeck), a runaway gorilla, a requisite old lady, the most offensive portrayal of an American Indian in motion-picture history, the basement-housed chamber of horrors, a kajillion non-sequiturs, two kajillion slapstick bits, a knife-wielding mummy in a wig, and a bubble monster roaming the halls.

And of course, the occasional appearance of Hart’s blue-tinted apparition causing all sorts of comic chaos. I’m sure there’s more, but a brain can only hold so much. —Rod Lott

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