As box-office returns for The Housemaid demonstrate, America is horny again! Whatever the reason for the erotic thriller’s comeback, if more turn out neither erotic nor thrilling like Bight, that resurgence could quickly go flaccid.  

Following a miscarriage (of fetus, not justice), Atticus and Charlie are in a rut. Played by Cameron Cowperthwaite and Maiara Walsh, both likable, the spouses hope for a distraction at a party thrown by their couple friends, Sebastian (Mark Hapka) and Naomi (Maya Stojan). Tension follows Charlie and Atticus through the door, because last time they were all together, things got weird. Meaning, they shared a foursome. 

There’s no party — ’tis all a ruse by Sebastian, a pompous art photographer, to coerce his emotionally fragile pals into posing nude for his latest work. This involves — after a round of drugged tea, of course — Atticus and Charlie facing one another and tightly bound in red ropes while Naomi flings paint on their bodies and Sebastian shouts orders (in a manner not unlike the photoshoot scene in Austin Powers: “Burrow! Burrow! Make an interconnected series of tunnels like the Viet Cong!”). 

Until its tail end, Bight is a movie of conversation over action, and such talks are often interminable. Each character says a lot without saying anything of consequence, e.g., “Apologies aren’t weak. What’s weak are the people who don’t say them.” Arguably worse, they speak as if their lines require delivery with a degree of reverence, as if orating Shakespearean monologues onstage at the Globe. You be the judge:

Atticus: “I didn’t know there were rules to exploring, but that first one sounds made up.”
Sebastian: “Well, all rules are made up.” 
Naomi: “We’re the ones that give them power, but fear not. Rules, whether they’re made up or not … are there for a reason.” 

In addition to writing the screenplay with onscreen hub Cowperthwaite (Bury the Bride), Ms. Walsh (Mean Girls 2) calls the shots helming her first feature. She makes Bight look good — even great at times. The problem remains their script. In addition to aforementioned deficiencies, it’s not even clear why the characters get so worked up (not sexually speaking) over certain situations or how they choose to react.

Bight’s most appealing parts are the opening and closing credits, credited to one “Yori X,” who executes both in the style of 007’s celebrated title sequences. But with sex ropes. —Rod Lott

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Three coeds live a credo espoused by the Rolling Stones (and, um, The Soup Dragons): They’re free to do what they want any old time. By “what,” they mean “whom,” of course, and the ladies urge their brunette Gabriella (Barbara Mills, The Suckers) to do the same. So she does.

Don’t expect much from Class of ’74 in plotting. After the on-campus prologue introducing us to our heroines (Sondra Currie, Marki Bey and Pat Woodell), the movie depicts their episodic, nudity-laden forays into college hookups and heartbreaks. Consider it a countercultural stepsister to Roger Corman’s Nurses pics in structure and spirit, yet sapped of all the fun. For example, the biggest bummer of a sequence finds a gay man in a Han Solo vest recalling how he was molested by his coach.

Arthur Marks’ films bear a distinct look, with a vivid palette of greens and oranges like peas and carrots from a piping-hot Swanson TV dinner. (I’m certain drive-in screens did his palette no justice.) That visual resemblance is all Class of ’74 has going for it, because his other works don’t play this staid. In fact, the following year’s The Roommates is even a sequel, but you wouldn’t know it; it’s a real blast to this movie’s utter drag.

In the last few minutes, Gabriella exercises her true sexual freedom by bedding a senior citizen (Phillip Terry, The Leech Woman) on a boat. —Rod Lott

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Purportedly a spoof of corporate training videos, Safety First: The Rise of Women! looks at the peculiar predicaments faced by attractive women who work in skyscrapers in California. That’s awfully specific. And Safety First is specifically awful.

Over and over for 50 agonizing, mishmashed minutes, ostensible writer/director Greg McDonald exhibits an imbecilic sense of humor to depict how those females should respond in various life-or-death situations, from medical emergencies to natural disasters. Most of what pass as punchlines can be paraphrased as, “ROFL, women have boobies! And they bounce, whaaaaaaat!”

Not a second of it qualifies as funny, but that doesn’t stop McDonald from thinking all of it is. Quite possibly, the scenarios are crowdsourced from a seventh-grade gym class.

For instance, trapped in an elevator? Just imagine you’re at a private beach, so you can rip open your blouse and clutch dem titties. Should an earthquakes occur, ensure your prep kit is stocked with dildos of unusual size, and be prepared for your hanging breasts to shake and shake and shake. And in case of fire, getting oxygen is of utmost importance, so doff that bra before running down the stairs — and don’t forget to breathe through your diaphragm. (Re: that last advice nugget, you get one guess what the woman places over her mouth to demonstrate.)

Although tit and dick jokes rule The Rise’s low-bar roost, not every gag involves erogenous zones. Why, in the segment on bomb threats, a woman gets the upper hand by covering her opponent’s eyes with two Forever stamps (the original Liberty Bell design, for any curious philatelists).

Woe be to the actresses, strip club performers and other ladies who deigned to appear in Safety First: The Rise of Women! They’re front and center, while McDonald gets to hide not only behind his video camera, but also a “Mac Kelly” pseudonym, as he ADD-edits his way through go-go dances, catfights, cloth dummies, disembodied limbs, lesbian couplings, goat milkings, hula hooping, iMovie explosions and male rape by a Village Person (the fireman, for any curious cosplayers). On the list of things to watch before you die, Safety First should come in last. —Rod Lott

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Making a parody film is difficult when you can’t afford to record live audio. And ever more so when your actors don’t move their mouths to approximate dialogue that could be dubbed later. Nonetheless, Everybody Loves It remains undaunted.

Oh, it’s not successful — just undaunted. Its “solution” to its self-inflicted conundrum? Wall-to-wall narration from a four-leaf clover. As if that weren’t bewildering enough, the trefoil speaks in a Viennese accent, courtesy of cartoon royalty Paul Frees, aka Boris Badenov from Rocky and Bullwinkle. Not that any patron cared, this being a nudie cutie and all. (Frees sure did, wisely going uncredited.)

With a soundtrack heavy on xylophones and foghorns, Everybody Loves It plays loose and lecherous as a paltry spoof of three TV shows and — whoa there, horsey — one whole commercial. Going under the heavily dulled knife first is hospital drama Ben Casey. Dr. Sven Crazy and fellow surgeons remove a heart-shaped candy box from a patient — not to mention clothing from the bosomy bodies of scrub nurses, leaving them in panties resembling placemats.

When the respirator fails, the physicians opt for a bicycle pump. At surgery’s end, the patient is revealed as Mad magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman (via mask less terrifying than what the mag would use in its own movie. Up the Academy). Hell, this one wishes it were one-tenth as good as Mad. It’d even settle for Cracked.

Next, Naked City undergoes a dressing down, as master criminal Louie Linguini plots a heist of redemption stamps from a fur salon. This plan requires his hourglass-shaped moll to pose as a nude mannequin to fool the half-blind security guard. Frees’ near-nonsensical play-by-play includes such gags as, “They have to be as fast as butterflies doing push-ups on a lemon meringue pie.”

Finally — woefully — the hourlong pic finishes by taking aim at Combat! The humor gets not one iota better (“Is that a parachute? Looks like Sonny Liston’s nightshirt!”), but the ladies get barer. Here and elsewhere, they include cheesecake models Althea Currier (Kiss Me Quick!), Penny Bello, Michelle Swain, Paula Angelos (Dr. Sex), Karen Nichols and Cathy Crowfoot (Mondo Keyhole), not that any represents a recommendation. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Just because two people have been intimate doesn’t mean they’ve been intimate intimate. In the waking moments after their one-night stand at a conference, Alex and Carey learn this, caught unawares by a situation requiring a much deeper connection.

With DISC running all of 14 minutes, credits and all, I’m not about to reveal details of the hole in which they find themselves. As Carey (Jim Cummings, The Last Stop in Yuma County) cryptically explains to the knocking housekeeper why they can’t cede the room quite yet, “This is R-rated stuff … so I’m sorry.”

Although Cummings isn’t DISC’s director (that’d be one Blake Winston Rice), it tonally fits his own wonderful films. One could see Cummings’ reluctant philanderer from The Beta Test stumbling into this fine mess of lanyard-bearing lovers. The other, Alex, the yin to his yang, is played by Victoria Ratermanis. She was heretofore unknown to me, as confirmed by a trip to her IMDb page (where her bio incorrectly calls her “an Oscar nominated actor”). Aside from starring, she also wrote the short with Rice from her (hopefully true) story.

Shooting in a fleabag motel with curtains the transparency of tissue makes the cringe-comedy piece feel more awkward and stressful — and, yes, funny — than the comparative professionalism of a hotel room (posh or economical) would allow. That smart decision pays immediate dividends, even if DISC’s final moments do not, in a grace note that feels unearned. That extends to a title card that attempts to pass off the all-caps title as an acronym — one that seems more convenient than functional.

But before that? Yeah, give ’er a hand. —Rod Lott