In Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure, sultry TV producer turned shady murder suspect Dr. Claire Archer (Shannon Tweed, Hot Dog … The Movie) decides to check out the legal briefs of her married lawyer, Simon Mitchell (Larry Poindexter, American Ninja 2: The Confrontation), in hopes of helping her case.

To get on his good side, she gives him an oral examination in his office’s break room. With him completely won over by her well-timed arguments, they do a little gavel-bashing atop a car in a parking garage, in an elevator, on a pool table and on his own dining room table, where people eat. Even a whole bottle of Pledge wouldn’t mask that evidence.

Thoroughly routine among erotic thrillers of the 1990s (Tweed’s character likes to hump? Who’da guessed?), this entry from director Jim Wynorski (Sorority House Massacre II) also has the misfortune of allowing Tweed’s six-time co-star Andrew Stevens to show up briefly as his character from the previous year’s Body Chemistry III. Tweed, however, is new to the Roger Corman-birthed franchise, taking over the role from Shari Shattuck, who took it over from Lisa Pescia.

Also making a return appearance? Fake breasts. (To clarify, Stevens’ are real.) —Ed Donovan

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Admittedly without researching, I can think of no prostitute other than Xaviera Hollander to have achieved such a level of American fame that Hollywood responded in kind by turning her memoir and her life into a veritable film franchise. Naturally, her household-name status was a genuine by-product of the Me Decade (as opposed to our current Me Me ME Decade); I’m half-surprised she wasn’t called upon by prime-time TV to corporate-synergize by testing the cabin mattresses aboard The Love Boat or causing Tattoo to spill some ink during a visit to Fantasy Island.

Based on Hollander’s 1971 memoir of the same name, The Happy Hooker is a sex comedy that is neither all that sexy nor all that funny. Furthermore, title be damned, it’s not all that happy, either. In fact, Nicholas Sgarro’s virgin outing as a feature director is so bad, it’s depressing. (No wonder he was banished to television forever after, cresting with 54 episodes of Knots Landing.)

Gods and Monsters’ Lynn Redgrave strikes one as vigorously miscast in the role of the real-life, larger-than-life Hollander, but at least she grants sympathy to her character. Arriving in America from Holland, Xaviera is gaga for the rich guy she moved continents for (Nicholas Pryor, Risky Business), until his deep-seated mommy issues suffocate their planned nuptials with a throw pillow.

She revolts the same way many women do: balling as many men as possible. What she enjoys, she soon gets paid for, which leads to full-time freelancing and, eventually, full-blown whoredom heading a bordello. See, Xavier does anything and anyone, while her peers may flinch. Make out with a black chick? Not a problem! X’s color-blind tongue is already out, wet and a-waggin’!

For something so sordid-sounding, The Happy Hooker is not only boring, but almost fully absent of nudity. Redgrave’s big number has her stripping to her underwear — and then back again — while dancing atop the conference room of a Wall Street executive (Tom Poston, TV’s Newhart). The only flesh bared is brief, yet belongs to Anita Morris, Ruthless People’s risqué redhead, here turned into a giant banana split with extra whipped cream. As with every scene in Sgarro’s film, it’s not as much fun as it sounds.

This awful flick was followed by 1977’s awful The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington and 1980’s truly awful The Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood, which would be forgotten from pop culture’s collective conscience if not for Adam West (TV’s Batman) appearing in drag and getting blown. With each adventure, a different leading lady donned the garter belt. —Ed Donovan

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Not much occurs in the pedestrian and paltry Schoolgirls in Chains beyond what the title promises, and even that is a misnomer. I get it, though: Sexploitation is sexploitation, which requires salable sizzle, and “schoolgirl” tickles a particular — and particularly popular — fetish. Like Troma’s infamous Mother’s Day seven years later, this feature from The Love Butcher director Don Jones centers on two adult brothers who live a screwed-up existence with their screwy mother in a home just middle-of-nowhere enough to be ideal for their peculiar method of entertaining members of the opposite sex.

Frank (Gary Kent, Jones’ The Forest) is the brains of the Barrows boys; the mentally challenged John (John Parker, The Mighty Gorga), the brawn. Through automotive mishaps and what have you, the brothers nab the nubile, take them home and chain ’em up in the cellar with the others. On occasion, John likes to play doctor with them, whereas Frank has little patience for games — he just out-and-out rapes. Jones’ choice to score this grimy scene with romantic sax music is all the more troubling.

Equally as troubling is the film’s highlight: a flashback in which Mother (Greta Gaylord) ruins Frank’s chances at marriage by telling his fiancée that while he used to wet the bed, he now just gets her wet in bed. Translation: incest. We can’t place all the blame on Mrs. Barrows, however, because in the same scene, when she asks her son for a massage to relieve the pain she’s having, he complies; the “pain” is in her breasts. I know women like to see how their husband-to-be treats his mama, but this? It’s a red flag that sews, raises and waves itself.

Yep, kids, SiC (!) is one of “those” kinds of movies: not pornography, but misguided eroticism. Hey, it takes all kinds to make the world go ’round. It takes a village! —Ed Donovan

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Warning: Arthur Marks’ The Roommates may cause whiplash. For its first 39 minutes, it plays like one fun-loving, fuck-me pump of a sexploitation flick. Then, at minute 40, one of its many lovely ladies takes more than 100 stab wounds to the torso, and not by choice.

No worries, though! Soon, the dial is cranked right back to happy-go-lucky, borrowing a pattern straight from that archaic TV nugget of the sock-it-to-me ’60s, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In: minimal setup, corny joke, onto the next one. Mind you, this episodic structure actually proves to be a plus.

Delivered the same year he moved into the lucrative blaxploitation game with the Quentin Tarantino-beloved Detroit 9000, Marks’ film makes much use of its finest special effect: the bevy of beauties. As the titular Roommates, Pat Woodell (The Big Doll House), Roberta Collins (Death Race 2000), Marki Bey (Sugar Hill) and Laurie Rose (The Abductors) romp in the sand, discuss women’s lib, take showers and, eventually, summer at Lake Arrowhead.

They’re not vacationing as a foursome, however, which further lends the film a soapy layer similar to the Valley of the Dolls it name-drops. Joining Woodell’s Heather for the trip is her young, feisty cousin (The Stewardesses’ Christina Hart), who is more than happy to make Oedipal overtures after a conquest of Heather’s tells her post-coitally, “Oh, Heather, it’s just like old times, isn’t it? You’re as good as you were when you were 16!” Meanwhile, Rose’s Brea assumes nursing duties at a kids’ camp, where she and her tight Ts and short shorts garner a great deal of hormonal attention from overly (but justifiably) horny boys: “Boy, is she built like a brick shithouse! Boy, would I like to make it with her!” Get in line, brother …

In fact, I’d like to serially date the hell out of this movie. It’s too much of a carefree blast to not swing right along to its delectable rhythms and life-affirming scenery. —Rod Lott

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In the department of sexual relations, Mike (Michael Stearns, Battle for the Planet of the Apes) has quite a hang-up: “When a man climbs on top of a woman, she becomes ugly.” (Oh, Mike, you’re doing it all wrong.) He takes out his frustration the only way he knows: through the crosshairs of a high-powered rifle!

Zero in and Scream follows Mike as he shoots his way through the Hollywood hills. His targets? Couples in the middle of, um, coupling. This has all the makings of a twisted little thriller, but director Lee Frost (The Thing with Two Heads) is really only interested in the sex, so au revoir, thrills.

Mike spends a great deal of time soaking in the all-nude dancing at a fleabag bar named The Classic Cat, where he takes a shine to the stripper Susan (Donna Young, one of Al Adamson’s Naughty Stewardesses). Susan invites him to a party at her groovy pad, where Mike watches all the other guests have all kinds of foreplay and intercourse in the (hopefully heavily chlorinated) pool. He gets so hot and bothered as a mere spectator that he drives up the hill in order to put the shindig to an end … with a bullet! (Party foul!)

But Lordy, it seems to take forever for anything of interest to happen in the hour-long Zero — namely, Mike zeroing in. Watching the softcore shenanigans is so dull, you’ll feel Mike’s pain; you’ll want him to pull the trigger well before one of the pool humpers does. —Rod Lott

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