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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Very little story exists in House on Bare Mountain. Very little needs to; it’s not meant for telling a story. The debut of The Defilers director Lee Frost, the flick is a nudie cutie, period.

The House in question is the site of Granny Good’s School for Good Girls, with Granny Good being played by Frost’s regular producer, Love Camp 7 commandant Bob Cresse, in drag. While ostensibly “about” a mysterious new enrollee and/or the wolfman in the basement, it’s really about the student body and its bodies, almost always nude from the waist up, even while reading the dictionary front to back. The ladies exercise, then draw, then shower. A masked ball is held in mixed company, at which Dracula and Frankenstein spike the punch, but it’s not until Granny douses it with her illegal home-brewed hooch that tops are doffed. The end.

Like so many entries in the pioneering genre, Bare Mountain is all “look, but don’t touch.” One can sense the humor at work without succumbing to actual laughs; pay particular attention to the opening titles, crediting “Hoover Vacuum” for hairstyles and “Everybody!” for body makeup. Speaking of, Frost heats up the screen as best as censors would allow, making for an hour-long movie as saturated in skin as it is in rather appealing vibrant colors. —Ed Donovan

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Deep in the Buttless Galaxy, on the unisex planet of Droopita, lives Sterilox (Frank A. Coe, The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill). The pudgy, 612-year-old dimwit with a spaghetti colander atop his head is given a peach of an assignment: Teleport to Earth to find the “perfect specimen” of woman to perpetuate a slave class, because, according to his leader, “these women make ideal servants if you train them properly.”

Apparently, the ones in Kiss Me Quick! have been trained to stay silent, except to utter the title of this monster-themed nudie cutie, the first flick for legendary exploitation producer Harry Novak, whose prodigious output represents a huge chunk of the Something Weird Video catalog. Residing in the castle of the Dr. Strangelove-esque mad scientist Dr. Breedlove (Max Gardens, My Tale Is Hot) and his Sex Machine, the abducted ladies exercise within Catacombs 69, but mostly they just strip individually for the camera and then undulate in a go-go style that does not-always-flattering things to their bosoms.

During all the undressing and the bouncing, the childlike Sterilox is supposed to be selecting a busty babe to bag (yet in the end, he chooses a vending machine). Taking turns, the girls unpeel the same kind of strapless black bra, garters and partially peekaboo panties, which makes me think Novak purchased only one set of undies and had director Peter Perry Jr. (Mondo Mod) pass it from starlet to starlet. Incidentally, their underdeveloped (in everything but cup size) characters have names like Boobra, Hotty Totty and Gina Catchafanni.

Why, yes, puns are as prevalent as bare breasts! A female mummy under Breedlove’s employ is named Selfish, says the doc, “because she’s all wrapped up in herself!” Ba-dum-bum. Dracula also stops by for the length of a groaner, as does a transgender Frankenstein’s monster (also Coe). The final scene has Breedlove — who looks like a mix of Claude Rains’ Invisible Man and a purchaser of My First Halloween Makeup Kit from TG&Y — judging the quality of the newly arrived nudes by slapping stickers on them, e.g. “CHOICE,” “PRIME,” “KOSHER” and, finally, affixed to one body’s butt crack, “THE END.”

Is Kiss Me Quick! loaded with misogyny or just naiveté? As a product of its time — one in which onscreen nudity still was from-the-dryer fresh — the latter could be argued. Today, the nudie-cutie genre is more likely to bore than titillate, to register as celebratory vs. predatory. This one is among the most enjoyable; even with its castle wall-to-wall toplessness, it exudes an all-American innocence, not to mention a generous spritz of Aqua Net. —Ed Donovan

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Camp is titled that because that’s where it largely takes place, and not — repeat: not — because it bears the qualities of camp. Oh, if only! You’ll wish for some levity, as the Japanese film is as much fun as having the campfire singe your wiener — the edible kind or the sexual tool. Take your pick, but one guess as to which route this flick trafficks.

Sisters Kozue and Akane — respectively, the smart, pretty one and the one who’s not so much — go camping, which is a little strange since the last time they did, Kozue was raped by Akane’s boyfriend. That night is nothing compared to this return trip, when the girls are accosted in the lodge by a party of five hardly reformed sex maniacs, each of whom is code-named for his particular fetish; Copro treats urine like vintage wine, while Pilo, who likes to burn things, fellates a fireplace lighter. A round or few of brandy-laced tea later, they pit the siblings against one another in a game neither will win. You’ll never be able to look at a vacuum hose the same way. The guys are not sick, though; they prefer the term “more affectionate.” In other words, just a typical Tuesday night at the Fiji house, brah!

Call it what you will, but I call Camp utterly misogynist trash. While director Ainosuke Shibata (whose 2013 debut, Hitch-Hike, double-features with Camp on the Troma label’s From Asia with Lust: Volume 1 DVD release) allows for female revenge, those relatively few moments of comeuppance seem like an afterthought, following an agonizing hour of general torture, poop-chute molestation and other acts of extreme deviance. These are depicted fairly graphically and one would assume they are simulated — then again, one of the siblings is played by adult film star Miyuki Yokoyama, so who knows — but they are bothersome nonetheless. That they are portrayed in a manner to titillate is exponentially most distressing.

It’s no I Spit on Your Grave, that’s for sure, and that’s really saying something. So is this: At least Camp mercifully runs fewer than 90 minutes. —Ed Donovan

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Says bachelor billionaire Christian Grey early in the hotly anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey, “I enjoy various physical pursuits.” Given the cultural dominance of the source material, even those who haven’t read E.L. James’ best-selling “mommy porn” novel (which began life as a piece of Twilight fan fiction) recognize the innuendo dripping from the line: In the bedroom, the dude loves to employ ropes, whips, crops, chains, cuffs and other items displayed on end caps at your neighborhood True Value hardware store. 
 
It’s one of many moments spring-loaded with a nudge and a wink, not all of which are spoken. In its aim to titillate, Fifty Shades trafficks in the unsubtle, beginning with a shot of our virgin heroine, Anastasia Steele (because she’s strong, get it?), craning her neck at Grey’s phallic tower penetrating the Seattle skyline. Soon after meeting the man for an interview, she absentmindedly fiddles with a pencil about her puffy lips. In case audiences are so hormonally charged in anticipation that they miss the sexual symbolism at play, the writing instrument literally is labeled “GREY” (it’s his penis, get it?).

As the film drones on, subtlety becomes as beaten as Steele’s behind. Witness Grey (Jamie Dornan, TV’s The Fall) completing a contract negotiation on anal and vaginal fisting and the like by telling the object of his affection possession, “I’d like to fuck you into the middle of next week.” Steele (Dakota Johnson, 21 Jump Street) doesn’t clear her calendar; instead, she attempts to crack Grey’s cement wall of emotions. In his world of whims and privilege, everything is a transaction, to the point where his power quirks reside on such a level of Howard Hughes-odd — won’t sleep in a bed with another person, hasn’t been photographed with a woman — that the script would not be out of line if its third act revealed robotic parts lurking behind Grey’s beady eyes. 

But Fifty Shades has no third act; it barely has a second. Whereas story structure demands setup, then conflict and, finally, resolution, the incongruously 125-minute movie is nearly all establishment, with maybe 15 minutes of conflict before an abrupt cheat of an “ending.” Although director Sam Taylor-Johnson (Nowhere Boy) has given James’ S&M novel more well-lit gloss than justified, the script credited to Saving Mr. Banks scribe Kelly Marcel is reductive, dumb and dull. For one and only one example, how to convey Steele’s lower lot in life as mousy and unworldly? She uses — gasp! — a flip phone. Repeat: a flip phone! What a vulgarian! 

As Steele, the oft-unclothed, oft-writhing Johnson proves deft at the front half’s comedic scenes, then less effective carrying the dramatic weight toward the end. She fares better than the clearly miscast Dornan, whose rote, single-expression delivery unintentionally turns him into an object of ridicule. When you can’t even sell an O-face in a supposedly erotic film, that spells disaster. 

And there are two more entries in the Fifty Shades saga to come? Were this starter package campy instead of empty, my ass and a theater seat might be more inclined to commit to a binding agreement. —Rod Lott

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