It’s just not Carla Harris’ week. First, before their anniversary dinner is even digested, her husband is killed trying to save a woman being attacked in the L.A. restaurant’s parking lot. Second, after moving back to Silver Lake to live with Mom and Dad, she’s sexually assaulted by six guys in her own living room. Third, one of those blue-collar assholes shotguns her parents to death when they interrupt the party.

Once Carla emerges from a state of shock, it’s time for some vengeance: Naked Vengeance.

From Roger Corman’s Concorde Pictures and Filipino exploitation legend Cirio H. Santiago (Death Force, Vampire Hookers, et al.), Naked Vengeance gives Deborah Tranelli of TV’s Dallas her only film role, and damn, it’s a meaty one — the kind of meat whose second name is spelled M-A-Y-E-R, but meat nonetheless.

Her Carla is an actress whose career never took off beyond a dog food advert, so returning home a widow is doubly humiliating. In her absence, it appears every Silver Lake male who’s not her father — the gardener, the bartender, the grocery butcher, the car mechanic, even the ice deliveryman — has become a walking, mouth-breathing example of the “unwanted behaviors” section from your HR department’s anti-harassment policy.

They’re also close buds who drink together, lift weights together (one in a Garfield T-shirt), bowl together (for the Farm Fresh league) and, yes, rape together. For the kind of movie in which a cop uses a flashlight outside on a sunny day, the scene of the group attack is Carla is harrowing … and then nearly self-parodic, because Santiago — like his villains — doesn’t know when to stop. The viewer’s sympathy for Carla quickly morphs into embarrassment for Tranelli.

Because this is also the kind of movie in which the sheriff (Bill McLaughlin, Santiago’s Silk) is unwilling to take action, Carla does. Call it My Shoulder Pads and I Spit on Your Grave. Tranelli commits to her vigilante role in the rather enjoyable, yet unoriginal rape-revenge pic as if it were a drama opening on the Great White Way. Among the actors portraying her dirty half-dozen of abusers, only Kaz Garas (Steve Trevor from the 1974 Wonder Woman TV-movie) turns in a performance that, if not grounded, at least doesn’t float any higher than a month-old helium balloon; the other guys emote with bulging eyes, unnatural motion and raised voices, as if they were being mo-capped for a cartoon that never got made. One wishes shelved status also awaited the movie’s theme song, the Tranelli-warbled power ballad “Still Got a Love,” which we hear about three times too many. —Rod Lott

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As a kid, I gained an incredible amount of film history — not to mention history, period — through back issues of Mad magazine. My favorite features were the movie parodies, which I often read years, if not decades, before actually seeing the films they spoofed. Only once has this practice soured my enjoyment: Mad #191’s “Sobsession” all but ruined Brian De Palma’s Obsession for me. Even though 35 years passed between my reading and eventual viewing, knowing the twist excised nearly all the suspense — and, therefore, the fun.

The cozy, coddled life of real estate magnate Michael Courtland (a drab Cliff Roberston, Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben) turns to crap when his wife, Elizabeth (Genevieve Bujold, Earthquake), and their young daughter (Wanda Blackman) are kidnapped from their own home and held for a sizable ransom. Due to a hiccup in the negotiated drop-off, tragedy strikes, leaving Michael to bury and grieve his loved ones.

Sixteen years later (which pass in one bravura 360˚ shot on De Palma’s part), the widower still hasn’t moved on. When work takes him to Italy, where he met Elizabeth, he meets her spitting image in Sandra (also played by Bujold). Whether they fall in love for happily ever after is a moot point; this is De Palma, not Nicholas Sparks.

Something else it’s not: great De Palma. Although visually sumptuous, even with its gauzy haze, Obsession bores on the level of narrative. Co-written with Paul Schrader (the no-slouch scribe of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver that same year), the film finds De Palma further exploring — and more deliberately so — the idea of the Hitchcockian double, injecting his own Sisters with airs of respectability.

As intoxicating as its setup is, the film starts to falter. Those looking to have their itch for a De Palma set piece scratched will get it … at the very end, itself abrupt and possibly a concession to the studio suits. All that sits in between indeed just sits, lulling viewers to a light nap. You may find yourself roused whenever John Lithgow (2019’s Pet Sematary) pops in as Michael’s business partner; I’m not sure what he’s doing here with full Southern Gentleman affectation, but damn is he ever doing it. —Rod Lott

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After nearly 15 years of steady work as a character actor, Bruce Watson (This Property Is Condemned) finally landed a starring role in The Swinging Barmaids. His villainous performance as Tom was so good, so convincing, I wonder if he inadvertently doomed his job prospects as a leading man. Although he racked up credits for another half-decade and then some, he never appeared in a movie again.

Look, I’m no Lee Strasberg, but the lesson for tomorrow’s thespians? If you’re hired to play an exceptionally odious serial killer of seriously sexy cocktail waitresses, maybe you should half-ass it.

Director Gus Trikonis (Moonshine County Express) wastes little time in setting up the bar. Tom takes offense to a casually demeaning remark by a waitress named Boo-Boo (Dyanne Thorne, a few months shy of Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS), so he does what any sexually frustrated woman-hater would do: Follow her home, tear off her clothes, commit rape and murder. Because Boo-Boo’s fellow Barmaids (including Supervan’s super-cute Katie Saylor) may have caught a glimpse of him at her apartment, Tom decides they’ve gotta go as well — not then and there, but soon.

Meanwhile, as a detective (William Smith, Terror in Beverly Hills) investigates Boo-Boo’s bye-bye, the wiry and wily Tom puts his plan in action by getting a job. At the bar. As its bouncer.

Hey, you’ve gotta fill 90 minutes somehow, and screenwriter Charles B. Griffith knows just how to do it. As the man who wrote several of Roger Corman’s most beloved productions, including A Bucket of Blood, Death Race 2000 and The Little Shop of Horrors, he has experience balancing the unpleasant exploitation with admirable economy and actual entertainment. It’s as if one of the segments of The Centerfold Girls had enough meat on its bones to merit extension to feature length, and hell to the yes that’s a compliment. —Rod Lott

With Den of Thieves, debuting director Christian Gudegast has made a heist sandwich, with bookended shootouts subbing for slices of Wonder Bread. Having penned the 2016 action sequel London Has Fallen, Gudegast sticks with the ingredient he knows best: Gerard Butler.

The Geostorm star takes the lead as “Big Nick” O’Brien, a detective with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. As the head of its Major Crimes division, O’Brien is a roguish bender and breaker of rules — your basic bundle of unshaven swagger. He also operates within that swath of gray that allows him to act like the criminals he earns a salary to catch; the movie more than suggests the only difference between O’Brien and his prey is the badge — in fact, it underlines it in a finale that literally sticks a label on the lawman (“SHERIFF”) to distinguish him from the other armed tough guy in a bulletproof vest.

The other armed tough guy in a bulletproof vest is Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber, 2018’s Skyscraper), a freshly sprung felon who wastes no time planning the heist of a lifetime: robbing the Federal Reserve Bank of Los Angeles of millions in untraceable cash headed for the shredder. Stuck between the two men is Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr., Straight Outta Compton), a member of Merrimen’s crew forced to be an informant to O’Brien.

Playing like Michael Mann’s Heat shorn of its great soundtrack and Oscar-caliber performances, Den of Thieves could be called Canned Heat. With swinging-dick posturing and testosterone squeezed from each sprocket of film, it also could be called the greatest David Ayer movie David Ayer did not make, presumably because he was too busy counting his Netflix bucks. Meanwhile, Gudegast swoops in and shoves an overstuffed crime epic onto our plate, complete with an ending that dares to go full Keyzer Söze. We didn’t ask for Den, and it sure didn’t look good, but once we took a bite … we liked it! Hey, Mikey! —Rod Lott

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At all of 19 years young, Jeff Roberts (Fart: The Movie’s Jason Majik, redefining “overwrought”) has a problem: In addition to mental issues and acid-washed jeans, he’s got the HIV. Shortly after receiving this death sentence from a rather lackadaisical doctor who can’t be bothered to get up from his chair, Jeff snaps and vows to get back at those who gave — or may have given — him the virus. Filling a syringe with his own blood, he becomes … wait for it … the L.A. AIDS Jabber.

Okay, so while he never goes by that name, the movie sure does. Unfortunately, although unsurprisingly, that eyebrow-raiser of a title is its most interesting aspect. Shot on video, the bad-taste slasher takes itself too seriously as Jeff jabs his way toward vengeance, starting with that whore Tanya. As people die by the little prick, a detective and a news reporter investigate, so much so that the sick flick becomes more about them.

The only movie written, directed and produced by actor Drew Godderis (Evil Spawn), L.A. AIDS Jabber cannot truly be discussed without spoiling its M. Night Shyamalandafuckyousay twist ending: The doctor learns the test results were mixed up; therefore, Jeff is not — repeat: not — infected with the HIV virus. One could say you definitely didn’t see that coming — Godderis included, because if Jeff’s blood was all on the up-and-up, what killed his victims?

The movie is sometimes called just plain ol’ Jabber, but hell, that’s no fun. —Rod Lott

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