Sex

Hot Chili (1985)

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Whereas most directors would typically fill a mid-’80s teen sex comedy about a quartet of slobs working the summer at a hotel south of the border with near-constant Mexican stereotypes, not every director is Galaxina’s William Sachs, who inexplicably fills the flick with so many sexed-up European characters that you almost want to give him some sort of award for his wokefulness.

The movie is the extra-spicy Hot Chili and its big star is Allan Kayser, who you might remember as Bubba from TV’s Mama’s Family … well, that’s where I remember him from. He’s the leader of this motley crew of horny high schoolers, including those oft-repeated tropes of the cool guy, the fat guy and the nerdy guy. As much as these guys talk about “fucking,” they all seem to be totally afraid of sex.

Which isn’t to say there’s not a good reason for their erectile frights, especially given the oversexed ladies who are remarkably booked at the same time; this includes the accomplished-but-horny musician, the muscular-but-horny workout queen and the German-but-horny dominatrix who wants to do Mapplethorpe-esque things with bullwhips to the fat guy’s ass.

A set of parents — the cool guy’s parents — show up and they’re erotically horned-up as well; even his little sister is sexually vapid, taking a video camera and making homemade revenge porn to show on the television screens at a modest dinner in the hotel’s restaurant where everyone is eating the titular magical fruit.

As you’d hope, Kayser is basically Bubba on vacation, while the chubby Joe Rubbo spends most of the movie in ill-fitting boxers. Add to the pot a trio of stacked blondes — Bea Fiedler, Victoria Barrett and Taaffe O’Connell — and, well, you still have a very dumb movie, but the type of movie that only Sachs could have ever made. ¡Olé! —Louis Fowler

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Horror

Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988)

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Like Fred Olen Ray’s Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, David DeCoteau’s Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama is one of those titles that told a potential VHS renter everything he (or she, but let’s be real) needed to know: Will there be blood? Will there be boobs? Although both concerns were legitimate, answers were not needed, thanks to an unspoken contract of trust.

Tri Delta pledges Lisa (Michelle Bauer, The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man) and Taffy (Brinke Stevens, the Mommy movies) are in the midst of hazing rituals dealt by the paddle-clutching hands of Babs (Robin Stille, The Slumber Party Massacre). The final piece of their initiation puzzle is to break into the bowling alley at the local mall to steal a trophy. Three Peeping Tom frat guys accompany Lisa and Taffy, who happen to arrive at the alley as a punky thief named Spider (Linnea Quigley, Witchtrap) performs a little B&E on the premises herself.

As luck would have it, the six knock over the one trophy containing an imp (played by a rubber monster voiced in an urban patois by — ahem — Dukey Flyswatter, aka Michael Sonye of Surf Nazis Must Die). Uncle Impie, as he’s called, grants each a wish for letting him loose — the most obvious placing Bauer in (and then out of) incredibly sexy lingerie for the movie’s remainder — but his acts of kindness are merely a cover for plans of flagitious intent.

The premise of DeCoteau’s Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama is no smarter than DeCoteau’s A Talking Cat?! — in fact, it may be more stupid — yet the difference between the two is significant, and I don’t mean the 25-year gulf between them. It’s effort and spirit — both of which the 1988 cult classic possesses, to be clear. Today, it’s as if he doesn’t even try, because the free element of fun has disappeared.

For all the production’s limitations, Sorority Babes does so many things right. In typical Charles Band style, most of the movie takes place in a single location, but a bowling alley is engaging. The imp barely moves beyond his mouth, but Flyswatter gives him a personality. Scripter Sergei Hasenecz’s human characters are one-note, but the actors’ performances have gumption. By embracing its trashiness, this early work of DeCoteau radiates a silliness and sexiness that tickle all the buttons video-store exploitation should. —Rod Lott

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Comedy

Impractical Jokers: The Movie (2020)

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If you’ve ever been in a hospital — multiple times for me — you probably know there’s really nothing to do except watch the most basic of cable television for hours on end. But, it was there I discovered truTV and its nearly constant airings of the reality show Impractical Jokers, starring Long Island comedy team the Tenderloins.

With a premise of four friends who compete in various challenges to embarrass and humiliate each other, every laugh, guffaw and chortle was always one step closer to busting my surgery stitches, but it was always a hilarious way to pass the body-aching time.

In Impractical Jokers: The Movie, their film debut, the four jokers — Murr, Q, Joe and Sal — mix a mostly fictional story in between their nonfictional stunts, as the guys try to make their way to Miami to see a Paula Abdul show. I guess she fit perfectly in the truTV budget.

And while that part of the flick is somewhat weak, opposites attract, because the pranks are some of the funniest since Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, including a birthday party at a strip club where Murr’s entire family — including some children — shows up while he’s in the middle of a lapdance. It’s a disturbingly hilarious bit that hurts my gut just writing about.

Still, at an hour and a half, Impractical Jokers: The Movie eventually wears out its welcome with overkill, while any TV episode’s 22-minute running time is enough to keep you binge-watching. Regardless, this flick came out at the worst time possible — COVID, y’all! — with most people missing it during its short theatrical run.

So, I guess the joke’s on them? —Louis Fowler

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Mystery

Abrakadabra (2018)

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Thirty years ago, Lorenzo Mancini’s magician father was killed onstage during a bullet stunt gone awry. Today, now a magician himself, Mancini (German Baudino, 2009’s Lucky Luke) returns to that very stage with his new show. However, the night before his debut, a woman is found murdered — her head poked into a box pierced by several swords; later, another is decapitated by a guillotine. In the authorities’ eyes, these and other acts of malicious magic implicate Mancini, the self-proclaimed “Master Mind of Mental Mystery.”

Abrakadabra marks the third Italian-language feature for Luciano and Nicolás Onetti, the Argentinian brothers who clearly love the giallo. As with 2013’s Sonno Profondo and 2015’s Francesca, they again aim not for a mere homage, but total authenticity; thus, Abrakadabra has been crafted as if it came from the early 1980s. While the illusion is about 85% there, the checklist of tropes ticks to nearly 100%: disorienting angles, colors oversaturated to an unrealistic hue, ugly furnishings, creepy puppets and propulsive musical cues that sting of novocaine.

The Onettis’ adherence to appearance is impressive enough; that they can this story with a minimal amount of dialogue, even more so. A few seconds shy of 70 minutes, the film is cut mighty lean — perhaps out of necessity, since the identity of the killer is startlingly obvious.

Well, kinda. The ending is coated too thickly with ambiguity to offer full closure. Still, neat trick. —Rod Lott

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Kitchen Sink

Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash (2020)

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WTFWhen most popular musicians face a major death in their band, many times it’s best if they just break up and go their separate ways, especially when the leader of the group has just had every bone crushed in an airplane disaster, like, for example, Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

That rock ’n’ roll fuck-up of Oct. 20, 1977, is finally portrayed in the nail-biting Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash. The incident killed lead singer Van Zant and a few others, and the movie is told through the eyes of drummer Artimus Pyle and his well-worn vegetarian T-shirt.

A replacement drummer who’s thrown into Skynyrd’s lifestyle of booze and broads on the road, Pyle (Ian Shultis) is the band’s moral conscience, often telling wasted bandmates they need to “slow it down.” It doesn’t help, because soon enough, their ramshackle plane is out of gas and going down over a Louisiana swamp.

But that’s just the beginning of Pyle’s problems, because after single-handedly rescuing all the survivors of the wreck and then running some 20 miles through the marshlands, he has a near fistfight with a deadly snake and is subsequently shot for trespassing on some dude’s land.

If it sounds like Pyle is the hero of the story, it’s because he is; interspersed throughout the movie is an interview with the real-life Pyle, giving himself well-earned props for being the man who saved (most of) Skynyrd, although with plenty of tortured screaming at God along the way.

The band should have broken up for good after this accident, but, of course, embarrassingly kept going on down that road, forgoing any possible legendary status for the ticket sales of state fair shows. Regardless, you can still hear “Free Bird” on the radio 10 or so times a day. Can your band say that? —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

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