Action

The Mighty Peking Man (1977)

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mightypekingHong Kong King Kong! This Shaw Brothers take on the giant-monkey-gone-ape story is so unintentionally hysterical that even joking about it in print doesn’t do it justice.

In a remote jungle, an earthquake — simulated via unbelievably bad rear-screen projection — unleashes a giant gorilla from the mountain. If you’re fishing for an explanation as to why, how or what a giant gorilla was doing in the mountain in the first place, forget about it. Just know that he doesn’t care much for being out of the mountain, so he steps on a lot of screaming villagers and destroys a lot of obviously miniature miniatures.

The Mighty Peking Man (I’m not sure how he got that name, either, but I’ll just call him “Peking” for short) befriends Samantha, a little girl whose parents’ plane crashes in the jungle (or rather, lands pretty gently for a toy model). Thanks to Peking’s unparalleled parenting skills, she grows up to be quite the sexpot. Played by Evelyne Kraft (The French Sex Murders), she looks like Farrah Fawcett crossed with a Barbie doll, which I admit is kinda redundant. Samantha wears nothing but an all-too-skimpy loincloth and (inexplicably) makeup. She communicates only through primitive words and grunts, but since she’s not shy at showing her ass, the guys who meet her don’t mind her language limitations.

mightypeking1Specifically, I speak of Johnnie (Danny Lee, City on Fire), the helmet-haired man sent by some organization to find this Peking man, reputed to be mighty. Johnnie succeeds — and then some, as he mates with Samantha in no time, making Peking jealous when he catches them mid-coitus. (Do you really want to be copulating with a woman who’s lived in the jungle all her life and, therefore, doesn’t have access to all the fine hygiene products we take for granted?) The lovebirds celebrate their coupling by taking part in a syrupy, slow-motion montage, in which they twirl tigers draped across their backs and run across sun-bathed fields, so that Kraft’s nipples can slip in and out of her costume and preserved for historical posterity.

Then they chain Peking to a large boat and take him to Hong Kong, where they will reap riches by showcasing him in a variety of games in a stadium setting, like a monster truck pull — literally a monster truck pull, as what is Peking but a monster, and he is shown yanking on several trucks chained to him. Combined with all the prodding with sticks, this pisses Peking off to the point where he escapes and goes loco in downtown Hong Kong, ultimately climbing atop a tall building so that — having seen any King Kong movie — the viewer knows exactly what will happen.

And it does, but in such a laughably cheap and shoddy technique, in order to stay within the context of this incredibly goofy, incredibly fun film, known in some circles as Goliathon. —Rod Lott

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Sex

Titanic 2000 (1999)

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titanic2000Take the best fart jokes Troma has to offer, the erotic sensibilities of any Surrender Cinema release and the CGI knowledge of a fifth-grader in Mrs. Delvecki’s keyboarding class and you have Titanic 2000, with emphasis on the first three letters.

The Titanic has been rebuilt and is about to set off for its second maiden voyage — only this time it’s called the “TIT-anic,” I guess because lots of breasts — or “tits,” as they are sometimes called — are seen a few times. On board are the typical gay stereotypes; the fat woman who eats a lot; the guys who farts a lot; a rock singer with a bad, overdone British accent; and a bunch of sluts who disrobe many, many times. The comparisons to James Cameron’s Oscar-winning Titanic end there, though, because also included is a vampire lesbian who needs to find a new bride. The new bride in question is the very hot Tina Krause, 100 times more attractive and a little more slutty than Kate Winslet.

titanic20001The characters run around a lot, fart, show their breasts, do pratfalls, eat and fart.

The TIT-anic sinks in the end, not due to an iceberg, but because the hull was made of tinfoil. Tina and the vampire swim through many badly done blue screens and escape. In the water, their breasts float. They then go to Long Island (?) and have more lesbian sex. —Louis Fowler

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Horror

Frogs (1972)

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frogsYou can’t really blame Frogs’ producers for their blatant deception. I mean, there are frogs in Frogs, but they alone aren’t the only animals who turn against the various unlikable characters who inhabit the story. In reality, the film more accurately should have been called Traditionally Harmless Animals Which Suddenly Decide to Attack People Because of Pollution, which I will concede would have been a lot harder to market.

The people in question are a bunch of rich assholes who live under the thumb of patriarch Jason Crockett (Ray Milland, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes) and who have gathered together on his private island to celebrate his latest birthday. You know Crockett is a bad guy because:
a) he’s rich, and
b) is in a wheelchair, so it’s only natural that he has no problem keeping the bugs away from his estate with a very eco-unfriendly pesticide.

frogs1It’s only a matter of time before the local animal population (which admittedly includes a lot of frogs) calls “Bullshit!” on this and starts attacking everyone, including the studly, tree-hugging photographer played by Sam Elliott (Tombstone), whose lack of a mustache is eerily discomfiting.

Frogs manages to avoid being as ridiculous as that same year’s Night of the Lepus, but that’s not a good thing. While watching giant bunny rabbits stalking Janet Leigh is just stupid enough to hold your attention, the same can’t be said for people being hunted by normal-sized fauna. Despite the goofy promise inherent in its concept and infamous poster, Frogs is just plain dull. —Allan Mott

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Mystery

Mundo Depravados (1967)

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mundoOn the night of a full moon, poor Arlene is murdered. One of her socks is missing from the scene, proving we live in such a Mundo Depravados — that is, depraved world. Need further proof? Before the crime photographer snaps his pic, Arlene’s dress is lowered to bare a nipple. Say “cheese,” ya hot corpse!

Then our nonsensical, Naked City-wannabe narration kicks in: “Yes, this is your city. It has more than a million eyes. … But tonight, all these eyes are blind. They listen, but they do not hear. They touch, but they do not feel.” Whatever. All viewers need to know is that a killer of lovely ladies is on the loose; all of his victims belong to the Temple of Beauty Health Club; and everyone refers to him as “the sex monster.”

mundo1The good news is that two police detectives (“comedy cops” Johnnie Decker and Larry Reed, reunited from Al Adamson’s Psycho a Go-Go) are on the case. The bad news is that the two police detectives exhibit as much horndoggedness as the film’s multiple Peeping Toms, so of course they’re eager to partner with Tango, a stripper pal of Arlene played by real-life stripper Tempest Storm, whose pendulous breasts keep Mundo Depravados from being completely inert. They cannot distract, however, from her emotionless line readings.

Who would give her such a plum role? Singing cowboy Herb Jeffries, in his one and only attempt at writing and directing. He was married to Storm at the time — but just barely, as their union dissolved the year of Mundo Depravados’ release. Semi-sleazy for its time, the movie plays rather static today, peekaboo nudity and all. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Sorority House Massacre II (1990)

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SHMIIWhereas 1986’s Sorority House Massacre was serious, Sorority House Massacre II takes the self-aware, scream-queen route. That’s bound to happen when you put Jim Wynorski (1988’s Not of This Earth) at the helm.

So will abnormally large breasts, which makes him the perfect director for such an imperfect project. Who else would have the foresight to place all the cops’ expository dialogue in a strip club?

Five sorority girls buy a new-to-them house for their chapter. They’re able to afford it because the abode has been on the market for five years, what with being the site of multiple murders and all. When they’re informed by the creepy neighbor what went on there, Wynorski cedes screen time to clips from a previous movie … but not the previous movie. Instead of footage from the film to which SMHII is ostensibly a sequel, we see a condensed version of 1982’s The Slumber Party Massacre. Slumber, sorority — slutty all the same, right?

SHMII1After the girls take showers (Stacia Zhivago, who kind of looks like Laura Dern with double Ds, soaps herself up to squeak-toy noises on the soundtrack), they don lingerie to play with a Ouija board, which reawakens the evil of the home; ergo, the “massacre” portion of the title can come into play.

None of the actresses can act; they’re here to scream and let the camera leer over their bodies. For example, for a simple shot of three of them ascending a staircase, Wynorski chose a lower-than-low angle for maximum ass-cheek exposure. More than the blood that squirts like a ketchup dispenser being squeezed too hard too fast, skin is the most special effect of all in SHMII, from Melissa Moore (Repossessed) to former porn star Gail Harris. Wynorski didn’t need much more that that, except the same ol’ crashed-lightning stock footage producer Roger Corman has used since his Edgar Allan Poe pictures. —Rod Lott

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