Category Archives: Movies with Nudity

Scream for Help (1984)

Posted on December 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

scream for help 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Her Stepfather plots murder.

Christie (Rachael Kelly) is a teen convinced that her new stepfather (Paul Fox) is out to kill her mother (Marie Masters). The problem is that no one believes her. Eventually she is able to take a picture of him having sex with another woman, which is enough to get her mother to throw him out of their house, but then he returns with two of his cohorts and traps Christie and her mother in the basement were they plan to kill them and make it look like a robbery.

This film, which was written by Tom Holland, might have been better received had it not been put into the hands of sub-par director Michael Winner. Winner who is probably best known for his close association to Charles Bronson of which he directed 7 films with him and then later when his film career waned became a famous restaurant critic, shows no feeling for the material and directs with such a sloppy style that it almost seemed like he was intentionally trying to make a bad movie. The sweeping orchestral score would have been better suited for a romance or epic adventure and is completely out of place here. The dialogue is corny and the overall acting by the supporting cast is wooden. The pace is awkward and at times becomes unintentionally funny.

However, the second half improves greatly particularly when the two find themselves trapped in the cellar and must use their ingenuity to get out. The twists are clever and unpredictable and the atmosphere becomes genuinely taut and exciting. The musical score also improves becoming much more intense and darker. I actually started to get really into it and afterwards felt like I had watched two different movies with the second part being good enough to overshadow its otherwise many flaws.

Brooks as the bad guy has a male model face, but his performance is as generic as the film’s title and it would have been better had a veteran character actor been cast in the part instead. The mother character with the way she refuses to believe the obvious until it is much too late seems unreasonably and annoyingly stupid. I did though like Kelly in the lead. Not only is she cute, but her acting is good enough to compel the viewer to keep watching when they otherwise might have turned it off and I was surprised to see that this was her only film as she showed enough promise to have had a solid career.

Filmed on-location in New Rochelle, New York this is the type of low budget flick that proves how a good script can sometimes overcome other production inadequacies. Had it been better directed this could have been a snappy thriller and it’s a shame that Hitchcock disciple Richard Franklin who was the original choice as director hadn’t helmed it although a film school dropout or even your local garbage man could have done a better job than Winner or certainly no worse.

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My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 16, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Winner

Studio: Lorimar

Available: VHS, DVD (Region 2)

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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Partners (1982)

Posted on December 1, 2014 | 1 comment

partners

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Pretending to be gay.

A serial killer targeting gay men is on the prowl. When one of his victims turns out to be the son of an influential politician pressure is put on the police force to find the culprit. The police chief (Kenneth McMillan) feels he has no choice but to pair Sgt. Benson (Ryan O’Neal) a straight cop with Kerwin (John Hurt) who is a gay desk clerk at the station. They are to masquerade as a gay couple in hopes of infiltrating the gay underground and find clues to the elusive killer, but their contrasting personalities and lifestyles threaten to blow their cover before they can make headway.

This film was controversial at the time of its release for its overuse of gay stereotypes and there are indeed some especially at the beginning, but the film’s biggest offense is that it is just plain boring. The idea that two cops could be forced to pretend to be a gay couple or have one of them pose naked for the cover of a gay men’s magazine as part of their investigation is dubious enough, but had it been funny I might have forgiven it. Unfortunately this thing can’t even elicit a few chuckles.

The idea that Kerwin would automatically fall in love with Benson while working together simply because he is another man is absurd and makes about as much sense as a heterosexual male falling for every woman that he meets, which of course doesn’t happen. The Benson character is also quite callous and disrespectful to Kerwin while showing blatant homophobic tendencies and being a confirmed ladies’ man, so I didn’t see what there was about him that Kerwin would have fallen in love with anyways.

Benson’s transformation to being more sensitive to gays and their issues during the course of the story might have been more compelling had it been better written. However, his liberal use of the word ‘faggot’ makes the film seem quite dated and wouldn’t be heard in a movie today especially from a character that is supposedly a protagonist.

Hurt plays the gay caricature well, but the idea of placing someone on such a dangerous mission without having any undercover experience of even knowing how to use a gun seemed stupid and unrealistic. Out of all the characters McMillan’s comes off best and he even manages to be slightly amusing, but unfortunately isn’t seen enough. Character actors Jay Robinson and Sydney Lassick can be spotted very briefly.

This was intended to be a parody of Cruising, which was released 2 years earlier and was a much more serious and graphic look at a true life killer of gay men. That film starred Al Pacino and will be reviewed next Monday.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: April 30, 1982

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated R

Director: James Burrows

Studio: Paramount

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Comedy/Drama, Gay/Lesbian, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Police Drama

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Blood Freak (1972)

Posted on November 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

blood freak1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Man becomes a turkey.

Herschell (Steve Hawkes) attends a hippie drug party where he meets two sisters whose father owns a turkey farm that is run by two scientists who do experiments there. Since he is short on cash he decides to take part in some of these experiments for extra money. However, he is unaware of just how dangerous these tests are and when he eats a turkey he suddenly goes into convulsions before growing a giant turkey head. He then roams the city streets looking for unsuspecting victims who he then takes back to a warehouse and kills while drinking their blood in hopes that it will somehow turn him back into human form.

Even with the massively low budget that was financed mainly by the director and star this is still a big mess with a story that seems to have no focus. It starts out as a drama on the evils of drug use then works into a romance only to shift into a gory slasher film and then end again on a romantic note. In between director Brad F. Grinter, who apparently likens himself to Rod Serling, comes on screen for some pseudo philosophical bibble-babble as well as preaching against the evils of drugs all while smoking a cigarette and in one funny moment going through a bout of smoker’s cough.

The special effects are surprisingly not too bad. The part where a man gets his leg cut off with a table saw is genuinely gory and explicit and watching the blood spray out of the victims like water from a hose is freaky . It even has a nasty scene of showing a live turkey getting beheaded while its headless body flutters around.

The acting is uniformly atrocious and quite possibly the worst I’ve ever seen. The turkey head worn by Hawkes looks dumber than a tacky Halloween mask and it does pose the question as to why just his head changes while the rest of his body remains human. This is most likely because the budget didn’t allow for a turkey body suit, but it still creates a logic loophole in a film that is already full of them.

Watch only if you are with a group of friends who will then spend the whole time making fun of it as that is the only entertainment value you’ll get from viewing it.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: February 13, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 21Minutes

Rated X

Director: Brad F. Grinter

Studio: Variety Films

Available: DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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A Change of Seasons (1980)

Posted on November 11, 2014 | 1 comment

a change of seasons 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Everybody has a fling.

Adam (Anthony Hopkins) a middle-aged college professor who starts having an affair with a beautiful young student of his named Lindsey (Bo Derek). When his wife Karyn (Shirley MacLaine) finds out about it she decides to get her revenge by having an affair of her own with a handyman named Pete (Michael Brandon). All four decided to take a ski trip together while staying in the same house with each spouse sleeping with their new found lover. Despite a few hiccups things go surprisingly well until their college-aged daughter Kasey (Mary Beth Hurt) shows up who is none too thrilled with her parent’s new arrangement. Then Lindsey’s father (Edward Winter) appears who, after initially being shocked at the tawdry set-up, eventually adjusts and then makes a play for Karyn as well.

Although the film’s trailer and poster makes this thing look like a madcap farce it really isn’t and despite a comical set-up veers surprisingly towards the dramatic most of the way. To some extent it kind of works and I enjoyed some of the dialogue that tries to dig a bit deeper than most of the other mid-life crisis films as it analyzes why otherwise happily married men would jeopardize their union by having a mindless fling and somehow expecting to successfully juggle both relationships. However, it would have worked much better had it stayed with the comical route. Some of the funny scenarios don’t get played out enough and with such goofy characters and situations it’s hard to take it seriously even when it wants to culminating in an uneven mix of a movie that never quite hits its stride.

There are also certain scenes that don’t make much sense in either the comical or dramatic vein. One involves Adam admitting to Karyn about his affair and instead of her becoming enraged and either throwing him out or leaving they spend the rest of the night calmly discussing it and even going to bed together, which seemed highly unlikely to occur in real-life. The way Karyn hooks-up with Pete is equally stupid as he waltzes into her house unannounced and starts making himself some coffee and breakfeast. When Karyn comes downstairs to find this stranger in her home she doesn’t panic and call the police like a normal person would, but instead after a very brief conversation invites him upstairs for sex.

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Hopkins gives and excellent performance and the main reason the film stays afloat and is passable to watch. The way his character is forced to face his own contradictions and flaws is good and the scene where he catches Karyn with Pete is well acted on his part and makes the segment more interesting than it otherwise would have been. Winter is great as well and gives the best performance of his career where his initial shock at discovering their living arrangement is genuinely funny.

The only weak link of the cast is Derek. Yes, she certainly looks great naked and the opening sequence featuring her and Hopkins in the hot tub is okay on the erotic level, but her acting is overall quite poor and her monotone delivery eventually becomes annoying.

Overall the theme is too derivative from many other films that have tackled the same subject making this one hardly worth the effort to seek out. In fact MacLaine starred in another film that very same year entitled Loving Couples that has pretty much the exact same storyline and that one will be reviewed next week.

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My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: December 1, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 42Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Lang

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Comedy/Drama, Movies with Nudity, Romance

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Making It (1971)

Posted on November 8, 2014 | 10 comments

making it 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Teen enjoys seducing women.

Phil (Kristoffer Tabori) is a cocky, self-centered teen who uses his good looks to get practically any girl he wants into bed with him. He even has a fling with the wife of his basketball coach, but when he thinks he has gotten one of them pregnant things begin to spiral out-of-control especially when his emotionally fragile mother (Joyce Van Patten) starts to have some ‘problems’ of her own.

Peter Bart’s script, which is based on James Leigh’s novel ‘What Can You Do?’ has some incisive comments, but surprisingly it’s more on being middle age than adolescence. It shows with a depressing clarity what a thankless, pain-in-the-ass the middle age years can be and how people at that stage secretly wish to go back to their teens if only to experience for a fleeting moment the carefreeness and idealism once again.

The on-location shooting done at West Mesa High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico nicely captures the gorgeous, crystal blue skies of that region. The students are made up of actual teens that look and behave very much like teens of today. However, John Erman’s direction is lackluster and flat. Everything is shot in a conventional, unimaginative way with a pace that is slow and only manages to improve towards the end when it becomes dramatic.

Phil’s spirited debate with his English teacher, played by Lawrence Pressman, is engaging as is a rebellious student played by Bob Balaban arguing with his beleaguered principal (David Doyle) about his right not to have to stand at attention during the pledge of allegiance. The film is also famous for the novelty of casting real-life siblings Dick and Joyce Van Patten as lovers and includes a sequence showing him kissing her on the mouth, which had to be awkward to perform let alone rehearse.

Tabori, who is the son of actress Viveca Lindfors and Dirty Harry director Don Siegel shows an impressive amount of composure and maturity for such a young age, but I wasn’t so sure I liked the sound of his voice. Louise Latham, who plays the mother of the girl Phil thinks he might have impregnated, is memorable and had her part been just a wee bit bigger she would have easily stolen the whole thing. She is also involved in the film’s funniest moment where she asks Phil for some weed and thinking she doesn’t know “grass from her ass” he decides to take a regular cigarette, roll it up like a joint, light it and then let her smoke it where she  ends up getting a ‘high’ anyways.

The film’s staple though is its twist ending that is genuinely shocking and most likely to leave even the most jaded viewer’s mouth agape. It could’ve been played out a little more, but remains nasty nonetheless and it’s something you’re guaranteed not to see in any other movie. It is also the one thing that gives this otherwise undistinguished teen flick a kick and probably explains why it has never been released on either VHS or DVD nor ever shown on broadcast network television.

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My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: March 21, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated R

Director: John Erman

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: None at this time.

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Posted in 70's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Comedy/Drama, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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Funnyman (1967)

Posted on November 6, 2014 | 1 comment

funnyman1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Being funny isn’t funny.

Peter Bonerz, who also co-wrote the script along with director John Korty, plays Perry a struggling comedian working with the famous San Francisco improvisational group The Committee who is finding that life onstage isn’t as fulfilling as he had thought. The story focuses on his many different relationships and behind-the-scenes activities as he searches for some meaning to what he does.

The film is a loosely based look at Bonerz’s own experiences during his time with the group. It has a definite cinema vertite feel and look, which helps accentuate the improv attitude. Some of the situations he goes through do indeed help shed light for the viewer as to the difficulties of the profession particularly the part where Bonerz and a friend stay up late one night trying to brainstorm a creative ad campaign for a bug spray and finally do manage to come up with something clever only to have it frustratingly nixed by the client over concerns that it may possibly offend their targeted audience.

I also found it interesting to see how much things have changed in regards to casual affairs and relationships as Bonerz is seen meeting woman for the first time and then going back to their place for sex and in one instance having the woman go off to work and leave him still in bed at her place without seemingly any concern about him being a potential psycho or thief.

Bonerz, who is probably best known for playing the Jerry Robinson character in ‘The Bob Newhart Show’ does well in the lead and I was impressed with his variety of voices and characterizations. However, the many skits that they do, which were filmed onstage in front of an audience weren’t all that funny or engaging. The only one that is mildly humorous involves a bit with Richard Stahl describing a new robot (played by Bonerz) that is programmed to be used as a peace demonstrator during campus protests.

Korty’s over-direction doesn’t help as too much emphasis is put on mood over substance. His attempts to instill an existential slant to the material falls flat and his use of shooting each scene with a different color filter is distracting and ultimately annoying. The final twenty minutes veers too much away from the main story as the Bonerz character decides to take a vacation at an isolated retreat where he gets into a relationship with a nude model, which meanders and is not compelling or interesting.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: September 23, 1967

Runtime: 1Hour 25Minutes

Not Rated

Director: John Korty

Studio: Korty Films

Available: None at this time.

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Posted in 60's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Low Budget, Moody/Stylish, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Offbeat

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The Sentinel (1977)

Posted on October 28, 2014 | 4 comments

the sentinel 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: The Gateway to Hell.

Alison (Cristina Raines) is a fashion model looking for a place of her own. She is dating Michael (Chris Sarandon) and living with him, but has decided she is not ready for marriage and wants her own apartment. She finds an old, but stylish place in the Brooklyn Heights area of New York City that is already furnished and decides to move in, but then strange things begin to occur convincing her that the place may be haunted and when she starts to have physical maladies she is sure that something within the building is trying to possess her and the other residents she sees are really evil demons.

From the very first scene still film reeks of being just another, tired rip-off of The Exorcist. The first hour features no real scares and it is only during the second part that it becomes a full-fledged horror movie giving the film an overall disjointed feel. The much hyped final, which features severely deformed people who are not wearing make-up isn’t that impressive and unable to equal any of today’s horror movies. If anything I wished they had played this part up even more as it is the only time this otherwise generic thing gets even slightly diverting.

Rains, who by her own admission has never ever actually watched the movie, makes for a weak lead. Sure she is beautiful, but the character is dull and ordinary and she gets easily upstaged by co-star Sarandon who clearly shows how to carry a scene and deserves top billing over her for that reason alone. Her characters motivations didn’t make much sense either. Why would such a young woman want to move into a place filled with antique furniture and inhabited by senior citizens that she has nothing in common with? Also, when creepy things start to occur she doesn’t just move out right away like a normal person would, but instead goes back to the place several more times. There is also a moment when she hears strange noises from the upstairs apartment and then gets out of her bed and locks her front door, which seemed crazy because she is living in New York City and should be locking her doors ALL the time to begin with.

The only real interesting thing about this film for me was seeing older stars at the end of their careers in bit parts. Ava Gardner is fun as the leasing agent and Arthur Kennedy is solid as a mysterious priest as well as John Carradine as an older blind priest who lives upstairs and wearing creepy contacts. There is also Sylvia Miles who appears topless and camps it up as a lesbian neighbor with a Russian accent at least I think it was Russian. Christopher Walken can be seen briefly as a detective giving his gum a workout and Beverly D’Angelo plays a nubile lesbian who doesn’t say a single word, but more than makes up for it with her masturbation scene.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: January 7, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Winner

Studio: Universal

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Gay/Lesbian, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity

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Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare (1987)

Posted on October 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

rock n roll nightmare 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rock band gets slaughtered.

In a remote Canadian farmhouse a family is killed by some evil spirits from hell. Now, years later a rock band called The Tritons uses the place as a recording studio, but soon both they and their girlfriends start getting killed off one-by-one by the same spirits. Eventually only lead singer John (Jon Mikl Thor) remains and with his big muscular physique and fashionably long hair decides to take them on singlehandedly.

This low budget cheapie was shot at an isolated farmhouse near Markham, Ontario in a mere seven days and suffers from an excessive amount of footage on stuff that doesn’t matter like spending the first five minutes watching the group’s van driving down the highway. The dialogue and characters are predictably cardboard and the special effects unimpressive except for the moment where a monster’s hand pops out of a guy’s stomach, which wasn’t bad.

The film, which ends up being nothing more than a vanity project of its star who also wrote and produced it, has a million and one holes. For one thing it is never explained why these spirits attack this farmhouse or why a big sound studio was built in a place that had a family slaughtered in it or even why the people that constructed the studio weren’t killed just like the family and band members were.

If you are going to watch it then do like I did with a few beers at hand and a group of people who make jokes at it much of which are  far more entertaining than anything on the screen.

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My Rating: 1 out of 10

Alternate Title: The Edge of Hell

Released: July, 1987

Runtime: 1Hour 23Minutes

Rated R

Director: John Fasano

Studio: Shapiro Entertainment

Available: DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Cult, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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Killer Workout (1987)

Posted on October 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Safety pins aren’t safe.

Years earlier a woman is badly burned during a tanning salon mishap. Now her sister Rhonda (Marcia Karr) is running a fitness center where the women are systematically being killed off. Could the two be in some way connected? Detective Morgan (David James Campbell) thinks so and will stop at nothing to get the truth out of his main suspect even if it means resorting to unethical methods.

This cliché ridden formulaic late 80’s slasher has achieved some cult status simply for its mind numbing stupidity. The film’s most ridiculous aspect is that the killer murders his victims with a SAFETY PIN! That’s right a safety pin that is a little bit larger than your typical one, but not by much. Some of the victims go down after being stabbed by it only a couple of times and in one instance it manages to somehow go through a man’s skull!

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You have to wonder why no one on the cast or crew alerted the director to how stupid this was, or who even came up with the insane idea, but it does to some degree ponder the imagination and the only thing one goes away thinking about afterwards.

There are a lot of shots of female derrieres in thong bikinis, which normally for most male viewers is a good thing and certainly something that the producers thought would be enough to hide its otherwise lame production values, but it isn’t. Only for those who get a kick out of cheesy 80’s fashions and attitudes of which there is plenty.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Alternate Title: Aerobicide

Released: April 16, 1987

Runtime: 1Hour 25Minutes

Rated R

Director: Mark A. Prior

Studio: Shapiro Entertainment

Available: VHS

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Posted in 80's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Slasher/Gore

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Wolfen (1981)

Posted on October 20, 2014 | Leave a comment

wolfen 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Wolves on the attack.

Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) is assigned to investigate a particularly savage attack that occurred in Battery Park in New York City where a real estate magnate and his wife and bodyguard where gruesomely killed by some mysterious being that the police initially peg as a terrorist act. As Wilson investigates further and in talking with some experts he comes to the opinion that it may be wolves that killed them, but not the everyday wolf instead they are ghostly spirits intent on protecting their sacred ground. As the body count continues Wilson tries unorthodox methods to understand and stop these strange animals that remain invisible and elusive to the human eye.

For a horror film, which is based on the novel by Whitley Streiber, it has a refreshingly different approach to the material making it seem more like a modern-day drama and character study. Director Michael Wadleigh nicely captures the ambience and attitude of the city. The authentic feel and multi-dimensional lead character helps make the story more compelling. The use of showing things from the wolves’ point-of-view that gets captured through a unique colored lens is initially captivating and creepy.

Unfortunately the film does the P.O.V. thing too often, which eventually becomes redundant and boring. The genteel tone does not create enough tension and the film is barely ever suspenseful. There is one good decapitation scene, but otherwise the gore and special effects are minimal. The runtime is too long and the pacing could have been better. A good horror film or even a thriller needs a good scary image of the threat at hand to hold onto and create the fear for the viewer, but we are never shown the wolves at all until the very end. I did like the one part where the Diane Venora character goes roaming around an abandoned church and almost gets attacked by one of the wolves whose red eyes we see, but I wanted to see more of this since it was the only time I got even slightly frightened.

Finney is an odd choice for the lead. Simply because he has a reputation as being a great actor does not mean he is perfect for every role and having a grizzled New York cop speak with a British accent is off-putting. He is also too old and his relationship with a female cop that is clearly 20 years younger looks weird. I did like Edward James Olmos who takes off his clothes at one point and effectively acts like a real wolf and the scene where he has a menacing conversation with Finney while high on top of a bridge is memorable.

Spoiler Alert!!

My biggest beef comes with the ending in which Finney finds himself surrounded by the wolves and in an attempt to appease them smashes the model of the construction site that was going to be built on their sacred ground, which satisfies them enough to leave him alone and go away, but it came off as corny, farfetched and anti-climactic to me. It also makes the wolves who the viewer has feared throughout the film suddenly look like the ‘good guy’  and thus stripping all the ‘horror’ from this supposed thriller and makes sitting through it a pointless waste of time.

End of Spoiler Alert!!

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: July 24, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 55Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Wadleigh

Studio: Orion Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity, Police Drama

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