½
“Amateur hour and a quarter.”
Incompetent on every level, this proves there’s a section of cult fandom which would praise a dog turd to the heavens, if told it had a “feminist” message. The title is probably – scratch that, certainly – the best thing about this, suggesting a throwback to the JD films of the fifties, filtered through the lens of Russ Meyer. “Suggesting” is the keyword here, since the reality is more like the finger-paintings of a developmentally challenged three-year-old. I guess the title is actually inspired by Blood Orgy of the She Devils, a film made in 1973 by Ted V. Mikels, one of the most inept directors ever to pick up a camera. This movie is poor enough Mikels would likely require his film’s name be taken off it.
The plot, such as it is, concerns four girls, who set about taking revenge for one of their number when she’s sorta-kinda-not-actually raped. Though any concepts of justice are fairly loose, since they were already gleefully committing crimes, including murder. Meanwhile, the least convincing detective in film history, Inspector Morton (Silverstein) narrates, offering a moral context with lines like, “When the maternal and creative forces of women become corrupted by the brutality of the every day world, a force of incredible violence is unleashed.” The women are similarly implausible as disaffected schoolgirls, with the gang’s leader, Sarah (Gingold), a Jew who has a shrine to Hitler in her bedroom, and goes to Catholic school. I’m very confused.
No, wait: not confused, just staggeringly bored. For Lucas doesn’t have the barest idea of film-making, such as basic framing. So we get violence that is completely unconvincing, utterly unsexy nudity, and what I can only presume are comedic moments landing like lead balloons. It’s all accompanied by Z-grade surf punk and other flatulent noises, likely provided by the director’s equally talentless mates. There’s one moment where self-awareness is almost achieved. The women go to a drive-in, hunting their last victim. An even worse film is playing, and the narrator – who no longer seems to be Morton, for unclear reasons – declares, “The movie dragged on. And on. And on.” So close to getting it.
Legend has it the director, unable to get her work distributed, committed suicide, only for her brother to take up the movie in her honour. Except she never existed, Michael Lucas making his sister up, in the belief it’d improve the odds of his film being taken seriously. That’s the level of artistic honesty we are dealing with here, and if there weren’t already a myriad of reasons to hate this, I want no part of it. I did sit through to the finish, mostly out of a stoic refusal to let myself be beaten by this piece of pretentious garbage. Trust me, when I say this isn’t even “so bad it’s good,” it’s closer to being so bad it’s unwatchable. Near the end, someone is sodomized with an electric drill. I can’t think of a more appropriate metaphor for the viewing experience.
Dir: “Meredith Lucas” (Michael A. Lucas)
Star: Phillip Silverstein, Robin Gingold, Simoone Margolis, Melissa Lawrence