Hell Comes to Frogtown (1987)

"In the latter days of the 20th Century, there arose a difference of opinion. The leading experts of the time believed a nuclear war would only involve the exchange of a few bombs. And then the suitably horrified combatants would sit down at the peace table. They were wrong. In just 10 days, 10,000 years of human progress was virtually blown to dust. 10 years later, they tried again."

And so begins, the best Roddy Piper movie short of They Live. And in the first five seconds of the film, someone busts a bottle over his head and threatens to cut off his balls with the jagged glass. Turns out, Sam Hell (Piper's clever name in the film) is saved by his sperm. You see, Sam Hell is one of the few remaining non-sterile men in the world. So the People-In-Charge immediately decide to put a bomb on his crotch and make him a freedom fighter.

Makes sense?

Our Sam Hell is placed on Official Impregnating Duty and trekked out to hostile mutant territory where some fertile ladies have been kidnapped by....well, frog men. Frog men living in Frogtown. It sells itself, really.

This "Sam Sperm" character travels (to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic") to Frogtown, a place where real men drink pints of industrial waste and a mush made from ground-up lizards. Because...frog men.

Frog Men!

It's like a Pollock pastiche. A little bit of Han Solo mixed with Planet of the Apes swirled into Deathsport. The movie comes together like those squirts of paint splashed on a Rowdy Roddy Piper canvas that is mostly shirtless and living in a Road Warrior world. This isn't Mad Max though. Instead it's Mad Max through the lens of Rhonda Shear's USA Up All Night.

Coincidentally, where I saw this movie for the first time.

So, it's a post-apocalyptic T/A movie. Plenty of those out there. But it's a T/A movie that knows exactly what it is. No one writing this film ever thought they were making anything other than a B-movie. The self-awareness is the only thing that makes it watchable.

Take the "dance of the three snakes" sequence for example:

That's probably the best way to sum up how ridiculously this movie focuses everything on sex. A girl's attempt to seduce a frog man. Not all of it works. But Roddy Piper seems to be having a good time at least.

The "resolution" of this film is that Rowdy Roddy Piper becomes the prostitute for his lady-pimp. I'm fairly certain the filmmakers worked backwards from there.

This one might be worth it late on a Tuesday when you're reminiscing about how fun late night movies used to be back when there was such a thing. Unfortunately, unless you've had a few to drink and you enjoy making fun of the movie as you go along, you'll remember that they were a bit silly and boring too.

Deathstalker (1983)

Deathstalker is a Roger Corman Barbarian film that followed in the awe-inspired wake of the Schwarzenegger Conan films. This wasn't a rare thing at the time. Especially in Italy for some reason. Much like they did with the western, the Italians churned out a boat-load of knock-offs.

But this film, is Pure America. How can I say this? Well, there are 10 quantifiably separate boob-shots in this movie. That's right. In the name of online journalism, I counted them (and even took a screenshot of each to mosaic them all together for you).

The hero of this film is a would-be rapist (though, technically she didn't say "no," she didn't say "yes" either) recruited by a once-king who's been thrown out of his own castle by his former magician.

Our Hero

Oh, and to make sure you know the evil magician is evil, there's this scene where he feeds some kid's eyeball to his muppet.

A balanced diet for any muppet

But seriously, no one's watching this movie for the plot. It's all about the boobs and the sword-slashery. Mr. Corman gets the sword stuff out of the way early by having our hero go to the Yoda-cave where he fights a giant troll and wields his light-saber of justice.

You thought I was kidding?

With his magic sword in-hand, the hero recruits his own band of miscreants to the quest he has only-kinda-sorta taken up. One such mal-content is the Yoda-guy who turns into an old sage once he's exposed to light. Another is a sword fighter with the fashion sense of an 80's teenage girl.

This doesn't seem like it would be very effective armor

The final member of the guild is a topless she-warrior. Because, remember, boobs and swords. Why not put them together?

I'm not complaining, but this also doesn't seem like very effective "armor"

At some point, Mr. Corman decided there wasn't quite enough sword-slashing boobery and figured he'd transform one of the magician's henchmen into a woman to get just a smidgen extra. If the following scene weren't odd enough, keep in mind while you're watching it that our hero ends up half-penetrating this guy before he turns back to his henchman-form.

Out of nowhere, there's a tournament where everyone fights to be heir to the magician's throne. But really the magician plans on killing the winner so that all the most powerful warriors of the land are dead and he can rule unopposed. (Again, we're not here for the plot) At the end of the tournament, Bruce Lee, er, I mean the Deathstalker-hero-rapist is the victor. Even over his little fashion-buddy (but only after some homo-erotic Fight Clubbing....on the bed).

Then it's just a matter of killing the magician and taking the trophy-princess. (But first, we need another Star Wars derivative)

After having time to play with both boobs and his magic sword, our hero rightfully chooses boobs. Just like any true American Barbarian would.

Bitch Slap

Alright. Who doesn't love naked/nearly-naked/scantily-clad/sparsely-dressed/nude-ish/overly bare women? You show me someone who doesn't love them, and I will show you someone whose soul is mal-adjusted. Straight women love women. Lesbians love women. Even a bunch of gay dudes out there dig on the female form sans the attraction aspect.

Bitch Slap focuses on this from the start without being too much about breaking "type." In the first five minutes there's a group of women who've taken some dude hostage in their trunk. That's no the problem. The problem is, one of them is almost reduced to tears when he sends a harsh word her way. At this point, I'm still hoping that the film might be about everyone stepping into baddassery. Later, there's the obligatory lesbian scene. It's grindhouse. I dig it.

Come to find out, this movie has absolutely no clear direction. One second, it's the "play on grindhouse movies" movie. The next, it's jamming in some heavily green-screened scene straight out of the live action Speed Racer Movie. And suddenly she's using a hair-pick to interact with a computer and there's some serious green-screen again. Then we're back to the grindhouse. And to some scene that would look appropriate coming from a cutscene on an early 90's computer game (see below).

(trust me, you'll want to watch the following)

Maybe I don't get it. There might be some serious genius going on here. To be honest though, the use of all of these different filming techniques might be interesting in its variety, but their overuse raises the question of whether these choices were made deliberately...or haphazardly. I can see little evidence of one - and a lot of the other.

But then again, I do love sexy women doing their acting-things, dripping in their own sexiness. While being sexual.

So, the lesson here is: If you're going to just hit one note in your movie...

Boobs is never a wrong answer: