Sunday

Tuna
"The Majorettes" (1986)

The Majorettes came about because The Night of the Living Dead bunch were hoping to repeat their success, and John Russo had a novel called The Majorettes with a cover that everyone thought would sell a lot of video tapes. Furthermore, all the sex romp cheerleader films had been made, so they figured a teen slasher film with majorettes would be just the ticket.

It had a promising start. Majorettes ... practice in the gym ... requisite weirdo taking pictures ... then "Ok, hit the showers" from their young, attractive coach. Unfortunately, only two of them show breasts in the locker room scene, Jacqueline Bowman and Sueanne Seamens. Seamens has another topless scene late in the film.

The film then returned to pure horror 101 cliché time. Young couple in car on lovers lane, she trying to seduce him, then stopping herself and admitting that she is pregnant by the official "Town Miscreant."  This is a clear first killing setup, and we are not disappointed. A guy jumps onto their convertible, slashes the roof with a big hunting knife, drags the guy through the roof, and slits his throat. The girl takes off running. I know what you are thinking now. Either she trips and gets killed, or she hides behind a tree and gets killed. The correct answer is C, all of the above. She trips, killer jumps on top of her, she wallops him over the head with a handy branch, runs forever, hides behind a tree, and the omnipresent bad guy slits her throat.

From here, the story gets strange, and involves a nurse/housekeeper plotting to steal a majorettes inheritance, a baptism sect, and finally a huge revenge shootout for an ending. These elements were necessitated by the fact that the script reveals the identity of the killer about half way through the film, so they had to try (unsuccessfully) to build some suspense from other sources

We have exposure from three majorettes and a "go go" dancer, Sueanne Seamens, Jacqueline Bowman, Dana Mailo and Amy Mathesiuf respectively. This scores a whopping 3.0 of 10 at IMDB, and I was unable to find a reviewer with a good thing to say about it.

The DVD has numerous special features, the transfer is very nice, and it was professionally made, earning it a D+.
 

 

 

"House of the Dead" (2003)

House of the Dead (2003) is a Canadian adaptation of a Sega video game. It is a fairly garden variety zombie film, but with several important differences.

  •  The photography is stunning, even the nighttime work
  • Scene transitions are done by inserting shots from the video game.
  • Fewer than half of the women get naked, and then breasts only.
  • The biggest difference is that these zombies are fast.


There is supposed to be a weekend rave on one of the San Jaun islands in Puget Sound, Washington. Five friends miss the boat, so they  pay a fisherman to take them to the island. They arrive to find the island empty of ravers, and soon discover that they have hit the motherload of zombies. From there, the plot is about as complex as a shoot-em-up video game. It is never-ending zombie bashing. I kept hoping everyone would lose their last life and be out of quarters, so the game would have to end.

Erica Parker, Penny Phang and Sonya Salomaa all show breasts in broad daylight, all in the first 15 minutes of the film.

This was as good a transfer as I have seen, and included deleted scenes, storyboards, commentary and making of featurettes. I will give this a C- for three reasons. First, it looks very nice. Second, it is a feature-rich offering, and third, there are enough unintentional laughs to keep you entertained.

Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

Jack Frost (1996):

Jack Frost is probably most known today for featuring American Pie star Shannon Elizabeth in her first film role as the designated small-town slut. She was then sometimes known by her real name, Shannon Fabal, and she still had her natural nose and smaller breasts.

It's a hokey parody or the horror genre. I kinda liked it, but two of my children voted a resounding "no" on it.

Scoopy Jr wrote:

"This one falls into the "We know we're making a bad movie, so we're going to try really hard to make it funny but at the same time still try to make it serious" category. A serial killer is genetically mutated in car wreck on the way to his execution. After the wreck he becomes a murdering snowman hell-bent on revenge for the sheriff who caught him. Why it sucked eggs: Poor attempt at humor added at random intervals from characters who were previously one dimensional straight guys. My guess is that later in the production after viewing the dailies, they realized how bad this thing really was and tried to spice it up and make it a spoof.  Why I care: I don't, and neither should you. The bottom line is that Shannon does get naked but all we see is her very lovely bum."

I watched it with my daughter, Katya, and she just kept saying "this is dumb", although I was laughing through most of the movie and telling her it was brilliant. She was right, of course. It is dumb. Furthermore, she wanted to see a scary movie, and this isn't really very scary.

The film was was designed to be dumb, and not many people "get" that kind of humor. Woman locks door to keep out evil snowman, dramatic music, sight of water under door (oh, no, he's gonna melt his way in, she realizes). Cut to the face of a silly Frosty-lookin'-guy and the woman now dead. Oh, yeah, the joke did wear a little thin, I admit. I got bored with it after a while. You do have to love any movie which dares to show the only known screen instance of a woman being raped by a snowman. You have to watch it for as couple of minutes just to see the silly face on the Snowman. You can't blame the Snowman for going after a little strange. After all, his wife is frigid.

Michael Cooney has only two directing credits: Jack Frost and Jack Frost 2, but he has some talent. There are a lot of good touches in the film:

  • The murderous snowman is funny. In addition to his evil puns (as if there were good puns) he puts on a smoking jacket and smokes a pipe, ala Hef, after his sex/murder scene with Shannon Elizabeth.
  • The sheriff is actually a solid professional actor, who plays the entire movie as if he were in a real film.
  • The Christmas-themed opening credits are slick.
  • You have to love the scene where the townspeople defend themselves by using their hair dryers against the snowman.
  • Quiet a bit of thought went into photography and set design, especially the details of the small town. It looks quite good for a B movie.
  • One woman is murdered by being turned into a Christmas tree, and the snowman really decorated her lovingly.
  • One scene that made me laugh out loud - Shannon Elizabeth is in the bathtub, unaware that the snowman can freely transmute between snow and water. Little does she know that she's actually bathing in the snowman! Everything seems normal until we get a look at the bath water. Floating in the water is the carrot used as a snowman nose. Dramatic music!
  • Although Snomonton is the "Snowman Capital of the USA", it has very little snow.
  • Another good laugh. Shannon Elizabeth seduces her boyfriend right after her mother, father, and brother are killed by the snowman. Her boyfriend is surprised that she wants to party that same night, but Shannon says, "Hey, do you want me to mourn forever?"

OK, I know the film isn't a great work of genius, but I got a lot of laughs out of it, and I appreciated the elements of the film that did work.

For a grade-B film, it has attracted an amazing level of attention. There are 126 comments at IMDb, and it is reviewed by every one of the best-known bad movie sites (see the external review section at IMDb).

  • Shannon Elizabeth (1, 2)

 

OTHER CRAP:

 

Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the ones above, since it's sorta in real time.

Click here to submit a URL for inclusion in Other Crap

 

 

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

  • The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
  • If there is a white asterisk, it means that there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
  • A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Junior or Brainscan, or somebody else besides me)
  • If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Shiloh

Words and .wmv's from Scoop.

.avi's from Shiloh

Miscellaneous:

 

Perhaps these tips will help if you have trouble with the codecs for these movies:

Shiloh says:

FYI when I hypercam vids to make the file size smaller I use DivX MPEG-4 Fast-Motion for the video compressor, then I use virtualdub to compress the audio. The properties for the vids says the video codec:  DivX Decoder Filter & audio codec:  Morgan Stream Switcher which I'm not familiar with. When I compress the audio with virtualdub I use MPEG Layer-3.  A friend of mine told me about compressing the audio about (6) mos. ago. Like I said previously, only been capping for a year & a half & I'm no expert. Hopefully this info will help members with the proper codecs for my vids.
 
When I cap big brother's I use hypercam mostly & sdp & asfrecorder if the set up allows me. I stopped using camtasia cause the file sizes were always too big, could never figure out the process, over my head lol, plus it cost too much to buy in my opinion.

A reader says:

You mentioned that some users were having trouble with the videos on your site. There is a tool designed to determine what codec is needed for a video. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ Hope this is useful to you or your users.

Scoop says:

I made the .wmv versions of each video. The codecs for these: Windows Video V8, Windows Audio 9. The upside of these is that you know the codecs, and they'll play in the Windows Media Player. The downside is that they are slightly larger files, and slightly lower quality.

Crimson Ghost

Words and pics and .wmv's from Crimson Ghost

  • Blake Picket (1, 2) , Jennifer Langdon, Lorissa McComas and four unknowns (1, 2, 3, 4) from "Can  It Be Love," aka "Spring Break Sorority Babes." Sorry about the low image quality. The source material is a fourteen year old rental tape. I'm pretty sure this is new to your eyes, or I wouldn't even be sending them in.
  • Maria Isabel Lopez from "Dune Warriors." (1, 2, 3, 4)
  • Maria Isabel Lopez and Jillian McWhirter from "Dune Warriors."
  • Mimi Lessos from "Streets of Rage." (1, 2)
  • Deborah Driggs from "Martial Law 2: Undercover."
  • Sherrie Rose from "New Crime City." ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)  The fella spending a little quality time with Sherrie Rose is Rick Rossovich.

Video clips seem to be the "coming thing" at the Funhouse. If this level of  quality and file type is acceptable, I should be able to contribute a few  clips from each movie I view. I'll send along a couple more for you to review.

Scoop's comments: not bad at all, and WAY better than having nothing.

Brainscan
'Caps and comments by Brainscan:

Die Screaming, Marianne (1971) stars Susan George as Marianne and was made the same year she starred in Straw Dogs. So, I was sorta kinda hopping, ya know, that she would, how you say?, get naked. Yep, that's what I was hoping.

Movies have a way of telling you whether one's expectations of bare goodies is going to pan out. Often the movie takes its own sweet time letting you in on that fact, but Marianne comes right and makes it clear in the first scene. Susan George is feigning sleep as the guy she picked up the night before... a sailor!... slips out the door. And then assured she is alone, she rises, holds the covers to her chest and, without letting go of them, quickly slips on a very short dress. Let me repeat: she knows she is alone and still she takes great pains to hide her assets. It's then you know you are SOL.

Collage 1 catches that little act and the subsequent climb down a hill that features an upskirt and some pokies.

A later scene just adds an exclamation point to it all. There is Susan in the tub with bubbles and something else white hiding the goodies. A close-up shows the something else is the bra she was wearing in a scene just preceding. And the DP failed to block the scene so that the undies remain off camera. Nary a doubt about Susan's nudity or the crafts-persons' competence after this scene. All that is in collage 2.

Bottom line: don't watch Die Screaming for any Susan George exposure. Or any other babe's exposure.

So should you watch is for the art and drama? Well, let me put it this way. In Die Screaming, Narianne, the protagonist neither dies nor screams. It's not a horror film or mystery film or period drama or anything else that I recognized as cinema. Only if it had been filmed in a nudist colony and Ms. George had played one of the residents and she participated in an exercise class and a volleyball game would it have been worth the money I spent renting this...thing..

Dann
'Caps and comments by Dann:

"Swimming Pool"
This 2003 mystery/drama hits the mark on many levels, including great acting, a truly interesting and fascinating story line, and some fine character studies.

Charlotte Rampling plays a stiff British mystery author who vacations at her publisher's house in France. Surprise, along comes his wild young daughter to upset the tranquility. Ludivine Sagnier is yummy as the daughter who manages to get naked at every opportunity and screw everything in sight, thereby blowing the mind of the stiff Brit.

As things progress, the older woman softens and Rampling, never shy about doing nudity, also winds up naked later in the movie. But as the older woman's interest in the young girl and her background grows, so do the mysteries surrounding the girl. Great movie, with an ending that may have you scratching your head it can be interpreted several ways.

Hankster
'Caps and comments by Hankster:

A little variety today.

First up Barbara Alyn Woods looking really sexy in a shorty nightie on Television's 'Honey I Shrunk the Kids"

  • Barbara Alyn Woods (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)


Then we move on to Halle Berry tied up and staked to the ground in scenes from "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge".

  • Halle Berry (1, 2, 3)


Finally we have another "Babe in Bondage", Jennifer Patterson in "Bloodbath". This movie is not so bad it's good, it's just plain bad.

  • Jennifer Patterson (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Oz
'Caps and comments by Oz:

"Rockbitch"
Rockbitch are (were?) an English rock group from a couple of years ago. They were also into an alternative life style with sex being their main focus. They gave out gold condoms in their concerts to one lucky audience member who got to use it after the show with some member(s) of the band. As you'll see from the caps they were generally naked in the show and the rest of the time. I was going to name all the members but it was too difficult. They only used their first names and Babe was also called Alexandra. She also looks remarkably like Sarah Alexander, an English comedienne who has appeared in the Fun House before.

  • Babe (1, 2, 3)
  • Assorted Rock Bitches (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
  • Chloe (1, 2, 3)
  • Piggy (1, 2)


"Happiness"
Jane Adams is topless and that is the nudity in Happiness. An unnamed actress shows plenty of cleavage whilst sunbaking, as does Elizabeth Ashley.


"The Learning Curve"
No visibility nudity in The Learning Curve but Money Mazur and Majandra Delfino are very sexy in the movie.


"Baby... Secret of the Lost Legend"
Baby... Secret of the Lost Legend is rated PG but is remarkably racy. Pokies by Sean Young and she almost has her bra off.

  • Sean Young (1, 2, 3)


"Making the Grade"
The topless nudity in Making the Grade comes from an unnamed actress with sexy caps of Patrice Watson and Jonna Lee.


"Ace Ventura : Pet Detective"
No nudity in Ace Ventura : Pet Detective just lots of cleavage. Rebecca Ferratti has her assets well pushed up as does Courtney Cox. Sean Young is down to her underwear.


Variety
Mia Kirshner
(1, 2)

The gorgeous Canadian actress topless and gettin' it on in straight and lesbian love scenes from the new cable series "The L Word". Fantastic 'caps by DAI.

Julie Davis
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Brief breast exposure in scenes from "Amy's Orgasm" aka "Amy's O" (2001). Davis wrote, produced, edited and directed in addition to starring in the movie. 'Caps by the Skin-man.