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STUDIO: Koch Entertainment
MSRP: $22.49
RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 445 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Inside Misty Mundae featurette
• Seduction Cinema Trailer Vault
• 12 page booklet containing interviews with Ed Grant and Misty Mundae
The Pitch
Softcore porn parodies of your favorite franchises.
The Humans
Misty Mundae, Darian Caine, Julian Wells, A.J Khan, Anoushka, John Bacchus, Terry West
The Nutshell
Seduction Cinema provides their own wacky soft core take on such fantasy/sci-fi staples as Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, Gladiator(?) and Planet of the Apes. Combining Troma production values with a Mad magazine sense of humor, Seduction Cinema “Late-Nite TV” Sexy-Spoof Collection is 6 hours of topless chicks having their way with geek culture…with mixed results.
The Lowdown
Porn has always been, and will always be, a matter of personal preference. I’m not here to pass judgment on someone for what they find titillating, but unfortunately I do have to review these movies so aspersions must be cast. Frankly, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that we live in a world where softcore porn still needs to exist. While it may have once had it’s place among the late night premium movie channels during the 80’s and 90’s, it seems a bit antiquated in this modern internet age. I mean, why pay to watch people kinda fuck when anyone with an internet connection can watch people actually fuck (for free) in the anonymity of their own home?
The second part of Seduction Cinema’s equation is the “porn parody”. The parody is enormously popular right now, even in films of the hardcore variety and I totally get it. In an endless sea of titfucking and creampies how does one make their product stick out? By loosely associating it with whatever else is blowing up the market right now. Are you going to buy some random porn or are you going to get the one where everyone dresses us like they’re characters on Glee? It’s brand recognition. It’s also not too far removed from what Corman used to pull or those wacky Italians during the Spaghetti Western era. Find something that someone else made work and ride it into the ground. In this collection Seduction Cinema wisely chooses to tackle the fantasy/sci-fi genre’s, inserting scene’s with hot chicks kinda fucking their way through some of today’s most popular geek franchises…and Gladiator.
The man-ape Elvis impersonator was just your average man-ape until one night he was bitten by an Elvis impersonator.
Play-Mate of the Apes loosely incorporates events from the first two films in the series, as well as taking a cue on it’s ending from the dismal Tim Burton remake, and is easily the best of the bunch. Being a pretty big fan of the Planet of the Apes series (even the animated series and live action TV show) I had the highest hopes for this one and it failed to disappoint. The secret weapon to what makes these flicks work lies in between the sex scene’s and it’s name is Misty Mundae. Misty exudes genuine charisma here totally brings a Bill Murrary, snarky everyman vibe to a movie filled to the brim with cheap sets, topless women, and dudes in ape suits. She’s no master thespian, but she’s got enough moxie to make her enjoyable to watch, even with her clothes on.
The other flick on here that actually warrants a viewing is Gladiator Eroticvs. I’m not quite sure how this one ended up in the set (one could make an argument that the filmmakers were taking a piss on the Sword and Sandal genre but let’s face it, they’ve probably never even heard that fucking term before), but it makes an excellent case for what makes these films work. Once again you have Misty Mundae doing her thing and lighting up the screen, but you also have an almost manic energy that carries throughout the film. It’s pure camp, filled with corny jokes and sight gags. And when camp is real and natural it’s a fucking beautiful thing. It reminds you why you love shitty, low budget movies. Gladiator taps into that and goes from being a wimpy skin flick based on a movie I hold no great love for, into an honestly solid bit of motion picture entertainment. The other two films in the set aren’t so lucky.
Spiderbabe and Lord of the G-Strings don’t fare so well and it’s somewhat difficult to put your finger on why exactly they don’t work. On paper all these films are cut from the same cloth but something is missing here, and it feels like that something is fun. It’s almost like they traded an increase in production value for that manic, cheap as shit and loose as fuck energy Gladiator and Playmate of the Apes thrives on. Chronologically speaking this seems to hold true as Spiderbabe and G-Strings were made a few years after the success of their predecessors. Even Misty Mundae, whom the Spiderbabe movie was supposedly made as a vehicle for, seems slightly less charismatic when the pressure is on. It just goes to show you that camp, in all it’s power and glory, cannot be forcibly created. It’s something that occurs naturally in the film making process when folks that give fuck all about the rules and end result get together to simply enjoy the process of making a movie.
The one thing these flicks all have in common are the sex scenes, and frankly they’re all pretty much interchangeable. All four movies feature basically the same actresses doing the same shit to one another, just in slightly different Halloween costumes. Lesbian sex lends itself to the soft core genre so if that’s your cup of tea you’re certainly in luck here because there’s a lot of it. Actually a few exceptions aside it’s pretty much all of it. At some point I found myself wanting to actually skip through some of the sex scenes just to get to the next story segment, as one can only handle so much strictly above the waist nipple play in one night. Then again that’s just me, this shit might be the Holy Grail to some of you more vanilla folks.
The Package
Each disc in this two disc set comes with a supplemental feature. The first disc contains home video footage of Misty Mundae that pretty much solidifies her as the definitive girl you wish you hung out with. She drinks whiskey, pops pills, dresses up like Spiderman and has sex with girls on camera for a living, keeps a sweet Marshall stack in the front room, and Godzilla posters in the bedroom. There’s also some footage of her driving her old beat up car around in the middle of a bleak Midwestern Winter that strangely echos the opening scene from I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.
Misty Mundae: The Jeff Tweedy of late night softcore porno.
The second disc has a whole shitload of trailers from other Seduction Cinema releases proving that yes, there still is a market for this stuff after all. Batbabe: The Darknightie and The Insatiable Ironbabe both looked to be just this side of enjoyable, while some of the others (all the Austin Powers parody’s) looked hellacious enough to actually cause one to go blind. It’s such a fine line between clever and stupid.
7 out of 10