In short: Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1998)

A sadistic, bottom-paddling sorority chieftainess (Robin Still) sends her stupid little club’s newest pledges (Brinke Stevens and Michelle Bauer) out to steal a bowling trophy from the local Bowl-O-Rama. Three local nerds (Andras Jones, Hal Havins and John Stuart Wildman) have to accompany them as punishment for peeping on the girls.

Awkwardness, a bit of demonic possession, violence, and “ironic” wish fulfilment ensue when our protagonists accidentally free a demonic imp (the voice of Michael Sonye working under the nom de plume of “Dukey Flyswatter”) who was trapped in the trophy (don’t ask). One of the nerds manages to team up with roving punkette Spider (Linnea Quigley keeping her shirt on for a whole film, believe it or not) – only there to rob the bowling alley – improving his chances of survival to no end.

Once you’ve called your film Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama you have made yourself practically critic proof, for whatever criticism anyone could throw at your film you can easily answer by crying “Look at the title! What the hell did you expect!?”. Ironically enough, this core text of the Scream Queen horror comedy subgenre that mixes Porky’s style “sex comedy” (not to be confused with comedies actually about sex, the quotation mark version is about showing tits) is not quite as bad as all that.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the film’s jokes fall flat at least half of the time even when you try to approach them with the mind-set of a fifteen year old heterosexual boy, the script is barely there, as is the gore, and the nudity is of that “naughty” style which seems so embarrassed by itself you want to pat the people involved on the head and tell them it’s okay. However, the other half of the jokes is sometimes somewhat funny, the actresses seem to approach whatever goofy crap they are supposed to be doing in any given scene with a wink, a smile, and the sort of bad acting that comes over as likeable rather than bad. Plus, for something directed by David DeCoteau, this is surprisingly fast-paced and decently shot, with sets that are somewhat larger than the tiny wardrobes most of the guy’s later films seem to be shot in.

What Sorority Babes completely lacks is a cynical side. The nudity – at least from here and now – is used so harmlessly the word “innocent” comes to mind to describe it, and while this is in theory a sleazy movie exploiting a bunch of young actresses’ willingness to undress in front of the camera, it’s all so clearly harmless and in good fun, criticizing it seems mean spirited at best. And, after all, I’m watching a film called Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, so I have nobody to blame but myself, right?

In short: Demonwarp (1988)

Deep inside the 80s, Jack (David Michael O'Neill) takes a bunch of his friends to the cabin of his uncle Clem located in the Deep Dark Woods for a bit of vacation time. Because he's afraid they won't accompany him, Jack fails to mention to them that Clem disappeared from the cabin one day, and Jack plans to find out what happened. Does the disappearance have something to do with the Bigfoot supposedly roaming the area?

Jack and friends find that out soon enough, for Bigfoot just leaves them enough time for a bit of gratuitous nudity and a bad practical joke before he attacks, and pretty effectively kills off half of the gang in short order. Fortunately, this is one of those lonely patches of wood that's as populated as a main street, so Biggie also has the opportunity to have his way with a random photographer, two city girls (also there to drive the boob quota up), and Bill Crafton (George Kennedy, slumming).

Bill has come to the woods to take revenge for the death of his daughter, who was killed and kidnapped by Biggie some time ago while she and Bill were playing Trivial Pursuit. Now, Bill has returned with bear traps, dynamite, and a big yellow hat he's wearing so that the monster can see him better.

But Bigfoot isn't the only thing roaming these woods. The living dead and a cultist preacher also make an appearance - and everyone's working for an alien that wants to phone home a bit more aggressively than is polite, misusing the lack of a zombie union and a preacher's love for human sacrifice for its nefarious plans.

Yes, Emmett Alston's Demonwarp is another one of those films trying to make up for a stupid script, low production values, and not very good acting with the holy trinity of crap horror movies: tits (four out of five actresses with speaking roles poke their breasts in the direction of the camera one time or another), gore (watch Biggie rip off a head, eviscerate a guy with a stick, and have other types of good clean fun for the whole family, if your family is like mine), and as many monsters as the budget can allow (there's Biggie, a bunch of zombies - some rubber-masked, some not, the alien). It may not be up to the standards of artistry and entertainment that give major film prizes to self-important exercises in nostalgia like The Artist, but Demonwarp sure is a film feeling at ease with what it is; and if that is only cheap exploitation, that doesn't matter.

What puts the film into the upper tier of its type of 80s horror - the unembarrassed type - is how strong and enthusiastic the power of awesome stupidity is in it. Just to take one example among many, Biggie the Bigfoot, it turns out, (SPOILER) isn't just any old ratty looking monster costume with a surprisingly expressive face, but in fact a were-bigfoot somehow created by the alien injecting (with the help of one of its scorpion stinger tentacle thingies, of course) alien goo into poor uncle Clem. This, brethren, is a film that isn't just gratuitous when it comes to female nudity.

One of the zombies is even wearing a Residents t-shirt, for Cthulhu's sake, and if that's not enough to recommend a movie, I don't know what is.

 

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