Bad Girls from Mars Reviews

What begins as a dirty, simple-mindedly funny sci-fi parody winds up becoming an over-extended murder-mystery spoof. BAD GIRLS FROM MARS should have stuck with lampooning movies like CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON. All the leading ladies on the set of "Bad Girls from Mars" have met untimely ends--the most recent is choked with a strand of film. Who's snuffing out these amply endowed actresses? Can it be the producer, Mac Reagan (Jeffrey Culver), who will make a killing with the insurance if the production is cancelled? Or is it the long-suffering director T.J. McMasters, who must deal with a hambone leading man, Richard Trent (Jay Richardson), more concerned with billing than learning his lines, and a production secretary, Martine (Dana Bentley), who interrupts his workday to screw him? And what do all those menacing, poorly rhymed notes threatening cast members have to do with the deaths of the leading ladies? Salvation arrives in the brave person of Emmanuelle (Edy Williams), a former madam, porn star and publicity junkie willing to risk her life for a chance at a role in a legitimate film. After some cans of negative film are stolen, Emmanuelle is kidnapped but not slain. Although Myra (Brinke Stevens), the movie-mad costume girl, offers to take over the lead, T.J. informs her that wardrobe girls are more valuable than stars. In addition to homicide, the filming is periodically interrupted as T.J. has sex with Emmanuelle after he's been covered in garbage, which she regards as an aphrodisiac. Then Myra seduces Emmanuelle. When a detective named Al (Bob Ruth) begins investigating suspects, he's given a role in the movie. Before Al can zero in on the leading lady killer, Emmanuelle squares off against Martine, who gets her neck broken by a mysterious masked figure--the same phantom who kidnapped Emmanuelle and who has been leaving those admonitory notes. Abducted once again, Emmanuelle is forced to have garbage-filled sex with the masked man. When Al discovers the fingerprints of Victor Buntz on the notes, the case is nearly solved. Years ago, Myra, a transsexual, had been Victor Buntz, Emmanuelle's lover and garbage connoisseur. Eager to be in the movies, Victor has had his sex changed and, in the new lovely persona and body of Myra, has tried to kill his way to stardom. Popping a grenade into the mouth of the sexually confused Myra, Emmanuelle blows up her ex-lover, resumes her starring role, and enables production of "Bad Girls from Mars" to resume happily. Perennial starlet Edy Williams (BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE SUPER VIXENS, THE HAPPY HOOKER GOES TO WASHINGTON), whose chest is still more impressive than her acting credentials, is in great shape for BAD GIRLS FROM MARS. Indeed, there are firm breasts aplenty to keep this comedy's storyline buoyant, which is fortunate since the film's laugh quotient is flat much of the time. In its favor, BAD GIRLS FROM MARS has an energetic cast and it doesn't take itself seriously. As a detective movie take-off, however, it's lackadaisically directed and ineptly scripted; the whole slapdash enterprise seems to have been improvised while the camera was running. Although the opening parody of a chicks-in-space flick is vulgar, it is also on-target and had the potential to be a tongue-in-cheek send-up. Foolishly, the film rarely returns to this film-within-a-film and, when it does, it rushes past a situation that is rich with comic possibilities. If the filmmakers didn't want to consistently rib grade Z productions like QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE, they should have had the ingenuity to make the sci-fi spoof comment on the crime-movie parody that frames it. It's hard to blast a film with such tiny aspirations, particularly when the cast seems to be having a lark, but they don't really let us in on the fun. Instead we're saddled with tired visual gags (Edy literally stopping traffic by undressing in a moving convertible--although the point is blunted because there don't seem to be any people on the streets of Beverly Hills). Although BAD GIRLS FROM MARS is obviously intended as another home video time-killer, it is frustrating that the comedy delivers so little for our money. Although witless as a comedy, lovers of cinema maudit will be grateful to BAD GIRLS FROM MARS for employing the spectacular Edy Williams whose faith in her own acting abilities remains touching. Maybe John Waters will give her a cameo role some day. For now, Edy makes BAD GIRLS FROM MARS worth a look. She is that rarity--a bad movie star with a talent to match Edith Massey, Tor Johnson or Maria Montez. (Violence, profanity, excessive nudity.)