Sunday, May 15, 2011

Princess Warrior



Troma films are the kinds of movies that get away with being held to a different standard than most, I mean everyone knows up front they're made semi-competently with minimal budgets, and the objective is basically to deliver cheap gore, cheap T&A, general cheap thrills, and maybe some cheap laughs at intentionally hammy acting and low-grade special effects.

Unfortunately it looks like Troma acquired the rights to this one after the fact rather than actually making it themselves, and even by lowered B-movie standards it's still pretty bad. The main problem is that it front-loads all the T&A and cheesy special effects into the first 20 minutes or so of the movie, leaving the remaining 50 to largely be filled with painful attempts to actually take the material seriously and possibly the world's longest and least exciting low-speed car chase scene.



We start on some far-flung planet that appears to be a combination of someone's femdom fantasy with Star Wars. The planet is ruled by the Good Women (distinguished by white togas), whose Queen is on her deathbed. However, the Intergalactic Bitch Squad, pictured above and below, is poised to take power, as eldest daughter Curette is about to inherit the Queendom. The Queen pulls a fast one on them just before croaking, however, berating Curette for being vile and passing the reigns onto second-in-line Ovule instead. This doesn't sit well with the Bitch Squad, who proceed to bust out their Lightsabers and attempt to take power in a coup.



The Bitch Squad goes into hot pursuit, sealing off the teleporter room and leaving one of their ranks to control it while the rest head to Earth after Ovule. Teleporting, naturally, necessitates getting naked, because as Curette informs us any inorganic matter will turn the teleportees into "superfucked super-ions." Make-up, however, seems to be an exception.



Given this start to the film, it's natural to expect to be absolutely plied with Space Titties for the remainder. However, the movie actually exhausts nearly all of its titty content right here, leaving us with only mild doses of mostly clothed T&A in sporadic bursts for the remainder.

Ovule lands in the midst of a wet t-shirt contest and meets up with Bob, your standard sleazy 80s slacker who looks like an aspiring porn star. Through a variety of circumstances they end up being chased by both the LAPD and Curette's crew all over LA whilst on Bob's moped.



The movie runs into some consistency issues with Curette and the Bitch Squad. They're initially shown to be badass Amazonian warriors with super-strength who can easily dispatch the standard attacking Earthman ... except when the plot requires that they don't, such as when lead detective Guido McFists of the LAPD arrests them, cuffs them and then stashes them in the back of their patrol car for roughly the next half hour.



During the solid 30 or 40 minutes of low-speed chasing, a romance blooms between Bob and Ovule, coming to fruition on some dirty mattress inside some random warehouse while hiding from the BitchSquad/LAPD tandem. Ovule is the best-looking character in the movie with by far the most interesting breasts, yet the actress apparently had a "no bare titties except with shadowing and special effects" clause in her contract, so this is the one brief peek we get as fog is brought in from absolutely nowhere for your standard softcore Cinemax naked sex scene.



Shortly after this things come to a head. Curette and Ovule settle their inheritance rights with a warehouse catfight, and the rest of the Intergalactic Bitch Squad is mopped up by a police extra who looks rather creepily proud of his work.



Meanwhile, back on Stankonia, the Good Women bust into the sealed teleporter room and send their baddest bitch in to retake control in a surprisingly badass duel.





Bob heads back to Amazonia with Ovule as the cops wisely decide to forget that any of this ever happened.



Though the movie struggles with consistency I do want to applaud Ovule's actress Sharon Lee Jones for her commitment to the fine details. As you can see from the shot below, in keeping with the plot having her beam to Earth naked and put on only an oversized T-shirt for clothing, she apparently filmed the rest of the movie without her underwear. That's dedication to your craft.



The main problem with this one is just that it seems like it's taking itself too seriously for too much of the running time. The acting and dialogue are just flat and half-assed, and never get to that zone of enjoyable cheese.

Links :

* Dana Fredsti, who plays main Intergalactic Bitch Curette, wrote an essay about the experience of working on this film

No comments:

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Princess Warrior



Troma films are the kinds of movies that get away with being held to a different standard than most, I mean everyone knows up front they're made semi-competently with minimal budgets, and the objective is basically to deliver cheap gore, cheap T&A, general cheap thrills, and maybe some cheap laughs at intentionally hammy acting and low-grade special effects.

Unfortunately it looks like Troma acquired the rights to this one after the fact rather than actually making it themselves, and even by lowered B-movie standards it's still pretty bad. The main problem is that it front-loads all the T&A and cheesy special effects into the first 20 minutes or so of the movie, leaving the remaining 50 to largely be filled with painful attempts to actually take the material seriously and possibly the world's longest and least exciting low-speed car chase scene.



We start on some far-flung planet that appears to be a combination of someone's femdom fantasy with Star Wars. The planet is ruled by the Good Women (distinguished by white togas), whose Queen is on her deathbed. However, the Intergalactic Bitch Squad, pictured above and below, is poised to take power, as eldest daughter Curette is about to inherit the Queendom. The Queen pulls a fast one on them just before croaking, however, berating Curette for being vile and passing the reigns onto second-in-line Ovule instead. This doesn't sit well with the Bitch Squad, who proceed to bust out their Lightsabers and attempt to take power in a coup.



The Bitch Squad goes into hot pursuit, sealing off the teleporter room and leaving one of their ranks to control it while the rest head to Earth after Ovule. Teleporting, naturally, necessitates getting naked, because as Curette informs us any inorganic matter will turn the teleportees into "superfucked super-ions." Make-up, however, seems to be an exception.



Given this start to the film, it's natural to expect to be absolutely plied with Space Titties for the remainder. However, the movie actually exhausts nearly all of its titty content right here, leaving us with only mild doses of mostly clothed T&A in sporadic bursts for the remainder.

Ovule lands in the midst of a wet t-shirt contest and meets up with Bob, your standard sleazy 80s slacker who looks like an aspiring porn star. Through a variety of circumstances they end up being chased by both the LAPD and Curette's crew all over LA whilst on Bob's moped.



The movie runs into some consistency issues with Curette and the Bitch Squad. They're initially shown to be badass Amazonian warriors with super-strength who can easily dispatch the standard attacking Earthman ... except when the plot requires that they don't, such as when lead detective Guido McFists of the LAPD arrests them, cuffs them and then stashes them in the back of their patrol car for roughly the next half hour.



During the solid 30 or 40 minutes of low-speed chasing, a romance blooms between Bob and Ovule, coming to fruition on some dirty mattress inside some random warehouse while hiding from the BitchSquad/LAPD tandem. Ovule is the best-looking character in the movie with by far the most interesting breasts, yet the actress apparently had a "no bare titties except with shadowing and special effects" clause in her contract, so this is the one brief peek we get as fog is brought in from absolutely nowhere for your standard softcore Cinemax naked sex scene.



Shortly after this things come to a head. Curette and Ovule settle their inheritance rights with a warehouse catfight, and the rest of the Intergalactic Bitch Squad is mopped up by a police extra who looks rather creepily proud of his work.



Meanwhile, back on Stankonia, the Good Women bust into the sealed teleporter room and send their baddest bitch in to retake control in a surprisingly badass duel.





Bob heads back to Amazonia with Ovule as the cops wisely decide to forget that any of this ever happened.



Though the movie struggles with consistency I do want to applaud Ovule's actress Sharon Lee Jones for her commitment to the fine details. As you can see from the shot below, in keeping with the plot having her beam to Earth naked and put on only an oversized T-shirt for clothing, she apparently filmed the rest of the movie without her underwear. That's dedication to your craft.



The main problem with this one is just that it seems like it's taking itself too seriously for too much of the running time. The acting and dialogue are just flat and half-assed, and never get to that zone of enjoyable cheese.

Links :

* Dana Fredsti, who plays main Intergalactic Bitch Curette, wrote an essay about the experience of working on this film

No comments: