Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel exposes herself to VIRGIN WITCH (1972)

Use that dagger to stab my eyes out, would you?

VIRGIN WITCH (1972) is the film that begs the question, “How much nudity is too much?” Now, don’t get me wrong. Although I’m a straight female, I enjoy a nice set of bosoms as much as the next person. You’ll see breasts (both male and female) so often in VIRGIN WITCH, you’ll want to stab your eyes with an icepick, just to make it go away.

This is not to say that the ladies in the film aren’t perfectly lovely. They are. But neither Ann Michelle nor Vicki Michelle (who play sisters Christina and Betty) seem proud of their roles in VIRGIN WITCH. Ann’s Wikipedia page proudly announces that she starred in 1973’s PSYCHOMANIA, but there’s no mention of this Ray Austin film.

Much like a women-in-prison movie, VIRGIN WITCH is little more than an excuse to show full-frontal nudity. There’s a major consistency issue. Sometimes the lead character is called Christine, and sometimes she’s called Christina.

There is a thin plot. Christina (Ann Michelle) wants to become a model. The Sybil Waite Agency is hiring models. It won’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that old Sybil is looking to discover Christina – and I’m not talking about her modeling abilities! Sybil is a lot like a female warden in those women-in-prison flicks, eager to peel off Christina’s clothing to get “accurate” measurements.

She’s so impressed with what she’s sees (and you will be, too) that she hires Christina on the spot for a spur-of-the-moment photo shoot at a country estate called Wychwold. Aren’t they subtle? Did the subtle joke slip past you? Get it? Wychwold?

Christina and her sister, Betty (Vicki Michelle) travel to the English estate, which is owned by a man named Gerald (Neil Hallett). Gerald, we discover, is a witch. He’s loud and proud about his religion.

Meanwhile, Christina gets photographed mostly nude by a weird guy named Peter, who seems eager to deflower the titular virgin. Sybil is insanely jealous. She wants Christina all for herself.

While Christina’s off getting “photographed,” Betty explores the grounds and discovers strange people and an even stranger room filled with scary masks and a bizarre altar.

Betty’s boyfriend, Johnny (Keith Buckley), back in London, is at a club, listening to cool jazz, when he finds out from a friend that Sybil Waite’s modeling agency is nothing but bad news. He goes all ninja and breaks into Sybil’s office.

About this time, back at Wychwold, the ceremony begins. Christina is stripped naked (of course), and Gerald and Sybil engage her in a ritual in which she is anointed with oil. She is placed on an altar. While nude women dance in a circle around them, Gerald deflowers Christina, making her a witch.

Christina and Gerald discuss making Betty a witch. Christina asks if she can initiate her.

Meanwhile, Johnny makes his way to Wychwold in an effort to rescue his girlfriend and her sister. Johnny wants to take Betty away, but she won’t leave without Christina. Christina has asked Betty to stay for the night.

Sybil discusses her plans to initiate Betty, but Christina changes her mind. She pulls away from Sybil’s sexual advances and declares that she won’t allow them to initiate her sister because she’s not ready.

Christina uses the power of crazy eyes to set a photograph of Sybil ablaze. I really need to try this trick the next time someone pisses me off, because Sybil actually feels the effects of this curse. She falls ill with a headache.

Christina takes Sybil’s place as the high priestess at the Sabbat to initiate Betty. Sybil is furious, and despite her weakness from the spell Christina cast upon her, she shows up at the ceremony.

Christina’s out to prove she’s the baddest witch in the whole damn town. Her crazy eyes set everyone into frenzy and push Sybil out of the circle. When it’s time for Betty to get her virginity taken, she stops Gerald and introduces a masked man. Be prepared for the biggest shock of this film! The masked guy is Johnny! Okay, absolutely no one is shocked.

The whole group engages in nude full-body dry heave, something that looks appallingly like the dance moves from the 1960s Batman series.

In the end, Christina’s power is too much for Sybil. Christina puts a dagger into the ground, and for some reason this is the end of Sybil.

If you’re looking for erotic nudity and something genuinely arousing, Paris Hilton’s sex tape would be a far better choice. Yes, it’s that bad. The nudity in this film is about as erotic and sexy as a mammogram or a prostate exam. Naked people become so commonplace, that it stops being sexy and becomes a bit revolting, like catching your parents having sex.

VERDICT: This film bites 4 out of 5 BIG WANGS

— Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel

Nick Cato gets stung by INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973)

Are you gonna bee my girl?

Here’s a trashy sci-fi/sex/horror film that isn’t afraid to spit in the face of those that came before it.

William Smith (who would go on to star in one of the longest fistfights ever captured on film (against Clint Eastwood) in 1980’s ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN stars as Neil Agar, a State Department official sent to a small California town to investigate a series of unusual murders: men are being found dead, and all clues hint it’s from sexual exhaustion. Agar is in town specifically after a government-funded scientist from the Brandt Research Laboratory is found dead in a local motel room. But within three days of his arrival the body count grows rapidly, causing a low-key military quarantine.

Agar visits the Brandt lab and quickly becomes suspicious of the beautiful Dr. Susan Smith (the gore-geous Anitra Ford), who walks around inside and in daylight wearing over-sized sunglasses. With the help of cute lab assistant Julie and the local sheriff, Agar eventually finds out what’s happening, and it’s as ridiculous as the film’s title suggests.

In some way that’s never explained, bees in the Brandt Lab have managed to take over human females (led by Dr. Harris) in an attempt to wipe out men and/or take over the planet. A variety of woman do the horizontal mambo then kill their male victims, each time creating a loud buzzing sound as they approach orgasm. The women also have huge black insect-like pupils, forcing them to wear the aforementioned sunglasses to conceal their identity.

Some funny dialogue early on suggests the producers weren’t taking this 100% seriously, and large-boobied bee girls (including legendary 70s girlie-film stars Rene Bond and Colleen Brennan) provide much needed distraction among the all-over-the-place plot and abundance of darkly-lit sequences.

In one unintentionally hilarious sequence, Dr. Harris mates with one of her peers as Agar and Julie watch educational stock footage on the mating habits of bees; subtle this film is not. In an attempt to disturb the audience, another sequence features Agar on a payphone with his superiors as Julie is attacked by three locals who are against the Brandt lab…but Agar manages to kick their asses before they rape her.

While Agar can’t get into Dr. Harris’ lab when he first visits, he manages to walk right in during the finale when they kidnap Julie and try to turn her into a bee girl. With one bullet from his pistol shot into a massive computer, Agar manages to destroy the entire operation/digital honeycomb. He runs out of the lab with a sedated Julie and watches the bee girls decompose as the lab goes up in smoke.

INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS is a fun drive-in type exploitation film. It manages to entertain with a plot that makes almost no sense (despite it being an ode to 50s “radiation” films), and technical mistakes are at every turn (everything from continuity problems to inconsistent lighting within the same shots). While William Smith (who has appeared in hundreds of films and TV shows) is a fine actor, the rest of the cast was nowhere near his level, making the overall acting quite unbalanced and, ultimately, laughable.

And most ballsy of all, during the ending, the camera pans down to bees flying around some flowers as Sprach Zarathustra blares on the soundtrack (you know, the piece of music made famous in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY). Talk about spitting in the face of serious science fiction!

For fans of really bad sci-fi sex sinema only.

VERDICT: This film bites 2 out of 5 BIG WANGS.

— Nick Cato

Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel snuggles up with DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS (1977)

Hey, baby. Wanna go to bed?

There are few things funnier than a carnivorous bed. DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS doesn’t disappoint in this regard.

I first discovered this truly terrible gem while doing some research for the book Nick Cato and I are writing, Satanic Celluloid, a study of 1970s occult cinema. The film was produced in 1977, but it wasn’t released until much later, around 2004.

The film starts out with a couple hiking through the woods. They discover the ruins of a mansion and decide to have a little picnic inside. Within, they find a large, four-poster bed, the titular death bed. The guy thinks he’s going to score a little bow-chicka-bow-bow, but the girl turns him down as girls sometimes do. Sorry, guys. They set out their picnic lunch but go back to making out. The bed consumes their chicken, wine, and fruit, but apparently it’s still hungry because it eats them, too!

The demonic bed goes on, eating people as possessed beds are wont to do, but DEATH BED does us a favor and tacks on a plot!

Three lovely ladies decide to spend the weekend at this abandoned mansion. One of the girls is a runaway teen, and her family tries to get her to come back home.

Meanwhile, the film is being narrated by some strange guy behind a drawing in the same room as the bed. He keeps warning people not to sit on the bed or lie on the bed or stand close to the bed. The people can’t hear this narrator, so for most of the film, the viewer is left to wonder why this person is even relevant to the action. We later discover that this individual was the bed’s original owner, and he died in the bed of tuberculosis. He drew a picture of his death bed before dying, and this is the drawing behind which he resides in the afterlife. Does that make sense to you? It certainly didn’t make sense to me.

Most of the film is dedicated to a montage of people being eaten by the bed in various eras. There are moments that are downright hilarious, including a scene in which the bed consumes a bottle of Pepto Bismol. No, I am not making this up.

The conclusion of this film has to be seen to be believed. One of the girls staying at the mansion is attacked by the bed. She manages to pull herself out, but one of her legs has been partially digested. For 10 agonizing minutes, we watch this woman pull herself along the floor with her arms. Shatner never overacted so much in his life. She finally makes it to the stairwell, and she’s almost home free when the bed unleashes its sheets and pulls her back!

DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS is the kind of film you watch on a Saturday night with your friends while consuming large quantities of alcohol.

VERDICT: This film bites 3 out of 5 BIG WANGS.

— Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel

Nick Cato Takes on CANNIBAL HOOKERS (1988)

No, this isn’t an 80s porn flick, but it’s not a horror film either.

One in a long line of cheap, shot-on-video features that infected the 1980s horror boom, this second gem from director Donald Farmer is a sloppy mess where the only effort was apparently put into the VHS cover image (see above), which lured young gorehounds like myself in and forced me to part with $34.99 (yep, that was the standard price of new VHS tapes at the time).

Two really goofy-looking 80s babes—in an attempt to join a sorority—have to pose as hookers and bring two Johns back to the college. When they bring the men back, the pledge master has the ability to turn the girls into zombies (although they look and act more like vampires), who then join the sorority’s cannibal cult. As amazing as this all sounds, the script is nearly non-existent (let alone the plot), the acting atrocious, the gore-FX look about a step above dumping ketchup on someone, and worst of all is the horrendous camera work, that looks like the director hired a blind guy to do it for a quick handjob.

If one were to view this today without any background info, they’d think it was made by some kind of porn company attempting to cash in on the 80s splatter craze. But as mentioned, the “splatter” is horrible and the actresses aren’t much to look at (if you’re going to make trash, give us at least one un-saggy breast to gawk at). And most ridiculous is lead cannibal “Lobo,” an overweight balding guy who likes to gawk at the tramps in his stable and gnaw on really fake-looking bloody limbs.

Most amazingly, director Donald Farmer has directed 23 “films,” each one worse than the other. He gained a bit of popularity in 2009 when he appeared on the VH1 reality show “Megan Wants a Millionaire.” Amazingly, some of his later films (such as BOLLYWOOD AND VINE) received awards. Go figure.

CANNIBAL HOOKERS is a real chore to get through, even with the FF button at the ready. You’re better off with CANNIBAL CAMPOUT (also released straight to video in 1988), which at least features some fun gore scenes.

The original 1988 VHS release was unleashed upon the masses by the ITALIAN STALLION VIDEO CORPORATION, a group I’m quite sure are now mopping restrooms at highway service stations.
VERDICT: This film bites 5 out of 5 BIG WANGS.

-Nick Cato