Last year, I went to a screening of the ultra gory bizarro slasher classic Nightmare at the Drafthouse. The film was introduced by Mike Hunchback, a name that should be familiar to genre fans, especially in the tri-state area. During his opening remarks, Mike made a point that I thought was especially trenchant: when it comes to low-budget cinema, we must judge the film based on its merits. After all, not every film is trying to be Citizen Kane or Vertigo, so why should those be the water marks that every film has to meet? It’s something that I really try and hold true here at the site, giving each film I watch a fair shake based simply on what it set out to accomplish, and whether or not it succeeded in doing so. All that being said, I seriously think that today’s film, 1975’s Girl From Starship Venus, is the worst film I’ve watched for this site. I hated every second of it, I frowned throughout its entire 81 minute runtime (which felt more like 881 minutes), and seriously considered doing something I’ve never ever done in the history of ANALOG SCUM: giving up on a movie. Turning it off and never looking back. But I plowed through for you, my dear Scumbags. I’m not going to say it was worth it, because it wasn’t. So, if nothing else, take this review as a dire warning. Stay away.
We open in space. The music and the narration blatantly rips off Star Trek. I suppose this was supposed to be “charming.” A spaceship lands in the Picadilly Circus section of London. It looks like a silver pinball. It lands in a puddle, to the consternation of the commander. Then it lands in another puddle, because comedy. They refer to Earth as “Dom” and call all earthlings “Doms,” please don’t ask me why. They send out one of their own, named the Surveyor, who takes the form of a nekkid blonde buh-buh-buh-baaaaaabe. The Surveyor wanders around in the nude for awhile, and ends up at some seedy massage parlor where everyone else is nude as well. Two of the ladies who work there assume that her clothes have been stolen, I’m not sure how, because the Surveyor just stands there, totally mute and dead-eyed. The entire film, she and the commander on the ship are communicating telepathically, because it’s cheaper to make a movie where you record most of the dialogue in post. The Surveyor has the most comical German accent you’ve ever heard, she almost sounds like Elmer Fudd. Anyway, the ladies give her some clothes and a five pound note and tell her to beat feet, so she does.
She wanders around the Soho district, which was basically London’s equivalent to 42nd Street at the time, nothing but porno theaters and dirty magazine shops. For some reason, she’s able to talk now, because whatever. From here the movie establishes its tedious formula: she just walks around, reporting back to the ship in voiceover about what she’s seeing, and of course she doesn’t understand anything, so it’s sooooooooo hilarious. Every time she encounters a man, that man inevitably reacts with wild gesticulations and facial contortions straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon, as if they’ve never seen a woman before. It is exhausting. These old pervs make Don Knotts look like Daniel Day-Lewis. Eventually she meets a charming dressmaker (speaking of Daniel Day-Lewis…) who takes her in, solely because he’s a Good Samaritan, either that or he’s totally oblivious to the obvious signs that the Surveyor wants to engage in “refueling,” which is what she calls sex, and please kill me now.
The bulk of the movie is dedicated to a long sequence involving a lecherous old creep who picks her up at a wedding she’s crashed (don’t ask). They go to a strip club, where she drinks alcohol for the first time, and it turns her skin green, and her hair into an afro. He understandably freaks out, but then HE gets kicked out of the strip club, not the lifeless automaton who has suddenly turned a different color. No one seems to notice THAT. Apparently that wasn’t a deal breaker though, because they end up back at his place anyway. His flat is full of balloons, because he’s freak nasty. Were the makers of HBO’s Real Sex out there somewhere taking notes? Anyway, he’s like, you’re so dumb and weird that you must be a virgin, so let’s do this damn thing. But before they can, the commander puts up some kind of force field around her, so when he tries to slip it in, he gets shocked so bad he’s thrown across the room. He blames this on a “Japanese sex toy,” even though a minute ago he thought that she was a virgin. So he tries again, and of course it happens again, only this time he blames it on “women’s lib.” Again, please kill me now.
Some more stupid shit happens, and eventually she’s arrested for trying to steal a baby, because she was trying to figure out it it was “a deformed dwarf” or “a deformed midget.” Please make it stop. In the jail, a wacky German doctor tries to take her pulse, but of course she has none because she’s an alien or whatever, so the doctor goes apeshit and is screeching about how she’s about to die and tries to give her CPR, but the guards walk in and think that he’s sexually assaulting her, aren’t mistakes like this just the height of comedy? Anyway, the handsome dressmaker bails her out for some reason. Oh hell, I’ll tell you why: so they can fuck.
This is what the whole movie has been leading up to: because of the incident with the German doctor, the commander gives the Surveyor human feelings, which in this movie just means that she becomes uncontrollably horny. She keeps dropping, not even hints, just straight up propositions to this handsome dressmaker, but he’s totally oblivious, even when she invites him to take a bath with her. He thinks she wants him to cook her some eggs, because misunderstandings are hilaaaaaaaarious. So basically the last fifteen minutes of the movie are her totally naked and writhing around in pleasure before she and this dumb dumb finally do the deed, and the entire time the commander is like, hey stop that, this isn’t part of the mission, I’m a big dorky nerd who hates sex, and it goes on and on and on and on until finally the movie ends. Hallelujah.
So, in the spirit of judging a movie based solely on its merits, fuck Girl From Starship Venus. Fuck it straight into the sun. I despise this movie. The comedy is horrendous; I got more laughs out of Breaking the Waves. The acting is appalling; nothing but obnoxious over the top mugging mixed with dead eyed stares. Yes, there is a lot of nudity, but it’s almost impossible to enjoy with that grating, nerd-ass voiceover droning on endlessly on top of it. The music…actually isn’t bad. It’s on the fun side of cheesy. OK, so that’s one thing. Anyway, this movie has never come out on DVD or Blu-Ray. Girl From Starship Venus only exists today as a very rare VHS, and if you ask me, that’s how it should stay. Mankind doesn’t deserve much good these days, but we certainly don’t deserve the misery that is this movie. Given the choice, I’d happily take an anal probe.
GUTTER GIRLS (1963). Final shooting script for the 1963 film, "The Yellow Teddybears," here under both that title and the film's working title, "The Yellow Golliwog," and released in the US as "Gutter Girls." Directed by Robert Hartford-Davis and written for the screen by Donald and Derek Ford. Director Robert Hartford-Davis' working copy, with his holograph ink and penciled notations, deletions, and drawings throughout. Though instantly packaged at the time (and indeed, today) as a sexy exploitation film, "The Yellow Teddybears" is very much a pre-"Swinging London" message picture, about a group of girls at a girls' boarding school who wear a small yellow teddy bear on their lapels to indicate they have lost their virginity. [email protected] #guttergirls #theyellowteddybears #robertharforddavis #derekford
