Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (1987)

... aka: Esclavas del espacio (Slaves of Space)

... aka: Esclaves du futur (Slaves of the Future)

... aka: Jäger der verschollenen Galaxie (Hunter of the Lost Galaxy)

... aka: Les captives de l'espace (Space Captives)

... aka: Mujeres Encadenadas (Chained Women)

... aka: Otrokyne z konce vesmíru (A Slave from the End of the Universe)

... aka: Rebelião nas Galáxias (Rebel of the Galaxies)

... aka: Slave Girls

Directed by:

Ken Dixon

Aboard a prison spaceship, a pair of bikini-clad captives; the soft and curvaceous Daria (Elizabeth "Cayton" / Kaitan) and the athletic and toned Tisa (Cindy Beal), break their chains, escape their cell, conk a few dumb guards over the head with a metal pipe, steal a spaceship and then crash land in the ocean on an unknown, though human-friendly, planet. Well, human-friendly when it comes to the atmosphere, at least! Daria crawls out of the water onto a tropical island, makes her way through the jungle and ends up at a castle fortress filled with very peculiar things. For starters, the main room of the fortress is filled with weapons and all manner of dead, stuffed animals, plus nearly all of the windows have been barred. Second, the crazy-eyed, black-clad castle owner, Zed (Don Scribner), is shady and sinister from the second he first introduces himself and spends his days sleeping and his nights hunting. Third, Zed has two android assistants who've been programmed not to divulge too much information to strangers and one of them is tasked with keeping guard over his secretive "trophy room." Finally, two other "guests;" Shela (Brinke Stevens) and her brother Rik (Carl Horner), are also present and ended up stranded there under similar, mysterious circumstances. In both cases, it appears their spaceships were intentionally drawn there by gravitational pull. On the more positive side, Daria's sister in crime shows up there unharmed, so at least there's that.

Our plucky heroine soon learns that there were four guests there only a week earlier, but two have since mysteriously disappeared without a trace. No explanation is provided by their host as to where they went. However, each had been invited into the trophy room prior to vanishing. Rik confesses to Daria that he believes they're all being kept prisoner there. For what reason, he doesn't quite know. However, the excuse Zed uses for why he can't take any of the stranded travelers off the planet - his own spaceship needs repairs - doesn't quite fly since his androids sneak out to make supply runs with it.

As it turns out, Zed isn't just interested in hunting wild animals, but also humans. After killing his victims, he decapitates them to add another "trophy" to his collection and is also a sexual sadist who likes chaining naked girls up, knocking them out and then raping them. During one memorable shot, Stevens is seen lying unconscious and naked on a slab while a shirtless Zed smokes a post-rape ciggie and one of his robots gives him a back massage! Afterward, Stevens' character is used to force the brother into another hunting "game." It doesn't end well for Rik when he becomes ensnared in a giant spiderweb and is shot to death. Wanting more of a challenge, Zed then decides to release all three women into the woods simultaneously, giving them only hunting knives and a one-hour head start. He then goes after them with his crossbow.

Not a bad idea at all here, an updating of Richard Connell's classic 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game (most famously adapted for the screen way back in 1932), given a sci-fi twist and home video exploitation elements. This is also the kind of competently-crafted B-movie that's all but extinct nowadays. You know, actually shot on film (35mm even) with real production design, hand-crafted John Carl Buechler monsters (they throw in robots, mutants, green-blooded zombies AND an impressive Predator-like "Phantazoid Warrior") and whatever optical and visual effects they could squeeze in for the meager budget (in this case, 90,000 bucks). I'd say about every penny of that ended up on the screen. Crucial elements for this type of film (energy, swift pacing, atmosphere, spirited acting, nice colors...) are all here, as well as some humor (my favorite bit being the bickering robots), minor gore, sometimes hilariously pseudo-philosophical dialogue and plenty of skin from the three lovely female stars, though done with some restraint and as an accompaniment to the story, not the entire reason for the film's existence.

Leading lady Kaitan was always considered a second tier Scream Queen during the 80s and 90s and spent most of her time fighting a losing battle competing for bubbly blonde B-movie roles against the reigning queen of such parts: Linnea Quigley. Though Kaitan's career had some promising blips of life during the 80s, it eventually devolved to the point where she appeared to just be getting Linnea's leftovers; evidenced by the fact she was first in line to replace Quigley when she bailed out early from the Vice Academy comedy series. I'm not saying this to denigrate Kaitan in any way as I quite like her as an actress. She was gorgeous, came off as very pleasant on-screen and had fair acting chops. Just like Quigley (here's that comparison again!) she was underrated for her comedic talents, which can be seen in all their glory in Assault of the Killer Bimbos (1988) and several other films. I'm only pointing out that the lane she was traveling in during much of her heyday was already very much occupied, which probably explains why she didn't have quite the staying power of Quigley. Her co-star here, Stevens, has also had a more enduring career, though I don't find her darkly alluring qualities at all comparable to the much more sprightly Kaitan and Quigley. Nonetheless, the three of them always get grouped together.

I must also admit that I was taken aback seeing what became of Kaitan (now going by her married name Elizabeth Ruiz) after she finally threw in the towel on her acting career in the mid-90s. I know one can't expect an actor to be anything like their roles in real life, but her working as a personal assistant for truly nasty hatemonger David Horowitz, author of such books as Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes and BLITZ: Trump Will Smash the Left and Win (published just a few months before he lost the election by over 7 million votes) did genuinely surprise me. But, as this film poetically reminds us, "Fate certainly weaves a curious tapestry."

Slave Girls received another sort of notoriety in its day when the late Jesse Helms, former North Carolina Senator / Moral Majority co-founder, whose beliefs were pretty aligned with where Horowitz is today, actually brought this movie up on the Senate floor as an example of an "indecent" film that should be banned from TV as part of a failed Cable Act amendment he was pushing. That piece of moronic legislation finally had the final nail put through it by the Supreme Court in 1996. After this brief setback, Helms went back to fighting for other worthwhile Christian causes like defunding AIDS research and eliminating free school lunches for impoverished children.

Fully financed and pre-sold around the world on the basis of its title alone, this was a video store and late night cable (including frequent airings on USA Up All Night) staple here in America and much of the rest of the world for many years. It's also one of the most profitable films from the entire Charles Band universe and has been released on VHS (Urban Classics) and DVD (Cult Video, Koch Vision) numerous times, plus received a Blu-ray release in 2019 courtesy of Full Moon. With all that in mind, it's a surprise that director Ken Dixon did not make any other films after this. Prior, he was tasked with putting together a bunch of film clip compilation shelf fillers for Band, including The Best of Sex and Violence (1982), hosted by John Carradine, Famous T&A (1982), hosted by Sybil Danning, Filmgore (1983), hosted by Elvira, and ZOMBIETHON (1986), which had fun new zombie scenes shot to link together the archive footage. Slave Girls certainly showed enough promise to merit additional work for Band but it never occurred.

Clips from this were later repurposed into the utterly useless T&A compilation Bimbo Movie Bash (1997), which was released on VHS and DVD and as a CD-ROM "game" by Full Moon. Nearly 30 years later, Brinke got to duplicate her death scene for Band's surprisingly fun Trophy Heads (2004), which seems to have otherwise taken quite a bit of inspiration from this.

★★1/2

Ghoulies II (1988)

... aka: Duhovi II (Ghosts II)
... aka: Ghoulies 2
... aka: Ghoulies II: Il principe degli scherzi (Ghoulies II: The Prince of Jokes)

Directed by:
Albert Band

Ned Prentice (Royal Dano), formerly a stage magician called "The Great Fausto" but now a washed-up, grumpy old drunk, runs a traveling carnival spook show called Satan's Den. His teenage nephew Larry (Damon Martin) has decided to tag along with him for the summer in hopes of learning the magic / carnival trade and ends up having to both pull all of the weight and keep the showing going. He's helped by dwarf Sir Nigel Penneyweight (Phil Fondacaro), a Shakespearean actor who used to perform at the Old Vic but is now slumming dressing up in monster costumes. Little do they know, but they're about to get some unwanted additional help when they pull their overheating truck into a closed gas station late one night. Prior to their arrival, a priest (Anthony Dawson) being chased by some red-cloaked gnomes ducked into the station and threw a bag full of ghoulie demon puppets into a smoking drum labeled "extremely toxic." However, the corrosive waste didn't even phase the critters and one managed to knock him into the barrel, quickly reducing him to a skeleton. Attracted by the horror art on the side of the Satan's Den truck, the ghoulies decide they've found a new home and quietly sneak on board.

Ned, Larry and Nigel arrive in the small town of Greenville and start setting up with the rest of the acts. Head of accounting Phillip Hardin (J. Downing), whose father owns Hardin Enterprises, shows up to audit all of the company's holdings, which include the carnival. And he's planning on shutting down any act that doesn't show a profit by the time he leaves. That puts added pressure on the old fashioned Satan's Den, which hasn't been performing well for the past 16 months since contemporary kids can get all of the monsters and gory thrills they want at the local cinema. If they're not able to pull it around in a couple of days, Phillip's going to replace them with a ladies mud wrestling tent. However, never underestimate to power of mischievous, murderous little demons to help boost your sales!

After a couple of little boys encounter one of the ghoulies, which spits sticky green goop and chews through a ninja star, word gets around and soon everyone's flocking to Satan's Den to see them. Some customers don't make it to the exit. There's death by razor, pendulum and electrocution, but most of the mild carnage takes place during the big finale when the ghoulies decide to leave the spook show and wreak havoc on the entire carnival. There are some fun bits involving the rides and carnival booths, including bumper cars, the shooting gallery, the dunk tank and ring the bell. One even removes a screw holding a ride together, sending the car two people are riding in flying off. During the finale, a spell book is used to conjure up a "demonic intercessor," which is basically a big man-in-a-suit ghoulie that runs around eating the smaller ones.

Even though they're basically stuck with a bunch of sub-Gremlins gags, the creatures are given more screen time and more to do here, which is an improvement over the original. They also made the smart decision to only feature five of them, each patterned after a regular animal, which helps give each a bit more personality. There's a bat one that flies, a rat one that spits green slime, a cat one that can imitate a cat's meow to lure victims, one that looks like a baby doll crossed with a fish and a squatty one that (I think) is supposed to look like an alligator. They head bang to W.A.S.P. (who even released a tie-in Ghoulies music video for "Scream Until You Like It"), give each other high five's, laugh, belch and do other silly things in between killings. Of course this is all incredibly silly and juvenile, but creating something that would appeal to young teens was, I think, obviously the whole point here.

Filmed at Empire Studios in Rome, this utilized a mostly Italian crew and mostly Italian actors serving as extras and filling some of the smaller parts, including former spaghetti western regular Romano Puppo as the strongman. The DOP was Sergio Salvati, veteran of many Lucio Fulci films. John Carl Buechler was again in charge of the creature design and, though he sticks closely to the designs of the first film, they're given a bit more mobility this time out, which is helped even further by a few stop motion animations courtesy of David Allen. Charles Band was the executive producer and Dennis Paoli (Re-Animator) wrote the script.

The cast is littered with familiar faces from 80s horror, including a wasted Starr Andreeff (Dance of the Damned), William Butler (Friday the 13th Part VII) and Sasha Jenson (Halloween 4) as some of the obnoxious teens, Kerry Remsen (Pumpkinhead) as the harem dancer love interest, Donnie Jeffcoat as a cynical, foul-mouthed little kid (so basically the same role he had in NIGHT OF THE DEMONS), fx man Michael Deak as a clown who gets his arm torn off, Dale Wyatt as a dancer, Donald Hodson and Mickey Knox.

While this was given a limited theatrical release, it did most of its business on home video and cable. A tiny bit of gore was removed to secure a PG-13 rating, which not only helped get this regular play on cable, but also made it perfect filler for premium movie channels that were always desperate for PG and PG-13 films they could run before 8pm. This one fit the bill so it was on TV all the time back in the day. There have been multiple DVD releases, plus a 2015 Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory, which comes with the 17 minute documentary short Ghoulies II: More Toilets, More Terror.

★★