Panic Beats (Paul Naschy, 1983)

If your family tree has a hirsute Satanic knight who killed his wife with a spiky mace during the sixteenth century perched on one of its branches, it's a good idea to keep overly menacing portraits of him off the walls of your creepy château. Sure, it's cool if you want to honour his legacy and junk, but the fact that you've adorned every square inch of the place with his battle axes and suits of armour will no doubt trouble some outsiders. However, if that's your intention, it's the perfect setting to scare the semi-sentient fecal matter out of someone you want out of the picture frame that is your squared off existence. And that's exactly what happens in the atmospheric Panic Beats (a.k.a. Latidos de Pánico), a four room gothic chiller from Paul Naschy, a virile Spaniard best known for playing a wide array of fiendish ghouls and supernatural beasties (mostly werewolves) throughout his storied career. Portraying a human being for a change, Paul, who also co-wrote and directed this film under the guise Jacinto Molina (which is his actual birth name), conjures up a universe where a man's bearded past collides with his clean shaven future in a way that will amaze and bewilder those who judge the merit of man's character solely on the length of his facial hair.

You see, during olden times, a man with a beard was always viewed as a bit of a pariah; the kind of person who would stab you in the neck just for looking at them funny. Although, to be fair, you were probably were looking at him funny–you know, with them sporting a beard and all. Anyway, a non-bearded gentlemen is not regarded with the same amount of suspicion because he is not trying to hide his immorality underneath a scratchy field of scraggly fuzz. I know what you're thinking, what about mustaches, goatees, and those displaying only four or five day's worth of growth (e.g. "lazy people"), surely they can't be evil as well? Well, actually they're worse than those who are completely bearded, in that they're attempting to placate the fears of a highly irrational population by tricking them into believing they're not up to no good. Watch them closely (oh, and don't call me Shirley).

My seemingly sound, yet, at the same time, totally misguided theory is put to the test early on during Panic Beats (a sequel to Horror Rises from the Tomb), as we see a bloodstained naked woman (Carole Kirkham)–kinda like "Barefoot in the Park," except, without the park benchs and featuring alarming amount of wonderfully flat-chested blonde women covered in mace wounds–stumbling through a foggy forest filled with smouldering skulls (a cool synthesizer drone accompanies each skull-induced stumble). I'm happy to report that my hypothesis holds firm when the knight that's been chasing the bloodstained naked woman lifts up his face guard to reveal a bearded mug.

Flash-forward to modern times, Paris, France, to be exact, where we meet Paul de Marnac (Paul Naschy), a, get this, clean shaven man who looks eerily similar to the knight in not-so-shining armour we saw pummeling that woodland nudist during medieval times. We learn that Paul's elegant, fur coat-loving wife Geneviève (Julia Saly) is gravely ill (she has a weak heart), so his doctor advises him to take her up to his ancestral home out in the country (the fresh air will do her good). After a terrifying run in with a couple of thugs along the way–Paul may have a low centre of gravity, but he can wield a hunk of wood like nobody's business–Paul and Genevieve arrive at their new digs.

Greeting them at the door are Maville (Lola Gaos), a sixty-something housekeeper whose known Paul since he was a baby, and her attractive niece Julie (Frances Ondiviela), a Dexy's Midnight Runners' fan with a keen sense of fashion. Even though they apparently gave each other quite the stink-eye when they first met, Genevieve and Julie grow close with one another over the course of the next few weeks. Only problem is that Maville has filled both their heads with ghostly tales about Alaric de Marnac (Paul Naschy), a distant relative of Paul's, one that just happens to be a brutal knight who apparently likes to arise from the grave every one hundred or so years to murder unfaithful women with a morning star. The portrait of the bearded Alaric de Marnac hanging above the fireplace stares right through the ladies. No matter how hard they try, it's nearly impossible to escape its penetrating gaze.

While the initial weirdness that transpires is strictly contained to the odd sighting of a snake slithering across a gravestone, fiery visions of old maids with slashed throats, and nightmares involving grabby suits of armour, the real threat in Panic Beats comes from a source that surprisingly owns a face that bears not a single whisker. Yep, that's right, persons featuring no face fungus whatsoever are the primary troublemakers in this film. True, the malevolent-looking man in the painting might still cause a ruckus, but I feel I should apologize to all the bearded folk out there for besmirching their hairy cheeks and chins in such an inflammatory manner. It turns out, the shaved are evil, too.

Moving on, one of the perks to directing yourself is that you can cast yourself as a suave lady's man who drives the all the Spanish-speaking women in France wild. Unfortunately, while Paul is a fella that brunette chicks desire, sickly redheads should definitely fear him. Now I don't give anything away, but let's just say Paul, a man who's like a poem that doesn't rhyme, has an elaborately sinister plan in works. Utilizing the legend of his homicidal lineage, Paul conspires with two women to screw over another woman, while at the same time, getting one of the two women he is conspiring with to screw over the other woman involved with the conspiracy. One of these so-called "screw over" attempts, by the way, may or may not feature an axe to the stomach and a bashed in brain.

Even though I'm itching to heap praise on the ladies, I feel I should take second and compliment Paul Naschy on the sheer intensity of his steely gaze, as the stare he sports throughout this movie is downright fierce. There were times where it seemed like his eyes were going to leap out of their sockets. This leaping eye temperament wasn't limited to the film's more animated scenes, Paul even managed to maintain a heightened level of opthalmic fortitude while wearing the kind of pajamas that a suburban dad might sleep in.

It's no secret, I prefer women with auras that are slightly off-kilter in nature, which is funny, because that's exactly what Julia Saly radiates as the doomed Geneviève, a sexy heiress/hair brushing enthusiast who treats every situation like it were a heart-stopping plunge into a bottomless pit of everlasting darkness. Let me put it this way: If screaming while grasping your chest was an Olympic event, Julia would easily finish somewhere in the top twenty. At first, you think she's just being a paranoid. But it's hard to criticize her when one-eyed miscreants start showing up in her bathroom, suits of armour appear in your doorway, and the help have begun serving you eyeball stew for breakfast.

An unequaled master when it comes to smirking while tilting one's head to the side, Frances "Paquita" Ondiviela (an enchanting cross between Maria de Medeiros and Jane Leeves circa The Benny Hill Show) is a mischievous delight as Julie, the new wave niece of Paul's crusty maid. Rocking what I like to call a "non-threatening denim look" during the film's early going, Paquita's wardrobe seemed to get more chic as she became more evil. The blandness of the dungarees, even though they reappear a few times over he course of the film, have been mostly replaced with French maid uniforms, diaphanous nightgowns (perfect for exploring drafty hallways at 3am), green bath towels, and brown shorts. These items are a testament to Julie's growth as a depraved person. This development is best observed when the aspiring femme fatal enters a room in one scene wearing a pink skirt with beige pockets. That's right, beige pockets! The boldness of this particular fashion choice makes you quickly forget that this is the same woman who earlier in the film was saddled with an uninspired ponytail and lit every cigarette as if it was her first.

Living on the fringes of society, the third woman in Paul's life announces her arrival by employing one of the most effective weapons in any woman's arsenal, and that is: the leopard print jumpsuit. The camera, focusing on a pink lamp resting on a bedside table, pulls back to reveal Silvia Miró in all her leopard print glory lounging seductively on the bed of a local motel. Call me foolish or an imprudent slug, but this particular scene was favourite in the entire movie. Please don't judge, but I think I might have even gasped a little the moment she first appeared on screen. Playing Mireille, Paul's super secret mistress, Silvia may only appear in four or five scenes, but she makes the most of them. On top of her introduction at the motel (Le Cheval Blanc), Silvia can be seen sleeping in the nude while a stocky man hovers over her (he's debating whether or not to strangle her with her pantyhose), unwisely pushing her way into the de Marnac residence, and greeting Paul at his Paris apartment wearing a gold disco mini-jacket with matching puffy pants that practically screamed V.I.P. area.

As you can see, Paul Naschy has filled Panic Beats with female characters that are not only complex, but also possess a deep inner strength. True, the scenes involving the suits of armour were a tad clumsy (I would have gone with the more flexible chain mail style of armour), but the overall gothic atmosphere was, for the most part, eerie enough to make one look past the film's obvious flaws. Oh, and it gave me a brand new perspective on facial hair.

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(Panic Beats - 2:42)

For more Paul Naschy-related goodness, be sure to check out the Paul Naschy Blog-a-thon (Nov. 29 - Dec. 3) at Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies.

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Tombs of the Blind Dead (Amando de Ossorio, 1971)

A cat jumps out of nowhere, startling our leggy heroine while snooping around some ruins, and a crusty, Dick Miller-esque librarian fleshes out the film's mythology when he reluctantly tells it to a couple of mythology-craving fashion victims during an impromptu visit. It's true, these are well-worn cliches that can be seen in almost every horror movie ever made. However, do any of the films that happen to sport these tired bits have blind mummies on horseback? I didn't think so. Slowly lurching, yet at the same time, galloping quickly, the zombies that populate Tombs of the Blind Dead (a.k.a. La Noche del Terror Ciego), Amando de Ossorio's eerie contribution to the undead pantheon, are peculiar brand of flesh-eater. For one thing, they carry broadswords and they perform their stalking mainly by ear–much like Gary Stevenson, the producer of Go West's self-titled debut album, stalks your eardrums with smooth basslines and fakakta keyboard explosions. Attracted to everything from the sound of you loudly chewing your grandma's paella to the thumping rhythm of your Iberian heartbeat, the dead in this film will find you (no matter what occurs). If you should manage to escape their clutches, don't get cocky, because they can ride horses as well. And while a visual impaired corpse on a horse doesn't sound that menacing, the sight of twelve of them barreling down on you in slow-motion will definitely cause you run in the opposite direction. I'd even go as far as to say that one might find themselves waist deep in a tangy pool of the yellowest fear-centric pee money can buy after experiencing the nightmare that is the bony horde.

After a spooky opening credits sequence, one that does an excellent job of familiarizing us with the woebegone location we'll be spending the bulk of our cinematic time, we're about to witness one of the most awkward reunions ever to be staged between two former college roommates at a Portuguese resort in a mummy movie that's about equestrian zombies.

Lounging on a deck chair with her favourite magazine, her black and white bikini accentuating the health of her attractive frame, Virginia (María Elena Arpón) spots a woman in a red and white bikini showering poolside–the cool water, slowly trickling down her firm body, is absorbed by the flimsy fabric of her na moda bathing suit. Removing her large sunglasses glasses, she calls out to the moist woman. It turns out it's Bette (Lone Fleming), Virginia's best friend from college. The two of them, while cordial at first, start taking subtle jabs at one another. You would think the introduction of Virginia's "friend" Roger (César Burner) would quell some of the verbal sniping, but that's where you'd be wrong.

Even though it's viewed from the side, the perturbed expression on Bette's face when Virginia refers to her mannequins as "puppets" went way beyond my expectations of what a woman should look like when her vocation is dismissed by a former college roommate in a public forum. Ill at ease with the sheer amount of vitriol oozing in front of him, Roger suggests that Bette come along with them on a trip (and it is trip). At this point, it's Virginia's turn to look annoyed. But after some mild arm twisting, they all agree. Of course, Virginia secretly hopes that Bette doesn't show up at the train station. Clearly aware of her third wheel status, Bette gives them opening to give her shapely, sanely symmetrical backside the boot just before the train's about to leave. But Roger insists that she come.

As the train is chugging through the countryside, we learn why Virginia and Bette are so socially inept around one another. Apparently the two of them used to be more than just friends. In other words, the inside of their pretty mouth's have felt the billowy softness of each other's exceedingly wet undercarriages on more than one occasion. Now I realize that everything after "in other words" was completely unnecessary, as "more than just friends" would have been more than adequate. But what can I say? I love cunnilingus.

A brief soft focus flashback showing Virginia and Bette in their old college dorm room giggling over magazine articles, dancing in their nightclothes, and playfully loosening the binds of their uncommitted pigtails hammers home the potency of their lesbian relationship. Alluring and erotic as it may be, the awkwardness between them is too much for Virginia, so she decides to ditch Bette and Roger. Yeah, that's right, she impulsively hops off the train like some kind of high-strung hobo. Hoping to spend a night of Bette-less bliss in a town she spotted off in the distance, Virginia hits the dirt with a thud. Unfortunately, the town she is beginning to wander towards is called Berzano, the kind of place that makes plucky waitresses drop their trays at the mere mention of its name.

The horror aspect of Tombs of the Blind Dead really begins to kick in once Virginia, utilizing the inordinate length of her exquisite gams (which have been genetically designed to withstand the elements), starts snooping around Berzano. Investigating every nook and cranny the town has to offer, all she comes across are creaky doors, empty buildings, faulty stairs, and weed covered walls.

Settling in for evening in one of the town's many abandoned buildings, Virginia sheathes her sexy body in a blue sleeping bag. Hearing what sounds like horses galloping in the distance, Virginia gets up, puts on her denim short shorts (with a cheeky pocket on the front), and comes face to face the blind dead of Berzano, a slow moving, yet persistent horde of cloaking-wearing miscreants. As with most upright zombies, the walking blind dead are easy to avoid. However, it's a completely different story when the cavalry wing of the blind dead of Berzano set about looking for your denim-covered ass. Meanwhile, Roger and Bette are starting to worry about Virginia. Sure, she ditched them and all, but Bette feels responsible for her abrupt exist–you know, because of the whole lesbian flashback triggered in the train's caboose. And Roger, well, she's her "friend."

Holding court at her mannequin workshop (the flashing red light was a terrific touch), and sporting a stylish green, yellow and blue shirt with geometric motif, Bette, determined to find out what happen to Virginia, teams up Roger. An elderly librarian (Francisco Sanz), while spinning a yarn about the blind dead's occultist roots (one that includes the torture and eating of a sacrificial maiden), puts them contact with his smuggler son, Pedro (José Thelman), a shifty man who operates near Berzano. Actually, the first person to find out what really happened to Virginia was a grinning morgue keeper (Simón Arriaga) who torments frogs in his spare time. But the less said about him, the better.

Your average mannequin factory and the local morgue may have a lot in common, but that doesn't mean they would make good neighbours. A recently re-animated victim of the blind dead, one who wanders over to the mannequin factory in search of sustenance, thinks they have stumbled upon an easy meal in the form of Nina (Verónica Llimera), the world's cutest mannequin factory employee. But they're about to find out that mannequin factory employees are extremely averse to having their flesh consumed by people who think strips of gauze can be worn as lingerie. Unabashedly brunette and wearing an unexpectedly chic sea green lab coat, Nina handles the undead threat with a clunky grace.

Despite the fact that I thought Pedro's introduction scene was a tad on the long side, it is, however, the one responsible for inserting the luscious force of nature that was María Silva into the proceedings. Eating men for breakfast, brunch, lunch, high tea, dinner, and a bowl of cold cereal in nothing but your underwear at 1am, María Silva, with a giant slit in her gray skirt for maximum thigh-based titillation, is a total sex goddess in Tombs of the Blind Dead. Hell, she even had Roger wrapped around her sultry little finger, and he's an interior designer! Oh, and I loved how the majority of Maria's anecdotes seemed to revolve around drinking booze, doing drugs, or engaging in the act of sexual intercourse with grown men that are five or six years older than her.

Countering Maria's cavernous slit with an orange skirt (one with a modest slit in the front) and white knee-high boots, Lone Fleming, and her wild, untamed Spanish eyes, dominates the blind dead showdown at Berzano with a stylish aplomb. Okay, maybe she didn't exactly "dominate," those who have seen the film will no doubt agree (her fleeing with a limp technique could definitely use some work). But she does look amazing, nonetheless.

Making a bold fashion statement in almost every scene she appears in, Lone Fleming's fabulous wardrobe–designed by Humberto Cornejo–is exactly what I would expect a woman who owns her own mannequin factory to look like. Her swanky vests, saucy berets, hats with wide-brims, shirts with strange floral patterns, and white footwear (including the aforementioned knee-high boots) all managed to dazzle the eye and uplift the spirit.

The jarring and wholly original sight of cloak-wearing zombies on horseback; the coolness of Bette's mannequin factory; the skimpy outfits of the three main actresses; the morgue guy's sinister grin; and the creepy atmosphere of Berzano were all key components that went into making this unique zombie/mummy/devil-worshiping Knights Templar experience the mild success that it is.

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Meet the Feebles (Peter Jackson, 1989)

Anyone else turned on by the sight of a jilted female hippopotamus mowing down her peers with a large machine gun? Anyone? Leaky centrifuge in a picnic basket, oh, how I wish I could see all your hands sheepishly being raised after that question was reluctantly asked, because I'm feeling a tad uncertain about how far I should go when it comes to extolling the virtues of puppets in lingerie. Part of me wants to inundate the reader with overly detailed descriptions of all the gross and inappropriate behaviour that takes place in this film, the other half is noodling with this ill-conceived plan that involves acting like that I was offended by what I just saw transpire before me. I wonder which half is going to win out? Anyway, Meet the Feebles–Peter Jackson's pus and vomit-laden puppet opus about all the backstage chicanery that takes place at a television variety show–is the name of the film I am currently pretending to be conflicted about. If the name "Peter Jackson" sounds familiar, well, that's because he is best known as the man behind the films that make up The Lord of the Rings Trilogy–you know, those long ass movies that came out a few years back about a plucky gal named Éowyn and her struggle to survive in a fantastical world overrun with catapults and talking trees. I don't know 'bout you, but the thought, "Why couldn't have the adventures of Frodo Baggins and the gang been more like this?" was constantly bouncing around in my head as the film's "menagerie of puppety oddballs" went from one degrading situation to another.

On the surface, the film appears to be about a wide-eyed, Barbara Walters-esque porcupine named Robert and his attempt to fit in as a chorus singer at The Feebles Variety Hour, a lively show produced by Sebastian, a fudge-packing fox ("You might find it odd of me / But I enjoy the act of sodomy"), in a theatre owned by Bletch, a lascivious walrus. However, beneath that simple premise lies a pockmarked wasteland, one that is, of course, covered with a wide array of festering sores just waiting to be squeezed and licked clean by an undervalued Ukrainian pornstar.

Covering drug abuse, suicide, the AIDS epidemic, the conflict in Vietnam (1955-1975), fatherhood (a white chicken files a paternity suite against a blue elephant), sausage rolls, backroom pornography, tabloid journalism, food addiction, and infidelity, Meet the Feebles tackles all these issues with a sublime, understated crudeness.

The dangers of heroin (liquid sky, smack, white pony) and the trauma that inevitably comes with enduring years of jungle warfare are both covered when we meet Wynyard, a strung-out, knife-throwing frog. His flashback to his days in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive was one of the many surreal highlights of this strange film. Now I've seen this particular conflict depicted a number of different ways over the years, but never have I seen it portrayed with frog puppets.

A bunny rabbit named Harry is diagnosed with an unnamed disease, but we all know what he's got (at least I thought we did). Either way, it seems he has performed "bunnilingus" one too many times. A singer by trade, Harry tries desperately to keep his illness under wraps. Unfortunately, a reporter was on the wall while the playboy rabbit was getting the bad news. Why was the reporter on the wall, you ask? Well, because he's a fly, that's why.

Coming in second place just behind the star of the show with the gigantic thighs and chocolate-covered cleavage in terms of being ultra dandy, the fly newsman (voiced by Brian Sergent) was a wonderfully disgusting sight to behold. Whether snooping in the shadows or eating bunny shit straight from the bowl, the gossipy fly was one of the film's most fascinating characters. (Quirky fly-fact: The fly likes to eat shit with a spoon.)

Bored with filming strictly udder-based pornography, Trevor, a surly, chain-smoking rat (who, at times, seemed to be channeling squirrelly actor Peter Lorre), decides to change things up after Daisy the cow accidentally crushes her cockroach co-star. Discovering a pantie-obsessed aardvark (oh, my, does this movie rule or what?) while he was on yet another "smelly minge binge" in the theatres laundry room (a.k.a. pantie sniffers paradise), Trevor inadvertently invents "nasal sex." You see, while plowing into Daisy's udders, the aardvark would ejaculate mucus all over the cow's chest and face.

Unafraid to film ambitious set pieces involving giant puppets, Peter Jackson stages a golf course drug deal (Bletch, with help from Barry the Bulldog, buys heroin from a warthog with a Scottish accent) and a dockyard melee. The highlight of the latter is when Trevor and Bletch battle a giant spider and drive their limousine through the blood-soaked innards of a massive sea creature.

In-between all this puppetry-based mayhem, a tragic figure emerges in the shapely form of Heidi the Hippo, the main draw of the Feebles Variety Hour. In a tempestuous relationship with Bletch, bullied by Samantha the Cat, repeatedly mocked by Trevor the Rat (he compares her singing voice to a mongoose with throat cancer), belittled by Sebastian the Fox, and under the sugary spell of sweats (in one scene, she cleans out an entire cake shop), Heidi's sanity is severely compromised when she discovers Bletch's colossal walrus cock tonsil deep inside a conniving kitty. In other words, the full-bosomed hippo is very close to losing total control of her well-formed faculties. Luckily for Heidi, her recent weight gain and lack of knowledge when comes to firearm safety prevent her from harming herself. Unluckily for everyone else, Heidi decides instead that she wants payback.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: Every movie could benefit from having a hippopotamus in a garter belt go on a vengeful shooting spree, while a fox, standing underneath a sky filled with clouds shaped like butt-cheeks, sings about the many virtues of anal sex in-between two phallus inspired pillars. I won't lie, I found myself drawn to Heidi, sexually and spiritually. Her touching rendition of "Garden of Love" was titillating on a number of irregular levels. Call me sweaty and deranged, but there's nothing sexier than an angry hippo with a large gun.

The sight of all those the spent shell casings spewing out from Heidi's M-60 brought a misguided tear to my eye. Not just because I appreciate it when guns in movies spew shell casings, but because it made all the stuff involving projectile bunny vomit, torrential pachyderm piss, yellow crab guts, close-quarter coprophagia, melting henchmen, splattering pus, aardvark mucus, bulldog arterial spray, and mammary gland erotica seem worthwhile.

While my parts of brain are still debating the merits of this film, my penetrating, Majandra Delfino eyes and the idealistic contents of my discerning crotch both give it a standing ovation.

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Never Too Young to Die (Gil Bettman, 1986)

If you're related to a secret agent, do their talents transfer over to you when they're inevitably murdered by an hermaphroditic super villain? Of course they do, what a silly question. Even if the person inheriting the talent is just unassuming teenage gymnast with thick, lustrous hair? Yes. And even more so if that's the case. As most people know, the thick-haired gymnast is one of the last vestiges of truth and justice left in this world. In a society overrun by disco punks and their gender ambiguous overlords, a thick-haired gymnast named Lance Stargrove is about to find out that you're never too young to die in Never Too Young to Die, an action-adventure movie where, according to Stargrove's theme song, no one runs away from the danger zone. Filmed smack-dab in the middle of the 1980s, this unqualified crumpet features enough erratic gun-play, heavy metal hoedowns, customized motorcycles, homemade rocket launchers, scene stealing intersex super-villains and cackling henchmen to fill a moderately priced gunnysack. Having just watched the The Road Warrior on LaserDisc and the memory of the United States of America destroying the competition at the Games of the XXIII Olympiad still fresh in his mind, filmmaker Gil Bettman and his formidable team of writers and hangers-on (a shady collection of drug dealers and mealymouthed sycophants) have wisely chosen to combine the two, and by doing so, have created an entity so righteous, so mystifying, that it resembles an actual movie at times.

After the death of his bulletprooth umbrella-carrying father, Drew Stargrove (George Lazenby), at the hands of Velvet Von Ragnar (Gene Simmons), an unhinged intersex psychopath with sinister plans for California's water supply, Lance Stargrove (John Stamos), a teenage gymnast/closet gynemimetophile, is about to find out that he has inherited more than just a humble farm from his late dad. Whether it's just a case of like father, like son, Lance, while being roughed up by two of Ragnar's goons, summons a tiny lump of courage and uses his gymnastic skills to beat them to a moldy pulp. It's true, he's gonna need to summon a lot more than courage if he expects to take on Velvet Von Ragnar and his-her disco punk army. But judging by this display alone, it's clear that he has what it takes to follow in his father's footsteps.

Discovering that you're a super suave man of action isn't the same as finding out you're good at Galaga or posses the anal elasticity of a promiscuous dust mite. Assisting Lance make the transition from the blue tank top fantasyland of your typical wide-eyed teen to the hyper-violent world of espionage is the alluring Danja Deering (Vanity), a woman who isn't afraid to make use of her supple anatomy to bend the will of others.

It should be said that Lance's best friend, roommate and sidekick Cliff (Peter Kwong), an amateur weapons expert (his beloved "Fire Blazer" helps get Lance and Danja out of numerous jams), has been supplying him with gadgets for some time now. In one scene they even text each other (using their wristwatches) in order to cheat on a test. What I'm trying to say is Lance ain't exactly a shrinking violet, whatever the hell that means.

Excuse me. Yeah, hi. Why is an "unhinged intersex psychopath" trying to kill Lance and Danja? Excellent question. While he-she isn't really trying to kill them, per se, what he-she does want is to extract some information from them. Particularly about the location of a computer disk (RAM-K) containing the security codes that protect the state's water supply from unhinged intersex psychopath's who want to contaminate it with radioactive waste.

Every time they would appear on-screen, a feeling of embarrassment, discomfort, and misguided admiration would simultaneously wash over me. Giving a brave and thoroughly demented performance, the normally loathsome Gene Simmons is a campy delight as the evil and fabulous Velvet Von Ragnar, the maniacal, Robert Englund-employing thorn in the side of the film's principal hero. Willing to sacrifice the entirety of his-her punk rock army (a loose assemblage of post-apocalyptic thugs and leather-clad cross-dressers) for the betterment of his-her cause, Gene chews up the scenery in a manner that really gets the unsavoury juices flowing.

Provoking similar juices, but without the intense aftertaste, Vanity is asked to cry at a funeral, talk softly to a horse in a puffy shirt, riddle a henchmen's body with bullets, stand in a kitchen while wearing a white bra, and look chic in a blue dress adorned with an alarming amount of sequins all within the span of five minutes. I know what you're thinking: Is the Prince protégé able to pull off this seemingly arduous acting task? You better believe she is. Inducing one to not ask: Why can't Vanity be in every movie? The racially complex singer/actress, on top of looking semi-convincing while firing an AK-47, displays a real knack for enunciating scripted dialogue.

However, Vanity does her best work in the scenes where scripted dialogue is completely unnecessary. The best example of this can be found when Danja Deering is attempting to arouse the ladyboy-obsessed genitals of John Stamos's reluctant spy character on the deck of their secluded chalet. When the act of doffing her white outerwear fails to even evoke a response, Vanity lounges seductively on a deck chair in an earthy bikini with matching eye shadow. Applying lotion and brandishing the occasional come hither look, Vanity attacks her stubborn prey with the ferocity of a caged beast. When that fails, she employs a garden hose, which eventually causes Lance to drop his bottle of Perrier and come to his senses. Call me a nudnik, but I think the reason Lance took so long to get hard was because he actually prefers the company of trans-women, cross-dressers, and, of course, unhinged intersex psychopaths. At any rate, it's a beautiful sequence, not only from an aesthetic point of view (the fact that Vanity and John Stamos have a brother-sister vibe about them made the scene even hotter), but in the way it gives us to prepare for the mayhem we know is just around the corner.

In all honesty, the scene where Lance Stargrove asks Velvet Von Ragnar for his-her autograph was by far the film's hottest. The way Velvet thrust the mysterious contents festering underneath his-her salmon bustier in Lance's general direction was off the charts in terms of erotic ungainliness.

Drinking in his meaty thighs, which are being constricted by a super tight pair of black pantyhose, and no doubt hypnotized by the cascading wall of pink feathers shooting out from his Cher-quality headdress, Lance may agree with Danja's critique of Ragnar's Las Vegas-style stage show (she thinks it's "revolting"), but his eyes tell a completely different story. (Quirky fun-fact: While Gene's costume might have a "Cher-quality," it's actually the exact same outfit the divine Lynda Carter wore during a KISS-centric number on a television show called Encore!)

He may be a new breed of action hero, but John Stamos still needs to work on his craft, especially when it comes to shaping his overall personality, as his many attempts to be witty and clever were all met with a regular breed of scorn. You could say that his awkward, unfunny demeanor was part of his overall charm, but I don't feel like saying that. Check out the scene at The Incinerator, Velvet Von Ragnar's Streets of Fire-esque biker nightclub (a rowdy dive that serves beer and motor oil), where a gorgeous transgender waitress (a fabulous Ivar Mireless) with claw-like fingernails and a Dale Bozzio (circa Color In Your Life) hairdo flirts and trades gibes with the future star of Full House, he so outmatched, it's not even funny.

Even though he affectionately calls them his "little turdballs" and his "little scumbuckets," Velvet Von Ragnar's devoted throng of unwashed followers are the real victims in the Never Too Young to Die universe. Used and abused (an unwashed follower played by the muscly Ed Brock has his face immersed in horse shit during one particularly humiliating scene), they carry out the orders of the intersex despot without fail, yet they seem to get no reward for their diligence. I don't know 'bout you, but there's something inherently depressing about watching the fashion forward punks and freaks unceremoniously mowed down by a bunch of camouflage-wearing squares who take their orders from a non-gynandromorph.

Utilizing their inspiration like it were a blunt object being swung to and fro by an overly lubricated lunatic, the brain trust responsible for this undertaking deftly mix subtle intelligence with sheer idiocy in order to satisfy the plethora of eyeballs that will surely try to extract a fair amount of cinematic nourishment from its bulky yet highly-developed corpse. Let me break it down for you. Do you like frantic shootouts that boast automatic weapons of every calibre and make imaginable? This flick has got you covered. Do you like to see films that examine the human condition and feature performances by actors at the top of their game? Um, yeah, so, the shootouts in Never Too Young to Die are pretty crazy, man. I mean, the characters totally shoot bullets at one another. Anyway, I can't wait for Never Too Young to Die 2: Lance Stargrove vs. The Lady Boys of Bangkok.

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