Debra A. Deliso Movies
The documentary Something to Scream About features Brinke Stevens interviewing nine other women who have made their living being scream queens in low-budget horror movies. The women discuss their careers, the personal sacrifices they have made, and various hazards of the profession. The interview subjects include Debbie Rochon, Lilith Stabs, and Julie Strain. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brinke Stevens
- 1989
- R
Sharing little in common with Robert Wiene's expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (aside from the name and a series of stills from the film during the opening titles), this brain-damaged, perverse fever dream is set in the Caligari Insane Asylum (CIA), a nightmare labyrinth of impossible angles and colors, within which the fabled mesmerist's kinky granddaughter (Madeleine Reynal) rules with an iron hand, a phallic-looking syringe, and a hot-pink PVC dress. Caligari's associates -- including a leering therapist (Fox Harris) and a clone-like doctor/nurse team -- are loonier than their own patients...and in this place, that's saying a lot. Most of the unnameable experiments taking place have to do with the doc's desire to transplant her grandfather's synaptic fluid into her own brain to acquire his genius. She also has a peculiar fascination for prize patient Mrs. Van Houten (Laura Albert), a repressed housewife with horrifying sexual fantasies involving doors with giant tongues and razor-wielding madmen. (When asked to describe her life in two words, Van Houten replies matter-of-factly, "unending torment.") Basically a catalogue of surreal, psychosexual shock images, this is the second feature from director Stephen Sayadian (aka Rinse Dream), whose porno epic Cafe Flesh also melded sci-fi themes and post-modern expressionism; this is essentially more of the same, minus the explicit sex. One wonders why he bothered. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Madeleine Reynal, Fox Harris, (more)
- 1988
This plodding, amateurish horror film is basically a snow-capped variation on the standard stalk-and-slash killer formula. Six vacationers check into a posh ski resort where they are systematically slain, apparently in retribution for the accidental death of one of their friends years before. Despite a few inventive death scenes (by icicle, ski pole, snowplow, etc.), slasher-movie buffs looking for genre staples of bare nubile flesh, gushing gore and a high body count will be left out in the cold, as this is yet another late-80s exploitation thriller that contains no thrills (unless one counts the frequent ski footage) and hardly bothers to exploit anything. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Debra A. Deliso, Doug Stevenson, (more)
Two women with serious differences are forced to look out for each other in this anarchic comedy. Sandy (Bette Midler) and Lauren (Shelley Long) are a pair of struggling actresses who don't get along especially well -- and are even less fond of each other when they discover that they're both dating the same man, Michael (Peter Coyote). However, when Michael suddenly goes missing, they discover that he's actually an espionage agent working with a foreign government, and as they set out to find him, they learn that he has implicated them in his schemes. Now Sandy and Lauren are stuck with each other as they look for Michael while trying to outrun the law. Outrageous Fortune also stars George Carlin as Frank, a burned-out '60s holdover who the women meet along the way. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shelley Long, Bette Midler, (more)
- 1982
- R
Feminist film director Amy Jones and feminist novelist Rita Mae Brown collaborated on this by-the-numbers slasher gorefest, alleviated somewhat by desultory attempts at developing the victims as characters. The film concerns an overnight slumber party, attended by a group of nubile young women, who find themselves harassed by a gaggle of over-sexed young men. Their sexual escapades are punctured by the intrusion of an insane killer wielding a power drill. But the women rule the day when the lone survivor of the killer's hydraulic drill bands together with her sister and a neighbor to form their own posse and hunt down the murderer. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michele Michaels, Robin Stille, (more)
