Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven

I only discovered there was a "sequel" to showgirls today, 23 years after the original and only by accident. After seeing a the preview of the movie i knew this was one to stay away from. In just those three minutes i wished i was blind and deaf. I don't know if some of the previous actors (not including rena riffel) needed a small hobby to do or if they thought they were doing her a favor but having them in the cast did not help at all. ( glenn plummer, greg travis, and dewey webber) it is horrible. Dont waste even the few minutes of your life trying to watch the previews because you wont get those back.

I really don't think we needed a sequel to the awful Showgirls almost 20 years after the fact.

Imagine Showgirls horrible acting and nonsense plot only even worse, along with a home camcorder and no budget for effects or proper editing. The video is horrible, the sound is horrible, it doesn't even have the hint of sensuality that Showgirls 1 failed to ultimately deliver. The only redeeming feature of this film is Rena Riffel looks just as good as she did back then, possibly even better. If this had been a little campier it could have gone into cult status. As such its just a really bad amateur film the world never needed.

If you need a T&A fix there's better movies, not the least of which is the unrated Showgirls.

Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven: 1 out of 10: Rena Riffel one of the actresses from Showgirls cobbled together an unofficial sequel/remake fan film with some of the original cast. It is technically a film.

The Good: Under the right circumstances (I am thinking psilocybin mushrooms.) this movie can be entertaining. It starts off on the right foot and seems to be almost entertaining with interesting cameos and a Daliesque surreal touch but one quickly realizes it is just meandering from one setpiece to the other with no real rhyme or reason.

To her credit, Rena Riffel is in surprisingly good shape and does her best to work with her um assets. I would actually hold her blameless based on her performance was she not also the writer and director of the film.

The Bad: Amazon currently has a version of this film streaming called Showgirls 2: The Cut which is the original film cut down to 100 minutes from the original 145 minutes. Well, it is a start. The problem is not just length (though that certainly does not help matters) it is that the scenes simply never go anywhere in ways that defy description.

I almost think Showgirls 2 should be shown in Film School as a lesson of how not to shoot a scene, frame a shot, or transition from one scene to another. The entire film is like the first seven minutes of Manos the Hands of Fate with occasional middle-aged topless nudity. The level of filmmaking and storytelling incompetence is simply of the charts.

The Ugly: Rena Riffel is from the Cheri Caffaro school of filmmaking. No matter how old I get nothing more nubile is allowed to appear in the scene. So we have the primary rival/love interest Shelley Michelle playing the Gina Gershon role but looking like Rue Mccallahan in a Golden Girls rerun. People complained that Showgirls 2 was like watching a porn film with all the sex scenes taken out but in all honesty would it have been better if they were left in?

In Conclusion: You can do this kind of movie correctly. Misty Mundae and Seduction Cinema put together a string of these in the early aughts. (The Lord of the G-Strings: The Femaleship of the String, Spiderbabe etc). Rena Riffel does have a surrealistic touch to her story but she simply should not be allowed to edit or direct film and she needs a strong co-writer to focus her craft. She clearly has talent. Unfortunately, her surreal trip was lost in a deluge of craft errors and poor follow through.

I can't stress how bad this film was, when I say it was bad, believe me it was bad. I've seen bad B-films that were better than this. Cinemax and Showtime have better skin flicks on cable that look like A-list films compared to this. The only saving grace is the film's star, writer and director...Rena Riffel. I call her the saving grace of the film for one reason and one reason only and that's because she's friggin HOT...well let me change that and say her body is hot, because Riffel definitely has a butterface. There's plenty of Riffel's killer body throughout this film, but as far as her acting, writing and directing skills, she seriously lacks in all three departments. I can't believe they actually considered this as a sequel to the 1995 T&A cult classic 'Showgirls'?! Glenn Plummer (who reprises his original role) is also in this film, but he obviously has loss much of his acting skills...or...he's probably on very friendly terms with Riffel, if you know what I mean?!, because there's no other reason he would choose to do this film, unless he's doing Riffel also. I'm going to apologize in advance because I'm a fan of both actors, but come on?! Anyway, watch this film if you're only out to see some Riffel bootay, other than that I have to advice people to stay away from this film....far away.

Obviously this was not written to win any awards - and makes the not so good version of the original movie seem like award winning material.

Missing Gina Gershon and Elizabeth Berkley and Kyle McLaughlin, this still features a cast from the first one and a cast of unknowns.

Horribly written, dreadfully performed, atrociously edited, directed by somebody who is going blind and given a musical score by an equally near deaf person, this little disaster is a laugh to sit through - be sure to watch for the cleverly crafted editing, choreographed dance and fight scenes, effects and of course the stylized lighting and cinematic camera work.

This is an ideal movie to show to film students on how NOT to do a movie.

With the performances who are classically trained by a cement block and the dialogue and action scenes written for a tree stump, this movie kept me entertained due to it's sheer silliness and totally devoid story.

So bad - it's bad, so it's good...if that makes any sense.

The amazing Rena Riffel has concocted something so awful that it becomes something so funny, because nobody would seriously consider this to be anything but a joke...and it got her another writer/director/producer/performer credit - and in a town of celebrities, this gives her slightly a leading edge - though her next few en-devours may want to be of significantly better quality and structure in all capacity.