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.

If there ever was a movie that should have never been thought of, written, shared, cast, rehearsed, shot, edited nor released, this is it.

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.

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.

Compared to this, Showgirls is a Oscar winning masterpiece. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in this movie is even decent. The plot, the acting, the camera work is all horribly wrong. The only reason to watch this is you want to take tips of how not to make a bad movie.