Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven

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.

Yes, I watched all 2 1/2 hours of this film with my wife.

TLDR; Is it enjoyable? Yes. In a bad movie way.

The film starts slow... But soon turns into one of the most disjointed, bizarre, over the top attempts to make a movie, and I still have no idea if Rena Riffel intended to make a comedy or drama.

There's a running plot about "Penny" now Helga wanting to be in some sort of softcore TV revue? And she need to take ballet lessons at Juliard "or something" to make this work? Helga is monumentally dumb, but it's hard to tell if this is being played for laughs or not.

She meets the crazily busty older stripper who plays the Gina Gershon role here. Man, this lady butchers some screen time before she chews it up. After 2 hours, I was enamored with her completely hyperbolic performance. She managed to top Elizabeth Berkely for delivering all of her lines dialed up to 11. The scene where she freaks out with the cold cream... There are scenes in this movie that will live in your brain.

Yes, there's nudity. The tone veers like a drunken teenager driving. Scenes go from two girls getting sensual over giant hot dogs to Penny talking about losing custody of her daughter and back again in under a minute. No one behaves rationally. The camerawork is film noir one second, Dutch angles the next, and stationary home movie at random. Random living rooms and restaurants are played off as swanky strip clubs. The music is just AWFUL.

I have to give a individual paragraph to the outfits. Some of the most gloriously trashy clothing known to man. Even when there isn't nudity, the skimpy outfits provide plenty of titillation.

But there a certain charm that comes from the effort here. From long weirdly philosophical monologues, the (at times) hallucinogenic sets and backgrounds, and general poorly performed weirdness.

This is not a good movie. It's not a competent attempt at filmmaking. It has no point, no through plot, no sense of style. But it was enjoyable. It was campy, bizarre, maybe even a little sexy at times. I'd sit and watch it again.

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.

Although only experiencing 3 minutes of this film because my husband had to show me what he considered the worst film he ever saw (and he gave up after 15 minutes), I could not wait to jump on IMDb to learn a little more about how this catastrophie occurred and who was responsible.

These are THE BEST user reviews I have ever read! I spent more time reading the reviews then watching the movie! They are hilarious! My favorite is the one where the reviewer stated that it made one wish they were blind and deaf!

There was one review that simply seemed mean spirited towards the leading actress and I don't think was necessary, the rest were so good at saying how bad it was it made me consider turning it back on ... and then come to my senses and not.

First off, while I didn't think the first film was great by any standards, it served up as a half decent b movie. The kind of movie you can watch if you want to make fun of and yet still have a semi decent viewing experience.

Showgirls 2 on the other hand makes a C movie (severely low budget amateur movies) look like Hollywood A films. The acting, camera work, sets, script...I'm not an accountant but even I want to do some forensic accounting to figure out where all the budget for this film went. i've seen better camera work by highschool students, and even better acting and scripts from low budget porn movies.

I was halfway through before I pulled the plug on it. do yourself a favour, watching anything more than the trailer is a waste of time.