Bad Girls from Mars

On my quest to see everything famed B movie actress Brinke Stevens has been in, I bought a copy of Bad Girls From Mars.

Bad Girls stars Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls' Edy Williams and Jay Richardson from multiple other Brinke Stevens films.

Starting off on the set of a movie (a campy b movie about beautiful female aliens trying to take over the earth) it looks good. The first scene seems so funny that I thought I was in for a treat.

Unfortunately that was it as the director of the movie shouts out 'CUT' and the movie stars revolving around the cast and crew that are making this film.

The movie turns into a serial killer movie about the lead actresses. All of them seem to be getting murdered. Enter in Edy Williams as the new actress.

Some mild who dunnit, lots of Edy Williams disrobing and that's about it for this movie.

My review was written in January 1991 after watching the movie on Vidmark video cassette.

"Bad Girls from Mars" is a poor spoof of B movies by the men who currently make them. Lame scripting and threadbare execution leave this video strictly for t&a fans.

Fred Olen Ray has made quickies before, notably the Sybil Danning-starrer "The Phantom Empire", but this one needed more care to succeed.

Plot premise is virtually identical to another current spoof, "Hollywood Boulevard II": a serial killer is wasting the leading ladies of a B picture called "Bad Girls from Mars". As in "HB II", there's a stereotypical skinflint producer and cliched satirization shoestring film production.

Edy Williams is well-cast, and well-preserved, as the replacement bombshell - best selling tell-all authoress, reminiscent of Xaviera Hollander when she tried to break into movies 17 years ago. Her slapstick travails aren't helped any by Ray's annoying gimmick of dubbing in the amplifed sound of somebody rubbing Naugahyde whenever Edy and the other topless women fondle their own breasts.

That level of sophomoric humor permeates this cheapie. Hambone hero Jay Richardon's mugging is unfunny and other bits remain stillborn, such as prolific dirctor/lenser Gary Graver appearng as the cinematographer of the film within the film.

Ray credtis himself as co-writer with pseudonym Sherman Scott, an obscure homage to Sam Newfield who used the moniker in the '40s when he cranked out endless Bs.

There's a brief lesbian scene between Williams and the exotic Brinke Stevens and an awkward wrestling match between Williams and new bombshell Dawn Dana Bently. Jasae, a familiar face fro mcable phone sex ads, has a fun role as one of the "Bad Girls" stars/victims.

Tech credits are suitably chintzy, but Chuck Cirino's catchy music is a plus.

A C-grade murder-horror that is largely predictable and unoriginal. Production values are quite low and performances are so-so. However, it does have some funny moments and the tone of the movie is quite light, never taking itself seriously, making it not entirely unwatchable.

It's to cheesy and I like cheesy but this movie went to far

I've enjoyed all of the other Fred Olen Ray movies I've seen - Cyclone and Warlords, for instance, are underrated classics of lowbrow fare, and even Scalps has its redeeming qualities - but Bad Girls from Mars is guilty of the worst possible charge that can be leveled against an exploitation flick: it's boring.

The self-deprecating script is bland, and everything is conducted with such self-conscious camp that no sense of reality or genuine interest is ever generated. Drab synthesized music, lame one-liners, and pointless Ed Wood references don't help matters. Brinke Stevens is underutilized, and the rest of the cast is uncharismatic, the repeatedly bared bosom of Edy Williams notwithstanding.

Only die-hard fans of Stevens or Ray, or anyone easily impressed by breasts or broad, lazy comedy, need bother with Bad Girls from Mars. The title is as funny as anything in the movie.