Apartheid Slave-Women's Justice

Most of his films tended to be a bit boring but they were innovative and weird nonetheless. Astro-Zombies, Doll Squad, Corpse Grinders and co. were entertaining z-grade cinema. A good director should know when to stop making movies. Well, Ted never claimed to be a good director, so it kinda makes sense for him to continue to release films after his heydays are over. Nowadays he uses video, but not really the good kind, where it's hard to distinguish between film or video. His newer productions look like video. They don't care. This is as well the case here, in this abomination of a movie. Don't ask me about the plot, this film does not care about that. After a few stock footage explosions and a long L-O-N-G crawling intro text to explain that this white man with the funny white beard (Ted V. Mikels himself) is a bad man. He forced his black slaves to work hard labor and please him in every way. So now they uprise against him, tie him up, put him on the floor and sit in chairs around him. They hold court, explaining, why exactly he is a bad person. After long L-O-N-G monologues they find a verdict. Before that however, the view must endure ENDLESS scenes of these black women forcing their high heels into his hairy naked chest or simple walking over him. This, I believe, might be the one and only reason, this video production was shot in the first place. For good old Mikels to fulfill his fetish fantasies of strong black women dominating him and trampling him with their high heels. So unless you're into this particular fetish, I would suggest you avoid this "film" at all costs.

And please, people, if you've seen this film, please vote. Obviously only people involved in this movie voted yet. ASTRO ZOMBIES has 2.1, this has 5.2?! Something wrong here!

I am a bad movie junkie. Although I have reviewed thousands of foreign language and art films, I also have reviewed a lot of horrible films--and in most cases, this was intentional. It all began with me reading "The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time" (Harry Medved) and I decided to watch all 50--which I finally completed recently. And, because I'd reached that milestone, I decided to try to watch as many of IMDb's Bottom 100 as I could--and at this point I have seen every one available. In the process, I discovered the films of Ted Mikels--who might just be the worst filmmaker in history. While he has LOTS of competition from the likes of Larry Buchanan, William Grefe, Al Adamson and Ray Dennis Steckler, with "Apartheid Slave-Women's Justice" Mikels proves that he might just be the worst filmmaker in history--light-years worse than the much heralded king of bad films, Ed Wood.

Ted Mikels has managed to do something rather unique. While some bad movie makers slowly got better and better (Arch Hall, Sr. is a great example), Mikels films only got worse and worse. His first movie, "Strike Me Deadly" was not that bad--especially with his bare-bones budget. However, over the years the films got worse and worse and cheaper and cheaper. Here in "Apartheird Slave-Women's Justice", it can't get any cheaper. The film is created using what looks like a home video camera and almost all the film occurs in what appears to be Mikel's basement!! And, instead of hiring real actors for the lead, Mikels himself stars in this amazingly inept pile of dung! Yes, a home movie camera, himself in the lead and a bunch of untrained and untalented ladies and he made himself a movie! The film is set in a fictional country much like South Africa or Rhodesia. The white-controlled government has been overthrown and throughout the country little impromptu kangaroo courts are occurring in which the old slave masters are getting their comeuppance. In this case, the nasty, fat and foul-mouthed Mikels it tried by a group of ladies I assume he recruited in a local mall. They cannot read their lines with any conviction whatsoever and it just goes on and on and on until ultimately they kick him to death--and that's the entire movie!!! Nothing more to it than this--and I am not kidding when I say that the average middle school kid could do at least as well--and they hadn't already made a dozen films!!! It seems Mikels learned not one freakin' thing in all those intervening years. I am serious when I say that it makes "Robot Monster" and "Plan 9" look like Oscar-contenders in comparison!! Yes, it's that horrible.

Surely there must be a law against making moves this bad! If I hadn't seen it for myself, I would not have believed that it was indeed possible. Atrocious acting, laughable dialogue, cheap soundFX, and a tacky music score sum up this embarrassing piece of fluff. See it for yourslf.

Wow, this is a weird one. I mean, even by Ted V. Mikels' standards. Though this is probably not the worst movie I've ever seen (how sad is that?), it might just be the most tedious one. Mikels is really testing our patience here, even the opening text crawl goes on about fifty times as long as it needs to. This is what it needs to explain: an evil landowner (Mikels himself, of course) is trialed by his former servants after Apartheid is abolished. See how I didn't need three minutes to explain that? I don't think Mikels has ever been this desperate to pad out his running time.

Granted: the concept could work to some extent as a cheesy exploitation movie. Slaves taking revenge on their cruel master after years of torture, that's kind of an entertaining starting point. The only problem is that the movie never goes beyond this starting point. So we get this trial, and it's just scene after scene of 'actresses' doing endless monologues they can barely remember. At the end of these scenes, we see why this movie was really made: because Mikels really liked embarrassed-looking women stepping on his back with high heels.

Seriously, that's the entire movie. One servant tells her story, everyone is appalled, and then they punish the landowner by stepping on him. It's the exact same thing over and over again. Absolutely no effort is made to provide anything entertaining. Mikels has made plenty of so-bad-it's-good classics, but this is so bad you just feel saddened for everyone involved. The fact that this is shot on a video camera and with really awful sound doesn't help matters much either. Then again, I don't believe I've missed crucial dialogue.

So who is this movie for? Did Mikels genuinely think he was making a historical film or some kind of suspenseful court drama? Was this made especially for perverts? Or did Mikels just think he could pretty much sell anything to his small but loyal fanbase, regardless of effort? That typical Mikels charm that makes you go 'this isn't good, but he's trying so hard' is pretty much absent. I mean, we do get stock footage from nature documentaries super-imposed over a map to show us this house in the suburbs is actually in Africa, but overall you really miss moments like that.

There is one semi-amusing moment though: the part where one of the servants dresses as a nun to get past the guard. How does she show she's a nun? By wearing a napkin on her head, of course. In an amazing twist, she does this as an excuse to step on the landowner with her high heels.