Revenge of the Petites

A rather foolhardy project, this homage to "coming of age" Hollywood teen sex comedies was an attempt by one of the innumerable internet porn companies (AMKingdom, which has a "hairy vagina" website among its assets) to break into the feature film biz. Former horror director Harry Sparks was given the assignment, and a bland, over-produced picture resulted.

Having a 10-day shoot instead of the 1/2 day wonders accorded internet vignettes, Sparks and AMKingdom head honcho Kim Nielsen packed a vast array of starlets into the cast, many of them lost in the shuffle. Lest the duo be accused of an eye for spotting new talent, they wasted Riley Reid (now #1 star in all of Adult Entertainment) in a nothing role and several other future big-names are reduced to bit parts, such as Jenna J. Ross.

What alarmed me the most is the short memory of today's pornographers. In the BTS interviews they hail "American Graffiti", "Porky's" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" as inspiration for the foolhardy notion of "expanding the audience" by adding some explicit sex to the corny plot lines. Nielsen should have stuck to his internet generic porn niche, as spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a feature that's neither fish nor fowl is idiotic. The filmmakers need to be reminded that back in the glorious theatrical age of porn in the '70s, much better XXX teen comedies starring Rene Bond were made: "High School Fantasies" and "Beach Blanket Bango".

A favorite actress of mine since her first starring role as "Angel Face" , Marie McCray is the film's one saving grace, completely convincing as the college freshman dealing with sorority hazing and problems with self-image. The notion that this film is striking a blow against bullying of young women because they are short (or perhaps flat-chested) is an example of the hubris of Nielsen and company, however.

What we get is slightly over two hours of still-born comedy scenes, very pretty girls scantily clad or nude, and the ridiculous gimmick of explicit sex thrown in but not dwelled upon. There is no audience for this at all, though the actual sex could be removed to show it on late- night pay-cable as a soft-X junker. Some of the sex scenes last just a few seconds -long enough to make this pornographic but not long enough to satisfy the porn-hounds -how stupid! And the lengthier scenes are lesbian action, mainly starring Sapphic icon Celeste Star, but poorly directed and photographed compared to the quality Lesbian porn labels like Girlfriends Films, Sweetheart Video and latterly Girlsway/Gamma.

So the geniuses at AMKingdom have a second disk featuring a 148-minute series of unexpurgated sex scenes, a baker's dozen in all, with the dialog/story scenes completely removed. It's just as bad, in a different way, than the main feature, since it is closer to the websites' generic output than the arousing sex one gets from quality Adult companies like Wicked, Adam & Eve, etc. And casting Seth Dickens as primary stud is a very dumb choice, given the wealth of male talent available.

Nielsen gave it a second try with an expensive sci-fi film he decided to direct himself titled "Saving Humanity", which I own and will suffer through on a very slow day in future.

The AmKingdom Company certainly went all-out when they produced Revenge of the Petites. Normally what could be expected of productions from adult entertainment companies is hardcore action and virtually no storyline but such is not the case for this rather entertaining comedy that involves a group of rather petite and young college ladies on a quest to get even with all the other sorority ladies who have put them down for so long.

Revenge of the Petites is college humor, laden with lots of skin and lots of party and prank madness. Entertaining and surprisingly good for the most part, although at some points the acting did seem a bit dry, but this is one of the first, if not perhaps the first, full-length feature film from AmKingdom so give them a break and give this movie a fair look.

Amazingly good camera-work, what with the cool dolly shots, helped to give this film a real professional polish, though it did appear that many of the scenes seemed washed out or overlit, But then again this from a company that is stepping up from the Adult Entertainment arena to present something that is truly screenworthy.

Definitely not for kids or anyone under 18, though, as occasional scenes get mighty blatant with sexual content, though the rest of the film is fun Comedy entertainment of the calibre of many of Hollywood's best movie makers. AmKingdom is in the lead now in quality, feature-length motion picture entertainment. It'll be interesting to see if and how the other, major Adult Entertainment companies follow suit.