Kastore

Hard to explain this one. A young college professor dabbles in alchemy and creates an "Alpha Stone", which looks like a piece of glowing yellow Kryptonite. He then uses its power to lure woman after woman to his apartment, while his first guinea pig turns from a supposed homosexual to a rampantly straight brother. A lot of the early scenes involve the young man working in his laboratory, interspersed with him arguing with his superiors at the college over his beliefs. Highlights include the aforementioned guinea pig making love to a mannequin, and a woman massaging herself with a vacuum cleaner. Some nudity, but maybe not enough to keep the average viewer awake through this poor effort. Very bizarre.

Richard Gabai has carved a unique niche in the B-movie industry. He not only is a regular player in various films – he is a director himself of a handful of DTV features. (Note: the foreknowledge that his mentors/frequent collaborators as an actor are Jim Wynorski, Fred Olen Ray, and David Decoteau helped prepare me for what to expect from one of his own films.)

"Virgin High" is a typical shoestring budget sex comedy, which I'm fairly sure was aired frequently on USA 'Up All Night' in the 90s. I may have even seen some of this film a decade ago, but even now after watching it in its entirety, am unable to pick it out from the homogenous mix of films shown so long ago. The plot concerns a sex-starved teenager (Gabai) trying to gain access to the all-girls school his squeeze has been banished to by her father (Burt Ward). He enlists his dopey friends to (supposedly) help him, his girlfriend must deal with the dorm R.A. (Quigley), and all hilarity ensues.

If you're a fan of Linnea Quigley, then perhaps it's worth watching. She is in much of the movie, including (you guessed it) a few goofy nude scenes where she has phony orgasms during one-sided sex with the school's security guard. Though the reason I watched this movie was for Michelle Bauer's role, which was disappointing. Bauer is in only one short scene that looks like it was written in only because they were able to get Bauer for a day. Burt Ward's role is done mainly for kitsch value; most of his scenes he is either playing with action figures of comic book heroes including (again, you guessed it) a Batman figure, or he is being beset by his S&M dom wife, eventually hitting the ultimate low of being caught wearing a shirt saying "Sex Cowboy" at the finale. A sad state to see one of my childhood influences in.

Rena Riffel gained some notice in the mid-90s, one of the results being her central role in "Scandalous Behavior". This movie could be viewed as an attempt to pass the torch from erotica queen Shannon Tweed to Riffel. It was a relief to see RR in a more fleshed-out (pun intended) character, demonstrating both her singular attractiveness and solid acting. However, as much as I got that warm feeling from watching Rena as the tough yet sympathetic victim, I was just as quickly disillusioned by James Hong's outrageous antics as a scheming foreign businessman.

For those like myself, you probably instantly identify James Hong as the chief villain in "Big Trouble in Little China". 'Lo Pan' was cool, sinister and mysterious, the last guy on earth you'd want to mess with. Not so in this movie. Apparently, being your own director gives one artistic license to put on a culture-clashing cowboy outfit and make a complete fool of yourself on screen. I cringed as Hong cut loose on a dance floor with a group of Texans, interspersed with him laughing like a madman and doing a terrible hillbilly impersonation.

The rest of the movie is about what you expect from the genre. Dumb characters (what was the point of the two henchmen, anyway?), clumsy plot twists (the brother who suddenly cares more for Rena than her own fiancé does), and bad bad acting. Shannon Tweed is looking a bit ragged at this point and doesn't seem to put in as much effort here. Advice: shut the movie off after Shannon and Rena drive off in the car. Trust me – you don't want or need to see the last 10 minutes. Not since "Howling: New Moon Rising" have I seen a more contrived use of line-dancing as a plot device.