Bitch Slap (DVD)
Steve Barton
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Reviewed by Uncle Creepy
Starring Julia Voth, Erin Cummings, America Olivo, Debbie Lee Carrington, Michael Hurst, Ron Melendez, Kevin Sorbo, William Gregory Lee
Directed by Rick Jacobson
Distributed by Fox Home Entertainment
We’re all fans of Russ Meyer’s big boobed exploitation flicks from back in the day that were equal parts breasty and silly. Pretty much anyone with a penis or an affinity for women can attest to their cheesecake value. They were products of their time and delivered exactly what they promised. Bitch Slap was a film made to honor those movies and then some. Does it succeed? Eh, not so much.
The story is convoluted and told in a seemingly endless array of badly greenscreened flashbacks. In a nutshell — a stripper, an ex-con, and a thief try their hand at uncovering a motherlode of stolen diamonds from a vicious gangster’s hideout. This leads them to the desert, where they engage in all manner of fighting from fisticuffs to hot lead.
Truth be told, a movie like this doesn’t need much of a storyline. It just has to be chock full of violence, nudity, sex, and most of all, fun. Instead Bitch Slap offers us some violence (mostly fistfights), hardly any nudity (not one of our stars even flashes a nipple), safe sex (our loving lesbians screw fully clothed), and the type of manic forced action that plays more headache inducing than it does fun. Although, if you’re prepubescent or in your early teens, you may find this to be one of the best movies ever made.
Really, what happened here? Don’t get me wrong; I don’t care about nudity in a movie all that much, but when your emulating something as distinct as a Russ Meyer flick, shouldn’t you at least stick to the formula? Even worse, all of the above shortcomings make the script and the acting come off glaringly worse than they should have because there’s nothing to cheer the filmmakers for. What we have here is an extremely literal absence of TIT for tat!
The DVD is home to two commentary tracks, one by Rick Jacobson (Writer/Producer/Director), Eric Gruendemann (Writer/Producer), and Brian Peck (Associate Producer), and the other by the principal cast: Julia Voth (Trixie), Erin Cummings (Hel), and America Olivo (Camero). Here’s another problem … clocking in at nearly an hour and forty-five minutes, the film feels impossibly long. Whether or not you want to sit through the flick again with commentary is a tough choice to make. If you’re gonna dig on just one, make it the cast commentary as it is kind of fun and the girls do a great job of not taking anything too seriously. From there we have a feature-length documentary called Building a Better B-Movie, which proves to be a bit more interesting than the film itself.
That being said, if you’re looking for what essentially plays like either the hottest thing a thirteen-year-old has ever seen or a one-hundred-and-nine-minute cocktease for adults, then Bitch Slap is the movie you’ve been waiting for! Everyone else may want to steer clear of this juvenile slice of imitation sleazoid Americana.
Special Features
2 out of 5
Special Features:
3 out of 5
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