Hot Blood Sundae (2009)
Reviewed by The Foywonder
Starring Bobbi Billard, Akira Lane, Richard Van Fleet, Gelusa Zarapova, John Bogart, Ryan Click, Joanna Hernandez
Directed by Jon Darbonne
Scoopettes is the brain fart of floundering ice cream store owner Ricky. His great American money-making idea is to go the Hooters route by having busty young women in skimpy outfits – often just bikinis – serving ice cream with provocative new flavor names such as “Busty Buttercrunch” and “Sexual Strawberry”. If the girls get into a topless whipped cream fight during business hours, all the better. Scoopettes is what I imagine Baskin-Robbins would turn into if Jim Wynorski ever got control of the company.
So let’s meet the clothing-optional clerks that keep the ice cream cold and soft and the clients hot and hard. Vicki is a big-breasted blonde saving money to get bigger breasts. Given her already generous cup size I can only guess her dream is to one day be legally classified as a floatation device. Mindy is a big breasted Asian gal whose breasts must suffer from some sort of fabric allergy she airs them out so often. Desiree is a big breasted brunette who talks with a stilted European accent. Jesse is the average breast-sized redhead shy about her body despite being in better shape than most women you see in an ice cream shop and she apparently wasn’t shy about getting that tattoo on her back shoulder that she apparently got with no intention of ever showing it off due to her shyness and body image issues. There’s also an extra Scoopette that appears from out of nowhere, never gets a proper introduction, and is then killed moments later. Its like, “Where did you come from? Never mind”.
At the risk of sounding incredibly sexist, all of the women are at their best when they’re showing off their best assets. Though to be fair, behaving like fun-loving nymphs and screaming in terror is about all that is required of them. And when blonde bombshell Bobbi Billard begins unloading bombs of the fisticuff variety on the killer, she looks more believable doing that than she did slinging ice cream.
The layout of the Scoopettes shop is one of the oddest building designs I’ve ever seen. The actual front area where the ice cream is this tiny room with barest of decorations or accessories, but enter into the employees only door and the building must be the size of a small warehouse. There’s a small kitchen where the ice cream is made, Ricky’s office, a rather large storage room, and a shower of considerable size. Why does the back room of an ice cream store even need a shower? I do realize that is probably a dumb question to ask when talking about a movie where female employees show up to their workplace at all hours of the night just to take a nice hot shower. All of it must have been built to be sound proof; victims can walk into a back room and be screaming their lungs out as they’re being killed and nobody one door away hears a thing.
Or it could be none of the co-workers merely a door away could hear their co-workers’ death screams over all that blaring metal, hip hop, and punk rock that kicks in during the kill scenes.
The male side of the Scoopettes’ payroll pays-off with two over-the-top performances that I don’t know if I can label as good but I can certainly label them as enthusiastic. Store owner Ricky looks like Max Baer Jr. and talks like Tony Clifton – what a combination that makes. Then there’s Wes, a possibly autistic young man constantly peeping on the girls who behaves like a human being that learned their entire manner of speaking and social behavior from watching Ace Ventura movies. Should have added some pork flavored ice cream to the offerings because these two had ham to spare.
Someone finally creates the ultimate mixture of male fantasy and frozen dairy products and some psycho killer has to come along and ruin it for all of us. There’s a killer stalking the top heavy Scoopettes’ clerk, a masked maniac dressed exactly like Scream‘s Ghostface, except the mask appears to be an ice cream tub with a sinister clown face painted on it. It looks as silly as it sounds.
Body parts turn up in the ice cream. Women get killed off in such odd ways I could never determine if writer-director Jon Darbonne meant for it to be gross, funny, and/or fetishized for guys that get turned on seeing naked women covered in messy substances in an almost loving fashion, whether it be blood or syrup. One naked Scoopette is killed by being smothered in chocolate syrup and made into a human sundae. Because you can never have enough sexual overtones in a movie where busty young women stop everything to engage in spontaneous topless whipped cream fights while on the job and then sunbathe topless at a swimming pool during their off hours.
Who could this mystery killer with a hatred for overpriced ice cream and oversized bazongas be? Is it one of the Scoopettes? Is it perverted Ricky or peeping tom Wes? Is it the older lady that makes the ice cream? Is it one of the two young men that come in every day to buy ice cream just to flirt with the girls? Is it the crazy homeless guy with the ridiculously fake beard and talks like a horny gypsy hobo? Is it the Andy Richter look-a-like policeman more interested in getting free ice cream than solving the murders, or his deputy, another attractive young woman dressed like a police woman strip-o-gram? Or could it be the killer clown from the film’s opening sequence, an opening sequence that appears to be completely detached from everything going on, has seemingly no relevance to the events of this film, that looks to have come from a completely different movie, and wasn’t even shot with the same film stock?
It never really matters because it’s not like this is a mystery that will keep you guessing. I still ended up feeling a bit annoyed by the lame twist at the end that doubles as a punchline and proves doubly lame because it really doesn’t make much sense other than to try and tie it all together to that detached opening sequence.
Honestly, if you’re in the mood to watch a slasher movie set in and about an erotic ice cream store then who am I to talk you out of it? However, if you’re out to watch a good movie, well, why the hell would you be interested in watching a slasher movie set in and about an erotic ice cream store in the first place? The slasher side of Hot Blood Sundae will probably prove too off-the-wall for certain horror purists and the dopey humor is slightly more sophisticated than that of say Bikini Carwash Company. But then who watches Bikini Carwash Company for the plot and dialogue? The breezy tone and considerable amount of nudity makes Hot Blood Sundae easier to swallow, though the problem remains with a movie of this nature that it has to sustain itself for feature length. If it was about half as long and you watched it on mute… Lord knows there is no shortage of attractive women in outfits that range from extremely skimpy to laying on the floor and the visual sight of the “Super Sloppy Double Dare” death scenes is weird enough as it is.
In issuing a rating for Hot Blood Sundae I find myself with no choice but to break it all down into three separate categories which I feel the film will appeal to on different levels.
2 out of 5
Watching it with the sound off:
3 out of 5
If your name is Jim Wynorski:
4 out of 5
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