In the process of re-reviewing the few movies we had to make
this website actually look good and have all you wonderful people
reading it, there have been a few things we were fearing. This was
one of them. This intrepid reviewer was reduced to actually banging
his head against the wall during this movie. But dedicated to our
craft as we are, we must take the good with the bad. So without
further adieu, we give you some swirly fire. Well, it’s just the
opening credits but you get the idea. Wait a minute, Ted V. Mikels.
That’s the guy that made The Girl in Gold Boots. That’s a likeable
"MST3K" episode. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all. Maybe optimism
is just really stupid.
We begin in earnest with a scary feminist Satan cult performing
some ancient rite. They conjure their god, whatever it may be, and
offer a sacrifice. There’s some dancing, and we see some old friends
from the Girl in Gold Boots cast. Things are looking up…sort of.
One of the girls from the cult, Lorraine (also the star of GiGB),
gets dropped off at a house. She’s there for a séance, performed by
the infamous Mara. She will be known from now on as Farting Cat Woman.
This will all make sense in time, my child. FCW rubs her forehead and
goes to see some other clients while Lorraine is left to enjoy her trip
through the supernatural. It transpires that her other clients,
interested in her witchcraft powers, want her to perform a voodoo
killing ritual to rub out one of their enemies without a trace.
After proving her ability, they hire her, give her a picture of the
man they want dead, and bicker over the price. Unfortunately for
them, she’s the only one who can do it, so they must pay what she asks.
There’s a seemingly unconnected flashback at this point of FCW’s
apprentice being choked by a guy. Sort of like finding a gummy bear
in the middle of your steak.
We now rejoin Lorraine who’s hangin’ out with Buzz…uh, I mean Mark.
Another GiGB alum. He’s not an icky elf this time, though. She’s
trying to convince Mark that FCW’s powers are real, and as a result
she takes him to a large group séance at her house that night. FCW
becomes host to a really bad Indian stereotype, but she does nail
Buz... I mean Mark for being a non-believer and only coming to “make
white squaw happy.” Then she switches gears and channels someone’s
mother, who promptly scolds the girl for being in a bad movie. Well,
okay, that didn’t happen, but it’d be cool, wouldn’t it? A ghost
appears and FCW’s hulking assistant ushers everyone out. Bu...
dammit, Mark is still skeptical and wants to bring in an old professor
friend to check things out.
Alone once again, FCW lights a voodoo hotplate and drowns the
foreign ambassador guy in a bowl of water by dunking his picture.
The man drops dead at a party, is taken to a hospital, and it’s ruled
as a drowning. There was water in his lungs, although he wasn’t
near any. FCW’s client is pleased, but afraid that she’ll take to
disliking him and turn her powers on his crew, so he sends his #2,
Mike Ditka, to eliminate the threat. No, it’s not really Ditka, but
you won’t know that.
FCW sees Ditka coming in her crystal ball, but it’s too late.
He breaks in and shoots her, her apprentice, and Toruke, her old
assistant guy. Here’s where Farting Cat Woman gets her namesake.
She turns into a fart, then into a cat, and after raising Toruke from
the dead, back into a woman.
We’re treated to another scene-spanning jump to a chess game
between Mark (hah, I got it this time!) and Dr. Helsford, his
professor friend. Dr. Helsford…Dr. van Helsing…nah. Anyway, Mark
gets thrashed and they have some drinks and…back to FCW’s place!
ARGH! This movie is giving me jet lag!
FCW prepares a Ditka voodoo doll and subjects him to the most
annoying voodoo death anyone could ever get. She drops his doll
into a jar with some ants and, for some reason, a dead lizard. After
about ten seconds of this, Ditka loses it and jumps out a window.
It’s not as cool as the jumping-out-the-window in Gore Gore Girls,
but you get the idea. Then she incapacitates Ditka’s boss with
darning needles through all the major joints, and stomps his head in.
And back to Mark and Dr van…whoops, Dr. Helsford. They’re
discussing the possibility of witchcraft being involved in the
ambassador’s death. Flashback to some guys poking a chick (not like
that, you fucking pervert!). They decide she’s a witch somehow,
and strap her to a burning stake while they whip her boy to death.
This is by way of the Professor’s explanation of the treatment of
witches back in the day.
Now to FCW’s house, where she’s performing an age-reversion
ceremony so a woman can see her past life. Sure enough, she was a
witch. First, Pope Rodney Dangerfield the II tries to exorcise her,
and then they stone her Monty Python style. She’s understandably
freaked out.
Great Cthulhu, this movie has a lot of false starts. I think
the script had Parkinson’s disease or something. Back again to Mark
and co., at a restaurant now, talking (this is turning into one of
those stupid French art house movies isn’t it?) about possession and
diviners. Lorraine tries to convince them that FCW is for real. And
then she gets Mark to undergo one of her age-reversion ceremonies
(this is actually another new scene, but I‘m sick of new paragraphs,
god damn it). He finds out that he was a cowboy and got killed by
some more of those stereotype Indians. For some reason, this
completely proves FCW’s accuracy and talent, and not that she slipped
him a Goofy. I know, you’re thinking “It’s ‘slipped him a Mickey’
you moron.” No, it’s not. It’s Goofy, just like the rest of this
movie.
Dr. Helsford calls up some old friends of his to come and help
him gang up on FCW and her new band of witches. He tells them to
meet him at FCW’s house, where there’s a repeat of the opening scene
taking place. They meet outside, and Helsford explains what’s going
on inside. There’s a blue glow forming over the house, and he
implores them that there isn’t much time. They surround the house,
one at each corner of the compass, and start a white magic counter-
ritual to stop the evil witches from literally unleashing Hell. Their
plan is to turn the demons being summoned against the witches.
The girls start dancing around with spears and prepare to
sacrifice the hapless Mark. Just as they’re about to thrust into
him (you’re fucking SICK!), Helsford’s plan works. The energy turns
on the house. The ritual is plunged into mayhem and FCW tries to
turn things around, but it’s too late. All the girls start stabbing
each other, and everyone dies. When Helsford and co. go to
investigate, they find a basement full of bodies. FCW turns into
a bat (FCBW?) and tries to escape, but one of Helsford’s cronies pins
it to the floor with a spear and kills it. Her spirit escapes in
a blaze of blue light. The end.
There, that wasn’t so bad now, was it? Despite this intrepid
reviewer getting whiplash and jet lag from all the scene changes, it
wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t Fangoria Chainsaw Award™ material by
any means, on either the best or worst end of the scale, but it was
a pleasant eighty-minute distraction from the rampant idiocy
surrounding us here at college. I’d hang with Buzz and Michelle any
day over these fuck-ups.
I blame the stupid releasing company for the
re-naming and cover that had nothing to do with the movie.
Kudos to Ted for an enjoyable romp in exploitation.