Bikini Frankenstein (Review)

Bikini Frankenstein


2010
Directed by Fred Olen Ray (as Nicholas Medina)
Written by Sherman Scott

Bikini Frankenstein
Bikini Frankenstein was first hinted at after the titles of Bikini Airways. But then the film never came out and people dismissed it as a joke. But, Cinemax being skinemax kept ordering new Fred Olen Ray Bikini movies, and as Ray worked his way through concept after concept, Bikini Frankenstein suddenly became viable again, and thus now exists. There isn’t a callback to Bikini Airways that I recognized, though there is an airline in the film, but a shame the airline wasn’t Janus Air, which would have been a cool callback. I’m all about inserting references into films no one will ever get. Frankie Cullen appeared in Bikini Airways, though, so that’s something.

Bikini Frankenstein was one of five Bikini films made at the same time – (the other four are Bikini Royale 2, Twilight Vamps, Housewives from Another World, and Bikini Jones and the Temple of Eros) – and there is a cast shakeup from the usual Fred Olen Ray stable of actors as Cinemax wanted to shake things up a bit. Now, I know many people are disappointed we don’t have any Voodoo, Evan Stone, or Nicole Sheridan in the films, but they made tons of flicks together and there are even a few I haven’t seen yet. But at least we still got Christine Nguyen! Priorities, man! Also Ted Newsom, always a winner.
Bikini Frankenstein

Quality-wise, It looks like these new films are shot in widescreen, though that may have happened with the last four films, but I just recorded them off of tv so I am not sure. That’s what happens when you move to a house without cable, you have to buy dvds. The audio has also improved with the new cameras, and even the sex scenes are better. Plus Retromedia revamped their logo to better fit the widescreen.

Bikini Frankenstein is based on the novel by Mary Shelley – why not? Public domain has its privileges! This review is based on the classic novel Mickey Mouse and Boy Thursday! Okay, maybe not…but at least Bikini Frankenstein isn’t fighting zombies.

There are two special songs from rockabilly/rockaghoul/surf music band The Graveyard Farmers – Formaldehyde and Gimme Some Loving, for those of you into music that is cool.
Bikini Frankenstein

Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Frankie Cullen) – has crackpot theories! Frankie Cullen in glasses looks amazingly like David Arquette in glasses. It’s weird! Frankenstein brings the dead back to life, has sex with his assistants and students, and gets revenge on those who laughed at him by succeeding in his goals. It’s totally inspirational! Frankie Cullen was seen before on TarsTarkas.NET in Cleavagefield and was somewhere in Bikini Airways, being the only connection to the original announcement of the film I could find.
Ingrid (Brandin Rackley) – Frankenstein’s assistant, but she does her best work outside the lab. Brandin Rackley was also in Cleavagefield.
Eve (Jayden Cole) – It’s Bikini Frankenstein! And yet, she never wears a bikini… In any event, Eve is brought back from the dead and now lusts for human private parts. And she gets some. Lots. Too much to handle.
Claudia (Christine Nguyen) – Claudia is an old acquaintance of Frankenstein’s who is now with Frankenstein’s old rival. But that doesn’t stop her from getting some action on the side. I’m going to be lazy and just link to the Christine Nguyen tag, but she’s been in a ton of films we’ve covered!
Clyde (Billy Chappell as Tony Marino) – Dr. Frankenstein’s arch-rival gets him banished, but is later embarrassed as Frankenstein proves he was right all along…
Professor Van Sloane (Ted Newsom) – Biology department head at State University, who banishes Dr. Frankenstein after he catches the good doctor playing doctor with his daughter. His poor dog Pookie died and Dr. Frankenstein wanted to reanimate it. Ted Newsom is a Fred Olen Ray regular and has been seen here in Super Ninja Doll, Ghost in a Teeny Bikini, Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet, Bewitched Housewives, and Bikini Royale.
Dr. Waldman (Ron Ford) – A fellow member of the faculty at State University who gets invited to the big unveiling of Bikini Frankenstein. Ron Ford is a one-man cult movie making machine, he writes, directs, does special effects, camera work, drives people around, and will even show up with a goofy mustache.
Debbie (Alexis Texas) – Professor Van Sloane’s sweet daughter is Dr. Frankenstein’s student. Who he has sex with. Alexis Texas has been slimed more than Bill Murray in Ghostbusters in such fine films as Bubble Butt Babysitters, Destination Tonsils 2, Rain Coater’s Point of View 6, and Buttwoman vs. Slutwoman.

Bikini Frankenstein

Bollywood Kill Bill

India is coming out with a Kill Bill remake! Starring Vidya Balan as Uma Thurman’s role. Sujoy Ghosh will be directing. This will be very interesting, because it will either be really good or really hilarious. Unless it’s really boring. It will be really something, you can be assured of that!
vidya-balan

I came to chew bubblegum and kill Bill. And I'm all out of Bills...

The Room – The game

If you have been scarred for life by the horror that is The Room, or at least mildly annoyed but grateful that a RiffTrax of The Room existed to take your mind off the boredom, then you might be interested to know there is now a The Room flash game made by a dude who is not Tommy Wiseau, so there is no way it can be as good/bad.

It’s not really safe for work, much like the actual film, so don’t be playing this and have the boss walk by unless you are the boss, in which case an employee will walk by and sue you. Basically, just do this at home, folks!

The Room Tribute

the Room

Seduce and Swindle

Discount Puppet Explosion 411 – Episode 102 – Seduce & Swindle

Discount Puppet Explosion 411 – Two teams compete to give the best reviews of bad movies. In this episode, Team B’s first entry is a review of the Japanese film Seduce and Swindle, set in the cutthroat world of marriage swindling. Is it enough to get the lead and win the fabulous prizes? Or is Team B now in danger of being blasted to the moon?

Visit us on Youtube. And remember, it’s Seduction Time!

Seduce and Swindle

Yod Manut Computer

Yod Manut Computer (Review)

Yod Manut Computer

aka Computer Superman

1977
Directed by ??? (maybe Sompote Sands?)

Yod Manut Computer is a Thai comedy about some wacky guys with wacky powers who have wacky adventures in Wackyland, Wackyland being Thailand, which is pretty wacky. Thailand has an awesome film industry which is in complete disarray because most of their film heritage is disintegrating as no one cares, and most of their modern films are being chopped up by censors from the various governments Thailand has over the years. It is possible if you read this in the future (hello from the past, by the way) that Thailand will have several more governments from the current one, which recently killed a bunch of people and there were riots in the capital. See, Wackyland!

So Yod Manut Computer made it onto vcd because it was made by Chaiyo Productions and Sompote Sands, as opposed to some random production company. You might have heard of Chaiyo productions thanks to Chaiyo’s theft of the Ultraman franchise and the resounding lawsuits that Chaiyo finally lost decades later. This film still looks like garbage what with the fullscreen cropping, vcd compression, and film stock degradation. Heck, even the title screen seems to be gone, or maybe the film never mentioned its title as the credits do roll but without anything that I can recognize as a film title, and I spend literally over an hour trying to read every credit in the beginning and comparing it to words in the title. The things I do for this website…

The Roll Call has a grand total of one person with their actual name. This is not because of a lack of trying, this is because of a lack of information on older Thai film in English. If you want to do something about it, learn Thai, then translate a lot of Thai film credits into English, launch a website dedicated to identifying Thai actors in film, and stop complaining that I am not doing it because I already have a bunch of other languages to learn before Thai. So whoever Duangchewan and Choosri are will remain a mystery for now.

Pilam (Yodchai Meksuwan) – Pilam is a freak who was born with a tail. Many people are born with tails, and a few of them aren’t human/demon hybrids but normal people like you and me! Pilam is one of them Pilam eventually loses his tail thanks to a crazy lady, but quickly becomes computer enhanced thanks to Crazy Professor Guy. Yodchai Meksuwan was one of the Thai movie superstars in the 1970s after the death of Mitr Chaibancha but left film in 1977, though he occasionally pops back up, but he’s mainly an artist now.
Snotty (Thep Tienchai) – James Band!! Snotty produces gooey goo from his nose that acts like glue, but only when the script calls for it, otherwise it acts like snot.
Hands (???) – Hands has giant hands, thus the name I gave him since I couldn’t figure out his real name. Maybe I should have called him Manos… He was the inspiration for the Foo Fighters video of Everlong!
Ears (???) – Ears has big ears, which act like radar dishes and allow him to hear things that he shouldn’t hear. Like your secrets. Ears knows what you did. You better confess to the cops now, Ears is writing them an email to tip them off as you read this. Ears can grow the ears even bigger if he wants to, which will allow him to hear into your very soul, and the darkness that resides there. Poor Ears, as you got some nasty stuff going on deep in your soul. Maybe you should talk to a psychologist. Or an exorcist…
Crazy Professor Guy (???) – He’s crazy, he’s a professor, he’s the Crazy Professor Guy! Obviously his real name and not one I just made up for the review.

Site News

After long last every review has been fixed and tagged, so now all the videos should work and all the internal links should work. Of course, as soon as I say that I’ll find things that are broken…

The complete movie list has been finished as well and added as a page. It’s the easiest way to find all the reviews. I’ll try to add it on the sidebar as soon as I sit down and actually do it. Now the real fun can begin and I can work on making a wordpress theme for the main site! I have a few candidates in mind for modding purposes, and have even figured out how to fix a table spacing issue that was causing problems with some of the themes I wanted to test out/steal parts from. As much fun as hard to read blue menus and a generic mountain range is, it’s time for a change. Hopefully this doesn’t take more than a month or so, but as I got a lot on my plate right now who knows…

The video reviews have started! I’ve been trying to work on an angle for them for a while, and hopefully this will at least be not boring. The first one is up and the second one will be up soon, they’ll probably show up two at a time in keeping with the show’s theme and how quickly I can watch films that would work better in video format. The Discount Puppet Explosion 411 show has pages on YouTube and Blip.tv if you want to follow them that way. We even have a subscriber already, and going through his movies he uses photos from TarsTarkas.NET for his Godzilla reviews. Since he isn’t a jerk like the guys at the Godzilla Wiki, that’s fine by me. This might not be the only multimedia expansion of TarsTarkas.NET in the near future…

Written reviews will continue and the next one should be up in another day or so, maybe sooner if I have time tonight. We also managed to find a way to get twitter to update when we post so now TarsTarkas.NET can be even more lazy. And that’s the greatest victory of all.

The fixed articles mean I will have more time to devote to cult movie news articles here on the blog, so they should start appearing with more regularity, assuming the wireless internet at work gets fixed so I can actually do stuff during my lunch break on the laptop. But if it’s broken still I’ll just have to play more Space Empires 4…