Bikini Airways (2003)

Bikini Airways is a 2003 made-for cable skinflick. It’s a sex comedy but essentially it’s a skinflick. But it is directed by inspired low-budget cult auteur Fred Olen Ray so that makes it a more enticing prospect. And Ray knew how to get surprisingly good results on almost non-existent budgets.

It benefits from a basically good central idea.

Terri (Regina Russell) suddenly finds herself the owner of an airline. Which is not as great as it sounds since the airline employs a total of two people and is on the verge of bankruptcy. There is no money, but plenty of debts.

Terri knows that the only thing that can save the airline is publicity, preferably free publicity. Her boyfriend is a photographer and he specialises in nudie stuff. He suggests that hot near-naked babes would provide perfect publicity. And he is sure he can persuade his three gorgeous regular models to lend their talents to the scheme.

Having three bikini babes manning the check-in counter attracts attention but no customers, but the boyfriend still has one idea left. A young oil tycoon, Gary (Brad Bartram), had a bachelor party planned for the day before his wedding but since he has to get to Miami in a hurry for the nuptials there’s no time to have that party. But what if Terri’s airline could fly Gary and his friends to Miami and he could have the bachelor party on the way, on the plane?

Those three bikini babes will provide the entertainment.

The entertainment they provide is in the form of lots of hot steamy sex. These girls have a lot of energy and a lot of imagination, and no inhibitions at all.

There is, lurking in the background, an actual plot of sorts. It involves two relationships heading for the rocks and the chance of finding true love in unexpected places.

Comic relief is provided by the broken-down chief pilot Captain Sam and his incompetent co-pilot Dave. Captain Sam spends most of the flight taking photos of the sexual gymnastics taking place in the passenger cabin. We do have serious doubts about their piloting abilities.

This is a softcore film but the sex scenes get pretty raunchy and there are lots of sex scenes. Fred Olen Ray doesn’t have the genius of a Radley Metzger when it comes to shooting sex scenes but he does know how to make them steamy and sweaty.

Overall this is a good-natured movie. The photographer boyfriend is a bit of a jerk but he’s not evil, it’s just that he can’t keep it in his pants. And he is exposed to some pretty extreme temptation. You can’t entirely blame him for having it off with one of the Bikini Airways babes. Gary’s two friends get it on with the other two babes, but the girls are after all being provided as the in-flight entertainment.

And Terri and Gary take quite an interest in each other.

It’s all cheerfully naughty and nobody really gets hurt.

The acting is at best passable but let’s face it the cast members were chosen for their willingness to take their clothes off. Jay Richardson as Captain Sam is quite good fun. Regina Russell is likeable.

If you accept Bikini Airways for what it is, a skinflick with some amusing moments, and you don’t have a problem with naked girls and lots of sex scenes it’s rather enjoyable. Recommended.

The Retromedia Blu-Ray looks very nice. Extras include another much less interesting made-for-cable skinflick.

Alienator (1990)

Alienator is a very low-budget 1990 science fiction action movie directed by Fred Olen Ray. So you assume you’re going to have fun.

The title suggests that it’s going to be a rip-off of both Aliens and The Terminator. It doesn’t actually have much to do with either of those movies. But it does have an ultimate warrior android. It also owes a bit to The Astounding She-Monster (1957).

Jan-Michael Vincent is the Commander of a prison planet. This planet is in a distant part of the galaxy and although this is a humanoid civilisation it has no connection with Earth. No-one on Earth even knows that this distant interstellar civilisation exists.

A particularly dangerous prisoner, Kol (Ross Hagen), is about to be executed. The commander has no moral qualms about this. Any prisoner who has ended up on his prison planet has committed truly horrific crimes. The Commander has other things on his mind, like his assistant Tara (P.J. Soles). Or rather he has his mind on her cleavage. You can’t blame him.

Kol pulls off a daring escape, steals a spacecraft and ends up on Earth.

He encounters a bunch of college kids in an RV deep in the woods. Kol has been injured. The kids pick him up and take him to the cabin of forest ranger Ward Armstrong (John Phillip Law).

It soon becomes obvious that Kol is a pretty strange guy. He spins this story about being from another planet. And he claims that a deadly killer robot has been sent to hunt him down.

It soon becomes apparent that Kol really is from another planet and the killer robot from outer space is real as well. Ward and the college kids are not entirely sure about Kol but they seem to have no choice other than to try to help escape from the killer robot. They figure the robot is trying to kill all of them.

The robot, the Alienator, is a lady killer robot (played by female bodybuilder Teagan Clive). The Alienator seems to be unstoppable. Bullets definitely do not stop her.

Ward turns to the Colonel (Leo Gordon). The Colonel was in Nam. He’s a war hero and a super-tough hombre. The Colonel doesn’t buy all this outer space stuff but he’s a man who never runs away from a fight. The Vietcong didn’t scare him and killer robot girls don’t scare him either.

Of course Ward and the college kids and the Colonel have have all been operating on the assumption that the Alienator is the villain, or rather villainess. That might be true but the action on Earth is intercut with action on that prison planet and the situation might be a good deal more complicated.

This is a very low-budget movie which usually didn’t bother Fred Olen Ray who always figured (mostly correctly) that energy and enthusiasm could compensate for lack of money.

The problem here isn’t the crude spaceship models. The problem is the Alienator. She doesn’t look very scary in a conventional way. She looks like she’s hoping for a gig as bass player in a really bad 70s metal band. Her whole look is so terrible that it achieves a bizarre kind of greatness. And Teagen Clive does have a certain presence. She’s certainly memorable, and that’s what counts. Like P.J. Soles’ cleavage in the early scenes she gets your attention.

The overall tone is pleasingly odd, with everyone playing things as straight as they can no matter how goofy things are getting.

There’s no graphic violence and no nudity. It’s silly lighthearted fun.

Fred Olen Ray had a knack for getting away with movies like this. You get the feeling that he was having a great time. You’ll need a lot of beers and a big tub of popcorn but if you have those things you’ll have a good time as well. The Alienator is recommended.

My copy is a Spanish DVD release (in English with removable Spanish subtitles) and it offers a pretty decent transfer. I believe there’s a Blu-Ray release, from Shout! Factory.

Star Slammer (1986)

Star Slammer (AKA Prison Ship) is a 1986 Fred Olen Ray movie so you know it’s going to be crazy goofy fun. It’s a women-in-prison movie set on a prison spaceship but done in tongue-in-cheek fashion.

The fact that the movie is divided into chapters and carries the subtitle Adventures of Taura is the result of Ray’s enthusiasm at the time for old movie serials. He wanted to capture the same sort of flavour and to an extent he succeeds.

Taura (Sandy Brooke) is a miner on a remote planet and her problems begin when Bantor (Ross Hagen) arrives with his henchmen. Bantor is collecting taxes on behalf of The Sovereign, who rules this part of the galaxy. During a struggle Taura plunged Bantor’s hand into an acid bath. Bantor was evil and crazy to begin with but this pushes him over the edge into out-and-out madness.

Taura finds herself sentenced to the prison ship Vehement. She was convicted of murdering a crazy old priest who was actually murdered by Bantor.

The prisoners are all women and they’re the tough lot you expect in a women-in-prison movie. The toughest is Mike (Suzy Stokey). Against the odds Taura and Mike become friends.

The Vehement is run by sex-crazed head warder Exene (Marya Gant) although day-to-day discipline is in the hands of insane and sadistic trusty Muffin (Dawn Wildsmith).

Experiments in mind control are being conducted on the Vehement.

Things start to get violent and crazy when Bantor arrives. He’s out for revenge. He’s also completely insane and obsessed with the idea that he’s battling demons. The girls are going to have to find a way to get off that prison ship.

Lots of mayhem ensues, with a great deal of running down corridors blasting away with zap guns.

This movie lacks some of the features you generally expect in a women-in-prison movie. There’s very little nudity and very little sex. Ray had hired a bunch of girls to make the movie without really knowing what kind of movie he was going to make so he didn’t have girls willing to do nudity.

They might not have been prepared to take their clothes off but they give enthusiastic performances and are obviously having fun doing the bad girl stuff.

Ross Hagen is wildly over-the-top as Bantor and he’s a joy to watch. The two standout performances are by Dawn Wildsmith and Marya Gant. Wildsmith is delightfully unhinged as Muffin. Marya Gant oozes twisted degenerate sexuality as Exene. These two performances are enough to justify the price of admission on their own.

The movie was going to need some cool space battle scenes but that was hopelessly beyond the limits of the available budget so Ray cut a deal with Roger Corman to use footage from Battle Beyond the Stars. It is cool footage and it’s integrated perfectly in the movie. There’s also at least one shot from John Carpenter’s Dark Star.

The costumes were done on the cheap or rented or borrowed from other productions but they look right and they look fun.

There was enough money to build a couple of sets which look quite OK. The prison ship is supposed to be dark and grungy and claustrophobic so having small sets that look dark and grungy works just fine.

The movie works because Fred Olen Ray understands that if you have a really small budget the things to do is to keep the pacing as frantic as possible. That way people won’t notice the plot holes and cheap sets and iffy production values. And in this movie the pace never lets up.

A sequel which would continue Taura's adventures, Chain Gang Planet, was planned but never made (although a script was written).

The Kino Lorber Blu-Ray offers a lovely anamorphic transfer with a typically entertaining and informative audio commentary by Fred Olen Ray.

Star Slammer is fun and silly and exciting and amusing. It does manage to have a bit of a serial feel, but like an old movie serial done with an 80s sensibility. It works for me. Highly recommended.