Flesh Gordon

Which is worse: A cheesy porno flick or one of those old off the wall sci-fi swordfight potboilers?

Answer: How about a crossbreed? A sci-fi swordfight porno flick!

This is an interesting parody of two awful genres, played not against each other, but played INTO each other, dreadful writing and acting parodied by deft writing and clever acting.

Not a family flick (of course, not everything needs to be family fare) but an interesting play on the line of "can we make it so bad it is good?"

Flesh Gordon (aka Flash Gordon) returns in a sex comedy.

I have never reviewed a porno flick so I feel a bit out of my element here. The title of the movie suggests that we are in for male nudity but the camera is more interested in zooming in on the naked female body, in other words - this film is made for guys!

The special effects range from terrible to outstanding.

The jokes are mostly funny.

Science fiction and comedy are two genres that don't always work when put together, however sometimes we get gems like Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home (1986). But generally speaking, the two themes just don't mix (see TV's Lost In Space season 2).

This puts Flesh Gordon in a unique position as it has some very funny moments and its King Kong-spoof would have to rank as one of the most amusing things seen on the screen since Adam West Batman (1966).

Granted, the bigger budget 1980 movie had better sets but if you want an all round fun flick - Flesh Gordon is the show for you!

There is so much to see in this movie (besides the nekkid people), Great special effects, weird sight gags, penisaurs, robots... Many images are indelible, The black swan spaceship of the lesbian queen, the great claymation monster saying "My AAAsss!", robin hood seducing flash gordon (those aren't the character names but you get the idea...), oh yeah, and emperor Wang's cheerleaders.

Not a great movie by any means, but really odd. And so much better than the Dino DeLaurentiis version that came later.

When I was a kid one of the cinemas in the Isle of Man would have special late night showings in the summer season. It would alternate between soft core films and kung fu films.

Flesh Gordon would be wheeled out each summer, I think it promises more than it delivers.

A spoof of early Flash Gordon serials. Earth is hit by sex rays from outer space sending people into a sexual frenzy. When an aircraft carrying Flesh Gordon and Dale Ardor is hit by sex rays, the plane crashes as everyone starts having an orgy including the pilots. Flesh and Dale escape by parachute and land near the laboratory of Flexi Jerkoff who has a plan to stop the sex rays which emanate from outer space.

They travel to the planet Porno in Jerkoff's phallic rocket. They crash land in planet Porno ruled by Emperor Wang and he intends to marry Dale while Flesh is taken by Queen Amora as a sex slave. Somehow Flesh needs to defeat Wang but he faces rapist robots, lesbian pirates, a penisaurus, and giant monster called the great god porno.

Flesh Gordon has some really good stop motion animation, an obvious tribute to Ray Harryhausen. The film itself parodies the 1930s Flash Gordon serial rather faithfully.

However in its heart this is a campy softcore parody with some bad puns and wooden acting from Jason Williams who plays Flesh. As the title implies there is a lot of flesh on display and it has a few inspired smutty scenes. I do remember some lads at school had seen a pirate version of this movie and thought it was hilarious.

However what would had been classed as daring in the 1970s is now tame and lot of it is dull as well not helped by the poor quality of the video. It works as a piece of naughty kitsch.

This is a wonderful parody of the original serial version from the mid 1930s. The quality of acting, writing, directing, budget, costuming, and effects is dead on, almost a one-for-one match. Lots of great dialog, very quotable ("Good, there's Oxygen on this planet.").

There are two versions of this film floating around, the unrated version and a cut "R" version. The unrated version is the one to see! Most films can have "X" material edited out of them with no consequence, but not here. Whole sections of the plot (as thin as it is) are missing without the deleted footage.

This film features early work from Greg Jein, David Allen, Rick Baker, and Jim Danforth (who is listed with his name spelled backwards "Mij Htrofnad"). All went on to greater things in their careers.

Avoid the sequal from 1989, it tried too hard and fell flat on all fronts.