Vicious Lips

Vicious Lips is like a wild but bad trip - without doubt the movie is one of a few but the reasons why you should watch this movie are not the story nor the acting or that wild mix of a story (a little Rocky Horror Picture Show shining through): watch this wonder if you want 80s hairstyle galore, listening to 80s rock music a la Heart (the band who got some fame in the 80s) and 80s fashion with all its unique but terrible taste. Last but not least, director Albert Pyun is responsible for this "gem" - I know and like mostly his post-apocalyptic trash gems like Cyborg (van Damme!), Omega Doom (Rutger Hauer) and Radioactive Dreams (Michael Dudikoff). My exact rate for Vicious Lips is 3 + 1 for all those happy memories of the 80s evoked by this work of trash and the few moments of horror added.

Albert Pyun gives us here the most disjoncted movie he ever did, a gigantic sing-along-schlock-o-rama that goes all the way. This story of 4 babes in a pseudo punk-rock band Vicous Lips that go to a in club 'The "Radioactive Dreams" as in Mr Pyun's second flick) is simply hilarious.

Near-zero budget allows to create the impossible :from so-so FX of spaceship to the great venusian beast created by master Greg Cannom to monsters & make up extradordinaire by John Carl Buechler and the Chiodo Bros, this is quite unbelievable. it is sometimes beyond criticism and that's why it has to become a cult movie. Almost invisible now, grab it if u can (it sometimes appears under the title "Pleasure Planet"). This is a wild ride, a mix of sci-fi; comedy; musical with some T&A and some half naked bodybuilders + outrageous make up.Something for everyone indeed.

Some fast editing, good photography and bad acting surrounds the whole movie. And as usual, the fabulous & Pyun regular Linda Kerridge erupts with beauty & flair , her eyes saying "what am I doing here?" . A surreal & nightmarish vision.

Vicous Lips is a masterpiece from outer space and deserves to be nominated for the best worst movies ever. An 8, definitely.

"Vicious Lips" is set in the far future, where a band finally gets the opportunity for That Breakthrough Gig -- if they can make it to an "in" club on another planet in time...

Given that the plot features no major twists, turns or surprises, given that the set is extremely trashy, the number of locations limited and the choice of them not overly inspired, Vicious Lips seems like a longish episode of the original Star Trek sans the familiarity with the characters we all know and love -- so whatever persuaded me to rate it "excellent"?

I'm a sucker for Big Hair, and The Music of the Eighties, both of which the movie has plenty of, since the all-girl band's guitar-and-synth sound is vaguely reminiscent of the early Kim Wilde's, if both "rockier" and catchier (and a lot like that of "Radioactive Dreams", another Albert Pyun-movie of that era with a more coherent plot, but no big hair). Last but not least, the general air of ultra-trash somehow utterly fails to be annoying, lending a certain charm to the movie instead, soon turning the initial impression ("Hey, I could do that!") into a burning desire to phone up all your friends:

"Let's make a movie!"

Doing a little research on "Vicious Lips", I unearthed the fact that the movie never got a home video release in North America until more than twenty-five years after the movie was completed (though the movie was released on video in other countries.) Watching the movie, it becomes clear why apparently no North American video company was eager to distribute the movie. The fact that it was written and directed by Albert Pyun (for some reason billed as "Albert F. Pyun" here) should give a clue. This is an AWFUL movie. It's a real cheap production, often looking like it was filmed in basements as well as abandoned buildings, and often with the camera zooming in very close to the actors to hide the cheapness and to have stuff happen out of camera range so no expense has to be spent to actually show it. The movie is broadly acted so that every character comes across as a dimwit. The songs are very forgettable, and would have been considered that even back in the 1980s when the movie was made. But the worst thing about the movie is the screenplay. The characters are really thin, and there are huge chunks of the movie when little to nothing is happening. Not only that, in the last ten minutes there is a surprise twist that will have you throwing your remote at your television. All of which makes this movie one of Pyun's worst efforts among the countless bad movies he's made.

A bit like if Pitch Black were filmed in the 80s, made no sense, was about a female rock band and rubbish.

Some of the songs are good but the background music playing on a loop is deeply annoying and the cast just keep on repeating the same lines over and over. There is about two sentences of plot in the entire thing.

Overall this collection of clips and songs is barely a movie, it is stylised for sure, but that is really all it has. It's an extended 80s music video and nothing else. If you like that type of thing then great, for everyone else it's a pass.