FINAL FRONTIERS

VOODOO
A-Pix

"I just thought you'd be happier to see me," mopes Corey Feldman at the start of this zombies-on-campus film. Well, we would be except that, well, you're Corey Feldman! The aging Brat Packling should never have stopped playing precocious 11-year-olds. In this "adult" role, he heats up the screen like a popsicle in a strained tale about a college fraternity of the undead trying to revive a demon. Voodoo gives the concept of Mumbo Jumbo a bad name. EJECT.

NAKED SOULS
Warnervision

Mucho mumbo jumbo here, with the accent on the jumbo, as Pamela Anderson plays a sculptress of erotic works. While she stays home slathering plaster on other busty babes, her boyfriend switches bodies with a dying Nobel scientist and minds with a dead serial killer who had something against the well-endowed. Those not swift enough to catch Barb Wire before it sank will find ample examples of the Baywatcher's charms. I thought I'd be happier to see her. FREEZE FRAME.

BACKLASH: OBLIVION 2
Full Moon

Can anyone fax me a copy of Julie Newmar's deal with the devil? Cause the way those old Catwoman-style suits still fit, she definitely got the better bargain. But she's not alone among '60s icons running amok in this Outer Space Western: George "Sulu" Takei and Isaac "Shaft" Hayes both vie for the Hambone Award. The six-shooters vs. rubber monsters plot has all the good-humored charm--and primary color production value--of a Marvel comic, with a snappy interstellar score. And Musetta Vander's cheeky Bettie Page impression has me searching for Oblivion 1. PLAY.


BAD LOVE
A-Pix

The smoky sax score--I'd guess about a pack-a-day habit--clues us that we are supposed to be in steamy sexual territory. Actually, we're in the movie Barfly after everyone's sobered up. And no matter how well pouty Pamela Gidley tries to disguise it, there's no cure for that hangover. EJECT.

ORGANIZED CRIME AND TRIAD BUREAU
Tai Seng

The white-shirt-and-black-tie squad take on the casually dressed criminals and the sharp-suited bureaucrats in this Hong Kong gunsocky flick that moves so fast you must speed-read the subtitles, some of which follow: "I am the Triad kingpin." "Stop thinking you're Rambo." "Watch out for the bullets." "Someone who has lost his love finds his beer sour." "Reserve two seats at the karaoke tonight." "There will be a gun battle--hold all traffic lights at red." "I want to have dinner with you at Stanley Steak House." "Aim your guns at them." "Why are the reporters here so fast?" PAUSE.


ONE MAN'S JUSTICE
Live Entertainment

Brian "Boz" Bosworth should get himself to Hong Kong before it closes. The failed football star could learn something about action movies. Like, "action" doesn't mean "sadistic violence." And "casting" doesn't mean hiring failed rap star Hammer to play a drug lord. But the worst thing about movies starring professional athletes: the crying scene. EJECT.

ELECTRA
New Horizons

How interesting to be personally acquainted with the co-writer of a Shannon Tweed "erotic thriller." To know that his script was re-written because, as the director noted, it reflected the emotional outlook "of a 13-year-old." To know that the author is a former employee of the Washington Post, but is not Oscar-nominated screenwriter Paul Attanassio. How interesting to have to tell someone that his name is on a really, really bad film. But we can blame the director. Partially.

This Just In (6/12/99): The "author" of Electra, who we will now reveal as Mr. Lou Aguilar, Jr., wrote in to protest our review. He informed us that director "Ellen Cabot" (Beach Babes From Beyond) is in fact Dave DeCoteau (Leather Jackets—A Love Story), and then made some rather severe allegations about why Dave prefers being known as Ellen, if you know what we mean. We do, Lou, but we still say, EJECT.

Next: Weird Killing Machines