Nuts and Bolts:  A killer cook is on the move, and the only ones who have a chance of stopping him are a gaggle of totally topless teenage tit-slingers.

Summary: Jenny is a teenage girl who gets ready for her last day of high school. She likes to sleep topless. Which is not particularly relevant to the plot of the film, but it’s important to note that we get a shot of her little apple titties right from go. This is a good sign. To make things even groovier, her parents are out of town for the weekend, enabling her the grand ole opportunity to completely slut it up with her friends. She kisses her White Liger poster and dashes off for school. 

At school, Jenny plays volleyball with her friends, Pam, Sharon, Ginger, Eve, Tawny and Portia. I have trouble keeping track of which name applies to which bimbo, but it doesn’t really matter. In functionality, they all pretty much share the same job responsibilities: Shake your left tit. Say something dumb. Shake your right tit. Giggle like a Pokémon character on Meth. Say something dumb. Shake both tits in a circular counter-clockwise motion. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. These types are easily confused and might screw up the process by shaking their right tit first before the left. As this is only the first movie in a trilogy though, we’ll forgive them.

There’s another girl present named Suzy, whom the others assign the unflattering nickname “Smelly Suzy”. Because of her olfactory offensiveness, Suzy is not picked to play on either of the volleyball teams. Typical high school bullshit. What’s not typical though is their overtly lesbian gym teacher, Miss Johnson, who takes great delight in groping one of the other girls in her efforts to improve her serving form. Awkward, but sweet. Come to think of it, maybe this practice is more common than I’ve been led to believe. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever met a heterosexual female gym coach. I don’t think they really exist. It’s probably an urban legend, right up there with Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and the triple orgasm. 

Naturally, the chicks get all sweated up and need to hit the showers. Miss Johnson takes even further delight in licking her lips as she watches the girls lather each other up. As the girl’s walk out of the room, Miss Johnson takes a few moments to compliment their beavers. Personally, I think it’s good to see faculty take such a personal interest in their students.

Jenny decides to hold  a girl’s only slumber party. The other chicks are very excited at the idea, but naturally, skanky whore Smelly Suzy isn’t invited. To punctuate their dislike for her, one of them chucks an extremely used tampon at Suzy. Carrie style! Doubtless, one of the grosser scenes from the film.

After school, one of the girls, identified later as Eve Kendall, is walking near a cemetery. A psychopathic chef pops up from behind a gravestone and whacks Eve in the gut with a meat cleaver. Bitch goes down.

Later, a weird homeless guy accosts one of the other girls, Ginger. He tells her that he just got out of prison for statutory and Ginger frantically begins throwing loose change at him. The man scrambles on the ground for the change while repeatedly muttering “Cheeseburger!” to himself. There aren’t any cheeseburgers in this Wimpy’s future though. Rather than a McDonalds clerk, it’s actually our weirdo killer chef who jumps out and kills him.

Meanwhile, Miss Johnson returns to her rather spacious home and telephones Jenny. She begins to leave a very awkward and somewhat lascivious message on her answering machine asking to help out with the party. Little does she know, the killer Chef is hiding behind her nightstand. I don’t know how she could have missed this. He’s wearing a big friggin’s chef’s hat which sticks up a good twelve inches above the nightstand. Now I admit, there are times when I come stumbling into my room with cooter on the brain and may not take immediate notice of my surroundings, but Christ. It’s a big friggin’ chef’s hat. How do you miss this? The Chef jumps out and stabs Miss Johnson repeatedly. Her death cries are recorded over Jenny’s answering machine. Falling to the floor, she manages to spit out her final word, “Beaver”.

To prepare for their slumber party, Jenny and her friend Pam go to the grocery store. They race around, slinging shit into their cart until they happen to come upon Smelly Suzy. They remind her that she’s not invited to their party and Pam shoves her into a stack of grocery items. Christ, they really don’t like this chick! Seriously, how smelly can she possibly be? Clean that thang, woman! 

Jenny and Pam go back to Jenny’s house. Their weirdo neighbor Mister Robinson comes over. Like our killer, Mister Robinson is dressed as a chef and is covered in head to toe in what appears to be blood. This is soon revealed to be strawberry jam by the way, which is likely what the prop guys used for the actual gore scenes. I don’t know why this loser is here other than to add another element of freakiness to the film. He makes some random remarks about peanut butter  and jelly, calls the girls “sticky” then leaves. Whatever. 

More girls come over to the house and they spend the rest of the afternoon decorating. Jenny shows off her “blowing” techniques by inflating a huge cock-sized balloon. I’m certain this wasn’t by accident.

Now while all of this is going on, we cut to one of the more bizarre, and ultimately annoying sequences of the film. A bunch of football players from school decide to host their own guys-only slumber party. That’s not where the similarities stop however. The slumber party chicks and the football players both share one major common denominator – they all crave big, hairy penis.  With the exception of two of them, Mike and Phil, all of the football players are gayer than… than… well, than a really big, homosexual gay guy. They even invite their middle-aged, big gay coach to their big gay football party. Coach entertains himself by grabbing some dude’s ass, then smelling his hand. The party goes on and the jocks engage in copious amounts of grab-ass, strip poker and Twister.

There’s one element from this scene that really sticks out for me. One of the football players perpetually has some brown, sticky substance smeared all across his mouth and chin. I would like to think this is chocolate pudding, but I suspect that it’s not. Awww, who am I kidding. We all know damn well what it is. It’s shit! This is the one part of the film that  I found to be slightly unrealistic. No self-respecting queer would EVER attend a dinner party with shit sticking to his face.

Coach Stinkfinger even entertains the troops by whipping up a batch of Smores. He insists that the white stuff is really marshmallow, but again, I suspect that it’s not. After a rousing session of dancing to Footloose (or some cover band’s variation thereof), two of the jocks, the affore-mentioned Mike and Phil, decide to leave the sausage-fest and see what’s happening at the girl’s party.

Let’s cut back to Smelly Suzy. Smelly Suzy doesn’t have any real clothes. She only wears a tight pink tank top and pink panties. To her horror, she realizes that she is out of candy necklaces and walks over to her neighbor, Mister Robinson, to see if he has any. Seriously, this is the best segue you could come up with? Candy necklaces? Why didn’t she just buy some when she was at the damn grocery store? Silly bitch. She goes to Robinson’s place only to find that he has been hacked to pieces. Suzy screams and runs off into the night. Presumably in search of more candy necklaces.

Meanwhile, the girls are having a great time at their slumber party. They take off their clothes, shake their boobs, change into swimsuits and get into an outside hot tub.  Mike and Phil arrive at the slumber party and climb into the tub.

Later, Pam goes off to meet with her boyfriend named Brad. While sitting in his car, Brad makes some reference to Lionel Ritchie that I didn’t quite understand, then yells at her to give him a blowjob. Amazingly, she does! I’ll have to remember the Lionel Ritchie pickup line next time I’m starved for a gobby. Well, as luck would have it, Chef Boyardee pops up and turns Pam and Brad into Spaghetti-Os. Mmmmmmm. Spaghetti-Os. Dammit! Now I’m hungry.

Jenny and the others come out to see what Pam is doing. They open the car door and find their eviscerated bodies lying in the seats. They freak out naturally, and run shrieking back inside the house. They try to telephone the police, but none of them can seem to get their cell phones to work. Where the hell were they hiding cell phones in their bikinis anyway? The possibilities stagger the imagination. Due to either user ineptitude, or excessive vaginal fluid, the damn phones just can’t get a signal. Smelly Suzy bursts into the front door and tells them that Mister Robinson is dead. They care less about Robinson’s apparent demise and are more concerned with the fact that Suzy showed up at their party. After all, she wasn’t even invited.

 One of the partiers, Sharon, decides that she will go out to find help. She wants to stop for food anyway at a place called Dos Tacos. As she exits the front door, she runs into Mike. Surprised, she accidentally stabs him with a knife, and Mike drops like a sack of shit. She probably should have gone back inside and told her friends what had happened, but she was really hungry and it’s hard to resist the allure of tacos. Mmmmmmm… tacos. Dammit! Still hungry.

Back inside the house, the unbelievably buxom party girl, Portia, realizes that she has to take a shit. While pinching a loaf, the poor girl gets hacked to death by Chef Psychoburger.  Phil goes into the bathroom to muster up his courage and finds Portia dead on the crapper. He races into the other room to tell the others, but Chef sneaks up behind him and runs him through. Looking at the blood running down his blades, he smiles and says, “Au jus! Tres bien”. Seeing Phil fall over dead, the other girls freak out and try to get away. The Chef catches up to one of the dizzy bitches and finishes her off. The others manage to flee through an upstairs window.

Jenny and Smelly Suzy run into the garage. The Chef chases them and they have their final showdown. Smelly Suzy arms herself with a circular saw and charges him, but when she runs out of cord, she falls over and the saw imbeds itself into her chest, killing her. Silly bitch. The Chef produces two meat cleavers (again, where do these guys hide this shit?) and charges at Jenny. Jenny picks up a garden rake and the two swap blows with one another. Jenny ultimately wins the battle and whacks the shit out of the Chef until he is dead. 

Acting/Dialogue: There are only two cast members in this flick who manage to pull off decent performances. Leah Ford proves that she actually has some acting chops, though there’s nothing here to really challenge her. Arguably, she’s the most captivating member of the entire crew. Co-director Tom Seymour also plays the part of Phil, the “good” jock. At first, he comes off as just another loser character from the big gay frat party, barely distinguishable from the others, but by the third act, he demonstrates some pretty innovative comedic timing. Another cast member worth mentioning is Debbie Rochon. In the b-movie circles, Miss Rochon has cultivated quite a reputation for herself and boasts a resume that includes damn near every cheesy, made for video horror flick ever made. In Bikini Bloodbath, Rochon plays the predatory lesbian gym teacher, Miss Johnson. As performances go, her work is acceptable and more than just a little twisted. Her role does benefit from some deliberately inappropriate lines of dialogue which make for a pretty decent comedic turn. Of note, there’s a scene in the school shower where she’s watching her students lathering up and she huskily whispers, “Nice beaver”. In fact, I believe these were also her last words before she gets whacked by crazy French chef guy. Unfortunately however, she gets cleavered pretty early in the movie, and the rest of the film suffers for her absence. I definitely would have liked to have seen more of her.

The rest of the cast however are terrible. Seriously, they all sound like they’re reading dialogue from the boring parts of an otherwise decent porno. I’d like to think this was done deliberately, but I suspect that it wasn’t. I suppose I shouldn’t fault them too much though. After all, their primary contributions to this film originate below the neck.

Gore: The gore is somewhat sparse, and not particularly memorable in this film. Throw in a vigorously shaken bottle of catsup, a couple of foam rubber dismembered limbs, and you have your gore quota for this movie. A few of the sliced throats look rather nice, but by and large this movie is about as gory as Mrs. Doubtfire.

Guilty Pleasures: Normally I reserve this section for talking about the quantity and quality of boobs and cooter that a movie provides. However, I’m going to save that for later. Rather, I’d like to address the soundtrack.

Now the film score itself is used only sparingly and is largely absent. What score there is however is oddly reminiscent of Charles Bernstein’s opening piece from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Although derivative, the music is unique enough that it would have helped to establish the mood for the film. If only they had used it more. There are also musical elements that echoes Harry Manfredini’s infamous “Ki-ki-ki Ma-ma-ma” staccato from the Friday the 13^th films. This was obviously intended as an homage to what is arguably the most famous slasher franchise of all time.

Now, the reason why the film score is so absent in this movie, is because it has been replaced by a more pervasive soundtrack. I’m not sure if I like it or hate it, but it’s definitely worth mentioning. Music for Bikini Bloodbath is primarily provided by a band called White Liger. Yep. That’s right. White Liger. I pray to God that this is a fictitious band that was created specifically for this film and that there isn’t an actual White Liger group out there somewhere selling out concert halls.  If you haven’t figured it out yet, White Liger pokes fun at that lame-ass early 90’s hair-band, White Lion. Except in this instance, they combine a lion with a tiger. Liger. Get it? The protagonist, Jenny, has a White Liger poster on her bedroom wall, and the end credits of the film even provides you with an actually dyed-in-the-wool White Liger music video. The lead singer in the video (who may have been one of the producers for all I know) wears this hideous blond wig that you can buy at any neighborhood party store (aisle three, right next to the mask of William Shatner). The drummer in the video pays tribute to washed up rocker Tommy Lee by executing his patented drumstick twirl every time the camera passes over him.

I’m still not sure what to make of White Liger. I can’t decide. Maybe I’ll wait it out for another ten years to see if there’s a White Liger tribute band. 

The Good: Ya gotta love a flick where the director is credited as “Who the fuck cares?” Pretty much sets the tone right there.

There are two types of bad horror movies. There are those that are supremely cheesy, and you feel a twinge of guilt in either one (possibly both) testicles as you slip it into the DVD player, but walk away satisfied, with a big goofy grin on your face and some waddage in your trousers. Then there are those that somehow manage to resurrect all of those brain cells that you killed from smoking the poor man’s chronic while slamming shooters at the corner watering hole, only to just kill them all over again in a torturous miasma of mind-numbing stupidity. I’m happy to say that Bikini Bloodbath falls into the first category.

Lots of B-rated horror flicks suffer from a production crew who tries really hard to belt out a serious film, only to fall flat on their ass. The Bikini crew is not guilty of trying too hard. In fact, they barely try at all. It’s rather obvious to me that these blokes had a great deal of fun making this flick and it shows through in nearly every scene. That’s not to suggest some elevated sense of theatrical quality mind you, but as a viewer, I appreciate the level of excitement that was infused into this project.

Now, when you have a film that boasts the title Bikini Bloodbath, there comes with it, a certain level of expectation.  Do I really have to spell it out for you? I’m talking about TITS! Big tits. Small tits. Some as big your head. A veritable cornucopia of melons, cantaloupes, boysenberries and Bavarian cream-filled knockers. I had decided before I even placed the disc into the DVD player that I would give this flick a five-minute window in which to provide me with at least one set of perkies before I shut it off. Bikini Bloodbath delivers. Within the first thirty seconds, the lead actress, Leah Ford, is seen rising topless from her bed and getting ready for school. The boob distribution ratio is pretty consistent, and even during the scenes where there is no explicit nudity, you can at least count on the entire cast to be barely clothed throughout the duration of the film. Christ, I love boobs. Heaven for me would be a thirty-layer giant ice cream cake filled entirely with boobs. That’s how much I like ‘em.

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t give credit to some other fine points outside of boobage. I implied earlier that the film doesn’t take itself too seriously, and when it comes to the straight-to market, that’s probably a good thing. Directors Jonathan Gorman and Tom Seymour interject a lot of humor into their project. Many of the jokes fall flat, but there are some sight gags that they succeed in pulling off quite well.

One of the recurring gaffs is the use of generic names. Now, as many know, low-budget crews are often limited by what they are allowed to film, and there are people, locations and brands that don’t want to see their name associated with some low-rent horror flick. Not without getting paid at least. I’m not sure if such was the case with Bikini Bloodbath, but the directors took this foible and turned it into a fairly workable gag. With the exception of a fine Mexican eatery known as Dos Tacos, damn near everything in this movie is slapped with a no-frills generic label. The high school that the booby chicks go to is identified simply as “High School”. Their freakie, lesbian gym teacher, Miss Johnson, wears a shirt that reads, “Gym Teacher”. In keeping with that theme, all of the members of the football team wear white t-shirts labeled “Football Player”. Hell, they don’t even wear jerseys! An early booby victim jogs near a graveyard labeled, appropriately enough, “Cemetery”, and later in the film, one of the jocks drives up to Leah Ford’s home in a vehicle whose make and model is identified as…. Wait for it… "CAR"!  A cheap gag, but it works.

Another recurring joke involves a vivacious, yet unpopular girl named “Smelly Suzy”. The other girls are hosting a slumber party, but make a point of letting Suzy know that she is definitely not invited to join in. Aside from a possible hygiene issue, I’m not sure why Suzy is an outcast from the rest of the crew. Her body is adorned with the required tramp stamp on the small of her back, and she runs around half-naked. Seems par for the course for me. Anyway, the other party girls don’t like this chick and even in the midst of trying to escape the cleaver-wielding killer chef, they always take a moment to remind Smelly Suzy that she wasn’t even invited to their little party to begin with. Satirically, I do think there’s a certain level of brilliance here. The party girls prioritize ridiculing the unpopular chick even over that of their own safety. I think that’s fairly symptomatic of today’s culture and it wouldn’t surprise me if there were lesser minds watching the film who simply didn’t get the joke. Many of the other jokes used in this movie suffer from severe overuse, but I think this one worked pretty well.

Oh… I almost forgot. I learned a very important lesson from this movie. Apparently, if you angrily demand a blow job from a woman, she’ll do it! Who knew that the often arduous task of soliciting a hummer could be so easy? I’ve been playing it wrong for years! Fuck all that wining, dining, courtship and slow seduction nonsense. Next time I see a chick, I’m just gonna yell, “Yo bitch! Gargle my gerkin!” and let the magic ensue. Thanks, Jon and Tom!

As I said before, films such as these come with a certain level of expectation. There is an unspoken promise between creator and viewer in terms of craftsmanship and satisfying whatever standards that the viewer establishes within his own psyche before watching the film. When it comes to snarkiness, satire and funbag quota, Bikini Bloodbath delivers on the promise.

The Bad: A common trait amongst horror movies in general is that they usually come up short with regards to their main antagonist. Now, no one’s expecting every two-bit flick to bust out with the next Freddy Krueger or Tom Green, but I felt a noticeable lack of effort on Bikini Bloodbath’s part to produce a worthwhile villain. The killer in this movie, the Chef, is a man of few words. He’s also a man of little interest. He’s not even remotely intimidating and I doubt if he would be able to get a job as an extra for Halloween Horror Nights.

When it comes to low-budget horror movies, I can excuse a lot of things. I understand that budgetary constraints can restrict you from realizing the fullness of a director’s vision. However, that soap don’t wash when it comes to poor screenwriting. When it comes to the Chef, we are presented with nothing more than a mindless killer who dresses up in a dime-store chef’s outfit. We have no idea who he is, why he’s killing these people, or why his victims all seem to be people that know one another. There’s also the matter of that he’s not in the film a whole lot. We see him a bit in the beginning when he whacks Miss Johnson, the jogger and the homeless guy. Then we don’t see him again until much, much later in the film. His killing technique is rather conventional, utilizing sharpened weapons commonly associated with a cook. Not particularly imaginative. Ultimately, the Chef is probably the most un-interesting serial killer I’ve ever seen in a slasher flick. To use culinary jargon: Although the producers gave proper attention to the appetizers and desserts in this four-course feature, they neglected to apply the requisite attention to the entrée. Chef Ramsey would have your ass for that!

Although the killer was the definitive weak spot in this movie, Bikini Bloodbath also suffers from another glaring problem. MONTAGE OVERKILL! As a rule, I despise montages in movies, no matter what the film. I think they are a cheap, lazy technique that only serves one of two purposes: To showcase the flavor-of-the-week heavy metal recording artist who desperately needs those residuals to feed his crack habit, or, to pad the film’s running time because the producers realized that without it, their entire project would barely bust north of forty-minutes. The middle of the movie busts out with no less than three montages, all piled on top of another. Not only were they unnecessary, but they were also quite irritating. The first montage served absolutely no purpose and consisted of nothing more than characters Jenny and Pam shopping at a grocery store. Seriously, why do I need to watch two chicks ponder the savings potential of a box of fucking Wheat Thins? Immediately following this is a second montage showing the booby girls decorating the house. You know, balloons and streamers and shit. Honestly, we could have fast forwarded right to the slumber party and allowed the audience to fill in the blanks as to the brain-wracking mystery of how the house got decorated and where the snacks came from.

More annoying than the endless montages and rock videos was the big gay football party. Admittedly, I found this a little amusing at the onset, but it quickly descended into a joke that had long overshot its punch line. The big gay football party just went on forever. Endless unfunny, homoerotic pratfalls, ass-grabbings and hi-fives that culminated in an awkward game of “Twatster” (the big gay football version of Twister). Now, I have to give credit where credit is due. There is a scene where one of the more rotund gay football players pantomimes the infamous scene from Flashdance where Jennifer Beals is sitting on the chair and gets inundated with a bucket of water. This was pretty damn funny, and probably the only scene from the big gay football party that I liked.

As I mentioned earlier, b-movie starlet Debbie Rochon is criminally underused in this flick. That’s not the greatest crime however. In addition to a minimalized role, she doesn’t even show her tits? What the hell? Every other chick who graces the screen manages to bust out the “girls” at least twice within the span of an half an hour. This… this… this is just wrong! Very, very wrong! An affront to every red-blooded American male who craves, nay… REQUIRES, the image of a wrack big enough you could serve hors oeuvres off of it! This gross oversight is easily corrected however. Debbie Rochon: If you are reading this (and I know that you are), feel free to email me topless photos of yourself in care of the Headhunter at headhunter32746@yahoo.com. You’ll be glad you did. I’ll be glad you did. Millions of people across the world will be glad you did. I’ll be checking my inbox. 

Great Lines:

“No I didn’t fucking kill her! You’re not even invited!” – Eve

“Nice beaver, Ginger!” – Miss Johnson

“She totally wants your nappy dugout.” – Jenny

“You girls should go inside and shower together. You’re all sticky and you might catch cold.” – Mister Robinson

Overall Rating: 5 out of 10 severed heads

Review published on February 27th, 2009