Maria's B-Movie Mayhem-Riot on 42nd St / Bad Girls [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Under a different name and in another genre, Tim Kincaid actually enjoys a reputation as a gifted director (John Waters called him an auteur). That name is Joe Gage and that genre is gay porn. Under his nom de porn, Kincaid had directed such 1970s genre classics as "Kansas City Trucking Co." and "El Paso Wrecking Corp.", movies that actually show an artistic flair. Like so many directors of adult movies--Tom DeSimone, Gregory Dark--he made the jump to R-rated exploitation movies in the 1980s, directing as Tim Kincaid.

As evidenced by this double feature, no one would call Tim Kincaid an auteur, not even John Waters.

If a high school drama club were to decide that instead of putting on a production of "Our Town" or "South Pacific" it would make a trashy exploitation movie, it might look like "RIOT ON 42ND ST." (albeit with less nudity). Except "Riot" isn't even that good. John Hayden went on to have a lengthy acting career ("The Social Network" is a recent credit), but as the ex-con Glen he's just a glowering mustache, returning to "the Deuce" to re-open his family's old nightclub, the Garage. He's undeterred by a cabbie's ongoing monologue about what a sleazy cesspool the street has become (roller skating thugs are a particular problem, apparently). Besides, Glen has more serious threats with which to contend, namely a rival club owner Farrell (Michael Speero). When Farrell isn't fighting with his mouthy alcoholic girlfriend he's ordering his muscled, mulleted henchman--who can pull a bullet out of his arm with his teeth!--to menace the stoic Glen. Glen's girlfriend Michelle ("All My Children"'s Kate Collins, robotically delivering her lines while staring into the distance) has conflicted feelings, especially since she's a policewoman and dating an ex-con running a sleazy club might be considered inappropriate, but, as she explains to her partner (Jeff Fahey!), she can't dump Glenn because she loves him.

Despite Farrell's attempts to stop it, the Garage opens and once we see all it has to offer we're left wondering why Glenn's hot-tempered foe is so threatened. At Farrell's club, the strippers turn tricks and it's easy to score drugs. At the Garage, the only vices available are gambling and topless dancers. The rest of the entertainment is tame enough for the whole family, including a vocalist who sings a soulful ballad entitled "Uranus' Child" (ugh!) and a painfully bad comic, Zerocks, performing to canned laughs. If anything, Farrell should just sit back and wait for the Garage to implode. But this thing is called "Riot on 42nd St." for a reason, so riot they must and riot they do, after a massacre in which more than half the people in the Garage are gunned down. Where were these gunmen during Zerocks' act?

With sets apparently limited to an abandoned office building and a snack bar, BAD GIRLS DORMITORY has even sparser production values than "Riot," and even less narrative, yet I found it a smidgen more entertaining. Opening with an inmate leaping out a window with bed sheets tied to her ankles and smashing her face against a brick wall (ouch!), the movie quickly sets to tearing through all the standard tropes of the WIP genre as if crossing them off a list. Innocents wrongly convicted for their boyfriends' crimes? Check. Predatory lesbians? Check. Sadistic guards? Check. Gratuitous shower scenes? Check. Marita is the dormitory's matron Miss Madison, who has bleached hair, heavy eye make-up and an accent (possibly Spanish) thick enough to cut with a chainsaw. Of course Miss Madison is corrupt, but rather than present her as a sadist or vicious lesbian Marita plays her as if she's merely a ruthless executive trying to claw her way up the corporate ladder. Meanwhile the inmates must contend with pervy doctors, randy guards of both sexes (though some girls like the male attention), and each other. There is a kindly, hunky social worker in the mix, though one might question how kindly given that he brazenly stares at the girls while they shower and seems awful slow to do anything about the abuses he sees. In the midst of all this, a dormitory dance, set to a surprisingly catchy pop song called "Hose Me Down" (I stress catchy, not thought provoking).

It's not just that these two movies are bad, they are surprisingly incompetent, riddled with continuity errors, nonsensical storytelling, bad lighting, worse special effects, and, naturally, atrocious acting (to his credit, Jeff Fahey acts the hell out of his small role). It's as if faced with directing a movie in which men don't have sex with each other turned Tim Kincaid into Ed Wood, Jr. Still, with the right crowd and chemical enhancements, these sub-Troma exploiters are fun to watch and ridicule mercilessly. Meanwhile, Kincaid has wisely returned to what he does best: cranking out gay porn as Joe Gage.

This is the first of the Maria collections I have seen. Both movies are set in 80's NYC. Both are extremely cheap and trashy. As far as B movies go these really scrape the bottom of the barrel. Picture quality is pretty good. Riot on 42nd has lots of outdoor shots of the city which I really enjoyed. I was a bit disappointed in the extras. There are a lot of trailers which was nice. There is a music video of Maria which is awful and unwatchable. There is an option to watch the movies with Maria. This is just a 30 second introduction by her, she does not give any commentary during the movie. They missed a big chance her as there is tons to make fun of in both films. Consider this just for the movies, the Maria packaging does not add anything at all.

Having seen lots and lots of this kind of stuff through the years, this two-film collection isn't one of the best. In fact it's among the worst.

The problem is the original material rather than the extras, which actually help the presentation significantly. I'd never heard of Maria Kanellis before this but she's actually very cute and a good host. The added trailers from other movies also is always appreciated.

Beyond that, we have "Riot on 42nd Street," which is, quite certainly, one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Production values are pretty poor, but you'd expect that. What hurts this one is the editing and storytelling, which are so helter-skelter that I never really could figure out what was going on. The best that I could figure, it's about a turf war between two club/theater owners, but there's so much jumping around through space and time that it's hard to decipher which is which most of the time. The acting is workable, but the pacing and narrative are just atrocious. And the movie was shot almost entirely in the dark, leading to an eye headache extraordinaire. There is a little bit of topless nudity but not nearly enough in that realm to make this exciting enough to overcome all of the other negative qualities. The biggest head-scratcher actually is the release date, 1987. You'd expect crap this bad to have been produced at least 15 years prior, but nay.

The second film is a women-in-prison flick from the same director, "Bad Girls Dormitory," from 1985. It actually has (very) slightly better production values and acting, and the pacing and story are significantly better. But if you've ever seen many WIP flicks you know that what makes them go are tons of gratuitous nude scenes, and what separates the good from the bad is--in my personal opinion--the quality of the women. (They all have the same plot, pretty much, so you have to differentiate in some way.) "BGD" has the violence and brutality commonly associated with WIP flicks, but not as much nudity. And you'll actually find yourself rejoicing that fact, because the girls here are about as fugly as I've ever seen on screen. I guess that they must have found them in homeless shelters, trailer parks and possibly even women's bingo parlors, because these are some genuinely unattractive women, including and especially the lead, Francis Raines. You've been warned!