Call
us traditionalists, but we don’t see the point in making a jungle women’s
prison movie without Sybill Danning, even if it is a spoof. In this case, we
are assuming the film in question is intended to be a send-up, but it is hard
to tell from the tonal mish-mash. In any event, there is plenty of adult subject
matter in James Anthony Bickert’s Amazon
Hot Box (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2018 Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, in San
Francisco.
Poor
American college student Penny came to fake-sounding Rattica as part of a
conservation project, but she was scooped up during the government’s latest
crack-down, along with Jade, as revolutionary sex-worker and Ebony, a
revolutionary revolutionary (obviously a reference to Ebony, Ivory & Jade). She will be tormented by the Isla-inspired
warden, Inga Von Krupp (with her short of stature sidekick) and the sadistic
lesbian gang leader Val. As it happens, Penny is not the only one trapped
there. Country singer Jett Bryant, playing a fictionalized drug-running
meta-version of himself, has been appointed president, but is still very much a
captive of the revolutionary government (from the previous revolution).
Man,
where’s Roger Corman and Sid Haig when we need them? Maybe someone could make
an amusing mash-up of their old Philippines-shot women-in-prison movies, but AHB is way too unfocused and
scattershot. There are zombies in here and references to voodoo that really
aren’t appropriate, considering Vodun is a real religion.
The
biggest problem is AHB never feels
like it was made by someone who loves the genre. In contrast, Adam Brooks &
Matthew Kennedy’s The Editor (produced
by Astron-6, who are not exactly known as guardians of good taste) is a spot-on
satire of Italian giallo movies that actually becomes a not half-example of
what it is skewering.
Nevertheless,
Bryant has some nice moments with Tristan Risk (who also co-starred in The Editor), vamping it up something
fierce as Val. Their late scenes together make us wish this film had been totally
re-conceived to better feature them.
So,
this exists—and it is not very good. AHB is
just way too gory, in decidedly not funny ways, to cut it as a comedy. On the
other hand, the film does not respect its secret agent and zombie elements enough
for it to be a serviceable action or horror movie. However, cult movie fans will
probably excuse away its shortcomings, because it wears its influences on its
sleeve. Not recommended, Amazon Hot Box screens
tomorrow (12/3), as part of this year’s AHITH.
