Mini Review
Day 07: Shannon Tweed!
Possessed By The Night (1994)
A week into Junesploitation leads us to Day 07 with the prompt ‘Shannon Tweed!’ and this is an area I am personally not familiar with, having no real memory of seeing any Shannon Tweed films. Choosing Possessed By The Night (1994) seemed like a film that might be up my alley, a direct to video horror/action/erotic thriller and let me tell you this one does not disappoint. Shannon Tweed co-stars in the film and when she does show up things get a lot sexier and right off the rails, in this Fred Olen Ray mid 90’s ‘classic’.
There are several different plots at play, the main on focuses on Howard (Ted Prior) who gets a strange item from a store, hoping it will inspire his writing as he is suffering writers block. After bringing home the weird jar with a one eyed looking creature inside, things get mighty weird for Howard and his wife Peggy (Sandahl Bergman). Howard is also under pressure from his agent Murray (Frank Sivero) about his writing and sends over Carol (Shannon Tweed) as a secretary to help. The side plot involves Gus (Chad McQueen) who works for Scott Lindsey (Henry Silva), while doing his dirty work it seems Murray owes Lindsey a lot of money. By the end the two plots kind of connect, does that even matter with Shannon Tweed doing a hot and sweaty work out in a see through white crop top? No it does not!
There is a lot of bizarre things happening in this film, the weird mutant thing in the jar holds power over people and it seems to feed off of making people horny or something. There are quite a few sex scenes that are not very steamy, with the mutant thing kind of being there in the background. It is very non-nonsensical and at times gets very over the top, there are plenty of unintentional laughs to be had. Possessed By The Night is not a very good film in the general sense, it does have an enjoyment factor with the absurdity of it and both Shannon Tweed and Sandahl Bergman are quite good in their roles. If you like ridiculous mid 90’s film, absolutely track this one down!
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Mini Review
Day 08: Cars!
Eat My Dust (1976)
Certainly a very fun prompt for Junesploitation is ‘Cars!’ and films with fast cars, crazy stunts and good action are generally a fair decent time. For Day 08 I have chosen a Roger Corman produced film with Eat My Dust (1976) from writer/director Charles B. Griffith. This is a teenage rebel film with a hot race car and lot’s of chaos, about the lengths someone will go to in impressing their crush whilst throwing a metaphorical middle finger to their father.
Hoover (Ron Howard) is the town speedster, annoying his Sheriff father (Warren J. Kemmerling) every chance he gets. During a day at the races, Hoover spots the girl he has a crush on Darlene (Christopher Norris) and in an attempt to talk to her learns she has a thing for fast cars. Before long Hoover with Darlene and his friends along for the ride steal a red race car, Hoover hopes to impress Darlene by going vert fast. Soon the Sheriff and the entire town are concerned for what has happened and despite their best efforts the Sheriff’s department fail to capture them with chaos raging through the entire town.
Eat My Dust is a fairly simple film, boy likes girl, boy steals a fast car to impress girl, boy maybe learns a lesson or maybe not. The stronger parts of the film are the stunts and driving scenes, with some unique camera angles and POV shots. The characters themselves including the kids are mostly fine if under developed, the adults are extremely goofy and played for laughs, which some land and others don’t. There is a lot of drink driving that happens also, difficult to tell if the film condones that or not as any consequences aren’t seen. The core is meant to be Hoover, he is a decently likeable character with some of his flaws being understandable, but not much really gets developed to invest in his journey. Darlene is not a likeable character and her attitude towards Hoover is genuinely off putting and it begins difficult to understand why Hoover is doing all of this for her. The film is generally quite enjoyable and very silly, memorable for the cars and stunts and a nice lead performance from Ron Howard.
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Reviews written by Marcella Papandrea
Please check out FThisMovie.net, with many thanks to the crew for the concept of Junesploitation and some excellent prompts for 2022!
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