ATTACK OF THE 60 FOOT CENTERFOLDS (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

In my July 2022 review of ATTACK OF THE 60 FOOT CHEERLEADER, I wrote:

This Roger Corman production echoes the title of a nineties flick for the same producer's New Horizons label, ATTACK OF THE 60-FOOT CENTERFOLDS. However, while both films are sold on Corman's dependable attractions of T & A, my memory is that CENTERFOLDS had nothing else, while the Michael MacLean script for CHEERLEADER injects some intelligent humor into an undoubtedly silly concept.

When I wrote that, I hadn't seen CENTERFOLDS in over twenty years, but now that I have, I'm gratified to see that my memory remained accurate, even about such a piddling movie. But that's very nearly all that's gratifying about yet another listless Fred Olen Ray potboiler.

Of course, Ray doesn't stint on the aforementioned T&A. In addition to supporting roles by Nikki Fritz and Michelle Bauer (though the latter remains fully clothed throughout), the movie centers upon three models competing for a big contract. The star is a girl with an unusually religious name, Angel Grace (J.J. North), and though she's dating sleazy photographer Mark, Mark's assistant Wilson is the guy who truly loves Angel. Betty (Tammy Parks) is the Bitch of the story, constantly putting down innocent Angel as her strongest competition for their common goal. Lastly, there's Inga (Raelyn Saalman), who really serves no purpose in the narrative except to feed other actors a few lines here and there. I assume Ray simply had the budget to afford three hotties willing to doff their tops, so he went with it.

Now, though most of Ray's movies are timekillers at best, occasionally he's shown some talent at comedy whenever he got a half-decent script. But CENTERFOLDS, while not the bottom of the comedic barrel, doesn't float much higher than that. This is shown by the extreme idiocy of Angel's motivation. Though she's patently a gorgeous woman, she fears losing her looks for some unexplained reason. So she volunteers to be a guinea pig for a "beauty enhancement" drug, though the scientist in charge tells her to only take the drug as prescribed.

So Angel, Betty, Inga and the photography crew show up at the mansion of some high-roller named Gordon (Jay Richardson), seemingly based on Hugh Hefner, even though Gordon only has one live-in girlfriend. I don't recall the nature of whatever job the models all want, but Angel's so nervous that she overdoses on the drug. Coincidentally, back at the science place the learned people have learned that the drug has caused a test rat to become One Big Honking Rodent.

Within a few hours of overdosing, Angel expands into Sixty-Foot Centerfold. After the others on Gordon's estate get over their initial shock, bad guys Mark and Gordon lay plans to exploit the Colossal Cutie, while nice guy Mark tries to protect her. But the only real conflict in this tired script is that Betty learns of the plans to give Angel a really big centerfold, and so she steals the drug and becomes a second Colossal Girl. The two tit-titans struggle for supremacy with that old favorite, the Standing Grapple (where two girls catfight by grabbing each other's hands and shoving each other back and forth). The dull fight only gets enlivened at the end, when Scientist Guy changes them both back to normal and Angel decks Betty. Angel and Wilson end up together, happy happy joy joy.

Simple as the silly concept is, Ray could have got considerably more mileage out of it, but he and his writer were apparently too lazy. They even blow an easy joke that "quotes" THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN. In that fifties Bert I. Gordon flick, scientists try to inject the hapless giant for his own good, but he grabs their oversize syringe, hurls it and impales one of the attendants. Angel gets to duplicate the scene, with non-fatal consequences for Gordon, but his posterior punishment comes off as utterly unfunny. However, Richardson is the only actor to gives a little more than just basic service with his smarmy Hefner-analogue. Ray also throws in blink-and-miss-them short bits for other performers, such as Russ Tamblyn, Tommy Kirk, Ross Hagen, Stanley "My Three Sons" Livingston, and Forrest J. Ackerman as "Dracula." I think he was supposed to be a wax statue of the vampire, one that comes to life and runs away from the Colossal Catfight. But if so said statue must have been made by someone who never saw any pictorial depictions of Dracula-- just like, watching this film, one could easily believe Fred Olen Ray must not have ever seen a good movie, because he makes so many bad ones.