Rating: 3/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2018 | 22/52 | PM Entertainment
Ahh, Twinkeltown at Christmastime. Lights lining the streets, couples fighting loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Detectives Jack and Jessie stop by a hot dog stand, despite just getting a call about a domestic disturbance. Jack and Jessie get into a tussle with a disputing couple, the wife holding a knife. Jack gets thrown around a bit, Jessie gets stabbed in the back, and the wife goes flying out the window.
Cut to Latin Jerry painting Bobby’s teeth black and tying a red hachimaki around his head. Bobby sits down for an audition with Mr. Lawrence, in which Bobby plays Russian Roulette, like in The Deer Hunter. But when Bobby pulls the trigger, the gun actually goes off. Mr. Lawrence takes the camera off the stand to film Bobby’s death in close-up. Latin Jerry goes out to recruit more actors, preying on a young woman named Summer, when Jack happens by. Latin Jerry is having soup, so Jack throws said soup in Latin Jerry’s face, sending him off. Jack tells Sarah to go back home, giving her his card in case she needs him.
Jack follows a lead on the location of Janet, another Latin Jerry recruit, at a phone sex company. He goes in, makes some crass jokes, and finds a gallery of kinks in the backroom, including Janet tied up nude, being whipped. Jack releases her. He then goes to the police station to tell Sara to cover him while he takes Janet to the bus station. We then follow Jack around for a bit as he gets into all sorts of antics. But when Janet and Summer both end up dead, Jack gets down to business.
I’m genuinely shocked at how entertaining this movie is despite Wings Hauser doing everything possible to wreck it. Is this peak PM Entertainment in terms of film quality?
** STRAY THOUGHTS / SPOILERS **
- Wings Hauser is a charisma black hole. He’s trying SO HARD to look cool in his own movie.
- Wait, they killed off Jessie so quickly!
- After taking down the husband, Jack makes a quip about the dead woman on the street being “subdued.”
- Latin Jerry and Mr. Lawrence are absurdly queer-coded.
- “I grew up on these streets… Hollywooood.”
- The soft piano ballad as Tina walks along the highway.
- Sydney Lassick is such a gem!
- Jack sticking his finger in the cherries and smearing them all over Holly’s face, THEN grabbing a gallon of milk and pouring it all over her had me dying.
- The contrasting scenes of Jack going down on Holly in the tub and Janet in the shower scene are almost poetic until they hammer at it with constantly flipping between Janet getting stabbed and Holly achieving orgasm.
- Jack goes back to the phone sex gallery just to mourn, I guess?? The owner tells him to get out, and he throws a hissy fit.
- Jack says he’ll go gay as revenge for women’s lib.
- Jack calls his black police captain a racist asshole because the captain suspends him.
- The Joan of Arc-style ending is insane.
- “Don chu hurt her! Don chu. Don Don’t! Don Don Don’t!”
- “Stop shooting me!”
- — “Jack, may I please move in with you?” — “Mother, may I?”
- The camera pans away from Jack and Holly kissing to follow the dude in the pink Speedo roller skating.chef’s kiss ** END SPOILERS **