Thursday, January 27, 2011

SpiderBabe (2003)

Have you ever made a decision that you knew would probably be a stupid one as soon as you made it? I'm having one of those moments right now. I'd recently had the idea to broaden my horizons in terms of the movies I review here, which led me to SpiderBabe, the movie this post will cover.

As you might have guessed, SpiderBabe is an obvious parody of Spider-Man, made to cash in on the success of Spidey's first movie. But it isn't just any parody. No, it's the softcore porno parody. Yes, "Sutton at the Movies" has finally run out of regular movies to review and is now tackling softcore pornography. And I used to be such a nice boy.

But before this blog is finished circling the drain, let's have a little history lesson. SpiderBabe was the creation of Seduction Cinema, a label of micro-budget film company EI Independent Cinema. And as the name suggests, Seduction Cinema specializes in the type of movies that you'd see on Cinemax at 2:00 in the morning. They're no stranger to doing what they call "sexy spoofs," with movies like Play-Mate of the Apes, Lord of the G-Strings, and Batbabe: The Dark Nightie to their credit. SpiderBabe is simply another in their rather extensive pornographic portfolio.

But why would I step outside of my comfort zone and review softcore porn now? Perhaps it's in the challenge of it. You can't exactly approach a movie like this like you would a traditional movie, can you? Plus I'm a total sucker for pretty much anything related to superheroes, so why not give it a shot? So let's take a look at SpiderBabe and watch this blog become a man.

Our tale of sexy superheroics focuses on Patricia Porker (Misty Mundae), a timid high school student who often finds herself being picked on by her classmates. But the life she knows is about to change, as she is bitten by a genetically-altered spider during a field trip to a science lab. The bite not only enhances her libido, but imbues her with the abilities to climb walls and shoot webbing from her crotch. Yeah.

Desperate for some quick cash, Patricia signs up for a match with a local wrestling promotion with the name "SpiderBabe." But after she fails to stop someone from robbing the box office, the thief ends up killing her uncle (Peter Quarry). Wracked with guilt over her inaction, Patricia dedicates herself to using her powers for good... and getting laid.

Since every good superhero needs a supervillain, SpiderBabe will soon have a foe of her own. Enter Lucinda Knoxx (Julian Wells), the power-hungry sister of Patricia's best friend Lisa (Darian Caine). Wishing to have superpowers of her own, Lucinda uses the same genetic engineering that the spider that bit Patricia underwent. The procedure causes her to develop an alternate personality, that of the villainous Femtilian. And like any good supervillain, Femtilian's ultimate goal is world domination. This goal, however, will most certainly pit her against SpiderBabe in a battle of good versus evil. 

SpiderBabe is one silly movie. There's no two ways about it. The movie is cheap-looking, the acting is all over the place, the jokes are sophomoric, and then there's that whole "softcore porno" thing. But believe it or not, SpiderBabe still manages to be an amusing movie. It obviously had a miniscule budget and couldn't possibly come close to replicating Spider-Man's special effects or production value, but it does make up for it by ratcheting up the camp factor. The movie's a dumb one, but it knows this and plays it for all its worth.

The movie was directed by Johnny Crash, who did as good a job as he could considering he had practically no budget to work with. A lot of Seduction Cinema's sexy spoofs look the same, with cheap costumes and props, lazy cinematography, and sets that look like they're borrowed from a local high school drama club. I mean, they're making softcore porn, what do you expect? But Crash makes it work. With the better-than-the-norm cinematography and shooting locations that don't look like someone's backyard (they actually filmed in Times Square, for crying out loud!), the movie looks a lot better than it could have. It's still cheap-looking, especially when the cheesy green-screen effects, but it could have been a lot worse.

The script is also a bit better than one would expect. Written by John Paul Fedele and Terry West, both of whom have appeared in and worked on the crew for numerous titles in the Seduction Cinema and EI Independent Cinema libraries, the script has quite a few genuinely funny moments. The humor comes more from goofy one-liners than anything else, but funny's funny, and I'll take what I can get. But the truth of the matter is that the script is good enough that with a little spit and polish to eliminate the whole porno element, along with a bigger budget and legitimate actors, SpiderBabe could have been the mainstream Spider-Man spoof instead of Superhero Movie.

But last on my list is the cast, which is mostly made up of members of Seduction Cinema's cabal of nubile young women. Watch a few of their movies, and you'll see the same actresses more than once. But of all of them, their poster child is Misty Mundae, who plays SpiderBabe's title character. I've seen her in a few movies in various genres (and under different names, too), and I must admit that I enjoy her work a lot. Even though most of those movies have been pretty awful, I've always thought that Mundae was charming and downright funny. SpiderBabe is no exception, as she's a lot of fun to watch. Mundae's got a sharp comedic wit that makes even the dopiest jokes worth laughing at, and is cute as a button to boot.

I wish I could pay the same compliments to the rest of the cast, but really, I can't. Outside of Mundae, there isn't a single performance in the movie that's worth watching. Just because this is a porno doesn't mean you can't at least try, ladies. I mean, you've gotta do something in movies like this besides get naked and grope each other, right? But I guess I could play nice and talk about the major players besides Mundae.

Playing the villainous Femtilian is Julian Wells, and let me tell you, Willem Dafoe she ain't. You can tell she's trying to channel Dafoe's Green Goblin by overacting as hard as she can, but she's barely okay. She's watchable at best, and even that's pushing it. At least she's better than Darian Caine, who plays SpiderBabe's answer to Harry Osborn. Caine's performance is exactly what you'd expect from a movie like this: pretty darn lousy. But she doesn't have all that many scenes, so she isn't around for too long.

I'm still amazed that I actually sat down and wrote a review for a softcore porno parody of Spider-Man. I feel like I should be ashamed of myself. But as bad as the movie is, it's still a lot of dumb, dopey fun. And it isn't really that much of a porno either, since the sex scenes aren't any more explicit than what you'd see in a typical R-rated movie. It's mostly naked groping. Seriously. But with or without those scenes, SpiderBabe is a silly flick that nobody who watches it could ever in a million years take seriously. I'd be a fool to say it's actually a good movie, but it's an amusing watch if you do stumble upon it. And at least the movie tried being clever, instead of just calling itself Spider-Man XXX: The Porn Parody, like the recent Batman adult movie did. There's nothing wrong with having a little imagination, right? 

Final Rating: **½

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