4/10
Gregory Dark kind of goes legit
23 January 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Chuck (Andy Nichols, one of the doctors in Nightdreams and Max Melodramatic from Cafe Flesh) and Buck (Louie Bonanno, who was in Chuck Vincent's Slammer Girls and also appeared along with Nichols in Dark's In Search of... the Perfect 10) leave their women behind and go to a new wave whorehouse - in case you're wondering about that term, stick around - called Madame Mondo's Zombie Palace, where they try and find the perfect zombie women and just end up tied to the wall in tutus.

Before they get turned into women, their better halves - Sue (Michelle Bauer, who has been in everything from uncredited roles in Get Crazy and Tomboy to Roller Blade, Nightmare Sisters, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Evil Toons and so many more great films; as Pia Snow she was also an adult actress and is also in Cafe Flesh) and Lulu (Connie Woods, The Forbidden Dance) - have to come and save them from Madame Mondo and her assistant Igor (Cynthia Clegg).

The zombie women include adult star Blondi (who also worked as Blondi Bee; she shows up in the KISS eXposed video as their personal envelope licker), Teri Lynn Peake (Penthouse Pet of the Month for October 1987), Ashley Elstad, Violet Lickness and Lisa Devine.

If this feels like a late 80s adult feature, well, that's no accident. Director and producer Jon Valentine is actually Gregory Dark! Writer Veronica Cinq-Mars was really Anthony R. Lovett, who was also Antonio Passolini, the director of some late 80s sequels to classic adult films like - you guessed it - Cafe Flesh, The Devil In Miss Jones and even Dark's New Wave Hookers. He also used the name Johnny Jump-Up to write Dark's White Bunbusters, Let Me Tell Ya 'Bout Black Chicks, Deep Inside Vanesse del Rio, The Devil in Miss Jones 3: A New Beginning and The Devil in Miss Jones 4: The Final Outrage. He was also the head of production for VCA Pictures, which pretty much ruled adult in the 80s. He's also the Anthony "Tex" Lovett that wrote Faces of Death rip-off Inhumanities II: Modern Atrocities and Gesichter des Todes V, which was sold in Germany as the fifth Faces of Death and has scenes taken directly from the former film as well as Death Faces IV. There was a Gorgon Video-released Faces of Death 5 in the U. S., but it's just clips from the other four movies. The German one, though, lists Countess Victoria Bloodhart as a director (who is also credited with a fourth installment of Mondo Cane which is just more recycled clips and stolen footage from Nick Bougas' Death Scenes and, yes, Inhumanities II: Modern Atrocities which was directed by Wesley P. Emerson, the director of nearly every Deep Inside 80s adult compilation). Ah,man - Lovett also wrote most of Michael Ninn's stuff too.

Most amazingly, Gesichter des Todes V also has footage taken from Stelvio Masi, who as Max Steel was the director of Hell's Heroes, Taxi Killer, Arabella: Black Angel and probably the movie those Germans ripped off to make their fake sequel, Savage World Today. Of course, he also made tons of awesome Italian crime movies like Convoy Busters, Magnum Cop and Highway Racer.

That was a tangent, huh?

Anyways! Gregory Dark! The man who reinvented porn in the 80s and brought a sense of punk energy to what had become a very staid video formula made this and it's a lot like all of his movies of the era minus the sexual gymnastics. He'd go on to pretty much also own the adult thriller section of your video store, as well as Showtime and Cinemax after midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. And oh yeah, directed a few hundred music videos before reinventing himself again and making mainstream movies.

There you go. Greg Dark stealing a Romero title and trying to make a mainstream softcore movie with the same sensibilities as his porn work. Thanks for listening.
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