SCARE
THEIR PANTS OFF (1968)/ SATAN'S BED (1965)Directors: John Maddox; Michael Findlay, Marshall Smith
Something Weird Video/Image Entertainment
SCARE
THEIR PANTS OFF (1968)/ SATAN'S BED (1965)Here's another bizarre double dose (and then some) of 60s sleaze from Something Weird and Image. This one has a New York theme adhered to it, as the two features and most of the shorts were shot in The Big Apple.
The first feature is SCARE THEIR PANTS OFF and involves two clowns abducting three women, taking them to a secluded warehouse, and exploiting them for kinky sexual fantasies (they get their kicks by scaring them). The first woman has sex with a bogus disfigured man inan iron mask (looking and sounding much like a moronic Darth Vader). This is kind of interesting, but things get very boring as the second girl is entailed in a staged sacrifice to a silly Indian god.
By the time you get to third girl, you're finger will already be tight on the fast forward button. She is interrogated and whipped by an a Nazi-like officer and the dictator's picture on the wall looks more like Ernie Kovacs than Hitler. In the end, the guys sedate the girls and send them off on the Staten Island Ferry (the punishment being that they have to go to Staten Island). With some brief topless nudity and minor S&M, SCARE THEIR PANTS OFF is dull and not nearly as wild or lively as, say, THE DEFILERS which it seems to imitate. Of note is the fact that the cinematographer on SCARE was future blaxploitation director Arthur Marks (J.D.'S REVENGE).
The second film on the disc, SATAN'S BED, is far more interesting, not only for the presence of Yoko Ono, but also because it's more entertaining. For those of you that thought Ms. Ono appeared in some pornographic piece of depravity, think again. Here, she acts in what is basically a low budget crime drama, expanded with exploitive footage by Michael Findlay--the director of SHRIEK OF THE MUTILATED who was later decapitated in a freak helicopter accident. The credits were added after Ono became a household name, so she's top billed in a supporting role.
Ono is the subservient and innocent Japanese bride-to-be of a New York drug dealer who wants to get out of the business. Out to do one more job before his retirement, his non-English speaking fiancee is abducted, has her money stolen, and is sexually harassed by a crater-faced cretin. The new footage by Findlay has a degenerate trio of addicts (two guys and a lesbian) molesting Long Island housewives. They end up at a house in Oyster Bay (only a few miles from where I live) looking for Ono (as added, tie-in dialog dictates), but the woman they mistake her for gets sweet revenge on them.
Both black and white films are presented full frame and look very acceptable. SCARE THEIR PANTS OFF starts out rough, with multiple scratches and an indistinctly dark picture, but after the first few minutes, things get much clearer and brighter for the remainder of the film. Both films' source prints are in very good condition, so the image is consistently clean and defect free. The mono audio is fine, even with the dilemma of noisy rolling cameras and crude sound edits.
There's over an hour of extras. All have varying quality and all hold the Something Weird logo in the right hand corner. There's a short 1967 film by Barry Mahon called "Hot Skin and Cold Cash," about a sympathetic blond hooker and her various Johns."Times Square Sinema 1970" is a brief but fascinating look at trashy movie and theater marquees of that era. Other short subjects are "Jane on a Train" (a woman strips on a train), "Girls for Sale" (psychedelic strippers dancing) and "Couples Welcome" (a guy and a girl get kinky in a porno movie house).
Trailers include ones for the disc's two features, as well as ALL MY MEN, THE BIZARRE ONES, CAREER BED, NYMPHO, OLGA'S DANCE HALL GIRLS, PROSTITUTES PROTECTIVE SOCIETY (hookers vs. the mob!), SHE CAME ON THE BUS, THE SIN SYNDICATE and TWO GIRLS FOR A MADMAN. Lastly, there's a "Gallery of Distribpix Sexploitation Art" (ad art from the sexploitation film company), accompanied by a number of forgettable ditties from various skin flicks. (George R. Reis)