 |
| Images courtesy of VCI Entertainment |
Years before Michael Pataki immortalized Ivan Drago’s Soviet
Russian boxing manager in Rocky IV, the multitalented character actor
appeared in a number of television films and shows before making screen
appearances in Easy Rider, The Andromeda Strain and The Baby. In between that time, picking up whatever
parts he could, his career briefly ended up on psychotronic sexploitation with
the prison escape/home invasion/collegiate sex comedy/thriller Carnal Madness
otherwise known as Delinquent Schoolgirls. Meanwhile character actor/writer-director
Greg Corarito was making his way through drive-in smut fests usually involving
scantily clad or fully naked women being used and abused by horny criminals
while the soundtrack seems to suggest sexual assault is humorous.
Though Corarito’s career in soft and hardcore
porn didn’t live nearly as long as Michael Pataki’s filmography, MVD Visual and
VCI Entertainment nevertheless recognized Delinquent Schoolgirls as an integral
example of outlaw psychotronic cinema and have given it a hasty if not ghosting
heavy 4K restoration in their first volume (inexplicably released after the
second volume) in what appears to be a whole line of Psychotronic Cinema. It’s not necessarily good or morally upstanding
and unlike Jack Hill’s films is less interested in strong female characters
than getting their clothes off and exploiting them, but it does fit the bill
when the term Psychotronic comes up.
Three convicted sex offenders including an ex-baseball
player aptly named Dick Peters (Bob Minor), an idiotic impressionist named Carl
(Michael Pataki) and a stereotypical gay man escape from an insane asylum following
brutal electroshock therapy treatments.
Their exploits initially lead them into invading a home, beating up the
husband and raping his wife. Only
trouble is the guy has a beer with them while his sexually frustrated wife
seems to get satisfaction out of the assault.
Meanwhile in a nearby all-girls school loaded with girls that feel cherry
picked out of a Russ Meyer film replete with slow motion shots of the women
doing jumping jacks with close ups of their breasts bouncing up and down and/or
falling out of their tank tops. There’s
also a subplot involving an older man who repeatedly drugs and disrobes one of
his students, an ensuing assault interrupted by the arrival of the escaped
convicts. Soon the three rapist idiots
happen upon the all-girls school and try their best to overpower and subdue
them into sexual slavery. Trouble is
these girls know a thing or two about karate and are prepared to kick ass
(usually balls) and take names.
Less Jack Hill with its bevy of strong independent free-thinking
women and more about just trying to get their clothes off while the soundtrack
by Randy Johnson and Fred Selden tries to let you know you should be having fun
watching women bathing, fighting in the dirt and mud and being used and abused
by moronic men. Surprisingly in addition
to Pataki, this also features character actor George ‘Buck’ Flower better known
as the homeless man in the Back to the Future films as a well as a
regular John Carpenter stalwart. What’s
striking about this is how far on the opposite end of the spectrum this is when
compared to things like The Swinging Cheerleaders, Switchblade Sisters
or Coffy. While those films
placed their women in just as deep of dire straits as this, they looked up to
them as intelligent characters with agency who outsmart their male
captors. Here, the saga seems to side
with the men and egg on the female catfighting or scenes of a battered scantily
clad cheerleader with her boobs falling out sauntering back to the school
bloodied and bruised. Abuse and revenge
are tricky business in exploitation (let alone sexploitation) cinema and if it’s
mishandled like it is here it can feel like a fantasy of tawdry male gazing.
Digitally restored in 4K reportedly from the original camera
negative, frankly this VCI Entertainment release of Delinquent Schoolgirls making
its Blu-ray disc debut looks rather piss poor.
Grain structure given the filthiness of the production is sound though
colors and contrast levels are poor and worst of all the transfer seems to have
had DNR applied as motion presents ghosting or clipping. When characters are sitting still the picture
looks fine but when they move the ghosting begins with characters’ hands or
objects disappearing as they move. Why
this practice with restoring films is still used I’ll never know and it even
appeared on the recently reviewed Wrack and Ruin box with the film Police
Raid, but alas here we are. In terms
of extras there’s a little video on psychotronic cinema, original trailers for
the film and a running audio commentary with actor Bob Minor and Elijah
Drenner. If you are into things like Vinegar
Syndrome’s Lost Picture Show you’ll likely have a gross grimy slimy
time. But for the uninitiated, watching
this can be soporific and soiling to the degree you might need to take a shower
in tomato juice.
--Andrew Kotwicki
