Man, what is going on right now with MVD Visual’s newfound
love for Canadian born writer-director Francesco Lucente? Between their recent Blu-ray deluxe edition
of his dreadful 2007 postwar PTSD screed Badland to their new Dolby
Atmos mixed Blu-ray of his 2026 fairy tale Starbright and now his 16mm
1987 microbudget coming-of-age romcom The Virgin Queen of St. Francis High aka
Paradise Bungalows, the company is rolling out the red carpet for this
guy I’ve never heard of until now.
A
critic’s job is often misunderstood by those practicing it, favoring zeroing in
on the negatives over the positives a picture can offer a collective
audience. Film reviewing can and has been used in bad faith in the past and nothing gives me greater displeasure than dunking on someone else's hard work. Having seen my share of “bad” regional
exploitation to 4K digitally rendered indies over the years which range wildly
across the board from puerile to painterly including but not limited to William Grefé, Bill Rebane and even trollish enfant terrible Uwe Boll, I’d like to
think I’m pretty lenient when I say Francesco Lucente can’t direct his way out
of a paper bag.
Mike Underwood (Joseph R. Straface) is a dorky high-school
nerd who means well but gets into a pickle involving a $2K bet with classroom
bully Randy (Lee Barringer) to try and seduce innocent Diane (Stacy Christensen)
at a remote mountain resort called Paradise Bungalows. Haunted at night by dreams of being in a
James Bond movie firing bullets in an action sequence at Randy to save Bond
girl Diane, his efforts to try and corner Diane play out as slapstick asides
including pretending to be a milkman and inadvertently dousing her with
milk.
There’s one part where he pretends
to have neurofibromatosis as a sympathy bid for Diane’s mother and he later
dons a metallic face shield while trying to dine with them. When at the cabin as the shirtless twerp jams
out to Bruce Springsteen with headphones on in bed, a ridiculous scene
involving a bear breaking through their bedroom window brings them together at
long last with a plainly obvious bear hand puppet prop poking its nose through
the glass. Oh and there’s an American
Graffiti inspired game of chicken with motor vehicles that builds up to
little more than a wet fart.
Characters talk to each
other like aliens and the synthy poppy 80s tunes included on a separate CD
soundtrack in the set save for one or two tracks near the beginning are mostly
forgettable. Joseph R. Straface and Stacy
Christensen might be alright elsewhere but they’re directed as though they’ve
never left their houses in their lives.
Lee Barringer is your typical school bully but there’s not much to his
character in an otherwise flat and dull performance. Cinematography co-opted by Joseph Bitonti and
Kevin Alexander in 1.33:1 16mm I guess is okay and looks rendered well enough
on the Blu-ray disc transfer but I can name a number of films shot in inferior
videotape formats that were more visually striking.
Francesco Lucente’s getting
ushered into my sphere whether I like it or not and if there is a positive to
be had with two out of three pending unpleasant encounters with him, when
people trash a big budget Hollywood endeavor or a low-budget arthouse
incoherence, it is that I know now with unblinking certainty there are worse
things out there in the world. Bad
movies can be fun and comedies can be funny, something this one somehow manages
to achieve neither of. If you see this
director on your video store shelf, run like Hell!
--Andrew Kotwicki