Busty Housewives of Beverly Hills (3 Stars)

This is the 31st film in the Medina Collection, made in 2012. It seems strange to me that I rated it so highly in my last review. Last time I must have rated it on the basis of the film alone. Today I'm rating it on the film's add-on, Hypno-Visto.

What is Hypno-Visto? Effectively it's a glorification of subliminal advertising, as if it were something desirable. At random points in the film a message is shown across the middle of the screen for a single frame. Since the Medina films have all been released on NTSC DVDs, this is approximately a thirtieth of a second, or 33 milliseconds. At this speed it's possible to see that a text is being displayed, but it disappears too fast to read it. The only way to know for certain what the message says is to pause the film on the exact frame.

I've taken the trouble to do this to sample the texts. They fall into different categories. Sometimes it's a genuine advertisement, such as "Visit www.beverlylynne.com". Sometimes it's the girl on screen telling us about herself, such as "I'm an animal rights activist". Sometimes it's just a meaningless text, such as "Look at my tits", which I'm sure the viewer is doing anyway.

Here are two examples of an image with and without the text message on adjacent frames.

This is Kelli McCarty joking with the viewer. In this case my answer is Yes and No, but not in that order. No, I don't want her to shut up, I'm interested in what she's saying. Yes, I do want her to get naked, as long as she carries on talking.

This looks like a message from Fred Olen Ray to the viewer. I wonder if he really expects anyone to follow this request. I've sent him a message on Facebook to let him know I bought the film on DVD.

The second example highlights the problem I have with the film. Messages flash up at random times during the film, but they're most frequent during sex scenes. It's impossible to enjoy the scenes because of the flashing messages across the naked bodies.

I know that Hypno-Visto is intended as a joke, but it could still be done better. The whole point of subliminal messages is that they aren't consciously seen. While watching the film I saw every message, even though the messages were too fast to read. I have the follwing suggestion for better subliminal messages: Use the picture on the screen to distract from the message. To take the example of the second set of pictures, it's a couple making love in the middle of the screen, so flash the message at the bottom of the screen, not in the place where the viewer is looking. He'll see the message in the corner of his eye, or maybe he won't notice it at all. Alternatively, if something is happening at the bottom of the screen, flash the text at the top. Always keep it away from the action.

Now to the film itself. Eric Masterson's stage name is the Amazing Rinaldi. He tells fortunes and hypnotises people. He's not very good at it, so he's almost bankrupt. This changes when his Aunt Bessie dies. She leaves him a large mansion in Beverly Hills and a reasonable amount of cash.

Look who his neighbour is. It's none other than Ted Newsom, an oil tycoon. Ted is married to the beautiful Beverly Lynne. He's never had a girl like that in any of his other films. He's a lucky guy.

Or maybe not quite so lucky. This is what Beverly does to him when she finds out that his oil wells have run dry. What's the point of having an old man for a husband if he isn't rich?

Evan Stone is hired as a hit man. He charges $50,000 for killing someone. Is that the normal rate? In this case, Evan isn't the best man for the job. He bungles it by breaking into the wrong house.

What do you think about Kelli McCarty, who plays Eric's wife? Something about her reminds me of Cameron Diaz.

The film itself isn't all that bad. It's the Hypno-Visto that ruins it. At the very least there should have been alternative versions of the film with and without Hypno-Visto, selectable via the DVD Angle menu.