13 Erotic Ghosts (4 Stars)

Fred Olen Ray never ceases to surprise me. Of all the films in the Medina Collection, this is one of the last I would have expected to be released on Blu-ray. It's an old film, made in SD in 2002. It must have taken a lot of work to remaster it for Blu-ray. And now I hold it in my hand. It has a unique place in the Medina films. The sex scenes are all girl-girl, and it's the only film that Fred ever directed that starred the stunningly beautiful Julie Strain. His only other work with her was "Sorceress", directed by Jim Wynorski, for which he acted as producer.

A team of TV paranormal reporters is investigating a haunted castle. On the whole they're sceptics, but they're hoping that they're wrong. If they can film real ghosts they'll make a lot of money. The castle used to house a school for wayward girls. It's the 100th anniversary of a fatal accident. Lightning struck a metal dildo, killing the school's teacher, Baroness Lucrezia, and all 12 of the girls. Since then the girls have been cursed to relive their sexual encounters with one another every day. It could be worse.

The girls are invisible, unless watched with psychic ghost-goggles. There was a lot of high tech in 2002! Unfortunately, the camera can't film the ghosts.

Here's an updated summary of the Retromedia films so far, with the Blu-ray releases marked.

The Medina Collection

1. (BR) Thirteen Erotic Ghosts (2002)
2. (BR) Bikini Airways (2003)
3. (BR) Haunting Desires (2003)
4. Curse of the Erotic Tiki (2003)
5. Bikini Carwash Academy (2004)
6. Erotic Dreams of Jeannie (2004)
7. Teenage Cavegirl (2004)
8. The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful (2005)
9. Bikini Chain Gang (2005)
10. Ghost in a Teeny Bikini (2006)
11. Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet (2006)
12. Harlots of the Caribbean (2006)
13. Girl with the Sex-Ray Eyes (2006)
14. (BR) Bewitched Housewives (2006)
15. The Girl from BIKINI (2006)
16. (BR) Super Ninja Doll (2007)
17. (BR) Tarzeena (2007)
18. Voodoo Dollz (2008)
19. Bikini Royale (2008)
20. (BR) Bikini Frankenstein (2009)
21. (BR) Twilight Vamps (2009)
22. Bikini Royale 2 (2009)
23. (BR) Bikini Jones and the Temple of Eros (2009)
24. (BR) Housewives from Another World (2010)
25. Lady Chatterley's Ghost (2010)
26. Bikini Time Machine (2010)
27. (BR) Sexual Witchcraft (2010)
28. Bikini Warriors (2010)
29. The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad (2011)
30. Dirty Blondes from Beyond (2012)
31. Busty Housewives of Beverly Hills (2012)
32. (BR) Baby Dolls Behind Bars (2012)

The McKendrick Collection

1. Strippers from another world (2013)
2. Big Bust Theory (2013)
3. Intergalactic Swingers (2013)
4. (BR) All Babe Network (2013)
5. Great Bikini Bowling Bash (2014)
6. Stacked Racks from Mars (2014)
7. Atomic Hotel Erotica (2014)
8. Lolita from Interstellar Space (2014)
9. Sexy Warriors (2014)
10. Bikini Avengers (2015)
11. (BR) College Coeds vs Zombie Housewives (2015)
12. Lust in Space (2015)
13. Erotic Vampires of Beverly Hills (2015)
14. (BR) Invisible Centerfolds (2015)
15. (BR) Cinderella's Hot Night (2017)
16. (BR) Sleeping Beauties (2017)

The Apocrypha

1. (BR) Bad Girls Behind Bars (2016)
2. Vixens From Venus (2016)
3. Cyborg Hookers (2016)
4. Cosmic Calendar Girls (2016)
5. Escape From Pleasure Planet (2016)
6. (BR) Paranormal Sexperiments (2016)

The Medina Collection consists of films directed by Fred Olen Ray using the pseudonym Juan Medina. The McKendrick Collection consists of films directed by Dean McKendrick. The Apocrypha consists of films directed for Retromedia by other directors.

Notes:

(1) "Bikini Carwash Academy" (Medina 5) was re-released with a different opening credits sequence, listing the director as Sherman Scott.

(2) "Tomb of the Werewolf" (not listed above) was directed by Fred Olen Ray using his own name, but it's in the Medina style. It has almost the same cast as "Haunting Desires".

(3) Dean McKendrick made seven erotic thrillers for Retromedia, not listed above.

(4) Apocrypha? If you have a better name for these films, let me know.

That's 19 out of 54 films released on Blu-ray so far. Let's hope the others will follow soon.

What Dreams May Come (4 Stars)

Is this a good film? A bad film? Or merely average? It depends on how you judge it. It's a perfect performance by Robin Williams in a deeply emotional film that made me cry at several points. That would normally guarantee a film a five star rating. But when the emotions died down, after a cup of coffee, I had to ask myself what junk I'd just watched. It presents an afterlife that matches no existing religion and would be ridiculed by any atheist or agnostic.

Robin Williams plays Dr. Chris Nielsen, a man who dies in a horrific car accident. As a ghost he follows his loved ones, from the hospital to his funeral. Then he falls asleep and wakes up in a painting. Yes, a painting. When he walks through the fields of flowers they squelch, because they're all made of paint. That's Nielsen's heaven. He's told by a man called Albert, at first his only companion in the painting, that everyone can choose his own afterlife, but Chris has subconsciously picked a picture painted by his wife. Later he travels to other afterlifes, for instance to a playful kingdom created by his daughter, who died four years previously. Just writing about it makes it sound even more ridiculous.

Finally Chris finds out that his wife is in Hell, so he abandons Heaven to go to find her and bring her back. That's a romantic notion, but would any religion, even one, envisage such a possibility? Added to all of this, the film's philosophy has reincarnation, but it's purely voluntary. Anyone who grows tired of Heaven can return to Earth as a baby.

So what's the bottom line? Is the film good or bad? Heaven is a personalised art project; Hell is a kind of psychological sinkhole; identity persists, except when it doesn't; rules exist, except when love overrides them. The film insists on emotional truth while playing fast and loose with its own cosmology.

At times, this contrast is almost jarring. The same film that treats grief with such grounded sensitivity also asks you to accept a universe governed by what amounts to sentimental logic. Love conquers all, quite literally; but not through any moral or philosophical framework that holds up to scrutiny, rather through sheer narrative insistence. It’s less theology than wish fulfilment dressed in painterly grandeur.

I think my four star rating is fair. Maybe more than the film deserves, but I'll stick with it.

Films can be judged by the people who like them. Leslie Colligan was my girlfriend for a few years while I lived in America. "What Dreams May Come" was one of her favourite films. In retrospect, it's easy to understand why. She had confused religious beliefs. She claimed to adhere to the ancient Celtic religion, but she also believed in Heaven and Hell and reincarnation. She was a confused person, so she was quick to accept the film's pseudo-theological babble.

By the way, this photo shows her sitting in front of my CD collection. This was one of the greatest tragedies in my life. When I became ill I gave her $5000, more than enough to mail the CDs to me, but her new boyfriend, Thomas Kuzilla of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, took the CDs into his own hands and attempted to sell them back to me. I lost all 1800 CDs, with the exception of six CDs that Leslie mailed to me behind his back. For all her faults, she had a good heart; Thomas was pure evil. Would Leslie journey into Hell to bring Thomas back? No; in the afterlife she'll know that he's not worth it.

Success Rate:  - 1.1

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Splash (5 Stars)

At first glance "Splash" looks like a straightforward romantic fantasy; what gives it staying power is how quietly peculiar it is. It drifts between tones, never quite settling, and that sense of imbalance is exactly what has allowed it to gather a cult following over time.

The premise is simple enough. Tom Hanks plays a lonely New Yorker who falls for a woman who happens to be a mermaid, played with detached serenity by Daryl Hannah. Around them, the film builds a world that feels only loosely tethered to reality. Scenes unfold with a kind of dream logic; the mermaid learns English from television, adapts to human life with improbable ease, and the story barely pauses to question any of it.

That refusal to over-explain is central to its cult appeal. Director Ron Howard lets the film slip between romance, farce and something more wistful without drawing firm boundaries. One moment plays like broad comedy, the next carries a surprising emotional weight. Cult films often live in that unstable space; they don't fit neatly into a single genre, and that makes them feel more personal to the audiences who return to them.

There's also the sense of a film caught between identities. Released through Touchstone Pictures, "Splash" sits somewhere between family-friendly fantasy and more adult romantic comedy. That tension gives it an edge; it feels slightly more daring than its premise suggests, yet never loses its softness. For many viewers discovering it on home video, it had the air of something both familiar and faintly subversive.

Its most lasting cultural impact, though, comes from a small, almost throwaway moment. When Hannah's character needs a human name, she chooses "Madison" from a street sign. Hanks' character even remarks on how unusual it sounds as a first name. In 1984 that was true; Madison was primarily a surname, historically meaning "son of Maud".

The film changed that. In the years following its release, "Madison" surged in popularity as a girl's name, particularly in the United States. What began as a joke became a trend; within a decade, the name moved from rarity to mainstream, eventually becoming one of the defining names of its generation. Few films have reshaped everyday culture in such a specific way, and fewer still have done so so casually.

That odd, lingering influence is what defines "Splash" as a cult film. It's not about perfection; the film meanders, and its fantasy is never fully grounded. What it offers instead is a distinct tone, a handful of memorable ideas, and a series of moments that stay with you long after the plot fades. Among them is a single name, lifted from a sign and given a new life, which might be the film's strangest and most enduring legacy.

Success Rate:  + 4.3

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Girl You Know It's True (5 Stars)

This is the second musical biopic I've watched today. The film is called "Girl you know it's true", which was the title of Milli Vanilli's first single, but that's ironic. None of it was true. It was a fake group created by the German music producer Frank Farian. He recorded a song with session musicians who were talented, but not sexy enough to appear on MTV, so he needed two front men to perform. One single became a whole album. They went on tour lip-syncing to their hits. Before you say that lip-syncing is common in the music industry, this was different. Other singers lip-sync to recordings of their own voices, but Milli Vanilli lip-synced to recordings of other musicians.

Maybe Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan could have continued the illusion if they'd remained more modest. As it was, they indulged in drug abuse (mostly cocaine) and forgot who they were. In an interview they described themselves as bigger than Elvis Presley and the Beatles. Pride comes before a fall. Their lip-syncing became apparent when the tape skipped during a concert, and their fans turned against them. They became outcasts. They went from being millionaires to practically broke. Rob was imprisoned for stealing a car, and shortly afterwards he died of a drug overdose. Fab was working as a waiter, unrecognised by his former fans.

I like the way the film is structured. It continually breaks the fourth wall. Rob and Fab are the narrators, speaking to the audience even after Rob's death. Franks also takes time to speak to the audience. He explains the truth behind the lie.

It's a tragic story. Other musical biopics like "Better Man" show how musicians start poor and soar to the heights, overcoming adversities. "Girl you know it's true" shows how two young men start poor, then rise up and hover before crashing down, lower than they were when they started out. Shed a tear for Milli Vanilli.

Better Man (5 Stars)

For me it's all about the film. My five star rating isn't meant as an endorsement of Robbie Williams' music. I was aware of his career. My daughter was a fan, and she even called our cat Robbie. I didn't like his music, and I liked the music he made with Take That even less. The only album of his that I liked was his album of cover songs, "Swing when you're winning". He did justice to the old classic songs. I remember listening to the CD a few times and thinking Wow. My daughter thought I was becoming a Robbie Williams fan. Not quite.

"Better Man" wins me over emotionally, from Robbie's humble beginnings in Stoke-On-Trent to the death of his grandmother and his reconciliation with his father. It's a beautiful film, whether you like his music or not.

Success Rate:  - 4.9

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Ballerina (5 Stars)

This is a film that's grown on me. I gave it five stars from its first viewing, but I've always added "it's not as good as the John Wick films". Now I'm not so sure. "Ballerina" is different to the John Wick films, but it's just as good, in its own way. John Wick himself was always a master assassin, from the first film onwards, but Eve Macarro is a new recruit to the Ruska Roma, who needs to be trained from the ground up. She's like "Nikita", or more like "Red Sparrow". 

"Ballerina" doesn’t so much expand the John Wick mythology as refract it; a side-step rather than a leap forward, yet one that reveals new textures within a world that had, by "John Wick Chapter 4", begun to feel almost sealed.

Set against the familiar framework established in John Wick and elaborated through "John Wick Chapter 2" and "John Wick Chapter 3", the film’s most immediate contribution is perspective. Where those entries centred on John Wick as both participant and anomaly, Ballerina shifts the focus to an initiate; someone shaped by the system from the outset rather than dragged back into it. This alone alters the tone. The mythology is no longer something glimpsed from the outside or resisted from within; it becomes an environment, almost a culture, that produces its own agents.

The Ruska Roma, previously a striking but secondary presence, moves into the foreground. What had once seemed like a stylistic flourish, ballerinas trained alongside assassins, now reads as a fully realised institution with its own internal logic. The film leans into the idea that artistry and violence are not merely juxtaposed, but intertwined. Discipline, repetition and performance become the connective tissue between dance and killing, suggesting that the mythology’s rituals are not confined to coins and markers, but embedded in the very bodies of its practitioners.

This emphasis on training and transformation adds a layer that the earlier films only hinted at. In the mainline series, assassins simply are; their skills are presented as faits accomplis. Ballerina asks how such figures are made. The answer is not comforting. The mythology expands to include systems of control that feel less like honour codes and more like indoctrination. The world of assassins, once alluring in its elegance, acquires a harder edge; its beauty is revealed as something constructed through coercion.

At the same time, the film subtly recalibrates the role of institutions like the The Continental. In the earlier films, the Continental functioned as a neutral sanctuary, a space where rules imposed order on chaos. Here, its neutrality feels more ambiguous. Seen from the perspective of someone raised within the system, it is less a refuge than a checkpoint; one node in a network that monitors, regulates and ultimately constrains. The mythology becomes less romantic, more systemic.

Crucially, "Ballerina" resists the temptation to over-escalate. After the globe-spanning, rule-bending climax of "John Wick Chapter 4", it would have been easy to introduce an even higher authority or a deeper layer of conspiracy. Instead, the film narrows its focus. The High Table remains distant, almost irrelevant; what matters are the local structures, the immediate relationships and the personal costs of participation. This contraction paradoxically enriches the mythology. By showing how the system operates on the ground, it makes the larger hierarchy feel more credible.

There is, however, a tension at the heart of this approach. By explaining how assassins are trained, by detailing the mechanisms that produce them, the film inevitably demystifies aspects of the world that were once left to the imagination. The danger, as in "John Wick Chapter 3", is that myth hardens into procedure. The more we see, the less we wonder.

Yet "Ballerina" mitigates this by shifting the emotional centre. The mythology is no longer primarily about rules; it is about identity. What does it mean to belong to this world if you never had a choice? Can its codes be internalised without being questioned? In this sense, the film doesn’t just add lore; it interrogates the cost of that lore on those who live inside it.

In the end, "Ballerina" functions as a kind of echo within the larger saga. It doesn’t reshape the mythology in the way the sequels did, nor does it attempt to conclude it. Instead, it deepens it laterally, filling in the spaces between what we already know. The result is a world that feels less like a series of elegant rules and more like a lived-in system; one that creates its own adherents, and perhaps its own victims.

It’s a quieter form of expansion, but a meaningful one. If the John Wick films built a myth, Ballerina shows how that myth is sustained; not by legends like John Wick, but by the countless figures shaped in its image.

Success Rate:  - 0.4

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John Wick 4 (5 Stars)

"John Wick Chapter 4" feels like the moment the series finally confronts the weight of its own mythology; not by expanding it further, but by testing whether it can be broken.

Across "John Wick" and "John Wick Chapter 2", the assassin world evolved from suggestion into structure; by "John Wick Chapter 3", it had hardened into something close to dogma, enforced by the High Table with near-religious authority. "Chapter 4" takes the next logical step; it treats that system not as an unchangeable fact, but as a construct that can be challenged, manipulated and, ultimately, outplayed.

What's striking is how the film reframes the mythology through ritual. The duel that forms the climax is not just a plot device; it's an ancient mechanism embedded within the rules of the High Table itself. After three films of escalation, the idea that everything can be resolved through something so formal, so archaic, almost feels like a loophole in the system. The mythology turns inward, revealing that its rigidity contains the seeds of its own undoing.

This is where John Wick changes most significantly. In earlier films, he was defined by his relationship to the rules; first as a legend outside them, then as a man bound by them, and finally as someone hunted by them. Here, he becomes a strategist within the mythology. He doesn't just fight the system; he learns how to use its language against itself. The coins, the markers, the codes of conduct; these are no longer constraints, but tools.

At the same time, "Chapter 4" subtly demystifies the High Table without ever fully exposing it. Its representatives, particularly the Marquis, suggest that power within this world is not purely ancient or divine, but also political, contingent and, crucially, vulnerable to ego. The mythology shifts from something monolithic to something inhabited by individuals who can make mistakes. That shift matters; it brings the series back from abstraction towards something human, even as it maintains its operatic scale.

Yet the film resists the temptation to over-explain. After the relative over-articulation of "John Wick Chapter 3", this instalment pares back exposition and lets ritual, geography and action carry the meaning. The journey through Osaka, Berlin and Paris suggests a world that is vast but coherent, bound by shared customs rather than explicit rules. The mythology regains some of its mystery, not by shrinking, but by becoming less verbal.

The question of whether John Wick can still be alive sits at the centre of this approach. On a literal level, the film presents his death with a degree of finality; the wounds, the exhaustion, the quiet acceptance. But the staging is deliberately ambiguous. We see a grave, but no body; we hear eulogies, but no confirmation. In a series so concerned with codes and appearances, that absence feels intentional.

More importantly, the mythology itself provides a possible answer. This is a world where identity is fluid, where names carry weight and can be shed or reclaimed. John Wick has already died once, retreating into legend before being drawn back. Within a system that runs on ritual and perception, death does not have to be purely physical; it can be symbolic, a way of exiting the game.

There is also the practical dimension. The High Table operates on recognition and enforcement; if it believes Wick is dead, its pursuit ends. In that sense, death becomes a strategic disappearance, a final exploitation of the rules he has spent four films learning to navigate. The mythology allows for that possibility because it values order over truth; what matters is not whether Wick lives, but whether the system believes he does not.

Still, the film walks a careful line. To insist too strongly on his survival would undercut the thematic resolution; Wick's arc has always been about escape, and death is the only absolute escape the series can offer without contradiction. By leaving the question open, "Chapter 4" preserves both possibilities; the man may be gone, but the legend, as always, endures.

In the end, "John Wick Chapter 4" doesn't just conclude the mythology; it reflects on it. What began as a whisper of a hidden world has become a fully realised system, then a prison, and finally something that can be transcended. Whether John Wick is alive or dead almost becomes secondary. The real question is whether he has finally stepped outside the mythology that defined him; and for the first time, the answer might be Yes.

Success Rate:  + 2.4

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New Shaolin Boxers (4 Stars)

"New Shaolin Boxers" stands out in the crowded kung fu landscape by building its identity around a specific fighting style rather than a revenge plot or nationalist theme. The story follows Zhong Jian, a well-meaning but naïve young man whose habit of helping everyone he meets repeatedly lands him in trouble; it's a simple character hook, but one that allows the film to explore growth through discipline rather than trauma.

What really defines the film is its focus on the fighting style Choy Li Fut. Unlike the tighter, more upright styles often seen in Shaw Brothers productions, Choy Li Fut is broad, circular and aggressive. The movements emphasise wide swinging strikes, long-range attacks and continuous motion; punches arc rather than snap, and the body is constantly turning, generating power through rotation. On screen, that gives the fights a sense of momentum that feels almost unruly, as if the combatants are carried forward by their own energy.

The choreography leans into these qualities. Instead of short, contained exchanges, the fights sprawl outward. Arms whirl, stances shift, and opponents are pressured from unexpected angles. There's less emphasis on elegance and more on overwhelming force. It suits Zhong Jian's personality early on; his instinct is to rush in and act, and Choy Li Fut's expansive techniques mirror that impulsiveness. As he matures, the same style begins to look more controlled, suggesting that discipline shapes not just the man but the way the art is expressed.

That connection between character and technique is where the film finds its voice. Zhong isn't learning a neutral system; he's learning how to channel something inherently chaotic. The film quietly argues that a martial art isn't just about technique, but about temperament. Choy Li Fut becomes a reflection of Zhong himself; powerful, well-intentioned, but potentially reckless without guidance.

The film's tone remains relatively light, especially compared with darker kung fu films of the era. There's humour in Zhong's misjudgements, and the narrative never sinks into cynicism. Still, the action carries weight precisely because of the style on display. Those sweeping strikes look dangerous; when they land, they feel decisive.

If there's a limitation, it's that the supporting cast doesn't leave much of an impression, and the plot sometimes feels like a loose framework for showcasing the fighting style. But in this case, that's almost the point. "New Shaolin Boxers" is less about story than about movement, rhythm, and the personality embedded in a martial tradition.

In the end, it's a film where style is character. By centring Choy Li Fut and tying it to Zhong Jian's growth, it offers something a bit different; not just a series of fights, but a study in how a way of fighting can shape, and be shaped by, the person using it.