Bikini Time Machine (4 Stars)

This is the third film from the Medina Collection that Fred Olen Ray has released on Blu-ray this year. That makes me happy, because I want to purchase all 32 films on Blu-ray. Many of the older films look fuzzy on DVD. I'm also happy to see any film starring Jenna Presley, even though she only has a small role at the beginning of the film.

The film is about a university professor who's invented a machine that sends a person's essence into the past. The person doesn't leave the present. She – it's always a woman – remains seated in the professor's office while he observes her activities in the past on a computer screen. No, the woman doesn't need to wear a bikini to travel into the past, but bikinis make a sexy woman like Jenna Presley look even sexier.

A side effect of the time travel is that the woman feels horny and has sex with the first man or woman she meets in the past. That might not seem logical, but what do you expect from a Medina film?

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. (BR) 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. (BR) 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 21 out of 54 films released on Blu-ray so far. Let's hope the others will follow soon.

Noriko's Dinner Table (5 Stars)

If "Suicide Club" was Sion Sono's cinematic hand grenade, "Noriko's Dinner Table" is the slow poison that lingers in your bloodstream long after the explosion. Marketed as a companion piece rather than a straightforward sequel, it revisits the same world from an entirely different angle. Forget the infamous opening train massacre and the barrage of shocking violence. This time Sono's weapon of choice is emotional devastation.

At first glance, the film appears almost restrained. Teenager Noriko (Kazue Fukiishi) runs away from her suffocating rural home after becoming obsessed with an online community, eventually falling under the spell of Kumiko, the mysterious "Ueno Station 54", played with eerie composure by Tsugumi. Kumiko operates one of Tokyo's strangest businesses: a rental family service where complete strangers are hired to become daughters, wives, husbands, parents or entire families. What sounds bizarre quickly becomes terrifying as every relationship dissolves into performance and every performance begins to feel more authentic than reality itself.

This is where "Noriko's Dinner Table" becomes even more disturbing than "Suicide Club". The earlier film shocked audiences with graphic deaths and surreal horror. Here, Sono suggests something far more frightening: that modern society has become so emotionally bankrupt that people are willing to pay complete strangers to pretend they love them. The film argues that identity itself has become a commodity, something to be bought, sold and performed until nobody remembers who they really are.

Sono's portrayal of rental families is a work of genius. Every encounter strips away another layer of authenticity until the audience is trapped in the same uncertainty as the characters. Are they acting? Have they become the roles they were hired to play? Was there ever a "real" person underneath? The film offers no comforting answers, only increasingly unsettling questions.

One of Sono's boldest decisions is his extensive use of voiceovers. Nearly every major character narrates their thoughts, revisiting the same events from conflicting perspectives. In lesser hands, this could have become repetitive or self-indulgent. Instead, it becomes hypnotic. Every new narration peels back another emotional layer, exposing guilt, loneliness, resentment and desperate longing that remain invisible on the surface. The result feels less like watching a film than listening to damaged souls desperately trying to explain themselves.

The slower pacing will undoubtedly divide audiences. Anyone expecting another frantic descent into horror like "Suicide Club" may initially wonder whether they're watching the right film. At nearly three hours, Sono deliberately allows scenes to breathe, conversations to linger and silences to become uncomfortable. Yet that patience is exactly what gives the film its crushing emotional weight. Rather than assaulting the audience with horror, it quietly suffocates them.

The links to "Suicide Club" gradually emerge like buried memories. Familiar characters return. Seemingly inexplicable events acquire heartbreaking new meaning. Instead of solving every mystery left behind by its predecessor, "Noriko's Dinner Table" reveals that the mass suicides were merely symptoms. The disease was already there: fractured families, emotional isolation and a generation that no longer knows how to distinguish genuine connection from manufactured affection.

Even the recurring references to Amaterasu, the Shinto Sun Goddess, become devastatingly appropriate. In mythology, Amaterasu hides herself away inside a cave, plunging the world into darkness until she is coaxed back into the light. Sono transforms that ancient story into a metaphor for modern alienation. His characters retreat into emotional caves of their own making, burying themselves beneath invented identities, borrowed personalities and carefully rehearsed roles. They don't simply lose each other; they lose themselves.

Where "Suicide Club" screamed its anger at a disconnected society, "Noriko's Dinner Table" whispers the same message with terrifying conviction. It abandons shock tactics in favour of psychological horror, and the result is arguably even more unsettling. The monsters aren't killers or ghosts. They're ordinary families who have forgotten how to speak to one another, teenagers who find more warmth from strangers than their own parents and adults so desperate for affection that they'll happily pay someone else to fake it.

This isn't simply one of the greatest companion films ever made. It's one of the bleakest examinations of identity, loneliness and modern Japan ever committed to cinema. "Suicide Club" leaves you stunned. "Noriko's Dinner Table" leaves you questioning every relationship in your own life. Long after the credits roll, that's the film that refuses to let go.

Suicide Club (5 Stars)

Time and time again the sky is blue,

And yet it's strange how people seem to always fall in love.

An unfamiliar yellow dog keeps grinning

As it tears us from the ones we love.

Because the dead,

Because the dead,

Because the dead shine all night long.

I want to die as beautifully as Joan of Arc

Inside a Bresson film.

Lesson one, apply the shaving cream and smile

As you slowly slice away the heart

Because the dead,

Because the dead,

Because the dead shine all night long.

Feel the warmth of the spring rain

As it gently moistens down a cheek

That's streaked with dried up tears.

A guileless boy of five years old stares blankly in the face of death

While his heart is cut and torn away.

Because the dead,

Because the dead,

Because the dead shine all night long.

Because the dead,

Because the dead,

Because the dead shine all night long.

Few films have ever announced themselves with such breath-taking audacity. "Suicide Club" opens with one of the most infamous scenes in horror history, as fifty-four smiling schoolgirls calmly join hands and throw themselves beneath an oncoming train. The resulting carnage is so extreme that it's almost surreal, immediately signalling that Sion Sono has no interest in making a conventional thriller.

As mass suicides sweep across Japan, weary detective Kuroda struggles to uncover the truth. Every lead only deepens the mystery. A bizarre website appears to predict the growing death toll, grotesque rolls of stitched human skin arrive at police stations and the relentlessly upbeat J-Pop group Dessert seems to cast an eerie shadow over every tragedy. Meanwhile, the flamboyant psychopath Genesis, played with unforgettable manic energy by Rolly, taunts the investigation while hinting that something far larger is unfolding.

Is Dessert secretly manipulating its fans through coded messages hidden in its posters and songs? Is there a suicide cult operating in the shadows? Or has modern society become so emotionally hollow that people no longer need anyone to persuade them to die? Sono deliberately refuses to provide simple answers, leaving viewers to wrestle with one haunting question: "Are you connected to yourself?"

Beneath the shocking violence lies a savage satire of celebrity culture, media obsession and the loneliness lurking beneath modern life. The unforgettable final concert by Dessert offers no comforting explanation, only the chilling suggestion that the machinery of pop culture will continue smiling long after the bodies have been cleared away.

Violent, provocative and deeply unsettling, Suicide Club remains one of the most original cult horror films of the twenty-first century. Its gruesome set pieces may grab your attention, but it's the questions it leaves behind that will haunt you long after the credits roll.

Baby Doll Strippers (3 Stars)

I read that the Blu-ray "Harlots of the Caribbean" contained an extra feature, a short film called "Strippers Inc". I had no idea what it is, but as soon as it started I recognised it as "Baby Doll Strippers" with a new name.

The film, if it can be called that, is about a strip club owner interviewing three girls who want to work for her. After the interviews she asks them to show their skills as private dancers. The girls take turns in pretending to be men, so that the potential strippers can show how they seduce them.

The interview sections were so realistic that they seemed like they were candid question and answer sessions, with the actresses giving honest answers from their own lives. The dancing sections were obviously rehearsed. I greatly enjoyed the interview sections, but the dances didn't live up to my expectations. I doubt I'll ever watch this film again.

Despicable Me (4 Stars)

Amazon Friday #43

Today I collected my granddaughter Evelyn from kindergarten. On the way home I asked her if she wanted to watch a film with me. That was an important question. She recently turned five, and she's never watched a film. She's happy watching videos on YouTube. Now it's time for her to move up to the next level. I picked the film "Despicable Me", better known as "the Minions film". Isn't that what everyone calls it?

I thought she might get bored, but she didn't. I'm sure she didn't understand everything. The film started with the Egyptian pyramids being stolen, but she doesn't know what the pyramids are. Nevertheless, she watched the whole film intently, bursting into laughter at any slapstick intervals. The film was a success, and there will be many more.

By the way, she drew this picture for me this morning. The two hearts are her heart and mine. Forever together. I love her so much.

Success Rate:  + 5.9

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Harlots of the Caribbean (4½ Stars)

It's taken a long time to get here. After 20 years, "Harlots of the Caribbean" has finally been released on Blu-ray. I was worried that Fred Olen Ray would only release his bikini films (as he likes to call them) if they starred Christine Nguyen, because she's his most popular actress, but here we have a film with the amazing Beverly Lynne, Rebecca Love, Nicole Sheridan and Beverly Lynne. Did I just say Beverly Lynne twice? It must be the echo out at sea.

That's not a harlot on the Blu-ray cover. It's the pirate queen Morgana, who used to have sex with every man before she made him walk the plank.

And those aren't harlots either. It's Beverly Lynne and Nicole Sheridan, modern day treasure hunters.

In fact, there aren't any harlots at all in the film. It's just a catchy title.

I bought two Blu-rays in the Medina collection that were released at the same time this month. I'll give a complete summary when I watch the other film.

Vier Fäuste für ein Hallelujah [comedy version] (4 Stars)

This is the comedy version of "Four Fists for a Hallelujah". Supposedly. I don't think it's any funnier than the version I watched yesterday. From what I've read the dubbing was more accurate in the theatrical version, but there's one significant exception: in the new version Terence Hill is called Trinity, as he should have been from the start.

Which version is better? I prefer this one. Trinity remains Trinity.

Vier Fäuste für ein Hallelujah (4 Stars)

I'm so frustrated with this film that I almost decided not to review it. It makes a mockery of my film blog and films in general. I reviewed it once before, using the English DVD title, "Trinity is still my name". That's the literal translation of the original Italian title. In Germany the film is called "Vier Fäuste für ein Hallelujah", i.e. "Four fists for a Hallelujah". That means absolutely nothing, but Germans like spectacular film titles. The title change doesn't bother me, except in the German dubbing Terence Hill isn't called Trinity, his name is Sleepy Joe. Why? The answer is only known to the super-intelligent boss of the German studio responsible for the dubbing when the film was released in 1971.

In 1982 the film was rereleased for video. For reasons also unknown to me the film was redubbed and called the "comedy version". That doesn't make sense either, because the original film was already a comedy. I just watched the original "theatrical" version, and I'll watch the comedy version tomorrow.