Camp

Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy

Jane Fonda's memorable, zero-gravity striptease during the opening credits of this 1968 Roger Vadim movie is the closest the film comes to a liberated marriage of wit and sex. Based on a French comic strip, the story concerns the adventures of a 41st-century woman, who pretty much gets it on with whomever asks. The sci-fi sets were pretty interesting at the time, though they look rather anachronistic now. Appreciated today mostly as a camp classic, the movie is actually more trying than anything else. --Tom Keogh

Flesh Gordon

Directors Howard Ziehm and Michael Benveniste draw from the same cliffhanging Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s as the glitzy 1980 tongue-in-cheek space opera for their soft-core spoof. Hockey hero Flesh Gordon and often-naked love interest Dale Ardor join Dr. Jerkoff in his battle against the mad Emperor Wang from the planet Porno, who has unleashed his diabolical sex ray on the Earth. Full of toilet humor, juvenile sexual innuendo, and unending naked romps and orgies, it's hardly in the same company as the Mel Brooks genre goofs Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. But amidst the slack direction, flat performances, and grungy photography are some lovingly crafted low-tech effects, including marvelous stop-motion creatures from Jim Danforth and spaceships courtesy of future Oscar winners Greg Jein and Dennis Muren. The film's best sequence is a King Kong tribute with a giant rampaging satyr (voiced by an uncredited Craig T. Nelson, who ad-libs quips in a cultured but expletive-filled whine) kidnapping Dale as Flesh buzzes him his phallic space ship. All the restoration in the world won't make this dark, grainy, bargain-basement parody look any better, but the retro effects, inspired score, and playful attitude make this silly sex romp a kitschy cult item from the randy 1970s. --Sean Axmaker

Plan 9 from Outer Space

Sometimes a movie achieves such legendary status that it can't quite live up to its reputation. Plan 9 from Outer Space is not one of these movies. It is just as magnificently terrible as you've heard. Plan 9 is the story of space aliens who try to conquer the Earth through resurrection of the dead. Psychic Criswell narrates ("Future events such as these will affect you in the future!") as police rush through the cemetery, occasionally clipping the cardboard tombstones in their zeal to find the source of the mysterious goings-on. More than just a bad film, Plan 9 is something of a one- stop clearinghouse for poor cinematic techniques: The time shifts whimsically from midnight to afternoon sun, Tor Johnson flails desperately in an attempt to rise from his coffin, and flying saucers zoom past on clearly visible strings. Fading star Bela Lugosi tragically died during filming, but such a small hurdle could not stop writer-producer-director Ed Wood. Lugosi is ingeniously replaced with a man who holds a cape across his face and might as well have "NOT BELA LUGOSI" stamped on his forehead. Plan 9 is so sweetly well- intentioned in both its message and its execution that it's impossible not to love it. And if you don't, well, as Eros says, "You people of Earth are idiots!" --Ali Davis

This is it! The most popular Atomic Age cult film of the twentieth century. Winner of two Golden Turkey Awards for Worst Picture and Worst Director of All Time, the immortal Edward D. Wood, Jr.! It's all here, the not-so-special effects, aliens in skating skirts zooming around in string-powered flying saucers to implement the ninth plan of Earth's conquest (the first eight failed) with an army of zombies (well, three actually), Vampira, Tor Johnson and Bela Lugosi in his legendary "postmortem" performance (with Ed's chiropractor standing in for Bela after his death). This truly original movie, Ed Wood's "Citizen Kane," is a hymn to all those who have ever tried to create something intelligent and meaningful, only to fail miserably every step of the way.

Reefer Madness

Although it was made in 1936, Reefer Madness didn't become a cult hit until 1972 when the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) rescued it from the Library of Congress film archive. Thereafter, it was a mainstay on the midnight movie circuit. And it's easy to see why. The ostensible story involves a group of upstanding young high school students who succumb to the allure of the "killer weed." What follows, as if by natural progression, is a catalog of crimes that includes hit-and-run driving, loose morals, rape, murder, suicide, and my personal favorite, permanent insanity! The action is at times so hysterical, in both senses, that you may forget to inhale. Honors go to the wild-eyed, cackling hophead David O'Brien; his performance reaches a raw intensity that is hard to imagine. One measure of this film's pervasive influence is the extent to which its title continues to be invoked in news stories about decriminalization and medical marijuana. Such posterity for unintentional humor must be rare. A great film to see stoned, man. --Jim Gay

A propaganda film from 1936 that has become a cult hit because of its dated outlook on marijuana use, Reefer Madness is the height of camp entertainment. Framed as a "documentary," the film is narrated by a high school principal imparting his wisdom and experiences with the demon weed. The bulk of the film focuses on almost slapstick scenes of high school kids smoking pot and quickly going insane, playing "evil" jazz music, being committed, and going on a murder spree. Meant to be an important and affecting cautionary tale, this dated black-and-white film's true value is in its many entertaining moments of unintended hilarity. --Robert Lane

Glen or Glenda

Is Ed Wood the worst director who ever lived? His films are campy, clumsy, and hysterically inept, but their enthusiasm and good humor overcome incoherent scripts and wooden performances with heart, soul, and an infectious sense of fun. The jaw-dropping "documentary" Glen or Glenda? is a bizarre confessional starring Wood himself as a misunderstood transvestite and Bela Lugosi as a smirking godlike narrator. "Pull ze string!" shouts Lugosi as Wood reveals his angora fetish and love of women's underwear to the world. Lugosi returns as a mad scientist revenging himself on the world ("Home? I have no home!") in Bride of the Monster, a howler of a horror picture. Tor Johnson, the hulking Swedish wrestler turned B-movie icon, made his first Wood appearance as the lumbering beast Lobo (he almost knocks over the set in one scene!) tamed by the touch of angora. Finally there's Wood's "masterpiece," the clumsy, nearly incoherent, and ridiculously cheap Plan 9 from Outer Space. A tall, skinny, blond chiropractor subs for short, raven-haired Bela Lugosi (who died after a few days of shooting), cardboard gravestones wobble as the actors walk by, and night and day randomly come and go within the same scene. --Sean Axmaker

He loved women so much, he dared to dress like one! Ed Wood strikes again. The true story of a man whose lust for women drove him to be as close to a woman as he could by trying to become one. The first film based on the strange tastes of legendary filmmaker Ed Wood, Jr., and a sordid plea for acceptance in the world of bondage and the sexually confused, decades before "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and TV's "Ellen." "Glen or Glenda?" stars famous horror icon Bela Lugosi as the "puppet master" and Ed himself in the role of Glen/Glenda. It also marks the screen debut of Wood's main squeeze at the time, Dolores Fuller, who went on to become one of Elvis's star songwriters. An important film document about the early career of a man years ahead of his time. Wildly entertaining!

The Double-D Avenger

This modern day cult movie classic is a spoof of "Wonder Woman" about a costumed superwoman who uses her giant super breasts to fight crime! "The Double-D Avenger" reunites Russ Meyer's famous stars Kitten Natividad (Russ Meyer's "Beneath the Valley of the UltraVixens"), Haji (Russ Meyer's "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"), and Raven De La Croix (Russ Meyer's "Up!") in a silly, campy farce that makes Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space" look like "Gone With the Wind!"

This DVD version is the ORIGINAL 2001 RELEASE featuring the AUDIO COMMENTARY by Russ Meyer legend KITTEN NATIVIDAD and writer/ producer/director WILLIAM WINCKLER.

Big, busty Chastity Knott (Kitten Natividad) must use her new amazing abilities as the super-stacked costumed crime fighter, the DOUBLE-D AVENGER, to stop villainous bikini bar owner Al Purplewood (Larry Butler) and his sexy, murderous strippers.

Special appearance by cult movie icon Forrest J Ackerman.

DVD includes audio commentaries, movie trailer, and exclusive behind-the-scenes photos.

"A cheerfully silly ode to larger-than-life femininity" - Dennis Harvey - VARIETY

This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.