Originally posted on 3/2/10
Fred Olen Ray's Retromedia does it again with HOUSEWIVES FROM ANOTHER WORLD, another lighthearted soft-porn romp in the vein of BIKINI FRANKENSTEIN and TWILIGHT VAMPS. This time, the story which serves as a connective tissue for the numerous sex scenes is flimsier than ever, but ultimately that doesn't really matter all that much, does it?
The movie opens, unsurprisingly enough, in the bedroom of Max (Frankie Cullen) and Karen (Heather Vandeven), but that's not Karen whom Max is having furious simulated sex with--it's their ditzy neighbor, Rita (Rebecca Love).
Nicely intercut with this are shots of a meteor headed for a fiery rendezvous with Earth--the simple CGI looks pretty good--which might serve as a metaphor for the fact that Karen is coming home early from a business trip. When she discovers Max and Rita in bed together, she's furious. Rita, we find, was told that Karen had been killed in a freak skateboard accident and that Max needed to be held.
Karen grabs a bottle of Jack and angrily stomps out into the desert behind their house, where she finds the pieces of the fallen meteor. One of the shards shoots a jolt of energy into her head, transferring an alien entity into her body.
Seemingly morphed into a Stepford wife, Karen cheerfully forgives Max and Rita. But she secretly has a new mission--find the plans for a top-secret galaxy-probing satellite that Max is working on for the government and destroy them before Earth discovers her home planet, which will lead to an intergalactic war. (How? It doesn't matter.)
Meanwhile, Max's competitors at work, Tom (Tony Marino) and Carla (Christine Nguyen), are busy trying to steal the plans themselves so they can take credit for them. Using meteor shards in the form of necklaces, Karen zaps Carla and Rita with more alien entities. Their mission, however, is put on hold when the intoxicating carnal sensations of their new human bodies drive them to engage in lots and lots of sex. Betcha didn't see that coming.
As in the rest of these Retromedia sex farces, HOUSEWIVES is capably directed and looks really good for its low budget, with a pleasant musical score. Best of all, however, is the fact that the lead castmembers not only look terrific but aren't bad actors, either. Frankie Cullen and Tony Marino continue to display a deft comic sense that sets them apart from the average leering stud muffin, while Christine Nguyen's sex appeal is matched by her own skills in this area. Too bad this particular script doesn't give them much of a chance to be funny.
Heather Vandeven looks about as good as you'd expect a Penthouse Pet of the Year to look and is quite enthusiastic in her sex scenes. (It appears as though she's using the famous Stanislavski method in her shower scene.) My favorite, though, is the adorable and delightfully buxom Rebecca Love, who has now joined my list of future wives which will go into effect just as soon as I become a billionaire playboy and bigamy is decriminalized.
Rounding out the supporting cast are Ted Newsom as Max's boss Mr. Roberts--Ted plays a normal person for a change, and is surprisingly adept at it--and Ron Ford as the shady foreign-type (he wears a fez) who schemes to purchase the satellite blueprints from a debt-plagued Tom. Both actors bring a certain substance to their roles which adds a little weight to this otherwise paper-thin story.
The DVD from Retromedia and Infinity is widescreen with Dolby Digital sound. Extras consist of trailers for this and several other Retromedia releases.
As an entry in Retromedia's growing list of sci-fi and horror-tinged softcore sex comedies, HOUSEWIVES FROM ANOTHER WORLD is extremely light on the comedy and story elements (though it does have a slight ZONTAR vibe at times). But with acres of bare skin on display and a cast that performs like Energizer bunnies at the drop of a hat, it's definitely fun to look at.
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