Change Your Image
Voltaire1974
Reviews
A Very Brady Sequel (1996)
I'm tripping with THE BRADYS....
If you liked the first one, you'll like this one as well. As with the first one, it goes with the theme of putting a slick, modern-day antagonist against the clueless Bradys, and having the Bradys consistently kick him in the balls.
They go off on a few more of the themes of the original (the Jan vs. Marcia rivalry, Gary Cole's spot-on parody of Mike Brady's pompous pontificating), but it also mines some great new material. One of the best gags is the uncomfortable incestuous relationship that results from Greg and Marcia sharing their room in the attic. There's also great parodies of the Brady Bunch animated series, bad musical numbers, and the Hawaiian Vacation episode.
There are some dud gags as well, but the filmmakers once again took great-- possibly obsessive-- care to replicate the costumes, dialogue, sets, editing, and cinematography of the original Brady Bunch series. Juxtaposing this with the modern themes, and the fantastic parodying of the original series makes for another fun Brady movie.
Frauen für Zellenblock 9 (1978)
Had More Potential
With the opening narration, the movie sets up Howard Vernon's socially inept, out-of-work sadist as an extraordinarily interesting character right from the start. I was looking forward to learning more about him, and what makes him tick. Unfortunately, the movie quickly abandons his character development in favor of naked women in various states of humiliation/torture.
The ending is disappointing as well. After pulling off a daring escape, the women die in the most inglorious manner imaginable.
Don't get me wrong: the torture/humiliation in this movie is just great. My only beef is that Dr. Milton's sadism would've been much more interesting if the film had given him greater psychological depth. I found myself wondering about how he spent his years of unemployment in Europe before this South American assignment, with nothing more than his suitcase of torture devices to keep him busy.