Video Vixens! (1974) User Reviews

mildly amusing stroke fodder graced by the presence of Rainbeaux Smith

[EyeAskance · 15 November 2004]

Sophomoric romp is fairly enjoyable if you're looking for non-intellectual locker room humor and the female mystique as the chief components to a movie. There's plenty of wiggly-jiggly juvenile delinquency in VIDEO VIXENS, and a threadbare story centered on the network broadcasting of the first International Stag Film Awards. Playing entirely off this one-joke premise, there's really little else to mention.

Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith is luscious as ever in a mock commercial spot endorsing a feminine hygiene product called "TwinkleTwat", and this bit is about as good as it gets(good enough, apparently, to be redone for the 1976 muppet-porn classic LET MY PUPPETS COME, with "Twinkle Twat" renamed as "Sweet-Fish"). All-in-all, it's not exactly something to seek high and low for, but seeking low is more likely going to lead you to this film if you really feel compelled.

4/10

One of the dumbest and most offensive of all sex comedies

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 14 November 2016]

VIDEO VIXENS! is one of the dumbest softcore sex comedies I can remember watching. The thrust of the film is that a money-hungry TV producer decides to hold his own adult awards designed to showcase the best in stag cinema. The majority of the film's running time is made up of said awards playing out, interspersed with short films and spoof adverts advertising various sex-related products.

And this really is a dumb film. I didn't laugh once as the jokes fall flat over and over again. When the subject of rape is played for laughs you know your film is in trouble and thus VIDEO VIXEN! has an offensive and demeaning quality to it. Many of the sex scenes involve violence or aggression towards women which also leaves a bad taste in the mouth. There's ample nudity here but also a lot of bad acting and a general aimless feel that makes it tough to keep your attention.

A truly dreadful film!

[Trevor Hallatt · 1/10 · 17 January 2002]

A sex comedy? Is that what it's meant to be? I suppose it's very much like a lot of this genre from the seventies. If you think of a George Romero film of this type then it's much worse. Admittedly there is some nudity to keep your interest but overall it's barely watchable.

How Low Can You Go????

[mrpentax · 1/10 · 25 March 2000]

Clearly one expects a film like this to be at or near the bottom of the barrel. As a frame of reference, to better understand the range quality, to try the taste of beans after days of filets, one might occasionally sample a film that you expect to be bad. What one may be surprised to find out, as I was, is that for some films, like this one, the barrel has one bottom. There is no explanation, no description, no criticism that could impart the full measure of this movie's utterly astounding baseness. Whatever makes Plan 9 from Outer Space a loser and be found in spades in this gem of tasteless tripe. I am burning my copy so that one else might make the same mistake I did. There are better ways to test quality.

Amusing lowbrow comedy romp

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 3 May 2011]

Brash and crazed cigar-chomping network TV executive Clifford Bradley (robustly essayed by Norman Field) decides to push the boundaries of good taste and moral decency by broadcasting an extremely bawdy and explicit stag movie awards show complete with equally racy commercials on live television. Bradley forces uptight film critic Gordon Gordon (well played to prissy perfection by Harrison Phillips) to host this filthy and depraved event. Director Ronald Sullivan, working from a blithely crude'n'crass script by Joel Gross, cheerfully panders to the lowest common denominator by milking the gloriously dirty jokes about porn, rape, sex, and certain parts of the human anatomy in the most admirably base, shameless, and tasteless manner imaginable (the TV commercial about a feminine hygiene product called Twinkle T**t and the sleazy "Dragnet" parody in particular are especially gut-busting). Moreover, the game cast tackle the vulgar material with commendable zest: The always enjoyable George "Buck" Flower has a field day as jolly smut flick director Rex Boorski and buxom blonde knockout Robyn Hilton makes for an ideal merry airhead as the incredibly vacuous Inga. Better still, 70's drive-in cinema starlets Terri Johnson, Maria Arnold, Sandy Dempsey, Kimberly Hyde, Angela Carnon, Robin Whitting, and the ever-adorable Cheryl Smith pop up in nifty bit parts. Of course, there's also plenty of tasty female nudity on display throughout (ladies will be thrilled to know that good ol' Buck also bares his beefy butt for his art). Jacques Urbont's bouncy'n'cheery score bubbles along to an infectiously happy beat. An absolute raunchy hoot.

A sexploitation classic

[JWFleming · 27 November 1999]

Video Vixens is one of the funniest sexploitation comedies around. Norman Field (Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, The Godson) is WKLITT television executive Clifford Bradley, paranoid of a conspiracy to deprive Americans of their sexual desires via added ingredients in the soap. He decides to cancel regular programming and put on a stag film awards show to reinvigorate America's sex life. George "Buck" Flowers (Taking It Off) as porn auteur Rex Boorski, is put in charge of making it all happen. Especially notable is Harrison Phillips as Gordon Gordon, film critic for Bradley's station, who is as prude as they come! He is ordered, much to his own mortification, to host the gala event. All three give incredibly tight performances. If you can get past the jokes about rape, something one is expected to do in films by Almodovar and Waters, Video Vixens works well even as a commentary of modern television twenty five plus years after its initial release. Broadcasting the Porn Academy Awards is not that far off in a society where a lesbian kiss on Ally McBeal gets high ratings and the use of four letter words and bare buttocks qualifies as breakthrough television. Plus the commercial and film parodies work well within the structure of the plot (like those in Putney Swope). Add to all of this the star power of sexploitation veterans Marie Arnold, Sandy Dempsey and Rainbeaux Smith, this film not only delivers the skin but also an entertaining plot and plenty of laughs to go along with it. That's something even Gordon Gordon would approve of!