Shitty Movie Sundays: Caged Heat 3000, or, Nudity Is the New Black

Caged Heat 3000 VHS boxWho doesn’t want a little sleaze in their life? If the dearth of this kind of movie in the 21st century is any indication, the answer is: not many people.

Existing halfway between some R-rated titillation and outright smut, Caged Heat 3000 is of a type that has little place in popular culture these days. It’s too raunchy for regular release, but not explicit enough to live on those websites we all pretend we don’t visit. Erotic direct-to-video releases are a victim of forty years of increasing social conservatism here in the States, and the internet, which can offer straight porn on demand. What an interesting dichotomy. Movies are becoming more prudish, while smut is more readily available than ever before, leaving the middle ground a barren wasteland for new content. That’s an oversimplification, but there is a lively debate online about the subject of nudity in film.

There’s no debate here at Shitty Movie Sundays. Gratuitous nudity is an important facet of the shitty movie experience, just as much as nonsensical plots, cheap sets, poor effects, bad acting, and all the other things that give the shitty movie fan their fix. We can gaze upon the lazy eroticism and shameless misogyny of a flick like Caged Heat 3000 and laugh. It also brings to mind the days before we were flooded with content, when Caged Heat 3000 might have been the best, or only, option available for a viewer looking to see a little skin. Continue readingShitty Movie Sundays: Caged Heat 3000, or, Nudity Is the New Black”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Colonials

Science fiction movies in the 21st century don’t get much more bargain basement than Colonials, from writer (with Cyrus Cheek), director (with Andrew Balek), and producer (with far too many people to name) Joe Bland. That’s Bland as in, I shit you not, Bland Productions. That’s the name of his company. Lean into it, Joe.

Using techniques pioneered by George Lucas, Bland didn’t need any fancy sets, or even a full complement of actors. Like the worst sequences in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Colonials uses CGI for just about everything. Spaceships and their interiors. Space stations and their interiors. Ground level in a destroyed megalopolis. A moon base. An earth base. Random hallways and rooms. Even the movie’s bad guy. It takes a full twenty-two minutes of running time before any member of the cast is shown in real surroundings, and that’s just a small location somewhere in the hills of Los Angeles. Continue readingShitty Movie Sundays: Colonials”