Shock-O-Rama (2005), Zombie Fun with Misty Mundae
Misty Mundae (aka Erin Brown) stars as Rebecca Raven, a marginally fictionalized version of herself, in Shock-O-Rama; a film by Brett Piper (Mysterious Planet, The Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell, as well as two other camp horror flicks starring Mundae; Screaming Dead and Bite Me!)
Sock-O-Rama is blissfully self-aware. Mundae’s character name, Raven, is edited onto many of her classic film posters and pasted wherever appropriate, and Raven’s boss fondles a brochure for Alternative Cinema, in a blatant act of self promotion that I found funny. After Raven is fired — for essentially refusing to get breast implants — the studio seeks new talent by watching old films. This gives the movie its pseudo-anthology format, which works better than some other anthologies I could name.
The first of these films features the alien invasion of a junkyard. The claymation aliens must’ve had a budget of about 39 cents, which adds to the comedic value of the whole thing. There’s nothing worse than a low budget film trying to punch above its weight, and Shock-O-Rama never does. The story culminates with a marvelous death robot made with equally bad animation that I loved. It was sort of a Frankenstein’s AT-ST.
The second has a “doctor” (Julian Wells, who I’ve always thought paired very well with Misty Mundae, though they have no scenes together in this one) performing experiments on delinquent young women so a giant brain-thing can learn to experience the sexual pleasure of humans. Typical. I mean, have you ever seen a giant brain that wasn’t doing creepy evil things? There are some fun dream sequences in this one, and even a barbed-wire guitar.
Meanwhile, Mundae is getting some well deserved R&R all alone in a house out in nowhere, when a zombie comes a-callin’. The makeup is pretty good, though he looks like my Uncle Jack after 3 or 4 whiskey sours turns him belligerent — though, that is several drinks before he “accidentally” touches my ass, so the horror isn’t too real here. Mundae gets to play two parts, herself and the character she plays in her films, but this gimmick falls fairly flat. I would have liked to have seen more added to this plot, while the two other stories could have been a tad shorter.
If you want to know how much flesh you’ll see in Shock-O-Rama, you might be surprised. There isn’t nearly as much as most of Mundae’s other movies, which is a nice change of pace. I would never claim that Misty Mundae was a brilliant actress, but I’ve always enjoyed her. She’s easy to like, regardless of what she’s in, with a pleasing lack of fake plastic body parts, and girl-next-door qualities — to use the overused. Don’t misunderstand, there is nudity here, but less simulated sexy time.
I liked the film. Piper went for a vibe that he approached, but never achieved. I wanted more charm; more comedy, but what I got was still a good time. You can get the DVD at Alternative Cinema, and please know that I have no connection to them and won’t make any money if you use that link.
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Score: 4.5 Skulls, not too shabby
