My fans just like to watch me suffer.
SUMMARY (They’re basically the same, differences go 1993[2015])
Harry Smith [Delamo] (Eric Kohner / Alexi Stavrou) is a strip [cabaret] club owner with his wife, Olivia (Melanie Rose / Rachel Alig). Olivia is obsessed with UFOs to the point that she has had no interest in sex with Harry for 4 [2] months. A new girl, named Thousand Ways (Michaela Stoicov / Roberta Sparta) arrives at the club and flirts with Harry. Harry’s best friend (Frank Fowler / Ben Gillman) comes up with a strategy to help Harry have an affair with Thousand Ways and fakes an alien abduction. After a night with Thousand Ways, Harry returns and tells his wife the truth, but Olivia believes that the aliens just erased his memory. A few nights later, he plans another “abduction,” only for him to actually be abducted by aliens. The aliens (Uncredited / Albert Minero, Jr. and Josiah Black) return Harry to Earth and give him a special ability – Whenever he looks at a woman, he can make her orgasm. Eventually, after some hijinks, Olivia gets rid of Harry’s ability by satisfying him sexually [using voodoo to attack the aliens] and they have some kind of happily ever after.
END SUMMARY
So, this movie was requested because the reader had remembered the movie from the classic USA Up All Night series hosted by Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Shear. The show’s premise was that the comedians would host two films, starting late at night on Saturday, with comedy skits or commentary during the commercial breaks and then there would be a third movie or a repeat of the first film, but that was usually unhosted. If, like me, you liked Duckman in the 90s (and like me had parents that didn’t notice that you were watching Duckman), then you might remember this as the show that came on after it. The series ran from 1989 to 1998 and the late-night movies continued until 2002. During the show’s run, it featured films ranging from legitimately great movies like the original Halloween to B-movies like the Puppet Master films to heavily-edited soft-core pornography like The Bikini Carwash Company. The 1993 version of this movie is definitely one of the latter. I actually didn’t catch this movie during the USA Up All Night run, due to being 10 the last time it aired, but I did see it on Cinemax years later. It was truly made for the “13 and can’t find actual porn” audience.
The 1993 version of the movie starts off with nudity. It’s literally just a stripper dancing and collecting money, and that’s actually what a large percentage of this movie is. Even in scenes where characters are being developed or the plot is supposed to be progressing, the camera is usually focused on a scantily clad or nude female. The movie is, I guess, supposed to be a sex comedy, but I don’t think anything in the movie was ever actually funny. The acting in it ranges from bad to terrible and the script isn’t better. It mostly stands out because the film feels like two completely different ideas stitched together poorly, that of a guy faking abductions for an affair and of a guy who can make a woman orgasm by looking. Also, they clearly pad the script with scenes about Harry’s and Olivia’s neighbor having an affair with a detective and throw in a weird element of having the aliens drop Harry off wearing a Roman uniform. It’s like the people who made the movie just wanted to sell boobs and butts, which means this movie probably made a fortune.
The 2015 version, on the other hand, explicitly starts the film by saying that they aren’t going to be rated R. However, if a viewer were to think that this means that this movie might actually be decent on its own merit, that’s a mistake. The acting in this version is better, in the sense that it’s not awful, but much of the script is either exactly the same or somehow worse. A big thing is that they expand the roles of the aliens in the movie. Whereas in the 1993 version, the aliens just appear for a moment then release Harry, in this one they are actively monitoring Harry and they actually are on a mission to fix his sex life, revealed to be at the request of Thousand Ways, who is an alien hosting a reality show in this version. The aliens start to provide the “comic relief” and they are anything but funny. They talk in broken English which is only funny if you have some sort of brain injury, and say things like “how you know which one is ‘hot’?” about the women in Harry’s life. Also, they end up leaving when Olivia uses Voodoo on them, something that HAS NOT BEEN IN THE MOVIE UNTIL NOW OR EVEN MENTIONED. But at least the deus ex machina means this movie comes in at a mercifully short 69 (heh) minutes.
I’m absolutely perplexed at why this movie was remade. Moreover, why would you remake a movie whose primarily plots are sex-based without any nudity and with lessened sexuality? They not only remove the nudity, but the women orgasming (a major part of the movie) is now portrayed by women singing a high soprano note. Even some of the lines are just altered slightly to be less offensive, like how Thousand Ways goes from meaning “a thousand ways to have an affair” to “a thousand ways to have a man,” and having her line go from the moderately clever entendre “I love screwing my bosses” to the awkward “I love having sex with my bosses.” However, both versions have an awkward moment where Harry is worried about looking at an underage girl with his powers, before being assured that she’s over 18, and in both I feel dirty from having watched the exchange.
I will be frank, neither of these movies is good, but the first one never pretends to be anything other than an excuse to show off some very sexy ladies in little to no clothing. The bad acting, stupid scripts, and the fact that most of the conversations of the film are played over stripping is the film just delivering on its promise to the audience. The remake tried to be a film and completely failed. If you’re really wanting to relive the age before internet porn, they’re both on Amazon.
If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.
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