 Let’s take a look at Misty Mundae’s
Internet Movie Database Biography:
“Misty Mundae is an actress, model, and film director
known for her appearances in independent horror and lesbian
soft-core films. Here (sic) 'trademark' appearance is her
pronounced 'naturalness' or lack of affectation, both in acting
style and appearance.”
Now that seems like a pretty low blow, but I took about two
seconds out to think about it and yes, that seems like a fair
assessment.
After
going through The
Witches of Breastwick and a stack of trailers on the disc,
it seems to me that Seduction Cinema concentrates on the more physically enhanced actresses. Misty Mundae is an
oddity in their line-up; a body (probably) untouched by surgical
enhancement and the appeal of the girl next door.
Sure, some might say “The face of a 12-year-old and
the tits to match,” but I’d take that over The
Witches of Breastwick flapping their Chesty Morgan-esque
flopbags all over the place. Now with the Misty Mundae
Euro-Vixen Collection, you get the films fully uncut,
and with more “erotic” footage included. While
I haven’t seen the American versions of the films, I
can only assume this means one thing: A slightly more pronounced
vulva. Or for the Laymen: A little more lippy-action for your
dollar.
Popping in Disc 1, you’ll find Vampire Vixens and Mummy Raider.
Vampire Vixens is the most ridiculous of
the films. Misty Mundae and Unidentified-man-with-incomplete-barbed-wire-arm-band-tattoo
star as two lovers who have recently celebrated their one-month
anniversary. Meanwhile over in Movie-B, a freakish Renfield
has resurrected Dracula, who quickly demands the death of
Wally Van Helsing.
 And
yes, that’s all there is to it.
Vampire Vixens is the most graphic of the
bunch, but it’s also the most maddening. In between
each soft-core lesbian rampage there’s a stream of bad
comedy. I hope one day the people responsible for this mess
will realize that you can’t disguise poor writing as
satire about poor writing. I wouldn’t be surprised
if watching Vampire Vixens knocked 20 years
off my life. Let’s move on.
Looking like it was shot for cable access and assembled in
post production on Colecovision, Mummy Raider features Misty as a (in her own words) “lesbian thrill-seeker
extraordinaire” who accidentally brings a mummy back
to life by buffing her clitoris on the mummy’s nose
for six minutes straight.
Ummmmm, yeah.
Meanwhile in Berlin, a busty Nazi (you can tell she’s
a Nazi because she wears a camouflage hat) tortures Kristen,
Misty’s lesbian lover, in hopes of discovering the secret
that will resurrect a mummy that will somehow create Hitler’s
Fourth Reich. The girl buckles when the Nazi threatens penetration
with a billy club, making me lose all hope for actual penetration.
Mundae manages to magically find her way into the Nazi lair
and dispatches the mummy, saves the girl, and helps the Nazi
renounce her evil ways with the help of orgasm therapy.
 You
think that little bit is half-assed in describing a movie?
It’s not. Mummy Raider is a 71-minute
film that still manages to pack itself with a good
40 percent of padding. Nonsensical opening that has nothing
to do with the rest of the film? Check. Extended lesbian sequences
that don’t particularly go anywhere, even by soft-core
standards? Yep. Extended beginning and ending credits that
repeatedly use preexisting footage from the film? Yep.
I started watching this film around 4:30 a.m. and finished
up around 2:00 p.m.. That should tell you something.
And hey, by the way, there is a whole ‘nother disc.
Moving on to Disc 2, we have Satan’s School
for Lust. Misty Mundae plays the oddly named Primula
Cooper, a petite lady who has just been sent away to Diablo
School for Girls.
This information slips after 20 minutes of simulated sex,
a bad Exorcist reference with bloodied crucifix,
and an extended shower scene. And yes, it really was 20 minutes.
I timed it.
Unbeknownst to Misty Mundae’s breasts, every year six
to eight nubile schoolgirls disappear from the school, never
to return.
 Surprisingly
enough, the plot moves forward as news reporter Linda
is hot on the trail of a girl who just went missing. Naturally
she manages to fuck everything in sight, landing her dumb
ass at Diablo ... which means she ends up at the whip’s
end of the unimaginatively named Miss Beezle. While the fade
out might seem like a disappointment to some, don’t
worry, because it fades in five seconds later as Beezle whips
off her top - which goes to show that you have to establish
plot before you can ignore it with enough lesbian bondage
to establish an erection, and enough Zamfir-esque pan flute
music to destroy it. This soundtrack is like a lumberjack:
it chops down wood with deadly accuracy.
A lot of badly recorded exposition shows up in between lesbian
romps (seriously, you can barely hear a word over the Casio
VL-1 soundtrack) which basically amounts to this: Miss Beezle
must find a virgin to use for her own sexual pleasure, which
in turn will wake Satan, who has a fetish for vinyl outfits,
flames painted around her nipples, and the letter “S”
surrounding her belly button. At least, I’m assuming she’s Satan at this point. Who knows? She might be Supergirl.
Satan’s School for Lust manages to
have the hottest premise of the entire collection, but still
manages to bungle it up. While this time around the film actually
tries to inject a bit of plot into the mix, the pacing suffers,
flip-flopping between extended periods  of
soft-core sex and extended periods of garbled plot best left
on the cutting room floor. Ditch the plot and give me hot
lesbian schoolgirl bondage action. Just leave out the flute
music next time.
Finally, on Disc 4 we have the much more serious Roxanna,
which comes off as the most accomplished of the collection.
Here Misty plays the titular character, a young married woman
hooked on cocaine and wasting her life with a loser husband
who brings home women in hopes of getting a little three-way
action. “Can I fuck her?” he pleads. When she
rejects this modest proposal, he manages to convince Roxanna
to have a little fun with the lady, which awakens Roxanna’s
lust for women.
When I say “accomplished,” what I really mean
is that the cast and crew seem to have taken more time and
effort with the film. At least half of the story makes sense.
The camera is in focus. There’s lighting. You can hear
people reciting their dialogue over the bizarrely avant-garde
soundtrack (sort of Phillip Glass meets bad electroclash).
Of course, the film is oozing with lesbian sex, but at least
the plot gives reason for the sex angle. And of course there
are little touches of sheer silliness. I mean really, if you’re
going to the trouble of snorting coke off a woman’s
breast, why do it with a $5 bill? Go all the way! At least
whip out a $20 and make yourself feel like a proper movie
star. The movie quickly falls apart and we’re left with
extended periods of fetishistic shoe sex, which I’m
tempted to say is the best penetration with footwear since Single White Female.
And then the movie ends. (What, you thought the movie was
going to end with resolution to that whole Roxanna thing? Moron.)
When all is said and done, The Misty Mundae Euro-Vixen
Collection is soft-core porn, and that’s it.
Outside of its star, there’s absolutely nothing that
distinguishes it from the rest of the Shannon Tweeds or the
Cinemaxes or the Playboys of the world. It has all the signature
touches of soft-core porn: Disposable plots, irritating soundtracks,
extended sex sequences, an overabundance of pubic hair to
make sure no labia is exposed, an intense fascination with
breasts, and a genuine fear of the male body, as if seeing
naked man-ass for more than five seconds will turn a guy into
a stone-cold homosexual. Don’t believe me? There are
exactly two frames of penis in the collection’s five-hour
running time.
Also, for the more perceptive, pay close attention to Misty’s
pubic hair; it changes shape and sizes throughout the films,
going from A History of Violence-style Maria
Bello to Playboy trim and back whenever possible. Nobody was
on bush continuity?
Picture
Basically shot on some guy’s home video cameras,
each film is pretty ugly. Vampire Vixens is the worst off of the bunch, exposing tape distortion at
the bottom of the frame throughout. There’s also a tiny
bit of pixelation that pop up throughout the films. These
films were done cheap and fast, and the quality is exactly
what you would expect.
Audio
Uniformly awful. Full of hiss, distortion,
and varying levels from scene to scene, Satan’s
School For Lust fares the worst here, with scenes
that are barely audible. I know these films aren’t artistic
statements, but fuck, why not let us in on what’s being
said – or at least include subtitles?
Extras
On Disc 1 you’ll find Making-Of footage
for both Vampire Vixens and Mummy
Raider, running about 30 minutes total. You’ll
find out such interesting facts as “Vampire
Vixens was basically ad-libbed on the spot”
(SHOCK) and “watching behind the scenes footage of lesbian
scenes being filmed is just as boring as the scenes in the
movies themselves.” However, when the girls are allowed
to kick back and just be themselves, the footage manages to
be more interesting than all the films combined.
Over on Disc 2, there are two fairly useless Deleted
Scenes having to do with, yes, sex! Also included
is a collection of Trailers, all featuring Misty
Mundae. You know what to expect with these things.
Finally, on Disc 3 we get the more Misty Mundae-centric
extras, starting off with Commentary by Michael Raso
on Roxanna. Raso is the executive producer
of EI Independent Cinema and produced all four films in the
set. Raso spits out a constant stream of information, sometimes
confirming your worst fears (yes, they’re willing to
just slap any footage they can get their hands on to fill
out running time). This is definitely the best feature on
the set.
 On
the Extras section, we have Factory 2000: The
Early Days, which features background information and
clips from the films that Misty and her sister Chelsea were
starring in before Seduction Cinema, films which centered
mostly on strangulation. The best part? Chelsea saying, “When
I ate the fetus, I was trying to symbolize an overpowering
of this male dominated Republican right to women’s body…”
and then trailing off when she realizes what she just said.
From Skin to Scream just might be the very definition
of hyperbole packed into 17 minutes. A veritable blowjob for
Misty Mundae, the featurette starts off with an authoritative
voice saying, “It is rare, an indefinable magnetic presence
that radiates its own unique energy… It’s simply
called star power.” I don’t think star power includes
fucking a mummy, but that’s me.
UK Channel 4 Interview is a slightly sarcastic,
three-minute overview of Misty’s oeuvre, while Misty
Mundae: 2004 Interview is a more candid and honest interview
concerning Misty’s recent films. She seems like a level-headed
girl who knows exactly what she’s doing. I don’t
know if this is a good or bad thing – the idea that
she’s well aware of the films she’s starring in
is a bit scary. However the interview manages to pack in a
few clips of her own film, Voodoun Blues,
a 16mm school project which manages to be better than any
of the films in the set for the stylish stop-motion-animated
clips alone.
Misty Bloopersis a two-and-half minute clip collection
of Misty giggling. Pretty throwaway.
Overall
Okay, I’ll admit it. I like Misty
Mundae. She’s cute. She gets naked a lot. She seems
like a smart girl. She’s even more capable as an actress
than the material calls for. But Christ, get this lady a real
script. I can only recommend this DVD collection to dedicated
fans of Misty Mundae or soft-core porn; anyone else will probably
be tearing their hair out by disc 2.
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