Disc One: Psychotronica, Vol. 1

Delinquent Schoolgirls (1974) - Directed by Greg Corarito - Three lunatics escape from the asylum and go on a rampage: B-Movie king Michael Pataki as the lowest of low-rent impersonators, the late great Stephen Stucker (Leon from Airplane!) as a flaming homosexual (which was apparently the reason he was locked-up?), and actor/stuntman Bob Minor as an ex-baseball player turned rapist (which is a big stretch of the imagination since everyone knows it’s the basketball players that get into the sex scandals). After the demented trio breaks in to George "Buck" Flower’s house, they head for an all-girl school overrun with oversexed teens (one of whom is Sharon Kelly, who would later work in porn under the name Colleen Brennan). Gratuitous shots of flopping, bouncing breasts abound. Pataki’s impersonations are so awful that you will actually feel the embarrassment that he should have felt doing them. a.k.a. Carnal Madness.

Luigi’s Useless Information: The girls say "chauvinistic pig" at least three times throughout the film. Listen closely to some of the background songs: one tune in particular (just before the maniacs invade Buck Flower’s house) is a country song with oh-so-subtle lyrics like: "… and your hands are really soft, and I’m sorry I got off, you’re holding all my love in the palm of your hand"! Wow!

Dream No Evil (1973) - Written & Directed by John Hayes - If Michael Pataki’s nauseating performance in the last film wasn’t enough for you - hoorah! - he’s back in this even-weirder second feature. Michael plays a traveling faith healer whose future sister-in-law Grace (Brooke Mills) was adopted at a young age and is still searching for her long lost father. Or something like that, I don’t know to be honest. Maybe the rampant confusion of this film was the fault of the Editing Room Floor Slasher, or maybe the writer/director thought it would be fun to throw all caution to the wind and improvise an entire feature (watch Full Frontal Nudity again if you need a reminder of how wrong that idea can go - no, don’t watch it again - why torture yourself any further). Either way, if there’s a plot in this film, I have yet to discover it. An unknown narrator occasionally interjects the monotony with some random sputtering à la Coleman Francis’ epic The Beast Of Yucca Flats (which is actually more enjoyable than both Full Frontal Nudity and Dream No Evil). Although he isn’t in it very much, the top-billed actor is Edmond O’Brien (obviously to boost ticket sales). Third-billed old timer Marc Lawrence shows up briefly as a pimp/undertaker (wearing the exact same outfit he wore in Diamonds Are Forever and several features made thirty-years before that) that shows Grace the corpse of her father… which promptly comes to life (O’Brien) and kills the pimp/undertaker. Go ahead, sit through it, all of it - I dare you…

Luigi’s Useless Information: VCI’s presentation begins with a disclaimer stating this is the original theatrical cut distributed in ‘73 and not the uncut version that the MPAA gave an "R" Rating to the year before. Interestingly, the IMDb states that this movie’s original copyright date was 1970 (perhaps the movie was made over the course of several years).

Disc Two: Psychotronica, Vol. 2

Mondo Keyhole (1966) - Directed by Jack Hill - Not Jack Hill’s crowning moment here. Howard Thorne (a non-actor using the alias Nick Moriarty and whose voice is dubbed - as are the voices for most of the people in this film) runs a mail-order porn business (the guy playing the part was in fact a genuine porn distributor in real life and his actual office is shown). Despite all that dirty money pouring in, Howard finds he can only find sexual satisfaction through the act of rape. Yep, this one’s a bit of a "psychological" roughie, kids (but it really isn’t that extreme). While the subject matter isn’t one I’m partial to, the gritty, handheld 16mm B&W footage (particularly the night scenes with the neon lights - which almost rank up there with the scenes from Alphaville) are to die for - as is some of the imagery throughout. Luana Anders provided the voice of Howard’s wife (who is played by Swedish model Adele Rain under the pseudonym of Victoria Wren) and several of Howard’s victims were also in the A.C. Stephens/Ed Wood messterpiece Orgy Of The Dead.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Poor Jack Hill himself appears in this film: twice. Once as a guy answering a phone and again as a shirtless man who is tied up and being whipped by two women (listen to his reaction on the Commentary track… the poor bastard).

The Raw Ones (1965) - Directed by John Lamb - If you’ve never seen a nudist camp film, here’s your golden opportunity… and I can almost guarantee you that you may never want to see another. Now, I have no problem with nudity and as much as I enjoy the sight of a pair of breasts bouncing or a set of buns jiggling, there is such thing as overkill in these films. The Raw Ones deserves credit however for being the first publicly shown feature to show full frontal nudity on both men and women. Yawn in a state of splendor to the sights of people frolicking and sporting - in the nude - while a narrator says something to the effect of "Hey, it’s OK… it’s legal now!" every five minutes. Hooray, nudism!

Luigi’s Useless Information: You know, for nudists, these people sure have some killer tan lines! Cult director Jack Hill had worked for director John Lamb as a photographer on many 16mm shorts (which were made for the mail-order market). For this feature-length film, Jack edited several of the shorts together, threw in a recording of Tchaikovsky’s "Swan Lake" (which, having been conducted and recorded in Russia, had no U.S. copyright) and called it a day.

Disc Three: Psychotronica, Vol. 3

The Mermaids Of Tiburon: Nude Version (1962/64/87) - Written & Directed by John Lamb - John Lamb strikes again - this time in an aquatic sexcapade which the underwater cinematographer originally shot without nudity. Two years later, he used a little of that ol’ editing magic and filmed new close-ups of the mermaids (without fins!) which he released as The Aqua Sex. As if that wasn’t anal/greedy enough, he went back and re-edited the movie (again!) twenty-three years later, combining both versions to make one big treasure-hunting/mermaid mess (the version we see here). Filipino B-Movie director George Rowe, Timothy Carey (from Bayou/Poor White Trash and The World‘s Greatest Sinner), and models Diane Webber and Gaby Martone star, with Jose Gonzales-Gonzales and John Mylong (of Robot Monster fame!) contributing a couple of hours of their time, too.

Luigi’s Useless Information: John Lamb started his illustrious career as an underwater photographer for Sea Hunt and Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. Amid making his nudie classicks, he also worked on the TV series of Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea throughout most of that series’ run (Mermaids star Diane Webber also played a mermaid in that same series).

Yambaó (1957) - Directed by Alfredo B. Crevenna - The only other "skinless" film in the set apart from Dream No Evil. After our narrator sets us up by informing us how the peaceful existence of Cuba was "shattered by a strange terror - unleashing excesses of hatred and love from the deepest dwells of human feeling" we are treated to a musical number… thus, Yambaó begins. Ramón Gay and Rosa Elena Durgel (Luis Buñuel’s El Ángel Exterminador) play a rich, expecting couple who own a sugar cane plantation. Their peace and quiet is threatened one night when the title character (played by popular Latin singer/dancer Ninón Sevilla), the granddaughter of a murdered sorceress, returns - fueled by her grandma’s chagrin. It won two awards in Mexico. It went virtually unnoticed in America. I fell asleep through it.

Luigi’s Useless Information: You won’t see K. Gordon Murray’s name on this import, kids - I doubt even he would have wanted to release it. Lead actor Ramón Gay, whom we all remember as the hero from The Aztec Mummy series, was dead three years after this film was released in Mexico (he was shot by a woman’s jealous husband).

Presentation
Delinquent Schoolgirls is the worst-looking title on Disc One (and probably of the bunch) and shows a lot of wear, while Dream No Evil looks remarkably cleaner save for the first few frames of the movie. Both movies are presented in anamorphic 1.85:1 ratios.

Moving on to Disc Two, Mondo Keyhole is presented in a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 ratio while The Raw Ones in shown in its Open Matte Full Frame 1.33:1 version. The sound on Mondo Keyhole sounds perfectly fine (considering) but you’ll have to turn it up on The Raw Ones as the volume there is extremely low.

Disc Three’s main features, The Mermaids Of Tiburon: Nude Version and Yambaó are shown in 1.85:1 ratios. Mermaids is non-anamorphic and obviously matted down, while I’m uncertain whether Yambaó is in its original AR or not. Neither hold up to most of the other features in this set quality-wise. The 2.0 soundtracks on this disc sound adequate (although Yambaó has a lot of hissing).

Extras
Disc One gives us an Audio Commentary for Delinquent Schoolgirls with the great Bob Minor, moderated by DVD Producer Elijah Drenner. The two of them have a lot of chuckles throughout and it’s a fun listen. Also included are three Trailers: Yambaó (3:23); and nudist romps The Raw Ones (2:08), and She Did It His Way (2:56) - the latter two of sound like they may be narrated by Ron Gans.

Disc Two includes a Commentary on Mondo Keyhole by Jack Hill and Elijah Drenner (Hill calls it a low point in his career and the best way to watch the film is with this option) as well as an Introduction (4:08) to The Raw Ones by Hill (who promptly rolls his eyes when asked about the title and refers to some of us as "degenerates"… which we are) and Drenner. Disc Two also contains Trailers for the mondo/nudie film Like It Is (3:14); Mag Wheels (a.k.a. Summer School) (1:12); and (a bit out of place here) the Spanish-language trailer (with subtitles) for El Santo Vs. The Martian Invasion (4:03).

Disc Three brings us an Introduction to The Mermaids Of Tiburon: Nude Version by Elijah Drenner (again) as well as the original theatrical cut (or non-nude version, if you will) of the same feature (75:20). Three Trailers are also thrown in for good measure: Delinquent Schoolgirls (2:47); Mondo Keyhole (4:29); and Up Your Ladder (4:04), which is also known as Up Yours - A Rockin’ Comedy.

Although the outer case says there are Deleted Scenes available for both Dream No Evil and Yambaó, there are none to be seen.

The Bottom Line
OK, so these aren’t award winners and most of these movies seem like cheap excuses to show a lil’ bit o flesh. But at least there isn‘t a single drop of silicon to be seen!

		Psychotronica Collector’s Set, Vol. 1
3		Feature - A wonderful collection of first date movies.
3		Video - The prints vary, but who really cares?
2.5		Audio - Mostly good, with the exception of The Raw Ones.
4		Extras - Jack Hill’s Commentary on Mondo Keyhole is worth the price of admission alone.

3