Scream Queens Illustrated
directed by John Russo
starring Veronica Carothers, Jasaé, Mellisa Moore
SRS Cinema /Imagine
Somewhere on the pornography spectrum between the Sears Catalog and Hustler lies the 1980s Exercise Video. It features moderately known B-movie actresses with early silicone, big hair and high-cut bathing suits lifting weights. Call it the Second City Television of erotica, but before the internet and pervasive and low-cost specialty porn, you had to go to that “certain” newsstand or bookstore that had a “special” section for, well, you-know-what. “Tapes.” “Mags.” “Novelties.” Women in bathing suits “lifting weights.” Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Say no more. You’re a man of the world. Of course.
So how does this NTSC classic stack up against www.NSFW.com? This stuff could make lesbians feel creepy. Veronica Carothers (Vice Academy 3, Good Girls Don’t), Melissa Moore (Sorority House Massacre II, Bikini Drive-In) and Jasaé (cute, but not cute enough to rate an IMDB page) reveal their exercise secrets as ambiguous cameramen with muscle shirts and moustaches document their exercise routines. We learn deeply personal facts like Ms. Moore used to clean up at a stable and requires a production assistant to wipe sweat off her leg warmers. Yeah, it’s a fantasy, and if you had a highly paid production assistant job with SRS Cinema, you too could… back up the tape and watch it again. Yeah, it’s THAT riveting.
Did this stuff actually sell? Of course. The Eighties were more sedate than you imagine, so this stuff really did have a significant market. Today you have sexting underage high school students, nude photos of faux Sarah Palin impersonators, and Nancy Pelosi wielding a push-up bra and a riding crop, but you have no idea what we went though in the post-‘80s Clinton years. He got the cigar, and we got… VHS and VH1. The stuff is nearly as retro as Mad Men, but still worth a look. The entire decade is wrapped up in here – bad chroma, easily ignored FBI warnings, and sex so weakly implied you wouldn’t get aroused if you were 16 and trapped in a fundamentalist monastery in rural Wisconsin. Today your mom wears sexier stuff at the beach, but this stuff was hot hot hot when you were not not not.
SRS Cinema: http://www.srscinema.com
