One thing that I have never found funny is when men dress up as women. I have enjoyed watching Kids in the Hall and Monty Python but never got a kick out of the cross-dressing shenanigans nor do I have any desire to see Some Like It Hot. It is not that I have a problem with it, it is just not something that brings a smile to my face with the exception of Divine but that was just who he was and it didn't feel like that was the gag with him. It is strange to me why a no-budget 80's flick would choose to have a female teacher played by a man (Jim Boggess) unless the numerous executive producers are a secret sect of the Milton Berle fan club. Now that I have gotten that off my chest, we can move on to the rest of the film.

Rhona Brody stars as Phyllis Loden, a chubby girl with no friends who is targeted by a group of snotty popular girls that constantly humiliate her. Their latest scheme revolves around enrolling Phyllis into a beauty contest she has no chance of winning. If this is not degrading enough, they then proceed to kill Phyllis' cat by putting it in a microwave. All of this abuse eventually pushes Phyllis over the edge and she goes after the girls one by one to make them pay for all of the bad things they have done to her. The revenge is taken in the form of a stabbing by pageant crown, a tire iron beating, and sash strangulation. These three killings employ the bare minimum of blood which surprised me as most of the other flicks released from Camp Motion Pictures have at least one scene of gory mayhem. In the absence of gore, you would at least expect a little skin but the film does not deliver in this respect either unless a a brief long shot of four girls in their swimsuits gets you excited.

As much as this flick lacked in shock value, there was something about it that somehow held my interest for the overlong running time. Perhaps I got sucked into who would actually win the pageant as over half of this film is taken up showing the girls prepare for the pageant and then participate in the actual event. Once the winner was revealed, I kept watching the rest of the film wondering how Phyllis would dispatch her tormentors. A lot of this was due to the fact that Rhona Brody did a decent job of making the character sympathetic and had me rooting for her more and more every time I had to see her bent over with her pantyhose exposed. She just wanted to succeed in life and when those bitches nuked her cat, it was game on. I only wished she had been a little more vicious but this was high camp and pure 80's fun that was played for silly laughs rather than mean-spirited revenge.

I am not sure why Camp Motion Pictures decided to dust off this flick and give it a re-release. I have not heard of it before now and there does not appear to be any real cult value in putting this back on the market. Some funny moments include a montage of the girls prepping for the pageant while a song called "Killer Queen" plays (not the Queen song) and the mulleted and mustached master of ceremonies singing the Slough Queen theme with the sleaziness of a Miss America MC. Other than that, it does not appear as though any of the cast and crew have done anything too noteworthy and even the cross-dressing dude lists this as his only film credit. Then again, the packaging and title suckered me so maybe their marketing people are smarter than I am giving them credit for. (Josh Pasnak, 3/19/10)

Directed By: Jill Rae Zurborg.
Written By: Shane T. Partlow, Jill Rae Zurborg.

Starring: Rhona Brody, Kathryn A. Mensik, Tammy Pescatelli, Kimberly Ann Kurtenbach.

Picture Ratio: Full Frame.

Picture Quality: This was obviously shot on video but looks better than I would have expected.

Extras: We get about ten minutes of archival interviews and bloopers along with some trailers for other releases from Camp Motion Pictures.

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