Perhaps the best way to describe Mustang Sally's Horror House is that of a typical sex comedy bumping uglies with a slasher movie. It's sounds pretty good to a guy like me since I have quite the affinity for crappy T&A movies (I have a great, unexplainable, love for 1983's Screwballs) as well as bloody slash 'em up fare. I also have the typical full-blooded male attraction to naked female skin. So, suffice it to say, this sounds like the kind of low-budget movie any regular B-movie loving dude could get into. That's why it's truly too bad that writer/director Iren Koster doesn't pony up any of those things, because it is what we're here to see, after all. You don't set your movie in a brothel and offer up barely any nudity. Koster needed to bring the sleaziness of both sub-genres but doesn't and that makes his movie all the more mediocre.

When we first meet Josh (Mark Parrish) he's rambling on about his friends while looking at photographs in what looks to be a mental hospital. We flash back six years earlier and meet Josh and his group of friends who tend to spend most of their time in the small town they live in hanging out at the local diner. But that's all about to change when they overhear a group of bikers talking about a lady dubbed Mustang Sally (E.G. Daily) who's running a whorehouse around the area.

Deciding that it would help quell their boredom, and full of male testosterone, they head out to check the place out. Upon arriving they are greeted by the scantily clad Sally who has soon ushered her into her home to introduce her to the "girls". There's the innocent Asian, the African-American dominatrix, a "aw shucks" country girl (who they saw, in an early pointless scene, running through the woods nude when they stop to relive themselves), and a few others. Let's just say there's one for everyone.

Pretty soon our virile lads have shacked-up with the girl of their choice and the mid-section of the movie consists of various scenes of mild sex (I'm pretty sure only one of the girls takes her top off... goddammit!) and lots of pointless banter. It's about this time I'm thinking to myself that this is probably the dullest movie ever made set in a den of sin.

Eventually the guys start getting killed (one of them even gets a makeshift circumcision) as it turns out their fathers were responsible for raping Sally back when she was sixteen. This leads to a finale that mostly consists of the football player character tosses rocks at the girl's heads and a couple of poor attempts at a twist ending that can be seen coming a mile away.

Mustang Sally's Horror House is pretty passable stuff and it's mostly because of what it doesn't do. Like I said prior there's barely any skin or bloodshed to keep your attention and while Koster wants to badly make his movie feel like a frat boy nightmare he's too busy tossing out weak sex talk (such as when there's flashbacks when they're all talking about how they lost their virginity while on the way there) to concentrate on delivering any sort of thrills. Everything is so mechanical, and much too tame, that this is never as entertaining as it could've been.

As the matriarch of a group of killer prostitutes, Daily (a busy actress who has appeared in such cult classics as Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Valley Girl as well as lending her voice to tons of animated fare) is pretty much given little to do apart from walk around in her underwear, pull the occasional menacing face, and look like she's had too many Collagen injections. Parrish makes no real impression in the lead, but isn't bad either. Tina McDowelle gets to go completely over-the-top as the dominatrix chick and amused me with all her demanding yelling and Sean McGene is pretty likable as Seamus, the youngest and most naïve of the group.

And to end this review with pointless trivia only a true crappy movie fan like myself would care about: Koster also wore the hat of co-composer here and wrote the song Daily performs in the end credits. He also wrote the songs for the 1986's Never Too Young To Die, one of my most well-kept "guilty pleasure" secrets that starred John Stamos as a high schooler turned spy who has to take on a hermaphrodite baddie played with aplomb by Gene Simmons (of rock group Kiss). (Chris Hartley, 12/6/07)

Directed By: Iren Koster.
Written By: Iren Koster.

Starring: E.G. Daily, Mark Parrish, Lindsey Labrum, Joni Kempner.

Picture Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: The transfer here looks pretty good as it's clean and handles multiple nighttime scenes fine. For what it is, namely a low-budget movie, it's a decent picture.

Extras: All we get here is a trailer as well as previews for three other MTI releases (the most "interesting" looking being Afghan Knights).

Visit MTI Home Video for more info.