VICIOUS LIPS (1986)

VICIOUS LIPS (1986)

Tagline: Beneath a blood-red moon, the dream, electric. The planet, futuristic. The nightmare, animalistic.

(Sci-Fi, Music, Wigging Out in Space) [R]

Gross! No way!

In this one, we are taken to the distant future where the band VICIOUS LIPS has a chance to make it big if they can play a popular club on another planet. The band isn’t fond of a new lead singer who has just shown up. She has even taken the name of the band's former singer Judy Jetson. Only Judy won’t be the band's biggest problem as they are hit by a meteor and forced to crash land on the wrong planet. While there they will take on their greatest nightmares, weird zombie-looking dudes, lack of showers, and worst of all, the price of stardom. 

First off, back in the 80’s once in a while you would run into a fictional female lead band that actually kind of rocked. We get a few VOYAGE OF THE ROCK ALIENS and HOWARD THE DUCK, but they are kind of hard to come by. Enter VICIOUS LIPS. This band has oddly catchy tunes and we actually get 3 or 4 songs from them in the movie. I don’t know if Dru-Anne Perry who played Judy Jetson (yes, like Judy Jetson from the Jetsons) actually sang in the movie, but whoever was singing was actually pretty good. She also reminds me a lot of Linda, Robbie Hart girlfriend in THE WEDDING SINGER. All the girls in this band look like they were purposely trying to make a live version of the animated show JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS. 

On the surface, the storyline sounds fine, but Albert Pyun’s direction is always a bit chaotic in these B-movies. They do get a lot accomplished with the budget and there is definitely a scene in here that almost HAD to inspire a similar famous scene from TOTAL RECALL made 4 years later. For the record, Albert Pyun also directed 1990’s CAPTAIN AMERICA, DOLLMAN, ALIEN FROM L.A., and lots of other stuff. This movie is also considered horror, but it’s bloodless and the “nightmare” parts might make up about 15 minutes of the entire movie. The main focus of the film actually appears to be the pearl of stardom, but doing it in such a way gives men a reason to come rent this thing. There is minimal nudity, but I am sure they figured they wouldn’t get word of mouth without it. Video sales did about $35,000 so I am not really sure if the film made its money back or not. You can tell the film was made on the cheap, but probably not that cheap.

Getting back to the storyline though, I thought this movie actually had something to say, and just a really crazy but kind of cool way to say it. Jealous, infighting, drugs, and not being able to handle pressure are all part of stardom for most and this film manages to draw all of that out. Yes, we get a great-looking cast and some cool music, but yeah, the movie actually has a tiny bit of depth. 

Acting wise Dru-Anne Perry was actually pretty cool. She only ended up in 6 films, but I am guessing that was by choice because it wasn’t like she couldn’t act or at least play a singer. One of her planned films seems to have never gotten made. We also get Gina Calabrese who is just okay as Bree. She is mostly known for THE DUNGEONMASTER. Linda Kerridge who plays Wynzi is also just there. She would go on to star in ALIEN FROM L.A. then just get out of acting altogether in 1988. Shayne Farris plays Mandaa and again, isn’t doing anything in this that will blow your mind. Her only other movie was DOWN TWISTED which I might see someday because of Thom Mathews. Anthony Kentz plays the band's manager Matty and does fine for what they asked him to do, but this was his only film. So it seems like, either everyone thought he sucked, he won the lottery or he ticked someone off. 

Overall this thing is definitely an eclectic oddity from the bargain bin of Blockbuster 5 for $5.00 sales, but it’s also not completely terrible if you just really don’t need a whole lot of character building or any of that. I don’t in movies like this, but you will have to be in the mood for some nonsense. 

VICIOUS LIPS gets a merciful 5 out of 7 because it seems like they at least cared enough to give us some pretty fun 80s rock tracks in a giant weird music video sort of way. For most people it will be a 2 or 3 out of 7, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

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