Killer Fish (1979)

Several bargain-basement American stars appear in this rotten international production, which is part aquatic horror movie and part romantic heist thriller. The story alternates between two tonalities—incoherent and stupid—while the filmmakers waffle about what sort of movie Killer Fish should be. Sometimes, it’s a straight-up Jaws rip-off with bloody scenes of victims getting chewed to death by carnivorous sea creatures. Sometimes, it’s glossy late-’70s fluff about slender people with nice tans having sex with each other. And more often than not, Killer Fish is simply confusing. The picture starts out with an elaborate robbery sequence during which criminals Robert Lasky (Lee Majors) and Kate Neville (Karen Black), along with their accomplices, break into the office of a Brazilian power plant and steal a cache of emeralds. To distract security guards, Robert and Kate set off a huge explosion. Meanwhile, mystery man Paul Diller (James Franciscus) gambles in a tropical bar. Turns out Paul is the brains behind the robbery, and an inside man at the company that owns the plant. Paul, Robert, and Kate stash the emeralds in a lake, figuring that’s a safe hiding place while they wait for the inevitable investigation to cool down. Only Paul, without telling his pals, fills the lake with piranha so no one can grab the gems prematurely. As if the story wasn’t already crammed with enough random elements, enter fashion model Gabrielle (Margaux Hemingway), who arrives in Brazil for a shoot and, naturally, falls in love with smoldering Robert. Never mind that Kate’s sorta hung up on Robert even though she’s Paul’s girlfriend. After several of Paul’s underlings die from piranha bites while trying to steal the gems, the surviving major characters end up on a boat together during a giant storm, which producer Alex Ponti (son of Carlo, stepson of Sophia Loren) and director Antonio Margheriti depict with cheesy miniature effects straight out of a Toho Productions monster mash. Awful disco music runs underneath all of this nonsense. An embarrassment for everyone involved, Killer Fish is almost completely without redeeming values, except perhaps for some attractive locations. Together with The Norseman (1978), Steel (1979), Agency (1980), and The Last Chase (1981), this movie also helped kill Majors’ post-Six Million Dollar Man movie career before it really began.

Killer Fish: LAME

Lipstick (1976)

The notorious revenge thriller Lipstick has a gruesome first act and a hilariously overwrought finale, but the middle of the picture is so earnest that it’s as if elements of a sleazy exploitation flick were grafted onto either end of something respectable. In other words, it’s a classic example of pure WTF cinema. The story follows fashion model Chris McCormick (Margaux Hemingway), who is brutally raped by Gordon Stuart (Chris Sarandon), the favorite teacher of Chris’ teenaged sister, Kathy (Mariel Hemingway). The movie stacks the deck from the get-go, because Gordon is an obvious nutjob who composes violently avant-garde music, and he leers like a dog in heat when joins Kathy to watch one of Chris’ provocative photo shoots, so it’s not as if nuance is the order of the day. A humiliating trial follows the rape, and during the trial, a firebrand assistant DA (Anne Bancroft) fails to get a conviction—then, when Gordon crosses paths with the McCormick sisters once more, a bloody showdown ensues. Handsome photography (by Bill Butler and William A. Fraker), plus intense performances by Bancroft and Sarandon, aren’t enough to overcome the movie’s shamelessness. This Dino De Laurentiis production is infamous for its bad taste, evidenced by a rape scene that’s grotesque for the wrong reasons: The filmmakers keep sneaking peeks at Chris’ disrobed body. And yet the long trial sequence, which takes up a third of the movie, effectively demonstrates how Chris gets raped all over again, only psychologically this time, by Gordon’s merciless attorney (Robin Gammell). Unfortunately, any temptation to cut the movie slack is obliterated by the over-the-top climax, in which (spoiler alert!) Gordon rapes young Kathy while her older sister’s working nearby, prompting Chris to chase Gordon with a hunting rifle while wearing a cherry-red ball gown.

Lipstick: LAME