‘Bad Girls’ VOD Review
Stars: Morgan Shaley Renew, Senethia Dresch, Shelby Lois Guinn, Mike Amason, Dove Dupree, Micah Peroulis, Cleveland Langdale, Jonathan Benton, Shane Silman | Written by Christopher Bickel, Shane Silman | Directed by Christopher Bickel
We recently reviewed Bae Wolf from writer/director David Axe, a filmmaker who got his start in features writing The Theta Girl, from director Christopher Bickel who – unlike Axe – hasn’t followed up that 2017 film with any further features. Instead Bickel has, in the intervening years, spent his time making shorts and music videos. Now however Bickel makes his return to filmmaking by directing and co-writing Bad Girls, a girl-gang homage to the films of Russ Meyer and Jack Hill.
Bad Girls follows three “troubled” women – Val (Morgan Shaley Renew), Mitzi (Senethia Dresch), and Carolyn (Shelby Lois Guinn) – who, after spending their youth in and out of detention halls and jail, work together at a strip club. However the trio have higher aspirations than shaking their arse for money and so they rob their sleazebag employer of all his cash and drugs and hit the road, leaving a trail of mayhem in their wake…
They’re chased by two Federal agents, the misogynistic Cannon (Mike Amason) and his partner, the more liberal and “understanding” McMurphy (Dove Dupree), as they head for the border – picking up hostages along the way: lead singer of the band Poltergasm, Zerox Rhodesia (Micah Peroulis), Bard Gainsworth (Cleveland Langdale) lead singer of Christmas Tits and hotel clerk Rusty (Jonathan Benton); all of whom are remarkably willing hostages, enjoying the manic freedom and the copious amounts of sex and drugs on offer from our trio of teenage terrorists. All three of whom seem to be channelling the same kind of strong female power as Russ Meyer muse Tura Satana.
Speaking of which, lead actress Morgan Shaley Renew really does feel like a modern take on Varla from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, encapsulating that same “sexy but deadly” vibe that Satana embodied. Bickel has actually gone on record saying that Meyer is an influence on the film – as is Jack Hill, whose 60s female-led films like Switchblade Sisters and WIP films like Big Bird Cage seem to have been the blueprint for the characterisation of Bad Girls‘ three leading ladies.
Bad Girls also draws from the same exploitation well as those films too, with some remarkably strong violence and an envelope-pushing death that will shock even the most liberal of film fans! But then it fits with the over the top nature of the film, that both plays up the exploitive nature of the film and those that inspired it and riffs on the issues those films present today, including the blatant misogyny that marked this kind of genre film in the past.
If you’re a fan of the films of Russ Meyer and Jack Hill, and/or throwback genre films like Dear God No!, Machete and Hobo With a Shotgun then Bad Girls will be right up your street.
**** 4/5
Bad Girls is available on-demand now.
