Customer Reviews

Scare Their Pants Off / Satan's Bed

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Well, if anyone thinks we are in an age of "no-holds-barred" cinema these days, try imagining a Hollywood producer's reaction to a exploitation comedy plot about 2 guys who drug and kidnap women, and terrorize them with elaborate theatrics to get their sexual kicks. Their scenarios involve a phantom-of-the-opera type, an "Indian sacrifice" and, best of all, a ludicrous, made-up fascist organization. Of course it is all ridiculous and the farthest thing from truly hateful, but it is sure to offend some humorless individuals.

"Satan's Bed" is more historically than hysterically funny. I've heard this film referred to as an "underground art film" in reference to Yoko's later career, when it is anything but that. It's a typical exploitation "roughie", with the delightful Ms. Ono playing a mail-order-bride who doesn't speak much English, so no really crazy dialogue from Yoko. She does sing to herself briefly in one scene, but none of her later trademark shrieking, chirping or dry-heaving is evident, unfortunately.

The extras are a good selection of trailers and short subjects, the most notable being a 40 minute story of a NYC prostitute which is sleazy and oddly compelling at the same time.

This double feature DVD from Something Weird Video features New York area flicks Scare Their Pants Off and Satan's Bed. Scare Their Pants Off features a trio of women being kidnapped and held captive by some goofy-looking maniacs. Then they put the captive women thru some wacky mumbo-jumbo. Satan's Bed features Yoko Ono and some weird smuggling and immigration ploy. Along the way, three wackos have some fun with helpless and naked women.

The real gem of this collection are the many special features that showcase the seedy-era Times Square. One extra feature is a short film called Hotskin & Cold Cash(40min/1967) which examines a night in the life of a hooker in Times Square. Then there are 4 short subjects. Jane on a train(3min/color) features a telepathic perve who is able to undress a shapely passenger without the use of his hands!

Times Square Cinema(3min/1970) showcases numerous shots of raunchy-looking porno shops and theatres while a "Walter Cronkite" type announces the new sexual revolution that America is experiencing. Couples Welcome(3min/color) takes place in a porno theatre. A man is masturbating vigorously while a woman sits right to him and proclaims that his activity is disgusting. Suddenly the woman is captivated my the porno movie and soon the couple begin getting it on.

Girls for Sale(3min/b&w) features 2 go-go dancers dancing topless for the duration of the film. There are 12 grindhouse trailers(Scare Their Pants Off, Satan's Bed, All My Men, The Bizare Ones, Career Bed, Nympho, Olga's Dance Hall Girls, Prostitutes Protective Society, She Came on the Bus, The Sin Syndicate, and Two Girls for a Madman). Finally there is a Gallery of Sexploitation Art from Distribpix with radio-spot rarities/skinflick musical hits.

After having plunked down 20 bucks for this dvd, I have to say that I am disappointed with part of it. The first feature is one of the most bizarre I have ever seen. Two guys kidnap three women and scare them before having sex with them. A very odd and unusual concept. I liked the third girl a lot, she is very attractive, but cannot act worth beans. This feature called Scare Their Pants Off was ok. The second feature Satan's Bed is simply awful. The acting sucks, the dialog is wretched and Yoko Ono adds nothing but freak value to an already awful freak show. All I could make out was that two guys and a woman go on a crime spree attacking woman and raping them. If you like this kind of stuff then this is for you, but I felt cheated.

A double bill of appalling inadequacy. Even taking into account the arty pretensions, and the 'freedoms' the swinging sixties supposedly afforded, it's still difficult to justify the time and effort discharged to put these disgraces out in the world.

I'd looked forward to seeing 'Satan's Bed' for years, Yoko in it and all that. I thought it'd be good for a giggle if nothing else but apart from a brilliant comb-over, 'Satan's Bed' is the cinema equivalent of flushing drains.
People (I wont say actors) just stand around like children in a school play - wooden as beams. The only indication that the disc isn't stuck, is their eyes wildly flickering from side to side as they vainly try to locate some sort of direction.
Ed Wood is Orson Welles compared to this.

The plot? Well it's inexplicably in two threads. The first is Yoko, looking quite cute I have to say, getting kidnapped so the nasties can persuade her fiance to continue selling drugs for them. She escapes, and we are 'treated' to an ending which is so depressing it makes 'Henry; Portrait of a Serial Killer' look like Disney.
The second is Mr. Comb-over and a couple of cronies breaking into peoples apartments and pulling off violent robberies to a blaring and deeply annoying jazz soundtrack. They never meet Yoko and one of them, a pathetically homicidal lesbian, takes great delight in stripping off at every opportunity to try and 'seduce' the (invariably female) irate householders.

I swear in blood to you this synopsis is far more entertaining than the film. It sounds grotesque fun right? Wrong.
It's set in a kind of Warhollian monochrome world where people stand around just happy to have a job that doesn't stretch them. Long ambivalent silences...loud jazz. Weird camera angles.. loud jazz.. a murder! Oh, has something happened? See what I mean? It's difficult to convey the crass ineptness of the proceedings, and I'm not one who usually struggles in that department. This would defeat even the most resilient, stout-hearted reviewer.

'Scare Their Pants Off' (splutter!) is the 'bonus' film. And it's as badly acted and dull as it's title suggests. It's so bad it makes 'Satan's Bed' look like 'Gone With the Wind'.

Briefly, it's about two kinky guys who think it's a jolly jape to scare big-breasted floosies by dressing up as a} the Phantom of the Opera, b} an Indian guru (!?) and c} Nazi's.
Drugging their hapless victims (though it's hard to tell), kidnapping them, and dragging them off to a place of terror - a lounge with dark curtains - there to spy on each other as they try to terrify said captives into depravity and submission, all off-screen.

What you can hear of the dialogue is awful. The Phantom of the Opera in particular is flinch inducing. Poor Lon Chaney must be spinning in his grave, his dialogue was better than this!(!)
As with 'SB' the acting is non-existent, our two heroes do a good line in sweaty leering and that's it (although to be fair, that IS 70% of the film). They've unashamedly got one eye on the clock throughout...

On reflection, I realize that I might have made this disc look quite appetizing to bad movie aficionados. I can only apologize for this, it was not my intention and my honest advice is; don't. Stick with Al Adamson and 'Fall of the Louse of Usher' coz these babies here are not sick enough or daft enough to raise even a smirk.
They both harbor arty pretensions, but in reality have nothing 'deep' or profound to impart, and in the bare-minimum entertainment stakes, they fail.
Painfully and desperately.

The box makes a big deal of 'Yoko in a Kimono!', and so it should. Yoko's kimono is the highlight of the disc.