Image Entertainment presents

Scare Their Pants Off/Satan's Bed (1968)

"Find a city. A jungle found."- title sequence quote from Seneca
Satan's Bed

Stars: Sean Laney, Jon Woods, Yoko Ono, Val Avery
Other Stars: Mary St. Feint, Claire Adams, Glen Nielson, Gene Wesson
Director: John Maddox, Marshall Smith

MPAA Rating: Not Rated for (violence, nudity and Yoko Ono)
Run Time: 133m
Release Date: 2002-01-08
Genre: crime

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
C-	C-	C	C+	B

 

DVD Review

The 1960s were layered deep with underground sexploitation films. Dubbed "grindhouse titles" for obvious reasons, these films populated the burgeoning adult theater market, and were guaranteed to feature nudity, bondage, violence and a cast of badly-acted undesirables. Something Weird, in their never ending quest to bring out the best of the worst, has assembled another jam-packed disc that highlights a pair of odd films from that era, as well as their typical blend of excessively abundant extras.

Scare Their Pants Off (1h:00m:28s)
This John Maddox 1968 mess is a series of three vignettes about a pair of wack-jobs that kidnap women and bring them back to their specially-designed lair. Once there, they subject their victims to a few different scenarios, with the sole purpose of having sex with them. One of the segments features a guy who resembles a cross between Darth Vader and one of those guys from Slipknot, while the others use Vishnu (!) and some sort of fascist bondage bit that is more than a little strange and disturbing.

I never really understood what the point of this film was. The sex scenes are so far from erotic to be comical, and the fascist/bondage sequence borders on being just plain unpleasant.

Satan's Bed (1h:12m:11s)
The main feature here is a choppy 1965 sex and crime thriller from Marshall Smith that stars Yoko Ono. The story is loosely centered around Yoko as a mail-order bride arriving in New York to meet her new husband, a drug-dealing, immigration agent. In true sexploitation style, this flick appears to be cobbled together with parts of another film, as the exploits of the drug-addled trio of Snake, Dip and Angel seem glaringly out of place. Yoko is kidnapped by a pudgy drug lord, and the three druggies proceed to go on a spree of rape and murder that seems totally unrelated to the rest of the film.

Smith focuses on plenty of leering female nudity, whether it be someone showering, or drying themselves off after a vigorous swim. Some edgy—for the time—lesbianism crops up near the climax, and culminates in a wonderfully downbeat ending. This is a tough one to watch, but not nearly as bad as Scare Their Pants Off. Marshall pads the runtime with a lot of silent passages that do little to add to the story, and he's never more than a few minutes away from another dose of gratuitous nudity.

Rating for Style: C-
Rating for Substance: C-

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	1.33:1 - Full Frame
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	no

Image Transfer Review: The full-frame transfers of both black & white films are chock full of nicks, scratches, hairs and slap-dash splices. The opening of Scare Their Pants Off is literally a sea of black, with almost no image clarity. I had no clue what was going on, but as I would discover later, that didn't really affect my viewing experience at all. Both films are plagued by occasional overexposure that makes the scenes look as if a nuclear device had just detonated nearby.

The source prints are lousy, and Something Weird has not attempted any noticeable restoration on these prints, despite the liner note promise of their being "digitally remastered". Then again, I don't think these films deserve any restoration.

Image Transfer Grade: C
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
Mono	English	no

Audio Transfer Review: As expected from cheapie mid-1960s exploitation films, the sound quality varies from muddy to distorted, quiet to loud, sometimes within the same scene. Not the fault of Something Weird, rather its shoddy source material that has little in the way of fidelity that often render these films incomprehensible. Satan's Bed in particular has some horribly warbly audio.

Audio Transfer Grade: C+ 

Disc Extras

Static menu
Scene Access with 13 cues and remote access
2 Original Trailer(s)
9 Other Trailer(s) featuring All My Men, The Bizarre Ones, Career Bed, Nympho, Olga's Dance Hall Girls, Prostitutes Protective Society, She Came On The Bus, The Sin Syndicate, Two Girls For A Madman
Packaging: Amaray
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: dual

Extra Extras:

1. Gallery of Sexploitation Art with Skinflick Musical Hits and Sexploitation Radio Spot Rarities
2. Hot Skin And Cold Cash
3. Short Subjects

Extras Review: As they often do, Something Weird has loaded this disc with a devious collection of sexploitation extras (almost an hour's worth) that are far more intriguing than the features.

Grindhouse Short Subject #1: Jane On A Train
A comic short (in color) about a hypnotist who magically disrobes a fellow passenger on a train. Perfectly twisted.

Grindhouse Short Subject #2: Times Square Sinema
This three-minute piece from 1970 features a stern narrator discussing sexual permissiveness over shots of adult-movie marquees. Ends abruptly, with not much in the way of substance.

Grindhouse Short Subject #3: Couples Welcome
This muddy, grainy, color comic short highlights a dialogue between a man and woman watching a porn film. There is some funny stuff here, but it goes on way too long.

Grindhouse Short Subject #4: Girls For Sale
Two topless women dance to an anonymous mid-1960s pop tune. They appear very happy to be dancing, and I appreciated their natural talents.

Hot Skin And Cold Cash (39m:55s)
A bonus feature from 1967 about a Times Square prostitute. Plenty of nudity, bad acting and very bizarre visuals.

Times Square Grindhouse Trailers
A total of 11 eleven trailers, including the two main features, as well as such grindhouse epics as All My Men, The Bizarre 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. All feature some variation of nudity, sex, bondage and violence. Almost overwhelming in its weirdness.

Gallery of Sexploitation Art with Skinflick Musical Hits and Sexploitation Radio Spot Rarities
Another of Something Weird's staples is the poster art/music section. Here it's sexploitation poster art with a series of radio spots and appropriately tacky music. Damn funny.

Extras Grade: B
 

Final Comments

I'm a fan of Something Weird releases, but the films featured here are really bad. Not even bad enough to be moderately entertaining, unless you appreciate excessive 1960s nudity, and the chance to see Yoko Ono wander around New York in a kimono.

Rich Rosell 2002-01-07