Beach Babes 2: Cave Girl Island (1998)

July 21, 2007

by Nathan Shumate

Directed by “Ellen Cabot” (David DeCoteau)
Written by Mark Michelini
Starring
- Sara Bellomo
- Tina Hollimon
- Stephanie Hudson
- Rodrigo Botero
- Stefan Galio
Produced by Karen L. Spencer
Executive produced by David DeCoteau (and Charles Band, uncredited)

Although this feature was shot in 1994, it took until 1998 for it to be released. Largely, that was because Full Moon’s racier “Torchlight Entertainment” label, of which Beach Babes From Beyond (1993) was the flagship, underperformed to a surprising degree. After only two releases – Beach Babes and Test Tube Teens From the Year 2000 (1994), the label was retired, and this sequel sat on the shelf long enough that the situation at Full Moon had changed drastically: the distribution deal with Paramount had gone belly-up, budgets had been slashed, and the bar for general production quality had sunk.

And in that brave new world, Beach Babes 2 fit right in. It may hold the record for production value dropoff between sequels in all of Charles Band’s entertainment empire, and especially for installments produced only a year apart. One only has to look at the cast to see the difference. The first movie gave supporting roles to cult personalities like Burt Ward and Linnea Quigley, plus several members of the “Famous Family Club”: Joe Estevez, Don Swayze, Joey Travolta, and Jackie Stallone. This time out, the “star power,” such as it is, rests entirely in Sara Bellomo, the only returning cast member, whose only real fame is as porn star “Roxanne Blaze.”

Make your own “wood” joke here.

Bellomo is again space teenager Xena, just now leaving Malibu and returning to space with her companions Sola (this time played by Tina Holliman) and Luna (this time Stephanie Hudson). An ill-timed sneeze sends the spacecraft spirally out of control, and they crashland on a beach that should look familiar to any dedicated movie fan. (I don’t know the name of it, but it’s such a common backdrop for shoreline scenes that it’s like Bronson Canyon, but wetter.)

Here’s a further indication of the budgetary decline: There is no longer a full-sized spaceship mockup, even if “full-sized” was only supposed to be about the size of a Chevy STX van. We’ve got the interior mockup (which seems awful spacious), and a small-scale model for forced perspective. That latter leads to an early gaffe, with the spacecraft sitting on the beach, as the girls hop out the rear hatch. Yes, the model lines up well with whatever stepstool the actresses jumped down from (ignore the visible grain to the sand immediately around the spaceship), but then they trot down the beach toward the camera, and just as they pass out of frame their shadows pass across the model. Oops.

And what, exactly, are they chasing? Well, all three were knocked unconscious on impact, and when Sola and Luna wake up, Xena is missing, leaving behind only her metallic space dress. She has in fact lost her memory, and is discovered dazed and naked by a primitive fellow in a loincloth (Kenny Johnson) who, by means of grunts and gestures, conveys the idea that his name is “Moon.” It’s a well-known fact that amnesia makes space babes horny, so Xena immediately gets to know Moon real well. Real, real well. (And unless I miss my guess, part of the “jungle” set-dressing here is a repurposed section of beanstalk from Moonbeam kidflick Beanstalk (1994).)

Zena, he’s a caveman! You don’t know where he’s had that!

So that’s why Sola and Luna are out looking for her, right before they put down their boombox (never leave your spaceship without your tunes!) and start to dance. Ostensibly to get rid of some stiff muscles from the craft, but mostly to fill running time with pleasant visuals. I point this scene out for two reasons: First, to show that the pattern of time-filling musical sequences is repeated from the first movie (though with far fewer people involved), and second… Well, I’ll tell you about the second reason in a minute.

Their dance done, Luna and Sola continue their aimless quest for Xena, encountering dinosaur footage from Planet of the Dinosaurs (1978) before happening upon a grass hut village populated entirely by cavewomen, all of whom are standing stock still. Puzzled, the girls decide that what’s needed is the application of more music. So on come the tunes, and everybody starts shimmying.

Meanwhile, Xena and Moon are getting it on again. And here’s where we get to see one of the major systemic flaws to the movie.

Let’s back up for context. Despite the fact that the original Beach Babes had been shot for release under the Paramount distribution contract, and thus had to be delivered at an R-rating, Dave DeCoteau maintains that he was instructed to shoot it unrated. The upshot is that most of the sexy scenes are just starting to get sweaty when BANG, we cut to the next scene, with all of the too-hot-for-R footage — i.e., most of the scene — left on the editing room floor.

Hey, a guy like Dave DeCoteau’s got to keep himself interested somehow.

The same basic problem shows up here. While Beach Babes 2 was eventually released outside of the Paramount distribution strictures in both R-rated and unrated cuts, the R-rated version is by far the most common, and the only version to make it to DVD (so far). But the film was shot the same way, with intact unrated scenes in mind. And in comparison to the first movie, this sequel can’t make up the slack by returning to the main storyline when the sex scenes are cut off, as there ISN’T much of a storyline. So the only way to avoid a fifty-minute movie with truncated blips of nudity is… repeated footage.

It shows up the first time in Xena’s first tryst with Moon, with several reused shots of her coyly covering her crotch and chewing on his nipple. But by her second scene with him, the new default procedure appears: Cover the edited-out shots with footage from another scene entirely. In this case, almost all of Xena’s and Moon’s bump’n'grind is replaced with footage of Sola and Luna dancing on the beach — a scene entirely unrelated to what’s going on. The footage is also slowed down, which is also to be the common pattern here. In large part, that’s because scenes originally set to the bouncy beach theme (roughly half of the musical score) is repurposed to fill gaps in scenes using the more sultry theme (roughly the other half of the musical score).

In other words, in a movie which mainly exists for titillation, not only are the saucier scenes clumsily bowdlerized, but the unrelated footage used to fill in for the chopped-out sections actively distracts from the activities that are supposed to be the main audience lure. Welcome to the anti-sexy.

Right. Anyway. Sola’s and Luna’s dance with the cavegirls done, they simply wander away, never wondering who these women are or whether they have something to do with Xena’s disappearance. Instead, they traipse through the jungle until they each meet their own caveman to their liking: “Rock” (Stefan Galio) for Sola, and “Dusty” (Rodrigo Botero) for Luna. These well-waxed grunters lead them back to the village, where they discover the amnesiac Xena with Moon. And consonant with the best medical research, they restore Xena’s memory by hitting her again on the head.

“And while I speak to you, Gund will eye your personal floatation devices.”

And now it’s time for Sola and Luna each to get their own skin scene, though again, each is filled out with the same footage twice (how many times can one girl strip in a single dance?), plus footage of the previous cavegirl dance. I swear, it’s almost as bad as having someone come and stand in front of the TV screen every time the sultry theme starts up.

Eventually — and I knew you were waiting for this — we get to the plot. The island? Yeah, it’s on Earth. And it’s not some kind of timewarp or anything. The three cavehunks? They’re not really cavehunks, and they can speak perfect English. (Does that mean that I was supposed to realize how ridiculous it was that these cavemen, unable to vocalize beyond undifferentiated grunts, could nevertheless understand and respond to the girls’ spoken questions?) They’re rich young heirs who’ve each spent several hundred thousand dollars for a few weeks here in what is essentially a themed brothel, run by a technological madman: James T. Renford II (Lenny Rose)! And his hunchbacked assistant Gund (Guy Payne)!

Yeah, I know. Given how little sense the movie made when it wasn’t attempting to tell a real story, I shouldn’t be surprised at how little sense it makes now. I should not ask why three beefy young fellas need to pay such humongous sums for what they should be able to get for free. Nor should I wonder why one of Renford’s rules is that the men must behave as cavemen, at least to the extent that they’re not allowed to speak. I probably also shouldn’t wonder why the appearance of three non-cavegirls on the island was greeting with enthusiasm instead of confusion, and why the three paying customers seem to be intent on ignoring the twenty-five cavegirls who are apparently there only to fulfill their naughtiest neolithic desires. Furthermore, it does me do good to guess that maybe the resident cavegirls are actually androids or something, given how they tend to go into a motionless stupor when other people aren’t around. (That’s the kind of thing you’d think they might get around to mentioning, what with having all that time to fill that will otherwise be taken up with slow-motion beach dancing ad infinitum.)

Look, I’m sorry. But when a skinflick gets all chintzy with the skin, there’s nothing else to pay attention to but the script. And that’s never a good thing for anyone.

“I’d kill for a pair of Chinos.”

To try to follow the rest of the plot might just make me cry. So let’s just mention that Renford is nefarious, Gund is slightly sympathetic, the three cavemen/yuppies are apologetic (and strangely phlegmatic about their girlfriends’ interstellar origin), and the ending involves some more shimmying and grinding. And the conclusion contains a bald declaration of room for a sequel, but I don’t think you need me to tell you that there was no Beach Babes 3. Even without the drawn-out circumstances surrounding the production of the first two installments, the manner in which this sequel failed to live up to the, um, high standards set by the first in the series would not have boded well for the entertainment value of a second follow-up.