Every week, I scour Netflix for a movie rated at one star and put it in my queue, suffering through it for your entertainment so that you don’t have to. In the past, I’ve taken on anime cancer demons, softcore Iraq War porn and racist ventriloquism, and this week, it’s a Women-In-Prison flick that makes Shawshank Redemption look like Caged Heat 3000.
LUST FOR FREEDOM (1987)
Starring: A surprisingly small amount of nudity.
It’s been a while since the Worst of Netflix has taken on straight-up softcore porn, and while I’m not sure that anything could match the sheer “why on Earth does this exist” nature of Tomcat Angels – the skin flick set against the sexy backdrop of the Gulf War – Lust For Freedom makes a pretty good bid at becoming the least appealing use of naked women in cinema history.
Released in 1987 by our old friends at Troma, Lust For Freedom is an exploitation movie that approaches exploitation like a remorseful alcoholic. It does its level best to shy away from anything titillating until it can’t hold out any longer, downing a six-pack of shower scenes and lesbian makeouts before waking up, feeling bad about what it’s done and vowing that it’s only going to stick to the boring, halfassed attempt at a plot from now on – or at least the next half hour.
Said plot revolves around foxy young Gillian Kaites, a ladytype police officer for whom “undercover” translates to “under a truly merciless wig”:
In what has to be the worst idea in police department history, Gillian is teamed up with her fiance and sent in to bust a Tony Montana stand-in named “Jonathan Troma” (cool self-reference, bro!) and since they’re three days away from their wedding and this is a movie that’s only ever sort of heard of originality, you can guess how that ends. According to Gillian, “Cops were dying all over the place and all I could do was act like a woman,” and seriously, Academy Awards? You picked “Moonstruck” over that for Best Screenplay? Ridiculous.