BAD BIOLOGY

Meet Jen (Charlee Danielson): "I was born with seven clits".

We first meet the leggy blonde in a bar, where her narration tells us that she is sex mad. She craves orgasms like other people crave burgers and fries. To prove her point, she zones in on a greaser playing pool and within minutes is back at his apartment, bonking.

The lovemaking becomes incredibly heated, and it ends with Jen literally fucking the guy's brains out - taking his photograph for her collection while he orgasms. Leaving the man lying on the bedroom floor with his brains leaking onto the floorboards, Jen then gorges herself before taking to the bathroom to give birth to a mutant baby.

This, her narration tells us, is normal for her. She gives birth to "freak" babies mere minutes after having conceived …

The following day, Jen's narration continues to clue us in on her bizarre bodily functions as we meet her at her day job. Unsurprisingly, she's a photographer of lurid subject matter. In-between taking photos of people rutting in junkyards and the like, she likes to cop off with random fellas and take pictures of them while they cum inside her - this helps to build her portfolio of orgasm expressions, which she likes to call "Fuck Faces".

So we witness Jen through a few more one-night-stands and pregnancies, followed by messy (and noisy) births. Meanwhile, she tells us how she began having periods at 5 years of age, and how she almost found true love with a former beau named Ryan (seen in flashback) - only that didn't work out, when he went down on her and got a close-up look at her freakish genitalia.

We also learn that Jen has a vicious temper: if you dare to hurt her feelings, you'll soon know about it (as the boy who ends up with his head caved in by a bedside lamp learns).

All of which is a lot of fun to watch, but 30 minutes into the film it all starts to feel a little episodic. Up to this point it's basically a series of (enjoyable) vignettes that aren't really leading anywhere. Thank the Lord then for Batz (Anthony Sneed), who we meet in his plush house where he sits with hardcore porn in the background while he tries to come up with a chemical that will cure his giant, uncontrollable cock.

We learn a little about Batz - how he mixes with drug dealers in the hope of one day concocting a potion that will cure his "drug addicted dick with a mind of it's own", and how his problem developed in puberty.

The plot starts to come together when one of Jen's colleagues calls on Batz - an old school friend of his - and asks if they can use his house for an upcoming hip-hop photo shoot. Initially reluctant, Batz agrees to the shoot when he's promised $500 for his troubles. He needs this urgently to pay for all the steroids he's been ordering.

So the photography crew turn up at Batz's house, along with Tina Krause appearing here as herself. Tina poses in provocative style for a few photographs, and notices Batz looking at her in the meantime. So when the shoot comes to an end - a shoot that involves half-naked women wearing vagina masks, no less - she stays behind and attempts to seduce him. But Batz is afraid of what his cock will do and, when it twitches and knocks a few boxes flying, he races off. Jen witnesses this, and her brain starts ticking …

Later, Jen decides to pay a visit on Batz, on the pretext that she left her keys at his house. And although it's unfair to mention anything that happens from hereon in, it's fair to say that this is a Frank Hennenlotter film - expect plenty of gross-out humour!

Hennenlotter has been off the radar for too long and it's nice to see him return with a film that is very much in the style of BASKET CASE and, particularly, BRAIN DAMAGE. BAD BIOLOGY would work perfectly, in fact, as half of a double-bill with BRAIN DAMAGE.

The humour is expertly black, taking pop shots at terminal illness, retarded people, sexual violence, junkies and more. The language is ripe throughout, and the peripheral characters are agreeably scuzzy. It just has that feel of old-school Hennenlotter (even down to the 80's-style coloured filter lights), if that makes sense.

Having said that, some will no doubt recoil at modern elements such as rap songs on the score and the tendency at times of the script to divert into unfunny Kevin Smith-type conversations (the one concerning John Holmes is perhaps the most painful).

But by-and-large this is dumb fun with some amazing sight gags, a whole lot of nudity and even the occasional decent bit of FX. It's lower on gore for the most part than previous Hennenlotter films, but it's nice to see he's kept his desire to offend and shock people in other ways.

Imagine a Frank Hennenlotter remake of TEETH scripted by Kevin Smith, and you're halfway there. It's trash, and it knows it.

The film is presented in a healthy-looking 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, boasting strong colours and sharp detail. Smooth images and a complete lack of grain mean this is a very solid proposition indeed.

English audio is available in 2.0 and 5.1 mixes, both of which are evenly balanced and problem-free tracks.

An animated main menu leads to a static scene-selection menu allowing access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

Unfortunately there are no extras on this UK disc.

This is 84 minutes of dumb, politically incorrect fun that harks back to the late 80s in many good ways. Some performances are weak, but that's hardly the point - you're watching a film about a man with a 40-inch penis who meets a woman with seven clits. People are fucked and killed along the way. It's not art, but it's beautiful in it's own right …

Review by Stu Willis