REPLIGATOR

Imagine a device that can convert your sexual thoughts into a video stream... Think I am talking shit? Well you would be half right as the Sexual Hologram Interface Terminal (S.H.I.T.) is the innovative piece of technology that kicks off REPLIGATOR courtesy of Brinke Stevens, who plays Dr. Goodbody. It is but one of the many secret weapon projects that the U.S. Military is developing at one of their many underground laboratories.

Dr Kildare (Gunnar Hansen) for example, has been using American tax payers dollars to develop those comic book classified ad inspired X-Ray specs. Their use in a war is as yet unknown but my goodness his secretary sure looks good naked!

Then there is a machine known as the Replicator which, although initially created by Kildare, is now in the hands of Dr Stan Oliver (Keith Kjornes) and his female sidekick Dr Laurel Hardy (TJ Myers). The device itself is best explained by Hardy herself as "an organic digital replication double helix genetic coding scrambler on a 1680 wave link with the maximum thrust at about 40 giga..." To me and you it is a ‘Transporter’ if you watched STAR TREK or a ‘Tele-pod’ if THE FLY is more to your tastes!

Waiting in the wings is another scientist, Dr Fields (Randy Clower). His niche is mind control technology, and his morals are not as honourable as his peers...

It seems there is a slight glitch with Oliver’s prototype. Although the subject successfully travels from pod A to pod B, they also undergo a gender change. Alas when Private Waring enters the pod as a brute of a soldier – he exits as a delectable female! It’s all to do with the stretching of the subjects DNA in the transportation process apparently.

Of course Dr Fields is aware of this and deviously adds a little brain washing software into the mix. I am not sure what the layman would call it, but its official scientific title is a ‘Brainwashing Rampant Nymphomania’ program. This is all good as well male subjects return as insatiable females, but what Fields did NOT bargain for was the fact when one of these sexed up ladies has an orgasm, her DNA is stretched again. It results in a ‘prehistoric orgasm’ which in turn regresses back to the very brink of evolution. It means only one thing: She metamorphoses in a GATORBABE!

This of course has implications for the future of mankind as reptilian gender bending chaos ensues and newspapers headlines scream that Transsexuals are infiltrating the military!

Whacked Movies DVD cover boasts both Gunnar Hansen and Brinke Stevens above the title and the newly created contemporary artwork. Its apparent suggestion that they are the main protagonists of this ‘Erotic Sci Fi Romp’ is way off the mark. Their collective presence borders on mere cameos with Stevens’ screen time particularly measly. Yes she features in the opening pre-credit set up. We even get to view her delectable topless charms for a few seconds. But if it wasn’t for the fact that same sequence is repeated in its entirety midway through the picture, her gracing the screen would be pretty negligible.

Hansen fared a little better but again, his character added little to the narrative. His gigantean frame was rooted firmly to the cheap lab set to interact with the military hierarchy and not much else. When you later learn from writer and director Bret McCormick that both star names were drafted in for a 2 day shoot in post-production, it’s easier to understand why their scenes are fleeting and pretty irrelevant to the ‘plot’.

The duo’s appearances being bolted on to the movie for marketing purposes didn’t do it many favours in truth. Even though the picture clocked in at a below average 85 minutes, the picture did seem to drag in the final third. It shouldn’t have as the climax was truly riotous. But somehow, the endless stream of zaps, gaudy laser disintegrations and reptile heads chaotically running aimlessly around the cheap set actually became a little tedious.

As you would expect, the costumes were a delightful combination of lingerie fused alligator craniums. Of the latter, my initial observation that they were simply plastic masks was duly corrected in the short but informative EXTRAS segment of the disc. The heads themselves were in fact foam rubber with fibre glass innards just in case you were wondering!

In all serious, the EXTRAS did enlighten the viewer very swiftly as to how the movie came about and did help me appreciate the trashy flick itself a little more. In a 6 minute BRET MCCORMICK FILMMAKER segment, the director explains that his inspiration for REPLIGATOR boiled down to him being in awe of Roger Corman and his production of five movies in a single year. Apparently McCormick didn’t want to waste the set that was used for his previous movie, TIME TRACERS, and as such contacted Keith Kjornes to rustle up a script in a couple of days. (Official records show the movies released in reverse order but TT was actually completed first). Maybe such a hastily written script was the reason that Kjornes cast himself as Dr Oliver and, in the spirit of ‘taking one for the team’, ensured that Oliver’s character had to resist the seductive covetousness of female hybrids scene after scene!

The ‘BEHIND THE SCENES’ Featurette (4mins 48s) is whistle stop tour of the set showing how the cast and crew all mucked in on various tasks. The highlight had to be watching Bret’s son, Josh McCormick hone his rudimentary special make up skills by perfecting a humongous and hairy wart on the cheek of Dr Hardy! The audio was adequate but the 4:3 aspect ratio picture did suffer from notable horizontal lines when any motion took place. In fairness I still reckon it would easily improve dated VHS tapes.

If you like silly sci-fi flicks with plenty of boobs and a few sly digs at the US Military, it’s not a bad package overall but I imagine the release will mainly appeal to Scream Queen and Texas Chainsaw devotees in order to comprehensively complete their collections. If only a pair of those X-Ray specs had been thrown in as a bonus...!

Review by Marc Lissenburg