An unexpected masterpiece

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Batbabe: The Dark Nightie (2009) * 1/2 (out of 4) Softcore flick has The Jerker (Robert Mandara) stealing all the porn from Bacchum City so Batbabe (Darian Caine) must defeat him and return the sex to the streets. Whenever you go to watch a movie called BATBABE: THE DARK NIGHTIE, it would be rather unfair to expect CITIZEN KANE but I don't think it's too much to ask that you at least get something "so bad it's good" but sadly that's not the case here. I think there's some childishly funny moments here and there but at the end of the day the screenplay is just way too poor to carry a rather short 78-minute running time. The film starts off with some masturbation jokes, which I will admit had me laughing. They are all rather childish or the type of thing that you'd expect teenage boys to say around the lunch table at school. After these early jokes the screenplay pretty much gets away from the comedy and sadly they also get away from The Jerker who is clearly the best character in the film. I thought Mandara did a pretty good job in the part considering what he was asked to do. I've heard quite a few good things about Caine, one of a number of girls in the Seduction Cinema canon but she didn't impress me too much here but then again she was running around in a silly outfit the entire time. The simulated sex scenes are never what I'd call hot and I'd add that none of them were all that well shot. I'd say Molly Heartbreaker is the standout here and especially with those flame tattoos coming out of her nipples. Those are almost worth sitting through this film for. Again, this here is rather mindless but I'm sure if teenage boys come across this on the weekends then they might get a kick out of it. Lord knows my friends and I did when we were that age watching cheap Cinemax movies.

What do you get when you combine copious amounts of extremely unfunny masturbation jokes with 6 awful simulated sex scenes featuring some fairly unattractive people, save for Darian Caine whose talents are wasted in this (by the way about the chick that plays the spoof version of Harvey Dent whomever thought it would be even vaguely hot to have a flame tattoo on their nipples is something I can't even fathom) and put it all under the guise of a Batman spoof?? Don't strain yourself for the answer. It's Batbabe: the Dark Nightie, hear after referred to as Piece of Excrement.Seduction cinema has proved they can put out marginally competent, somewhat funny soft-core spoofs in the past with Lord of The G-Strings and Spiderbabe, but this movie (excuse me, Piece of Excrement) lacks three things that those aforementioned films possess. The first two belong to Erin Brown (or Misty Mundae, if you're so inclined), the third is the writing of Terry West. John Bacchus has proved time and time again that he just don't know funny from merely puerile with this and the equally abysmal IronBabe, Sexy American Idol, and Erotic Survivor travesties. His Erotic Witch Project showed potential, but he's long since squandered it. This Piece of Excrement is quite possibly his worst one yet, hands down.My Grade: F DVD Extras: Commentary by Producer Michael Raso and Media Funhouse host Ed Grant; 3 deleted scenes (2 are worthless, the other is a 7th cut simulated sex scene); an alternative ending (that brings an idea to the table that I hope NEVER comes into fruition: a sequel); and trailers for SSI: Sexy Squad Investigation, Kinky Kong, Cloak & Shag her, Lord of the G-Strings, Spider-babe, Sexy American Idol, & The Insastiable IronBabe

Last week I stumbled across this movie and with a title like this I absolutely could not resist. It is a perfectly ludicrous and idiotic sex comedy, prompting some indignant viewers to criticize it for being a porno with no porn in it, but when it comes to the spoofing of well- known Hollywood movies, the good people at Seduction Cinema make people like Aaron Slitzer and Joe Friedman, whatever their names are, look like babbling, drooling babies flinging their own feces at each other, and really, they did a perfectly fine job of that on their own already. Every movie those guys come up with is like a freight train of crap barreling into theaters with no brakes.Consider the titles. The well-known movies are ones with the most uncreative titles you could possibly think of, Scary Movie. Epic Movie. Date Movie. Disaster Movie. The only thing dumber would be something like Spoof #1. Spoof #2. Etc. Oops, I better stop. I'm giving them an idea for a whole new series of crapfests. Seduction Cinema is now famous for sex comedies that are heavy on the sex and light on the brains, but at least they don't masquerade as theatrical releases, right? How have the "Movies" been making it into movie theaters all this time? These are typical, brain-dead direct-to-video fare if I've ever seen it, and it's all right there in the titles. Compare the creativity in the titles above with titles like The Insatiable Ironbabe, Kinky Kong, SSI: Sex Squad Investigation, Play-Mate of the Apes, and Who Wants to Be An Erotic Billionaire? Sex comedies get a bad rap in the annals of American cinema, but I would like officially argue that it is much easier to have fun with these guys, who are actually including some comedic creativity in between their overtly gratuitous sex scenes, than it is to have fun with the torturous endurance tests that have been making it to theaters over the last ten years or so.The story, should you care, involves a villain called The Jerker (you can guess why he gets that name) who plots to steal all of the porn in Bacchum City so that the populace will face the terrifying prospect of painfully backed up plumbing and widespread blue balls. Commissioner Boredom summons Wendy Wane, a stripper by day and Batbabe by night, to save the city from the perils of pornlessness. The characters and performances are all about level with a bad camp video made by 7-year- olds, but those little kids can't put sex in their videos, can they? Hence, we have movies like this. Mindless and moronic but they are showing a genuine ability to cleverly lampoon major movies, and half the fun is in picking out the different individual scenes from The Dark Knight, for example, that are parodied here. The other half of the fun is watching the sex scenes which, strangely enough, in this particular production go on far too long. I think this might be the first time I've ever fast-forwarded THROUGH the nude scenes and not TO them. But to me, this represents a climb in the spoofing quality, which is not matched in the nudity quality, a trend that lends credibility to the possibility that these guys might one day be putting real spoofs in theaters and saving us from the ridiculous messes that we've been suffering through so far. Although if they are interested in that, I would suggest more clever lampooning and less penis-copters, but wouldn't that be losing most of the fun?

There really is nothing less satisfying than softcore pornography. The very idea of making an adult film without the actual adult content seems absurd, and Batbabe: The Dark Nightie doesn't alter that thought. The fact that it is also incredibly low budget doesn't help - the typical pointless plot is so incredibly ridiculous, the characters are so poorly portrayed, and the dialogue is so disturbingly despicable that it detracts from the simple enjoyment of gratuitous nudity.Bacchum City is being plagued by the maniacal Jerker (Robert Mandara) who sets in motion a plan to steal all of the porn in the land. He keeps it locked away in his dildo-shaped helicopter, waiting for the townsfolk to become consumed in sexual anxiety. But Wendy Wane (Darian Caine), a strip club mogul by day, slips into her seductive alter ego Batbabe at night to combat the evils of The Jerker and his clown henchmen. Aided by hopelessly incompetent Commissioner Boredom and sexy lesbian District Attorney Henrietta Bent (Molly Heartbreaker, who curiously has flames tattooed around her nipples), Batbabe must summon the courage to continue promoting her standard random ten-minute promiscuities and corner The Jerker before he forces her to permanently retire.The entire presentation of Batbabe is so substandard it practically destroys all chance the film has at being titillating. The music by Trigger Taint is painfully hokey, The Jerker's helicopter is a literally a toy, and the special effects are the most primitive green screen and overlayed images imaginable. But these are trivial considering the purpose of the film, although the sex scenes themselves lack creativity, class, and eroticism. It's chiefly girl-on-girl action, since nudity beyond that would no longer fall under the "softcore" label; they're lengthy, but the inability to show much leads to little amusement.The funniest thing about Batbabe is the riffing of Christian Bale's noticeably gruff and silly voice used in The Dark Knight. Other attempts at parody are so distant from the original material that it's not funny, or the humor ends up becoming generic. A scene with big cartoon words mocks the original Batman TV show, and characters such as Mr. Sleaze add to the stupidity. This is definitely not high-class smut.Mike Massie