Amazon Women on the Moon

Collectors Edition

Universal

R1 DVD

Amazon Women on the Moon is an American style comedy spoof released in 1987. It was also known as “Kentucky Fried Movie II". The film is actually a compilation of twenty-one comedy skits of various lengths created by a group of highly regarded directors including Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis and Robert K. Weiss.

The film parodies B Sci-Fi movies of the 1950s especially those which featured alien worlds filled with dangerous and beguiling women. Classic examples being Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), Queen of Outer Space (1958) which starred Zsa Zsa Gabor and Missile to the Moon (1958). These movie segments are interspersed with fake adverts, shorts and truly bizarre comedy skits.

These short segments are meant to reflect the banality of late night television as experienced by a bored insomniac who is channel surfing the night away.

The sheer breadth of the comedy styles is impressive from the sheer physicality of the slapstick of the opening segment starring the then popular Arsenio Hall to the incredibly satirical adverts. There are send ups of sex hygiene films, horror films, TV talk back shows and more.

This is certainly a film which throws a joke a minute. Even if a large percentage of them fall flat there are so many jokes that it is hard not to find something humorous to laugh at every few minutes. The humour ranges from satire to slapstick, crude to refined, satire to spoof, it is all there, thrown at the viewer at a fast pace.

Some the skits are just plain outrageous including a nude beauty model spouting morality while walking stark naked through her township and Church and Pfeiffer giving birth to Mr. Potato Head in a stunning “It’s Alive” spoof. Let’s not forget the Ed Begley Jnr. running around naked in the “Son of the Invisible Man”. There is even a very politically incorrect advert where legendary bluesman B.B. King pleads for donations to help "Blacks Without Soul!”

There are also lots of amusing cameos, even Russ Meyer appears as a store clerk !

Okay, this is not humour which is especially insightful or intelligent, but it is a lot of fun and to be honest has actually become a lot better with age. Looking back at Amazon Women on the Moon we now find so many of the movies it sends up have become part of the history and heritage of “cult and horror film” and hence this makes the comedy even more amusing and memorable.

It would be rather fun to get together a few friends, have a few beers and try and pick all the films that are spoofed in this film. I think you would be hard pressed to guess all of them !

This review will appear in Volume 2 No.4 (2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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