The Wild World of Batwoman/Review

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< The Wild World of Batwoman
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The Wild World of Batwoman is clearly a crowning example of Trash Cinema, and it still is making many viewers asking themselves "Where did this thing ever play?!!!" after all these years. I wondered where it got dumped into - My guess is some Dot On the Map at a Drive In some miles away from the nearest gas station in the woods playing to very small audiences, possibly wondering if they went into a another world or a level of Hell and leaving the place never to feel the same ever again, or some small theater desperate to fill a screen. Much like The Creeping Terror, one of the very few films that it shares it's place in Bad Film history with, this has had it's infamy more directed to TV showings than actual theatrical runs, and the pairing of the two films will really make a perfect double bill of Pre-Psych Out Bad Cinema at it's most unbelievable.

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One wonders how this thing got started in the first place - I can imagine someone telling Jerry Warren that his cut-and-paste editing style which usually took from decent films and turning them into spew that can suck the excitement out of any room which bored audiences through the years was no longer working and he had to make something that had more of a speed to it. Digging into some inspiration, maybe (More like desperation), Warren decided to make something in the grand old Exploitation style of something that was kind of like what was happening at the time. There was Batman a Go Go everywhere from the TV series to anything an everything to promote the latest Teen fad, so why not BatWOMAN? Yes, there was a gear or two working in the brain, and that the next thing to do was to fill it with kind of warped characters and plenty of cute women who possibly knew that this was their only stop in the cinematic mystery tour. I was surprised it even had a small crew, with a Director of Photography who later went onto such Exploitation films as The Ice House and some of what turned into Horror of the Blood Monsters.

To start things off, in a totally unrelated beginning, the viewer is treated to the sight of a couple of good looking ladies drinking a concoction including strawberry yogurt to initiate someone as a vampire "in a synthetic way" to justify the title change to She Was a Hippie Vampire after a lawsuit over the original title. As good looking as they were, they never show up in the film ever again, not even at the end in a They Saved Hitler's Brain style. Once we get to see actual Batwoman looking like the aged costumed wonder at a Goth club thinking that she still has it, it would be excusable to have wished that one of the first three ladies would have been the lead character instead. Then again, it just would have been another silly Comedy without that infamous eye sore as it's clear that the rest of the cast are either Beach Bunnies who look more at home on a Go Go stage, a Beach Boys concert, or a Strip joint, one looking like she was rejected from Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!, or old guys who thought they were funny who would really fit in a Crap Comedy standoff with the bad comedian from The Incredibly strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies.

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Now to the story...a crime wave is hitting the city, and one night when something is happening in an alley, a couple of the Batwoman League are there getting in contact on their radio wristwatches. The logical action in any film would be to have some Batchicks kicking some major Riot Girl action, right? Well, no...this is Jerry Warren film on a totally low budget not to include any stunt people after all, and maybe he knew enough not to put those not experienced in film to get into any kind of violent action. In most films, the lack of action will hurt, but the lack of anything really happening fits this cheap and craptastic screen filler perfectly.

Going to the bar filled with dancing and a band playing a song that just may be still in Hell's Top 30 (I can imagine it being the place where the writer thought out what was going to be made up and shot the next day), we see another Batchick being kidnapped after having her drink spiked and dragged into the car, quickly recovering. While being out into a cage and fed Happy Pills, she meets the Mad Doctor Neon and his "Crazy Messed Up" assistant Heathcliff (Lloyd Nelson) who receive instructions from Wanna Be Santo...I mean, Rat Fink (Richard Banks) to get the wristwatch so that he can bring in Batwoman so that he will have access to an Hearing Aid device claiming to release the caged Batchick once returned. The production already has shown it's flaws, bad sound, changes in lighting, and a plot that looked like that it was made up just before the cameras rolled, at least it's not the usual Jerry Warren style.

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After a scene where we see the Lair of the Batwoman, more like a simple house in the Hills, and hear the Batchicks claim their dedication, Batwoman (Katherine Victor) visits the Doctor's lair to talk with El Wacko, and as she has a feeling that her complimentary glass of chocolate milk (?!!!) being drugged with the Happy Pills the Doc is trying to perfect, she switches glasses away from sight, and runs off with the freed Batchick as the Doc is dancing free with his assistant. For some reason, this was meant to be funny but without TV Laugh Tracks, it just looks like one big ugly moment, the first of many. The scene later takes the viewer to the Ayjax Corporation (Ha! Ha! Ha!...well, no!) where we see faithful employee Jim Flanagan (Steve Brodie) is being told by the owner of the company who bears a resemblance to Rat Fink about the hearing aid which is still in the process of getting a patent and thinking of a way to get Batwoman involved with guarding it.


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Yeah, out of all of the devices in the world to have people going after, it had to be an atomic hearing aid that, mixed with some Cobalt, has the potential to blow up big time, and throw that in with very bad attempts at humor, the worst and ugliest scene involving a seance which is interrupted by someone going "Ching Chang Chow!" in what has to be one of the lamest scenes ever, and one has a slight idea of how desperate this film must have been to do anything, although a restaurant filled with Hopped Up Happy Soup customers including Batwoman herself and girls with guns dancing around was not too bad of a moment despite the lame introduction through the annoying sight of three fake mustached guys who must have thought they were funny. This mess-terpiece moves on with some Batchicks caught in the clutches of Rat Fink with the first Batchick on a leash, more of the Hot Hit From Hell, clips from The Mole People used to show Dr. Neon's creatures, Bruno VeSota in a brief role as Seltzer, some shackled Batchicks in the Doctor's lair, the unmasking of Rat Fink, and a way too late last chance at laughs through Fink actually having the ability to duplicate himself resulting in one final chase around the room with a blast of a ending before a final Batwoman beach party where we see Flanagan being the first Token Male in the Batwoman League and Heathcliff turning into a regular (if over-bearing) man for a few seconds, and one just may have an idea of the stench it carries. Mismatched scenes, different levels of lighting in the same scene, dancing Surftide girls with machine guns, humor that some past generation thought was funny possibly under the influence of booze which may have been the one that sent many just as lame TV comedies to the top of the ratings, and a style in B&W that really was way past the sell by date in 1966 - this Wild Wild World has it, and it's waiting for you.

Review by Screen13

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