These Exploitation Films Went WAY Too Far | Metal Bikinis & Ray Guns

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:03]No, [screaming] I'll kill you.

[00:00:11][screaming] [screaming] What's up, Vault Dwellers? Dan here and welcome to a video series I like to call exploitation cinema presents.

[00:00:33]It's the stuff that played at midnight at the drive-in. The stuff your mom didn't know you were watching after she [music] went to bed. It's the stuff that lives in the back of the video store in your head today.

[00:00:45]>> Just about here.

[00:00:48]Now you just wait right here while I go take a dip.

[00:00:52]>> This is the start of a new series on grindhouse and exploitation cinema. And we're kicking it off where the budgets were small and the costumes were smaller. Sci-fi vixens.

[00:01:04][music] 10 films full of metal bikinis. Ray guns [music] built from dish soap bottles, cave girls with salon hair, and some laser collars, and shower scenes in space prisons. [music] These are ranked by what they did to me, not by what the critics think. And [music] if your number one is my number seven, you can go fight me in the comments. Let's get into it.

[00:01:41]>> [cheering] [screaming] >> Swallow your teeth. What the [ __ ] >> Can you dig it?

[00:01:54]>> Can you DIG IT?

[00:01:56]>> Can you dig it?

[00:02:13]I'll kill you.

[00:02:29]All right, at number 10, it's Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City.

[00:02:34]The opening shot, it's a woman in a leather bikini sprinting through what appears to be a gravel pit in suburban Kansas City, and she's swinging a plastic looking sword at another woman in a slightly different leather bikini, [music] while somebody's basement synthesizer is just blasting a score that I can only describe as an anxiety attack with a drum machine.

[00:03:00]Welcome to the movie. This film features two rival gangs of warrior women, one stolen jewel, a whole lot of yelling, [screaming] and a lot of running, and a final showdown that was clearly filmed in the same gravel pit that the opening shot was in, maybe 20 ft [music] to the left.

[00:03:22]The costumes, they're duct taped shoulder pads with spray painted chain mail. And the fight choreography is whatever the performers could safely do on concrete in January.

[00:03:39]>> And yet these lovely women, they do commit. They are out there in a frozen parking lot in craft store costumes acting [music] like every single line matters. I've had a very bad day. I've got a big can opener and I'm going to use it.

[00:03:57]>> Nobody is winking at the camera. Nobody is phoning it in. I mean, you can laugh at the production values, but you cannot laugh at the hustle.

[00:04:12]It is amateur cinema in the purest sense [music] of the word, but that's what makes it great. It's number 10 because it's a commitment just to sit through, but it earned its spot on the list.

[00:04:23]>> I thought there was no survivors out there.

[00:04:26]>> Negative. They are the closest in human nature.

[00:04:31]Radio trap jaw the bounty hunter. Send him out there at once.

[00:04:35]>> Yes, sir.

[00:04:41]>> This would be really good time to put in a good word for me. Roquel Makadaka Tony Makadaka Heador Zukum Zuk Gum Zukum.

[00:04:53]>> Number nine is Jurassic Women, which is also known as Dinosaur Valley Girls. So, here's the premise. We have a Hollywood action star named Tony, who keeps having dreams about a cave girl named Heather.

[00:05:07]>> Heather Thor.

[00:05:10]>> Heather.

[00:05:12]I'm Tony.

[00:05:14]Tommy, [music] told me for sure.

[00:05:22]>> He touches a magic icon in his trailer and gets zapped back to prehistoric times where a tribe of cave women in leopard spot bikinis [music] and like perfectly blown out hair immediately decide he is the new tribal mate. They have [music] leopard spot bikinis and perfectly blown out hair and even full foundation and [music] lipstick. Apparently, these cave women clearly made it to the 1996 Burbank salon on the way to set. And I love [music] them for it. The cave women, they don't speak English. They grunt [music] and they point and then they use the word tuka tuka to [music] mean sex.

[00:06:14]And they say it so often and so enthusiastically that by minute 40 [music] you're saying it out loud with them. They fight a stop motion Allosaurus that somebody spent like weeks animating, which is an absurd amount of craft for a film where the main gag is cave girls trying to braid a guy's hair. Oh, and there's a music video.

[00:06:39]>> The closing credits, they promise a sequel called Dinosaur Valley Girls Tuk Tuka [music] 2, which mercifully never happened. This is number nine because this is the exact film you put on at 2 in the morning with just zero expectations [music] and finish it with a stupid grin on your face. Some movies are just the amount of movie they need to be.

[00:07:00]>> Back long.

[00:07:07]>> [music] [music] >> Number eight, Beach Babes from Beyond.

[00:07:26]about three bikini clad alien women who crash land their spaceship in the dunes outside a Southern California beach town.

[00:07:37]And then they immediately enter the local bikini contest. And then they somehow stumble into a plot to save the entire beach from an extremely angry Joe Estz. He wants to bulldoze it down and make condos.

[00:07:50]>> I like living like this. I like my place the way it is and [music] I like to keep it like that until I want to change it.

[00:07:58]Come on.

[00:07:59]>> Nobody in this movie is playing [music] the same sport. These alien women have that wideeyed what is this strange Earth custom reaction to like everything.

[00:08:09]Volleyball, hot dogs, sunscreen. They arrive in silver spaceuits and are in bikinis about 90 seconds later. The bikinis never leave. Wow. Stuff's strong.

[00:08:24]>> I feel warm all over.

[00:08:27]>> I'm getting warm cuz she's getting warm, >> Luna.

[00:08:31]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:08:32]>> You mean I I didn't know you were like this.

[00:08:35]>> I'm not.

[00:08:36]>> Let's see. There's a pool party. There's a surfer subplot. And the villain's monologue is delivered poolside while Esve has chews through like three pairs of sunglasses. And look, the one move this movie has, it makes it like every 3 [music] minutes, blonde alien poses on the beach. Cut to the villain scheming.

[00:08:56]Cut to three blonde aliens posing on the beach.

[00:08:58]>> I'm with my friends and our vehicle ran out of fuel and we got a little lost.

[00:09:03]>> I'll say your vehicle submarine.

[00:09:05]>> No, it's expensive.

[00:09:07]>> California is a great place.

[00:09:09]>> This movie delivers exactly what the poster promises. It was on schedule, within budget, in 79 brisk minutes, and it ends. I do not love it, yet I am not mad at it either. That's why it's number eight.

[00:09:25]>> Just some things I can't tell you right now. [music] >> Just told me.

[00:09:33][music] >> Something voted in.

[00:09:37]>> Fine, I'll impeach you.

[00:09:39]>> Can't we all just GET ALONG?

[00:09:40]>> SHUT UP.

[00:09:41]>> I warn you, Dia. They don't call me Snake Eyes for nothing.

[00:09:44]>> Could be a birth defect. [music] You want defect? I'll show you defect.

[00:09:50]>> Number seven brings us Petticoat Planet.

[00:09:53]And it's about a space garbage truck.

[00:09:56][music] And I stress the word garbage that crashes on a desert planet.

[00:10:00]>> Oh, you mean a spaceship? A spaceship?

[00:10:03]This person's from another planet, Parker.

[00:10:05]>> Well, that explains a lot. Then the pilot staggers out, walks into a wild west saloon town called Pucker Bush Gulch, [gasps] and just finds himself surrounded by women in pett [music] coats, corsetses, and gun belts.

[00:10:19]>> You get out of my way or I'm going to fry your ass like a side of bacon.

[00:10:24]>> Looks like you're a little outgunned, cowpoke.

[00:10:32][music] >> It was a joke. I was just kidding. And every single one of them has not seen a man in 20 years because of some kind of local mining [music] accident. The pilot's name, it's Steve Rogers. Yeah, Steve Rogers. Not that Steve Rogers.

[00:10:51]What follows is a movie where the sheriff, the mayor, and the saloon keeper take turns like aggressively trying to seduce Mr. Rogers while the film cuts between them like a relay race. The mayor, she pours whiskey into his milk. And the sheriff, she corners him behind the jail.

[00:11:10][music] But the saloon keeper, she wins him in what I think is supposed to be a card game, but it might actually be a drinking [music] contest. The edit, it doesn't really clarify. Elizabeth Kaitton is the mayor and she is having what I can only call the time [music] of her life. The bathtub scene, it it's ludicrous. The gunfight is ludicrous.

[00:11:39][music] Actually, the entire movie is the word ludicrous, unlike a 78minute loop. And that's what makes it amazing.

[00:11:47]It's number seven because a space western with pett coats, it's the kind of swing you have to honor. Remember Kaitton because she's coming back higher on the list.

[00:12:00]I must have forgot to load this damn thing.

[00:12:03]>> I guess I did, too. I must have been so mad I forgot. Mad hell. I was fuming.

[00:12:10]>> Hey, want to go for a beer?

[00:12:11]>> Okay, but just one. I'm on duty. Okay, let's go. I'll back.

[00:12:14]>> Perhaps we might uh make it together.

[00:12:17]>> Make it?

[00:12:18]>> Yeah. Look, I've been around, right? So, you'd come across with the goods. Look after me every now and again, and uh I'll look after you. Deal?

[00:12:29]Number six is Spaced Out and it's about an all female alien crew in shimmering silver leotards that lands their spaceship in the English countryside and they go and kidnap four horny British civilians for reasons the script never really commits to the aliens. They spend the next 90 minutes trying to figure out how human reproduction works.

[00:12:49]>> Have you got a weapon down there? No.

[00:12:52]>> You better tell me or I'll blow your brains out.

[00:12:57]Space rats. Is this some kind of defense mechanism?

[00:13:01]>> No, it's it's my body. Please let go.

[00:13:05]>> It's changing shape.

[00:13:06]>> With help from [music] an extremely enthusiastic onboard AI that cracks dirty jokes and provides playbyplay during the seduction scenes >> together so hard that my fingers were bruised for weeks. That's it. Violence.

[00:13:19]What she's trying to tell you is give me some of that. Don't crawl around with bunches of flowers. Throw her across your knee and inflict a little discipline.

[00:13:27]>> Good.

[00:13:28]>> Yeah, believe it or not, there's seduction scenes. Several, in a laundry room at one point. [music] And don't even ask why a spaceship has a laundry room. So, here's what makes this movie special. It was finished, shipped to America. And then some producer in New York decided it wasn't stupid enough and had the entire dialogue track replaced [music] with American wise cracks. The captain now sounds like she's in a catkill act.

[00:13:54]>> Come in, please.

[00:13:54]>> Read you, Skipper.

[00:13:55]>> You better do a a bias scan on the small flat chested creature.

[00:14:00]>> We'll do.

[00:14:00]>> And be careful.

[00:14:02]>> He's extremely dangerous.

[00:14:04]>> The AI sounds like a heckler.

[00:14:06]>> So, what's your beef, baby? Mother complex, fear of open spaces. I'm telling you, I've seen them all.

[00:14:12]>> And the British [music] actors, they try to react to jokes that didn't actually exist when they filmed the scenes. The result accidentally invents its own subgenre by being dubbed badly.

[00:14:25]>> Three and a half inches 6 in.

[00:14:32]>> I don't believe it. It's growing.

[00:14:35]>> And the leotards, they're silver, they're shimmery and not quite fitting.

[00:14:41]And every crew member is a different color. This is number six because spaced out is what happens when everyone on set sincerely committed to a movie nobody on the business side respected. That tension makes weirder art.

[00:14:55]>> All right. All right. I'm going to come with you because on earth they just abused me. They pushed me around. I was a nobody. I meant nothing. And as for Simon, I mean, who needs super? I'll >> do it again.

[00:15:08]Ouch.

[00:15:26]Number five is the movie Cyclone, featuring Heather Thomas, who spends about 80% of this movie either riding a heavily armed prototype motorcycle in a crop top, or sprinting across parking lots in a crop top.

[00:15:57]>> Wow, that gave me a headache. And I just need to stress that is not a complaint because the crop tops, they're a choice the movie is making deliberately and often. All right, so the plot. Heather's scientist boyfriend builds a motorcycle called the [music] Cyclone, and it's loaded with concealed machine guns and enough military secrets in the onboard computer to justify a spy thriller. He gets murdered in like the first 15 [music] minutes, and Heather inherits the bike. Assassins, they start arriving from multiple directions.

[00:16:45]Martin Landau shows up as a corrupt scientist [music] and performs like the whole film like he has wandered in from a completely different [music] much more serious picture.

[00:16:55]>> Yes. some problem with the paperwork.

[00:16:58]You know, the bureaucracy when?

[00:17:04]>> This afternoon, 5:00, no later. It's guaranteed on my honor.

[00:17:11]>> Which makes him accidentally [music] the funniest thing in this movie. The chase scenes, they're actually pretty good.

[00:17:17]And the motorcycle kind of looks cool.

[00:17:24][groaning] There's this uh [music] really interesting garage fight.

[00:17:44]And there's even this great shoot out on the pier. [music] Heather Thomas does every stunt that isn't suicidal and looks like she's having just a [music] blast. This is number five because Cyclone is exactly the film the VHS cover promised and that is rarer than you think.

[00:18:14][gasps] [groaning] >> [screaming and groaning] [screaming] >> All right, with number four, it's The Adventures of Tara, Prison Ship Star Slammer, [music] or you can just call it Star Slammer, or whatever the name the distributor stamped on the VHS that week. Tara is an innocent uh minor framed for attempted murder of a corrupt official and sentenced to life on a prison ship full of the most dangerous silly women in the galaxy. And every single one of them is somehow wearing heels cuz you know what? The genre demands it. I have done a lot of time and been through plenty of hell to be head trustee of this flying scum bucket.

[00:19:13]>> The prison, it's this floating space dungeon run by a sadistic warden who monologues at the inmates like a community theaterbs.

[00:19:21]>> He thinks it's funny. Anybody here think it's funny?

[00:19:26]Muffin, assemble the prisoners to the arena.

[00:19:31]Tara, she befriends a thief and they start a revolt.

[00:19:36]>> What's the matter, Mikey? Thought you were Queen Hag around here.

[00:19:43]>> There's a interesting fight scene where she takes on a mutant in what looks [music] like a basement set built from cardboard and a little bit of spray paint.

[00:20:01]Oh, and of course, John Keredine. He shows up, collects what I have to assume was a check for probably about $40, and he delivers his lines while seated, which is my favorite kind of keratin performance.

[00:20:14]>> A moment lost is a moment gained for the opposition.

[00:20:19]>> I expect a successful report by our next communication.

[00:20:22]>> I'll have her working double time. I can assure you. Aldo Ray is also in this, but I don't think anybody actually told Aldo what movie he was in.

[00:20:33]>> Thought somebody would have done away with you by now.

[00:20:38]>> You'll find me very difficult to kill.

[00:20:41]>> The escape sequence, it's actually kind of good. And the miniature ship effects, I mean, they're so bad in a way that is absolutely [music] endearing. Every frame of this movie feels handmade. And it's number four because Star Slammer is a woman in prison picture plus a soap opera plus a slave trader pot boiler all in 86 minutes. And somehow none of those gear changes [music] ever breaks it.

[00:21:24]Boston.

[00:21:25]>> He is not to be disturbed.

[00:21:26]>> Is that a fact?

[00:21:31]>> Nighty night, fellas.

[00:21:34]>> All right, we're in the top three and we're moving on to The Lost Empire. This is about three women [music] who break into a mysterious island cult run by an evil warlock called Dr. Sindu. And he was played by Angus Grim. You know the tall guy from Fantasm.

[00:21:50]>> Good god.

[00:21:54]>> That's it.

[00:21:58]>> So, one of the three women's brothers was killed by the cult. He's a petty criminal named White Star who runs a brothel. They go undercover by volunteering as Virgin Sacrifices, which naturally requires a uniform consisting of a gold bikini armor and ankle length slit skirts. None of this is subtle in this movie. [music] And really, not if it wants to be.

[00:22:21]>> On my mind. She seemed possessed.

[00:22:25]I never should have left her out there alone.

[00:22:27]>> Stop blaming yourself. She still may be alive and we know a lot more now than before.

[00:22:33]>> They uh train in martial arts. They storm a jungle compound. And they even fight some ninjas.

[00:22:47]Oh yeah, there's a gladiator arena and a wizard duel. Actually, there's even a honest to god laser spider in this thing.

[00:23:04]And behind it all, there's Scrim. Full skull face [music] makeup. His fantasm voice.

[00:23:10]>> Coming teams.

[00:23:12]Is that a fact?

[00:23:15]>> Commanding an army of robed [music] cultists from a throne. Every frame he's in is delivered like he thinks at Citizen Kane. Which is why Angus Scrim is Angus Scrim.

[00:23:26]>> You could have had immortality at my side. You could have become the devil's handmaidaden here in my empire.

[00:23:34]>> This is number three because this is everything [music] this channel is all about.

[00:23:41]sex, sorcery, [music] kung fu, ninjas, rubber monsters, and the tall man being evil [music] at full volume. No film on this list is as pure statement of intent.

[00:23:53]>> Nowhere do At number two, we have Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity. The cover art at My Video Store back in 1988 had Elizabeth Kiten and Cindy Beal in metal bikinis and laser collars, sprinting from something off frame while a jungle burned behind them. That VHS rented itself.

[00:24:40]>> Won't you come with me?

[00:24:42]Zed says the jungle's just full of danger. I'd feel a whole lot safer with the big, strong android like you along to protect me.

[00:24:51]>> Three bucks for my pocket went to that store for this movie before I was old enough to even legally watch it. And when I finally did, this movie lived up to [music] about 40% of the cover art.

[00:25:00]That's actually a higher hit rate than most of these films ever manage. [music] >> [groaning] >> All right, we've got two escaped slave girls who crash land on a jungle planet.

[00:25:16]They're found by a rich aristocrat named Zed, who takes them to his mansion, draws them a bubble bath, hands them flowing evening gowns, [music] and over breakfast announces he is going to hunt them for sport.

[00:25:30]>> Hunt first the enemy, then the woman.

[00:25:35]That's the Savage's idea everywhere.

[00:25:38]>> Yeah, it's the most dangerous game in space. Shot in some California hills as every other 80s jungle movie is. [music] You can sometimes even see the freeway.

[00:25:48]Caitton runs, Beal runs, Zed, he shoots a crossbow.

[00:25:59]A cave tribe shows up in the third act because, you know, every sci-fi vixen movie eventually needs a cave tribe. And that was Kaitton's second slot on this list after [music] Petticoat Planet, and she earned both spots.

[00:26:18]It's number two because the title, the cover, the vibe, and the video store memory all line up in a perfect stack.

[00:26:25]This is core [music] VHS.

[00:26:31][clears throat] [music] >> Decrucify the angel. What? Decrucify him or I'll melt your face.

[00:26:58]All right, we have finally reached number one and of [music] course it's Barbarella. And if you're surprised, you have not been paying attention.

[00:27:09]This movie opens with Jane Fonda floating in zero gravity inside a shag carpeted spaceship slowly unzipping a furlined astronaut suit while a pop song tells you this is Barbarella all psychedelic style.

[00:27:29]>> The strip tease it's like 4 minutes long. The credits are also 4 minutes long. They're the same four minutes. The film has not officially started yet, and it is already the best sci-fi vixen opening ever put on film.

[00:27:46]>> That's my good girl. One day, Barbarella, we must meet in the flesh.

[00:27:52]>> Then the actual movie begins and refuses to stop delivering.

[00:27:56]>> Watch out.

[00:28:04]>> I got it. Barbella crashes on an ice planet [music] and she's attacked by a biting porcelain doll with razor teeth.

[00:28:15]She is rescued by a blind angel named Pygar or something like that and has sex with him. Yeah, that is the actual solution to the problem. Anyways, so she's kidnapped by a lesbian queen. She sweats through a chamber lined with [music] screaming birds.

[00:28:40]She defeats the villain in this excessive machine, which is like a sex chair designed to kill her by pleasure.

[00:28:47]>> Oh, it's sort of nice, isn't it?

[00:28:53]>> But she breaks it with just sheer stamina. The chair gives up before she does. Look, look. Energy cables are shrinking. YOU TURN THEM INTO [ __ ] YOU YOU BURN OUT THE EXCESSIVE MACHINE.

[00:29:08]>> Every film we ranked is trying [music] to recreate one of those images.

[00:29:12]Barbarella, she got there first. And she did it with a real budget, real sets, and she was a real movie star. It's number one. No argument. It's the blueprint of the whole series, and it's the source code.

[00:29:27]>> I think it's the whole reason this genre even exists.

[00:29:29]>> What have you done to Pygar? into the madmas. But I see he's no more digestible than you are. You can't be dead.

[00:29:38]>> You win, MARELLA. BUT THE EARTH HAS LOST ITS LAST GREAT DICTATOR, THE GENIUS of the palatonic ray.

[00:29:47]>> Every one of these movies sold you something on the poster and delivered roughly half of it inside. And that's the grindhouse promise. That was the whole pitch. Somehow, against every rule of good taste, about four of those movies actually hold up as just weird masterpieces. The [music] others I'd still watch over anything that's going to be at the multiplex this weekend. Did you disagree with the order? Good. Go make your own list. Drop it in [music] the comments. Next time we're going to head to another corner of the drive-in underworld, and I think it's going to be about girls in prison. Subscribe if you don't want to miss it. And keep it weird, folks.

[00:30:28]>> [music] >> The syninnapse.

[00:30:38]I must be patient.

[00:30:42]I will lead our people.

[00:30:45]We will flourish. [music] This is my destiny.