Rating: NR
Genre:
Musical
Release Date: 05/20/2003
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 60 min
Distributor/Studio: Eclectic DVD Dist.
A comically punky version of
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls ,
Desperate Teenage Lovedolls tells the story of three disaffected young girls who leave home to become rock stars. Lead singer Kitty Carryall (
Jennifer Schwartz), whose mother is played by a shrill, hysterical man in a dress, runs away to Venice, CA, where she and a friend shoot heroin and meet a drummer named Patch. Kitty joins Patch in beating a Dylanesque tramp to death with his own guitar and battles a tough girl-gang called the She-Devils on a beach, stabbing one of them to escape. Despite raping one of the girls at his Brentwood condo, sleazy agent Johnny Tremaine engineers the Love Dolls' rise to the top, off a hot album called Electric Catbox. Soon, the band is at the top and decides to drop Johnny, so they drug his wine, setting the scene for a hilarious "bad trip" segment involving stuffed cats and a suicidal plunge from a building. The tragedy continues in grand rock-movie style as the band's guitarist is murdered by the She-Devils and Kitty shoots one of them to death in retaliation. We next see Kitty a year later, wandering the train tracks as a derelict.
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
The surprisingly good zero-budget indie
Desperate Teenage Lovedolls benefits from a wacky sense of sick humor and cool tunes by
Redd Kross,
Black Flag,
Hip Drivers, and
White Flag. The film is brimming with hip parodies and anarchic energy. The
Valley of the Dolls paperback and a
Star 80 poster show up for those who don't get it. The music is great fun, with campy covers of
"Stairway to Heaven," "Purple Haze," and
"Strutter," as well as some bouncy originals. Despite the fact that it looks like it cost about ten bucks to make, this hour-long
comedy is a heck of a lot more fun than most multimillion-dollar epics.
Lovedolls Superstar followed.
~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide