The DVD:
Mandy, Candy, Sandy and Satch are woefully unsuccessful matriculaters. Much to the chagrin of Dean Martin Grundy and their instructor, the tight-assed Ms. Howell, the brain trust have failed their final courses yet again and seem destined to stay students at Riverside University forever. As a last gasp to get rid of the quartet of dullards, the educators arrange a little project. The group must create a successful business, or rescue a failing company, in two weeks time, or they will be kicked out of class forever. Desperate to graduate, the gang takes divergent paths to pecuniary glory. Satch contacts his cousin who owns a cut-rate car wash. One look at the operation explains its lack of solvency. The trio of tarts head off to a local psychic who happens to run a down-low escort service. While Candy ends up as part of a police sting operation, Sandy and Mandy make "nice" with wealthy magazine magnet Hugh Trump. Eventually, all roads lead to the auto detailing dominion as the party's pool their resources and begin offering exotic, strip tease car care. With the customer base booming and the cash flow exploding, it looks like our students will make it. But the Dean and his buttinski teacher have plans to circumvent their accomplishment.

Stupid, sexy, simpleminded and incredibly suggestive, The Erotic Escort Company is not really a movie in the most legitimate of cinematic definitions. It's more like a trade-off between sequences of ersatz sex and mini-comedic moments of incredibly poor acting quality. Tossed onto the most basic of storylines – students having to save/start a business or fail to graduate – and offering the most cartoonish of characters (Olen Ray et. al have never met a stereotype they couldn't milk like the proverbial cash cow) ever to grace a low budget bonk fest, The Erotic Escort Company is a guilty pleasure disguised as a marital aid. While the riggin' friggin' is borderline XXX (no penetration, but plenty of suggested sharking) and the wit is decidedly low brow, the cast and crew of this cornball send-up capture the perfect combination of tongue in cheek and mouth in...other places, to manufacture an amusing, arousing treat. There is nothing subtle or sophisticated about this flesh farce, and anyone whose proclivities cannot handle a non-PC portrait of girls as sex objects and nudity as a necessity should, perhaps, get themselves checked out by a psychiatrist. And they should also avoid The Erotic Escort Company, less their therapy needs be increased ten-fold.

The reason why this film is so much fun falls directly onto the fetlocks of its cast. Presenting three variations on one standard theme – i.e. the DUMB blonde – The Erotic Escort Company uses the well-enhanced talents of Stacey Burke (as the deceptive ditzy bimbo Candy) and Cailey Taylor (as the blank as a fart air-headed Sandy) to guide the glory holing. Add in the more moderated befuddlement of Beverly Lynne (her Mandy is just as capable of brain damaged dithering as the rest of her fellow fair-haired females) and the himbo histrionics of John Swipe (who looks like he has Power Bars for thought patterns) and the stage is set for the mindless conjoining of body parts. But there is something more sophisticated going on here. While not quite ironic enough to function as parody, The Erotic Escort Company understands its limitations and plays right to them. Burke is especially good at walking the tightrope between outright retardation and a knowing lack of knowledge. Combined with fellow thespians Michelle "Scream Queen" Bauer (authoring a deliciously frumpy figure as a villainous teacher Ms. Howell) and Jay Richardson (as the always angry, crusty old Dean) and the acting here creates a wonderfully surreal atmosphere where anything can happen, and usually does with a Catskills comics timing.

In addition, Ray and Retromedia have decided to do a little William Castle on the naughty nookie crowd and add some subliminal messaging to the movie, via a hackneyed process called Hypno-Vista: Subliminal Seduction. What this means is that every time a scene of potential plooking is about to take place, a single frame of text flashes across the screen, barely recognizable to the naked eye. But when one manipulates their digital remote to slow down the flashcard facet, some very humorous moments occur. When Dean Grundy appears on screen, the subliminal subtitle screams "Evil Bastard". When Candy discusses business options with the muscle-bound Satch, the comic come-on "suck my hard nipples" flickers across the frame. Over two dozen times during the course of the film, the concealed craziness jacks up the hilarity. Like a miscreant MST3K, or a far more ribald audience call and response, these one-second jokes tend to underscore the satire, pointing out the obvious undercurrent of salaciousness running through every avenue of this film. Certainly some of the jabs are obvious (lots of breast references) and occasionally strange ("Order a Pizza"???) but unlike previous attempts at exploitation ballyhoo (the Curse of the Erotic Tiki's "Hooter Horn") this is one time where the attribute actually adds to the experience.

This is not to say that all of The Erotic Escort Company works. As a matter of fact, on several occasions throughout the course of its barely one hour running time, the film falls back on bikini and boobie musical montages to move the movie along, as if Ray and his cast have simply run out of ideas and had to pad with pandering. Of course, there is nothing wrong with highlighting dripping wet women in various states of undress (occasionally adding in a little soap to amp up the engorgement) but with a premise as ripe as an escort service, the tangent off into car wash land seems strange. It is easier to imagine several vignettes of unsuccessful "dates", intermingled with the more hot and heavy hook-ups, than successfully fleshing out the chrome and carburetor components. Also, the Hugh Trump/ Plaything Magazine angle is a purely wasted opportunity, a chance to give one of the gals a more or less legitimate love interest while providing a last minute monetary bailout for the plot. Indeed, the best possible plotline for The Erotic Escort Company would have been to combine all the businesses (magazine, car wash, paid dating service) into one mad maniacal mix of centerfolds, hot wax and humping. The scattershot approach only opens the movie up to more moments of tedium, as ancillary issues muck up the pseudo-sensual scenarios.

Still, for however long it lasts, The Erotic Escort Company is a great dumb movie. It packs on the pulchritude as it makes with the monkey lovin' to suggestively steam up the jesting. It provides more sophomoric rim shots and siliconed skin sacks than several issues of Oui and never takes itself too seriously. There are certainly times when the film flounders, unable to stay fully erect in the face of a failing premise. But when it finds the right combination, when it correctly blends bare bodkins with belly laughs, The Erotic Escort Company is a wonderful reminder of why the sex farce is held in such high regard by home video mavens. Unlike the horror genre, which either delivers the shivers or the stupidity, an erotic comedy can be unfunny and still feel frisky, at least making good on part of the bargain. While this is in no way a classic slice of skin flick fecundity, Fred Olen Ray and his cavalcade of carnality have created a witty, pointless reminder of what a goofy goodtime such an exploitation experience can be. In the grand scheme of things, there are worse issues to worry about than whether or not a film takes advantage of women or panders to the lowest common denominator. The Erotic Escort Company does both, and still manages to be mindlessly entertaining.

The Video:
Utilizing a digital to film transfer, the 1.33:1 image of The Erotic Escort Company looks remarkably good. There are occasional moments where the action strobes with an over-cranked concept, perhaps utilized to accentuate the Eros. Still, with excellent color correction and a nice dark to light contrast, the overall visual quality of this DVD's presentation is very professional.

The Audio:
Part of the charm of The Erotic Escort Company
is the use of good old-fashioned rock and roll rave-ups as part of the soundtrack. Presented in near pristine Dolby Digital Stereo, the tunes really wail on this DVD (the opening stomp, "Space Age Mafia" is magnificent). As for the more important aural attributes, the dialogue is upfront and clear, and there are even some minor atmospheric touches that help expand the movie's ambiance.

The Extras:
Unless you consider the addition of an introduction by Retromedia icon Miss Kim and the Hypno-Vista variable, bonus features, the DVD of The Erotic Escort Company is fairly bare bones. The only supplementary items for perusal are a pointless picture gallery and a fairly funny trailer that pitches the film perfectly. While it's hard to imagine a justification for a commentary or a behind the scenes featurette, a little more information on the cast and crew would have been welcomed.

Final Thoughts:
If your proclivities run in direct opposition to bare-breasted women copulating and canoodling for the sake of some simulated sex, you'll thoroughly enjoy The Erotic Escort Company. It is nothing but mechanical, misguided merriment trading on the titillation factors of faux fornication to give viewers their jollies while tossing in some jokes for good measure. Long time low budget barker Fred Olen Ray has finally found a way to marry his love of the lewd with his tendency toward cheese, and the end result offers up a satisfyingly odiferous combination of camp and crap. While it will never win any awards or set the cinematic world on fire, The Erotic Escort Company is nothing more than good escapist entertainment. While it promises not to contribute to your overriding loss of brain cells, it can stimulate your funny bone...along with other, more important, areas.

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