Roller Blade (1985) from Brainscan

Senior year. The Modern Film. Post-Apocalyptic Visions. Same ol' same ol'. Subtlely comes in the form of enraged Aussie cops running over radiation-sickened evildoers in hockey masks.

So, boys and girls, let's put the two together. A Post-Apocalyptic Anti-Utopian movie is what we're talking about. And if we do the math... zero subtlety times zero subtlety ... what is there to expect but zero subtlety.

Yet even in that context, the dreadfulness of Roller Blade (1985) is unexpected. One can imagine that with a defter hand there might be might be entertaining stuff in the story of a religious order of women dedicated to justice in a fascist state which exists years after the apocalypse. Even if if were played as farce ... truly the last refuge of the talentless film maker ... you could see possibilities. What you don't expect is Donald G. Jackson, writer, director, producer, cinematographer, special effects technician and all-around anti-Midas of this film. He touched it and it turned to lead.

Nekkid gals are the only saving graces in all the film.

• Suzanne Solari plays the main good-gal, Sister Sharon Cross. Gets something real bad spilled on her skimpy outfit toward the end of the movie and takes it off as quick as can be, while making sure she gives up few goodies. She looks great in a really silly scene.
• Even sillier scenes happen early on as Michelle Bauer is roughed up by a bunch of guys and made to wrestle another woman, played by a gal named Lisa Marie, but who is really Lisa Stagno; who is really pornstar Crystal Breeze. This is a scene right out of TBS, this guys making hot chicks wrestle thing. Michelle gives up boobs and bum. Later, she and Crystal and a second pornstar, Barbara Peckinpaugh, enter the cleansing waters maintained by the religious order of Bod Sisters, and are healed of all wounds. All three gals are fully frontally clean.

But the real chuckles come when you focus on Crystal's character. She is earnestly in prayer, thoroughly cleansed, all by the power of a being who we like to call The American Idol. It is a "smiley face". That is what these women worship. And again, in the hands of someone who knew what he was doing, the use of a banal modern symbol as a religious icon coulda been amusing. But when you are hammered over the head with it and when the whole cleansing ritual is shown to work ... wounds are healed, bodies made whole and beautiful again ... you just gotta shake your head and mutter to yourself that this Donald G. Jackson guy must have been ridden out of Hollywood on a rail after Roller Blade came out.

Nope. IMDb lists terrible movie after terrible movie in which he played a fundamental part. Here is the career output of one Maximo T Bird, also known as Donald G. Jackson, the undisputed king of the grade-C roller blade genre.

1. (3.93) - Hell Comes to Frogtown (1987)
2. (3.90) - Roller Blade Warriors: Taken by Force (1989)
3. (3.02) - Roller Blade (1985)
4. (2.98) - The Demon Lover (1976)
5. (2.92) - Guns of El Chupacabra (1997)
6. (2.44) - Frogtown II (1993)
7. (2.22) - Return of the Roller Blade Seven (1993)
8. (2.08) - The Roller Blade Seven (1991)
9. (1.54) - The Legend of the Rollerblade 7 (1992)

It's then I realized. Most of the really horrible movies are made by a handful of people. We're not talking the former cast members of SNL, either; cuz for every Corky Romano or Coneheads there is an Old School or a Ghostbusters. We're talking guys who never ever made a movie that anyone would graciously call halfway decent. Bombs, stinkeroos, disasters of the first order. One after another. What I can't figure out is how that is possible. Who is making money off these things? That's what I wanna know. Only reason I watch 'em is see a few frames of Michelle Bauer, nekkid again, but that's not everyone's motive, no matter how pure it might be.

Scoop's notes in yellow:

In addition to the films rated above, Donald also directed "Ghost Taxi", "Lingerie Kickboxer", and, interestingly enough, "American Beauty". OK, maybe not the last one, but the other two are really his. After his Roller Blade group, his most prolific series was Frogtown. He did three sequels, sneaking in one last one just before he died on October 20, 2003. He never cast Roddy Piper again. The part of Sam Hell was taken over by Robert Z'dar (one film) and Scott Shaw (the other two).