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I make this point because Amazon Women on the Moon seems just as hung up on sex, and even more misogynistic. Screenwriters Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland have been a comedy writing team since the 1960s, penning for sitcoms and variety specials but also thousands of episodes of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (between 1966-1992), and Late Show with David Letterman (since the mid-90s.) It would seem reasonable to assume that they would make an ideal pair for crafting a smart satire on television programming. Amazon Women is almost entirely a laugh-free venture, with its 85 minutes stretching out to feel twice as long.

For a representation of the film’s problem, in miniature, it is only necessary to look at the title skit, which works so hard to recreate a really bad 1950s sci-fi film, it forgets to include any room for jokes among the tacky production design. This happens again with the Steve Guttenberg-Rosanna Arquette pas de deux “Two I.D.s” which has a fabulous blind date set-up, and then proceeds to suck all the air out of the room as it progresses. Barrie and Mulholland reveal where their comic tastes rest in a mildly amusing take on a modern funeral, in which Catskill comedians mercilessly heckle the not-so-dearly departed, and in an embarrassed (and embarrassing) tale of a boy whose quest to purchase the right pack of condoms gets him way more attention than he would like.

The writers seem more determined to pay homage to the comic inspirations of their youth than to find a way to play off a contrast between an earlier style of joke telling and the more aggressively vulgar comedy of the 80s. The opening skit, in which Arsenio Hall plays a yuppie who comes home to find his plush condo transformed into a death trap, suggests the E.G. Marshall segment of Creepshow in its broad strokes, and unwittingly sketches a through line to the Final Destination films, but it also has some anger and fire just underneath the surface. It’s a terrific beginning that points the way towards a better film than the follow-up segments are able to deliver.

In writing the last few paragraphs, I think I have been able to gather together the key difference between KFM and Amazon Women. In KFM, a lot of people are getting laid (with one minor exception) and the audience is invited to watch. Amazon Women is an extended exercise in “coitus interruptus” (re: the “Video Date” segment) and the only person getting fucked (after a fashion) is the viewer. KFM is crude, profane and frequently hilarious, a hot-blooded make out session in the backseat of the car, while Amazon Women is an endless cold shower after an unsatisfying bout of self-gratification on the couch.

It’s a fitting irony then that two of the deleted scenes on the DVD are better than almost all of the segments in the film, although I can understand why they were cut, and agree that this was the right decision. Neither one would fit in. “The Unknown Soldier”, helmed by Horton (though it has the feel of a Dante piece, something in line with his “war trilogy” from the ‘90s), is a dark and bitter tale of the absurdities of combat, where every victory has a gray lining. “French Ventriloquist’s Dummy” (which Dante did direct) is an absurdist scenario that one can easily imagine Charlie Kaufman spinning out to feature length. Dante regular Dick Miller is a ventriloquist who finds himself at a loss for (English) words when there is a dummy mix-up at the airport. It’s nonsensical but charming, and far too wistful to have any place in Amazon Women on the Moon.

Next time: Frank Drebin vs. Topper Harley. Plus: my favorite line from any ZAZ (Not ZAZ) film.

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