Maxine Mortogo (Mary-Anne Graves) is one of the most powerful figures in interplanetary entertainment, so much so that if she refuses to put a band on in one of her venues for whatever reason, their agents may be so scared that they commit suicide, seeing no possible alternative. One such agent who has not resorted to such drastic action is Matty Asher (Anthony Kentz), but he might be contemplating it when the show his main signing is meant to be playing is thrown into jeopardy as the lead singer, Ace Lucas, has walked out for a better offer. The only thing he can think of to do is rush along to the nearest talent show and pick out one of the wannabes, who happens to be fresh-faced Judy Jetson (Dru-Anne Perry)...
Albert Pyun gets very short shrift from most of those who are aware of his work, though there was no denying his dedication to churning out the movies even if there were few who actually wanted to watch them. His best effort was probably his first, The Sword and the Sorcerer, a Conan the Barbarian cash-in which proved he could be entertaining if given the chance; this, on the other hand, was perhaps more indicative of his larger body of work in that it was barely seen, and when it was it was mostly on home video, much of his output lucky to get a cinema release. And the fact that it was, more or less, excruciatingly boring for anyone who did not harbour a residual nostalgia for the eighties.
An Empire production, Vicious Lips, which is the name of the girl band Judy is recruited to rather than a fulfilment of any promise that title may or may not have made, never saw release in its native United States, which has lent it a minor reputation as something worth seeking out, mainly by those who have not done so yet. As it was, a story about a bunch of rock chicks trying to make it in the spaceways of the galaxy was a genuinely good one, a sort of sci-fi musical of which surprisingly few have been attempted, but alas this was not what was on offer here. Well, it was for the beginning as Judy was given the departed singer's name and thrown in at the deep end of showbiz, and we were presented with a couple of none-more-eighties pop tunes with electric guitars yet Pyun lost interest in that very early on.
What was actually happening was, to be fair, telegraphed with a caption, but with the fancy editing going on it was easy to miss, which made the way this was resolved all the more of a letdown. Although no more of a letdown than the rest of the movie up to that point, for what happened when the group heads off into space for their gig is an asteroid gets in the way of their journey and they are forced to crashland on a desert planet. The special effects here, incidentally, were never going to give Douglas Trumbull sleepless nights, and kept to the barest minimum available to allow us to understand what was happening, but once the band and Matty are stranded on the barren globe the tedium really commences in earnest. One of the cheapest things a movie can have is talk, so there's plenty of that.
Maybe the second cheapest thing a movie can have is walking about, so we get plenty of that as well, with Matty despatched to find civilisation - cue lots of shots of the actor stumbling around dunes to very little effect - and the ladies investigating the spaceship which of course contains a few corridors for the cast to shuffle up and down in non-existent suspense sequences. For no reason that makes any sense in the plot, onboard there is a beast man, named Milo the Venusian Beast (Christian Andrews) in the credits, trapped in one of the rooms who gets out and chases the female cast, after all, the third cheapest thing in a movie is when walking just doesn't cut the mustard you can always ask your actors to break into a run, though this may tire them out. It certainly tires the audience out when they cotton on there's not much more to this yawner than anything but the most superficial effects, and when you begin to wonder how Pyun could have messed up a cast iron premise with such apparent indifference you know you're on to a loser with Vicious Lips. Music by Michael McCarty.
