Angel of H.E.A.T.

Rating:
Summary: Oh the humanity!
Review: Back in the day, way back in the day, I was an impressionable lad looking forward to the arrival of cable television. Remember the anxiety, the sheer nail biting anticipation, involved in looking forward to the day when that bright, shiny new cable truck rolled down the street? We felt like we were the last people in the world to watch movie channels, music videos, and all the other junk piped into the house through the wonders of pay television. Within weeks of tuning in to this wonderful new world, reality quickly reared its ugly head. Most of the stuff you saw was junk, in and of itself not a bad thing, but junk nonetheless. How many times could you watch a Duran Duran video without losing a part of your soul? The movie channels, desperate to fill up twenty-four hour schedules, hyped and then aired painfully bad films as though they were candidates for an Oscar. I remember seeing a Herschell Gordon Lewis marathon on one of these channels in the early '80s and wondered why I once looked forward to cable. Well, the intervening years have left me with a craving for the low budget sludge I once scoffed at as a youngster. Thanks to DVD, I can once again relive the experience of "Blood Feast" and atrocities like "Angel of H.E.A.T."

An attempt at a clever spoof of spy thrillers, "Angel of H.E.A.T." stars none other than Marilyn Chambers, one of the founding mothers of the adult entertainment business. Chambers, whose mug once adorned Ivory Soap boxes across the country, occasionally forayed into the realms of legitimate filmmaking. For instance, she starred in David Cronenberg's wonderfully cheesy "Rabid." This movie was yet another effort by Chambers to cross over to the mainstream. Obviously, that effort failed. "Angel of H.E.A.T." finds Chambers playing Angel Harmony, an agent in charge of a group of specially trained operatives who routinely save the world when all other options fail. The latest mission involves the Shockley family, specifically a goofy looking chap by the name of Albert. This guy, who lives on a remote island protected with all the latest hi-tech surveillance equipment, plans on taking over the world through hidden messages in rock music. Al stole a special computer chip from his father Peter and, with his main squeeze Andrea (Remy O'Neill) in tow, builds robots while dreaming of his future as emperor of the world.

Obviously, the world cannot accept such impudent behavior. Along with Angel Harmony, Samantha Vitesse (Mary Woronov) and Mark Wisdom (Stephen Johnson) work a separate angle of trying to infiltrate Albert's stronghold. All sorts of ridiculous situations unfold as Harmony, Vitesse, and Wisdom try to undermine Albert Shockley. Apparently, a special factory that makes the computer chips resides near an establishment involving nightly female rassling matches, so the three end up putting in a significant amount of time there seeing what is what. Woronov ends up battling Andrea Shockley in the ring while Chamber's character charms her way upstairs to use her wiles on the owner of the establishment. Wait, things get even more ridiculous. One of Angel Harmony's main operatives is an Asian martial arts expert with a German accent. Then there's Harmony's encounter with Albert's robots, a series of scenes that one simply must see to believe. Eventually, Vitesse, Wisdom, and Harmony join forces to destroy Albert's plans. The concluding battle in a mountain valley between the robots and the H.E.A.T. agents ranks as one of the most poorly choreographed fight scenes in cinematic history.

Why even bother watching "Angel of H.E.A.T."? Good question. I saw the film was available on DVD and decided to relive a memory of years gone by. Most other viewers should stay far away from this disc. I concur with everything the other reviewer of this product stated: the transfer quality is so far below mediocre that whoever released this disc probably pulled the print from a VHS copy of dubious value. I, too, suspect that the DVD is a heavily edited print of the film, although I cannot say for sure since the last time I saw the movie was over twenty years ago. I do seem to remember seeing a lot more of Chambers when I saw the movie on cable than I did here. But you really shouldn't pay as much attention to these issues as you should to the film. "Angel of H.E.A.T." just isn't that good of a picture. It's cheesy, often not in a good way, and tries too hard to get laughs. The picture also has that early 1980's style, with all the problems that entails, popping up all over the place.

The one good thing about the film is Mary Woronov camping it up as the highly charged Samantha Vitesse. I'm a big Woronov fan, so seeing her playing for laughs, tossing out double entendres, and looking gorgeous is a big plus for putting up with the negative aspects of the film. As for Marilyn Chambers, well, she does as good of a job as one could expect. Everyone else is forgettable. Surprisingly, the disc does include a few extras. We get a trailer for the film, a Chamber's bio, and some very eye catching stills of Marilyn striking karate poses. Ultimately, I don't think I can recommend this DVD. Only Woronov completists or huge fans of Marilyn Chambers should even consider picking this one up, and even then they are likely to be quite disappointed with the technical aspects of the disc.


Rating:
Summary: I can't imagine a worse transfer or worse edit
Review: If I could give this DVD 1/8 of a star I would have. The VHS/Beta version of this film that was released in 1982 was much better than this DVD in both content and image quality. The transfer of this DVD looks like it was done from 2nd generation VHS tape (probably in EP ot LP mode). Seriously, I have Beta tape of AoH that I dubbed in 1983 from a Sony SL5800 to a Sony SL5400 in SP mode. Twenty years later, that tape still has much better image quality than the DVD. In addition, the DVD is heavily edited. I'm not sure why since it still carries an R rating. Only people who seriously collect Ms. Chambers work should even consider looking at this DVD. It certainly isn't worth a $3.00 rental fee.