Pamela Gidley – Podcasting Them Softly

Today on the VHS Files is a super sexy Cliffhanger knockoff called Freefall starring an impossibly sweaty Eric Roberts, a super smarmy Jeff Fahey and a very foxy Pamela Gidley, who actually passed away last year and many of us fondly remember as Teresa Banks from Twin Peaks. This is actually a really solid action flick set in an exotic location and featuring these three B icons at the peak of their physical attractiveness. Pam plays wildlife photographer Katy, sent by her boss and fiancé Dex (Jeff) to get pictures of a rare bird of prey somewhere in deepest Africa. There she meets Eric’s Grant Orion, a daredevil adrenaline junkie who parachutes off waterfalls when he’s not sipping brandy on the hotel veranda, and she falls for him hard, hard enough for us to get to see them bang way up atop a waterfall with a gorgeous view. The plot goes bananas when it’s revealed that Grant is some sort of disgraced former Hollywood stuntman turned double agent for Interpol, all kinds of baddies are introduced including a freaky ass albino assassin and Dex himself who turns out it to not be the perfect fiancé she thought, and a globetrotting cat and mouse game gets underway. Roberts is terrific here, all lithe physicality and southern charm, Fahey himself tries an odd southern accent and comes across as a bit hammy but such is the arena here anyways, while Gidley fills out the action heroine role nicely. The film is directed by a dude named John Irvin who also did stuff like the Patrick Swayze western Next Of Kin, the rough crime pic City Of Industry, the cult Chris Walken curio Dogs Of War, the war film Hamburger Hill and the Schwarzenegger flick Raw Deal so he just knows his way around a good solid action sequence and how to handle tough guy actors. This is good fun with gorgeous locations, three knowingly arch lead performances and a relaxed vibe.

-Nate Hill

The horror genre has this hilarious unwritten rule that the head doctor of any asylum featured in a narrative simply must be far crazier than any of the patients and Charles Winkler’s Disturbed definitely checks out in that category. Malcolm McDowell stars here as the psychiatrist in question, an amoral basket case with a nasty habit of snatching female patients from their beds at night, drugging and raping them until one such atrocity ends in death, and he seeks to cover up his nocturnal escapades. When one would be victim (Pamela ‘Teresa Banks’ Gidley) takes a fatal plunge off the roof while running from he thinks he’s got away with it… until she literally comes back and starts haunting him. This allows McDowell to do his trademark loony bin routine and slowly lose it bit by bit, chewing more and more scenery with each new scene. Is he nuts? Is her ghost really there? How much were their paycheques to star in this trash? Not to be a hard ass but this really is sleazy, bottom of the barrel shock value trash and the only real reason to check it out is, naturally, McDowell. His Dr. Russell is truly an unhinged creation and it’s fun watching him between unorthodox group therapy sessions, whacked out hallucinations and his eventual grisly comeuppance. The film itself is unabashed bottom feeding swill but there’s other familiar faces like Irwin Keyes, Priscilla Pointer, Clint Howard and Geoffrey Lewis to spice things up. The highlight of the film is when a nurse tells McDowell he needs professional help to which he triumphantly replies “I AM professional help!!” and starts cackling like a witch. Sure, bud.

-Nate Hill