Jag Mundhra’s dreadful sex-com will leave you screaming for salvation, says Matty.

Shot between The Other Woman (1992) and Wild Cactus (1993) but released stateside after the latter, L.A. GODDESS is unpardonable rubbish and tied with the equally soul-destroying Tropical Heat (1993) as the worst film to bear Jag Mundhra’s name.

A dismally unfunny behind-the-scenes meta comedy, this sorry farrago sees the gorgeous Kathy Shower — in her first of several flicks for Mundhra (Wild Cactus, Sexual Malice (1994), Improper Conduct (1994), Irresistible Impulse (1996), and Shades of Gray (1997)) — as struggling screenwriter Lisa Moore. A stuntwoman-cum-body double, Lisa is out in the desert on the set ‘Frontier Foxes’; a hillbilly/Dukes of Hazzard-type caper that’s going off the rails. The lead actress (Mundhra stalwart Wendy MacDonald) is a drunken prima donna; the director (Jeff Conaway) is floundering; and the whole shaboodle is on the cusp of being shut down by the completion bond company (personified by Joe Estevez). Wanting to get things back on track, mulleted studio exec Damian (David Heavener) flies in – and before you can say “Pretty Woman (1990) rip-off”, he and Lisa fall in love amidst a wealth of supposedly ‘hilarious’ Hollywood shenanigans. Naturally, said romance involves him encouraging her to finish her script, ‘Goddess’ (which, as it happens, was the film’s original title until L.A. was added on), and a fair whack of T&A.

For my money, these kinds of ‘peel back the curtain’ satires rarely work at the B-movie/DTV level. They’re never as funny or as insightful as they think they are; they’re usually just smug and wank-y. There are, of course, a few notable exceptions, such as Troma’s Terror Firmer (1999) and Full Moon’s Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust (2008), and form adjacent offerings a la Jim Wynorski’s Body Chemistry 3: Point of Seduction (1994) and Richard Gabai’s Vice Girls (1996) which flirt with deconstructive elements. The rest, however – films like Nico Mastorakis’ Glitch! (1988) and Fred Olen Ray’s Bad Girls From Mars (1990) – are, quite frankly, awful. The reason Terror Firmer and Gingerdead Man 2 succeed is because their satire is tailored to their budget bracket; Glitch! and Bad Girls From Mars don’t because they overreach. They try to tell stories about bigger studios and bigger productions, and they just don’t have the resources or, indeed, knowledge to pull them off, which, in turn, makes the films themselves appear cheaper and dumber than they probably are. L.A. Goddess is another prime example. 

Evidently a passion project for producer Michael Criscione and his family given how many times someone with their surname appears in the credits, L.A. Goddess is a slouch job for Mundhra. The film is flat and uninspired, and you can practically hear the helmer sighing at the end of every cut. Even the derma on display is delivered with anonymity. A rumour persists that Mundhra bailed on the film during editing, in favour of Wild Cactus. It’s hard to blame him. 

Credit where it’s due, though. As woeful as L.A. Goddess is, Shower, MacDonald, and Conaway attack the flaccid script with gusto, and the incomparable James Hong has fun aping Hector Elizondo’s Barney shtick as Damien’s valet.

Lensed entirely at Silver Lakes in the High Desert area of Southern California, L.A. Goddess landed on video in the U.S. and U.K. in May 1993. In the U.S. it was issued by Prism – whose regular distribution of Mundhra’s wares was about to hit the skids – and in the U.K. by 20:20 Vision (in conjunction with New Age Entertainment). For those keeping score, ‘93 also saw the U.S. release of Mundhra’s Wild Cactus (March, through Imperial) and Tropical Heat (August, through Prism); and the British bows of The Other Woman (April, through Imperial) and Wild Cactus (October, through 20:20 Vision).

USA ● Erotic, Comedy ● 91mins

Kathy Shower, David Heavener, Wendy MacDonald ● Dir. Jag Mundhra ● Wri. ‘Jerry Davis’, from a story by Michael Criscione. Additional dialogue by Daniel Benton (as ‘Danny King’)