Search - Loose Screws on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 9/17/2022...

80s slapstick comedy previously known as Screwballs, Screwballs 2 with many unknowns that will make you laugh. A must for the campy comedies of the 80s!

1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Well, it's got lots of boobage, but little else...

cookieman108 | Inside the jar... | 01/02/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"From Roger Corman and Walt Disney (who recently purchased the rights to release Corman's extensive film catalog onto DVD), comes this mediocre excuse for a teen sex comedy titled Loose Screws (1985). Corman, always in touch with what audiences of the time wanted, or at least willing to completely rip off other, more popular films as they came out, released a handful of these films in the 1980s, some decent, some not (this movie falls in with the latter)...this Canadian production, directed by Rafal Zielinski (Screwballs, Valet Girls, Screwball Hotel), features Bryan Genesse (California Casanova), Lance Van Der Kolk (State Park), Alan Deveau (Screwballs, Recruits), and Jason Warren (Screwballs). Also appearing is Mike MacDonald (Oddballs, Recruits), Cynthia Belliveau (Goofballs), and Deborah Lobban ("Degrassi Junior High").

As the movie opens, we find ourselves at Beaver High, and Principal Hardbutt is wishing all the students a happy summer break (in terms of comedy, this is about as good as it gets, lame sexual references and ridiculously obvious innuendoes). Well, not all, as it turns out four students are going to have to go to summer school if they want to graduate (seems they've been in the twelfth grade for the last four years). The students are (are your ready for this?) Steve Hardman (Van Der Kolk), the tall, handsome blonde guy who always wears leather driving gloves even though he only drives a Chrysler Le Baron, Hugh G. Rection (Deveau), the diminutive nerdy, electronics whiz who's always carrying around a video camcorder, Marvin Eatmore (Warren), the horny fat guy who can't stop eating (he shirt even says `I'll eat anything'), and finally their slick talking leader Brad Lovett (Genesse)...see the comedic gold alone within the character's names? You know this is going to be funny! There's the French teacher Mona Lott (Belliveau), the girl's dormitory matron Hilda Von Blow (Lobban), who's very strict and supposedly German, but has no accent, and so on...anyway, the boys get sent to Coxwell (har har) Academy, and soon have a falling out with their new arch nemesis Principal Arsenault (MacDonald) after some shenanigans with the female students. The boys eventually start a contest where each one will get ten points for each girl they nail, five points for an `almost', two points for a `look-see', and finally a cool hundred points for whoever can bag the hot French teacher Ms. Lott. Each of the boys begins their own campaign as Brad, in ridiculous drag and a squeaky voice, crashes the girl's dorm, while Steve works on Ms. Lott (pretending to need private French tutelage), nerdlinger stuffs his pants full of toilet paper and hits the boardwalk (subsequently the paper falls out of his shorts as he walks along), and the fat guy joins an all female guy rolling around during the aerobics sessions. Eventually their antics get them expelled, and they plan revenge by `fixing' the founder's day celebration with a few tricks of their own...yawn...

This is pretty pathetic...they couldn't even find someone to portray a believable nerd for this film. What they did was take a short guy, mousse up his hair, fit him with some thick glasses, and give him a computer...gee, he must be a nerd...whatever...I will say one thing, the movie does have copious amounts of T and A, fulfilling one of the few prerequisites of the genre...too bad it failed in all the others. I suppose a ten year old might find the puerile material in this film funny, but it won't go over all that well for the rest without a few brews (better make it a sixer...tall boys, in fact). My `favorite' scenes involved laughs at the expense of the fat guy...hoo boy, nothing brings about laughs quicker than obese people (watch as Marvin unpacks his duffel bag...it's filled not with clothes, but food! Ha ha!). In one scene nerdlinger figures out the best way to check out the girlies in school is to climb up onto the ceiling tiles above their locker room, so who do you think ends up going? If you guessed the fat guy, you guessed right, and you can figure out how that ends up. There's a running gag throughout as the boys are constantly being called into the principal's office, and end up sitting on a bench (the fat guy always on the end) as they get chewed out. This always ends the same way as when they're dismissed, the three regular sized guys get up, causing the bench to pop up under the weight of the fat guy on the end, and he subsequently falls on his enlarged behind...har har...oh stop it, you're killing me...Chris Farley perfected the `fat guy fall down and go boom' routine, and Jason Warren is no Chris Farley. The comedy in this feature is pretty odious in general, but it does get worse as Brad bribes an Oriental masseuse to let him administer a massage to Ms. Lott. The bad part comes when Genesse, donning a Fu Manchu moustache, starts speaking in the worst `comic' Oriental accent I've ever heard...I'm no PC freak, but this was just embarrassing, more than anything else. This brought to mind a quote from the film True Romance (1993) where one character states "I've got more taste in my penis." The one thing I was really surprised about was the absence of any fart jokes, especially given the presence of a fat guy in the cast. I guess the thing I found most lacking was heart...the film had no soul, as the characters were hardly even there. All in all this was a less than fluff feature, with plenty of boobage and pre-juvenile humor, churned out only to turn a few, quick bucks. I did think some of the music was pretty good, the stuff that wasn't canned.

The picture, in fullscreen format (1.33:1), looks decent, but does have a certain amount of fuzz (pause the video at any point to see what I'm talking about), but it is watchable. The Dolby Digital Surround audio comes through well enough. There are no extra features, but there are chapter stops, for what it's worth.

Cookieman108

If you're looking for something a bit more substantial in the genre, I'd suggest checking out these other films... Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Hollywood Knights (1980), Porky's (1982), Losin' It (1983), The Last American Virgin (1982), Revenge of the Nerds (1984), and/or Just One of the Guys (1985).
"

The 8 year wait

mastershake | 10/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"8 years ago, i was watching tv. i was flipping through the channels, trying to find something other than old reruns of seinfeld and the cosby show to watch. i was about to give up, when i remembered my only salavation for late night cable. that's right, the greatest show hosted by the star of many of my own late night dreams, rhonda shear. i changed the channel, hoping to see rhonda, or a good friday the 13th movie(they ran those alot back then) when i happened upon a movie with a woman lying down, waiting for a massage. although censored, i still wanted to give it a peek. about two seconds later, some guy wearing a cheesy mustache gave money to another guy(the actual massusse) and walked over to the woman. he began massaging her, trying to arrouse her, using a technique he read in book(shown a few seconds earlier, before he walked it) the girl started moaning and cooing, sounding like she was enjoying it. finally to my surprise, she sat up and said, jeez that was tough, you mind taking it easy? or something like that(hard to remember dialouge when a girls wearing nothing but a towel..well half wearing) anyway, she see's it's not the massusse and starts screaming. the insane prinicipal finds out and punishes the student. after that, i had to see what was going to happen next. i found out as the film went on, that it was about four guys who were trying to see their french teacher naked.(living out every guy's fantasy of finding a girl so hot, you'd try anything to see her naked) other attempts made by the other memebers of the group were also great to watch. from a fat guy trying to sneak into the girls locker room to see her undress, to nerd with a camera tyring to trick her into believing he wasn't trying to see her get undressed, he was trying to make a movie. overall, i think the teacher's reactions were more than worth the movie. she acted the way i wish all hot girls would react (i mean granted she refused their attempts, but hey at least she was still arousing while she did it; kinda like she was saying yes, i know i'm hot and i know you want to see me naked, but it's not gonna happen you perv) finally, the boys get in real trouble, when the prinicipal sets a curfew for them (they were in college, but strict college) and they are found hanging out a wet tshirt contest. at the same time, the principal is on a date with their french teacher. the boys are expelled, and finally decide to maybe call it quits. however, they are inspired to not give up, realizing that they will never get back into school, but they can still get their revenge on their principal. i remember thinking at this point though(not knowing what they were going to do next) that their mission had failed. how much it sucked that the french teacher(who was incredibly hot by the way) wasn't going to get naked. iacheive the goal they set out for. anyway in the end, during a ceremony to introduce a new statue, the boys set up a projector and put on presentation of their own: a home movie of the pricipal and the french teacher after they left the bar and went back to her place. the pricipal gets fired as does the french teacher. so, then i thought that was the end. the prinipal got his comeuppance and the boys got even. however, the movie wasn't over just yet. suddenly, the statue came to life, with eyes lighting up, and mouth opening. the tip of the middle finger lit up and pointed at the principal and french teacher. the principal looked annoyed and the french teacher looked frightened. suddenly, strange gas started coming from the statue's mouth. the french teacher's expression went from one of fear to a strange smile. the principal also smiled and began walking off towards two other women on stage(old and not real hot looking). however, the french teacher started dancing, and as she she did, started removing part of her dress(which looked more like a night gown). she finally was in her bra panties and garters with stalkings. she turned away from the crowd, undid her bra, held it up, with her back still turned to the crowd, and then (unfortunatley because it was basic cable) the scene jumped to fire works and the guys playing a song. even after the movie was over, i couldn't stop feeling this amaizing feeling. i mean, it was n't the first nudie film i'd seen, but it had an amazing effect on me. i mean, sure i've seen the occasional fim on cable that i wish i owned, but this movie was made me feel in way i've never felt. i don't know if it was the idea of chasing after a chick so hot and trying to get her naked, or if it was the fact that i didn't get to see her naked, but i wanted to own this movie. uncensored. especially for that last scene. i wanted to see the teacher naked too!!!! i searched for 8 years, in and out of video stores, in movie shops, but was unable to find it anywhere(partially because i had no idea what the name was) when i heard i was finally coming to dvd i almost flipped. however, unable to wait, i found it ebay,(the original vhs). i watched it just yesterday. all i can say is this much it was easily the greatest movie i had ever seen. i encourage everyone to get a copy. of course, even though i already own it and still get chills and strange feelings of enjoyment just thinking about it, i still plan on buying a copy on dvd as well. so let me thank all the people involved in finally getting on dvd and getting to scratch an 8 year itch."

WARNING - Not the original release

L. Evey | 04/03/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I was very disappointed. I'm usually not into this type of movie, but I enjoyed this movie twenty years ago when it was on Showtime. Not only are there NO chapter menus, they've editted out some of the nudity that made this movie stand out in the genre."