A VACATION IN HELL (1979)
Dir: David Greene

An odd mix of crude sexual innuendos and underlying gender anxieties, this largely forgettable "thriller" never manages to conjure a plot as interesting as its relentless subtext of confusion and anger towards the 70s rapidly changing sexual mores. Three female age groups are represented by a gaggle of broadly drawn characters: a precocious tween tease played by Maureen McCormick (channeling the inner slut we all suspected resided in Marcia Brady), a couple of recent college grads out for an all-around frisky time and an aging mother (Babara Feldon, wondering how she ended on this island and film set) confused by the new roles acceptable to women.

In a fantasy narrative of male wish fulfillment, a playboy (complete with shades and a handy bottle of bubbly) becomes stranded on a jungle island with the above-mentioned group and spends 90 minutes fending off their amorous/pathologically needy/psychotically immature advances, as well as those of a hostile group of native islanders. Both seem to represent the same danger level, and thus the viewer is plunged into a quagmire of both sexist and racist melodrama.

Deadly dull, A Vacation in Hell has little to recommend other than the camp spectacle of a drunken song and dance routine by a very randy Ms McCormick.