Joysticks

Joysticks is a weird film.  Sometime after the popularity of films like Porky's and Animal House, low budget film makers from all over decided they too could make classic adult comedies with less money.  The problem with this is that most of them have less charm.  For every Screwballs, you have at least ten Joysticks, and sadly they are not worth playing with.

This movie happens to have two actors I like, Joe Don Baker, and John Gries.  Joe Don Baker plays the main bad guy, Joseph Rutter, a man who hates the arcade and thinks his daughter spends too much time there.  Jon Gries plays a guy named King Vidiot, the other sort of bad guy.  This is the reason (if any) you should see it.  King Vidiot is a punk guy with weird hair who has a small gang of punk girls, and it's pretty much the best.  You may have seen Jon Gries in Napoleon Dynamite, but I know him best as O.D. the infamous rocker dude from TerrorVision.  Luckily he is just as awesome in this.  I'll get back to him, but let's talk about what the movie is actually about.

So there is this kid named Eugene that is going to his first day of work at a video arcade run by a guy named Jefferson Bailey.  The arcade is frequented by somewhat attractive ladies who all don't seem to mind getting naked or being touched by random people, as well as "colorful" characters such as Jonathan Andrew McDorfus.  Now Dorfus is supposed to be the lovable gross overweight scamp in the film, and only three of those words could be used to describe him.  He is absolutely annoying in this film.  Anything that is gross or is supposed to be "funny" that characters like this do, he does.  The legend goes that Dorfus was class president or something, but shortly after graduating he started to frequent this arcade where he became friends with Bailey.  Sadly, he also became insanely overweight due to the Arcade food, and a complete waste of space, but as far as video games go he can't be beat.

There is this girl named Patsy Rutter who hangs out there and has a pretty terrible valley girl accent.  It brings the arcade to the attention of Joseph Rutter, her father, who thinks that everyone there is terrible.  This is further helped by some college girls who, when convinced the arcade is on fire, are forced to run through the arcade wearing nothing but panties and end up running into the man.  The arcade is obviously a den of filth and scum, so he forces his daughter to leave.  The problem is that this place really is a den of filth and scum, but we are supposed to love it.

So Joseph's cronies try to steal the arcade machines and put the place out of business.  Eugene overhears this and a bunch of guys go there to stop the dudes.  Meanwhile Eugene and Dorfus sneak into the Rutter house for... reasons and Eugene ends up in the arms of a sex starved, drugged up Mrs. Rutter.  Anyway, after the pointless interlude they leave and Rutter's daughter goes with.  Bailey is having some sort of after hours party to celebrate and many of the guys bring their ladies over in the PJ's.  King Vidiot and his crew want to hang out so there is a showdown between Vidiot and Dorfus where the stakes are if Vidiot wins he stays, if not he goes.  They play Satan's Hollow, a pretty awesome game.  The weird thing is they have these big screens that come down near the bar and play it with these huge joystick that you must stand to use.

So Dorfus wins but Bailey lets the punk gang stay, so none of this was relevant.  Then Joseph Rutter comes by and gets angry that his daughter is there.  This launches a battle for Joseph to try and get the arcade closed down.  King Vidiot joins the dark side and attempts to help Joseph with the promise that he will be awarded his own arcade machine.  At some point this comes to a town meeting where Rutter claims the place is tainting the youth, and you know what?  He's right.  It has ruined McDorfus' life and turned Vidiot into a crazed violent punk dude.  Not that I have anything against punks, but this guy is just stupid and mean for no reason.  More importantly it has turned into a place where kids can go to drink, and have sex or sexually assault each other with reckless abandon.  The case is brought to it's knees when Bailey shows a picture they shot earlier with Rutter and the two girls that ran into him in the fake fire incident.  This proves somehow that Rutter is morally bankrupt.  Then the Mayor says that there is no evidence that anything illegal is going on so the arcade will stay open.  The problem with this is that they just saw physical proof that there has been, by way of the slide with Rutter.  There are two naked girls next to him in public, more specifically in the arcade which proves that the patrons are at least guilty of indecent exposure.

For whatever reason Bailey agrees to a match against Rutter's champ King Vidiot, and the arcades chosen valiant warrior Dorfus in a game of Super Pac-man, Vidiot's favorite game.  Then Dorfus is nowhere to be seen and Bailey must face his fears.  Earlier in life Bailey lost his virginity to this girl in an arcade, but right after her dad came in.  Bailey sees the father in the reflection of an arcade screen and the girls father starts hitting her.  Then he takes the girl away and they move somewhere.  This scars Bailey and he can no longer play games or he becomes physically ill.  So Bailey is forced to play against King Vidiot and starts failing bad.

It turns out the cronies kidnapped Dorfus, but when they are not looking, Rutter's wife smells Dorfus' essence and remembers that night of drugged up passion so she goes down to bang him.  He convinces her to let him free with the promise of a gang bang later and goes off to save the day.  When he gets there, King Vidiot has already stopped playing because he was so far ahead of Bailey.  Eugene convinces Dorfus not to take over for Bailey and let him face his fears.  Then he gets good and wins the game, so the arcade is saved.  Bailey and Dorfus rent a motel room so Eugene can go lose his virginity with Mrs. Rutter.  The End.

Wow, this movie is bad.  There are positive things however.  If you want it, there is a lot of ladies wearing virtually nothing.  The music is pretty fun overall.  There is a decent amount of arcade machines to look at and people play them in head to head competition.  Most importantly however, is King Vidiot himself.  He is so awesome that he makes every scene he is in worth it.  He is way too good for this movie.  John Gries is great, and if you want to see him be great in a movie that doesn't suck, watch TerrorVision.  If you already love O.D. from that and simply must have more, I guess you could fast forward through this.  Otherwise just skip it.  Nothing here worth while.