Desperate Teenage Love Dolls

Punk rock, like other massively impactful human inventions, such as fire and the wheel, has its ultimate and Divine Purpose—but also, alas, its limitations. The A-Bomb has its limitations too, insomuch as it cannot create anything new except a better breeding ground for giant-sized roaches. Desperate Teenage Love Dolls, like the nukes, could also have, at one time, given birth to a new breeding ground for mutant vermin. Alas, the time when it could have wiped out an entire city has long since passed.

DTLD features a no-star cast, including Dez Cadena (although I never saw him), famously ex-Black Flag, and someone I could have sworn was Kira Roessler, also formerly of Black Flag. There’s also a curly-haired dude that kind of resembles Henry Rollins in this era, as well as Stephen McDonald, of Red Kross, Off! and Melvins fame (I guess you call it fame).

Two cool chickas and one that’s tied up on a bed in a mental home watching TV (she later escapes) start a bad 1984 New Wave band, while real bands like Black Flag, Red Kross, and The Bags play on the soundtrack (which also features contributions from Greg Hetson and Greg Ginn, of Bad Religion). Their mother, or someone’s mother, who is a man in drag, is killed, and the daughter properly thanks the killer for it. “Hey thanks for killing my mom,” she tells a member of a drug-dealing gang in Venice Beach called The She-Devils (some of whom seem to be male).

V/A - Desperate Teenage Lovedolls (1984)

They live on the streets after running away, but before killing the mom (and they wonder where morality went, I tell ya!), and then one of them steals a homeless crazy guy's guitar, and they play some Beatles songs. And there's Led Zeppelin and other less identifiable refuse on the soundtrack. They meet up with sleazy manager and producer or something Johnny Tremaine (Stephen McDonald) and he rapes one of them (I can't remember who specifically as half the dialog disappears down the rabbit hole of lousy dubbing), but she plays along to try and get signed.

Meanwhile, the other Love Doll gets involved in a knife fight with the leader of the She-Devils and kills her most bloodily daid. They both get together and decide they still want to rock n' roll. Later, to get revenge, they dose 'ol rapist Johnnie, who trips out and jumps out a window, 'ala Dianne Linkletter.

(Ironically, this small underground, uh, "masterpiece" bears a somewhat resemblance to The Dianne Linkletter Story, filmed by John Waters a decade earlier, maybe. At any rate, the were both filmed for about five bucks and feature tongue-in-cheek violence and shock for shlock's sake.)

The girls further demonstrate their uncanny sadism by lip-syncing their "hit song" in a scene that seems interminable. They of course, rocket to the top of the pop food chain, and five hundred thousand dolar royalty checks become just what they use to wallpaper their bedrooms with (along with, presumably, posters of Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee).

In the end, it is a revenge killing that ends the Love Dolls rock 'n' roll dreams, as one of them is killed by a She Devil (I think), and the other grabs her luggage and becomes a homeless bum. The End. I think.

It was worth a passable fifty minutes or so. The soundtrack is superior to what it's backing, in this case a film with a tongue planted in cheek, shot on Super 8 in a bygone, primitve age when Punkasaurus Rex walked the bitter, blood-streaked, cracked sidewalks and dripping alleyways of Venice, Cali, and all to the tunes of Black Flag, White Flag, and Red Kross. It's a colorful assortment, but not wholly wholesome, Love Dolls Being what they are.

I remember 1984, and you remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio, but not many will ever remember this movie after seeing it.

Directed and written (presumably) by David Markey. Starring Janet Housden , Jennifer Schwartz , Steven McDonald , Jeff McDonald , and Hilary Rubens. Costumes by Goodwill. Catering by McDonalds, Quik-E-Mart.

We Got Power Presents Desperate Teenage Lovedolls a Film by Dave Markey with music by Redd Kross

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