There are fews things in life that I adore more than a beautiful bitch with big hair. Regardless of caliber, I will watch any movie that features one so naturally I couldn’t pass up snaggin’ the Girlfriend From Hell (1989) blu from Culture Shock Releasing when they arrived at the shop this week. I was expecting sex, camp, and satanism – I’m happy to report that I was satiated on all three counts! In fact, this shit was so on point that it could’ve been plucked directly from my brain.
I’m sure we’ve all experienced a tumultuous relationship a time or two, but how many of y’all can actually say you dated the devil incarnate? Such is the plot of Girlfriend from Hell, wherein the inventor of the condom has become immortal after a romp with a woman embodied by Satan and has been selected by God to hunt Satan herself down, presumably until the end of time. As you might’ve guessed, the aforementioned beautiful bitch with big hair is the unlucky one Satan has selected to take up house in. Much in the same vein of the undeniable masterpiece Shock ‘Em Dead (1991), Maggie (Liane Curtis), once a nerdy wallflower, becomes scorching hot after becoming possessed. This baby is chock-full of that drawn in lightning that I live for, and y’all get to witness her transformation. Her hair grows, her clothes get sleazier, her eyes glow a candy apple red – she turns into sex on legs in a matter of seconds!
Everyone picks up on the fact that Maggie has changed, especially the men around her. She manages to seduce every single one of her friends’ boyfriends in front of ’em, right before fucking them all to death. I’m not even joking, y’all – she sucks those souls right out of their bodies, leaving nothing but a shrivelled corpse in her lusty wake. The only guy to survive her demon coochie being the chaser, played by Dana Ashbrook only a couple years before he’d star in Twin Peaks. He is substantially hornier in Girlfriend from Hell – trust me.
As both the title and promotional materials suggest, Maggie is solely what makes the film worthwhile. As she chugs liquor straight from the bottle and seduces every man in sight, I can’t help but be smitten – A woman after my own heart! That being said, the flick tends to drag in her absence – but who cares?! The subplot of the chaser is so bizarre that one cannot help but be amused and entertained.
Being the hair metal fanatic I am, I can’t help but be obsessed with Maggie’s sleazy aesthetic. Though Liane Curtis killed it in the role (pun intended), when I found out Tawny Kitaen was briefly considered, I shed a salty tear. I think this would’ve been the play to make Girlfriend from Hell the closest to heavy-metal-horror possible without throwing in some Dokken or Ratt tracks. Like The Lost Boys (1987), the aesthetics just bleed heavy metal, making it adjacent to everyone’s favourite horror subgenre without packing that riff-enforced punch I have a insatiable longing for. So close, yet so far!
Despite the lack of Dokken, I wholeheartedly adored this movie because of how fun, cute, and lighthearted it was. I’m sure y’all are like “how the fuck could a movie about Satan fucking dudes to death possibly be cute?”, and to that I say “I don’t know, it just is”. Girlfriend from Hell made me realize that nerds becoming hot because of Satanic exposure is my favourite thing in the entire world. A truly underappreciated niche in film, if ya ask me! But perhaps my brain is simply bonked from an overexposure to trash cinema, but I sure as hell ain’t alone in this brain rot! Give’r a whirl, fellow dirtbags. Your sleaze-ridden mind will lap it up like cold beer on a hot summer day.