Horrible Movie Review: Wild Side

I'll be the first to tell you that having insomnia has its ups and downs. While getting up early in the AM can be quite difficult, you do get the pleasure of seeing all kinds of horrible late night TV. Unfortunately, after a few viewings, penis pill informercials and the latest Ronco product become depressingly stale. Thankfully, there's a whole subculture of bad movies that HBO has the rights to that get shown very early in the morning, and I'm always up watching them.

I'll be honest: I love bad movies. I like watching a horribly done movie just because it's usually those movies that are the most ridiculous and make you wonder "How in Hell did this shit get greenlighted?" It's hard to imagine that millions of dollars were spent on these movies when short stories written by 3rd graders are far more entertaining and intelligent.

And so from time to time here I will review some of these horrible movies. Be forewarned: I am going to ruin every single bit of these movies, so if you by chance wanted to see some horrible movie I'm reviewing and don't want the painful experience you were anticipating to be ruined, don't read.

Today's flick is "Wild Side" from 1995, starring then-lesbian Anne Heche and pre-pop culture fame Christopher Walken. Heche plays a banker who is a recovering sex addict. Her method of "recovery" is working as a prostitute on the side. Makes sense.

Walken plays a picky money-mover who the feds are after, so he has to play things carefully. He decides he wants some lovin', so he picks up Heche for some kinky sex. Things are a bit too hot for Walken, who somehow ends up tied up in a chair, and paranoid Walken begins to suspect that Heche might be working for the feds, so he has his driver (some huge sweaty Italian actor whose name I don't know) take Heche home to check her out.

So the sweaty Italian fruit takes Heche home, rapes her violently on the kitchen table, and then tells her he's a cop.

Huh?

So the cop tells Heche that he's trying to take down Walken and he needs her help. Mind you, the movie never really explains how Heche can help to catch Walken, nor does it make it clear why Walken is such a bad guy (he's even very picky about what avenues of business he gets into), but this is just the beginning.

A few scenes later, Walken's Asian wife decides she wants to deposit a large sum of money in the bank... sure enough, Walken's Asian wife gets Heche as her banker. They go out to lunch, get drunk, and have sex with each other in the women's bathroom.

I've seen a lot of lesbian sex scenes in movies before, and this is one of the more disappointing and awkward ones. This is Anne Heche, who supposedly was doing Ellen Degeneres. You'd hope that she could give us a hotter lesbian scene than this... but oh no... the best sex scene in the movie is yet to come... starring Walken himself and the big sweaty Italian fruit.

That's right. Walken catches Mr. Italy abusing Heche, and Walken (now thinking that Heche isn't a fed) decides he needs to teach his sweaty Italian driver a thing or two about respect. Walken drops his pants, proceeds to bust out a condom, makes the sweaty Italian fruit put the condom on his penis, then Walken rips the pants and underwear off the sweaty Italian fruit, and then bends him over a couch and fucks him.

In the heat of this passionate sex (with Heche watching in horror the entire time), the Asian wife walks in on her husband screwing a large Italian man.

Of course, at this point, it's obvious the movie has done all it can and things can get no better, so in summary, Walken kills the Italian fruit and ends up in jail, and Heche and the Asian ex-wife become lovers and move to Mexico. The end.

Now I'm a fan of most things Christopher Walken does, including the "Prophecy" movies and more recently "The Rundown," but this dogshit is inexcusable. The sight of Christopher Walken screwing a large Italian man will forever haunt my dreams.

One (out of four) stars.