Sadly Over-hyped

i must have seen a different film!!

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

GIRL IN GOLD BOOTS is another dreadful film from cult film-maker Ted V. Mikels and possibly even worse than his usual fare, which at least had the distinction of being horror or science fiction efforts with the occasionally inspired lunacy that those genres bring. By contrast, GIRL IN GOLD BOOTS has absolutely no idea of what it actually wants to be.The film's protagonist - played by the entirely wooden and talent-free Jody Daniels - decides to make something of her life, so she moves to Los Angeles and becomes a go-go dancer in a deadbeat bar. Go figure. Lots of musical scenes and endless loops of girls dancing around while wearing very little is the end result of this production, which takes patience-testing to the next level. An occasional random action scene is thrown into the mix in a bid to keep viewers watching, but it's all so dreadful but even the most ardent of exploitation fans will be bored out of their brains by this one.

Ted. V. Mikels made some delightfully daft camp Z-movies (esp. "The Doll Squad") and many others which are outre (or not) but just a challenge to sit through. This early one sits in the middle of that scale--which is to say, still pretty low in the general scheme of things. The mostly dreary ultra-low-budget crime drama is spiced by scenes of go-go dancers, sometimes choreographed as an ensemble. It's nowhere near the worst amongst grindhouse/drive-in sexploitation features of the era, with better production values than many (which isn't saying much). For instance, it's a bit more professional than what H.G. Lewis was doing at the time. But it's still pretty dreadful.

I absolutely love this movie, I don't know why. It's terrible in all of its parts. I've seen epileptics who have better dance moves than the title character and the girl Michelle. The songs are mediocre at best, the continuity and editing are both terrible, almost everybody in the film is oily looking and/or ugly, and there is no plot to speak of whatsoever. That said, for some reason despite these things(or maybe because of them), this movie is hilarious. The MST3K version is a delight, although something tells me that I'd still laugh a lot just watching it uncut. Michelle is not only the most untalented dancer that I've ever seen, she is dumber than a bag of hammers. 'Critter' is blandly good looking and not very talented at his chosen craft either. Buzz is a horrible little greaseball, and yet Michelle shacks up with him because he promises her that he can help her become a dancer with the aid of his drugged out sister(who also is a completely untalented dancer). But then, considering her disgusting drunker father, who she was still living and working with even though she had to be in her mid-twenties at least - Michelle does not have good taste in men or the brains to know when its a bad idea to shack up with a guy who carries a gun and pistol whips people with it at the drop of a hat. They all get mixed up with an oily drug dealer, and Buzz ends up killing a guy over heroin. He just gets better and better! The immensely lame 'plot' sort of trails off, as Critter goes off to fight in Vietnam after pummeling Buzz and Leo half to death. This after many, many horrible scenes of Michelle and/or Buzz's sister dancing. Stupid, completely stupid. But somehow, delightfully so. Makes me laugh every time I watch it.

IMDb has a "bottom 100" films--those with the lowest ratings of the many thousands of films listed on the web site. The bottom 100 films list is pretty wretched, though many truly horrible films somehow missed inclusion on the list. And, oddly GIRL IN GOLD BOOTS did make the list--even though it's not that bad a film at all, especially for Ted V. Mikels. Mikels has made some amazingly bad films (such as CORPSE GRINDERS and ASTRO-ZOMBIES) but compared to these films, GIRL IN GOLD BOOTS is practically Shakespeare! Yet, of the three films I mentioned, inexplicably GIRL has the lowest IMDb rating. I think this is due to this film being featured on "Mystery Science Theater"--and I've noticed that many films shown on this show have LOTS of reviews and ratings because of the notoriety it gave them. The film is about three people who are heading to Los Angeles. One is a pretty lady whose life goal is to become a go-go dancer (she dreams big, huh?!). One is a punk guy who is thug through and through--he is the most poorly written and acted of the three--by far. And the last is a soulful guy who is cute, plays the guitar and sings. While these characters are all very one-dimensional, they are interesting and hard to ignore because the script and their roles are so tacky! When they get to L.A., they get jobs with a seedy nightclub owner. This jerk also deals drugs and has a twitchy and greasy sidekick who looks a bit like Dracula and a mortician morphed into one. The punk joins them in a "trio of terror", the lady realizes her dream job (only to realize it isn't that dreamy after all to be a go-go girl--who'd have figured?!) and the nice guy hangs around to keep an eye on the girl and to keep her out of trouble.The film is cheaply made and jam-packed full of silly 60s song and dance numbers and pop culture references. Lots and lots of silly go-go dancers fill the screen in the second half of the film and often it just looks like padding, but at least the girls are rather pretty and the script is semi-competent. The nice guy also inexplicably sings a couple numbers like Frankie Avalon and he was probably the only guy in the film who seemed to have much talent. But, being connected with Mikels and this film surely didn't help him very much in the long run. In fact, of all the main characters in the film, NONE OF THEM had a single credit other than this film!! Apparently this film was a kiss of death to their careers and they all eventually became go-go dancers!While the dialog is occasionally lame and the film isn't great, it is an interesting kitschy time capsule. Plus, for an ultra-low-budget film, it's pretty good and watchable. While compared to all films I might score it a 3, for a low budget "quickie" it is quite competent despite the Mikels touch!