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Oasis Of The Lost Girls
Released by: Full Moon Features
Released on: May 22nd, 2018.
Director: José Jara (credited as John O'Hara)
Cast: Nadine Pascal, Shirley Knight, Francoise Blanchard, Karine Laure, Anthony Mayans
Year: 1981
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Oasis Of The Lost Girls - Movie Review:
Also known as Police Destination Oasis (or, as the title used on the source for this DVD reads, Filles Perdues and bearing a copyright date of 1981), Oasis Of The Lost Girls is one of the wonkier Eurocine productions of its time (technically, according to the end credits, the film is a co-production between Paris' Eurocine and Madrid's J.E. Films), a fairly nonsensical mix of sex, exploitation and action.
Our film opens in a discotheque where a whole bunch of very European looking people are doing a poor job of showing off their dancing skills. Two men (one of whom is named Peter) approach two women - pretty blonde Annie (Francoise Blanchard) and her dark haired friend Nadine (Nadine Pascal) - and invite them back to a house for some drinks. They figure they've got nothing to lose and so they agree. After all, as the guys say to themselves… “we're pretty damn irresistible!â€
Back at dude's place, they crack open a bottle of champagne and drink to their new friendship. After putting on some music, Nadine dances with Peter and talks about art (it turns out that he's an art dealer) while the other guy gives Annie a tour of the house that includes looking at one painting and then screwing around on the couch. Little do the girls realize, Peter is spiking their drinks with a powerful aphrodisiac! One thing leads to another and Peter gets Nadine into the bedroom while the other guy lays Annie on the couch. While this is going on, a bald guy in a red shirt arrives and is told that both of these girls are 'real bang-oh-reenos!' Red shirt guy inspects the naked goods, both girls now passed out, and arranges for payment on delivery. The girls are then smuggled out in large wicker baskets!
Later, in a warehouse, red shirt guy rapes a brunette only to be interrupted by a silver haired woman clearly working in the underground slave trading ring that these girls are now being indoctrinated into. When Annie and Nadine wake up, red shirt and his cronies rape everyone. Shortly after, they learn that they and two other girls have been whisked off to a bordello called The Oasis, located in the African Congo where bearded guy with a whip smacks them around! When Nadine stops to teak a leak in a field, she gets raped by a buy named Pablo! Then a black girl who tries to get help winds up being kidnapped too - she's seen too much but they can use her. Eventually the girls meet the director of the bordello (Shirley Knight), make the various requisite escape attempts (the best one featuring Blanchard running past a monkey into the jungle in full French lingerie) and subsequent capture/punishment scenes, you know how it goes with movies like this. Eventually some good guys figure out what's going on and decide to send in the appropriate guys to deal with it.
Other highlights include a girl trying valiantly to play a guitar despite a clear lack of musical ability and Pascal talking to the new recruits about how it's not so bad being here even if she does miss the nude act that she used to do before she was kidnapped (que the flashback scene to said nude act you all knew was coming - look for Lina Romay to appear here in footage that was lifted from Franco's Opalo del Fuego - which also starred Pascal!). There's a good bit of rape in the movie - quite a lot, actually, including a scene with some pretty graphic girl on girl groping action. The film occasionally throws in some stock footage of wild animals to make us believe we're in the Congo, and also pads things out a bit around the half way mark with some gratuitous carnival footage and footage of a lovely fireworks display. The flashback scenes where we learn how the different girls wound up here are amusing in their own strange way while the ham-fisted English dubbing makes all of this impossible to take seriously - especially when these poor tortured girls decide to have a lingerie-clad pillow fight! There's also an amusing scene where, in flashback, a girl gets talked into whipping a guy who picks her up and gives her a ride - it isn't kinky so much as it is just goofy. Oh, and there's a scene where cop lets a monkey run around on his desk. Somehow that makes complete sense.
At just over seventy-seven minutes in length this one moves at a pretty decent pace even with the obvious padding in spots. The locations are nice and the case of female performers assembled for the cast are all lovely looking ladies. There's definitely no shortage of skin on display, the movie never goes more than a few minutes without one of the girls disrobing for the camera - all of which helps to make up for the fact that there really isn't much of a story here. The performances are all over the place but a bit tough to realistically gauge given the dubbing. Still, it's nice to see Living Dead Girl's Francoise Blanchard show up here as well as Nadine Pascal of such smutty delights as Zombie Lake and a few of the Six Swedes movies. Jack Taylor also appears in the movie in a scene clearly edited in from another picture (the IMDB says that it's Agente Sigma 3 - Missione Goldwather from 1967). He interrogates a woman, then makes out with her and then shoots a few bad guys before getting into a poorly choreographed fight with some toughs while a gaggle of showgirls looks on and periodically scream. There's roughly ten whole minutes lifted from that picture and just dropped into this one. It's supposed to be a flashback but it doesn't work or really make much sense. Later he boards a ship and then makes it to land, gets into a few more fights, saves some naked ladies. All in a day's work. There's some helicopter footage towards the end of the movie that also appears to have been swiped from the aforementioned Franco film - and it all ends with the jauntiest closing credits theme you could possibly hope for (Franco regular Daniel White is credited with doing the music for the film).
Oasis Of The Lost Girls - DVD Review:
Oasis Of The Lost Girls arrives on DVD from Full Moon framed at 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen looking really good for a standard definition offering, although it is, unfortunately, interlaced. The elements used for the transfer were in very nice shape and there isn't much in the way of serious print damage to complain about at all - in fact, the image is nearly pristine (save for the inserts that are a bit worse for wear). Colors look good, skin tones are natural enough looking and black levels are fine.
The only audio option on the disc is an English language Dolby Digital 2.0 track that the packaging lists as stereo but that sounds like mono. Either way, the audio is less than perfect. Some scenes sound just find, others have a bit of reverb and audible distortion and even some fairly constant, albeit fairly minor, background hiss. It's all a bit uneven. There are no alternate language options or subtitles provided.
Extras are slim, limited to trailers for a few other Full Moon releases (Caged Women, Rolls Royce Baby, Mad Foxes, The Young Seducers, Trophy Heads and Badass Mothafuckas), menus and chapter selection.
Oasis Of The Lost Girls - The Final Word:
Oasis Of The Lost Girls is an absolute mess but at least it's an interesting mess made with a pretty cool cast! Recycled footage and incomprehensible plot or not, this thing is entertaining in its own screwy way. The audio on Full Moon's DVD release is less than ideal but the transfer is good - even if it is light on extras, this one is genuinely obscure. Eurotrash fans just might want to consider this one, despite its many and obvious flaws!
