Joysticks — Joysticks(DVD)
Joysticks is a lightly raunchy comedy set in a small-town video arcade. The early 1980s film is a bright, buoyant, and highly cheesy affair- with a mix of bumbling & innuendo-based humour, a few darts of female nudity, and a likeable enough selection of characters/ cast, with a soundtrack featuring a selection of tacky pop rock with video game leanings. Here from the MVD Rewind series is a bare-bones DVD release of the film.
Joysticks (aka Video Madness) is from the year 1983. It was directed by Niles, Michigan-born Greydon Clark. Between 1971 and 1997 he had twenty feature films to his name- these went from blaxploitation action crime comedy Black Shampoo (1976) which regards a promiscuous hairdresser who gets tangled up with the mafia. Onto cheeky ‘n’ camp horror comedy Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977), slasher parody Waco (1982), and killer cat sci-fi horror Uninvited (1987).
The film opens with bespectacled & tank top-wearing geek Eugene Groebe (Leif Green) driving to his first day working at the video arcade. He gets stopped by two women, who flash him, they convince him to get in the back seat of their convertible- they promptly take off his trousers- snap a Polaroid of him in his large pants, and drive off with the trousers saying they're heading to the arcade.
Fairly soon were at the arcade- getting to meet a selection of characters- there’s the charming & happy-go-lucky twenty-something owner Jefferson Bailey (Scott McGinnis). We have the frank & beans eating, stained shirt, and tubby Jonathan Andrew McDorfus (Jim Greenleaf)- who helps out around the place and spends his spare time (when not eating or passing wind) playing on the machines. As for the regular customers, we have a group of punks led up by blue-haired King Vidiot(Jon Gries). The two women who stole Eugene’s trousers, and Valley girl Patsy (Corinne Bohrer).
The plot is fairly thin with cheeky japes & messing around being the prime focus. The key storyline line regards local businessman Joseph Rutter (Joe Don Baker) Patsy's dad- who wants to shut the arcade down- which he tries to do with the help of his two bumbling/ always messing things up nephews.
The film runs at just under the hour-and-a-half mark- and remains largely entertaining throughout. The cast is good enough for this type of thing- with notable cast members being Green playing the film's geek/ virgin, Greenleaf as the slobby & farty gamer, and Baker makes for a good enough bad guy who's constantly trying to ruin things for everyone.
Sure, Joysticks very much plays up to expected set-ups/ tropes of raunchy 80’s US comedies. But the whole thing is presented in a charming enough manner, and the arcade setting is rather neat too.
As I mentioned early on this region-free DVD is barebones- with just four trailers (including Joysticks)- though is a Blu-Ray version of the film also from MVD, and this takes in two commentary tracks, and a few other extras.
I always recall the Joysticks poster art from back in the 80s VHS days- and always thought it was a bit more of a fleshy sex comedy, but in reality, it’s fairly tame of the skin side of things, and the humour isn’t that dirty. So, with that in mind, I certainly say it will appeal more to fans of straight 80s comedy/ and or retro gaming vibes.