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The appeal of the 1980’s teen sex com­edy was that it was a highly prof­itable for­mat — and its down­fall is that it was a for­mat where light­ning rarely struck twice.  The best gags, most enter­tain­ing char­ac­ters and the thrill of nov­elty was usu­ally spent in the first install­ment of any teen sex com­edy series.  The sequels only  worked if the film­mak­ers were will­ing to go out on a limb and get really crazy/weird with the sequel (best exam­ple: Porky’s II: The Next Day).  Otherwise, attempts to fol­low in the foot­steps of a hit teen sex com­edy were a mat­ter of “same schlock, dif­fer­ent day.”

And that brings us to Loose Screws.  This infor­mal sequel to Screwballs once again chron­i­cles the tri­umphs and tra­vails a group of horn­ball truant-students who get pun­ished and decide to rebel.  Our heroes this time are hunks Brad (Bryan Genesse) and Steve (Lance Van Der Kolk) and nerds Hugh (return­ing cast mem­ber Alan Deveau) and Marvin (Jason Warren, also returning).

The quar­tet is forced to attend a sum­mer school for repeat-offender stu­dents, where they imme­di­ately run afoul of its hardass prin­ci­pal (Mike McDonald) and develop an inter­est foxy French teacher Mona Lott (Cyd Belliveau).  The group makes a bet to see who can score with Lott but when she man­ages to rebuff every attempt and cozy up to their new prin­ci­pal enemy, they plot an ambi­tious revenge for the end-of-session rally.

If a lot of this sounds famil­iar to any Screwballs fan, it should.  Loose Screws sub­scribes to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” the­ory of sequeliz­ing and recy­cles every dis­tin­guish­ing moment from its pre­de­ces­sor: the hunk/nerd alliance of heroes, the four bet­ting over who will score with a woman first, the acci­den­tal dis­cov­ery of black­mail mate­r­ial on the prin­ci­pal and the chaos-during-a-group event finale.  Even spe­cific gags are recy­cled: each hero is once again intro­duced in the mid­dle of doing some­thing pervy, they all pose as phony doc­tors to give breast exams to the female coeds, one of the hunks dresses in drag to see the girls naked, etc.

The end result is inter­mit­tently amus­ing but never takes flight because it is so busy recy­cling the high­lights of the first film.  There are a few new ele­ments intro­duced, like a group of tru­ant girls that the heroes become inter­ested in — but even that is thrown aside after a promis­ing setup to con­tinue with the recy­cled hijinks.  As is often the case, the reheated leftovers are a bit stale: none of the repeat gags improve on the orig­i­nals and the attempts at a stronger empha­sis on plot don’t really pan out as the film con­stantly hedges its bets by shift­ing back into episodic-gag mode.

That said, Loose Screws is easy to watch despite its prob­lems.  Rafal Zielinski’s direc­tion is very visu­ally slick and sharp edit­ing keeps the film rolling at a brisk clip (it’s a mere 77 min­utes, with cred­its).  The fre­quently undressed female cast is attrac­tive, with Belliveau being par­tic­u­larly appeal­ing because she also has good comic tim­ing.  Additional period charm is added by a sound­track packed with plenty of orig­i­nal new wave tunes: sam­ple titles include “Do The Screw” and “Screw It,” with the best song being a randy, ska-styled ode to con­doms called “Circular Impression.”  Best of all, the film­mak­ers dou­ble down on gra­tu­itous nudity and pack boob shots into every nook and cranny of the film.

In short, Loose Screws is def­i­nitely a second-tier entry in the 1980’s teen sex com­edy pan­theon, par­tic­u­larly when com­pared to the demented fun of Screwballs, but it is genial and boob-filled enough to amuse cult film fans nos­tal­gic for this genre.

Loose Screws — “Do The Screw” from Severin Films on Vimeo.