Hot Resort (1985) Slapdash sex comedy about friends working at a tropical resort.

Theme Song: There’s some synth, but this flick is missing any type of motivational song professing the hotness of the resort and/or the summer.

Interesting Dated References: Friends who incessantly bet dollars with each other over the stupidest shit; Making jokes about clothes from Kmart and Sears.

Best Line: Said by man to woman — “I suppose watching my videotape of monkeys fucking is out of the question.”

Social Context: Put out by Cannon during their mid-80s peak releasing spree, Hot Resort is at best a series of poorly thought-out subplots held together by the thinnest of storylines. Teen sex comedy fever was still sweeping the nation in 1985, so it didn’t really matter, but half-hearted efforts like this certainly helped dilute the waters as the trend entered a downswing in the second half of the decade.

Summary: Four American friends get jobs at a tropical resort only to run afoul of a jockular college rowing team on site to film a soup commercial. It’s a storyline that reads like a fucking Mad Libs.

Aforementioned rowing team is full of ‘80s snotty-rich-guy stereotypes who incessantly pick on the worker friends, which include the urban-Italian everyman Marty (Tom Parsekian, Club Life), Walkman-clad ultra-nerd Kenny (Michael Berz), obese sex-addict Chuck (Head of the Class’s “fat guy,” Dan Schneider), and wiseacre know-it-all Brad (Bronson Pinchot).

Eventually the workers are recruited to “compete” against the rowing team during the filming of the soup commercial (it doesn’t matter how or why). Things get heated and the underdogs win, even though it’s not technically a real race and there wasn’t even really a competition since it as all being filmed for a commercial.

Interspersed in all this are boobs and sex talk/jokes as the boys interact with various hotel guests and random girls from a cruise ship.

Worth Mentioning:
– Frank Gorshin (The Riddler from the BatmanTV series) shows up as a resort patron who tries to interject some humor, but doesn’t have much of a character to work. One particular interaction with Chuck definitely seems like ad-libbing as he describes how to hit on a woman.

– For those interested, there’s a hefty set of breasts displayed by Dana Kaminski as Melanie, one of the cruise ship girls.

– Written by Boaz Davidson (among others), who wrote and directed the West German-Israeli coming-of-age comedy Lemon Popsicle, later adapted for America as the Cannon-produced The Last American Virgin

– Definitely filmed on Lake Havasu or something made to look like a tropical resort. The locale has overcast skies throughout the film. There are no location details or thank-yous in the credits.

– Penthouse Pet Linda Kenton plays a character whose only mission is to appear naked and have sex.

Poster and Box Art: Hot Resort features a beautiful mock-neon wordmark that is possibly the best thing about the movie.

The Betamax is an MGM/Cannon book box and features nice airbrush work including renderings of the three main actors, which looks fairly accurate.

Overall an excellent concept and execution. I couldn’t track down an artist credit.

Availability: Used VHS on eBay.