Big Zapper (1974)

There is a great deal of snobbery directed at low budget movies. 1973's 'Big Zapper' is a good example of this. It is certainly not a lowpoint in British cinema, as one reviewer has stated. This energetic spoof of private eye movies is directed by Lindsay Shonteff, and stars the luscious Linda Marlowe as white-clad, sexy investigator 'Harriet Zapper'. After putting an ad in the Village Gazette, she is hired by wealthy 'Jeremiah Horn' ( Jack May ) to find his missing daughter 'Pandora'. The trail takes her to the deranged crime-boss 'Kono' ( Gary Hope ) who dispatches an army of killers to deal with Harriet. Of course, she's more than capable of looking after herself. Why did I enjoy this movie so much? Possibly because it serves as a perfect antidote to the increasingly anodyne fare currently served up by Hollywood. C.G.I. is awful when used as the focal point of a movie. 'Big Zapper' is tremendous, insane fun, and Marlowe is a knockout in the title role. Its impossible to take seriously a movie which features characters with names like 'Rock Hard' and 'Strawberry Jim'. There are the odd moments of Pythonesque humour, such as a bright light appearing when Harriet drops her knickers, and a severed head uttering an apology. Never mind the low budget, just enjoy the ride.

As the female version of Dirty Harry and one of the most vicious comic book adaptations Big Zapper is a cult favorite that lives on! After Sin City it has become even more acceptable and one can see that it was just ahead of it's time! It's an unbelievable mixture of surreal sex scenes and nasty slap stick violence and the cynical attitude of the main character is absolutely unbelievable! Plus the way the goofs are saved by the voice over like "I had time just to change my clothes" when Zapper's outfit is changed in the middle the scene! Absolutely great work!

This feeble private eye 'spoof' features a catatonic Linda Marlowe as Harriet 'Big' Zapper, a mini-skirted PI out to solve the murder of a young woman. She's opposed by Kono (Gary Hope), a pimp who has a sideline in counterfeit money and dresses a bit like Ronnie 'Z-Man' Barzell, and his gang of inept henchmen. Her loyal sidekick is an impossibly randy loser named Rock Hard (Richard Monette) who spends most of the film snoozing in the back of Harriet's Mercedes in between shags. Screenwriter-director Lindsay Shonteff wavers for the first few reels between straight ahead spoof (witness Big Zapper's badly animated glowing vagina) and video nasty, but wisely decides to amp up the silliness for the film's finale. There's not much to recommend here: the action scenes are dreadfully staged, and the comedy relentlessly unfunny. The film does score points unintentionally for London film fans, who get a nice glimpse of the exterior of the old Angel tube station before its complete reconstruction in the early 1990s.

Having caught this movie late one night on cable, I had to see it again just to check if it was as bad as I remembered. It was actually worse. Big Zapper is an attempt to cash in on the 'Kung Fu' craze & also the U.S female action sleaze of Pam Grier & Cheri Caffaro which fails miserably.Linda Marlowe stars as Harriet Zapper, a private eye who is targeted for elimination by a gangland boss. Ms Marlowe has absolutely no martial arts skills, and the inept director Lindsay Shonteff in the days before CGI has no means of disguising this. - usually she kills her inept opponents with a single limp punch!. The film features plenty of action, but it's all badly done & the director can't seem to make up his mind whether this is a comedy or a thriller!. One minute she is punching her enemies through walls like a WB cartoon character, the next she's bloodily skewering a guy with a knife. If the action is badly done, the comedy is even worse, her sidekick being a moron who spends the whole film trying to get her to have sex with him. Big Zapper is 70's British cinema at it's very lowest - the acting and cinematography are laughable & it's a film so bad it isn't even unintentionally funny. Shonteff was also responsible for a couple of equally bad spy spoofs featuring actor Nicky Henson & Gareth (New Avengers) Hunt .If you are a fan of female action cinema, this has to be seen to be believed, just to make one appreciate Hong Kong cinema & U.S grindhouse even more!.