Welcome, friends, to the Lousy Lottery! Here’s how it works. First, I post four movies to a poll on Twitter. Fans vote to pick which movie to make me watch that week. I watch it, review it and spread the word about an amazingly awful, terribly terrific b-horror flick.

This is week 36! This week we look for the perfect fuckbot and find love along the way with 1987’s Cherry 2000! But first, let’s talk plot.

In the futuristic year 2017, the world, or at least the United States, has devolved into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Nothing grows and getting food and water has become a desperate situation. Not for everyone, though. The rich live luxurious lives and drive super cool three-wheeled cars. They also get to buy realistic, android sexbots to be their partners. Meanwhile, the poor walk around carrying guns because just about the only way to survive is to kill or be killed. It’s a bleak world where robbing and killing is the only way the poor survive. Flash back to the rich.

Here we find one lucky fella named Sam who has truly fallen in love with his fuckbot, a Cherry 2000, a top of the line model. While cooking dinner the sink overflows, spilling water all over the place. They decide to role with it and fuck right there on the kitchen floor. Somehow the water shorts out the robot and he has to get it repaired. He learns, though, that his Cherry 2000 is totaled and beyond repair. They give him what is essentially the bot’s sim card and send him on his way to find a new hole to plug.

He goes around town shopping, but none are as high end as his Cherry 2000. He just won’t settle, you guys. Only the best robosex for Sam! When he hears about a smuggler who has a stash of Cherry 2000’s out in the badlands, where the poor live, he wants to find said smuggler and get his primo robopussy. So, he hires E Johnson, no chance that’s not a dick joke in this movie, which also features a hotel subtly named The Glory Hole, to track this smuggler down. They set out and run into trouble left and right.

He and Johnson, played horrifically by Melanie Griffith, set out into the badlands looking for Cherry 2000 models. They kill, they rob, they blow shit up. Many a life was lost for him to get his favorite sex toy back. For some reason, the poor but incredibly skilled and tough Johnson falls for Sam, but Sam only wants his Cherry 2000. For reasons I’ll never understand, she still puts her life on the line repeatedly to help this rich douchebag and after many a murder they find the exact model! He puts in the sim card and goes to escape. The plane they’d stolen, however, won’t take off with the extra weight. So, get this, he fucking tells Johnson to get out in the middle of the dessert so they can leave. She does! Then, mid-flight, he decides he chose the wrong person and comes back to swap out women, robo for real. Sam and Johnson fly off into the sunset while I curse at my screen, boo and the credits roll.

I have absolutely no clue how this movie got made. Not a single person involved was powerful or famous enough to get a project like this greenlit and the premise certainly wasn’t marketable. Man becomes obsessed with finding the perfect fuck robot during a time when most are so desperate they’ll resort to robbery and murder just to survive. Sounds like a real crowd pleaser, eh? Eh?! Can you imagine the pitch meeting? Exec says, “Well, I could see how it’d be marketable if we cram it full of nudity.” Actually, there’s no nudity at all. “Oh, uh, well, then we can win ‘em over with blood and guts.” Nope, none. “Huh, okay, well, maybe we get their sides splitting with great comedy.” No comedy, we play it totally straight. “That’ll only work if we have top notch acting.” Guess again! “Well, that sounds destined to fail, you’ve got a deal, here’s millions of dollars!” In fact, this movie had a budget of $10million and made $14,000 at the box office. $14,000!!

I mean, seriously. Half the cast is full of folks that make you go ‘wait, where do I know him from?!’ The only real star is Melanie Griffith and she’s as well cast as Keanu Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing. It’s straight up nonsensical. Griffith plays a gritty, down and dirty bounty hunter and tracker. She’s meant to be a sort of Mad Max character and she’s just completely not believable in this role. Can you even imagine picking her for a role like that? Nah. It’s not like the director could get this greenlit. This was his feature debut and he’d only make one more film, also a flop, and go on to direct episodes of shows like Lizzie Maguire before retiring. It’s clear they had a budget and clear they had enough clout to get big names involved, so this isn’t some bizarre no-budget indie flick. This is a studio picture and I’m truly baffled it ever got made. It was shot in 1985, but they shelved it once they saw the final product and only released it in Europe, for some reason. Then, years later in late 1988, Orion suddenly released it with almost no marketing after Griffith was nominated for an Oscar in ’88 for Working Girl. She was publicly embarrassed by this movie and wouldn’t promote it, which, of course, further lead to it’s financial demise. One quick piece of Griffith trivia about this movie. She had a baby a couple weeks before filming and, thus, had a breastfeeding infant on set while shooting this. Given it’s a slog of a movie and was shot in the dessert, I can’t imagine how exhausted she was during this shoot.

It’s fun at times and has it’s moments, but overall it’s just a very poorly acted, slow slog. It also suffers from something much more fundamental and that’s a lack of engagement with the audience. No, I’m not talking about breaking the fourth wall, I’m talking about giving the audience something to engage with, something to care about. The movie is set in a dystopian future where humans are hungry, poor and desperate. In that setting I’m supposed to give a single shit that this smarmy, rich white guy tracks down his favorite sex toy? Who gives a shit? Then we meet this tough, badass bounty hunter and she falls for him? Are you fucking kidding me? Am I supposed to root for them getting together? Nah, no way. So, when the movie ends, I felt like, ok, sure, why not? There was nothing that could happen that I’d especially care about. Things happened, then they stopped happening.

It’s not all bad, though. The production design is an ‘80s marvel. Big hair, big fun. It’s such a campy, wonderful example of the sort of ‘futurism’ people thought the year 2017 would look like in the ‘80s. It’s all neons and hoops and odd bright colors. It’s juicy and delicious. The terrible acting, outside of Griffith, who is no fun to watch, is fun and funny in the manner of good ‘80s Troma. So, at the end of the day, is it worth a go? Sure, why not? It’s probably best to not approach it sober, but sure, it’s worth a go. It’s a bit slow and there’s absolutely nothing to root for, but it’s also full of bazookas and silly 80’s style gunfights. Mix that together with an 80’stastic production design and you’ve got a flick at least worth seeing once. I paired mine with some hot wings, beer and weed and it was definitely a good time. You can find it currently on Tubi.

Thanks for coming along with me on this journey. I hope you got some laughs out of it and scratched your head right along with me. Also, don’t forget to see what’s coming next in the Lousy Lottery. Make sure you tune into Twitter later today and vote for Lousy Lottery 37! My handle is @MrJosh79, look for it and don’t forget to vote!