Bikini Girls (But No Machine Guns)…

**** 4 out of 5 stars Review by: Mark Palm There are a fair amount of people out there who are familiar with the “Grindhouse” esthetic, which is a term for a theater, or drive-in theater, that specializes in exploitation films; low-budget movies that feature sex and violence and bizarre subject matter. The heyday for such films was the late 1960’s and 1970’s, but some film directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have managed to keep the genre alive today. The thing is, it didn’t start with movies. The roots of the movies go back to the pulp mags of the 1930’s and 1940’s, like Argosy, Weird Tales, Black Mask, and Adventure. Mix the two genres up, and you have Sirens by Kurt Reichenbaugh, a pedal-to-the-metal mash-up of pulp storytelling set in the sleazy 70’s. The story is set in Florida, in the summer, when four late-teen friends, Kevin, Brad, Nick, and Benny go out looking for a good time at a party deep in the woods. Instead they find a seductive woman named Suzie in a leopard-skin bikini, something that may or may not be a dog, and oh yeah, only three of them come back.

Months later, unable to get Suzie out of his mind, Kevin, his friend Otto, along with Brad, decide to investigate. Nick and his girlfriend Stephanie end up along for the ride. And what a ride it is. I’m not going to break down the plot too much, to keep the spoiler hid, but also because of how crazed it is. There are vengeful wrestlers, walking corpses, psychotic and sadistic cheerleaders, and blood-thirsty strippers who work at a strip club that may have an authentic UFO perched on its roof. The tale is littered with the trashy tropes of the 70’s, and told with a stripped-down style that places horror and humor cheek-by-cheek. Most of the boys are interchangeable, except for Otto, who is written with empathy and smarts, but all of the girls, most of whom are downright evil, are full of life and vigor. Suzie, presumably the Siren of the title, is both enthralling and despicable. It’s easy to drop brand name and bands, but Mr. Reichenbaugh brings the era to life with equal parts love and disgust. He also does a good job of catching that particular mix of hope and helplessness that seems to define the essence of being a teenager. In this story these characters are literally fighting for their lives, and they have nothing better than bike-chains and scavenged tools because they know that there isn’t a adult that would possibly believe them. Judging them from the way that the adults are portrayed in Sirens, I would say that they are right. I haven’t seen such a scuzzy, seedy and downright incompetent bunch in a long time.

There’s a doozy of a deus ex machina, and the novel doesn’t finish as much as it just stops, but Mr. Reichenbaugh is unswerving in his fidelity to this story, and the end is appropriately violent, and sardonic. The epilogue is brief, but I enjoyed the fact that the author stuck by his guns, and didn’t drown us in false sympathy. Most of all, it a blast.