The film starts out crappily enough: it starts with a murder. Emma Bravenight (Playboy Playmate May 1996 and notorious Caucasian Shauna Sand-Lamas), member of the sacred Tribe of the Crescent and Guardian of the Crescent--a magic Native American Indian talisman of power--is killed by the forces of evil while frolicking in the woods in sexy lingerie. Her sister, McKenna(former Prince protoge and fellow Playboy star Carmen Electra), has returned from the Marine Corps to attend the funeral with her Native American Indian "father" Papi (Frank Salsedo). After Emma is given back to the four elements, McKenna asks around to find out who killed her sister. She starts out in the obvious place: her ex-boyfriend, Sheriff Henry (Dave Oliver). He's no real help, so she goes to live in her sister's house.
McKenna is soon haunted by Emma's ghost, who keeps telling her that she's next in line to receive the powers of the Raven or some such nonsense. The hauntings continue before and after McKenna's initial kidnapping and branding by Native Americans. She goes through some metamorphosis and starts to act more like a cat than a raven, as evidenced by her obsession with milk (more on that later). The sheriff, still smitten with McKenna after all these years despite his marriage to the town barfly Nora (Debra Xavier), continues to come over and hang out with the grieving non-Native American. Nora spied on him and became angry, so angry that she decided to escalate her adulterous relationship with the local crystal meth dealer Cole (Michael Stadvec). It's at this point that the movie becomes iffy.
Somewhere between McKenna's eventual transformation into the evil-fighting Native American superhero the Raven, both she and Nora are killed but revived by the Crescent talisman McKenna wears around her neck. While this was the first of the trials necessary to become the Raven (the worst of them a nine-hour session where you must hang from your arms in the cold night air...so much worse than dying, I suppose), Nora took the path of evil--the path of the Wolf. Somehow, she receives special powers, but becomes ten times sluttier than she was before. Nora soon puts herself at the mercy of the Route 33 serial killer, only to kill him and bathe in his blood. She enjoyed the bath and decides to do the same to McKenna.
Luckily, McKenna has finished her transformation into the Raven. She now has powers like bending space and time, heightened senses and the ability to heal with the power of love (a very appropriate skill: if anyone can heal with the power of lovin', it'd be a porn star). She cobbles together a superhero costume out of her sister's closet: a skintight white bodysuit with spiked chrome gauntlets and greaves, with a grated chrome faceplate to match. I see why Emma ran around in the woods with just lingerie on. She had no decent clothes. Speaking of poor choices in clothing, both Nora the Wolf and McKenna the Raven square off in a battle to the death for the souls of mankind in a local back alley.
McKenna wins, becomes Guardian of the Crescent, rides off into the sunset with the sheriff, THE END, THANK GOD.
This movie was absolutely horrible. It had no direct basis in Native American myths (although the references to elements and ravens were enough for the filmmakers) or Native American peoples (there are three Native American characters and only one is a Native American; the others are Caucasians from Ohio and California). I wasn't looking at this as a cultural representation of all Indigenous Americans, I just wished that the casting director had been more realistic by hiring more American Indians. If Mel Gibson could find people to play Meso-Americans in Apocaplyto, actual Naive Americans could have been found for this crapfest. for They could have also written a story based less on reality and incorporated the wacky mythology of the Raven into a fantasy world, where White Native Americans are easily accepted. In either case, the movie's output (and my review score) could not have been completed without the most wonderful scene in the whole production: the milk bath/sex scene.
The milk bath/sex scene started with the proper innuendo. McKenna, wearing white, goes overboard on the drinking milk and spills it all over shirt and onto her fake boobs... and the sheriff. The sheriff, like any dedicated yet philandering lawman, is intrigued and goes in to investigate. Soon they're having sex in McKenna's room and puting out all the candles with milk, milk and more milk. Spilled, poured and splashed all over McKenna's taut and sculpted tan body, I truly think that this is some of Ms. Electra's finest work, with her prior soft core porn a close second. I dare you to disagree.
It is in this vein that I can honestly say that The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven really shines. All other things in this 'action' movie--even the funny parts--pale in comparison. Just as pale as a paleface playing a Native American.
CHOICE CUTS:
- McKenna and Emma are obviously not full-blooded Native Americans, yet no reference is made to their mother by Papi. Seriously, who cares who your baby's mother is when you crank out hot chicks like that?
- The scene where Cole the meth dealer beats up Sheriff Henry at Nora's request. The meth dealer beats the lawman up, pisses on his fallen body and then ties him up in the back of his pickup so he can have consensual sex with Nora. All this in the span of five minutes.
- The sequence of trial that McKenna must pass before she can become the Raven. First she has to die, then she has to do something else, and then she has to *gasp* hang from her wrists in the cold for nine hours straight! I believe the people who wrote this movie should be shot for creating such an ill-plotted path of enlightenment. Although the sight of a half-naked Carmen Electra in furs was a good thought...
- Carmen Electra. Playboy Playmate material, minor pop star, ex-wife to Dennis Rodman, perennial foxy lady. I've never seen a woman with better fake boobs. Sure, they're fake, but they look good despite the information. She's so sexy, she caused a lawman to break into her own house. God bless you, Ms. Electra.
- Shauna Sand Lamas. Half-plastic, half human. All Playboy starlet. I could've sworn a titty was gonna pop out and hit her in the face as she ran from her killer. It would've been hilarious; perhaps it's in the DVD blooper reel, if this every made it to DVD. I watched this on VHS.
- Debra Xavier. She may be a mildly attractive D-list actress, but I'm quite sure I'd have sex with her before Carmen Electra (she's been married numerous times, c'mon) and anyone who has slept in the same bed as Lorenzo Lamas. No distrespect to the "Renegade", but he gets around town like a taxi driver.
- St. Lazaro on crutches, the Raven costume was horrible. A chrome and white costume to hunt evil at night? OK.
- Did I already mention the milk bath/sex scene, because if I didn't...
Sheriff Henry walks up on his wife Nora at the local bar and they exchange banter and come to a conclusion long overdue:
"Hey baby, gimme some sugar."Once again, Sheriff Henry's on the prowl and he's at McKenna's place, when he wraps his arm around her waist and they spit words at each other:
"You sound like a cracker."
"I am a cracker. Now gimme some sugar."
"You know you can't resist me."Sheriff Henry seems to have the worst lines in the film, for when the cornered Cole tells the lawman he's hungry, Henry decks him and replies:
"Not with your big ass on top of me."
"How about a knuckle sandwich?"Thank you so very much, Troma. True to form, you have released a movie with low production costs and even lower acting standards. This movie would have been great for MST3K, save the frontal nudity. My verdict on The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven is based solely on the milk bath/sex scene... as it should be.
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