ROGER CORMAN and CHEESE, part XIII: "The Wasp Woman" and Stranger Things Palace Arcade Pepperoni Pizza

A few years before Roger Corman found a reliable home on the SciFi channel, he produced a series of features for Showtime, under the banner Roger Corman Presents. While technically still "TV Movies", the lack of limitations on a premium cable channel environment allowed the traditional graphic Corman content to thrive. This "series" was definitely a high point in the filmography. 

A lot of the Roger Corman Presents movies were remakes of his older stuff (they actually made a third version of Not of This Earth) and in 1995 Jim Wynorski directed an "update" of 1959's The Wasp Woman. In this one, Jennifer Rubin plays an aging cosmetics mogul/model who feels she no longer has the beauty or the youth to be the face of her own company; in her profession she's constantly surrounded by a slew of bimbos in tight dresses (because Roger Corman, but mostly because Jim Wynorski) and so there's a bit of catty competition at play. Out of desperation she volunteers to be a test subject for an anti aging/rejuvenation serum made from wasp hormones. The experiment works, making her beautiful -- and bad; not surprisingly she turns into a giant wasp. Not in a gradual Jeff Goldblum kinda way but more like a werewolf back-and-forth deal, and she can seem to turn it on and off whenever. The transformation process employs 90s morphing technology, which may've been the lowest period in all of visual effects, but as a giant wasp (that maintains human female cleavage) the costume is just menacing and awkward enough to be unironically creepy. There's a predictable climax involving a cave and cocoons and an explosion and all the stuff you'd expect, but there's a true comfort in that predictability. 

The full name is Netflix Stranger Things Surfer Boy Palace Arcade Pepperoni Pizza. (In the time it takes to say it Season 5 will have finally begun.) They previously released Surfer Boy Pizza as a tie-in to Season 4 but these are a legitimate upgrade, with artwork that's unique to the upcoming finale, as well as a sticker(!) inside each box. Yes, that's right, Pizza Box Prizes! That's enough to boost the experience a whole letter grade, but even without novelty adhesives we award bonus points for the generous helping of pepperoni -- no redistribution of the toppings was necessary before it went into the oven. Which brings us to the oven. If you've kept up with this series you may remember our temperamental oven that requires a blowing-up-the-Death-Star level of timing -- one minute too soon or too long and we end up choking down triangles of disappointment. We burnt the bottoms a bit too much on these so the crust became somewhat of a chore, though we try not to deduct for faulty equipment. We can't say it's entirely Surfer Boy quality, but it's definitely better than just about anything else Netflix puts out. 

The Movie: B

The Pizza: A-