Two confounding black-and-white roughies from the golden era of Something Weird Video came from the library of Distribpix and have been joined at the hip since their pairing on DVD in 2001. The earlier of the two, Satan's Bed, opens up with a trio of degenerate junkies and future exploitation directing legend Roberta Findlay in her underwear lashed to a pool table under a swaying lamp, but something even more shocking in store right after that: Yoko Ono! That's right, the future Mrs. John Lennon took an early role in an ill-fated crime film called Judas City that fell through, but the footage was scraped up and turned into the jagged curiosity we have with us now. Here Yoko is a young Japanese woman who's just arrived in New York City to get married to a seemingly respectable guy who's actually dealing drugs. Meanwhile the trio of junkies are standing around talking about grabbing the bride and haggling over money. Random women take showers and get sexually assaulted but seem to enjoy it. Stock music fills the soundtrack including some pieces later used a lot by Andy Milligan. Eventually Yoko gets abducted and doesn't seem to feel much about it one way or the other.

Given the short but vivid appearance here of Roberta Findlay, it shouldn't be a surprise that her director husband, Michael Findlay, was involved here as cinematographer and director of the new footage and overall editor (plus future XXX director Lem Amero handling costume duties). There's very little dialogue or plot here, but if you like nonsensical urban roughies, this one easily fits the bill. The film was part of an initial dozen Distripbix titles licensed by Something Weird, and probably due to its cool key art and the weirdness of Ono's involvement, it proved to be a solid seller.

Also in that same VHS lot that initiated a new generation into the wonders of monochrome sleaze was Scare Their Pants Off, released three years later and made for peanuts by some neophytes including director John Maddox (a crew member for D.A. Pennebaker) and future prolific filmmaker Ron Sullivan (a.k.a. Henri Pachard) who served as producer. Essentially this operates like a three-part anthology film showing a trio of different women being abducted and terrorized into sexual situations, thus the meaning of the title. The amazing opening segment involves a guy in a striking mask terrorizing a blonde woman on a bed while another voyeur peeps in through the wall, with a pretty nifty twist explaining what's actually going on. Then the second part details an initiate into some kind of Manhattan cult run by a guy with white gunk all over his face, and then some role-playing Nazis prance around and try to scare another kidnapped women stuck on a rack. The first part is by far the best with an oppressive, arty atmosphere that feels a bit like what was to come with Last House on Dead End Street, and at only an hour it's entertaining in a goofball fashion with just the bare minimum of nudity and simulated sex to appeal to the grindhouse crowd.

Both films were inevitably joined together for that DVD mentioned above in 2001, with extras including a "Times Square Grindhouse Trailers" collection featuring both main features plus All My Men, The Bizarre Ones, Career Bed, Nympho, Olga's Dance Hall Girls, Prostitutes Protective Society, She Came on the Bus, The Sin Syndicate, and Two Girls for a Madman. It also has the "seedy short subjects" "Jane on a Train" (3m26s), "Times Square Sinema 1970" (2m56s), "Couples Welcome" (8m57s), and "Girls for Sale" (2m49s) excerpted from The Touch of Her Flesh, a sexploitation gallery with radio spots, and a bonus third mini-movie, Hot Skin and Cold Cash (39m56s).

The 2025 Blu-ray from Distribpix co-branded with Something Weird Video flips the order of the films (Satan's Bed headlines here, while Scare Their Pants Off was the main attraction on the DVD). Both films are pulled from the camera negatives, and the improvements here are so radical they truly look like different films. A glance at the comparisons below should give you a clear idea but there's a lot more info visible, much deeper black levels, more detail, improved contrast, and so on. The inherited footage in Satan's Bed isn't quite as pristine for obvious reasons, which is also fun as it makes it easier to pinpoint what was shot by Findlay; Scare Their Pants Off is pristine throughout apart from the main titles due to the optical involved. The DTS-HD MA 2.0 English mono tracks for both sound excellent and come with optional English SDH subtitles. Extras include both trailers (Satan's Bed in SD, Scare in what looks like a newer scan), a 1m8s demo of the opticals used in the opening of Scare Their Pants Off, a 2m50s gallery, and two of the shorts from the earlier DVD ("Jane on a Train" and "Girls for Sale"). Not to be overlooked in the nice deluxe packaging is an insert book featuring new essays by Ashley West (detailing the origins of both films and the roles of the major participants) and an affectionate snapshot by Lisa Petrucci of Mike Vraney's early union with Distribpix, the history of their joint venture through the DVD era, and the work continuing today with applause-worthy editions like this.

SATAN'S BED: Distribpix Blu-ray

SATAN'S BED: Image DVD

SCARE THEIR PANTS OFF: Distribpix Blu-ray

SCARE THEIR PANTS OFF: Image DVD

Reviewed on July 28, 2025