Valueless vs Vacuous

By GRAHAM REID

With the arrival of Alien vs Predator at a multiplex near you, it is time to look over our shoulders at what other flicks there have been with that "vs" in the title.

You know the kind of thing, Kramer vs Kramer (in which Dustin Hoffman and his ex-wife argue over who gets the cute kid), or Freddy vs Jason (in which hockey-masked man and fearsome fingers get to argue over who remains standing).

Or Monkey vs Robot (a three-minute animated short, and you can guess the rest).

There are a lot of these "vs" movies out there, some bad, most of them even worse. Like Godzilla vs Disco Lando, in which Star Wars action-figures endure an attack by the mighty one. Or Billy the Kid vs Dracula, starring creepy John Carradine (father of kung fu Dave) as the undead pale one who goes to America with the aim of sucking the blood out of a beautiful ranch owner. But he hasn't counted on Billy the Kid.

Carradine appears in another "vs" movie, as a teacher in the terrific 60s nonsense Teacher vs Sexpot (aka Sex Kittens Go To College) which starred the eyeball-engaging curves of Mamie Van Doren and Tuesday Weld. It was something about a professor (Van Doren) who not only has brains but can stop a football team dead by just walking past. The tagline was "You Never Saw a Student Body Like This."

Then there were all those monster showdowns of which Alien vs Predator is just the latest in a long and non-illustrious line: Gorgo vs Godzilla, Gorgo vs Servo, Godzilla vs the Sea Monster ...

We at TimeOut have a particular favourite, although we haven't actually seen it. No, it's not Lady Chatterley vs Fanny Hill, in which two brothel owners have a competition to see who has the sexiest girls (also known as Games That Lovers Play). And no, it isn't Wind vs Polygamy about which we know nothing other than that's a hilarious title.

Nope, our all-time favourite "vs" movie - which we have looked for in video shops but cannot find - is Masked Avenger vs Ultra-Villain in the Lair of the Naked Bikini, a 99 cheapie by Australian director Mark Savage.

We reproduce the plot summary here for your amusement and enlightenment: "Masked Avenger is a hero to the modern world. He destroys his enemies with kung fu fighting, handsaws and guns, but with one small hang-up. At the sight of a woman, the Masked Avenger immediately begins to gratify himself, no matter what situation he is in. The evil Helmut Gunta plans to impregnate a virgin in order to have an heir, and the woman he has in mind is a nun, Sister Mary, who happens to be the Masked Avenger's sister. Gunta has a plan to stop the Masked Avenger from getting in the way ... organise a gang of strippers to keep him pre-occupied until Sister Mary is pregnant."

For sheer absurdity, what could top that?

Well, here are a few we'd like to see - and you can make up your own plot summaries:

Treebeard vs Edward Scissorhands (we see it as the triumph of technology and reason over ecology and Anglo-folk nonsense); Paris Hilton vs Jack Black (rom-com set on a farm where opposites attract); for those of an arthouse persuasion, the Polish-language only Gandhi vs Woody Allen; and, for those who know exactly what they want out of a B-grade movie, the all-nude wrestling flick Sex and the City vs Manpower.

* Alien vs Predator opens on Thursday.