The world of exploitation film ripped open and laid raw for you to experience. From 70's grindhouse to current underground, it is all here. So ripe you can practically smell it.
I am going to attempt to do the old 30 films in 30 days thing again. This time 30 Exploitation films in the month of September. I'm getting a jump early with tonight's movie.
The rules are simple. I have to have never seen the movie before and it has to fit within the "Exploitation" genre. Now that is kind of wide and could possibly include blaxploitation, artploitation, sexploitation, or even porno. So I have a pretty easy palette to work with here. One thing is for sure there can be no horror, as that is being held for next month's challenge.
SCHOOLGIRL HITCHHIKERS (1972)
D. Jean Rollin
Grindhouse Experience Box Set Vol. 1
Pan and Scan
This light weight nudie, S+M yarn has very little substance to it. Just some pretty girls caught in a villa with some bad guys and a over a abundance of skin on display. The film looks to have been shot on less than a shoe string with all the action taking place inside the mansion or on the grounds with very minimal set ups or camera moves. Everything is kept very light and fun, with no real sense of danger or menace throughout the proceedings, with just a tiny hint of S+M to pepper to edges.
The story starts with two teenage girls camping in the woods named Monica and Jackie. Jackie has the worst wig in cinematic history. They discover this big empty mansion and decide to crash there for the night. We quickly learn their friendship has extended to a bit more as we watch them bed down for the night in each others arms. But soon Monica is up and around and discovers that there is a low rent gangster spending the night there as well, named Fred. Fred is a dead ringer for Tom Savini, if Savini was five foot one and had a handle bar mustache. For reasons beyond my comprehension Monica beds down Midget Savini and Jackie joins the fun too.
"Monica contemplates the ramifications of sexing up Midget Savini,"
The next morning the girls are on their way and Midget Savini’s boss, a curvasious, jack booted and slightly cross-eyed babe shows up wanting her package of jewels. Seems that they are missing so they find the girls thinking they must have stolen them. Soon they are stripping down poor Jackie and tormenting her with fire place tongs and cutting her horrendous hairdo. She looks about ten times better. Monica seduces a henchman and gets away to enlist the help of a dimwit Private eye and his cartoon outfit wearing side kick to try and get her girlfriend back. A craptastic shoot out ensues as well as a topless cat-fight. Lots of cat and mousing about who has the gun, and Midget Savini beds down the rest of the female cast (except his boss who watches and gets turned on) until Jean Rollin himself shows up to answer all the questions.
"The Private Eye's side kick cannot wait to get out of this silly outfit."
I honestly didn’t even notice who directed this during the opening credits, and they looked to be pseudonyms anyway. But about two thirds of the way through I found myself thinking this felt an awful lot like a Rollin movie. With the two teen female leads, the action taking place in an isolate villa, the lone sexual S+M torture scene, the softcore lesbian sex... Even some of the shots and set ups felt familiar. Then suddenly the man himself comes walking into the movie and I was like well that seems to settle that! After checking around online (the IMDB lists this in their adult database though it really is just barely a softcore movie) my suspicions were confirmed.
"Quite possibly the most misleading DVD cover art ever. There is no hitchhiking in the movie, and certainly no girls who look like this!
Without a doubt this is lower tier Rollin, even among his sex films. But at the end of the day it is diverting enough, the girls are pretty and have natural breasts, the dubbing is silly and it is all in all just a wisp of a thing that is nice enough to take your mind off of reality for a while. The print in the Grindhouse Experience Box Set actually looks better than the rest of the movies in that set. Which means it looks like crap, is cut, missing frames, scratched, etc. But still has strong color and is surprisingly watchable and has a stronger bit rate than the others in the set, so it doesn’t break up every few minutes while playing.
THE HORSEMAN (2009)
D. STEVEN KASTRISSIOS
KASTLE FILMS
1.78 (HD)
Incredible debut feature film from Australia has a few bits of implausibility, but more than makes up for any tiny shortcomings with strong performances, taut direction, and pounding tension. Idiot viewers are going to pounce on this and call it torture porn because their cinematic vocabulary doesn't extend beyond whatever catch phrase they have read on the latest gossip website. But what we really have here, is a solid, old-fashioned revenge thriller. The kind of film the British excelled at making in the 70's often with actors like Michael Caine or even here in the states with our homeboy Charles Bronson as he got a bit older. This is lean, mean, violent as all hell, and one of the most impressive indie films to roll out in many a moon.
Peter Marshall plays Christian, a middle aged man that in the first scene we meet him, is beating the living shit out of another man with a crowbar in some out of the way flat. It seems he is a termite exterminator, or at least used that ruse to get into this place to get this guy alone. He gets some minor information out of the guy: That he has several video tapes that Christian wants, and that he knows several other guys fucked his daughter. Apparently this is on those tapes. From the stacks of other tapes all over the joint it is clear he is some sort of pornographer. After breaking the man's legs Christian sprays him, and the whole place, down with gasoline and sets it ablaze with the guy still alive inside. He goes outside, strips down, cleans up and drives off as it burns.
It seems that Christian's daughter was found dead by the side of the road from a Heroin overdose. Her body showed a load of other drugs in her, as well as semen showing she had sex right before death. Someone called in her location, so someone was with her and dumped her off to die. That same week he receives an anonymous videotape of her doing a gangbang porn movie where she is clearly stoned out of her mind during the whole thing. Christian sets out to find those involved and try to put his daughter's memory to rest.
On the face it is a simple set up, but it has a lot of subtleties that make it more complex. Christian takes to cutting himself the minute he watches the tape. At first not even understanding why he does it. Each time he finally gets to one of the people involved and has them at his mercy, often torturing them screaming for them to tell him more information, they all tell him the same thing; That she was there of her own free will. That no one made her shoot the movie, that no one forced her and that she was getting paid. He can never accept it of course and it goes from bad to worse every time. Naturally it was not as easy as that, but there is that fundamental truth that she was making the porn film of her own free will.
On the surface the movie is unfortunately more than a little anti-pornography, if you want to read it that way. But it seems to me that it is just a device to propel the story, more than a commentary on the industry itself. The characters are not exactly industry insiders, but a bunch of nasty criminal wanabees, and they could just as easily have been drug dealers, gamblers, dog fighters, or any other nefarious underground industry. As the film progresses any sort of commentary it might be making is left behind as the thriller aspects move to the forefront with more vigorous violence, beatings, murders and vengeance being the order of the day.
In fact as the film moves into the third act, it becomes much more of an aggressive exploitation revenge thriller, where as the first two thirds were a bit more of a cerebral, though no less violent, film. The last third moves the film to an isolated location with the REALLY bad guys, and lets loose with the extreme violence the movie had been keeping in its hip pocket up until then. Some audiences will probably tune out at this point as it gets pretty grim and unbearably violent. It also goes a bit too far over the top with Christian changing from an everyman type victim/hero to an unstoppable killing machine who is able to fight off a room full of guys with his bare hands. A few too many times credibility gets stretched just to keep it moving along. Never broken, but stretched.
But thankfully the velocity of the thing is so ferocious that these kinds of things are not there long enough to be focused on. I actually saw a commentary on IMDB where someone said the movie was too slow... I can't get my head around what they would consider a fast moving movie then as this thing moves along at a breakneck pace, never really letting you catch your breath. Maybe they were commenting on the small character moments, the very things that make the movie so powerful, such as a small subplot where Christian picks up a runaway hitchhiker who in some ways replaces his daughter on his journey. They have some heartfelt conversations along they way, that make what he is doing feel all the more bloodthirsty. Or maybe the moment when he finally brings himself to dump his daughter's ashes into a river, thus letting her memory go? Or maybe a tiny little moment like right before he snaps for the first time and he is talking to the distributor of the porn film, whom he has discovered was there during the shooting and he quietly asks him "did she smell good?" It is these small, quiet moments, which are actually pretty few, that make the rest of the movie "hurt" so much.
Far from perfect, but still really solid and impressive and well worth seeing. Recommended!
THE HOWL (L'URLO) (1969)
D. TINTO BRASS
CULT EPICS
1.78
Most cult film fans know Tinto Brass either as the embittered director of CALIGULA (1978) or as the director of many an elegant softcore sex flick enamored with the female ass. His very early experimental, political assault films have been all but impossible to see up until very recently. Thanks to the fine folks at CULT EPICS we can finally have a look at these essential missing links in this passionate Italian filmmaker's filmography. But be forewarned THE HOWL (and the companion piece ATTRACTION - to be reviewed at another time-) are quite unlike his other films in any way shape or form.
From the very opening moments it is completely obvious we are not in the same playing field as the films we have come to expect from Mr. Brass, or any other movies from the Italian film industry of the late sixties in fact. There are some parallels to French agitprop cinema such as MR. FREEDOM and much of the American underground cinema that was flourishing at the time, but even at that, there is a distinct and assaultive flavor that rises from the first few frames of THE HOWL.
The movie begins with a young, beautiful woman named ANITA (Tina Aumont) quickly and desperately cleaning herself off in the shadows telling herself over and over "It's a trap. It's a trap" intercut with a young man explaining to the police that he is there to pick her up. Apparently she is some sort of young revolutionary who has been arrested and he is there to bail her out. Their scene is shot/edited in insanely fast cuts, and through horrendous distorting lenses that are often used for peepholes or looking glasses. Some shots shift from B/W to color. She explains to the young man who the police stripped her and "caressed her" with phallic objects while we are intercut with the flashback of the police strip searching her and raping her with a nightstick. This prompts the man to propose to the Anita. He squirrels through his datebook,riffling off days that are filled with work dates, and other bits of trivia until arriving at Sunday where there are a few hours they can actually marry.
They are at a makeshift alter in front of a delapitated building, Anita in Mime make up the wedding ceremony in progress. Anita becomes distracted, frightened and then runs away leaving her new husband to be at the Alter. She hops on a bus that is being pursued by a dozen or so police officers screaming for violence and blood. On the bus she meets a man named Coso (Gigi Prioetti) who explains to her how he is destruction incarnate, a killer, wiseman, saint sinner, etc. etc. He fucks her in the back of the bus then everyone on the bus goes crazy and destroys it before the bumbling police can. Together Anita and Coso will go on a journey into a phantasmagorical landscape of nightmares, political charges, sexual exploration, power struggles and emotional destruction. They will visit a brothel where every single sexual fetish and desire will be metted out from orgies, animal killing, to necrophilia to a family of self appointed saints who are actually cannibals.
The most nightmarish segment occurs in the mid section of the film when they come across a small section of town that is overrun by soldiers who are ruthlessly executing bystanders for no reason at all, while being following by a man dressed in a barrel and an American flag hat. The soldiers eventually corner Anita in an abandoned building while Coso is held up in conversation with a "left wing radical" talking about literally nothing. She is emerges from the building stripped and bloodied, clearly having been gang raped. During all the savagery of the preceding scenes is intercut with actual atrocity footage of WWII and the Korean War. .
After leaving this town they follow the broadcast rantings of a dictator to a military operation to find a literally wind up midget broadcasting the rantings of Stalin and Hitler with footage of the liberation of various prison camps being screened behind him. He falls and dies so Anita and Coso take up the broadcast, screaming for revolution instead.
After this point the movie sort of loses steam though with the duo sort of just wandering about from light hearted situation to situation none of which that have the emotional or visceral weight or impact of the earlier scenes. They dress as religion icons and steal a boat that they quickly crash. They get picked up and put on shore and end up in an insane asylum which they quickly ascend to leading, but Coso gets bored and they leave. They end up at a commune that resembles a hippie village with big boobed women wandered about free woshipping the sun and nature. etc. etc. etc.
Finally Anita finds herself being lured back to her wedding alter and Mime make up with her to be husband. Was this all a flight of fancy as she is about to be married? A commentary on the futility of love in the face of revolution and the breakdown of society?
What THE HOWL is, is about twenty five years before it's time as it predates the punk movement and MTV with the rapid fire editing, insane costumes and overt stylization that would become the norm in the age of rock videos. The films of Alexandro Jodorwosky and Derek Jarman would all come to use such material with a few years, and the French New Wave was toying with some of the ideas but not with the same viciousness that Tinto Brass shows here. The flirtation with near hardcore sexuality and pornography is also something that would not come into vogue until several years later.
While not always a successful film, THE HOWL is always a fascinating and original one. The CULT EPICS DVD looks as nice as a totally lost film can be expected too, with lots of film damage here and there and an occasional bit of washed out image. But the very experimental nature of the film itself kind of renders that kind of complaint almost moot as it seems to fit the fabric of the piece itself just fine. There is a commentary which I have not had a chance to listen to as of yet.
The new remake of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. by the shit slingers at Platinum Dunes Entertainment is causing a storm of internet bad mouthing among horror fans. Which is really weird because these same fans didn't really speak up much when those same cinematic rapists destroyed the credibility of the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE or even the remake of FRIDAY THE 13TH which was an abortion at best. But now, finally these guys get one right, and the horror fans and internet in general are up in arms as if you just shot their baby.
In some ways it is easy to see why. This new ELM ST. does what a lot of horror films don't really do anymore. It dares to be truly uncomfortable, confrontational horror film-making. Granted it is painted into a corner far too often by the very nature of being a remake, so there are moments that feel recycled or redundant because they are just repeats of scenes we know and love. Where this movie succeeds is in the new material. Both the new script and the performances of this new A NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. push into darker, uglier, much more upsetting territory that most movies reserve for weeping lifetime dramas, not something that dares to confront you as horror films often do.
But It think to fully get a grip on just how brave and how big of a gamble this movie is taking it is important to look back at some social history of the American landscape. Some nasty and unfortunate stuff. By the early to mid 80's there was a full scale panic going on in American dealing with sexual abuse primarily brought on by the McMartin pre-school scandal. A scandal that began in 1983 when children in a Manhatten Beach California pre-school began to make some startling accusations against one of the people who worked the school. soon the allegations had spread to pretty much the whole staff, then other well standing members of the community. Before long over 48 children in the community were claiming to have been raped and abused to the tune of 321 felonious counts. Accusations had become increasingly bizarre to include such things as flying people, satanic rituals, exotic animals and a supposed labyrinthine set of tunnels under the school that led to occult ritual chambers for sacrifices of babies. The trial became the most costly in American history (usurped later by our pal O.J. Simpson). But the media storm behind it swept the nation and the allegations of sexual abuse in schools, nurseries, churches, and homes sky-rocketed. Suddenly it was believed that a satanic network of Devil worshipers were hiding under every rock snatching kids to make pornography and snuff films. Psychiatrists embedded their entire careers on a new sickness called "Multiple Personality Disorder" and "Repressed Memory Syndrome" both of which were caused by sexual and ritual abuse. But the catch being that if you had either of these conditions, you probably didn't remember your abuse and needed therapy to remember it and get well. Tons of vicious circles appeared and tore families apart.
A circus free for all of abuse allegations appeared over night as people who went to therapists for various problems, were suddenly told they were abused and didn't remember it. They were told their families held secret histories of sexual abuse, Satanic rituals, and possibly murder. These people basically were weened from their families and into the safety nets of these psychiatrists who then fed them stories, and took their money, for the rest of their lives.
The other side of the coin is that thanks to all of this the true life horrors of sexual abuse finally was being talked about. The generation before the 80's kept it locked away and never spoken. Incest, pedophilia, familial rape all went on but went un-reported or worse the victims were blamed. But thanks to a media surge in the 80's many people were able to come forward and out their demons (and in a lot of cases their abusers) and get free of those shackles. Sexual abuse came out of the closet so to speak, the topic just had to wrestle free of the panic and bullshit involved to be seen realistically and with a study eye towards helping people. The generation I have grown up with is the first real generation that grow up semi-openly talking about the topic. The generation now, has grown up with it being bandied about on talk shows an self help groups enough that it can be the subject of ridicule and black humor jokes. But it still is extremely taboo and an uncomfortable subject because so many people still do suffer because of it. Sexual abuse is a REAL life horror that far too many people have to face in their daily lives. While it CAN be talked about more openly now, it is still more often than not America's dirty little secret. A secret that still eats and tears at the youth.
So for a mainstream horror film, a remake of a classic on at that, to tackle the subject so boldly, so in your face takes balls. The new A NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST is in many ways this generations first post McMartin horror film.
In the original Elm St. it is stated that Freddy was a "horrible dirty child killer" and there is quite a bit of sexual imagery scattered through out the original film. But they never quite come out and say he is a child molester. Wes Craven has in interviews said in, but never makes it a huge deal. It is implied, and the audience is left to sort of fill in that blank for themselves. In subsequent sequels that detail is all but abandoned as the drive to make Freddy an Anti-hero is pursued. With only one shot in Part 2 really recalling this at all as we see a brief moment of Freddy putting what looks to be a severed child's arm into a furnace. The Kids of Elm St. are not directly connected to Freddy in the original films, just the parents for having killed him an this is his revenge.
This time out the gate the detail of Freddy being a pedophile is brought right to the front lines. While it is never actually shown, there is enough nasty, uncomfortable images of kids being locked in his boiler room, children with torn, slashed and bloodied clothes, and tons of drawings the kids made for him while alive that have very subtle sexual images in them. It is outright said by the middle of the movie that Freddy was a child molester, but then is later recanted, with actual details of the McMartin trial given as parallel to Freddy's case. But of course it is false and he IS a pedophile and molester and guilty of the sins we think he is.
But what makes this even more complex is the kids of Elm St are ALREADY his victims. He had molested them as children at the pre-school he worked at. Now he is preying on them in their dreams to avenge his death.
the allegory there is truly disturbing though. The idea that the evil bogyman that molested you as a child, has tracked you down as an adult, after you have repressed and "dealt" with the memories is actually pretty terrifying. The idea that the horror of those memories manifest themselves and haunt these kids into their dreams as they approach adulthood is a potent one. The children of Elm St. are haunted, tormented by the sexual abuse of their pasts. Abuse their parents have tried to hide and sweep under the rug. These kids literally are staying awake, as their lives collapse around them like a dream. They take drugs to stay awake and cope. Freddy becomes the symbol of all the hardship a sexual abuse survivor has to go through in dealing with those memories of the trauma.
Elm St. always represented mainstream American USA, apple pie and the ideal suburban neighborhood. Here it goes further into the emotional decay than the films had before. This Elm St. shows us the very real abusive corruption that goes on in America all the time and puts an ugly, burned, demonic face on it. But it also shows that these kids can be resourceful enough to get past it, to fight those demons too. Like a good horror film, it presents us with the horror, pulls the rug out from under us, but then shows us that the protagonists can pull it together enough to fight back.
Fans, don't like this. They want the old Robert Englund Freddy where it is Vaudeville a joke and a song. I love the old Freddy as much as anyone. The original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. is a classic for a reason and still works. But this new one is its own movie. Though it repeats whole scenes, the movie still builds its own story and background around them and manages to be intelligent and thoughtful too. The movie just pushes the discussion of Sexual Abuse into the open that much more. But damn if it hasn't made even the hardest of fans uncomfortable and angry.
D'Wild Weng Weng (1982) ***
D. Eddie Nicart Shocking Videos Full Frame
If you don’t know who Weng Weng is then you really shouldn’t be reading this blog. Weng Weng is a god among men, or at least he was when the little guy was alive. He was barely 3 feet of caged karate fury with a bowl haircut who would whoop an ass without breaking a sweat. The ladies loved him, he wore leisure suits, had rocket jet packs and tons of other gadgets. He was cool as ice before the motherfucker Vanilla hijacked the phrase. This killa from Manilla was the toast of the Philipino movie industry in the early 80’s and made a crap load of movies all based around the fact that he stood no higher than your thigh. But he was a screen presence to be reckoned with as all of us who stumbled upon For Y’ur Height Only in the bargain bins way back in the 90’s will attest. Weng Weng changed lives man. So that brings me to this adventure, one of his more obscure flicks or it was until this print started making the rounds. Here the Weng stars as a secret service agent along with his friend Mr. Gordon who are sent to Santa Monica(!) because the Mayor has been ruthlessly murdered by a bandito named Mr. Sabastian (everyone is Mr. Someone in this movie).
Weng Weng Threatens a Native American in Santa Monica(!)
From there the dynamic duo basically just keep kicking the asses of Sabastian’s men until the incredible climax. Along the way they make friends with a dude with his tongue cut out (his annoying screeching will give you a headache), a couple of babes, and a pigmy midget Indian Chief (played by the dude who played Mr. Giant in For Y’ur Height Only). Sights you will see include Weng practicing his karate shirtless, him in his mariachi outfit saradading outside a babe’s window, Weng thrown like an Olympic football into the second story of a bad guy’s lair, Weng stuffed into the monk robes of Mr. Gordon and carried around like a fetus, and Weng strung up like a turkey to bake in the sun. But the keeper are two action scenes; one about 45 minutes in and then the climax.
Fuck you Chuck Norris. Weng Weng is the REAL DEAL!
The controversial "pregnant monk" gag scene.
The middle scene is simply just Weng Weng strolling along and every time he sees a group of bad guys he whips out his gun and kills them dead. Cold blooded Charles Bronson style! He’s done fuckin around! He kills at least two dozen people in a ten minute period! For the climax I swear Sylvester Stallone had to have seen this movie before he wrote the latest Rambo film because the similarities in the climaxes are odd to say the least.
Both films have the heroes surround on all sides by the bad guys, and both films have the hero manning a huge machine gun and mowing down the invading armies. Both films then have a native people rush in and help by fighting along side, in this case the Pygmy Indians (where did they find so many midgets?). Oh shit, I forgot to talk about all the ninja’s in this thing!
Realizing this is a far better gig than the old one on the A&E lot the Pygmy Tribe makes a run for it.
Extras from a Godfrey Ho production mistakenly think Weng Weng
has their VHS residual checks.
Mr. Sabastian employs not only traditional “Mexican” banditos but a small army of ninja’s too! While this movie is undeniably entertaining it lacks the loopy, goof-ass charm of The Impossible Kid and For Y’ur height Only where things were clearly not being taken totally seriously. Here director Eddie Nicart seems to be wanting to blend the cheapjack Fillipino action film to something akin to a Peckinpah movie. Plus the dubbing is far too serious, unlike the uproarious For Y’ur height Only. But still, this is a worth while cult addition and for Weng Weng completists it is a must have.
Weng Weng, Mr. gordon and the Tongueless wonder sing for the ladies.
Slaves of the SS (1975) **
This double disc release from POP cinema’s After Hours imprint is most notable for starring “Victor Alexnader” aka Jerry Delony who most cult film fans will recognize as the Sheik in the classick Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (who is NOT Spalding Gray who many, I included, have always claimed played the Sheik). Here he plays one Dr. Cockluv a doctor of the 3rd Reich who is doing sexual experiments on various nubile American and Jewish babes. The movie opens with him screwing some lab equipment in a very sparse lab decorated with flashing lights and cardboard computers. His assistant Franz interrupts him. Franz is played by a woman in glasses and an ill fitting fake mustache. He gives a speech about how he bent over Hitler himself thus the name Cockluv will be remembered! Soon they have captured three female American tourists(!) who will be worked over in the SS lab. But first we are treated to some Nazi sex in what looks like some unrelated super 8 loop that was cut into the film to spice it up since the movie had been on for almost twenty minutes without any hardcore action. Finally Cockluv has a blond American chick strapped down to his operating table and is going to test her threshold with a fuck machine made of some lawnmower motor and a dildo. This thing looks fucking dangerous as it moves slowly towards the camera pounding away, which is why it never actually penetrates the actress, who was probably pretty grateful for that small favor. Instead the Nazi guard goes for it and the sex is pretty hairy butt standard 70’s grinder stuff. The chick is from Texas so she makes funny comments and German music plays over their scene. The guard has the dirtiest feet in cinema history. When they are finished Dr. Cockluv tells Franz to keep an eye on the Texas chick because “Her sexual vibrations could destroy all of the 3rd Reich!” The next Sex scene is with a brown haired gar who has nice boobs and is pretty into it. The Doctor keeps watching through a kaleidoscope so most of the scene is shot through one! Later this same gal will have a lesbian scene with another gall and their double ended dildo action will look more like they are charming a snake than having any kind of sex. The camera keeps zooming in and losing focus too. As the movie reaches the hour mark it hits a climax. You can tell because newsreel footage of the Allies invading Germany has been cut in randomly. This newsreel footage is in way better shape print wise than the rest of the feature too. Then thanks to an added digital explosion the castle of Dr. Cockluv is blown up and the reign of terror is over. The end! A lot of work was clearly done to restore this movie as the 8mm loops were added, as well as the newsreel footage and slight digital work. It is a silly outing never to be taken seriously. You get the feeling the original filmmakers would have been just as at home making a softcore comedy than a hardcore flick. This new edition has been matted to 1.85 for widescreen TV’s and it is overmatted badly. Tops of heads are lopped off all the time along with occasional all important sex shots. There is even a joke where Franz puts the Doctor’s hand on her/his breast that is rendered incoherent because the breast in question is below the bottom matte. The DVD comes with a second feature called Woman of Vengeance which is reviewed below.
Woman of Vengeance (1977) **1/2- This west coast triple-Xer is the second feature in the Sex Slaves of the SS package from After Hours Cinema. While the print is worn to the point of almost being black and white, and is scratched to hell and back it only lends atmosphere to this sleazy little gem. Rick Lutz stars as a bike shop owner whose life sucks shit. His wife is a demonic shrew who just lays there waiting for it to end when they have sex, and criticizes him endlessly the rest of the time. What he doesn’t know is that his buddy/co-worker is banging her behind his back (and has her put on a ratty blond wig so he doesn’t feel so bad about it!). The wife and best pal plan to have old Rick rubbed out by a professional hitman so they can get a wad of insurance money and run off together. Things brighten up a bit when Ricky boy meets a bombshell in the bike shop, played by real life squeeze Rene Bond. Naturally they hit it off and he makes plans to hang out with her and her friends for a couple of days. Finally after almost a half hour into the movie there is some hardcore sex scenes as Bond’s friends start having the beast with two backs. But due to the condition of this ragged print it is unappetizing to say the least. Since all the color is drained from the print except red (which is what happens to prints that have not been stored correctly) When the gal is giving the dude head it looks like she is chewing off his cock! Yikes! Don’t even ask what it looks like when they start fucking. Rene and Rick start getting busy too as they realize they really, really dig each other, and this scene is rather smartly cross cut with a scene of the wife boning the friend. So its the cheating couples getting it on, cross cut together. Somebody making this movie was actually thinking. In fact that is what sets this movie apart. This is surprisingly well made, even though it clearly is shot for pennies, there is some style going on. Such as when the scenes are faded out using what looks to be actual grease pencil lines, but it adds a sort of hardboiled grit to the proceeding. A later scene has the hitman get off the phone with the wife, confirming where Lutz will be for the kill. She has been a particular bitch on the phone. The hitman is looking at Rick’s picture for confirmation of his target and says to himself “Man, why couldn’t it have been you who made the call first?” I won’t spoil the last third as it becomes more apt that the movie should have been called Man of Vengeance. As already stated the print is a wreck and it seems that some of the sound elements are missing too. Some sound effects seem to be absent here and there and at the 18 minute mark the hiss on the soundtrack becomes so loud you almost have to shut it off. Like Sex slaves of the SS this thing has been matted for widescreen TV’s and should not have been. This looks to have been shot on 16mm originally and this matting wrecks the frame continually shaving off chins, tops of heads, necks, and plenty of the sex (which in some cases is a blessing). This matting is a practice I really wish Pop Cinema/After Hours would stop doing. Its better to have the whole picture and have blank space on the sides of your TV, than lose important picture information so someone can fill up there expensive TV frame. Otherwise this is a solid little B movie hiding as the second feature of this set. But then what do I know, this whole generation watches whole movies on You Tube.
I can't find a clip for this set, so here is a clip of 42nd St. Pete explaining all about Grindhouses on 42nd street 9pick up Pete's AWESOME 8mm Stag collections from After Hours Cinemas)
This is a blaxploitation epic for those who felt that DOLEMITE was too polished and high tech for their tastes. A dime store circuit classic that for reasons unknown to this viewer has yet to get the cult status it so richly deserves. Imagine a ghetto action movie, minus the choreography to pull off the action, directed by folks who seem to have only seen store front porno movies, but are way too shy to actually shoot any on-screen sex. Hire a lead actor who consistently looks like he has either shit his pants or might cry at any given moment as your bad assssss title hero from Harlem, but set the whole shebang in Miami ('cause the title THE GUY FROM MIAMI doesn't really have a great ring to it, does it?) and you are partially there. Then find a bunch of day laborers, convicts and back street radicals to fill out the supporting roles and you might come close. To make the whole films feel just right you would need to scout locations with the most eye punishing day-glo seventies decor possible that had to blind the junkies crazy enough to actually come see the inspired trash and you might land a butt nugget comparable to this anti-classic known as THE GUY FROM HARLEM.
"Bitch, I'm the GUY FROM HARLEM!"
The flick stars blue-eyed brother Loye Hawkinsas Al Conners, aka The Guy From Harlem, a black private dick who's a whiny sex machine to some of the chicks when he isn't running a cut rate detective agency. When one of his pals from up north in the CIA arrives with a job he leaps at the offer of $2000 to help out. "Two thousand dollars! For that kind of money I'll do what ever the hell you want me to!" he exclaims. Turns out the gig is easy street. They just want him to watch over an African Princess who is stopping over in Miami and they know the local Mob is gonna try to kidnap her. Seems the CIA has a leak and they only trust The Guy From Harlem. What they do not trust is his raging libido, because they warn him about sixty five times not to sleep with her as it could cause an international incident. They proceed to stress over and over that "she's cute, real cute, a real looker. But it could strain international relations." Then they tell him they have to pose as man and wife while he looks after her so the mob doesn't catch on! From there it is only a ticking clock before he slips his dick from Harlem into her majesty's secret cave. The moment he meets the Princess (Patricia Fulton and about six tons of blue eye shadow) she bitches about how much she needs a body massage from the rough plane ride. Hint Hint.
"Honky assassin masseuse at work."
Eventually he shows her some class by ordering room service for the both of them. Two New York strip steaks and a bottle of J&B scotch! When it arrives the poor maid delivering it is struggling to push the cart over the two inch orange shag rug, like someone from LAWRENCE OF ARABIA pushing a buddy over a sand dune. Then suddenly Al jumps up and punches the bitch out cold! POW! The princess flips out; "Why'd you hit her?" To witch Al exclaims "It was a MAN, baby!" and he rips off the maid's wig to reveal a knocked out cold dude. "I could smell a good New York Strip steak from a block away!" and he pulls open the tray to reveal a pistol underneath! Maybe The Guy From Harlem is useful after all!
"It's a MAN baby!"
He takes the Princess to his white girlfriend's apartment, saying that it's safe, before shooing the cracker ho out the door for the night, so he can get down to making the beast with two backs. But remember earlier when I mentioned the filmmakers being too embarrassed to actually show any real skin? They start making it and the movie cuts to not only the next morning, but hours later and Al has sent the princess on her way. The plot is over and she has returned to wherever the hell she came! And the movie isn't even half over yet! Then we meet some street thugs who hire AL to do a drop of some drugs and money to someone who works for head mobster "Big Daddy" who are holding their daughter for ransom. Al is smarter this time and asks for much bigger money of $2,000. When he asks who Big Daddy is, Al gets one of the best descriptions of a villain in movie history: "the thing is nobody knows what Big Daddy looks like, very few people have ever seen him. All we do know is, he's a white guy who is six foot two, with blond curly hair. And man, you talk about muscles... he's got the biggest muscles! And he wears bands around his arms. But nobody knows what he looks like. Nobody's ever seen him!" Naturally when Al walks right past him in a gym the very next day while setting up the delivery, he doesn't even notice him!
"When the CIA arrives, people listen."
Meanwhile we meet Sue (Wanda Starr with the biggest Afro in screen history) the girl he's supposed to be helping. She's tied to a chair in some cabin in the woods with a honky tormenting her. Some big muscled, wife beater shirt wearing, mullet headed bo-hunk motherfucker, who vacillates between calling her a nigger, and trying to paw at her dark chocolate titties. Funny thing is that no matter how aggressive he gets or mean he tries to be, this tiny little women, who is bound and tied, still manages to fight him off, kicking him in the balls, pushing him away with her feet, talking shit to him, calling him a honky. And he backs down at very turn. When he finally gets made enough to throw her to the flow to attempt to rape her she wiggles out of her ropes to which he yells "Damn, I knew I should have tied those ropes tighter!", and it becomes glaringly clear that wasn't in the script! She slipped out of the ropes on her own! Outside The Guy From Harlem has infiltrated the compound and is whooping the asses of all the dudes that are guarding the place in some of the most insane action scenes ever put on film. Seems The Guy From Harlem does his best fighting from the ground. A typical fighting move being to kick his legs like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum. The ending is action packed, but I don't want to spoil how it all goes.
"Real mobsters wear scary suits."
Some movies are bad. They throw money at the screen trying to cover ineptitude. Then there are movies that wear that ineptitude like a badge of honor. Then there are movies like THE GUY FROM HARLEM, that are completely fucking clueless that they are inept at all. It exists in a bizarre universe where time and space stand still and only craptastic spectacular nothingness like this remain. I'll take this over a $200,000,000 piece of shit any day of the week. In fact, I am ready to watch this one again.
And I haven't even mentioned the incredible theme song the flares up when the main character walks on screen, or takes off his pants, or the boom mic that gets as much screen time as most characters, or how each scene is covered in medium shot, or how it is all lit from one giant light. The list goes on and on. Amazing. Truly and utterly amazing.
