It is never alright in the end...

Two Perfect Endings of Films Where Things Don't End Well...

(this blog entry obviously is all about spoilers, so unless you have seen these two movies, or don't mind know how they end, you may not want to go any further).

Lots of movies have happy endings. Lots of movies have endings that wrap everything up nicely, bending over backwards to make sure things work out in the end. Most commonly teen films and love stories want you to walk out of the theater laughing and feeling good about life, so they don't end on a sour note. But how often does life turn around and fuck you up? Tearing your dreams down off the pedestal and pummeling your heart? Granted that is not the kind of movie that makes millions at the box office, but that IS the kind of movie that often resonates with people as years go by. In the last six months I saw two movies for the first time, that now sit among the most honest movies about relationships, love and heartache I can say I have ever seen. One, a recent film, that made my top ten films of last year, that I have honestly become more than a little obsessed with. The other an 80's teen sex comedy, that is more subversive than people will ever have you believe, a film that slipped under my radar for years. Both films have impactful endings that leave you shattered.

BELLFLOWER (2011)

Bellflower tells the story of a young man who falls hard for a girl, as he and his best friend spend most of their time obsessing on MAD MAX, building a flame thrower and a giant muscle care they call Medusa. When the relationship goes bad his world collapses into a personal apocalypse that he cannot find his way out of, leaving a trail of wreckage in the wake, some of which may or may not be in his head.

The film is an intense visual experience that captures that extreme feeling of heartbreak. That "in the trenches" feeling one gets where nothing feels like it will ever be ok, where your insides feel broken, and you grasp at anything to make you feel whole again. This usually happens to people in their late mid to late twenties (though not always) and BELLFLOWER captures it so perfectly that it is almost a horror film to watch for anyone who has ever loved that deeply and lost that hard.

The end scene, finds the two best friends fantasizing about hitting the open road in the car they have build to escape the hurt. His best friend waxing philosophical about how their hero from THE ROAD WARRIOR would never allow women to destroy him the way their hearts are broken now. The final lines of the movie wrapping up not only the movie, but exactly how anyone who has lost someone feels.

THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN (1983)

Loosely based on the Isrealie import series of films called LEMON POPSICLE this on the surface appears to be yet another tits and ass, young boys attempt to get laid comedy. And at times that is all it is as three teen friends go about their last year of high school with various misadventures doing just that. But the lead young man is the main thrust of the story as we follow how he has fallen in love with the pretty new girl in school but never quite makes it work in catching her. Instead his Lothario, womanizing best friend hooks up with her instead. So he gets to watch throughout the film as his buddy makes time with her AND continues to bang all the woman in the various wacky hijinx they get into. Our hero never really makes good in getting laid, either backing out, or it goes really, really wrong such as he and all his buddies get crabs from the nasty hooker they all finally do bed down with. Sex never works out for him at all. When his friend finally does crack the panty line of his one true love she ends up pregnant and naturally he dumps her. Our hero swoops in and in an act of insane chivalry, not only gets her an abortion, but takes care of her for a week. Taking her in while everyone is away on a ski trip. They end up playing house, have sex and he thinks - falling in love. It seems like his world is where it should be and everything he hoped for is right where he wants. He even buys her a ring. Leading to the ending, one of the most emotionally heart ripping, endings of the 80's.  

It is the most honest ending of any teen movie of the era. You can have your John Hughes movies (as good as many of them are). THIS is how life often is. The good guy finishes not only last, but driving into the night with his heart shattered, his guts splattered and not way to know if he will ever be ok again. 

Both these movies have the heroes riding off into the unknown, questioning. Life is like that. Sometimes it is comforting for the viewer to know movies can be like that too.  

© Andrew Copp

Halloween Horror Challenge Oct 07: RICKY 6

RICKY 6 (2000) 

D. Peter Filardi 

No Distributer 

This fairly serious attempt to make a dramatic film out of the true crime book “Say You Love Satan” is actually pretty good. It is the fourth attempt to tell the story of suburban Satanist killer Ricky Kasso falling behind Tommy Turner's 1987 WHERE EVIL DWELLS (which was never properly finished due to the drug addictions of many people involved), 1994's MY SWEET SATAN by Underground auteur Jim VanBebber which is heavily fictionalized but still the best of the bunch (and I worked on extensively as a crew person and can be seen in if you look quickly) and the 1998 film BLACK CIRCLE BOYS which is not too bad either but nose dives in the third act with a completely bogus resolution.

But for what it is worth this film seems to the the closest to the facts by all accounts. I personally have not read the book, nor am I up on the real case outside of seeing the pretty lame documentary SATAN IN THE SUBURBS so I can't comment too much on how much it keeps to reality. I can say that the feel of the film is a naturalistic one, with acting that is not over the top, and an eye toward realistic location work. The film is set in 1983 small town where there is nothing to do but get high and listen to rock music. This is where we meet our lead characters (names changed from the real ones) Ricky Cowen (Vincent Kartheiser) a high school kid with heavy emotional problems. He is being dropped off to the local teen group for drug users and troubled kids. Here he meets Tommy Portelance (Chad Christ). They don't make friends right away, but bond later at school over the fact they both like to smoke pot and both find the girl in group attractive. Soon they both are friends and sneaking off to get high. One day Ricky sneaks off to check out the girl of his dreams in the library while fucked up on angel dust and ends up spending the entire day reading witchcraft books instead and it bends his mind to Satanism. He meets the local loony Pat Pagan (an over acting Kevin Gage) in the local occult shop and soon he is dabbling in black magic, trying to raise demons and getting his friends involved in the occult. He is also pounding harder and harder drugs along the way. Soon Ricky and Tommy have decided they are full fledged satanists, with Ricky in particular buying into the life. During a bad acid trip he sees demons and then Jesus and attempts to kill himself. He claims Jesus found out he saw the light in Satan and tried to kill him. Tommy and Ricky decide to flee to California to meet Tommy's real father since he is adopted. To raise the money to start selling mescaline at inflated prices. A friend of theirs rips them off in a deal which sets the scene for the murder they end up being famous for.

For the most part the film is anything but a horror film, it is more a dark slice of teenage life with the trappings of occultism surrounding it. Anyone who grew up in the 80's will recognize the music, hair styles and jean jackets. That general malaise of being an outcast teenager in the 80's where you didn't fit in and the music of Judas Priest could easily be telling you to pick up a gun and waste some motherfuckers. But of course smoking all that angel dust could have a LOT to do with that too. RICKY 6 goes a long way to getting those details right. An early scene where Ricky is playing catch with his step father is one such scene. His Step Dad purposefully hits him with the ball and Ricky tries to run off, but the man grabs him and wrestles him to the ground yelling at him about how he wont throw a temper tantrum about every little thing. It is a power play in front of the whole family and you can easily imagine the dick doing this often. It is a scene that went down in suburbia all the time. The kind of thing that drove teens into drugs, fights and violence all their own. Still does every day. On the contrary the movie has several fantasy sequences that work in varying amounts. The first two that deal with Ricky's early paranoia and introduction to Satanism don't really work and come off forced. The meeting Jesus scene and later an effects heavy hallucination of his parents dead and demons in his home is completely off putting. But much later right after the murder he hallucinates he is walking through hell and comes up to Satan sitting up on a huge stump. This bit of fantasy is truly stunning and one of the most effective moments in the entire film. For one, the devil they have created is one of the most simple yet frightening creations I have seen in a movie. The whole scene works psychologically and as just simple scary imagery. Later there is one more hallucination where he imagines a party scene where the demons are asking him to kill himself that works well too.

But the movie is not without some major faults. The first big one is the casing of lead actor Vincent Kartheiser. His performance is actually pretty good. It is certainly shaded well, and he goes along way to make Ricky sympathetic. But the problem is that I never bought him as the kind of kid that the other kids would follow, which is what happens. He is too goofy, too wholesome. He is just the wrong guy in the part. He would have been good in the Tweasel role, the kid they ultimately kill. In fact when the movie starts I thought that was who he was supposed to be. Chad Christ as Tommy is very good and I believed him, the lead role needed someone more edgy like him in the lead. There is also some love interest that takes up the mid section of the film that is just dead weight, it goes nowhere and fills very little purpose. Finally the biggest problem is the final murder scene. It simply isn't vicious enough. Granted I am not the right person to give an unbiased review of this as I worked on another film of this story and the murder scene we worked on is widely considered among the most violent ever shot. I don't know what the real life details were but even if they are somewhere in the middle of the two films, this movie pulls back by taking the point of view of the side lined characters who are on drugs, thus being able to play it out in a surreal manner. It soft peddles the scene, confuses it at times and robs it of the final narrative punch. 

For the most part RICKY 6 is a fine film with a lot to offer. It really is too bad it isn't available to the general public. Though I can't imagine how audiences in 2000 would have reacted in the post Columbine panic. I have heard that is part of why the distributor pulled its release though I cannot find any actual proof of that. I have also read on several internet boards that the producer is in Jail for some sort of money scheme and that is why the movie is unreleased. Once again I have no hard proof of that as well, so who knows if that is fact. Third unfounded reason is that I have heard there were music rights issues as this is filled to the brim with 80's hair metal such as DIO and IRON MAIDEN and lots of others and there has been talk that not all of that music got properly cleared at some point. But that seems silly as it could have simply been replaced. None of it is integral to the film. The movie is all over torrents and grey market sites and even You tube in a really crappy version (but you kids love watching movies on the you tube anyway!) so check it out. It is worth the effort to track down. 

Review © Andrew Copp

Here is Tommy Turner's Unfinished version of the same story
WHERE EVIL DWELLS

HALLOWEEN Horror Challenge Oct 02nd Pt 2: HUMAN EXPERIMENTS

HUMAN EXPERIMENTS (1980) AKA - BEYOND THE GATE

D. Gregory Goodell
VHS (Supposedly Coming on DVD From Code Red - Some day)






Linda Haynes plays a country western singer who ends up running afoul in a small redneck town and gets blamed for a particularly savage multiple murder. Because of this she ends up doing a life sentence in a women's prison slash sanitarium where the warden is doing bazaar behavior modification experiments using the inmates.


After a truly gripping opening ten minutes where Haynes stumbles on the house filled with fresh dead bodies and a teen boy waiting with a shotgun that she is forced to kill in self defense, the movie slows down and changes gears. There is some really unsettling scenes when we first get into the prison establishing how far degenerated several of the clearly experimented on inmates are as well as a humiliating bit of preparation by the guards and nurses. But after that it is really dull going for a looooong stretch of time. Nothing scary happens, and nothing sleazy really happens either for a good half hour, making this neither work as a horror film or a women in prison flick. Not until a prisoner hangs themselves at the 45 minute mark and then Haynes masturbates with her own tears about ten minutes later does the movie hit any kind of peak. After about the hour mark that great low budget bugaboo the crappy performing band makes an appearance, this time no name band called SATAN AND THE LUCIFERS! I also forgot to mention the creepster opening moment when bar owner Aldo Ray tries to get her to make it with him and she refuses and he calls her a cunt. Super classy guy.

A lot does need to be said for Linda Haynes performance though as she is quite good with the limited material going for the slow burn breakdown. Geoffrey Lewis is creepy as shit as the doctor running the joint too, with lots of scenes of his eyes filling the frame as he looks through the metal slats that peek into the doors on the solitary confinement rooms or or as he talks about his entomology hobbies.

Unfortunately the movie feels endlessly padded with lots of scenes of the women eating in the mess hall, or working in the fields, or sleeping. Yes we get it, they are in prison but the movie needs to get on with the storyline , not lingering around waiting for something to happen.


Finally in the last fifteen to twenty minutes the movie takes off and begins to move along and take shape. As Haynes character attempts to escape the prison, the film turns inside out and literally becomes a vivid horror film. She begins to find bodies of other inmates who have been part of the experiments and hallucinate her worst fears. By the end we realize the full extent o the awful things the doctor is doing to his patients and with the full cooperation of the other inmates.

By no means a successful film, but there is a mean streak throughout HUMAN EXPERIMENTS that makes it fascinating, and there is certainly pieces and parts that are undeniably effective. Too bad this is a movie that is not as strong as a whole as it is in parts. If only that midsection could be tightened up this could be a really good movie. The opening is great and the last twenty minutes are solid. But the midsection is very hard to get through.


Review © Andrew Copp

What's in the BIG BOX in THE BASEMENT?

THE BASEMENT - Retro -VHS collection

CAMP MOTION PICTURES

THE BASEMENT

CAPTIVES

VIDEO VIOLENCE

VIDEO VIOLENCE 2

CANNIBAL CAMP OUT

This overwhelming package of shot on video (except for THE BASEMENT which was shot on super 8!!!) horror and sleaze is a true horrific throw back to a simpler time when cult horror film was not such a pretentious enterprise. When people who picked up a video camera to make a horror film and released it to the market place really had their hearts in it. Not weened on their parents pocket books, film schools and You Tube to make them believe they are going to be the next big cult film sensation and have their cocks sucked by the mainstream. The films in this set are charming in their backyard exuberance and true love of the art-form itself.

The folks at CAMP MOTION PICTURES clearly remember the days of not only releasing this kind of product but watching it too, because why the hell else would you go to the trouble of releasing  a five film DVD package that is co-featured inside a big box VHS of the main feature film? This is a nostalgia release for those who grew up haunting the mom and pop video stores renting trash like this. Not LIKE this, but this ACTUAL trash. I remember looking at the actual big box releases of VIDEO VIOLENCE and CANNIBAL CAMP OUT at my local much loved Video store VIDEO CASTLE back in the day. So if for nothing else this release brings back fond memories.

The main film in this set is the super 8mm epic anthology THE BASEMENT, a film that was apparently never finished back in the 80's due to processing errors that only now, with technology catching up, have allowed the movie to be put out in a watchable form.  Directed by Timothy O'Rawe, the sick mind behind cult favorite GHOUL SCHOOL, this extremely low budget offering is like a group of friends sitting around a campfire spinning EC Comic style tales. None of them are terribly scary, but the sheer effort involved makes them all kinds of lovable anyway.

The stories are being told by a some creepy demon/death like figure in a basement to a group of friends as they leave a party. Apparently it is a foretelling them of their doom. The first story SWIMMING POOL is about a bitch middle age  woman who discovers her swimming pool has a monster in it and how she can manipulate folks over to it for her own gains. 

The next one is the closest to the classic EC style called TRICK OR TREAT about how Classic Monsters deal  some revenge on a dude who is not giving them the respect they deserve on Halloween night. ZOMBIE MOVIE deals with a low budget movie being shot and the asshole director who is not noticing that the zombies are a little too real for comfort. 

And finally the most invovled story in the movie and the one that apparently was the most damaged when shot. HOME SWEET HOME is about a guy who buys a house with haunted past and forgets to check into the murderous past involved. 

 For a super 8 film especially, the movie is all around pretty ambitious and each story gets progressively more involved and even more intense. The second story with the classic monsters is probably the most fun, but the last story is the most successful as for as being a true horror film goes. Over all it is pretty much right in line with the late 80's direct to tape horror boom and would have been right at home with that product had it made it out as intended the stores. Kudos to Baltimore film maker Chris LaMartina for his fine brand new score for the movie. A lot of time and effort, as well as money, has been spent putting THE BASEMENT back together and it shows. 

Next up is CAPTIVES the "lost" film for Gary P. Cohen the director of VIDEO VIOLENCE and his most serious picture. This never got a proper release because it was not really a horror film, and certainly not funny or a parody. Not polished enough to be considered a "real" film, but not scrappy enough to be campy. What you have a finely made, well mounted, underground film that takes itself very seriously. A tightly wound thriller, that is unfortunately shot on video and because of that destined to never be taken seriously in the climate at which it was made.

The film is basically DESPERATE HOURS meets THE CANDYSNATCHERS in whcih a trio of criminals descend on the house of the female of the groups former husband in an attempt to not only rob him, but get revenge on him and his new family. Seems he has started over since she has been in prison all these years. Turns out HE burned their house down killing their son, but SHE took the wrap for him for the years in the pen and now she is out and wants some answers and respect. So she is here with her new psychotic boyfriend and mentally handicapped brother to make it all come together.

Surprisingly violent, even more surprisingly well written, with some really good performances, CAPTIVES is a movie that would have been much better served if Cohen had been able to get more money together and actually shot it on film. Or even went another  route and made it as a stage play. As it stands the technical limitations hinder what is at its core a REALLY good movie.

Rounding out the package are the three Camp Motion Pictures that have been released on their own before VIDEO VIOLENCE 1 & 2 and CANNIBAL CAMPIOUT which I have reviewed previously when they were originally released. So here is the text of those previous reviews:

CANNIBAL CAMPOUT

D. Jon McBride

This flagship release for the Camp Motion Pictures DVD label seeks to cash in on the nostalgia of the shot on video shoe-string backyard epics of the late 80’s…

(Sounds of crickets chirping as the readers look around in confusion and awe)

Yeah, it surprised me too.  But actually a few of those S.O. V. flicks aren’t half bad.  You could accuse them of not being half good as well, but what they lack in technical finesse they make up for in heart.  And CANNIBAL CAMPOUT is definitely on such movie.   Compared to other S.O.V. turds like HELLROLLER or EYEWITNESS MURDER, CANNIBAL CAMPOUT is a downright masterpiece!

CANNIBAL CAMPOUT tells the simple tale of a group of not terribly bright college friends who decide to go camping even though there are rumors of people disappearing in the woods.  Naturally they are besieged by a trio of ax wielding maniacs distinguished by one being a talkative sex fiend, one wears a flight mask and motorcycle helmet and is called a retard by his brothers, and the other one, apparently the leader, wears the bib overalls of the family.  Surprisingly the kids (led by director Mcbride) are not all that annoying, and badly delivered dialogue aside, are a likable enough bunch that you feel kinda bad when they get offed.

While the movie offers nothing new either in story or style, it does what it sets out to do with an earnest nature and plenty of the red stuff.  While the gore is not exactly Savini level, it is plentiful and pretty savage at times including one spot where it is downright offensive (A compliment if there ever was one for this type of film!)  The villains are a rough bunch with some vicious dialogue that I swear I’ve heard ripped off in some recent big budget movies including the line  “Shut up or I’ll staple yur titties to the roof of the car!”

For being shot with a consumer camcorder in 1988 the flick is surprisingly well shot, with nice coverage of scenes and really nice composition.  The editing is also really well done (remember this was before every kid had a computer with editing software).  Though the dialogue scenes could be tightened up a bit in places.

Overall, CANNIBAL CAMPOUT wins you over with its youthful charm and grossout factor.  The script is lacking, but everyone’s heart is clearly into what they are doing and that goes a really long way.  In fact it is refreshing to see a shot on video movie where everyone cared about it enough to spend a YEAR’S worth of weekends shooting it instead of the 48 hours most youthful “filmmakers” of today throw at their productions.

Not exactly groundbreaking but if it is a rainy Saturday afternoon and you need a cheesy gore fix, this should do the trick just fine. DVD includes deleted scenes (trims really) a 40 minute making of / where are they now style documentary, photos and trailers for upcoming CAMP releases including the much loved (by me anyway) VIDEO VIOLENCE series!

VIDEO VIOLENCE 1 &2

D.Gary P. Cohen

This duo of shot on video epics from the 80’s definitely stand well above the norm in their  field. In fact it is safe to say that the first one is a minor classic in the arena of S.O.V. productions. Savily written, well-directed and even decently acted, VIDEO VIOLENCE was truly a surprise when it was released.

I must be going soft in the head! This is a shot on video regional quickie that I found myself enjoying quit a lot.

The plot concerns a video store owner who gets dropped a snuff film instead of one of his rental tapes. As he investigates he finds a general reluctance from the town to help and people start dropping like flies, and always in front of a video camera. A definite conspiracy begins to unfold.

The real surprise here is that the twists don’t seem telegraphed, and the lead characters aren’t as stupid as the average horror flick. The snuff angle was very fresh at the time, with only Roberta Findley’s cheesy grindhouse epic SNUFF and Roger Watkins classic LAST HOUSE ON DEAD ST being the only other films to exploit that angle.

The whole production is reasonably well put together, with good editing and sound, which is always a problem with S.O.V. productions. The gore score is reasonably high too. The attack in the deli should delight gorehounds all over with the well-done splatter.

Part 2 is unfortunately a step down in quality in more ways than one. This time the movie centers on the villains from the first movie who now have their own Snuff oriented underground TV show. On the show they torture and kill women in various splatterful ways.  As unpleasant as that sounds, the movie plays out in a very tongue and cheek manner, much more so than the serious first movie. Very little here is taken seriously at all, which makes the almost misogynistic tone easier to take.

This episode was also shot on lower end S-VHS equipment so the picture and sound quality are a big step down as well, making this one less appealing to watch on that lever too (which makes it a perfect addition as an extra feature on this DVD!).

Overall this package of THE BASEMENT and the co-features is probably one of the best

bangs for your buck going right now. Five movies, all pretty good as long as you understand what you

are getting,and lets be real if you are buying this package you TOTALLY understand what you are getting. Plus that extra VHS collector's tape of THE BASEMENT and the beautiful big box packaging too. Plus there are a fistful of short films as extras on the first disc that are all really pretty good too including one called DON'T DO DRUGS that throws around the red stuff in a very liberal way. Your really can't go wrong. The whole thing is a VHS festishists wet dream come to life and a must have item for the nostaligic gorehound.

© Review Andrew Copp

Once we were warrirors...

 Day 17 of the September exploitation challenge made me a warrior...

YOUNG WARRIORS (1982) aka THE GRADUATES OF MALIBU HIGH
D. Lawrence D. Foldes
Cannon
Full Frame
 

For some reason I don’t quite understand this movie gets shit on. A lot. The first review on the IMDB gives it one star and goes on to say the only way you can classify it as a crime film is that it is a crime that it was even made. I’ve heard plenty of people put it on their worst ever lists. But I have to wonder if people even watched it past the forty five minute mark. Because I found it to be one of the best, most refreshing action movies from that era. It is like the anti-DEATH WISH. A vigilante movie that dares to ask the questions that most of the other films of that type would never ask. Putting a very human face on the misery and pain that killing people actually requires. But maybe that is just it. Most viewers of exploitation movies, really are not looking for anything deeper than those visceral kicks the base elements deliver. Which is fine and good. But it doesn't make a movie that DOES give you more a bad film.

YOUNG WARRIORS starts off really odd as it is an ANIMAL HOUSE styled college frat comedy for the first twenty minutes or so. We hang out with a group of young men who are basically enjoying life. Rushing their fraternity, hanging out with girls, getting laid, being silly and living it up. The movie may spend a little too much time with this, but it is all pretty harmless stuff. We mostly get to know Kevin Carrigan (James Van Patton) who is sort of the leader of his group of friends. A frustrated animation artist and jocular good fella. He butts heads with his policeman father played by veteran Ernest Borgnine over the bet way to handle crime and whether he should follow in his dad’s footsteps. He is very protective of his little sister who is in her last year of High school.

On her prom night on the way home a mysterious black van runs his sister and her date off the road. They drag her from the wreck and brutally gang rape her. The car explodes killing her date, and she dies from her wounds in the hospital later. Their Father manages to put together from the meager clues that it was a black van but not much else. But something in Kevin changes. He stops being the young guy into having fun he was, and needs to find revenge. Or at least do SOMETHING to change what happened. After an aborted attempt to go to a bar they have pieced together the killers might hang out at, Kevin and his friends decide to become a kind of citizens activist group. They begin to hunt the night looking from both his sisters killers and criminals in general in an attempt to take positive action.


Almost immediate things go wrong. One of their friends is murdered. Things become more and more complicated, as they amass more weapons and more chances to find their way into the criminal world.


What sets this movie apart is that it takes a great amount of time to study the aftermath of the violence. Kevin’s state of mind is really the whole focus of the movie was we watch him melt down from regular guy to, mental mess, to killing machine at the finale. We watch him become confused, alienated, cold, and mentally destroyed. We also observe how vigilante justice really has a lot of dirty loose ends, such when the gang kill a couple of kidnappers they have seen snatch a women, only to have her be just as horrified at the level of mayhem they have just caused. To an armed robbery they stop that is nothing like what they thought it was. All of it leading to the fact these kids have become cold hearted murders not unlike the men they have been hunting. 


For a small little drive in movie it is really heavy stuff. The climax is really powerful and well handled, closing it all off really well. If the movie has any real problems it is in the casting. The young cast is not seasoned enough to pull off the emotional weight the piece requires. VanPatton is okay and tried really hard, but is never quite as strong as the part needs. His buddy played by Mike Norris (son of Chuck) is equally lost at sea. The females fair a bit better with the ignored girlfriend played by Anne Lockheart actually fairly well done. Borgnine seems kind of miscast and probably was their for name recognition only. Though Richard Rountree is good as the partner. 


This movie got caught in a shit storm of legal battles when it was finished as Cannon films basically tried to totally rip off the filmmakers and in an unprecedented move the filmmakers sued. This held up the movie’s release for three years, eventually they won but the victory was small at that.

Why this movie has not gotten the attention it deserve I do not know. It is not on DVD, and is rarely screened. With the recent releases of Folds other movies MALIBU HIGH and DON’T GO IN THE PARK you would think somehow this one would get its due. It really deserves it. 

Review © Andy Copp

In the future George Eastman loves Cornhole...

 Day fifteen of the September Exploitation challenge takes us into the distant FUTURE!

THE NEW BARBARIANS (1982) aka WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND
D. Enzo Castellari
Media Blasters
2.35

In the future Nuclear war will ravage and scorch the Earth leaving nothing in the wake but roving packs of marauders who want nothing more than to continue killing each other. Oddly enough these gangs will have mastered the ability to make vacuformed plastic into everything they need from space age costumes to gigantic bubbles for their neato vehicles. They will also have worked out how to turn everyday guns into laser shooting death rays and explosive devices that blow people’s chest cavities out upon impact. In this chaos is a group who have christined themselves The Templar's, but really have no inkling of anything to do with that historic Christian sect of Knights. This group of villains are run by one George Eastman who calls himself “One” and really all they want to do is kill everyone. 

"Come to me and touch my stylish hair..."

But one man stands in their way. One man who drives a souped up muscle car (with a giant plastic dome on top) outfitted with missiles and machine guns. This man’s name is Scorpion (Giancarlo Prete), and he looks like he just stepped out of a East side beauty shop from getting his hair done. Seems he and One have some bad blood when he beat One at a duel some odd years ago and this has effected One’s ego and leadership abilities ever since. Scorpion stops these bad boys from roughing up a poofy haired babe in leather leggings named Alma (Anna Kanakis). He shows her his sensitive side by not raping her and she falls for the big lug. So they do it in a blow up tent on the side of the road. Even in the wasteland her make up stays perfect. 

"Well, as long as you are not going to rape me, I guess you are an alright guy..."

Eventually One’s men decide they are tired of Scorpion banging the only chick left in the world, thus taking One’s attention away from them. So they set out to kick Scorpion's ass and take over the group. Enter Fred Williamson as Nadir. Don’t ask me why the only black dude in the Future, (hell the whole world in this film) is named Nadir, seems a bit racist, but hey its the Hammer and he can take care of himself. He basically puts futuristic foot to ass on these guys by saving Scorpion's butt. He has a bow and arrow with super explosive tips that when they hit the target blow their heads clean off. Naturally Scorpion tells him he could have handled it all on his own. I guess AFTER he got his ass kicked. They find a camp of, get this, Christians, who help them out and I was afraid this whole thing was going to turn into some sort of bible thumbing bullshit parable. Instead The Hammer beds down a hot ass sister, and then he and Scorpion leave so the bad guys can just come in and start wiping people out!

"Anna, I am really not so sure about this Hammer guy. He keeps upstaging my manliness at every turn..."

Naturally, cause Scorpion is a poofy haired wimp, and his buddy isn’t there to protect him, he gets captured. His punishment by the almighty One is to become a Templar before he is killed. But I guess old One is harboring some latent feelings for our hero because his initiation to the tribe involves something that took me entirely by surprise. It is a rare movie where the bad guy butt-fucks the hero when he has captured him. Some action films just hint at the whole homosexual subtext, but here they just went, “oh the hell with it. Just have big mean ol’ George Eastman ramrod that pretty boy and get it over with!”.  And who saves our hero? That’s right. Nadir, or The Hammer or however you want to call Fred Williamson. 

"Yes, it is Bob from HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY. Be afraid..."

Did I mention that little obnoxious brat from HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY is in this too. He plays basically the Murdock character from A-TEAM but as a little kid and has a slingshot that can kill people. Actually he is not nearly as obnoxious here as he usually is in Fulci’s movies, which leads me to believe Fulci either hated him, or kids in general. It all climaxes in a big crazy shootout, car crash, blow em up real good fight in an old oil refinery that is highlighted by our hero ripping off his clothes to reveal his nifty new suit of bullet proof armor. Made out of clear vacuform plastic that make shim look like one of the Village people on plastic and leather night at The Hellfire Club. Violence and hilarity ensue. 

"Yeah, it is EXACTLY what you think it is."

As goofy and funny as this often is, most of the action scenes are well done. Castellari really knew his shit when it came to handling action. It is just the wrongheaded production design that makes this movie such a hoot. Well that and some weirdo turns of the story, with a lead that would be more at home in gay porn. But these 80’s post apocalyptic ROAD WARRIOR rip offs are all a shit ton of fun and this is no exception. 

"George Eastman bids you all a farewell."

Review © Andy Copp

Forty Second Street Wish Fulfillment

Day four of the September Exploitation explosion movie two 

TIMES SQUARE (1980)
D. Alan Moyle
Paramount Pictures
1.85

This rather sticky, saccharine friendship drama has a few things going for it, not the least being the time capsule of the last breath of the Duece. If nothing else the movie can be enjoyed just for the scenery of Forty Second St in its last few years of glory before the theaters and porn shops were torn down and shuttered. The film also has a terrific early eighties soundtrack including tracks from Gary Numan, The Cars, The Cure, The Pretenders, Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Roxi Music, so the soundtrack is consistently awesome as well. 


The story deals with a teen girl named Nikki (Robin Johnson who is really superb) a young delinquent with apparent mental disorders. She checks into a mental health clinic to get some brain tests at the same time as a Mayoral hopefuls daughter named Pamela Pearl (Trini Alvarado). Pearl spends most of her time day dreaming and writing poetry that she sends to the local late night DJ played by Tim Curry. Seems she also has some sort of mental disorder, that causes her to have some sort of dissociative fits. Naturally the girls bond and they run away from the facility and into the City, where they find a squat and begin to live together. This is where the movie becomes some sort of teenage empowerment fantasy as the girls, not only find jobs, but slowly become folk heroes as the DJ covers their disappearance on his radio show, encouraging them to be free. Eventually Nikki discovers she has real talent as a rock singer and they end up calling themselves the “Sleezy Sisters” inspiring a mini revolution among the bored and apathetic teens of New York to be unique and not take any shit(?).

The problem being that a lot of the progress they are making is clearly being born out of Nikki’s mental illness and need for fame and someone to love her. Her activities become more and more dangerous (the girls begin a trade mark of trowing TV’s off of tenement building roofs to get people’s attention) and she may even be responsible for the drowning death of her previous friend. 


As I mentioned earlier the movie’s biggest problem is that it creates a fantasy world for these girls to live in, that deflates the drama around them. For example they easily find work in a sleazy dive bar/strip joint even though both of them are clearly about fourteen years old. The owner (played by famous prison play write Miguel Pinero) agrees to not make them strip nor makes any sexual advances on them. In fact the big city, and Forty Second St. in particular, is kind of de-sexualized. All the porn shops are shown as are hookers and trannies, but no one makes any sexual advances on these teens alone in the city streets at any time. Their fantasy of living alone in the big city is never broken at all. They never go hungry, never get robbed, never get taken advantage of, never have problems getting anywhere. Things just fall into place for them unless adults of the cops are screwing it up.

So in a way it is almost an exploitation movie of teenage girl fantasy wish fulfillment about being a rock star, being alone in the big city and making that best friend that changes your life. It is a parable about how letting teens be who they really are, and not forcing psychiatry, drugs and the parents old fuddy duddy ways can make for a better and brighter future. Director Alan Moyle would basically remake this same movie in 1990 with a superior film in PUMP UP THE VOLUME, dropping the mental illness angle, and pumping up the angst. And once again using a terrific modern music soundtrack. 

Review © Andy Copp 

Whoever cut this trailer did a great job.

Leo Fong is looking for REVENGE!

THE LAST REUNION aka REVENGE OF THE BUSHIDO BLADE (1978)
D. Jay Wertz
Media Blasters/ Code Red/ Rare Flicks Box Set #3 1.85

My Leo Fong obsession continues. This revenge fueled swordplay movie was made in 1977 but looks to have not been actually in theaters to maybe as late as 1980 (I could be wrong about that). This time our dearest hero Mr Fong takes a creative backseat, only acting and producing, allowing for other folks to take the reigns. But his reliable acting troupe is here and accounted for as Stack Pierce, Cameron Mitchell as well as several very familiar faces in the background and stunt teams pepper the area. This is a Fong production through and through.

Leo Fong in the house! And lookin' for revenge!

The story starts out in the Philippines circa 1945 as an American platoon is about to liberate a jungle plantation occupied by the Japanese. Inside the Commanding Japanese officer is actually shown to be a rather upright, honorable man, with a son and wife. One of the American Soldiers in particular, a dude named Steadman (no relation to Oprah's stud apparently) knows he is gonna face a court marshall after this raid and is not a happy man. So he goes in guns blazing. He and a couple of other soldiers kill the Japanese officer and rape his wife, in front of the kid, then killer her too. When an American soldier finds them, the motherfucker panics and kills that cat too! All the while another soldier has cowardly stood by and watched the whole mess go down, refusing to participate or stop the madness. Steadman manages to spin the whole mess to look like the Woman attacked them and killed the soldier, and had to be killed.

I Leo Fong Bless this motherfucka killin blade in hopes that this scene will be lifted for Kill Bill in twenty years or so...

Flash forward thirty years later and the little boy is now Leo Fong, so you know asses are gonna be fucked up. He is seen practicing with a Samuria sword and mumbling about Bushido, which is a Samurai code of honor and vengeance. He goes to his job as the head of a trading company and says his goodbyes to his super hot secretary letting her know in no uncertain terms it is up to her to run the show and leaves for Manila.

Meanwhile all over the USA older dudes are leaving and heading to Manila as well. Seems there is a big reunion of soldiers going down there. Six of the big bad soldier boys from the big WWII are getting together to rehash old times. The commander has grown up to become a chain smoking Cameron Mitchell (rather subdued in this movie for once) and his right hand man Washington is now Stack Pierce. The evil fucker Steadman is now played by Hol Bokar and the coward is Phillip Baker Hall who simply owns his role. The plot from here is simple Leo Fong will hunt them down one by one, and kill them, Samurai style. Along the way we will get two barroom brawls, lots of disco dancing, and incredible disco styled lounge number about the Zodiac sung by a Philippino duo, Stack Pierce enduring far too many racial slurs from the Steadman character, and more than a few sequences that seem to have been revised for the KILL BILL movies. Oh, yeah and some cockfighting too, with the most amiable cockfighters in the history of the sport. These guys are just so happy to be doing something, anything, that they are filled with simple, JOY to just be spending time together. Very weird.

But in the last half hour, the movie changes. It goes from being a kind of weird, but fun action romp, to having a rather serious, even dark, edge. The film finds its footing and heart beat, with the writing getting intensely better. From the moment Fong's character confronts the Coward, well actually the moment before that. When the Coward is with the kind hearted Hooker, and he cannot perform with her because of the years of guilt and alcohol he has abused himself with, the movie hits a melancholy note. A note that is, just right. When the Coward starts to beg Fong not to kill him because he IS a coward, then stops to ask for a drink and tells him, he has "been dead for years, that he is not a man, hasn't lived as a man, and wants to finally die like a man", it is some poetic shit. Some Peckinpah, poetic shit. And Fong's acting in the moment when he HAS to kill him is up to par too. The whole scene is just fucking sublime. It is stuff like this, moments like these, that keep me combing through these exploitation movies. This is the kind of stuff that in mine eyes, is BETTER filmmaking that the crap that is shoved down our throats in the multiplexes today.

"BUSHIDO!!!"

There are plenty of good things after this scene. A beautiful double montage as Cameron Mitchell visits the war memorial/graveyard in Manila for American soldiers, while at the same time Leo Fong visits a war torn, rusting monument to a major battle field where many Japanese lives were lost. It is a montage with no narration just images and war sounds and a ton of emotional impact about how wars kills indiscriminately. The film has a rather sad, but tidy wrap up, and a final line delivery by Mitchell that at first seems kind of maudlin, but soon as he is done saying it, the truth to it weighs in. the final walk off line of the movie, though clearly over stated, is actually pretty profound.

So what you end up getting is a revenge/action film, that is less action and more philosophical, anti-war film. With bar fights, decapitations, lounge singing, and lots of 70's actors boozing it up. I'm in exploitation groove heaven here guys. And this is a fucking great movie.

"What's for dinner? Oh I've already had some head today..."

The DVD here in the Rare Flix box set #3 is in bad shape though. Clearly taken from either a 1 inch video master or several different masters, it is a mess. The color timing is all over the map, with is shifting from one scene to the next, sometimes one shot to the next. The video rolls during several scenes (tipping off that it is from a video master), the sound levels are mixed for shit (though that could be the low budget of the original production). Even with bad materials, there was clearly very little effort put into cleaning this up. There are two trailers for the movie, one under the original title and one with the REVENGE OF THE BUSHIDO BLADE title dubbed in. Some "deleted" scenes that amount to roughly ten seconds of alternate shots. best of all is that there is a Leo Fong commentary, which I had not listened to as of yet. But considering how stone faced he can be during his movies, I fear he might be as well during a commentary. But I bet you can feel him staring at you if he is. Just waiting to kick your ass.

Review © Andy Copp

I could not find a trailer for this movie, so this classic one for Fong's LOW BLOW will have to suffice.

Lemme outta here! I'm TRAPPED!!!

TRAPPED (1982)
D. William Fruet
Code Red DVD
1.77 Anamorphic

This backwoods liberal college boy learns the true meaning of violence pot boiler really came out of left field and hit me between the eyes. I had never heard of it before and truthfully bought it blind solely on the strength of trying to support the efforts of CODE RED. Though it does star Henry Silva so that was a big plus in the movie's favor, but I honestly had no clue what to expect from this movie at all. The trailer which was on several other CODE RED releases sold the movie hard though as a balls out, backwoods massacre action film with some real bite. The movie on hand does not fail to deliver on that promise.

I'm Henry Silva host of "Bullshit or Not" and today I will be torturing and killing cityfolk!

Perpetual badass Henry Silva gets a lead role here as Henry Chatwill the head crazy in a small backwoods mountain town in rural Tennessee. The kind of town where there are about five houses, one store, no cars and everyone is probably related in some way or another. The movie opens with Henry in the hills putting the moves on a huge breasted teenage girl, that unbeknowst to him, two teenage boys are watching. When he discovers this he sets about trying to kill them. When he chases them back to town he discovers that his equally young and gorgeous wife Amy (Danone Camdon) is fucking a dude from the city while he was away. He goes absolutely apeshit, dragging the man into the center of town, beating the shit out of him and his wife and eventually taking the man hostage after shooting the tires out of his car. This is when we learn that Henry is the "law" of the town and that this man has broken the law. Henry makes it sound as if this man has raped his wife, when it is clear to everyone he has not. But the town elders, all the men folk in the town, are not cool with an outsider coming into town and making it with the lone hot to trot chick, so they go along with it. They all decide this dude must pay for his crime and set about tormenting and torturing him, including a brutal tar and feathering with boiling tar and a hunt into the woods.

Just a little hill folk hospitality in action.

Meanwhile a group of very liberal college students have decided to go hiking into the caves that surround this area. The lead of the group Roger Michaels (Nicholas Campbell) is severely anti-violence. So much that when we have met him he is in a deep debate with his philosophy teacher about how it is NEVER right to kill another man, even when pushed to the absolute limits. So right then and there we know he is going to be be pushed to the absolute limits and find out just how far someone can be pushed towards violence. In the 70's and 80's there was a whole sort of sub-genre of exploitation film that was basically the "liberal learns what it is like to kill" plot. Everything from DEATH WISH to all kinds of rape/revenge films fit the bill. This movie fits neatly into the framework, but also fills out on several other levels as well. But this group of fairly likable twenty somethings are our liberal heroes for the movie. On the other side of that fence in the mountain town we get Henry's sister Miriam Chatwill (Barbara Gordon in a terrific performance) who is the lone voice of reason in the town and morally opposed to the crap her brother is selling. But being that this is a man's game she is basically pushed to the side at every turn and ignored. It is only a matter of time before the kids end up meeting up with Henry and his gang of thugs, which happens to be right after they have murdered the outsider that was banging Henry's wife.

Rule #1: Never, ever have an affair with Henry Silva's wife and think you will get away unscathed.

From here it becomes a very tense suspense movie as the stakes rise and rise. Clearly Henry wants to kill the kids because they know what is going on. He is using his status in the town as a reasoning for it. The townsfolk are starting to turn on him though, as they see no real reason to kill these kids as they had nothing to do with what happened earlier and are starting to suspect that perhaps Henry has killed some folks previously over some frivolous shit too. When Miriam's boyfriend finally steps up and tries to free the kids (Right as Henry's right hand man is arriving to rape one of them) he is caught and brutally killed setting the whole town on edge and putting in motion a true battle of wills.

Take a large helping of backwoods action such as GATOR BAIT and weld it to the revenge type Liberal baiting genre mentioned earlier and you get close to what this movie is. But what makes it so damn good are two things. One is that the script is surprisingly well oiled and effective. The characters are far more clearly drawn than this type of film usually is given. The kids, though occasionally a little grating, are more or less likable, and are not the cookie cutter, out to get laid and high norm of the era. But the townsfolk are are pretty much full blown characters that seem to be really the kind of people you would encounter in a place like this. Not the caricatures that we often see in the wake of DELIVERANCE, but real life hill folk who simply live a different existence. Unfortunately that place is under the thumb of a psychotic tyrant. The second thing that makes this sing is the performance of that psychotic tyrant by Henry Silva, who is always a delight to watch in anything he does. But here he is allowed to go completely free and doesn't just chew the scenery, he rips into it with his teeth and tears it to fucking shreds in every scene he is in. He cuts one of the most memorable villain characters of that exploitation era, so when he gets his comeuppance it is very satisfying.

Rule #2: No matter how hot that blond little hill tart is, no matter what she tells you. Her husband WILL find out and THIS WILL HAPPEN TO YOU!

Director Fruet did the underrated DEATH WEEKEND previously (not available on DVD) which I liked a good bit, but not nearly as much as I liked this one. His direction is sharp and focused, but never over orchestrated or showy. He's the kind of director that allows the movie that is going on to unfold in front of you, not forcing his own style into the forefront in place of what is happening. He's a story driven director, which is the direct opposite of many directors working today.

Unfortunately the DVD is basically a bare bones job, though the transfer is solid and looks fine as is the soundtrack. There is that exciting trailer and of course the reel of upcoming CODE RED releases (BRUTE CORPS and GANG WARS!!!) but nothing else on here. How awesome would it had been to snagged a Silva interview or a commentary from Fruet? I know those CODE RED guys are operating a super tight financial ship and for a title like this that is a risk to even release at all. So that any bells and whistles are probably too costly to even hope for at this point. But it still would have been great to hear what those guys thought about making this movie. But don't let me discourage you from picking this up in any way. In my opinion the quality of the movie itself makes it an essential purchase.




Reviews © Andy Copp