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.
REPO CHICK (2009)
D. Alex Cox
Industrial Ent.
1.85 (Shot HD)
Director Alex Cox returns to the well that got him cult fame by attempting a pseudo-sequel to his first hit REPO MAN. But this movie is markedly different in every way. Where as REPO MAN had a dark comic punk edge, REPO CHICK has a candy colored, post modern, almost kids movie approach to the material. All the sets and props are made from kids toys or cartoons, and put in via green screen, the colors scheme is day glow and pastels and the comedy is broad and over the top. In many ways this is the mirror image of REPO MAN and not just in the gender switch of the lead role.
The movie opens with an explanation of how the biggest growth industry in the United States and maybe the world is debt collection due to the world being own be banks and lenders. Actual companies like GMAC are name checked as having lulled the working poor into loans they cannot pay back, where as the Repossession industry has bloomed. There is also an explanation about several crawler missiles that have gone missing and probably hidden in some lost trains or cars somewhere in the USA. But don’t worry this wont really play into the plot all that much, unlike the original film. Then we meet our lead Pixxi De La Chasse (Jaclyn Jonet) a rich bitch socialite clearly based on Paris Hilton who has been disowned by her family unless she can get a job. When her car is repossessed she ends up working for the company that takes it and becomes an overnight success as a repo man because she is ruthless at taking things from other people.
Much more so than her soft-hearted bosses who have a tendency to bend the rules a little here and there. She becomes obsessed with finding a legendary lost train (that we as the audience know contains those missiles mentioned before) because the reward is a million dollars. Meanwhile a terrorist cell has vowed to eliminate Golf and plans to hijack the train. Naturally Pixxi will end up in the way, and the only possible savior of the country and leisure sports.
The movie is experimental in approach with all the actors giving stylized performances as if they are in an animated film. As mentioned before all of this takes place in front of a green screen which is less than effective in most cases. More often then not you are fully aware of the artifice of it all, (which seems to be the point most of the time) but it takes you out of the movie.
The animation, use of models and outright toys for action and props is cute and endearing for a while, but once the movie gets to about the halfway point that wears off. I found myself wanting the movie to get to some sort of point. Instead a bunch of characters end up on the train as the film drags to a crawl. Characters come and go but not much of consequence happens, even if some of the political satire seems valid.
While sometimes amusing, occasionally cynical and funny, the movie never settle sin to have enough bite to sink in and be worthwhile. Maybe worth a rental of a curiosity look but not the cult classic the original is by a long shot.
Day sixteen of the September Exploitation Challenge saw my buddy Nick and I really taking the plunge with an Erik Estrada Double Feature! Hell Yeah!
CAGED FURY (1989) D. Bill Milling ???? 1.66
Now there are two movies with this title. One is from the early 80’s and was a shot in Manilla women in prison flick. This was made later and is also a WIP movie but is filled with B-movie actors, then current scream queens and low level porn stars and a skimming the surface level of scumminess that is satisfying, but never truly ugly. Call it WIP light for the fans just discovering the sub-genre.
Roxxanne Michaels stars as Katie Collins a young and fairly stupid woman who wants to go to Los Angels to be an actress. Naturally against the wishes of her tight assed Father played by Michael Parks. But her world wise sister Tracy (Elenda Sahagen) convinces Pops to let her go.
Now in the opening scene we have already seen a really nasty all girl prison in which the women are all forced to live in their skimpy (and sexy) lingerie. We have seen one try to escape and she is hunted down and done in by big bad Paul Smith. So we just know that it is only a matter of time before these two worlds are going to collide.
"Seriously, when you are done taking out my trash I want you to help me get INTO prison!"
Katie meets up with a streetwise hoebag named Rhonda who in turn introduces her to her boyfriend who is an amateur photographer. He claims he has gotten the girls “auditions” with a big time movie producer. But as it turns out that big time producer is a low life nudie movie scum bag that makes those in the old H.G. Lewis movies look sedate. The girls try to do auditions where they are put through some mild seduction scenes, but balk at getting nekkid. They are roughed up a bit and the cops get called. But it is the girls who are hauled away, taken to court and then to prison for propositioning the old dudes! Doh! They are off to the prison in the beginning!
Oh yeah I forgot to mention that Katie also met a former cop played by, wait for it, Erik motherfuckin Estrada! And his muscle bound Hulk like side kick. These guys kick and entire bar’s ass when they try to dip some skin into Katie’s love pond. And when I say kick the bar’s ass, I mean every person, stick of furniture, wall, brick and bottle of booze in the place. Nothing is left standing when muscles boy is done. And naturally old Erik is the one who gets the bonus love for the hard work.
"Someone told me I could find eager babes with low self esteem in here for my new movies..."
So naturally these two guys aren’t happy that their new squeeze has disappeared. But at the prison they are clever. Yes sir. They force Katie to call home and tell pops that she is away in Mexico filming a blockbuster for the next two months. But no one believes that shit. Soon Traci has gotten herself thrown in the pokey too trying to find her sister. Before long they have been given prison requisition white negligees and are taking looooong hot showers with the other inmates. Naturally the warden is a hot horny lesbian (played by super hot Ty Randolph and the character’s name is Sybil Thorne if that tells you a thing or two about where the filmmakers are coming from) who prefers nice baths with the new inmates. Then there is the guard named Spyder played by porn actor Scott Cummins who loves nothing more than to torment the girls and take them to the “quiet room”.
It all leads to Muscle guy literally tearing his way into the place while the girls are being auctioned off to the highest bidder and doing his thing. His thing being literally beating the holy shit out of every atom of physical matter on screen. This includes Ron Jeremy in a cameo appearance. If you blink you might miss then super hot porno babe Janine Lindamoulder as a dancing bar babe too.
This is pretty much typical late 80’s prime sleaze. It doesn’t make a lick of sense, and never tires too. It is filled to the overflowing point with nekkid babes, implanted boobs, incredible aerobacized butts and poofy 80’s teased hair. Almost every scene has a blue filter on all the lights. When ever things threaten to get really nasty in a sexually violent way, something happens to stop it, so none of the women are ever really abused. So while it is typical misogynist WIP stuff, it is never as nasty as say, some of the Italian import ones. Plus it has Erik Estrada in pink shirts trying to be a tough guy. That takes it up a notch right there.
NIGHT OF THE WILDING (1990) D. Joseph Merhi Universal Home Video/ PM Entertainment Full Screen
This was the second feature in our Erik Estrada Double feature on Saturday night. (Oh yeah we WENT THERE!) As produced and directed by Joseph Merhi and Richard Peppin I expected this to be a much more action packed and sleazy ride into street wise dementia. Turns out it was that duo's attempt at doing a “straight” courtroom thriller. But it still has a very sleazy, nasty, opening act, and a ridiculous finale.
Based on the “Wilding” scare of 1989/90 where teens went crazy in New York and Sacramento going on violence and rape sprees just for the kicks and fun of it. This was one of the topical scare movies so popular on home video in that era. Erik Estrada plays a sleazebag lawyer who typically gets the worst of the worst criminals off on technicalities. When the movie opens he has just gotten a mob hit man off on a murder charge the whole world knows he actually committed. That same night three rich kids try to kill a security guard at a local small town grocery store and follow the cashier home. She is having a small birthday party, so they easy convince her sister to let them in claiming to be friends from work. Once inside the beat up the sister’s boyfriend with ball bats, gang-rape the sister And eventually rape (off screen) the girl. The girl never hears any of the mayhem because she is in the shower. the whole scene is played for the ultimate in skeeziness as it should be nasty and shocking, but keeps cutting back to the teen girl in the shower soaping up her breasts, over and over, clearly trying to wedge in as much skin as possible. Knowing full well there will be no other opportunities for nudity in the rest of the flick.
The boys are arrested inside the house and the rest of the movie is a court battle between Estrada and his former wife turned Sates attorney who is fighting against him. It is fairly standard stuff, except we get to see some dirty tricks Lawyers do like making the accused get community volunteer jobs to look like better people. Eventually the little dregs snap and decide they gotta start killing witnesses, and eventually each other, leading to a foot chase, out of no where, spectacular car crash, and twist ending.
"The hot Kathryn Lautner plays Estrada's long suffering ex wife."
Over all it is okay. The acting is never that bad, except for Joey Travolta who is over acting his way out of his sibling’s shadow. But once the nasty first act is over it settles into TV movie of the week stuff without much need to go beyond it. The Merhi/ Peppin combo usually went for loud, brash and hyper violent exploitation movies straight to the tape market, but this appears to have been their attempt to go legit. They were better off when they were being outlaws.
This is not a trailer for the movie NIGHT OF THE WILDING but another flick that came out around the same time with a similar plot that was also exploiting the whole WILDING craze. I'd LOVE to get my hands on this one!!!
THE LAST REUNION aka REVENGE OF THE BUSHIDO BLADE (1978) D. Jay Wertz Media Blasters/ Code Red/ Rare Flicks Box Set #31.85
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.
Part of the Maximum Action 10 pack (now out of print)
Before reading the excellent one two punch books GODS IN POLYESTER and GODS IN SPANDEX I had never heard of Leo Fong. I had maybe seen his name here and there, but never knew who he was. But after reading his recollections of making kung fu styled action films with pennies on the dollar I fond myself really fond of the guy and had to find some of his films. Then after checking out the movie movie WILD RIDERS in one of theBCI DRIVE IN CULT CLASSICSpacks there was a trailer for LOW BLOW and I was completely sold. My girlfriend and I HAD to see this movie! We become more than a little bit obsessed with seeing our first Leo Fong movie. I almost didn't get to as the MAXIMUM ACTION set that I found on Ebay never came and after a little research I found that it was out of print. I sent some emails to the company I ordered it from explaining that I NEEDED my Leo Fong fix! That I would not be a complete cult film fan until I got Leo Fong into my life! And they came through, in some dusty corner of the DVD warehouse, hiding under a million copies of GIRLS GONE WILD THE CATHOLIC YEARS was one last copy of MAXIMUM ACTION with not one but TWOLeo Fong movies in the set. Joy was about to set in my peoples!!!
We were not disappointed at all. Within five minutes of the opening of LOW BLOW it had lived up to the what we had expected. The movie hits the ground running, not unlike the vastly inferior LETHAL WEAPON 2 with the action already in progress. A thugs are robbing a coffee shop, roughing up the patrons and generally being loud pricks. The next building over is the office of tough guy Private Investigator Joe Wong (played by our hero Leo Fong) who is aggravated by the noise and ruckus. He throws on his members only jacket and tells his pretty and perky secretary "I'm gonna go see what all the noise is about!" Within two minutes those trouble makers are eating the floor with much foot being put to ass, and Mr. Wong has barely broke a sweat at all. But low and behold some nasty bastards are taking some old ladies purse outside, so they are gonna have to be taught a lesson too! But it is all in a day's work for Mr. Wong. Ass kicking is a way of life! He also has a comic relief car that only he can start by popping the hood and whacking it with a tire iron.Leo Fong's screen presence is a strange one at best, with his pinched up face that consistently looks like someone in the room has just farted, and stiff walk like he may flip out at any second. He's wound tighter than the rubber bands holding the roll of twenty's that was the budget of this flick. His line delivery, all ten of them, is fast, and to the point. Like lines are just a waste of time to get to some ass kicking. He might very well hop out of the screen and punch you at any moment.
The plot finally kicks in when a blond California bimbo is being indoctrinated into some Johnstown styled cult run by a blind Cameron Mitchell and his African Princess named Karma (played by respected black actress Akosua Busia, who actually gives a great performance here). It is never really explained what the cult is actually doing, but it is all about love, enlightenment, and digging in the fields all damn day long. At one point it is revealed they are planting, wait for it, asparagus! Evil bastards!!! Seems the bimbo is the daughter of a rich industrialist played by Troy Donahue and he wants his little girl back. After witnessing Mr. Wong whopping the ass of some Latino's who were trying to steal his hub caps he decides that Wong is the man for the job!
But wait! After some shenanigans in the camp where Mr. Wong gets mildly roughed up (and Karma is clearly enjoying herself, because her nipples clearly get hard after every bit of torture she inflicts on Mr. Wong!) he decides he cannot do this alone. So he holds a tough man contest to find some teammates to help him infiltrate the compound and get the now drugged and wigged out babe to safety. So now it is THE DIRTY DOZEN street style!
Weird thing about this movie is that it is almost family friendly in some ways. The violence (outside of one nasty head squishing) is mostly hand to hand combat kung fu stuff. The gun play is very toned down. There is no bad language or sex to speak of at all. Watching it you can't help but to feel like Leo Fong was trying to appeal as wide a base as possible. And make no mistake, this is Leo Fong's show. He wrote, produced and starred in this bad boy. He raised the financing and made it happen.
There's tons of weird moments to recommend here, like several of Karma's freak outs, the bad guy who gets thrown into a pile of cute puppies who proceed to lick his unconscious body, Leo Fong's attempts at breakfast table comedy, the REALLY out of place macho bonding casual racism that will make you uncomfortable, the muscle bound blond pit fighter chick, that head squishing i previously mentioned, or the incredible compilation worthy action scene were Fong chases four bad guys into their car. He gets so pissed he rips the cables out of the engine, beat the CAR up, smashes all the windows out with a two by four and then buzz saws the top of the car itself off just to kick them all in the ass and send them on their way! Truly it is one of the most amazing scenes I have ever seen in an action film!
So before Seagal, before Van Damme, there was Leo Fong! And he did it for the among of money those guys spent on hair stylists.
Hell Squad (1987?) D. Kenneth Hartford MGM Home Video Full Screen
When the USA is working on a new and improved version of the Neutron bomb the Middle Eastern terrorist organizations take notice. One of the American diplomats in charge of the program has a son who is morally opposed to the creation of the bomb and is pretty vocal about it. Naturally this gets him into a fight with his pops and when he angrily storms outside unguarded he is kidnapped by some wiley unnamed Arabs. Since any kind of action on the part of the United States would be considered political suicide or an act of war the diplomat puts any kind of solution into the hands of his ASSistant, who comes up with possibly the most cockamamy scheme ever. You think Iron Eagle was goofy? Check this out!
This gooftard decides to round up a troupe of spunky Las Vegas showgirls (I.E. strippers) and put them through a several week crash course of assassination training to make them super soldiers. Then send them into the Middle East (looking a lot like the outskirts of L.A.) to grab his boss’s son. And the big boss dude goes for this bullshit! They’re out of options, so they have nothing to lose!
So we get a sweet, sweat filled montage of these young ladies in tight shorts and white tank tops firing guns, running through tires and climbing walls. A drill sergeant puts them through their paces and whips them into shape and in no time they are ready to go into battle! Lots of lycra covered boobs bounce their way through basic training.
When they get there they check into the hotel and find a bathtub that is big enough to fit all nine of them, so they immediately climb in together for a hot bath, until they get their call for instructions. Then they go blow up some terrorists encampments but no son to speak of. So it's back to the bathtub. Rinse lather and repeat. Meanwhile the son is in some dark hole chained up next to a dead guy. The terrorists come in and tell him that because of the Geneva Convention they have to give him food and water and then proceed to dump the water on him and throw the food on the floor. Those EVIL bastards! Always breaking the Geneva convention! Does that sound like anyone we know?
Eventually these girls figure out they are being lead around by their tampon strings and get on the stick to finding the homeboy and blow some more shit up that looks a lot like stock footage, before heading back home to crack the case wide open. There is one fairly good stunt sequence of all of them running to get into an actual moving airplane.
The IMDB says this was made in 1987, but I just can’t believe that. I’d be shocked it it was made anywhere after 1978. It just has that feel of the late 70’s no budget potboilers like Policewoman, or Superchick that Crown International put out. 1987 is about a decade too late for that craze. By then the movies coming out to VHS were a LOT slicker than this movie is, or way more low budget (shot on tape). This is pretty low budget but still has some props, costumes, planes, jeeps, guns, and girls to take off their tops. The sight of these girls with fetish army costumes, high boots and machines guns is something to behold. As is the opening scene at which the neutron bomb has been tested and flunkies in banana suits are clearing up the charred remains of the animals they used in the blasts. They are picking up pieces of ropes or collars and saying ” Dude this used to be a dog!” “Oh man this one was a whole elephant. And now its just…gone!” I mean, that’s what a neutron bomb is supposed to do, but it doesn’t make the dialogue any less fucking goofy.
Lastly, I am amazed Quentin Tarantino hasn't leapt onto one of his coke fueled bandwagons and put the hot tracks onto remaking this thing. It's the perfect film for him to do it with. It has action, violence, politics, beautiful woman who can become empowered as the story goes by. This film is pretty much bloodless and only has a little bit of boobs. But you could remake it, go for broke and make it dead serious, hard R rated material. If he doesn’t want to do it, then fucking call me and to produce and I will direct it! I KNOW I can make a kick ass movie out of it!
Oh yeah I forgot to mention the guy who gets his face eaten off by a tiger. That was pretty cool.
