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.
THE VICTIM (2011) D. MICHAEL BIEHN ANCHOR BAY ENT. 1.85 Actor Michael Biehn apparently had a blast working on Robert Rodiguiz's Grindhouse parody PLANET TERROR. So much that he was inspired to make his own Grindhouse movie with his girlfriend Jennifer Blanc. So together they wrote and produced THE VICTIM with Biehn taking the directorial reigns for the first time. The result is a movie that is endearing in the earnestness that it exudes. But suffers from a lot of the first time director blues.
The story is pure pulp novel fodder. A couple of strippers (Jennifer Blanc and genre workhorse Danielle Harris) go out for an afternoon of naughtiness with a couple of cops (Ryan Honey and Denny Kirkwood) but when Harris dies during some rough sex play, it puts her friend on the run. She runs right to the cabin of Hermit Michael Biehn who doesn't take nicely to being disturbed and a fairly violent bit of cat and mouse ensues. On the plus side the acting is fine all the way around. The entire cast clearly is in on the sense of play and gives it all they got. When the movie gets down to tacks, it gets really violent with a head crushing that could stand up next to DRIVE or IRREVERSIBLE. The script, by no means great, at least takes a fair amount of time setting up the female characters and their friendship. Through several flashbacks we get to know them, which adds a lot to the base of the movie. The twist in the final reel, though not shocking, is a nice turn of events.
On the down side the movie has some really clunky direction like having characters talk directly into the camera when they are talking to each other. Or some severe padding. We used to tease a friend of mine who made backyard movies that his driving scenes existed just to fill enough time for him to play a song he liked. Well here that is actually true as there is a driving across the mountains scene that goes on for several minutes so we can fill time and hear the entire music cue. There is also an embarrassing opening credit scene that apes SE7EN so much that it becomes really funny. Right down to the NINE INCH NAILS rip off music. Throw in some really eye-straining day for night photography as it all adds up to hurting the final film.
THE VICTIM does do one thing I have never seen before. The ends credits, the film actually shows you the entire crew as their name appears. You see this with actors all the time, but never production staff. The movie goes through person by person and tells you what they did and shows you who they are. It certainly made me hang out through the whole credits. THE VICTIM is not a ground-breaker, but it is diverting enough for an hour and a half and I hope Michael Biehn makes some more films.
Underground Auteur Eric Stanze and the Wicked Pixel crew are back after
the success of their last film, the very spooky and ambitious DEADWOOD
PARK. This time Stanze is back into the grittier blood soaked territory a
lot of his fans may feel he is comfortable in. But don't let
appearances fool you, RATLINE is in a lot of ways his slickest, and most
challenging work. Stanze is still bending genre conventions at will,
here he does it in a roller-coaster fashion, never letting the audience
get a good foothold long enough to know what hit them. There is enough
story, gore and character in RATLINE for several movies and Stanze keeps
all the balls in the air surprisingly well.
The film begins
with two sisters played by Wicked Pixel regular Emily Haack and Alex Del
Monacco in a jam. They are ripping off some thug at a car repair garage
for a large sum of money and have killed him. After cleaning up they
are on the run. They head to a small town in Illinois to hide out where
an innocent young woman named Penny Webb (Sarah Swafford)
has offered them a boarding room. She is working for her Grandfather in
the city offices helping him relocate the city graveyard since urban
sprawl is setting in and many of the ancient graves belong to be people
long since moved away.
Elsewhere in the city there are what
appears to be a series of occult oriented crimes being committed, people
turning up missing, pets disappearing, and sexual assaults all related
to what appears to be Satanism. We find this out from a series of
newspaper clipping on the walls of the Self styled satanists themselves,
a rag tag group of teenagers including another Wicked Pixel Regular
performer Jessie Seitz as the girl who video tapes their crimes.
***do not read the next two paragraphs if you do not want spoilers to the plot of RATLINE***
The Satanists are killing neighborhood dogs and bathing in the blood in
moonlight sex rituals to try to bring about their lord and master, but
the action is just not good enough. So they set a plan in motion to grab
a person for slaughter. They set a trap to grab a passing motorist and
almost get the two sisters from the beginning but their streets smarts
prevent it. They do however convince a good Samaritan played by Wicked
Pixel regular and producer Jason Christ to stop and help. They quickly
kidnap him and take him to an abandoned warehouse for slaughter. But
things don't go as planned. When he in fact VICIOUSLY turns the tables
and kills every single last one of them in a stand out scene that will
have gorehounds on their feet.
Seems that the Satanists were
just a plot red herring, and that Jason Christ as Frank Logan is the
real villain of the film. As the plot unfolds we discover he is in fact a
supernatural killing machine from World War 2, created from Nazi Occult
experiments, and he has returned to find the other scientists involved.
Seems they have the ritualistic Nazi "Blood Flag" used to create him
and with it he can secure his continuing immortality. Penny's
Grandfather was involved in those experiments and has the flag. So Frank
will stop at nothing to get it. But there may be other connections to
the sisters as well.
What Eric Stanze has done with RATLINE is
take a complex story and weld it to a Saturday afternoon exploitation
style framwork and make both styles work with ease. The film spends the
first third being basically a grindhouse horror movie filled with
splatter and naked people, basically speaking loud and proud to the
horror kids making sure they get their fix. Then the REAL villain of the
piece arrives and knocks everyone's dick in the dirt. That's when the
plot is allowed to get moving and to everyone's credit the movie does
not slow down, it only get's more interesting thanks to a dynamic story
and good acting all around.
Stanze's films always have a lot
of complexity to them, and he usually delivers a lot of information in
one fell swoop. Case in point how ICE FROM THE SUN stops for the main
character to hear all about how the rules of the game to work, or the
lengthy flash back in DEADWOOD PARK (that is a incredible and dynamic
sequence). In RATLINE he finds an almost brilliant way to get a lot of information into the open in one fell swoop by having a character watch a
declassified government film on the Nazi Experiments. The film is one
the filmmakers obviously produced themselves but the replication of the
era is astonishing and it is a fascinating artifact. Once that scene is
over we know exactly what is transpiring.
Though RATLINE is
not all blood and fire. One of the best elements of the movie is that
there is a lot about relationships. There is an eroding relationship
between the sisters because of the crime they have committed. Emily
Haack's character has an emotional issue's dealing with her estranged
Father. Penny has a nice relationship with her protective but
conservative Grandfather and best of all there is a rather touching and
very well handled love story that develops between Emily Haack's
character and Sarah Swafford's. Seems that Swafford's Penny is a Lesbian
but hiding because of the conservative community she lives in and Haack
is a bit older and been through a lot more hard times and they fall for
each other. In the middle of this rough and tumble horror film there is
this amazingly toughing, very soft-hearted love story subplot that
really works. So much that I kind of wish it had gotten more screen time
as both actresses are really good together.
In some
ways this is one of Eric Stanze's best films. It is lean, and free of
fat. While I love all of his work, a lot of horror fans have trouble
connecting to his more esoteric work. This one is much more trimmed
down, and accessible to mainstream fans. While still keeping the things
that make his work great. There are no compromises here, but the story
telling is great, the film-making technique is top of the line and the
actors are all on board.
RATLINE is available on
Amazon.com as a streaming or direct download rental or purchase and as a DVD directly from
Wicked Pixel themselves. The newly released DVD has two commentary tracks one with just Eric Stanze, the other with the lead actors and Eric, an hour long behind the scenes documentary and of course the WPC trailer reel. So if you are a fan of Eric Stanze's other work
or just really solid Indie horror films, you should do yourself a favor
and just check this out. It is yet another winner from the WPC cannon.
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (2011) D. Jason Eisner Magnet Releasing 1.85 VOD and Theatrical
As most of you know HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN began life as part of the SXSW festival contest when GRINDHOUSE came out to have fans create fake trailers in the 70’s gritty exploitation style. HOBO was without a doubt the ONE entry that nailed the vibe best in every way right down to the fonts used for the on screen credits. If no one told you, one could easily had been fooled to believe it was a lost 70’s film. The fake trailer rightfully won the contest and even played with GRINDHOUSE in Canada.
So naturally it was only right that an actual movie be made from the concept and the Internet community rallied behind the idea. It has taken almost five years to get completed but we finally have a feature film version of HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN with a name star in the title role. But the final product lacks that retro punch the original trailer had. In fact it feels more like a modern video game released by Troma, than some lost Grindhouse gem.
Rutger Hauer plays the lead character simply named Hobo, who strolls into a small town just in time to see some poor smchuck trotted into the middle of the street, tortured and beheaded by a crime family. The town is held under the thumb of Drake (Brian Downey) a cartoon Mafioso and his two even more cartoonish sons Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman). The Hobo wonders through the town and witnesses other atrocities too like a Pedophile Santa kidnapping kids, a black pimp whoring young teens girls etc. He follows Slick to the hide out and bemusedly watches a whole bunch of people tortured and murdered until we meet Abby the typical Hooker with the Heart of Gold who for some reason prompts the Hobo to finally step in and stop Slick from hurting her. There is some more tit for tat, but his deed ultimately lands him all carved up and with Abby taking care of him for a while.
The movie takes a good forty or so minutes before it gets to the events of the original trailer when he gets the shotgun and starts going ballistic in a scene that is admittedly pretty satisfying. But then the events of the trailer are merged down into basically a montage of him finding and wasting the scum of the town and then it is back to the annoying bad guys and their screen time.
That is the biggest problem with the movie. Whenever the movie is with the Hobo it works just fine. Hauer is committed to the performance and has good chemistry with his female lead. But anytime the movie goes back to the villains, which is often, it just becomes ridiculous. A purposely over the top, offensive, cartoon that is trying too hard to get in your face. Instead it just becomes annoying and ultimately kind of empty. I felt like I was watching a live action episode of SOUTH PARK with Terrence and Phillip as bad guys.
There are a couple of places where the film attempts some social commentary such as a nod to the BUMFIGHTS thing and a well done speech about how the streets are “their” (meaning the homeless) homes and how the people of the town need to have some respect for them. I certainly respected that those moments are there. I just wished the material around them had been as well handled as these few scenes.
By the end of the movie it struck as to why I was not responding to the movie the way so many of my friends and peers have. So many people I know have declared this a modern classic, the “grindhouse” movie done right etc. But near the climax of the movie a pair of armored goons called “The Plague” are sent after the Hobo. In the process they decimate and entire Hospital full of people in a scene that should have had me breathless. Instead it had me bored to tears. This scene and the scene earlier when the Hobo watches Slick in his hideout torture and kill several people for fun clicked with me as to why this movie doesn’t work. It is nothing but a big, bloody, video game. There may not be a HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN video game, but there might as well be because that is exactly how it feels. A lot of these faux Grindhouse movies that have come in the wake of the Rodriguiz/Tarrantino collaboration feel the exact same way. Maximum offensiveness, maximum body count, minimum character or attention to script. Tell them it is a tribute to the 70’s & 80’s movies but instead it plays like you are just a player in a video game.
The last fifteen minutes of this movie feel just like that. Oddly enough 90% of the people I know who watched it, did so on a Playstation 3 if that tells you anything.
So to me almost half the movie works. The scenes with the Hobo interacting with the Hooker as good stuff. The scene with him telling the babies in the Hospital how much their lives are going to suck is pure gold. The scene when he finally gets the gun and goes on his rampage is what the rest of the movie should be like. But nearly all the other stuff felt like some other movie that I really couldn’t wait to be over so I could get back to the OTHER movie I was enjoying.
I get the feeling I am going to get a TON of hate mail over this one...
Day 18 of the September Exploitation challenge rocks us down under:
STUNT ROCK (1977)
D. Brian Trenchard Smith
CODE RED
2.35
This is a man’s film. A movie that real men can appreciate because it is about STUNTSandROCK MUSIC. The ladies might like it because of the rock music (the wommins love the rock music) but admit it, us guys love to see dudes putting their lives at risk. Australian director Brian Trenchard Smithhas the brilliant idea to have the countries greatest stuntman Grant Pageaccompany him on this cinematic journy into mayhem.
The movie has no plot, just watch asGrant Page risks his life showing us how he makes his day to day living jumping off cliffs, smashing through car windows, shooting over canyons, getting set on fire etc. But wait! Grant’s nephew is in the American rock bandSORCERY! What we now callDragon Metal, Sorcery was a Zepplinesque L.A. rock outfit that went for the full on LORD OF THE RINGS stage show in which Merlin battles Satan with all kinds of pyrotechnics and an on stage onslaught of rock and roll savagery. So the film cuts back and forth between Grant doing his stunts, and Sorcery rocking the shit out of the world to great effect.
"Action at 100 Decibels per hour!"
There is a VERY slight story about a reporter doing a story on Grant while he is on the job doing stunts for a local TV show. A minor subplot has that show’s lead actress becoming friends with them, going to the Sorcery rock shows and parties and eventually getting to do a couple of dangerous stunts herself. But the meat of the movie is Page and Sorcery doing their colorful thing.
"Who let the old guy on stage? No wait it is Merlin from the band SORCERY!"
One really horrifying stunt has Page diving down a rope at free fall, which in and off itself is a pretty harrowing stunt, but he takes it to the edge by doing it with a full burn. He calmly explains to us how the forty second delay he has worked out will keep the fire from burning throgh the ropes he is using keeping him from plummeting to the rock cliff below. But as you watch it in 400 frame per second slow motion it looks like he is going to burn alive and free fall to his death at any moment. Naturally he pulls it off without a hitch. But it is a sight to behold.
"All in a day's work for Grant Page. Or was it the Taco Bell he ate?"
Trenchard-Smith chooses to capture all of this is true seventies style with tons of split screens and super slow motion. The stunts seem like the are still in time they are so slow, so you get to see every piece of glass or lick of the flame, and the split screens feel like you are getting every angle, though sometimes it is just the same camera angle just flipped over. But it all makes for some visually dynamic stuff.
"Even the dog is a manly rocker in STUNT ROCK!"
In a lot of ways this is MTV several years before the was MTV. Or think of it as LED ZEPPLIN’S THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME without the fantasy sequences and replaced with lots of bone crunching stunt work.
"The babes of STUNT ROCK try out the Blue Man Group thing."
CODE RED’s DVD is extremely bad ass. A two disc set packed to the gills with interviews, commentarys, an older documentary Brian Trenchard Smith did called THE STUNT MEN, and tons of other CODE RED trailers. The 2.35 scope frame is the way the movie was always meant to be seen and after years of the badly cropped VHS this is a wonder to behold.
A note about CODE RED. Bill who runs that joint has announced publicly that in 2011 he plans to shut the doors. Thanks to a lot of internet bitching, and fan backlash, combined with really poor sales on amazing discs like this one, he is throwing in the towel. It is a complete fucking shame that a company that put their heart and soul into releasing great little gems is having to shut their doors and even worse because THE FANS didn’t support them. But when sales for a title are barely cracking 300 something is majorly wrong. This disc is amazing, I’m glad I own it any self respecting cult movie fan should.
Day thirteen of the September Exploitation Challenge:
SS CAMP 5: WOMEN’S HELL (1977) D. Sergio Garrone Media Blasters/ Exploitation Digital 1.85
This late entry in the Nazisploitation sub-genre is fairly tame when compared to some of it’s brethren like THE BEAST IN HEAT or even the first ILSA film. In fact the first hour or so of SS CAMP 5: WOMEN’S HELL is actually kind of dull despite the fact it is chocked full of shower scenes and naked ladies. The pacing is just kind of lackluster and languid, never really bothering to grab a forward motion. All the elements are there, the Lesbian warden, the shower scenes, the Nazi experimentation. But the film just is too staid and lush to really have the nerve it needs to be truly aggressive.
"Apparently it was all dancing on the table and fun during WWII."
This in spite of the fact that it opens with a really tasteless succession of photos of real holocaust images with the credits super imposed. So the first images we see are piles of human bodies being pushed into pits or ovens reminding us this is a reality based thing. then next we meet a group of women played by actresses all way to healthy to actually be prisoners of war in an actual concentration camp. These gals are being hauled it to be trained to be prostitutes for the Third Reich including a feisty black gal who will become the hero of the story. We also meet a trio of scientists, including one Aryan soldier/doctor who will take a shine to the Black gal, one die hard German scientist and a Jew who is there as a prisoner with his beautiful Daughter (who looks a lot like Anna Paquin). The typical stuff happens. several girls plot an escape attempt that you just know is going to go wrong when they mention the escape route is through one of the ovens that has a crack on the other side.
"This gal made for an impressive hero by the end of the movie. Even if she did do a seductive dance with a banana."
The Black gal seduces said Aryan Scientist with a Booga Booga Jungle dance with a banana tied to her nude waist and he is instantly in love (no I am not making this shit up!). They talk racial politics before and after they have sex, explaining how he feels his Aryan pride because he feels like he is owning her until he will have to kill her on “Victory Day”! Eventually the really angry Soldier (who looks like a cross between Kojack and Vic Diaz from those Filipino movies) tortures a bunch of girls who he thinks helped mastermind the escape attempt. This scene is especially nasty and brutal and really turns the movie around from what was basically a slow going and silly sexploitation movie to a really crunchy, ugly exploitation flick. Heads are crushed, a gal is gutted with ninja claws, fingernails are pulled out and the last girl has her tongue pulled clean out of her head after being whipped! Suddenly we are in the land of no return as This dude starts tearing through the cast, raping/impregnating the Jewish daughter, and causing general mischief.
"This guy is not going to make it very long for crossing this boundary! You can kill thousands
of Jews, and commit genocide, but perform Abortions and your days are numbered!"
Then suddenly the movie takes a shard right turn into Right To Life land as the daughter wants an abortion and her Daddy tries to talk her out of it with a speech about spreading the blood of the righteous to everyone in the world (that doesn’t sound all that different than the propaganda the Nazi’s were selling pops!). When he walks in on her getting an abortion he goes apeshit and tries to kill the doctor! Whoa, I think I know where he goes to church at!
"Suddenly Max Hardcore takes over the directing of the movie."
It all boils to a head with a revolution and the Russians invading, and we get a bit of a history lesson AND a big gunfight too.
"I think this is actually a shot from my friend's basement..."
So all in all, though it starts off rocky, SS CAMP 5: WOMEN’S HELL gains it’s footing in the second half and is worth taking a look at for the fans of this low on the totem pole sub-genre. It is not the best of the bunch by any stretch, but one could do worse too. The disc from Media Blasters certainly looks nice, and has an fun interview and some other Nazisploitation trailers.
Day nine of the September Exploitation Challenge takes me way down the wrong path!!!
WRONG WAY (1972) D. Ray Williams Not on DVD 16mm Full Frame
This no budget, 70’s LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT rip off is some sort of wonder to behold. Disgusting beyond belief, if only for the truly nasty people on display and the complete lack of moral compass on the part of the filmmakers. The movie seems to exist in a climate where the filmmakers saw Wes Craven’s film and thought to themselves “Hell we can do that, but who the hell needs all that moralizing crap! Let’s just add more sex and crotch shots!” Then they realized they only had fifty bucks to make the whole movie with.
The movie begins with a group of the perhaps scuzziest criminals in Grindhouse history laying around in the woods waiting on a drug buy. They complain incessantly about how it has been days since they have had any pills or grass. One thug who we learn is named “Crabs” (because he is scratching his nuts all the time and apparently has the nasty crotch critters) is particularly upset. He complains to another cohort that he got those crabs from letting his buddy “suck him off!’
"Only reason I got crabs is cause I let you SUCK ME OFF!"
Meanwhile two pretty girls get caught going the WRONG WAY (!!!) and their car breaks down and two of the thugs trick them into getting into their jeep and heading back to the camp where these dirt balls are waiting. The bikers making the drug delivery. One of them sucks down raw eggs so his “love torpedoes can have full blast”. The main thug is thrilled to finally gets to roll a joint and has a hilarious hallucination once he smokes up consisting of a naked woman in a military beret and dreams of a winning hand of cards! All the dudes are happy to get their hands on the nubile young girls for a day of sexing on the dirt roads.
"On no! The car is broke down! We better get into some more comfortable walking clothes!"
But when the bikers discover the girls are there against their free will, they actually take a stand - “We thought those where your old ladies. We are in for any kidnapping and rape charges. You gotta let them go.” But out comes a shotgun and the bikers get on their motorcycles and ride off like little kids who just got scolded for playing on some-one's lawn.
"This is the kind of Hallucinations you see when you smoke really primo pot, according to this film."
Then proceeds the twelve minute long rape scene. A scene that would be offensive if it was actually done well. Instead it is handled so poorly you can’t help but notice nasty details like the fact the guy playing Crabs hasn’t wiped his ass since he was seven years old and his entire butt is now stained bright green. Seriously, we are talking Green Giant ass here. Or that the hippie red head seams more interested in running around and touching the asses of his buddies than doing anything to the girls. even worse is the tenth rate Bob Dylan tune that plays not once but twice over the scene trying hopelessly to ape the David Hess folk rock from LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. What IS effective however is the poor girls reactions to being ground on by these nasty, grungy post hippy thugs who really do look like they just got out of prison. The takes go on forever and these actresses have to endure the constant grinding of each of this dirtbags from every angle and position. The whole thing is very disgusting and dirty. When they are done with the gang rape they just leave the girls on the road and take off, never to be seen again!
"It is really horrible enough to get gang raped by these greaseball thugs. But to have one have them has a green stained ass just makes it the worst experience ever."
Meanwhile one of the girl’s father has called the police and a search party has started. Even a helicopter is looking for them. I suspect that is the case because A) someone the filmmakers knew had a chopper or B) they had stock footage of a chopper they could use (I suspect B is the case). But the cops are making very little ground.
The girls go looking for help, stopping at a stream to was their ravaged vagina's. Naturally this calls for loving close ups. They hear people and investigate hoping to find help but instead find ANOTHER group of hippy criminals! This is where the movie takes a sharp turn away from being a LAST HOUSE rip off and into it’s own weird little territory. Seems these Hippies are some sort of Manson-esque cult and they have just killed a man. The girls has stumbled on his burial (including a two year old helping dig the grave, a nice touch!) and now this cult is pissed at them too. The cult leader decides they must join the cult and become their sex slaves and have their “will and egos broken”!
"Hey you, over there! Why is your ass all green?"
Then the movie gets REALLY weird! Suddenly we meet two older men and a really cute dark haired girl they take into a shack out in the border town this is all happening in. they explain to her they are going to take her to Mexico and sell her for Heroin. Who the fuck are these people? They try to rape her, but since she is now a junkie she relents and loves it?!?!?! The chopper sees this and suddenly the plot is now about these guys!
"Who the fuck are THESE GUYS?"
*SPOILERS* The cops get a call on the radio in which we are told the police found the two girls. We get two or three brief shots of a shoot out in which one of the cult members is shot in the balls and we see them trying to rape the girls yet again. All in all the shots last about twenty seconds. The rest is recounted in voice over. The girls were found and are back home! Now the movie shifts gears to this secondary plot about the kidnappers and heroin dealers!
It is almost like some weird shit happened and that portion of the cast said FUCK YOU and refused to finish the movie. Considering the on screen treatment of the girls in the early rape scenes, and that it looked like they were going to have to do a bunch more, I am willing to bet that is EXACTLY what happened. That they just had enough and so the movie had to be rewritten hastily with what was there. It all ends with a cops confronting the heroin dealers/ kidnappers confrontation.
"You've defiled us, made us see the green ass guy and join a cult. We've had enough. We QUIT this Goddamn movie!"
This is one of the sleaziest and weirdest Grindhouse exploitation movies I have seen in many a moon. Directed in long takes like storefront porn, shot almost entirely outside in the woods, and cast with people who do not look like actors but seem to really be the parts they are on screen. This is nasty ass, low brown cinema at its most ghetto. I cannot imagine the audience this was meant for or where it even played. But I would have loved to have been there to see them. But something tells me they would have been so stones they would have barely noticed the movie at all.
Day four of the September Exploitation Extravaganza
MACHETE (2010) D. Robert Rodriguiz & Ethan Maniquis 20th Century Fox/ Troublemaker Studios 1.85
This long awaited feature film version of the fake trailer that premiered in the front ofPLANET TERROR has finally hit the screens. Without a doubt it has lived up to the hype and was worth waiting for. What Rodriguiz and company have done here is create a loving homage to exploitation movies of the past while grafting it all into a very relevant political satire of current events that literally takes no prisoners. The satire is about as subtle as a frying pan to the face, but in this day and age of media saturation and 24 hour sound bites making all surrounding countries feel like they are breeding terrorists like cockroaches, subtle satire can hardly get through the noise. Some might accuse the movie of being a call to arms for the treatment of Immigrants in America, illegal or otherwise, and well, they very well could be right. Maybe some people need that kind f kick to wake up.
The rather complex (one might actually say convoluted) plot deals with our hero Machete (the great Danny Trejo) (I love that we get a glance at his birth records at one point and that is actually his real name!) who is double crossed working as a Federale busting evil crime lord Torrez (Steven Seagal in his best role in years and only villain role ever). Torrez viciously murders Machete’s family, ruins his job and leaves him for dead. Cut to several years later and Machete is now working the border as a day laborer just trying to make ends meet. At the border a lady named She’ -like Che' get it?- (Michelle Rodreguiz looking like she is spending hours in the gym) is running a Taco stand that is a front for a secret network that is helping Illegals get into America and get settled, find work, and get green cards. Sartana -Just like the famous Spanish gunslinger - (Jessica Alba) plays an young FBI Agent watching everyone at this border stop trying to make that big bust that will help her career.
Meanwhile (oh yes there is a LOT of meanwhile!) Lt. Stillman (Don Johnson) has created a redneck Militia that is building up his own border patrols who think nothing of hunting down and murdering any and everyone they catch trying to cross into the States and video taping it for sport and later use. While on one late night sporting expedition we meet Senator John McLaughlin (Robert DeNiro) who is building his re-election campaign based almost solely on the the Illegal immigration issue and his scare tactics involving the border. His speeches and campaign videos are unfortunately not that far from reality as he compares Illegal immigrants to maggots and vermin that are infecting America and need to be exterminated.
Enter Jeff Fahey who hires Machete to kill Senator McLaughlin for a hefty sum. Citing that his border plans will destroy his business in trade. But he double crosses Machete having him shot, and his own man wound the Senator so the public see Machete trying to take the shot. So now the public has seen a Mexican trying to kill the Senator, thus pushing home the idea that the Mexicans are trying to wage a war on the Senator and thus America.
That’s where all the fun begins. From this point on the movie is nearly non-stop action set piece after another, with the violence levels turned up to the almost absurd (well past it in some cases). For a large portion of the movie the bad guys have no idea who they are dealing with, so they just barge in where ever Machete is at, never expecting he can pick up anything with a blade and make steak tar tar out of them. Highlights including a Hospital shakedown where Machete has improvised weapons using autopsy tools and a nurses sash, or a cork skew and cooking thermometer can be put to reckless use. But we are talking about a movie that has at least a half dozen decapitations in the first five minutes, so to keep the pace the movie has to continually up the ante and for the most part it does.
In fact if not the for over the top sense of humor this might be one of the most brutal and violent studio movies ever released and could be unrelentingly grim. Crucifixions, decapitations, gutting, evisceration, faces chopped open, multiple shootings, limps hacked off, the list goes on and on. But the sense of humor is as sharp as the blades, keeping it all from being overwhelming. Hilarious moments such as the infomercial for Tom Savini’s Hit Man service are laugh out loud funny.
But at the movie’s core there is a lot of anger couched in the satire, spoof and lots of on screen fun. When Jessica Alba’s character screams out “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us!!!” it is hard not to feel a strong resonance there. One voice that is almost never heard when this whole immigration debate is riled up is that of those who are in the thick of it. Those day laborers, those who have given their lives to come to the USA in spite of all odds. There are two sides to the debate, and naturally laws in place, but when people are being taken advantage of on both sides of the border AND being made to look like disease carrying vermin or being painted to be terrorists, there is bound to be a large amount of anger and frustration among those people. That anger is very loud and clear in MACHETE .
In that way it is the perfect exploitation film. It serves up all the exploitable elements into a heady, undeniably entertaining stew. It is action packed, violent and sexy. But, not even at the core or under the surface, but right there in your face, it is raw, angry and political about an important issue too. The greatest exploitation films of the golden era, (SWEET SWEETBACK’S BADASSS SONG springs to mind off the top of my head, or any number of the anti establishment Vietnam era films like EASY RIDER) were like this. These are the films that become lamp posts of the times they were made in. Films that end up standing the test of time, that in twenty years they still have weight. When the big budget soulless junk have faded, these little exploitation movies still have meaning because they had the balls to tackle topics relevant to their core audiences. When they do it right, they are kick ass movies on top of it.
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.
