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May

Gorotica: Coldcocked (1993)

Categories: Gorotica (1993)
Tags: horror, blood, guts, naked, review, Root, Trash, comedy, Gore, violence, sex, cinema, collective, rotten, primal, bad, school, nudity, penis, goth, gothic, rock, black, Revenge, creepy, freak, tits, boobs, breasts, dead, murder, rape, cult, dirty, killing, guns, metal, store, nasty, mean, chase, shoot, out, old, tub, hilarious, video, shower, leather, nipples, in, terrible, shot, trashy, police, 90's, VHS, weapons, robbery, sick, cops, cemetery, detective, graphic, Law, fucking, fuck, sexual, scene, hard, illegal, beating, taboo, masturbation, photos, kill, twisted, 1990's, crime, huge, vagina, kinky, independent, smoking, smoke, corpse, punk, frontal, full, unintentional, spirited, molestation, scrotum, freaky, piercing, occult, chains, whips, drunk, nipple, gorgasm, Ghetty Chasun, Gorotica, Dingo Jones, erotica, 1993, 93, necrophilia, cadaver, big, heist, bath, AIDS, HIV, positive, gasoline, Sawyer, Draculina, Hugh Gallagher, armed, weapon, panic, rat, rats, officer, hermit, shut, penetration, content, mohawk, cigarettes, cloves, pierced, fresh, break, breaking, laws, market, diamond, diamonds, swallow, ingest, idea, situation, shitty, mistake, Bushrude Gutterman, Brady Debussey, Gore Whore, direct, rare, find, robbers, shades, glasses, skull, jewel, necropheliac, dominatrix, sadomasochism

a Primal Root review

Ah, yes, after scraping the glorious dregs of the Trash Cinema dumpster and coming up with 1990′s “Gorgasm: The Ultimate Climax”, it is time we move on to Hugh Gallagher’s 1993 second installment in the much maligned, enjoyed by some, despised by other, Gore Trilogy entitled “Gorotica!” Get ready, gang, cause this one’s going to leave you feeling a little dirtier than our last flick, if you can believe it.

“Gorotica” spins the tale of two band mates, Neil (Dingo Jones) and Max (Bushrude Gutterman), who pull an armed diamond heist in order to score the funds necessary to send their band to California in the hopes of making it big! It’s a really shitty plan. Max has sold Neil on it, but being a leatherclad, crappy guitar-playing punk rock kid in your late 20′s, your whole life is more or less defined by a long string of shitty moves and really stupid decisions. So why not orchestrate a diamond heist so you can move to California for your already flaccid music career?

Speaking of The Grateful Dead…

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before the action even gets going, “Gorotica’s” opening sequence features Carrie (Ghetty Chasun), a curvy, pierced up, well endowed goth chick, as she lays in bed watching a compilation of still shots of dead bodies at various crime scenes and masturbating. Sure, this all seems normal, that is until she pulls a skull out from under her bed and rubs it up and down against her exposed vagina. I watched this as a kid and had the distinct feeling this was actually how goth girls who never grew out of it spent their time. As I got older, I came to realize I wasn’t that far off. It’s only after Carrie has shown off her ample bongos, tried to shove a skull up her love tunnel, and knocked a totally different skull off the top of her television set with her intense, rhythmic, masturbatory gyrations & gushing climax, do our credits begin to roll!

Opening Credits by Atari

Alright, so we first meet pseudoheroes Neil and Max post robbery as they run down a dark alley, stop to catch their breath, and discuss what their next move should be. Seeing as they robbed the store in their every day attire, you know, torn jeans, plaid shirts, leather jackets and ratty haircuts, the police know just who to look for. Hell, the morons didn’t even wear fucking masks when they robbed the place! So, it stands to reason that Max would come up with the idea of swallowing the fist sized diamond they stole for safe keeping and chase with half a handle of bourbon. I don’t even want to imagine what Max’s poor sphincter will be going through when that girl’s best friend passes the threshold. The depressing concoction of blood, tears, and shit is never something I like to comprehend, let alone experience in anyway.

Thankfully, we never have to see this happen as some police officer happens down the exact same alley demanding the two young men freeze. Max pulls out a gun and he and copper exchange warm bullet welcomes, rendering both cop & kid as flat-liners. The police officer dies instantly from his gut shot while Max, on the other hand, survives but is left in critical condition which means we get the pleasure of hearing him whine and groan for the next several minutes as Neil enters a comic relief sequence where he steals a drunk old man’s car. The comic scene plays out like a when you try to fart in order to make someone laugh and then you realize it was a lot wetter than you anticipated and you’ve now shit yourself. It goes from funny to tragic in less than a second. Yeah, it’s that kind of failure.

Gotta look good for those dead bodies I’m gonna be digging up this mid-afternoon!

So, Neil heads off to the local cemetery with his newly dead band mate to lay low for a little bit, and maybe catch a few well-deserved Zzz’s. But guess who happens to be there… SURPRISE! SURPRISE! It’s Carrie! Who has come to the cemetery after an extensively gratuitous make-up sequence, which is obviously just an excuse for the filmmakers to showcase her supernaturally giant knockers, in order to gather some fresh stiffs to fuck. As luck would have it this star-crossed love triangle crosses paths and Carrie introduces herself to the hot and cold duo, Neil and Max, and the rest is history. She offers Neil a place to hide and stash Max’s body for a bit until he sorts things out. I mean, it’s mighty neighborly of Carrie but the fact that Neil isn’t immediately weirded out is a little sad to me. But, again, this guy doesn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders so I guess we can just use that as his excuse.

That a dead guy in your bucket seat or are you just happy to see me?

As soon as Carrie and Neil get to her place and they drop off Max’s body in her bathtub, Neil gets on the horn and contacts his connection, Miss Miles, who set the plan for this whole half-baked heist motion and promised cold, hard cash if they brought her the ice. Course, now that there’s a dead cop in the mix and Captain Bumblefuck is on the FBI’s shit list this ice is now “too hot”, so the situation’s changed a bit. Neil heads out on foot and runs afoul of some very angry police officers looking for his “cop killing ass”. He is held at gunpoint by one officer in civilian garb whose face spastically alters moment to moment like some kind of rodent on speed. The mustache is the icing on his ballistic cake.

This officer’s most dignified facial expression.

However, Neil gets the drop on the two cops by using his patented “Flying Rat” method! As the popo flings Neil into a pile of garbage he retaliates by grabbing some poor, bystander rat and slings the littler dumpster diver at one of the cops! Eat Temptleton, pigs!! And this… works? In terror, the cop discharges his weapon which, luckily, finds purchase right between the eyes of his fellow law enforcement pal. Neil quickly draws his weapon firing several slugs into the gutty works of rodent boy who drops to the piss soaked asphalt and fades into B-movie heaven. Good night, sweet prince! You know, for being so unlucky Neil sure is lucky…Wait a minute…

It’s hard out here for a punk.

While Neil is off getting his face bashed in and throwing rats all over the joint, Carrie is back at her abode fucking the living daylights…er, what’s left of the daylights, out of dear, departed, Max. She undresses his body in the shower and gets to work grabbing his pale arms and caressing herself with them and puppeting his fingers to pinch her nipples. If you ask me, this just seems like some really labor-intensive masturbation. I mean, really, for all the effort of moving the fucking corpse appendages and waiting for rigor mortis to settle in the damn thing’s sausage link you could be done already by just using YOUR OWN APPENDAGES to get this shit done. But, what do I know, I’ve only dabbled in necrophilia. I’m sure once it’s blossomed from experimentation to a serious, full blown addiction, your own touch just doesn’t cut it, anymore. No matter how much ice cold water you soak them in beforehand, the vag just ain’t buyin it.

Necrophilia: Not as easy as it looks.

Anyhoo, after the marathon cold-cut fuck session, Carrie decides to put that almost-cosmetology license to good use and treats Max’s corpse to mohawk makeover. All of a sudden, a bruised-up Neil busts in and is soon unnerved by his lady harborer’s glee that,”He’s starting to stiffen up! All the really good parts! *tee-HEE*” After a brief, one-sided discussion on Neil’s part explaining just how fucked his situation is and how events have “snowballed” he goes off to the crusty living room couch to crash. Carrie, on the other hand, takes the Maxcadaver to bed with her and discusses her family history with him while smoking Pall Malls, then deciding it’s time for another lengthy deep dicking of the dead. Well, damn. I guess it DOES pay to just sit and listen. Neil tries to drown out the disturbingly loud & squishy goth girl necrophiliac noises with couch cushions, firmly deciding,”When I die, I better be fucking cremated!” Because, yeah, heaven for-fucking-bid some gorgeously breasted babe makes use of your body once you’ve departed. I mean, what the hell do you care? Like you’re really doing anything better with it!

Something for the ladies! And the smokers!

The next morning Neil wakes up to find Carrie moving Max’s body out of the apartment. Ummmm… Seems she has other plans for his rotting flesh. It goes without saying, Neil has a bit of an issue with this seeing as in his buddy’s cold, punctured gut sits that gigantic rock that’s the difference between living life on the lam, soaking up some sun in Kokomo or life on the lam bunking in a nicotine stained, musty apartment with a corpse fucker. They get into a bit of a tussle in which Neil seems to have the upper hand after delivering a very slow kung-fu kick to Carrie’s mid-section sending her flipping up and over her Goodwill, filth encrusted love seat. Oh, and manages to flash us all her whole fruit basket in the process! But the tables turn as Carrie grabs a nearby fuck-skull and smashes it over Neil’s head. Before he goes unconscious Carrie forbiddingly quips,”I’m sure when you come to you’ll see things my way. You’ll have no choice! *MANIACAL LAUGH*.” Kinda makes you think he’s going to wake up trapped in a coffin being buried alive, but instead, he just wakes up in the apartment, but Carrie’s left with his pal’s body. He’s not tied up or anything, sooooo, yeah. Neil just leaves.

NEIL DOWN BEFORE CARRIE!

Where did Carrie take Max’s remains, you ask? Well, she spiked up his mohawk and took the guy over to the abode of a flamboyant fellow named Blake. You know, the kind of guy who wears puffy armed shirts and capes. He’s in the market for a dead guy to fuck because he has AIDS (!) and wants to have a partner he can ride bareback. Nice to see people play it safe, I guess. Seems he’s purchased cadavers from Carrie before, but never one this fresh. Lucky dog Blake and corpse-pushing Carrie haggle over the price a bit before agreeing on a deal and Blake gets to town riding his new, well broken in, dead fuck mate. But that’s not all! He throws in some more cash for Carrie and hands her what looks like a trash bag to wear with a holes cut into it so her tits hang out of it and then hands her a whip so she can go all Roots on him whilst he rides Max’s Hershey Highway to Hell. I’m sure this was meant to be disturbing but I cannot help but laugh at Gorotica’s grandiose attempt at being provocative and deeply disturbing. Sorry, gang, but this shit is comedic gold.

Joe Don Baker and Edward Norton share a tender moment.

Somehow, nitwit Neil is able to track Blake’s place down (…?), and with gun drawn he barges through the door and claims the body of Max in name of Asshole. What follows is an action-packed finale where Carrie busts out her Indi Jones moves and disarms Neil with a crack of her whip! Neil stabs Blake to death getting the guy’s blood all in his mouth, eyes, and up his nose in the process thereby, in all likelihood, ensuring that he’s contracted HIV/AIDS. Carrie, who can see the bright side of everything, points at the guy, explains his now very topical 90′s doomed dileama, and laughs her ass off. You gotta admit, it is pretty funny. Neil doesn’t quite see the humor in it and blows Carrie away. He FINALLY cuts Max’s stomach open and locates the hidden diamond within. Hastily giving the diamond an unnecessary tongue bath (ew), Neil heads to some seedy motel where he shaves his head into a Travis Bickle style mohawk, douses himself with gasoline and booze, and waits for Miss Miles splayed naked in bed. Miss Miles shows up, gets an eye full, comments on the strong smell of GASOLINE in the motel room and still, as Neil sits on the edge of his bed and put a cigarette to his lips, gives him a light upon request thereby sealing both their fates. Or so I assume as whatever happens after she flicks the Bic happens off camera.

And so ends, Hugh Gallagher’s bizarre, unintentionally comical, mildly boner inducing, low budget horror cult sophomore effort, “Gorotica”!

Immolating oneself is sooooo erotic! Excuse me, Gorotic. A. Gorotica.

I’ve heard the hand full of fans of this series call Gorotica a huge disappointment after Gorgasm because this follow up doesn’t feature any of the gore the title promises. Personally, I’m really okay with this because Gorotica is a far better movie, if you ask me. The acting’s better, the streamlined, MILDLY believable story doesn’t just kind of make sense, it’s actually relatively coherent! Sure, there’s not much gore in this second entry in the trilogy, but that’s a moot point when you have such goofy story that hunkers down and takes a little bit of time to tell it’s terribly trashy tale. It’s not a good movie, at all, but it feels like Gallagher has grown a little bit as a video maker. Not a whole lot, I mean, the man’s no Scorsese, but he doesn’t over reach. It’s a small scale story that can be handled on the cheap and doesn’t have an over reliance of effects the man has never been able to pay t have pulled of at all effectively.

The performances are uniformly bad, but you know what, they’re a damn sight better than the performances in “Gorgasm.” Gutterman makes an outstanding corpse, to be honest, rivaling Kim Basinger in tom Petty’s Last Dance with Mary Jane video. In my opinion, the glue that holds this thing together? Ghetty Chasun as Carrie. She may not be a great actress, but she has plenty of charisma, is always game for whatever is thrown her way in the film, doesn’t mind showing off her goods and is pretty easy on the eyes, which you can’t really say about the lead in “Gore Whore”, Gallagher’s final installment in the Gore Trilogy. It’s always fun watching Ghetty Chasun on screen, whether it’s mingling with an AIDS infected necrophiliac wearing a cape or putting out her cigarette in an ashtray balanced on a naked dead guy’s chest, I just can’t keep my eyes off of her.

Desperately Seeking Ghetty. We miss you!

What the Hell ever happened to Ms. Chasun, anyway? She did a handful of flicks in the 90′s and then just kind of vanished off the face of the earth. IMDB lists her birth date, her measurements, (36C-29-38 according to the experts) and that she’s a Capricorn. If anyone has any information as to how Ghetty’s doing or if she’d be interested in doing an interview, drop your pal The Primal Root a line, will ya?

Gorotica is a more mature and more refined offering from Gallagher (which isn’t saying much) and if you can get past the fact that there simply isn’t that much GORE in GORotica, this flick’s actually a pretty fun piece of stinky Trash Cinema. And in this Trash Cinema Connoisseur’s eyes, Gorotica is the strongest flick in the Trilogy. But, it could just be my unhealthy crush on Ms. Chasun talking…

Stay Trashy!

-Root

May

Gorgasm: The Ultimate Climax

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Gorgasm The Ultimate Climax
Tags: blood, film, comedy, Gore, movie, sex, bad, weed, nudity, Tallahassee, porn, freak, tripping, tits, boobs, breasts, Florida, murder, crazy, killing, guns, store, naughty, massacre, chase, hilarious, house, dream, nightmare, video, trip, sleazy, terrible, straight, topless, freaks, VHS, cops, detective, investigation, Cop, Gun, scene, wife, husband, grandma, kill, crime, montage, slimy, vagina, independent, marriage, b-movie, corpse, unintentional, poor, insane, pornography, adult, writer, married, fetish, bondage, masochisim, sadisim, gorgasm, Hugh, Gallagher, trilogy, Gabriela, Rik Billock, George Romero, Bill Hinzman, Illinois, poilce, bullets, combat, living room, producer, director, mechete, weed whacker, whacker, weedwhacker, strangle, strangling, Winn-Dixie, call girl, call girls, Sarge, drinking, alcoholic, psychopath, sequence, STV, video tape, video tapes, dungeon, lair, hideout

a Primal Root review

Over the course of my lifetime I’ve come to realize a man happens upon many milestones. Moments in this life that stand out above all others as life altering. Experiences that leave you stunned, silent, and with the deep realization that you are a changed man and you…will never be the same again. I had one such moment my sophomore year of high school when I trekked to Video 21 and, after an exhaustive blind search of the Cult section, I emerged to head to the check out counter with a trio of films that were about to not only solidify my adoration for all things sleazy, cheap, low budget and trashy, but would also cast my love of this most despised of genres in bronze ensuring my love would last a lifetime.

Sorry, I realize that last part sounds like an add for Precious Moments Baby Shoe Bronzing. Stick with me.

I took home a trilogy of films written, produced and directed by Hugh Gallagher that I have grown to dub “The Gore Trilogy.” It’s a series of three woefully inept, shot on video horror films that have no thematic connection besides the talent behind the camera and their creative penchant for finding new ways to use the word “Gore” in all their titles. These films are Gorgasm (1990), Gorotica (1993) and Gore Whore (1994).

In the Trial of The Primal Root vs. Misspent Youth, your honor, may we enter into evidence Exhibit A.

Let it be stated, I had no idea what exactly I was walking into with this trio of grainy, poorly made, laughably bad, sexually freakish videos, but I believe they are part of what shaped me into the demented Trash Cinema lover that I am today. Now, well over a decade later, I feel it is time to once again take a look at Hugh Gallagher’s video legacy and share the slimy, mind boggling oddities that make up “The Gore Trilogy”.

First up, Hugh’s directorial debut, the aptly named “Gorgasm: The Ultimate Climax”.

Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!

Our film begins with the rarest of horror movie standards, the opening soliloquies! Which has no real bearing on the story at hand other than introducing us to our eternally greasy, bug eyed, sports coat donning hero, Chase played by Rik Billock, who I was shocked to learn has a rather impressive filmography that includes parts in films like George Romero’s Stephen King adaptation “The Dark Half” and the late Bill Hinzman’s “Flesheater”. He shares such soul searching deep thoughts as “Religion prepares us for death. Why didn’t anyone prepare me for life?” from behind a lit cigarette, and gets so damned into his little diatribe that he nearly busts out into community theater style tears by monologue’s end. Again, this is about a five minute spoken word performance right at the beginning of the movie that has nothing to do with ANYTHING that follows. Now this is how you reel an audience in!

Okay, well, maybe the opening title card is a better was to make sure your audience stays in their seat.

Oh man! they just gave away the whole plot!

Soon enough we are introduced to homicidal call girl and power tool enthusiast, Tara, brought to ever-loving life by fully stacked actress, Gabriela, who only has three other films to her credit after her leading role in “Gorgasm” and two of them reference anal penetration in their titles. Basically, Tara is a high priced call girl who spreads her message through personal ads in scuzzy adult magazines offering “Gorgasm: The Ultimate Climax”. What service does she provide, you ask? Well, for every dime you have, Tara will come over, tie you up, spin in circles while wearing cheesy Spencer’s Gifts style lingerie. She will then reveal her gargantuan breasts for you to ogle before she brutally murders you!

In fact, our first scene in the film proper is one such business transaction as she spins about, in what looks to be my Grandmother’s kitchen circa 1985, in front of a hairy, sweaty man bound and gagged to a lovely antique dining room table. Tara kicks it up a notch as she begins blasting her cassette tape of the obscure, high energy tune, “Sex Toy”, pops her melons out of the chute and cuts off her neglige with an apparently very dull butcher knife. Her customer doesn’t seem to mind.

I feel good about myself!

He doesn’t even seem to mind when she begins slicing into his midsection with that big knife of hers, and when I say he doesn’t mind, I mean he doesn’t even flinch as the blade draws large drips of blood with each slash across the man’s chest and gratuitous beer belly. In all honesty, the captive, paying client looks almost bored at this point. Shit, he doesn’t even register a reaction when Tara eventually approaches from behind, drapes her ample rack around his bright red neck, like one of those Air Mall stress pillow deal, before hacking his jugular wide open! The fella’s head tips forward and that’s it! Gone! Scianora! Obviously, money well spent.

Detective Chase, who works in a police station that was apparently built by the wood paneling commission of Illinois, is introduced to us officially as the bottom of the barrel desk dwelling detective no one wants to actually put on a case. Seems he’s more valuable to the force as a paperwork drone. To his amazement, Sarge (played by mulleted and minimalist actress Paula Hendrix in her one and only screen credit) brings the case involving the throat slashing incident to his desk and asks him to take the lead! Chase is overjoyed until he’s informed it’s only until Detective Sanchez recovers from a cold or something. What I’m saying is that this is temporary. But this doesn’t stop chase from giving the case everything he’s got!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t make mention of the strange little subplot starring filmmaker Hugh Gallagher’s wife, Paula Gallagher, as Nicole, a woman whose boyfriend wants her to beat him up and sodomize him. She calls him a pervert, breaks up with him, and then plants her knee into his man bits giving him what he probably wanted, anyway. As he drops to the floor sobbing and nursing his jollies, she rushes out the door and back to work at the local Winn-Dixie where she seeks solace in co-worker and possible crypt keeper, Connie (Debbie Patterson). Nicole is convinced by Connie that she might just like kicking the crap out of her weasel of a boyfriend and by the time Nicole returns home she is decked out head to toe in fetish gear looking to enter her fellas fantasy kingdom.

Nicole gets a lesson in love at the local Winn-Dixie supermarket. They are the self proclaimed “Beef People”, after all.

Only she is too late! Her boyfriend has called up Tara and her Gorgasmic services which Nicole walks in on just in time to catch Tara in bed with her man and tearing meaty chunks out of his throat with an industrial weed whacker (!) Now, Nicole could have totally escaped this scenario as Tara is so caught up in her work she doesn’t even notice the near-naked, towering, leathery skinned blonde woman who just walked into the room. Sadly, Nicole trips over the weed whacker chord thereby alerting Tara to her presence. It is only after a very close call with the Tara and her weed whacker of death in the bathroom that Nicole goes for the escape only to trip over her super woman stilettos and sealing her fate. Tara gets down to the nitty gritty and starts choking a bitch. What really makes this scene work is how Tara tells Nicole how she gets paid “good money” to do this and NOT TO WORRY! “I won’t charge you for this.” This plot thread is worth mentioning because it is never brought up again. The crime scene is never discovered and no one even talks about it. Then again, you look at the police force we’re dealing with, and it’s hard to believe that this is a plot hole.

The Porn Industries’ Seedy Underbelly Welcomes You! In fact, this guy might be my favorite character in the whole movie. No lie.

Chase’s investigation takes him to the seedy underbelly of the porn industry in Hamel Illinois as the detective follows leads to understocked adult stores for lengthy montages of his shopping spree, grotesque XXX film producers who seem to have some form of Downs Syndrome intermingling with Tourettes, and even to the blood-drenched aftermath of one of Tara’s “Gorgasm” get togethers. One of the better ones, too! This is the aftermath of her most Jigsaw-esque slaying which involved a rope attached to a garage door opener and then tied around some asshole’s neck. At the scene of the crime Sarge calls this “A brilliant device.” Lady, it’s a garage door opener and a rope. Come on.

What a magnificent device! I’ve never seen anything like this! This woman’s a GENIUS!

During this murder sequence Tara opens up to her next victim and openly discusses her deceased husband who was a”beautiful” man and enjoyed being pushed to the very limits of pleasure and pain. However, it’s a one-sided conversation as her victim is gagged and cannot respond at all to Tara’s sad story of how her husband liked to be whipped repeatedly and have his balls stomped upon. The typical story of star-crossed lovers. In fact, Tara even as a creepy dummy she keeps suspended from the ceiling of her lair of sexual evils that she talks to and calls “sweetheart”. She also practices her lashing skills on the thing.

Don’t think for a second Tara doesn’t have a softer side, though. A hidden part of her personality is revealed in a sequence that comes out of left field in which Tara drives out to a sewage retention pond near a busy overpass to bask in the sun and frolic in nature amongst the rusty discarded beer cans and crunchy used condoms. She spots a rotting romance novel as she gazes over an abandoned, rotten motel, and reads a passage about tender, gentle love that moves her to pick up a red-faced, mulleted youth and fuck him in a motel room. Now that’s romance! Anyhoo, she whips out the hooters, kind of gets near him and then backs off only to break his neck and fondle his dead penis. I guess the lady knows what she likes. Highlight of this scene, and the reason I even brought it up, is when the actor playing the seduced youth hops into bed he unintentionally bashes his noggin against the head board with an audible “CRAUNCH”. He can’t play it off, let’s out an anguished “ARRGGHH!” before rubbing his head in pain, and then settling down for the loving he’s sure is coming right around the corner. I’m sure this guy just reeks of Miller High Life and Slim Jims.

I don’t feel “brain damage” is much of a concern in this guy’s case.

Just as Chase is making some headway on the “Gorgasm” case he is pulled off of it as Sanchez has fully recovered from his slight cough and Chase swears he will make them all pay! Yeah, the only people who will be paying is the audience who must endure a slow motion dream sequence of his in which he wears a super tiny black pair of underoos and seduces a handcuffed Tara in his living room before slugging her in the face. Out of all the visuals in “Gorgasm” the only one that haunts me is seeing Chase nearly nude and trying to be sexy while coated in a thing layer of perspiration and nicotine, his thinning blonde hair in greasy disarray and his bugged-out eyes starring into my soul. I’ve seen countless horror films and, to my dismay, this is the image that’s haunted my nightmares for over a decade.

Enough about me, Chase decides to take matters into his own hands, contacts Tara through a personal add, and sets up a “combat” date where only one will leave alive. Of course Tara is totally down with this, but how they both know the dress code of this engagement without ever discussing it has me wondering if this movie has a very subtle supernatural underpinning to it. How else do you explain Chase wearing a camouflaged shirt & slacks combo and Tara showing up in a fetching matched camou bikini? Really, what better way to blend in with a middle class suburban living room? Maybe they both just have similar fashion sense? Either way, I guess it illustrates just how similar these two characters are. Or something…?

Tara and Chase: A lot alike? I see two BIG differences right off the bat.

They lock eyes, Chase draws his gun, Tara draws her machete, and the combat is on! Immediately Tara loses her top so she has to spend the rest of the chase bouncing her large breasts all over the screen as she runs from the equally floppy Detective Chase. Tara runs for the garage to hide which leads to one of the funniest moments of the entire film. Chase, gun in hand, slowly walks into the garage, hand first, now knowing Tara is hiding right next to the door on the opposite side with her trusty machete raised high above her head. In a split second Chase loses both his weapon and hand to the evil call girl! He soon passes out as his nemesis stares him down, no doubt figuring out her next move…In the end, it takes both characters to a fate neither one could have seen coming. Although the audience probably did. Let’s just say there are some mind blowing reveals and guns going off in the place you’d ever want them to go off.

Shock? Pain? Or does he smell Alpo?

Let’s just say, by the end of “Gorgasm” there are no clear winners. Hell, there’s really no clear nice guy or bad guy! Everyone is up to no good. I suppose, in some strange way, Tara is not really the villain of the piece. She’s kind of an anti-hero, I mean, sure she kills people in hilariously gruesome ways but it’s what her clients want! I mean, she’s running a business, yes? Someone wants their head ripped off by a spinning topless woman? So be it, I say! The customer is always right.

Can’t say she didn’t get a little head during her killing spree. HA! Be sure to tip your waitress…

“Gorgasm” is a fucking TERRIBLE movie. There is nothing good about it. From the “acting” to the cinematography, writing, and gore effects absolutely nothing in this film works! I mean, there’s a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet of Gabriela’s tits on display but those breasts are probably the only thing of any quality note. Still, as I’m sure you all know, quality does not always determine watchability! Despite its near infinite flaws, “Gorgasm” still manages to be hysterical, exploitative, cheesy, and pretty damn entertaining. It’s a slice of the trash cinema pie that’s more of an acquired taste than most. Those who can enjoy films such as Troll 2 and Samurai Cop would probably be the core audience for this kind of flick.

Tastes like lime!

“Gorgasm”, the first entry in Hugh Gallagher’s Gore Trilogy, is probably the weakest entry but still manages to deliver on the lame-o unintentional hilarity and the sleazeball tits and gore. Not even a cult film, more of a forgotten, never was sort of nada flick, “Gorgasm” is one for the hardcore fans of all things Trash. Be warned, this flick is not for the faint of heart. It’s almost unfathomably bad, but for a certain group of us, it’s the most wonderfully perfect kind of bad imaginable.

Soon to come, The Primal Root’s review of the Second Entry in Hugh Gallagher’s Gore Trilogy, “Gorotica”!

Stay Trashy!

-Root

May

Carnosaur (93): Handpuppets from Hell

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Carnosaur
Tags: Adam Simon, animal, attack, babies, baby, beast, birth, blood, budgetm indie, butcher, Carnosaur, chains, cheap, chicken, chickens, Clint, Clint Howard, comedy, community, Corman, corporation, Darren Moloney, decapitation, Dian Ladd, diner, dinosaurs, domination, Eggs, evil, evolution, extinct, extinction, Fake, flesh, funny, genetics, genius, Gore, government, gravy, hand, hatch, heartland, horror, Howard, independent, Jennifer Runyon, Jurassic Park, killer, low, massacre, mean, Monster, nasty, peeing, piss, poultry, protest, puppet, Raphael Sbarge, ripped, Roger, sci-fi, science, science fiction, sheriff, small town, sneaky, sneeze, south west, Speilberg, splatter, Stan winston, sterilization, teenagers, teens, terrorisim, torn, trapped, unprovoked, violence, virus, wet, World

a Primal Root review

“It’s heading this way!” – Smith, Carnosaur

If there is one thing we’ve learned from good ol’ Roger Corman is that you sure as Hell don’t need the same budget as the big boys to beat them at their own game and rake in a little money for yourself. Case in point, Carnosaur, a low budget dino-chicken on the loose tale made strictly to make money off the then upcoming Speilberg project some of you may have heard of “Jurassic Park”. In fact, Carnosaur was released merely two weeks before the Jurassic Park showed up on the scene to break all kinds of box office records and usher in a new era of innovation in special effects. Therefore, Carnosaur did exactly what it was designed to do and scraped up some profit by riding the coat tails of the oncoming giant and undoubtedly falls into the Mockbuster sub-genre.

That being said, there are few similarities between Carnosaur and Jurassic Park. In all actuality Carnosaur is one bizarrely unique horror film, at least in concept. The story proper involved an evil geneticist, Dr. Jane Tiptree (played by Diane Ladd, of all people), who has hatched an idea to destroy humanity by bringing dinosaurs back onto the playing field through genetically altered chickens. I shit you not, these dinosaurs are born of omelets as these poor hens grow gigantic dinosaur eggs within them and explode in a gush of blood rather than actually laying the damn things. One by one these clucking little guys rip and pop open to reveal the dino-egg prize within. Poor chickens, that’s pretty fucking rough no matter what animal you are. Save a leg for me!

Anyhoo, these dinosaurs begin raising Hell all over the American south west as they attack just about every human being in sight, and in some cases, teleporting to do so. These dinosaurs get around, man. From a pick -up truck full horny teens to some Native American fellow who is introduced just long enough to have his lower intestine yanked out of him and slurped down by a couple Carnosaurs as if this was Hershel Gordon Lewis’s personal version of Disney’s Lady and the Tramp. One has to wonder if these damn things ever get full because they devour just about any and everything their gaze happens to fall upon.

but the dino-chicks aren’t the true plan, only a red herring. See, Tiptree has created a type of virus that will steadily kill us all and prompt the female of our species to ACTUALLY CONCEIVE THE DINOS and then GIVE GRAPHIC, BLOODY, PAINFUL BIRTH to the little jerks! Thing Alien or Humanoids from the Deep if you want something to compare it to. It’s nasty, it’s mean and it’s pretty damn messy.

All that stands in Dr. Tiptrees way is a drunk asshole and an environmental activist who must aside their differences to fight the good fight against dinosaur baby birthing and basic disemboweling by dinosaur in general. The pacifistic idealistic Ann, aka: Thrush, becomes an trigger happy dino killer once her Eco-concerned gang chains themselves to some bulldozers in protest of…um, stuff that hurts the environment and end up getting chewed into hash by a rampaging, munch happy, dinosaur in a harrowing sequence. Did I say harrowing? I meant hilarious. The cheese factor is through the roof on this one and my favorite moment of this massacre has got to be when one young lady ends up getting her leg taken off by an adorable little dinosaur. She screams, kicks and fights but once her leg is gone and she begins to spew geysers of blood from her fresh leg stump she seems kind of okay with it. No longer screaming or reacting at all, really, she just sits and seemingly contemplates, calmly, the fate of her appendage.

Now, the resident alcoholic named Smith, his motivations are a little less clear. He is somehow tied to the evil corporation responsible for these dinosaurs and the killer dino-preggo virus, but his official position from what I can gather is “Passed Out Drunk In Mobile Home”. Now, he could be some kind of guard or something who watches over all the equipment right outside his door, but if that’s the case, the man is a pretty big fuck up allowing protestors to chain themselves to the equipment and then going out to dinner while said protestors become dino chow. Why he begins a campaign to infiltrate the evil corporation and put a stop to their shenanigans is vague. Either the small lake of blood that used to be his front door has given him a new found respect for human life or he is now in the throws of the nookie monster as he has overcome his whiskey dick thanks to the blonde, militant and cute as a button environmentalist, Ann aka: Thrush.

There’s no telling, but the film reaches it’s awesome climax as the government shows up to neutralize the situation by killing every single living thing in sight and it is left up to Thrush and Smith to take down the big daddy Tyrannosaurus-Rex with by battling the creature with industrial load bearing equipment. Really, it’s the action packed climax Jurassic Park only wishes it had.

Carnosaur is not to be taken seriously by any means. In fact, the things a pretty ridiculous experience to sit through. From the opening credits informing us that chickens are being cross bred with vultures and iguanas (?) to the very first appearance of the gut bustingly funny appearance of the forced perspective hand puppet dinosaur and then the films laughably goofy final act, Carnosaur is the epitome of the guilty pleasure, bad movie night viewing experience. The thing has one very strange concept going for it, some game actors and the thing sure as Hell doesn’t skimp on the gore or arterial spray. And a performance by the inimitable Clint howard, and you have yourself on Hell of a Grade-A ticket to B-Movie paradise!

Bottom Line, Jurassic Park might be considered a modern day classic. Even a milestone in contemporary cinema tic history. Carnosaur, in my humble opinion, is it’s own milestone. Few horror movies have captured the horror of being eaten by a dinosaur and the prospect of child birth and combined the two so well! Name another film that taps into this uncharted nightmare terrain! Sure, the film is silly as all get out, has sock puppet dinosaurs that are far more adorable than they are menacing, and our heroes are all rather unlikeable, but at the end of the day, Carnosaur is pretty dang entertaining for a total piece of cash-in schlock.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Apr

The Innkeepers: Clean Linens and Dead Ends

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: The Innkeepers
Tags: 11, 2011, abandoned, alone, ambiguous, Angry, basement, bird, Bird's, blood, bottomless, Bride, cellar, century, chase, child, children, Claire, clen linen, coffee, comedy, corridors, crotch, crush, crystal, cute, dark, Darkness, dead end, death, disturbed, embarassed, embarassing, employeed, end, ending, endless, EVP, flash, Florida, fun, Gary Numan, ghost, ghostly, Ghosts, hallways, Healy, hipster, horror, hotel, inn, Innkeepers, investigation, job, joke, jokes, Kelly McGillis, Kevin Cole, left behind, living, locked, long, love, Luke, minimum wage, motel, Mother, murder, mystery, nerd, nerds, nerdy, one hundred years, Pat Healy, Paxton, Peddler, Pedlar, pendulum, pigeon, primal, psychic, purgatory, Root, Sara Paxton, scary, schlitz, secret, shock, shocking, silent, slacker, slackers, spirit, spirits, stranger, suicide, Tallahassee, Terror, The Innkeepers, Ti West, towels, trapped, uncertain, underwear, unrequited, unseen, vagina, video 21, weekend, Yankee

a Primal Root review

Okay Gang, I’m going to try REAL hard not to spoil anything about “The Innkeepers.” You have my word that spoilers will be kept to a minimum.

I remember hearing of Ti West’s “The House of the Devil” through the horror fan grapevine as a cinematic experience those who watched either loved or hated. I decided to give it a go and became a member of the former category. I loved “The House of the Devil” and felt it’s quirky, patient approach to building suspense and creating a genuine atmosphere of dread was so refreshing it almost felt totally new in a cinematic culture where most films are slashed to ribbons in the editing process and paced to the heart rate of a Starbucks junkie. Sure, this technique is nothing new and was perfected by the likes of Hitchcock and De Palma and Carpenter, but to see a young, fresh out the gates filmmaker like Ti West utilize a form of cinematic story telling that seemed all but forgotten instantly made the young man an artist I wanted to keep tabs on.

Enter, “The Innkeepers”, West’s most recent effort. The story of two slacker employees Claire (Sara Paxton from The Last House on the Left remake) and Luke (Pat Healy from Rescue Dawn) of the very soon to be shut down and demolished Yankee Pedlar Inn, a three story, turn of the century kind of place with awesome wallpaper, hard wood floors and the obligatory legend of a tragic death and enduring haunting therein. As the last two employees on staff at the Yankee Pedlar, Clair and Luke take the opportunity to down some cheap beer and launch a full scale investigation into the legendary haunting of deceased bride-to-be, Madeline O’Malley which Luke claims to have encountered on several occasions.

The duo busts out their recording equipment to try and capture some EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) and set the stage for the possibility of a ghostly encounter. And honestly, one gets the impression that these two are investigating more our of sheer boredom than any passionate interest. However, as some curious happenings begin to manifest around Clair and Luke they are advised by one of the only guests they have that weekend, Leanne (Kelly McGillis from Top Gun (!) ) who is a former TV actress turned psychic medium. She comes to Claire as a friend and offers a possible guide to the spirit world while also offering some well timed significant New Age wisdom and a dark warning…

“The Innkeepers” is one scary mother fucking movie. It finally dawned on me that, really, if there’s one genre of horror sure to really get me rattled it’s the kind that involves hauntings and ghosts. Ghosts are a tricky subject in horror movies because they can be handled improperly like they were in the remake of “Paranormal Activity” (2009) or “Insidious” (2011) where everything is revealed, everything explained and everything is showcased in the light of day and leaves nothing to the imagination. I have always been of the opinion that scariest thing we will ever face is that which we don’t understand and what’s left up to us to imagine. Always, this will be far more frightening than anything a filmmaker and his effects crew could ever create and showcase.

For the majority of “The Innkeepers” we join Claire and Luke in their final, modest, quest to seek any kind of proof of the supernatural at The Yankee Peddler. We see only what they see, hear what they hear and many times adopt their point of view as the camera track closely behind them keep the frame claustrophobic and tense as the viewer joins them in the investigation. Often there’s nothing but silence or the hum of static piping through headphones as they listen to what they’re recording. I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation being drawn in both wanting something to happen and being incredibly fucking nervous as to the when and what might be revealed or heard. It’s a film that realizes we’ve seen this sort of film before and that we are familiar with the beats. “The Innkeepers” defies our expectations and repeatedly scares the shit out of the viewer. They may be jump scares, but they are well earned and serve the purpose of the story at hand.

Not only are the scares and techniques used to deliver them excellent, but so is the cast at hand. Our star player, Sara Paxton gives a very genuine and game performance as the adorable, nerdy slacker, Claire. She finds herself in the center of the storm during the proceedings and manages to play up her distress well and also proves to be quite the comedian to boot. Paxton is imminently watchable and young actress I look forward to seeing more from. Pat Healy as Luke is a great foil to Claire and generates some great laughs with his deadpan, sarcastic performance. Like Paxton, Healy is called upon to both be very believably funny and terrified. The brother pulls it off in spades. Kelly McGillis is fantastic as the resident psychic, Leanne, a once famous TV star with a gift for communicating with the other side. As the films most prominent supporting player she proves believable and essential to the tale and really grounds the film in reality. “The Innkeepers” benefits greatly from her presence.

“The Innkeepers” brings to mind Kubrick’s “The Shining” by way of Kevin Smith’s “Clerks”. It’s the story of two intelligent but unmotivated young adults working a literal dead-end job and floating rudderless. When Clair is asked by Leanne what she does Claire can only respond with an awkward and unsure “I’m kind of between things.” as if she’s never given a single thought to what will be coming next for her. Claire and Luke are very real and well developed characters that feel like people we know. Hell, what might be even stranger is that these characters might even be many of us, stuck in lame jobs and having resigned ourselves to them with no clue as to how we could ever better our situation. These characters wonder the silent, ancient halls of The Yankee Peddler looking for the smallest evidence that there is something more there. Evidence that there could be any truth to legend of Madeline O’Malley. It may seem like a futile search to some, pointless even when faced with the crushing reality of oncoming unemployment, but the truth is that some of us might never find anything better than what we’ve got and grown accustomed to. Many find themselves in the exact same trap Claire and Luke find themselves in. Walking the halls of the place they can’t stand in a kind of purgatory.I can think of few things scarier than that.

Well, beside mother fucking ghosts…

The Innkeepers is an intelligent and brilliantly constructed horror film. One that doesn’t spoon feed it’s story or characters to the audience. The Yankee Peddler itself feels like a character int he film, much in the same way The Overlook Hotel played the same sort of significance in the proceedings of The Shining. Every hall tells a story, every room has witnessed thousands of tales unfold. One can only imagine what frightening memories such a place might have. And this is the ultimate strength if “The Inkeepers”, we are given the ammunition necessary to fill in the blanks and imagine many of the films horrors. Some are blatant and in your face, but “The Innkeepers” is a smart enough film to allow room for mystery, ambiguity and interpretation. The mark of truly good film is that it trust it’s audience and doesn’t talk down to it. “The Innkeepers” is just such a film.

It’s a slow burn that takes it’s time to build up the suspense and lay on the dread as thick as molasses while dropping in some well timed laughs and plenty of fun, snappy banter. Ti West knocked it out of the park with this one, yes, “The Innkeepers” is well worth the visit.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Apr

Castle Freak: Inherit Madness

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Castle Freak
Tags: 1990's, 1995, 90's, 95, abuse, anger, bad, Barbara Crampton, battle, beating, blindness, bling, blood, bloody, bondage, bound, Bride, brutal, Castle, Castle Freak, Cat, cat and mouse, chains, chase, child, cinema, cole, collective, creep, creeper, cunnilingus, dark, daughter, death, driving, drunk, family, Florida, forgiveness, freak, From Beyond, Full Moon, Full Moon Pictures, Gore, gross, grotesque, guilt, handicapped, Hell, heritage, hiding, history, hooker, husband, Italian, Italy, Jeffery Combs, Kevin, killer, lies, love, male, malevolent, metaphor, mirror, missing, misunderstood, Monster, murder, mutilation, mystery, naked, nasty, nipple, nudity, old, Oral, penis, primal, prostitute, rape, re-animator, redemption, rescue, rooftop, Root, royalty, sacrifice, scrotum, secret, secrets, servant, sex, showdown, son, starved, starving, Stuart Gordon, Tallahassee, Trash, violence, virgin, viscious, whips, wife

a Primal Root review

Inheriting a castle in Italy has to be pretty dang cool. Finding out you’re descended from royalty? That’s the icing on top of the hoity-toity cake to which so many aspire. Yeah, it all seems great on paper until you take your horrendously dysfunctional family there to assess the situation and sell that hunk of junk off to the highest bidder. It’s drafty, dull, dusty and, making matters worse, your wife hates your guts no matter where you take her and the one surviving kid is still blind and your single digit son is still pavement pizza due to your dumb, alcoholic ass driving the family mini…vehicle over a small hill and flipping the vehicle at 25 MPH. Or 85 MPH in sped up film time…

And then, of course, there’s a horrifying, psychotic, mutilated freak chained up in the castle’s basement. Buyer beware.

TOUCHDOWN!

Castle freak is, at it’s very core, the story of a family dealing with a heart crushingly tragic incident where the family patriarch and reformed alcoholic, John Riley (played pitch perfectly by Gordon collaborator Jeffery Combs) managed to get completely shit-faced before picking up his teenage daughter and 5 year old son during a torrential down pour and then swerving off road resulting in the death of the son and blinding daughter, Rebecca (played by a very game and sympathetic Jessica Dollarhide). Of course, there are some resentment issues between John and his gorgeous wife, Susan (always reliable Barbara Crampton) who apparently lives to torture and be spiteful towards John every second of every single day therefore turning his life into a Hell on Earth of guilt, regret, and shame.

As you can tell, the story is already pretty dreadful before there’s even a freak for the family to contend with.

The Reilly’s move into their new castle after the old woman who was living there died in her bed from a heart attack after beating the chained up freak in the basement within and inch of it’s life which looked to have been a long standing supper time tradition and Casa de le Freak. This poor creature has obviously never known affection, love or humanity living a life of agony chained up and naked down in the dank bowels of The Reilly castle. Much like John Reilly himself, who is living a life of pain due to his past mistakes and the fact his wife reminds him about it on a near minute by minute basis that he’s responsible for the death of their son.

Castle Freak is a far cry from the what we’ve come to expect from a Gordon, Combs, Crampton, collaboration. Typically fun,m over the top and colorful, Castle Freak is drastically different. Thee pacing takes it’s time, and the whole story is just gruelingly sad. This is not Re-Animator or From Beyond by a long shot. In fact, it’s a very dark and honest look at redemption, forgiveness and family as John must defend his family from what could be seen as his horrific doppelganger, his id or symbolizing the young Reilly boy whose memory they still cling to and is tearing the whole family apart. There are no laughs to be found here and no easy outs in Castle Freak. This is straight ahead horror dealing with some pretty real issues. Only these real issues are set against the backdrop of an Italian castle with a freak looking to molest your cute little blind teenage daughter and frame you for the murder of a hooker and your housekeeper. For a freak, this guy is surprisingly crafty.

Castle Freak Foreplay: Not nearly as fun as you'd imagine.

One night, after Susan gives John a particularly vindictive verbal thrashing, John heads to a local watering hole where he quickly jumps off the wagon. And who can really blame the guy? He takes shot, after shot of some kind of counterfeit rot gut and ends up taking a whore back to his castle’s wine seller where he eagerly chows down on her bowl of “Down South” spaghetti.Again, you can totally understand his need to feel the touch and connection to another person. Trouble is, he happens to be performing in front of a captive audience as the Castle Freak studies John’s moves like he’s preparing for the S.A.T.’s. And you know castle freaks, they are more than happy to go after the sloppy seconds…

As our hooker goes to leave the castle, it’s resident freak abducts her, chains her up and has his way with her including a graphic nipple eating and a sickening reveal of the Freak’s genital region that’s sure to make your stomach churn. In fact, the film seems to focus quite liberally on the Freak’s disturbing genitals which, I suppose, does make some sense since that is kind of the Freak’s motivating factor. Looking for affection, someone to be close and have sex with. Or, director Stuart Gordon could have simply just wanted to showcase a little something for the ladies. Soak it in, girls! Still, even though the Freak, in my estimation, is only looking for compassion, tenderness and a connection to another living creature, he can;t for the life of him understand how to give these things. Remember, this is a person whose entire life since birth has been spend locked away, abused and mutilated only ever understanding violence and pain. How Freak goes about violently raping the hooker, yet mimicking what he witnessed John do to her, furthers this point. That violence begets violence.

Feel the Excitement!

But, I digress, at the threat of spoiling the whole sleazy, blood encrusted, drippy scrotum flopping affair, let’s just say Castle Freak is a one sad, violent, and effective story of redemption. The story of one man’s quest to find meaning and forgiveness in a world that refuses to see past his mistakes and misdeeds and see the man who is in need of compassion and just wants to feel human again. Now, am I talking about John or the Castle Freak of our title or both?

Stuart Gordon’s Castle Freak pulls off an impressive feat in capturing some very deep, dark, human situations and maintaining a fairly well paced and interesting story. As a viewer you grow to like most of the characters, and even the unlikable few are at the very least, you can understand where they’re coming from. And for a film made in a creepy castle with a miniscule budget, Castle Freak works thanks to some spot on performances, creative shot compositions, great make-up/gore effects and also gains a lot of atmosphere from the genuine Italian castle where the action is set. Which just happens to be owned by the president of Full Moon Pictures.

Castle Freak isn’t exactly a fun, crowd pleasing movie experience but is still a fine piece of trash cinema. One that will certainly speak to anyone who has ever made a grievous mistake and feels they are destined to pay for it the rest of their lives. Even if we can;t directly relate viewers will empathize and come to understand that there really are a number of fates that can feel worse than death. Only through love, forgiveness and understanding can we ever truly regain what makes us human.

And a good bit of reconstructive surgery and upper plate dental work in the case of The Castle Freak…

Love may be blind but she can still smell you, Freak.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Mar

Necropolis (1987): Of Satan, Flattops and Eyeliner

By primalroot 2 Comments

Categories: Necropolis: City of the Dead (1987)
Tags: 1980's, 1987, 6, 666, 80's, 87, Andrew Bausili, Aslan, bad sets, beer, blood, boobs, Bruce Hickey, Catholic, cheesy, children, dance, detective, devil, drugs, ecto-cooler, ectoplasam, Eva, evil, fridge, George Anthony-Rayza, Gore, Halfway House, Hi-C, homicidal, horror, hypnosis, interpritive, Jacquie Fitz, Jett Julian, kids, killer, kung-pow chicken, LeeAnne Baker, living dead, Michael Conte, minions, murder, necromancer, Necropolis, New Amsterdam, New York, nudity, period piece, police, possession, priest, primal, reincarnation, review, Root, Satan, Satanist, six, sociopath, soul, souls, suck, sucking, suicide, supernatural, svil, tits, twist ending, virgin, virgins, wedding, witch, written, zombies

a Primal Root written review

Before we get started, a big THANK YOU to my buddy Aslan for letting me borrow his VHS copy of this sucker. My eyes are open!

The evil ’80s, huh? The golden age of the yuppie, trickle down economics, Marty McFly, and satanic cults. Remember back to the early days of the 1980s when there was a nationwide rumor that grew to a near-hysterical panic over the stories that satanic cults were roaming the countryside looking for infants, valley girls and grandparents to sacrifice in the name of their dark master? Believe it or not, as people were rocking out to Bananrama and Soft Cell they were also all nervous about getting tied to an alter and being slit open to appease someone’s religious figure. All of this panic seemed to stem from the popularity and publicity generated by “Michelle Remembers”, an autobiography that documents a woman’s recollections under hypnosis of being forced to attend rituals performed by “The Church of Satan” back in the ’50s. An entertaining read, sure, but it was also a load of bullshit. No one was being abducted for the purpose of human sacrifice, especially not in the “ME” decade. Official investigations into the phenomenon turned up nothing and everyone in the U.S. seemed to move on when the ’90s rolled in. Well…most of us got over it…http://freewestmemphis3.org/

Still, this couldn’t stop every filmmaker on the block from exploiting the decade’s unbridled fear of falling victim to satanism! Enter “NECROPOLIS”, the bargain-basement tale of a 300 year old, metal head, Satan worshiping, motorcycle riding witch from New Amsterdam by the name of Eva (LeeAnne Baker of “Riot on 42nd Street” and “Psychos in Love” fame)! This lady roams the seedy back alleys of ’80s New York searching for a virgin sacrifice in order to keep her youth, but not before resurrecting her cult members by draining the life force of “young” recovering junkies at a local halfway house and bursting out into random interpretive dance numbers in front of papier-mâché martian masks in back of crummy New York jewelry shops. At least I’m pretty sure that’s the plot of the film…

Our film opens in the late 1800s where two separate ceremonies are taking place simultaneously. There is a goofy looking young couple joining together in that holy union of marriage while our above-mentioned satanist witch is doing some kind of Jazzercise witchey Satan routine at the altar of her cobwebby, Hot Topic-esque lair which looks more suited to a performance on Head Banger’s Ball than it does to any kind of religious worship. Then again, what do I know, I’m not a satanist.

Before you can say “nauseatingly choppy cross-cutting” the bride has her throat slit, people cry and we fast forward to present day (1986) New York, New York where our witchy woman, Eva, now resides with her bleached blonde flattop, long red nails and more eyeliner than was used on all four Pirates of the Caribbean films combined. Really, it’s as if the top half of her head is painted black. I’m sure it’s a statement.

There are two subplots for the audience to chew on here. The first involves a priest running this sort of halfway house for wayward teens (all played by actors pushing 40) overcoming drug addictions, running away from broken homes or trying to give up spreading tail for money. He’s obviously not cut out for the job as just about everyone in his care ends up alone and being murdered by Eva who sucks out the murdered “teens’” souls and spews them forth in the form of ectoplasm from her six breasts (!!!) as she feeds her zombie cultist brethren back to life. Let me tell you, the feeding scene alone is worth the price of your time to sit through this sucker.

Our second plot involves the reincarnated married couple from the opening of the film. One is a crass, dimwitted Brooklyn detective who goes by the name “Billy” (Michael Conte) and the other is a red headed British journalist with grey teeth named Dawn (Jacquie Fitz). They meet and begin flirting at the scene of a halfway house homicide. Their eyes meet over the cold, bloody corpse of one of the local “youths” and they have an immediate connection. It’s like they’ve met before! They decide to get something to eat, because nothing perks up the appetite like crying preachers and dead children, and begin their whirlwind romance as star crossed, unappealing lovers!

The plot, obviously, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny but the film’s overriding cheap goofiness almost makes up for the lack of a coherent story or any method behind, or in front of, the camera. This is the single directing credit for writer/filmmaker Bruce Hickey and it’s kind of a shame. There are few filmmakers alive who make trash cinema with such purity! This thing is astonishingly bad from beginning to end and I love Necropolis for its commitment to being the strangest, most ridiculous movie it can possibly be. So, to Bruce, his cast and crew, we at The Trash Cinema Collective salute you for your strange little contribution to sleazy satanic horror cinema! Let’s face it, your movie is peerless.

The one thing I came away with from “Necropolis” (which, by the way, doesn’t feature a single cemetery), is that Satanists seem like they just want to have fun! Motorcycles, impromptu dance numbers, three times the normal amount of boobage, and dressing up like a Lady GaGa wannabe? Now that’s a woman I want to party with! Not everyday you meet a woman who excretes ectoplasm from her nipples. Is it wrong that I can’t help but imagine what breast ectoplasm tastes like? I like to think it tastes something like Hi-C’s Ecto-Cooler…

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Feb

Desda “Mae Q” Moana, Valentine’s Day Devil Girl of the Month

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Devil Girl February 2012: Desda "Mae Q" Moana
Tags: actress, ambush, bed, beer, bleed, blood, blood thirsty, boobs, breasts, burlesque, cheap, cigarette, cinema, cleavage, collective, crazed, crazy, dancer, Desda, Desda "Mae Q" Moana, devil, Devil Girl, dirty, disturbed, evil, fear, girl, Gore, hokker, honicidal, hotel, Indianapolis, knife, lunatic, Mae Q, Moana, month, motel, murder, pabst blue ribbon, PBR, performer, prostitute, psycho, psychotic, risque, roach, romance, seduction, seedy, sexy, sleazy, smoking, stab, sucker, surprise, trap, trapped, Trash, Valentine's Day, Valetine, woman, zebra

Primal Root: Ms. Moana, please, introduce yourself to The Collective and tell us just what you’re all about.

Desda “Mae Q” Moana: Hey there, Collective, I’m Desda “Mae Q” Moana. I’m a burlesque artist, theater and film actor, and vintage pin up/fetish model in Indianapolis, Indiana. I’m geeked to be the newest Devil Girl, as this kind of shit just melts my butter. Thank you for asking me to come and play in your little world. I like it here.

Root: Well, Desda, it is an honor to play with you. Do you mind sharing with us what your inspiration was for your Valentine’s Day Devil Girl set?
Moana: The genius minds behind Firepuss Productions were the inspiration for this shoot. You said trash, they said “cheap ass hotel in nowhere, Indiana.” Well, first, we wanted to do a PBR and trailer park theme, but seeing as it’s January, we’re holding off till warmer weather. I’ll get you those pics in a few months. We wanted sex and blood. We wanted cheese. I approached Lady Riot, a fellow burlesque artist and photographer, with the idea to do a trashy horror shoot and she just ran with it. Her photog, Brian Hornbuckle, and loving husband, Jonny Voodoo were kind enough to come on the journey with us. Although Jonny got more nervous about my boobs in his face than the small knives near his carotids.

Root: I can understand, you do possess a very serious set of boobs, Desda. Now, I hope you don’t mind me getting a bit more intimate…What are some of your favorite Trash flicks?
Moana: I am a child of the 80′s so my favorites are slashers that attempt plot but fail miserably: My Bloody Valentine is my favorite of all time. So much so that for our Valentine’s Day show, I am currently developing a burlesque act as Harry. Gas Mask? Check. Pickaxe? Check. That’s my kinda Happy Heart day. I also loved anything with the words Camp, Sleepaway, Sorority, or Hell in the title. If sweet little things were going to their death, a psycho was stalking them, and there would be running in the woods in very little clothing? I was all about it. Even better if the plot included lesbian overtones, cross dressing, or gender confusion.

Root: Ms. Moana, you’re gonna fit in just fine around these parts.You;re a natural born Devil Girl. For the sake of The Collective, where can our followers go to see more of you? What projects are you working on and may we pimp any of your sites?

Moana: Angel Burlesque is my hometeam: www.angelburlesque.com. I am a founding member, and part of the management team. If you’re in the Indy area, check us out. We perform in various venues several times a year. I will also be performing in burlesque festivals around the Midwest this year, and am always available to teach workshops or perform. I get to perform at Gen Con again in August with Chicago’s Glitter Guild…doing Geek burlesque makes my heart happy.

I have a few films being released this year: Scalene, with Margo Martindale is hitting Netflix soon, and Three Tears on Bloodstained Flesh, a Giallo styled horror, will be released later this year.

The biggest GEEK OUT I am anticipating is performing at the VIP party for Days of the Dead Con in Indy, July 6-8th. I am doing my Harry Tribute and a creepy doll routine to an ICP song. And? Kane Hodder and Gunnar Hansen seeing me do my thang? I may just pee a little, I’m just sayin’.

Root: I am you will pull a role reversal on those two boogeymen and have their hearts racing when they see you perform in July. Well, Desda “Mae Q” Moana, it is an honor and a privilege to have you featured as our Valentine’s Day Devil Girl. Thank your for your hard work and for keeping it Trashy.

Feb

Hobo with a Shotgun: Make Your Own Change

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Hobo with a Shotgun
Tags: 11, 2011, action vigilante, arcade, bear, bears, blood, Brian Downey, bumper cars, Canada, children, class, cocaine, comedy, decapitation, explicit, exploitation, genital, genitals, Gore, graphic, grindhouse, Gun, guns, guts, gutter, hacksaw, Hell, Hobo, Hobo with a Shotgun, hooker, hookers, horror, ice skates, Jason Eisener, justice, lawnmower, manhole, mean, molester, Molly Dunsworth, murder, mutilation, nasty, Nova Scotia, over the top, pedophile, prostitute, rape, reign, rule, Rutger Hauer, santa, satire, Shotgun, spirited, The Plague, torture, tramp, Troma, vagrant, vengeance, violence, war, warfare

a Primal Root review

I found out moments before I watched this film that it originated as a grand prize winner in a mock trailer contest as part of a publicity stunt for the Tarantino/Rodriguez helmed double feature “Grindhouse”. What was the prize? The folks who made the trailer got to turn that trailer into a feature length film. Now, let me tell you, the feature length version of “Hobo With a Shotgun” isn’t going to appeal to the wide breadth of film goers out there. Hell, I have close friends who love Trash Cinema who thought this flick sucked sweaty goat balls. I, for one, thought it was one of the craziest, blow it out a shotgun, fuck it message films I’ve seen in a long, long, time.

“Hobo with a Shotgun” tells the story of an earnest, older transient Hobo (played with gravity by the ever awesome and always game Rutger Hauer) who goes from town to town looking for a break and a means to begin living his humble dream of making a decent living as a landscaper. But, as we all know, in the real world this can be tougher than it seems. Especially when you’ve been reduced to sleeping on sidewalks, trying to come up with clever card board signs asking for donations and having the chew broken glass for the folks who film shit like “Bum Fights” for a measly couple of bucks. When you are that far down, it’s near impossible to get back up without some kind of helping hand.

If only he had written something witty and clever as opposed to honest...

Sadly, our Hobo has managed to ride the rails into Dartmouth Nova Scotia which looks to be the ninth circle of Hell as it is ruled under the blood thirsty fist of a tiny, greasy, sociopath by the name of Drake (Brian Downey) and his two equally psychotic, well groomed sons Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman). This Father and Son triple threat of bloodthirsty scumbaggery have turn this city into a gut crunching, head obliterating, meaty chunk strewn wasteland where no one bats an eye if someone has their skull crushed between two bumper cars or a school bus full of children gets burned alive…as long as it’s not them. In this reality, whoever visits the most brutal death to the citizenry and generates the most fear is king. This is hardly the town to look for a decent person with a dream to find that helping hand.

Our Hobo befriends Abby, the hooker with a heart of gold (played by the talented and gorgeous Molly Dunsworth) who shows him warmth and kindness and becomes a bit of a daughter to our hero. But once Hobo witnesses atrocity upon atrocity and is brutalized himself, he trades in his landscaping dreams for a loaded shotgun and decides to level the playing field as only a vigilante with nothing left to lose can do. As the bodies of murderous, drug dealing, rapists cock suckers rise Drake and his sons are left with no choice but to retaliate as a full fledged war is declared between the haves and the have nots…and no one is spared.

To be honest, it took me about ten minutes to really warm up to “Hobo with a Shotgun”. It;s early sequences felt like some kind of second rate Troma flick…but as the violent set pieces of the opening came to a close and the film began to focus more on the story of Rutger’s Hobo and his rise to become a homeless moral avenger, it rose way above the the trappings of your typical no-buget grue fest. This flick has a surprising amount of heart, stays true to it’s characters, and delivers on all fronts.

Hobo with a Shotgun is an interesting animal. On one hand the filmmakers seem to be inviting you to laugh at the brutal carnage going on throughout the film. When a character has his head ripped off and a scantly clad woman writhes in the geyser of fresh blood spraying forth from a gaping hole where the victim’s head should be you can’t help but laugh at how ludicrous it all is. But several scenes later, a character we’ve grown to know and care about is suddenly in mortal danger of being killed off and we suddenly can’t bring ourselves to laugh…we realize this is a world without ruled. A place where the filmmakers are willing to do anything and kill off anyone at any moment. In Hobo with a Shotgun, the typical cinematic tropes need not apply. Just like the world we live in, it’s so easy to laugh at a crazy headline or crack a joke regarding someone’s misfortune, but when it suddenly that same fate shines on us or someone we love, it ceases to amuse.

And in this I feel Hobo with a Shotgun finds it’s message. It’s not just a film that focuses on the violence, and there are copious amounts of it to be sure, but it also manages to drive home the idea of desensitization, apathy, detachment and how detrimental it is to us as a society. For us to stand by as other well meaning and good people are crushed under the heal of our oppressors, being too afraid to stand up for fear of the same harm being inflicted upon us, doesn’t that mean evil has already won out?

One of “Hobo with a Shotgun” ‘s strongest scenes comes when Hobo enters the maternity ward of a hospital and there before him, separated by a pane of glass, are a dozen new born babies. fresh from Momma’s loins. These little souls are pure, innocent and precious. But for how long? And aged, craggy faced and beaten down man with nothing but the close on his back and a blazing hot, fully loaded shotgun looks in upon them and their advocate, as the spokesperson for their future. You were born into and are inheriting this world of pain and suffering. This one Hobo finally hit rock bottom, grew tired of seeing his world repeatedly;y raped and violated around him and chose to stand up. Come life or death, this man chose to make that stand to change things. What kind of world will these babies grow up in? That’s entirely up to us.

Hobo with a Shotgun, it’s one very bloody,extremely brutal film. One which takes no prisoners, makes no apologies and leaves you feeling like you just took a trip through some kind of cinematic Hell on earth. A weird alternate movie universe tucked somewhere in the scummy, unwashed regions of Trash Cinema that stinks of canned tamales and makes your fingers stick together. Hobo with a Shotgun sure as shit isn’t for everyone, but for those of us in it’s sights, Hobo with a Shotgun is a blast you won’t soon forget.

And, though I think they’re fucking awesome, I have no idea what The Plague is all about. But I do want their arcade game…

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Jan

The Devil Inside: The Devil’s in the Dullness

By primalroot 1 Comment

Categories: The Devil Inside
Tags: 12, 2012, baptisim, blood, boring, church, clergy, contortion, daughter, debate, demon, demons, dull, Evan Helmuth, evil, exorcisim, exorcist, Fernanda Andrade, film, filmmaker, filmmaking, footage, found, Gun, guns, horror, Inside, Italy, Maria Rossi, Mother, movie, murder, nephew, nun, nuns, possessed, possession, priest, priests, Satan, satanic, Simon Quarterman, suicide, Uncle, vagina

a Primal Root written review

Man, The Blair Witch Project feels like it was ages ago…Well, here we are with another quickie cash in on the current super cheap “found footage” trend. This time instead of a ghost, alien or witch we’re dealing with the ever freaky prospect of exorcisms. A found footage concept that’s been done before recently and a bit better in 2010′s “The Last Exorcism”. Hey, at least that film managed to be even remotely entertaining for more than 5 minutes of it’s run time…

The Devil Inside is the story of a young woman looking to close a chapter in her life that’s plagued her since she was a child. Her mother’s condition which led her to slay three clergy members during her own exorcism. Mom was shipped off to Italy in order undergo treatment for her mental illness but her daughter Isabella isn’t so quick to rule out demonic possession. This is the mock-doc of Isabella’s trip to Italy to visit her mother where she encounters real life exorcists who take her out on dates to watch them work their brand of incompetence on young ladies who can pop ‘n’ lock like none other! This is the true story of when demons stop being polite and start getting real…

"True Sto-RAAAAY!" obscure?

Long gone are the days of the possessed spewing bile into preachers faces, no, nowadays they are more likely to spray you copious amounts of vagina blood like fruit punch squeezed forth from the little straw pocking out of the top of a Hi-C juice box. And that kind of shit is fun to watch. It’s freaky, it’s unnatural, and it is pretty gross (unless you’re into that sort of thing, in which case, this flick might get ya hot under the collar.) and it works. The strongest element of this film are these scenes of demonic possession and the battle to rid these folks of their hellish ailments. And these scenes are pretty captivating, the strongest of which, involves a priest performing a baptism on an infant.

The sad fact is, none of these scenes really mean much, because the filmmakers forgot the create interesting characters the audience could empathize with. Fernanda Andrade as Isabella seems completely void of emotion for the duration of the picture. During these intense, violent and over the top exorcism sequences (one of which involves her own mother) the camera every so often pans to Isabella for a reaction shot. And as the blood spews forth from splayed vaginas and priests that are as physically imposing as a five year old get tossed across rooms and into walls, Isabella’s typical reaction is utter boredom. This reaction pretty much sums up my reaction to the other 97% of The Devil Inside.

Dramatic recreation of the look on my face when "The Devil Inside" ended.

And in so lies the films ultimate weakness: dullness. There’s just nothing happening foe the majority of the film. We get some priests debating the whether exorcism is real or just mental illness (guess which debate wins out in the end!), people bickering, and montages of Isabella walking around Italy looking bored and uninterested. Now, I can;t be sure where the fault should really lie for such a boring film. I mean, this is supposed to be a documentary film gone wrong, correct? Depressingly enough, the guy behind the camera never comes off as a competent filmmaker to begin with. So do we blame the fictional documentary filmmaker? IS he supposed to suck at his profession? Or is it the actual filmmakers themselves who can’t put together a thoughtful, exciting, engaging film on the subject of mental illness, family ties, faith and possession? Why waste such a potentially good story on the same tired formula that Paranormal Activity has exploited for three movies?

Because people eat this shit up for some reason. 1. Have nothing interesting happen for 45 minutes of screen time. 2. Insert a loud dog barked 3. Watch everyone jump and scream in shock as your film takes the bold step of having something actually happen4. Profit. This is fucking LAZY film making, people. This is the kind of thing that gives the horror genre such a bad name. And this is the kind of vacuous, meaningless, fast food offerings the mainstream horror audience is fed and they slurp up as if it’s filet mignon. Mainstreamers, you have steadily acquired a taste for Grade-A dookie. Yes, you are being served heaping spoonfuls of shit. There’s nothing interesting here. Nothing thoughtful or truly horrifying nor is there anything campy or fun about The Devil Inside. It simply exists with just about nothing to offer.

Despite some relatively strong performances from supporting players Simon Quarterman and Evan Helmuth as two young renegade exorcists who aid Isabella in her quest and Suzan Crowley as Isabella’s Mother, Maria Rossi, who pretty much steals the show with every scene in which she appears. She, alone, nearly makes the film worth it. If only we had more time with her. The film also kicks it into high gear towards the end of it’s running time where it even hints at becoming interesting. Really. the final ten or fifteen minutes promise of some great rewards only for the movie to pull the rug out from under us and leave us with nothing but frustration and 90 minutes of out lives wasted.

I’m sure they are saving all that for the sequel, which is at this point certain, after this honking log of shit somehow managed to ingest 36 million dollars of hard earned dollars from the accounts of countless movie goers this past weekend despite terrible notices and an ad campaign that looked more like a warning. I guess it proves my old theory that pure evil always works when it’s far more subtle. Why drive the audience completely fucking insane with something truly horrific and mind altering when you can simply bore them to the point of crying in uncontrollable sobs of pain and suffering for 10 bucks a head?

That, my friends, is the true face of The Devil…

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Jan

Rawhead Rex Wants to Skull Fuck You and I’m Okay With This.

By primalroot 2 Comments

Categories: Rawhead Rex
Tags: 1986, 80's 1980's, 86, altar, ancient, appetite, baptisim, bathroom, beast, blood, boobs, brain washed, breasts, campers, cemetery, cheesy, child murder, classic, Clive Barker, comedy, communion, community, creature, cult, dark, deity, demon, devil, devour, dog, eaten, era, essay, evil, exploitation, farmer, feature, fire, forest, fun, god, good, Gore, grave, gross, history, horror, horse, Ireland, Irish, killer, lchurch, legend, loose, lovers, mind control, Monster, nudity, overview, parish, pig, piss, police, power, pregnancy, priest, primal, R.V., Rampage, Rawhead, Rawhead Rex, records, rectory, resurrection, review, rex, Root, splatter, synopsis, tits, underground, VHS, vicar, worship, write up, written

a Primal Root written review

When I think of monsters larger than life a number of creatures come to mind. Of course, Godzilla, King Kong, Cloverfield…Hell, even Bruce from JAWS and the graboids from Tremors make appearances. And then there’s Rawhead Rex, the red headed step-child of all giant monsters. Yeah, while Godzilla is off crushing noodle factories in Japan, Rawhead Rex is stomping around rural Ireland ripping the heads off teenage love birds and literally pissing in the faces of local priests. Now this is The Root’s kind of monster. Sure, Rawhead’s not nearly as tall as some of the other monsters on the block, but he makes up for his mere 10 or 11 foot tall stature with plenty of murderous spunk and personality. Unlike other monsters who are brought about by man’s experimenting, or are simply Mother Nature’s own killing machines, Rawhead is just a mean mother fucking demon. He’s not here for sympathy or for us to see ourselves reflected in him…no. This guy just wants to bite your face off and smear his shit on the bloody mess beneath. I doubt you will find a sicker, meaner, more sacrilegious monster in 80′s cinema. I feel it is my duty, as ambassador of the Trash Cinema Collective, to shine a light on one of the nastiest, meanest, most atrocious cinematic monsters ever brought to life, Mister Rawhead Rex.

"I feel good about me!"

Our movie takes place in a dreary farming community in Ireland where a group of men try to remove and ancient totem from one of their fields. Soon, the sky darkens, red lightening rains down and the totem falls releasing a horrifying demonic monster older than the Christian faith whose only purpose in existing is to destroy any and everything in it’s ugly path. At the same time, an American family has come to town headed by historian and writer, Howard Hollenbeck, who is traveling the countryside compiling research on pre-Christian sacred sites and is interested in the local church’s unique history and stained glass windows. All the while, Rawhead is painting the entire countryside rd with the grue and entrails of the local villagers, twisting off heads, terrifying children, setting people on fire and tearing ladies blouses off to expose their breasts before tossing them into trees. How can Rawhead be stopped? The clues and secrets to the creatures destructon are all held within the walls of the towns ancient church. Can Hollenbeck get aid from the incompetent local authorities, deal with the psychotic Reverend Coot’s and unlock the mysteries to defeating Rawhead Rex before he destroys the town and Hollenbeck’s family?

Rawhead Rex is based of a short story by Clive Barker, the man who brought us Hellraiser and Nightbreed. not only boasting source material from Clive Barker, but a screenplay by the man as well, Rawhead Rex isn’t a very good movie. However, it is a ridiculously fun and entertaining one. The movie actually follows the original story pretty closely but is also devoid of just about all the thought provoking, serious pagan/spiritual concepts that made the story such a brilliant, philosophical read and, instead, just goes berserk and delivers a fucking crazy ass monster movie that delivers all the goods. That is, if you don’t mind a generous helping of cheese with your cinematic entree.

"Oh yeah, your lymph nodes are WAY swollen..."

The film itself is competently made and pretty well acted all around. Director, George Pavlou, does an excellent job of keeping the pace up, composing some fantastic shots and utilizes them to their best affect, and even takes some risky chances with his subject matter. Keep in mind, Rawhead Rex was released right in the midst of the British “Video Nastis” fiasco, so Pavlou had to walk a very fine line in order for his film to see the light of day. In all honesty, the violence here works rather well. It’s kind of muted in parts but it’s still gets the point across. But where Rawhead really scores points with me is that it has the brass balls to put kids in mortal danger, and even goes out of it’s way to kill a few! Yes, Rawhead completley destroys a kid or two in his rampage. It happens just out of camera shot but with some great post production foley, the sound of these kids getting folded in half and ripped into meaty chunks drives the point home.

Now, I know everyone’s gripe about Rawhead Rex is how shitty his costume is. You know, I love the way Rawhead looks. It’s cheesy as all hell and nearly destroy the credibility of the film, but there’s something about it I find really endearing that keeps this whole affair on a B-Movie, Drive-In level. Really, the the monster looks like a cross between a dog, a horse, and The Ultimate Warrior. He’s goofy enough to make you laugh, but strange enought that you don’t want that fucker within 1,000 yards of you. I, for one, appreciate Rawhead’s fantastic dark sense of humor and that so much of the violence is delivered tongue in cheek. Don’t get me wrong, there are some creepy ideas at play here, a legitimate sense of dread, and a hand full of genuinely shocking scenes… but you cannot deny the film i a Hell of a lot of fun. There are moments when Rawhead runs after people where he looks like a little boy skipping and hopping after them, moments where he celebrates turning over motor homes where he begins dancing like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance, he even whips it out and pisses on a kneeling, willing, Reverand Coot’s in a kind of demonic Golden Shower baptismal cleansing, in what is possibly the film’s most notorious scene. Personally, I couldn’t stop laughing.

I can't help but wonder what Rawhead looks like with his mouth shut. Such a Chatty Kathy, that guy...

Within all this bizarre-o action, blood thirsty monster mayhem, and religious nose thumbing, is a pretty interesting story. Sure, it’s not at all what Clive Barker probably envisioned but it still manages to please as crazed, no holds barred, monster movie sporting a larger than usual set of testicles it drags through the dirt behind it. There are so many aspects of Rawhead Rex that are worth praising. I especially loved the ending conceit the Rawhead Rex can only be destroyed by that which he can never be…and finding out exactly what that means. It’s a rather poetic and lovely idea tossed into an otherwise wild, and grotesque mix. But it’s moments like these where the air is cleared of the action and horror campiness and a little bit of heart shines through.

I highly recommend Rawhead Rex as pure, unadulterated B-movie love. If you come across a copy for cheap, snatch it up as quickly as you can. As the runt of the larger than life monster litter, Rawhead is about as fun and lovable as they come and well worth bringing into your home. Even if he’s not house broken.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Posts Tagged ‘blood

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Carnosaur (93): Handpuppets from Hell

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Castle Freak: Inherit Madness

Necropolis (1987): Of Satan, Flattops and Eyeliner

Desda “Mae Q” Moana, Valentine’s Day Devil Girl of the Month

Hobo with a Shotgun: Make Your Own Change

The Devil Inside: The Devil’s in the Dullness

Rawhead Rex Wants to Skull Fuck You and I’m Okay With This.

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