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.
Welcome my fellow Gommorrahns to another episode of Uncle Grumpyfuk’s insightful and …uh, evinrude observations concerning …cinematic… intacies..intricies..intr.. …in-tri-ca-ci-ties… intricate stuff, whatever! FUCK! Sit d.. shove those poultry magazines and crusty tissues off the couch and throw that towel over the dark spot, NEVERMIND THE SMELL!!! ..sigh- and sit down. Shit, please stop my brain from spinning oh Crom.
I apologize folks, the tabs will be kicking in any minute and I’ll have some energy and get the peach fuzz off my brain- you know that Beatles (*) tune ;
Well she was just un-der-eight,
and it was tastin’ mighty great,
when I heard a knock,
a knock on my front door-or!
Yeah i-i-in came the cops and her pareeents! Ohhhh,
I was-still-holding-the-Mazola-
and-the-octopus-tentacle,
and she-was paaaassed-ooout aawwwn the-floor!
Well Uncle Grumpyfuk’s having one of those kinda mornings, I’m SURE you know what I mean.
(*) I’m sure you’ve recently heard of the lucky asswipe that hit an estate sale and found hand written lyrics by members of the Fab Four (**) amongst some old paperwork. He’s going to make some serious bank, lucky fucker – these are actually some of the alternate lyrics, released by stickyourgoddamncopyrightsupyouroozingrectum.com (***)
(**) In actuality the lyrics presented herein were NOT written by the Beatles. Neither the cute one or the wussie one, nor the good one or the lucky one had anything to do whatsoever with these lyrics, it was me. Seriously, it was…what? You think the Beatles could write lyrics that good?!? You are fucking insane.
(***) Actually no such website exists that I know of,I didn’t really check or anything, if there is it was a lucky guess- as far as I’m concerned I made that up too. Yes I did indeed! I know- O Henry, Saki, Shatner, Dickens, yep I know – thanks!
Whew, hell I haven’t even told you what movie we’re doing..oh, well I guess you read the title. Ok fine Monsieur Smartass! Ahem, today I’ll be reviewing a movie dear to Uncle Grumpyfuk’s heart, directed by the master Ray Dennis Steckler,with a title that deserves an Oscar in itself; “The Incredibly Strange Creatures That Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies” , top that Scorsayze.. Scoresasee…Scorsaysie…Coppola! You bitch!
It begins with the highest crane shot I’ve ever seen of a rollercoaster in an amusement park on Long Beach that no longer exists, because the human race sucks. Next we find ourselves down in the park amongst the crowd in front of Mme Estrella’s Gypsy Fortune Telling tent and the camera moves forward, while filming(!) such innovative technique from a young Steckler! Amazing. Then, we move through the curtain and are transported, as if by magic, inside the tent! Huh, ‘Avatar in 3′D’ – phttt,what hog-waste!
We meet our sultry clairvoyant trying to attract a pudgy boozehound with her crotch-sweat, he actually reviles her and suggests she engage in intimate physical relations with one of her fellow carnival workers who was afflicted from birth with horrific physical handicaps, indicating that their unfortunate disfigurement delegated them as something less than normal! Enraged at his stunning political incorrectness and aggrieved for the delicate emotions of the disgusting freaks she calls forth Ortega, her debonaire companion, who’s makeup job of cotton swabs and cigarette ashes would not be equaled until a full 3 decades later with ‘A Joan Rivers Christmas Extravaganza’. Ortega’s Clark Gable-esque features and manner cannot help but impress- oh Ortega you devil! ..and the way Steckler executes the scene, with Ortega entering from behind the curtains, as if he emerged from a portal to another dimension, once again,amazing.
Well, Ortega subdues the slobbering sot and holds him wallowing helplessly as our ravishing gypsy demonstrates what happens when you try the Chinese water torture with corrosive acid, fun stuff indeed! She then commands Ortega to put the ‘feelthy peeg’ in the back with the others and our hopes begin to soar.
The first act is over and as the credits begin there appears a nice semblance of our director’s face which, as the credits proceed, evolves, like magic into the hideous countenance of Eddie Van Halen! Utter, soul-wrenching fright ensues. What an innovative and chilling intro by Steckler. The phantom cry from very shade of DW Griffith himself, at the moment that scene was originally shot, could be heard across the unimaginable distances from limbo itself claiming, ” Heeeelp! Talulah Bankhead and Barbara Stanwick are after me, trying to lop of my testicles with a crosscut saw and Hilary Clinton isn’t getting any younger!” Higher praise one simply could not ask for.
The next scene begins abruptly with the discordant laughter of a mechanical carnival clown that looks like Ross Perot and another head, a pirate or a priest or something, that those two assholes on that antique pickers show would give 30 bucks for, for both ,then we’re outside a cafe/dinner theater like in Amsterdam except there aren’t 7 people and a goat fucking on stage while salad is being served. What a shame, that always gets my appetite going!
A couple I like to call ‘Pat and Pat’, a rather masculine female (Steckler’s actual wife at the time) that looks like Mary Ellen from the Waltons and a rather feminine male that looks like Brigitte Nielsen are doing a pretty cool dance number, (what the fuck do I know), they finish and Pat dashes back to her room (see what I did there? that’s called…some writing term, shit, I don’t know) to swill Witch Hazel when she spots a dark feline creature glaring balefully at her from atop a box of Whiskas, and a terrified shriek erupts from under her boobs – her familiar has found her once more and she shudders as she hears the Dark Lord’s crappy voice singing ‘Bim Bam Baby’. Soon she knows she must join Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack and endure Sammie’s Uncle Tom routine for all eternity, that there is no escape. At that moment however her manager bursts into the room, scoops up the hissing monster and tosses it out into the hall- slamming the door before enraged Sir Scruffalot could re-enter the room, problem solved!
Now, finally we’re introduced to the main character, the true rebellious teen idol of the 1960s; Cash Flag, otherwise known as our beloved director Ray Dennis Steckler! Acting, direction, production, what a talent! Yes my friends Cash Flag, three times as cool as James Dean and Steckler didn’t have to take it up the ass to attain his fame like that fucking toy-boy poser! Cash is tre-fucking-cool, we open at his pad where he and his hip Greek buddy Harold, (who is from Greece and has a voice like Ahnold before he screwed his housekeeper and himself in the rump) are kickin’ back talking about Cash’s old lady and her uptight but totally fuckable mom, when Harold suggests Cash possibly get some means of employment to improve his relationship and get in that milf’s ass! Cash, horrified at the thought of a job delivers one of his classic lines which says it all, “The world is here to be enjoyed, not to make you depressed, that’s what work does, it makes you feel depressed.” Yeah, fuckin’a right buddy, we should all live off of gummi bears and expresso and crap out the window, hell yeah! ..Anyway the ‘dynamic two guys’ head over to Cash’s squeeze’s pad where her mom is giving her shit for not putting out for the the ‘nice boy’, you’ve all heard it before girls, I know you have. They take off and hit the beach where they frolic, see, when you’re cool like Cash you can do shit and not worry about it – you can frolic, ya know what I’m saying? Word.
The trio go over to the amusement park and decide to ride on the roller coaster, Cash tries to persuade his bird to give him a bj for the ‘fun photo’ camera but no dice, so they hit the Gonad Lift and hock luggies into the baby cribs passing by below, good old fun like kids used to have the kind of fun that’s been taken away from them, just like lynchings! It’s terrible.
Meanwhile Pat is still swilling on her Witch Hazel, an oreo is on stage telling the worst jokes with the delivery of a third grader with autism, then Pat and Pat begin their act with Pat staggering around like Whitney Houston on meth..oh come on, screw you, no one was surprised about that shit! ..and Pat ends up faceplanting on stage like Whit..oh fine, like your mother after a night out with the Cult of the Red Hat, yeah! Ha! However the crowd was entertained so all is well. She rushes backstage followed by her oppressive manager, and dives back into the bottle. He tells her to continue drinking- the audience loved it and it gave him sadistic pleasure at watching her humiliate herself and Pat onstage, it is really funny when you think about it, and that if she quits, she’s fired.
Later that night they’re still riding the coaster, apparently the operator suffered a major stroke getting a hummer from a 10-year-old for a caramel apple and a coke razor necklace so they’re stuck up there for the moment! Haunted by her encounter with Sir Scruffalot, Pat seeks solace from Mme Estrella who tells her of two possibilities concerning her future, that she will die very soon or get knocked up by a spade with a huge choad sending her fleeing in terror, out of the tent and knocking Harold head-over-heels as the kids stand outside the tent. The intrigued youngsters enter the gypsy’s tent to see what the hubbub is about, however our hot-ass gypsy’s clairvoyant vision is clouded by the smell of Harold’s hair cream so she basically gives them the same old ‘one of you will die!’ spiel. This enrages Cash who swears bloody revenge on the smokin’ cougar, the Roma bitch stole Harold’s wallet though so she’s got it coming. Oh man that mole on her face does something down in the groinal region, you know? Sure you do! Fuck yeah! Groins!
The kids head back out into the park and they find some hootchie’s dancin’ on stage, led by Estrella’s sister, the exotic and mysterious Carmalita, with a look so alluring it would make oatmeal remain at room temperature! Cash is immediately hooked as if he’d received a particularly tasty dose of smack, or in Carmalita’s case, smuck. He ditches his friends like a pair of tranny hookers after your wad is blown and enters the tent.
Outside the tent the carnival barker asks one of the hotter dancing girls if she’d like to go out on a date, now check this out, at her house, cooking steak for him in her kitchen! That is some serious Fonz-like coolness there my friends, yes sirree! Since I heard that line 4 women have slapped the shit out of me and another told me to ‘get fucked’- 2 of them because I tried that line! I’ve got to work on that one, learn to make it work, yes sir!
Now comes the first musical/dance number with a bevy of super-hot dancing girls in slaughtered zebra flesh outfits (yum!), and a troupe leader with a set of gams that go up to her eyebrows, yow! They do a cool number then Carol Kaye sings “It Only Hurts When He Doesn’t Use Lube”, a softer/slower song, she’s got a great voice, it’s a nice song. (See how nice I’m being? See, I like this film and Steckler! Understand? Otherwise…)
Then comes Carmalita’s ‘strip’-'tease’, no pole – I know, can you believe it? Cash stares, riveted, as Carmalita proceeds to.. not really strip and.. not really dance… oh baby! As he watches, like some phantom from a haunted tobacco field, Ortega materializes in a puff of smoke behind Cash and hands him a note from Carmalita asking if he’s interested in a threesome with Estrella and herself? Cash can hardly contain his excitement, lucky fucker!
After ‘accidentally’ barging into the dancers’ dressing room, no bush or anything by the way, not even a nipple(!), Cash finds the gypsy strumpet in her dank and poorly lit dressing room. She bids him go behind some curtains and he excitedly envisions a rickety cot with stained sheets a-waiting, yet when the curtains part he’s confronted with the dreaded ‘hypnotic cheese wheel’, that, you know, hypnotizes you..with cheese..surrounded by Ortega and her sister. He falls helplessly under the irresistible spell of the cheese wheel, the smell of stilton is simply more than his weakened senses could take. Mme. Estrella succeeds in mesmerizing our helpless teen heartthrob as Ortega huffs on dried cow dung and Carmalita..just sorta stands there and one wonders, where can I find a hot gypsy outfit in a childs size 5?!? Estrella commands Cash to…do something, we’re not actually let in on it, you think we would be but ..oh, I see! Steckler is building suspense! How could I have doubted his genius? Shit. Then the camera spins round and around, real artistic-like, fuck it’s things like that that make the universe worth not destroying!
Back at the music theater a really really white guy on bennys is droning on,wondering where your heart is so he can cut it out and devour it, then the oreo introduces Pat and Pat who begin their dance routine, then we are treated, nay, honored to behold the most awesome murder scene in the history of motion pictures, it’s just that damn great, man!!!
Pat and Pat begin their routine as usual, unfortunately Pat, having gone to see Mme. Estrella, had neglected to down her required dose of Witch Hazel so she’s actually dancing ok when she turns around to face Pat, and there, looming, like the silent-film Nosferatu rising from his coffin, his eyes transfixing your gaze as icy terror tugs at the shoe-strings of your crappy-ass Walmart Nike ripoff sneakers, like turning on the radio to be confronted with the life-stealing, banshee-like wail of Glee, and when you lunge at the control knob to change the station it breaks off in your trembling hand…wait,what the fuck was I talking about? …oh, right, cough… as Pat turns there in front of her looms Cash, our beloved Cash, Ray Dennis Steckler himself, standing, raised blade in hand, with a look in his eyes that will haunt your mortal soul,( yeah that’s right, you ain’t going nowhere after you croak, suckers!), the intense helplessness, the visible inner struggle between the opposing forces of his two brains (wink!), the feral rage invoked by the vengeful gypsy..who’s still hot as shit, I don’t care I totally would, that crusty wart might feel good on the tip …sigh, anyway, all of this and probably less does Pat see in his frenzied stare as the knife flashes downward like the sword of Damocles itself into her.. cheekbone. ..( How is THAT for a run-on sentence my fellow miscreants? I coulda broken it up but fuck it, a new personal record! Yeah!) The wounded and stunned Pat hits the floor like soggy hamburger meat and Cash proceeds to stab her fallen body over and over, enjoying the delicious warmness of here life’s blood covering his hands,mmmm. Then he turns his basilisk gaze to Pat, who is standing there totally aroused and shitting himself, and again the blade slices down, in a downward direction, and Pat turns to show how a cheap bloody make-up job can look pretty darn cool. He hits the floor to join Pat and their running blood mingles together as the delighted audience howls for more! The zombie-like Cash, his mission accomplished, exits stage left and chaos ensues as the audience rushes forward to take photos and vids to post on youtube for a thousand bucks, and a couple of particularly savvy souls gather up the blood to sell on ebay – smart! Let that be a lesson to you all, don’t squander a perfectly good opportunity to profit off of the misfortunes of others! You snooze, you lose!
What a scene, you just want to hit the pause button, whip it out and go at it until a 2-ply sheet of Bounty simply ain’t enough, you know what I mean!?! ..and isn’t that what art is all about? Uncle Grumpyfuk says hell yes! You’re fuckin’a right it is! Groins! Woo!!!
Next our ingenious director and crew really strut their stuff and we see Cash thrashing about in his bead, haunted by the coolest dream sequence in all of film, I am fucking serious damn it! Super-imposed images flash across the screen, the dancing girls and Cash, played by Pat, with Darth Maul’s makeup, dancing and whirling around, smoke, fire, camel toes, Estella, Ortega’s dashing features, all choreographed and filmed by the future award-winning crew. It’s a haunting and totally addictive scene you just want to watch over and over, it’s like smack without the puking! Glorious.
The next morning Cash cruises over to his old lady’s house to see if she’s sorry for being such an uptight bitch, when, during the conversation she begins to spin an open umbrella which vaguely reminds us, and Cash, of the hypnotic cheese wheel. This pisses him off and he begins to throttle Angie Baby’ – she deserves some roughing up anyway for that crap attitude of hers. Gotta keep’em in line or before you know it they’ll want to start driving and voting and shit! Crazy times. He gleefully continues, enjoying the warm feel of her convulsing trachea in his cold hands when he sees the image of Pat’s face and squeezes Angie’s delicate neck all the harder, achieving a righteous boner in the process. Suddenly her brother Madison,who can’t wait any longer for his turn, throws Cash to the ground and as Angie stares with bemused curiosity at Cash, her brother takes over and finishes throttling her, living the dream.
Cash, meanwhile, flees the scene and wanders around the city, giving us some great camera shots of an LA lost in the past and eventually he makes his way back to the carnival for some serious payback for the playful gypsy duo. His mistake however was in not bringing along his one-man Greek posse for backup, and Cash is quickly hypnotized all over again and once more sent out to kill..someone, which turns out the be the dancer who was going to cook steak for the tre-cool barker. We arrive at her pad and she’s about to light up when she looks down her long poorly-lit hallway and spots Steckler, knife in hand, stalking down the hall towards her, knife again raised for action and dispatches her after a brief struggle. Then the barker knocks on the door, sees the light go out, smells that hot poon a-waiting’, or so he thinks as he enters,calling her name. WE see his silhouette and then Cash’s silhouette behind his, knife raised, end of scene. Spooky stuff folks – Hitchcock Shmitchcock, this is the shit right here!
Now we’re treated to the best of the dance/song numbers as Carol Kaye and the girls get ‘Shook out of Shape’! I fucking love this song so fucking much it’s almost criminal, and the addition of Carol in a hilarious but totally hot rooster tail outfit and the smoking hot dancing girls…whew, damn, settle down boy, settle down! Apparently the dancers had no rehearsal time for these numbers but those bare legs are a kicking and pumping, yea-howdy!!!
After dispatching the dancing girl at her house Cash mechanically heads back to the carnival to get his ‘reward’ from the gypsy couple, woo-hoo! However his reward,instead of a nice threesome turns out to be a bunch of acid in the face – I’d take the two gypsy bitches myself but to each his own! Our poor hero stand as the corrosive liquid dissolves his pristine features, though we don’t actually see anything, turning him into a ..mixed up zombie! somehow..or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Estrella and Ortega lead the helpless post-op teen to be put with the ‘others’,however as the cage door opens the mixed up zombies escape by..walking out of the door! I guess it takes mixed up zombies a while to figure things out, you know? They then attack Estrella and Ortega, can you believe it?!? After supplying the pathetic creatures with a filthy cage for a home, 2 bowls of gruel a day and hourly anal punishment this is the thanks they get? Talk about gratitude! Jeez! Outnumbered, the conniving couple quickly succumb to the zombies’ mixed up assault and we shed a tear; never again will we be dazzled by Ortega’s suave manner and good looks, or be turned on by Estrella’s mole,it’s almost too much to bear! Sniff.
Hearing the commotion Carmalita moves to investigate but is quickly dispatched by a zombie, then all hell breaks loose. The zombies wander into the cafe and then the last dance number, the now famous ‘Zombie Stomp’ begins. After the entertainment the cops burst in and start shooting everything that moves, followed by Harold, Angie Baby and Madison, who are searching for Cash to get their paychecks! Cash, seeing them enter, jumps out of the window and tries to take a powder, hoping to avoid paying any of the actors involved in the film now that the movies is ending, so the trio takes off after him, followed by the police, sounds familiar eh? Ha!
The chase moves to the ocean and when he gets a clear shot the cop raises his pistol. “Do it!” scream the actors, “The insurance company will pay us what he owed us!”,so he takes the shot. Poor Cash plummets onto the rocks below and into the ocean,but miraculously makes it back to shore, still hoping to escape- one tough motherfucker! Yet he finally collapses on the sandy ground and buys the farm, and a not terribly bright and rather lazy and cheap star has been extinguished, sniff, and the actors sue the insurance company and get their dough after 2 years of court appearances and Angie Baby blowing the judge. The End.
There you have it folks and just in the nick of time, Uncle Grumpyfuk just ran out! Time to go on the hunt if you know what I mean! (wink!wink!) So until next time my fellow ugnugs, this is your favorite little teddy bear all covered with mold and spunk reminding you, “There’s no such thing as too much lube or too small a hole!” Groins! Woo!!!
It seems too few flicks are able to juggle sheer playfulness, gore, heart, and raunch to give a film one helluva personality. But with veteran deviants like Jennifer Tilly (Tiffany) and Brad Douriff (Charles ‘Chucky’ Lee Ray [I-IV]) directed by Ronny Yu (Freddy vs Jason), and the Child’s Play franchise’s head wordsman Don Mancini how could ‘Bride’ not have a style unlike any other. Though Chucky still has as much of that acerbic charm as ever, ‘Bride’ differs from Child’s Play’s usual thrills that made you want to trade in your Cabbage Patch for a Skip-It. Both hardcore fans and newcomers to the series may be skeptical of this installment’s ability to deliver, and while it’s true that ‘Bride’ brought Child’s Play into a new scope viewers would do well to remember that like our hero, himself, packaging rarely indicates punch.
Yu opens with harkening back to beloved James Whales’ atmospheric originals; a playfully spooky dark and stormy night with an expendable-looking cop nervously slinking through an evidence room. We’re given just enough lightning flash to make out tagged items from other investigations. Highlighted are cubbies containing a candid homage to horror legends, Michael, Jason, & Freddie (Jason face & Freddy fingers boxed in together… premonition much?). All of which seems a not-so-subtle declaration of Chucky’s right to be counted amongst the greats.
Our lackey nabs a bulky black plastic bag and makes his way to the drop-off point, placing a call during which we hear one of Hollywood’s most familiar raspy coos. Shortly after, owner of said coo makes our film’s first kill and it’s a gusher. Tiffany slits Officer Crooked’s throat letting us know W.) just where a fair bribe & the moral high-ground can shove it and X.) she isn’t exactly the squeamish type. Fun side note: he’d just lit a cig possibly making this the best anti-smoking ad ever. Quothe the Tilly, eat your heart out, Truth.
And just who is this slaughtering pigs right out the gate?** Enter the ultimate in 90’s sex appeal! Blonde, boobs, and black leather is how Tiffany rolls, and, baby, it’s just fine by me. She unwraps the loot and we get our first glimpse of our Chucky’s mug, well, 4/5 of a mug and looking like he’s seen better days. Still, toy in hand Tiff and swaggers off to hostess one killer crafting montage complete with creepy doll appendages & eyeballs, brutally long hooks, thick black wormy string, and staple gun. Compounded with Rob Zombie’s rough & dirty tunes, Tiff is like the warped, older sister May’s (2002) parents forbid her to be like.
She’s into crafting. No, really…
Next up: the ingénues and oppressive fatherly types. Gordon Michael Woolvett, as David, reminds us we’re in the 90s with his strategically placed frosted tips and that being gay in this decade’s cinema meant you knew EVERYTING about orchids and were attending Princeton to study theatre arts on your figure skating scholarship. A young-and-feeling-fresh Katherine Heigl, as sweetheart Jade, flexes her prissy-pants, pouty-face shmacting muscles and veteran John Ritter as Chief Warren Kincaid grunts, barks, and squints, firmly establishing himself as the meddling square that must later die in some satisfyingly creative way.
David is supposed to be Jade’s date for… prom? Yeah, that unnecessary plot-point thankfully fell to the wayside, but Oh, these wile kids! We soon find Jade’s all googly-eyed for Tiger Beat hunk Jesse (Nick Stabile) who’s hiding in the backseat & reveals himself just long enough to shove his tongue down her throat. This moment is the climax of their sexual/emotional chemistry throughout the movie. However, these rascals are soon pulled over by Lt. “Needle Nose” Preston who, by virtue of his unrelenting grin, remains the absolute creepiest character of this film.
Unless you count Damien, (then Robert Arquette, now Alexis Arquette) one of Tiff’s puppies who she couldn’t take less seriously. In her defense, it’s no easy task with a dude who looks like Marilyn Manson, acts like Brian Hugh Warner, and sounds like Keanu Reeves. This pseudo-badass is more Creed than Cradle of Filth despite his best efforts to convince Tiffany that he’s the deranged sociopath of her dreams. He weirdly crawls all over her bed mispronouncing “la petite morte”, the French idiom for an orgasm, but still manages a surprising sultry line, “Come on, Tiffany, let’s die a little”. But minimal seductive powers are hardly enough to redeem this guy. “HEYTIFFANY!” is the perfect introduction for Damien. “Come on, I’ll catch my death out here!” to which she disinterestedly replies “Promises, promises”. The contrast of her casual confidence against his pasty fragility makes this one of the best delivered lines of the flick & pretty much this sums up every relationship she’s waded through for 10 years since Chucky’s bizarre toy store demise.
Oh, right! So just prior to Damien whimpering up Tiff’s tree, she successfully summons Chucky’s being back into his trashed little body. Yu is wise in letting Chucky’s first move be to play on his strong suit, pitter-pattering around and appearing at the perfect moment to monumentally fuck with his prey’s head. Being the perfect pair, Tiff also likes to play with her food. She seductively cuffs Lamien to the bed, and though we know his demise is just around the river bend he sports a grin that looks like the unholy hybrid of Gary Busey & Julia Roberts’ mouths. Upon revealing himself, Chucky tears out Dame’s crucifix labret weirdly rendering a veritable bloodbath, and covers his face with a pillow casually plopping down on it to sit and catch up with Tiff. It has been 10 years, after all.
He had it coming for the sharpie tribal tatts.
Now, here comes a practical reason for my love of this movie. Don Mancini, writer of the entire Child’s Play franchise, does a decent of job of getting personalities, chemistry, and history across in a pinch, managing to give you, dear viewer, the info you need while keeping you highly entertained and eager for more. One of film’s weaknesses, however, is in giving their lackluster teen-vs-world subplot waaaaaay more attention than it merits and making moves like cutting away from Chuck & Tiff’s reunion to make time for dry toast characters. The kids have to take a breathalyzer in the pouring rain, we get that Kincaid’s a weight-throwing douche bag constantly dogging on poor folk, Jade spouts off a couple awkwardly melodramatic lines, and we get the sense that they’re going to “get the hell outta dodge and nevah look back.” Okay. Are we done here?
Back to Tiff & Chuck. Fellas, if your woman ever goes to the trouble of sewing up your tattered ragdoll of a body, holds séances in her (enviably cool Goth-chic) doublewide to call your spirit back from some nebulous limbo, AND cooks you Swedish meatballs… try not to laugh in her face and imply she’s “fuckin’ nuts” when she talks marriage and babies. It’ll just piss her off. Hell hath no fury as we find when Tiff Masterlocks Chucky in what she’d hoped would be their child’s play pin leaving the casual viewer to wonder, “Was the lock-and-key baby digs really for their potential offspring?!”, already-parents to think, “Hey, now, there’s an idea…”, and Child’s Play aficionados noting, “Yeah, she’s going to need that, later…”
-'B-I-T-C-H’. That is incorrect. The correct spelling of woman is W-O-M” -"Shows how much you know.”
How Chucky can launch the nanny out the window but he can’t break out of some dinky wooden box is beyond me. But ironic ingenuity prevails when Chucky uses Tiff’s assumed engagement ring to file down the bars and gain freedom (see what they did there?). In what is a visually spectacular scene, Chucky electrocutes Tiff by way of knocking the boob tube into her bubble bath while she’s watching Lanchester own it in Bride of Frankenstein (see? they did there it there, too). He does the dirty deed with her dead body… transferring her being into the obnoxiously wholesome bride doll she bought to torture him. Why? Y) He’s a vindictive asshole, Z) to get her on board with the plan. What’s the plan? To retrieve an amulet buried with Chucky’s rotting corpse in Jersey and trick gullible dope Jesse and increasingly whiney Jade to hand over their bodies for inhabitation. So now we have to road trip with these kids… Are we there, yet?
Small price to pay, however, for the treat of seeing Tiff school Chucky on how to murder and murder good. “Who the fuck is Martha Stewart”, Chucky’s inquires after Tiff’s inspiration for improvised “homicidal genius”. She devises a booby trap (teeheegetit?causeshehasbigtits) that involves literally nailing Kincaid. Tiffany’s critique of the go-to knife technique as 80s kitsch not only shows that Chucky’s in a new age, but that horror itself is always morphing into new form. While horror filmmaker and fans seem fairly apt at respecting their roots, horror is a vehicle for reflecting the times and the times do change. Just as monsters gave way to slashers, so slashers have taken somewhat of a back seat to the theme of ruthless ingenuity manifested through franchises such as Saw and given premonition by Tiff’s airbag nail launcher. But such a creative genre isn’t given to choppy black and whites. Chucky proves that that he’s still got it by later finishing off Kincaid with your tried-and-true maniacal multiple stabbing noting that “a true classic never goes out of style”, a move likely to leave true fans grinning and glowing with pride.
But still Chucky shows he can keep up with the time’s sense of inventive mayhem, with a make-shift car bomb making Needle Nose and his disturbing smile no more. Ruthless Deviants: 3, Crooked Cops: 0. Okay, look, Tiff and Chucky have some major bloodlust issues, but they’re not aimlessly drawn to killing. It’s an enjoyable means to an end. What’s that? How can you avoid certain death the next time you’re appearing in this movie? It’s simple, really…
Survival Tips:
- No looking in plastic bags – stay uncurious
- No tampering with plots & rides
- No happily allowing a self-professed murderer to cuff you up
- No stumbling into highway traffic
- No being an obnoxiously unnecessary character
- Try your best not work in law enforcement or own a camper
Meanwhile, Jesse & Jade cope with their plans getting mucked up and being prime suspects for the past 4 murders by endlessly blaming each other. So let’s see… now that we know what an irredeemably crappy couple those kids make and now they’re at the top of the FBI’s shit list what scene should we shoot for next? Oo! How bout a painfully awkward wedding? At least it gives Tiff & Chuck the chance to have an actual heart-to-heart and us the chance to get in on some actual character chemistry.
Quick, they’re filming! Look like you’re into me!
Post-nuptials, Jesse & Jade are as supremely miserable as ever in their lavishly hokey honeymoon suite and are soon infiltrated by a couple who make you wonder which you loathe more: their painfully unfunny mayhem or that they resorted to goofy undies to try and trick you into finding them amusing (HAHAHAgetit?causethey’resilly). They slight Chucky, steal Jesse’s dough, and freak out the kids with schmaltzy advances. Feeling threatened by this woman’s ability to ruin a scene more effectively than she ever could, Jade kicks them out.
Tiff seeks revenge against the “thieving slut” shattering their ceiling mirror, the shards of which apparently fall at a velocity that impales the raunchy couple and their waterbed splashing tidal waves of bloody water all over the joint. It’s all over for Chucky, he’s smitten. He gets down on his knees, bites the ring off the newlydead’s severed finger, proposes in front of a roaring fire, and realizing “all the plumbing works” and “he’s feeling like Pinocchio over here” the saxophone & heavy panting begins.
Back on the road, a clusterfuck occurs in which the David’s obliterated by a semi, Chucky & Tiff reveal their alivedness (my review, my vocabulary) and their plans taking Jesse & Jade hostage at gunpoint, and kill a couple poor schmoes for their camper. Soon after, the planets align and Jessie has the intelligent idea to pit Chucky & Tiff against each other. Insults are thrown (“Take it from me, honey, plastic is no substitute for a nice hunk of wood!”) and chaos ensues! Winnebago rolls & explodes, Tiff gets charbroiled, Chucky kidnaps Jade, Jesse kidnaps Tiff, amulet is retrieved, chicks are swapped, in a last second stroke of conscience Tiff dukes it out with Chucky, and a detective arrives just in time to see a possessed doll and clear Jesse & Jade’s names just before she blows him away (apparently high profile investigations are easily put to rest with one dude’s unfounded speculations). WHEW! Good thing they managed to magically roll our motor home a block away from the cemetery or this could’ve been complicated.
The ultimate Planned Parenthood ad.
Oh, and Tiff gives birth to an evil mutant abomination that eats the detective’s face off. Completely ruining Jesse & Jade’s alibi this movie ends on what I would consider a bonafide high note!
In the end, ‘Bride’ is one of those raunchy rides providing a healthy dose of laughs, sex, and horror. Although equipped with some righteously bloody moments, its aim is different than its two predecessors; it wants you to get to know your anti-heroes. A strong part of Chucky’s appeal is that he thinks, talks, and acts like a person… a supremely disturbed person but a person, nonetheless. He swears, cracks wickedly dirty puns, digs meatballs, gets horny, calls his gf ‘babe’ but has little patience for shmoopy romance, etc. He’s a colorful dude. Who wouldn’t want a little peek into his personal life?
And, my God! Tiffany, alone, offers more than enough guts & heart to get you hooked. Even as her dolls self montages into her usual platinum bombshell- painting herself in magenta & black, donning a classically tough black pleather jacket, and lighting her cig with a zippo swiped from her 2nd to latest victim’s corpse- her wedding dress remains pristine beneath the flash. Underneath a playfully sadistic exterior Tiffany is tender-hearted to the core, wanting only to love and be loved. Course, Tiff is a total Harvey Dent, so the flip side of that warped coin is in remembering that no matter how canned her dreams of marital bliss & baby-making may seem she is far from your brainwashed Stepford.
While prone to “female hysterics”, Tiff manages to put on her big girl panties, hatch the vast majority of their plans, and practically creams at the thought of getting her hands bloody. She is bad, savvy, & devilishly resourceful. Tiff seems like Mancini’s response to the new millennium woman’s identity crisis; wanting genuine intimate connection without having to sacrifice our hard-earned sense-of-self to acquire it. She’ll go above and beyond to prove her love (i.e. 10 years bribing/killing cops to find her bf’s possessed plastic corpse, slave over that hot stove perfecting her Swedish meatballs, etc) but WOE to the man-doll who takes it for granted… Sound familiar? By now, it’s a cinematic classic- the woman wielding her rolling pin in juggernaut resentment when she isn’t given her due. Domesticity’s alarming 180 from assured subservience to a yammering nag was film’s way of saying,”Wow, woman, your standards for respect are pretty obnoxious”. Although Tiffany has her cliched lecture & dish throwing down pat, it’s easy to sympathize. Maybe Barbie can eat her heart out, but Chucky’s a far fucking cry from Ken and a hijacked camper is the dreamiest house they’ll ever have.
The entire Child’s Play franchise seems to reflect a certain fear of role irregularities or reversals. What was once a thing of comfort becomes the epitome of terror. That the seemingly sweet, innocent youth could foster something dark and sinister is a trend possibly correlating with two monumentally impactful and sometimes oppositional American movements, women’s and children’s rights. It’s no well-kept secret that hardcore classics such as Rosemary’s Baby & The Omen helped us deal with the controversies of Roe vs Wade, rewiring our cultural understading to actually consider the needs and wants of women (some would argue even to the detriment of a child’s right to life). But the 80s and 90s brought on a new a strange blend of children’s rights and a crackdown on child criminal offenses. Children were being seen less as saintly cherubs and more as actual people, capable of both kind and vicious deeds.
In Child’s Play, Andy & Chucky satisfy these extreme opposites, manifesting both the hopes and fears of parent and society. That little Andy is gradually introduced to the evils of the world through Chucky on such an extremely intimate level threatens these hopes of childlike purity. It addresses the increasing fear many had in those conservative times of children being exposed to too much of the world too quickly, how subversively evil can take form (the Good Guy with a Bad Boy streak), and how deeply that evil might take root in children (a plot to literally infiltrate Andy’s mind and body implying undertones of lewd & lascivious intent, yet ANOTHER sickening issue receiving big-time attention in the 80s and being addressed through other villains such as Freddy).
Christ, was there ANY large-scale issue Child’s Play didn’t cover?! Well, we could always talk about its representation of single-parent homes, economic crisis, systemic discrimination against women in the workforce, shamelessly kid-focused consumerism, crooked cops (though we kind of covered that one), questioning the legitimacy of diagnosing psychosis… dude, we could go on for a while, right? But these were and are all very real, very tense issues naturally needing one helluvan outlet.
And, baby, Chucky gave it to ‘em.
Thanks for reading and stay trashy, kids!
**Bootsie lovingly respects & supports those in Uniform, even if the characters I love don’t.
Many thanks to Chuckyholics for providing killer images!
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…
Good morrow, travelers! I am Grignr, an Ecordian! Wanderer, carouser, rapscallion, slayer of foes, taker of women, watcher of enchanted moving pictures about warriors and wenches and sorcery!
I come to tell you of one such picture. “She”, it is called, from the 1,982nd year after the Christ-god was nailed to the Cross of Pain by the Ro-Mans. “She”, it is claimed, is adapted from the novel of the same name, with which H. Rider Haggard invented the “lost world” subgenre of the adventure tale. I have not myself read this tome, being but slightly a man of learning and letters. But in my travels I have heard no rumors of Haggard being stricken with madness, or enslaved by addiction to every mind-raping drug dreamt of by alchemy, and so I must assume this adaptation to be as loose as a she-slut of Gorzom.
By all the gods, what a lunatic picture! It seems that the intent was to make a picture of swords and sorcery in the grand tradition, but that a scarcity of coin forced the makers to settle for some sort of beggar’s post-apocalypse. In that way, they were able to use such armor and swords as were at their disposal, and outfit the rest of the cast with whatever came easy to hand, like football pads and baseball bats, and removed any need to find or create any suitably mythic locations. These failings are easily overlooked by a barbarian such as I, but the hows and whys of the lawless world elude my simple powers of reason. For an apocalyptic world, there is a puzzling dearth of blasted landscapes and true devastation. The picture is set 23 years after an event which is called The Cancellation, but never explained. That seems a scant span of time for a world to recover from scorched earth and poisoned skies to a point of lush vegetation and forbidden forests. I would love to believe that the Cancellation was a less explosive world-ender, as if perhaps one Tyler Durden succeeded in his quest, and society as was known collapsed. This solution pleases me, but does little to explain the animation of the opening titles, which depicts a world in space blasted by the light of massive explosions, and twisted landscapes of doom and death swarmed by a Grim Reaper made of smoke. I should add that this animation was vastly bitching, as I am told such things are described, and gave my heart – which lusts always for battle, adventure, and carnage – great hope for the picture to come.
After the empty promise of the opening titles, what greets us is a metal ferry barge crossing an unimposing river, bearing a mule and three people. These are Tom, the musclebound blond hero, Dick, his aptly-named cowardly knave of a friend (who resembles Bret McKenzie, if Bret McKenzie were a human rather than an elf), and Tom’s comely sister Hari.
Yea, travellers, I jest not. Tom, Dick and Hari.
The three enter the village of “Heaven’s Gate”, where a market is in full swing, with items such as board games, shampoo, shoes and yellow kitchen gloves for sale. No sooner have they arrived with their mule-load of unspecified wares to sell than the village is attacked by a band of brigands we are later to learn are called the Norks. They wear sports equipment with painted-on swastikas, and whatever Hallowe’en costumes the actors had in their closets. Our heroes do battle with them, and the Norks do two important things: they drag Hari away by a harpoon fired into her leg, and they serve to make the audience lose all hope for any real suspense to come by knocking Tom and Dick down and beating them extensively, never bothering to use their swords, daggers and scythes on them. “Ah”, one says to oneself, “a picture with villains who do not try to kill the heroes. I suppose I’ll have another mead or four to get in the mood.”
If at this point you wish to see the picture, you may do well to skip to the final two paragraphs. Below I will tell its tale out of a mysterious sense of duty to any who may wish to know, but have the understandible instinct not to bother watching.
Suddenly the scene changes to an art museum, which is the stronghold of the titular “She”. A hall full of worshipers bow rhythmically and chant “She! She! She!”, seemingly ’round the clock, while two to three male prisoners in diaper-style loincloths stand chained to an altar in front for reasons not revealed. One struggles against his bonds in a humorously ineffective and nonsensical way. No man attempting to free himself from chains would move in that way, is all Grignr is saying.
SHE arrives, and She is lovely. In fact, She is Sandahl Bergman, of Conan fame, clad in a torn floor-length nightgown. She looks rather as though she is wearing her boyfriend’s tee shirt, and her boyfriend is a giant. As far as this barbarian can tell, this scene serves no purpose but to allow for the passage of time between the assault on the village and Tom and Dick awakening from their beating, inexplicably left alive, without the editor having to resort to such tricky time-warping effects as the dissolve.
Return we do to Tom and Dick, and the quest is set. Hari must be rescued. Our heroes are promptly duped, drugged and put in chains by a beguiling woman, who also reveals that “She” is a goddess, apparently. The remainder of the picture contains no evidence to back up this claim. Tom is taken by She and made to walk the “Path of Blood,” a torture gauntlet which is as painful-looking as it is pointless.
"Put on your battle briefs, ladies, it's man-spiking time!"
He is then left alive to learn that only She knows the way to Nork Valley. Tom finds Dick peeling onions and crying, and frees him.
They promptly infiltrate She’s fortress, which seems to be no great feat, and disguise themselves as worshipers just in time to see She leave. She is accompanied by Shanda, her lovely but incessantly whiny sidekick, to a barbed wire fence so haphazard that we suddenly know how Tom and Dick got in. She goes on alone into a junkyard wasteland full of punks in medieval armor who seem to be using kendo, but not well enough to defeat a goddess of extremely human abilities in a nightgown. Also there is a Frankenstein monster/android. She comes to a place of fog and red lights, disrobes and bathes in a hot spring. The only nudity in the picture is welcome, but brief. As she bathes, an old oracle crone tells her that a man will come to claim her heart, that for him She will break her (unspecified?) vow, and that through him She will be destroyed.
"Nice butt flap. Now get in the tub, I have something to tell you."
She returns home and is goddessnapped by Tom and Dick.
The rest of the picture is a succession of setpieces involving odd tribes in silly costumes. There is a band of chainsaw-wielding lepers in a factory who like to use a Star Wars-esque trash compactor and seem unconcerned by the loss of limbs. Shanda and company rescue Tom, Dick and She from these crumbling simpletons, Shanda whines because She does not plan to execute the men publicly, and She lets the men go for no clear reason. She and Shanda then follow them, also for no clear reason.
There is a Grecian garden peopled by decadent freaks (we can tell they are decadent because their leader seems to be gay, and they have balloons) who get even freakier after dark, but only after dressing Tom and Dick in tuxedos. Tom forgoes a shirt, however. Like myself, he is too much man for a shirt.
There is the stronghold of Godan, another self-styled god. Godan seems to have more behind his claim than She, for he has eyes that glow green and powers of mind-sorcery. His followers dress as Soviet monks. He orders She and Shanda tortured, and they are whipped, mostly across the wide leather straps covering their stomachs, while Tom and Dick dine in luxury because they feigned allegiance to Godan. This was Dick’s idea. Godan takes She for a bit of a rape party, and Tom and Dick save the day (sort of) after they tire of listening to Shanda scream.
There is a forest featuring skeletons tied to trees, a cloud of poison gas which Tom alone escapes, a crazy sort of Doctor Moreau type in a Baron Munchausen suit and a Texas Rangers baseball helmet, and his giant, bearded, hairy-backed assistant in a ballerina costume. The doctor has poor methods of prisoner retention.
There is a bridge guarded by a cigar-waving loon in a fringed cavalry uniform, who behaves like a more annoying version of Robin Williams at his most annoying, speaking in bad movie star impersonations and singing television theme songs. His strategy seems to be to irritate all comers to death, which seems a plausible outcome since he spawns a clone every time part of him is chopped off and Tom is too stupid to stop chopping parts of him off. Dick and She come along later, and She has sense enough to throw the obnoxious fool onto a land mine. Where his innumerable clones went is unexplained.
Then there is the city of the Norks. At last, a location that looks as though some sort of apocalypse might have occurred 23 years ago! Why the producers did not set a much larger portion of the picture in this city is a mystery to me. Our heroes disguise themselves as Nork army hopefuls and attend a pre-deathmatch banquet. The Nork general announces: “This is the life of the Norks. Food, women and war. Nothing better on the face of this Earth.” At last, a man after my own heart!
A gladiatorial free-for-all ensues. The last two survivors will be allowed to join the Norks. The Nork leader, in a disco haz-mat suit, oversees the bout with Hari at his side.
"I covet his tire throne."
Tom, Dick and She are the last three standing. When Tom is unmasked and the others realize who they have been fighting, they unmask themselves. The Nork leader is furious that a woman has infiltrated his sacred bloodsport, and responds by releasing Hari into their company and letting all four of them go, with a promise to enslave She’s people tomorrow. I swear by the Eye of Argon, not a soul in this picture makes a damn bit of sense.
She decides to wait outside the gate and fight the Nork army by herself. Of course Tom has come to love her, and stays to help. And of course Dick and Hari do as well. In a matter of hours, pits are dug, bows and arrows made, and a mine field relocated by the four heroes. The following battle is better than most in the picture, because the participants are at least trying to kill each other for the most part. Shanda shows up at the last minute with reinforcements, and the day is won. There is much rejoicing.
At long last Tom and Hari return to the barge upon which we first met them. Dick stays behind with Shanda, whom he has apparently come to love for some reason, and she for equally mysterious reasons shares his feelings. Tom and Hari cross the river, and Tom and She stare longingly at each other across the water as the picture ends, the oracle’s prophecy of vow-breaking and destruction completely ignored, or forgotten.
SHE is a queer, queer beast of a picture. Comely wenches, a wide variety of strange characters, and plenty of battle, to be sure. But the battle is too often pathetically staged and bloodless, and is set in a nonsense world built from a meager budget. Worst of all is the utter nonsense of the story and the characters’ choices. Perhaps best of all is the delirious silliness of the whole affair. The picture certainly does not take itself seriously enough that one senses some artistic target was aimed for and missed. Also worth noting is the score by Rick Wakeman, he of “Yes” fame. Grinding guitars and flailing synth riffs abound, and one action sequence is set to a song by… I know not who, but I have heard worse Aretha Franklin impersonators in my travels, of this I can assure you. The strongest endorsement I can give is that you should watch this picture if you wish to be completely perplexed and amused. Much strong drink is a necessity, and a small party of like-minded adventurers is recommended.
Until next time, travelers, drink deep of food, women and war, for there is nothing better on the face of this Earth!
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.
Ahhh, the fresh beginnings of 2012. A brand spankin’ new year with so much hope and potential! Well, unless this sucker turns out to be the last. Hence, why the gang here at The Trash Cinema Collective made sure to kick this year off right with a blazingly dark and sexy spread by one of our favorite up and coming models and aspiring writers: Whitlee Sabbath Flinn! A spread inspired by Fight Song era Marilyn Manson? Seems rather apropos to this connoisseur of filth. An enormous fan of horror, deviously alluring and a close personal friend of ours here at The Collective, Whitlee seems like the perfect way to get what could our last year on Earth off on just the right note. Be sure to check out her sites and let Whitlee know what you think of her set! Stay Trashy, Gang! – Root
Whitlee, tell us a little about your personal philosophy regarding Trash Horror Films:
“I’m a huge horror fan in general, although I’m a very picky, harsh critic when it comes to any movie I watch, great trash films are very dear to my heart! There’s something so special about combining great horror, with the hilarious comedy of everything that’s going on in the film just being ridiculous! It’s that this-is-so-bad-that-it’s-good-feeling that pumps me up every time I watch a new low budget horror film. Laughing while I’m disgusted is my favorite part. I’ll never forget the first time I watched “Dead Alive”, giggling madly as “Mom” popped the boil on her face, and the blood squirted right into the custard that was eaten without hesitation, but also being completely disgusted by the idea; that’s what makes trash horror great for me! Films like The Evil Dead, The Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, Dead Alive, and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series are examples of trashy horror films that I will love forever!”- Whitlee
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?
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.
The Primal Root here, and man, I just can’t get into the Halloween spirit this year! It just feels as if I’ve seen every Halloween themed horror movie out there a million times! Just sitting here at Video 21 waiting to close down for the night, contemplating going Trick or Treating, when some last minute customers barge in and all of a sudden I find myself face to face with just piece of Trash Cinema I had been hoping for: Rocktober Blood.
Rocktober Blood is an inept, blood soaked, hair metal epic! Featuring some of the worst acting I’ve ever witnessed, poor production values, terrible editing and some genuinely catchy cheesy 80′s metal tunes. Plenty of murder, mayhem, plot twists, brain hemorrhaging reveals, 30 minute long bathing sequences and one incredible finale that takes place during the now LEGENDARY Rocktober Blood Concert of 1984.
So join me, your host The Primal Root, and get into the Halloween spirit as we check out one of the strangest, goofiest and trashiest films from the VHS era! Join me for a heaping helping of, Rocktober Blood!
And a VERY Special Thanks to Kevin Johnson of Celluloid Cesspool for not only introducing us to Rocktober Blood bot for sending us his personal copy which made this Rotten Review possible. Many thank, my friend!
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.
