1980’s |

Posts Tagged ‘1980’s

Sep

Primal Rage (1988) or Campus Monkey Trouble

“It’s a red-ass world, honey baby.” – Tow Truck Driver Guy, Primal Rage

a Primal Root written review

There’s a bit of a dynasty when it comes to malicious virus films. One of the earliest examples of a really solid puss spewing, blood gushing pandemic picture is Canadian body horror wunderkind, David Cronenberg’s 1977 underrated chunck blower, Rabid starring the late, great, Marilyn Chambers with her blood sucking arm pit vampire parasite that spreads a nightmare contagion which causes people exposed to it to go into heinous bouts of unmitigated violent rages and green bile spewage that culminates with the machine gun death of a department store Santa Claus which makes me laugh my ass off every single goddamn viewing. This might be the most popular of the genre to classic horror hounds, but there are plenty more the churned the masses into hordes of disgusting plague rats, like Georege Romero’s The Crazies, Cronenberg (yet again) with The Shivers (aka: They Came From Within), Luigi Cozzi and his torso exploding Contamination from 1980 and, of course, the countless SLEW of flesh devouring living dead films which I feel completely fall under this category, or at the very least, a sub category of the genre or whatever makes you comfortable. They’re kissing cousins.

Of course, this sort of shit it strictly for us consumers of such filth, where the rest of the pop culture palate prefers their apocalyptic end of the world scenarios served up a bit more palatable with films like the 1995 Dustin Hoffman vehicle, Outbreak, where the world can be saved if Cuba Gooding Jr. can spank the right monkey, and the genuinely unsettling 2011 Steven Soderbergh film, Contagion, which at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic was feeling a bit TOO prophetic.

However, decades before Acadamy Award Winning Filmmaker Danny Boyle would unleash his effectively nightmarish art house RAGE virus on an unwitting United Kingdom and post-apocalyptic, sexy, shirtless Cillian Murphy on the masses, there was a far more shlockier, trashier, brutally wacky and colorful rage virus unleashed right here in The Sunshine State of Florida, I am of course speaking of the 1988 contagious college campus carnage of the 1988 Trash Cinema Classic, PRIMAL RAGE!

Penned by Italian schlockmeister Umberto Lenzi, probably best known to us as the man who sparked the Italian cannibal film boom of the 1970’s with 1972’s The Man From Deep River (aka: Sacrifice) and directed by first time filmmaker Vittorio Rambaldi, 1988’s Primal Rage tells the story of a tiny pony tail sporting scientist named Dr. Ethridge (Bo Svenson of Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Inglorious Basterds fame) who does his well meaning experiments in a lab at an undisclosed Miami Florida college. See, Ethridge is experimenting on baboons in order to find a means of restoring dead brain tissue, which is noble enough if you leave out the animal cruelty. But wouldn’t you fucking know it, the guy goes and accidentally creates a fast acting rage virus that can be transmitted by bite, of course. Thankfully the powerful, infected, absolutely insane and uncontrollably violent baboon is locked in the lab behind the flimsy latch of an aluminum bird cage…

We are introduced to our protagonist, Sam Nash (Patrick Lowe from Slumber Party Massacre 2) who, when not cycling around the bustling college campus snapping photos of co-ed asses in late 80’s spandex jogging attire is attending the WHITEST African Hertiage Celebration Day I have ever seen documented on film. Sam is one of those hunky 80’s dudes with a mighty chin, upward arching eyebrows, a flawless tan and perfectly coifed hair. You know, REALLY dull. Turns out Sam works for the school newspaper with his roommate and genetic crossbreed between Hunter S. Thompson and Bobcat Goldthwait , Duffy (Mitch Watson, voice actor for Kung Fu Panda and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated)) who is a hard edged investigative college rag reporter willing to do anything and hurt anyone in order to get the story on taco Tuesday, or whatever. We are introduced to Duffy as some sorority sisters come barging into the newspaper’s office screaming about cutting off Duffy’s balls.

This bespectacled, unshaven, most assuredly unwashed and far too into his own bullshit college kid who is willing to lose his genitals for the story is destined to be the life blood of the film…right? Not so fast, see, he goes to the lab for Sam in order to snap some shots of the animal cruelty going down on campus and simultaneously prove that Sam doesn’t have what it takes to be truly great journalist, like the willingness to break into private property. As one might guess, Duffy starts snapping shots WITH THE FLASH ON, and when the blood thirsty psychotic rage infected baboon starts losing it’s fucking mind when the flash goes off in it’s little face and begins violently trying to dismantle it’s enclosure, Duffy starts fucking taking shot after flash bulb shot while screaming at the caged up animal to “RELAX! TAKE IT EASY!” As you might have guessed, the test baboon tears it’s cage apart, beats the ever loving shit out of Duffy before biting a meaty chunk of the intrepid reporter’s arm, flings itself out the glass window, strolls around the parking lot and then attacks a cop car, smashing it’s misunderstood monkey head into the windshield, killing the poor little test baboon. And Duffy stumbles into the shadows…

Meanwhile, Sam has come to the rescue of a fellow co-ed who was about to get her car towed by flaunting his bottomless knowledge of Miami traffic ticketing laws and saves the day. This young lady is Lauren Daly (Cheryl Arutt of Murder, She Wrote and The Magical World of Disney fame) and she strikes up a flirtation with Sam immediately and the two decide to go on a double date where Lauren will be hooking the recently rage infected Duffy up with her new roommate, Debbie (Sarah Buxton from Rock ‘n’ Roll High School Forever and Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead) who is a math wiz and introduced herself to Lauren as having missed a good chunk of the semester because she had to get an abortion. Beats the typical boring, getting to know you chit-chat, I suppose…

Sam informs Duffy of the double dater and recommends he take a shower, with soap, wear clean clothes and not wear the same underwear he’s been wearing all week. Honestly, their little house on campus is kind of gross and exactly what you;d expect two college roomate brows to be living in. The point is driven home when Duffy, who stares it his now pulsating, oozing, gaping monkey bite would, reaches into his medicine cabinet, grabs an already open can of Old Milwaukee that’s been sitting there for who knows how long, and dumps the contents into the bloody, gore and puss drenched jagged meat canyon that was once his forearm and lets out a cry of agony he quickly muffles to keep up the charade that he wasn’t there when he made the baboon go berserk.

The foursome goes out to a local, dingy, college dive bar where Sam and LAuren dance the night away to 80’s pop and Duffy regales Debbie with stories of setting fire to locker rooms in order to avoid getting his ass kicked by those pesky jocks. What’s really intriguing is Debbie seems to picking up what Duffy is putting down and to both Duffy and the audience’s amazement, it looks like a bit of romance might be sparking here! And wouldn’t you know it, of course a trio of already violent, rude, rapey jocko’s happen upon the date and begin being complete scum bags to the ladies and gents present. What they don’t know is Duffy has a rage virus beginning to take hold and Duffy derails their asshole behavior with a few well place fist pokes and nearly breaking the ring leader’s arm. Afterwards, Duffy and Debbie go walking along and start to make-out despite Duffy being super pale, completely drenched in sweat and complaining of stomach cramps that sounds like he’s about to shit his pants. Despite all this, Debbie goes in for the lip lock, which is sweet enough, until Duffy violently pulls her in and ends up nipping her neck…two, TWO are now infected! Ah! Ah! Ah!

The next day, Duffy heads to the campus infirmary as the virus begins deeply taking hold. He freaks the fuck out int he waiting room and uncontrollably attacks everyone there, knocks over shelves and screams the entire time like a wild animal before running outside where some pulsating part of his temple bursts open, spewing blood all over the lush college campus greenery before he collapses to the gentle grass below. Does anyone rush to his aid or follow the screaming, bloody, rage fueled gusher of a man out into campus? Of course not! He falls to the ground and is left to recoup.

It’s about this time that Debbie begins feeling the nastiness of the rage virus and tries to keep a low profile as well with Lauren shrugging it off as the flu that’s been going round. But, of course, that trio of sociopath jocko psychos is on the prowl in their convertible for a woman to abduct and rape. Seriously. They are driving around campus hootin’ and hollerin’ looking for a victim like future conservative Supreme Court Justices when they spot the super pale, immensely sweaty, puke residue on her chin Debbie who is stumbling as if she is about to drop dead to the infirmary. She IS the only other living soul on campus at the moment in the middle of the night, so the fuck face frat fuckers nab her, try forcing her mouth open to pour Old Milwaukee down it and speed off to their unbelievably intricate rape room/apartment which is replete with a filthy cum soaked mattress, super loud stereo system and a ton of seizure inducing strobe lights. “I GO FIRST! I NEVER GET TO GO FIRST!” one bro shouts as they throw Debbie onto the crunchy comforter and he drops his denim revealing what I can only assure you are yellow pee stained tighty whities. It’s a gut churning feeling knowing these scumbags are all too familiar with this act of violation and that we actually live in a world where subhuman shit liquid like these three actually exist, and I do give the filmmakers a ton of credit for showing this sort of act as being absolutely horrifying, dehumanizing and beyond repulsive.

Thankfully, it is right at this moment when the rage virus takes hold of Debbie giving her super human strength, invulnerability and a need to spread the disease. She makes short order of the three bros, flinging them across the room, beating the shit out of them and managing to sink her teeth into all three, before rushing out of there and into the night. The virus takes 24 hours to fully take hold, which means these three murderous rapist pieces of shit will become UBER murderous rapist pieces of shit just in time for…HALLOWEEN.

Will Sam somehow become interesting and seal the deal with Lauren? Will our two protagonists find a cure for the rage virus in time to save Duffy and Debbie? Will Dr. Ethridge be exposed as a fucking horrendously irresponsible mad scientist who is willingt o sacrifice numerous young, sexy co-ed flesh in order to reanimate brain matter, or will he just get what’s coming to him? And will campus EVER be the same after the Three Amigos of Rape and Murder put on their grim reaper costumes and go on a killing spree at the universities Halloween Festival? Trust me, it’s WELL worth finding out.

Primal Rage is actually a really effective, inventive and dare I say fun contagion horror film that works on a bunch of different levels. From creating a bunch of colorful characters that are well written for the most part with lively dialog to a genuine feeling of dread as you watch this virus spread from person to person and an excellent knack for shoving gratuitous, explosive, highly creative violence in to shake things up if they start to get a little bogged down in plot talk. Sam is a bit of a drag, but most lead male protagonists are in these sorts of film. But everyone else rocks their rolls, especially Duffy who goes for broke in his grungy college guy trying to be cool and offbeat performance. Also, a big kudos to the three actors who play the evil virus fueled murder rapists, Lovejoy (Doug Sloan), Chas (Luis Valderrama) and Bryan (John Baldwin) for bringing three of the most heinously unlikable villains to malicious, joyful life. The are a pretty intimidating threesome of nastiness who when we are first introduced to them are almost played for comedic affect, like the typical horny guys in an American Pie movie. But as the film progresses their characters become a nightmarish commentary on the nature of rape culture and making light of this sort of behavior. It’s pretty fucking bold and way ahead of the pack. And once these three put on those grim reaper costumes, and begin violently killing random costumed Halloween revelers, it’s one Hell of a fucking spectacle. I don’t enjoy spoiling things, but these three skid marks get what’s coming to them, thankfully.

All in all, Primal Rage is a shit kicker of a late 80’s horror film when many pop culture commentators were claiming horror was dying out at the time. It’s a film that fools around with expectations, take full advantage of it’s location on a college campus, despite not having ANY nudity at all, (NOT EVEN IN THE DAMN SHOWER SCENE!) and doesn’t skimp around on the positively fantastic physical gore effects and make-up. When we are treated to close ups of the faces of those infected, it looks extremely legit, gross and painful.

Turns out, to my own shock and amazement, they were brought to life by Oscar winner Carlo Rambaldi who did effects work on such legendary mainstream flicks as Spielberg’s E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Ridley Scott’s Alien, Silver Bullet and even The Neverending Story. Oddly, it looks like this film, Primal Rage, which was directed by his son, would be his swan song. He retired from the business as CGI became more common place in film. Rambaldi sadly passed away in 2012, but his legacy lives on in those truly remarkable and believable character creations he built from the ground up in front of the camera in those final days when physical effects were at their pinnacle.

For years, Primal Rage was incredibly hard to come by on any format other than VHS. Thankfully, Dark Force Releasing has done us Trash Cinema fans a huge favor and released a great transfer of the film on blu-ray for us to finally savor in all it’s sickeningly gross, bloody, puss soaked, rage fueled glory. I highly recommend was I consider one of the greatest lost gems of the dying days of the late 80’s slasher horror boom. One that threw the conventions of the genre to the wind and created something unique, bold and highly entertaining. A film I cannot help but wonder if Danny Boyle ever watched before penning 2002’s 28 Days Later. I cannot help but see a spark of inspiration there.

Yes, grab your vomit bag and soak in the unconventional horrors of Vittorio Rambaldi’s ultra sloppy rage virus run amok freak out, PRIMAL RAGE!

I award this nutzoid flick FOUR out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets. I highly recommend this one.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

WARNING: Trailer Contains Spoilers

Apr

Evils of the Night (1985): Invasion of the Platelet Snatchers

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Evils Of The Night (1985) and Uncategorized
Tags: 1980's, 1985, 80's, 85, abandoned house, abduction, Al Adamson, Aldo Ray, alien, alien vampires, Amber Lynn, axe, b-movie, Beach, boobs, breasts, Bridget Holloman, brutal, bush, camping, comedy, Crystal Breeze, David Hawk, drill, Drive-In, Evils of the Night, exploitation, full frontal, fun, G.T. Taylor, Gore, gratuitous, horror, hospital, Jerry Butler, John Carradine, Julie Newmar, Karrie Emerson, Keith Fisher, kidnapping, lake, lesbian nurses, licking, lovers, Mardi Rustman, mean, murder, naked, Neville Brand, nude, nudity, Paul Siederman, peeping, Pepsi, platelets, porn stars, public sex, sci-fi, sex, slasher, sleaze, sodas, teens, Tina Louise, tobe hooper, Trash, ufo, violence

“Why you touchin’ my nipples like that?” – Jerry Butler as Eddie in Evils of the Night (1985)

a Primal Root written review

Man, the 1980’s seemed like a magical time when I was a child. I was born into them, 1982, as a matter of fact. The world was new to me, a bright, Technicolor spray of vomit filled with wonder, excitement, lessons and ideas that would boggle my mind and shape me into who I am today. Of course, later you lear the 1980’s were fucking terrible to huge, wide ranging section of our American society and the world abroad. You had the AIDS epidemic, the war on drugs, intense poverty rather than the prosperity Ronald Reagan’s trickle down economics gave us, the Iran Contra scandal, the shameful treatment of our Vietnam veterans…It was just was basically the pre-show entertainment before 2020. But through the eyes of a fresh faced youth, the world was all Hi-C, chicken nuggets, movie monsters and big bouncy boobs.

But were you also aware that far off in distant galaxies they had it just as rough in the 1980’s? And, no, I’m not talking about Star Wars, besides, that happened a long time ago. No, I’m talking about the severe platelet shortage of 1985 that affected whatever planet John Carradine and Julie Newmar are from. What are platelets you ask? I’m glad you asked!

plate·let

/ˈplātlit/

noun

PHYSIOLOGY

plural noun: platelets

a small colorless disk-shaped cell fragment without a nucleus, found in large numbers in blood and involved in clotting.

As we all know, the best platelets of all come from humans in their late teens, early 20’s which is why back in 1985 vast intergalactic civilizations were landing their UFO’s at local Lover’s Lanes, taking over abandoned hospitals, hiring sociopathic mechanics by paying them in gold coins to kidnap and deliver them captured kids, so that their platelets could be removed and beamed up to their Mother Ship for the survival of their species. Only, these brilliant civilizations with their space age technology never considered the one flaw in their planning…summer vacation!

“Network men analyzed many places and they decided that this was the ideal secluded college town. Well, Network was correct up to a point, but research didn’t know about summer vacations. College is closed until September which is too late for our purposes.” – Dr. Kozmar (John Carradine); Evils of the Night

Okay, maybe that wasn’t ACTUALLY happening in the 1980’s but it sure as shit was going down at the Drive-In’s and Indoor Theaters of the time thanks to one of the strangest, most absurd and, to my amazement, thoroughly engrossing low budget amalgams of slasher horror, sci-fi and teen sex comedy I’ve ever witnessed, Evils of the Night.

Before the credits even roll we see the landing of a UFO from a far flung galaxy. No narration, no clue the what, when or where, and the credits unspool over two unlucky couples who decided to get it on under the cover of darkness in the woods surrounding the local lover’s lake. One couple gets right to it deep in the woods, where the couple next to the lake decides to smoke some of The Devil’s Harvest, before swimming and THEN plan on pummeling the her love piñata. “Great, now we can get HIGH!” the young man exclaims as the young bikini vixen pulls a dank joint from her thong clad crotch region. In a matter of second we are treated to some full frontal nudity from the sex starved co-ed in the woods before they start banging away doggy style after she lick lubes his rump splitter, while another cute couple gets high and goes swimming. She even gives him the rarest of sexual acts, the under water oral. Gang, I do not understand the logistics here. Then again, I am a severe asthmatic, so I can’t hold me breath all that long, especially not long enough to truly deliver any kind of memorable oral pleasure. But I guess it’s the effort that’s really endearing. Perhaps it’s different for you folks with normal, healthy, designer brand lungs. Feel free to let me know of your beneath the surface sexual encounters in the comments.

Anyhoo, it all feels like the beginnings of genuinely lovely evening, when all of a sudden some elderly gents wearing ski masks and grease stained mechanic work shirts…with their names on them, descend upon the young couple and leads to one of my favorite kills I’ve ever seen. You know that couple that is going at it with the fella burrowing from behind? Well, one of the masked mechanics sneaks up behind him and strangles him to death while his lascivious lover continues to pound out the veil! It’s fucking fantastic, she has no idea he is dead and continues to ride the fuck trolly to Mr. Fleshpod’s neighborhood! She steadily slows her motion as she realizes something is wrong, turns around, and is abducted. It is one of the funniest, perversely sexiest and simultaneously disturbing kills I’ve seen in a while. I know there’s something similar to this in Adam Green’s bland 2010 slasher film, Hatchet II, but Evils Of The Night did it to much greater impact, if you ask me.

Wait a minute, that’s 80’s porn star Crystal Breeze fucking the strangled corpse of her lover playing “First Girl Having Sex!” Would you believe this is the same year she starred in The Sperminator, Flaming Tongues and Cummin’ Alive as well as nineteen other porn flicks? Man, 1985 was a busy year for Crystal! Not only did she deliver the EXCEPTIONAL full frontal female nudity, but she also knocked her brief roll out of the park. Crystal, you are a legend and us sleazoids are forever in your debt.

One of the abducted teens, the stoner boy in tiny shorts, comes to in the abandoned hospital now inhabited by sexy ALIEN nurses wearing tiny glittery skirts and and several damn pounds of hairspray and make-up. He manages to escape while the two nurses, I shit you not, begin suggestively fondling one another. Huh? So, tiny shorts manages to overhear Dr. Kozmar (John Carradine) and Dr. Zarma’s (Julie Newmar) plan to extract as many platelets as possible from their victims before they die, any extracted after death, contaminates the whole batch. The platelets are used to stop bone deterioration int he elders of their kind and ALSO allows for them to live for hundreds of year. So, would it be accurate to call these platelet snatchers from beyond infinity intergalactic vampires? Feels accurate to me! Tiny Shorts then escapes into the woods only to be blasted to death with neon green lasers from one of the nurses. In his final moments, he gives one of the most spastic and wonderful laser guided death performances I’ve ever seen.

Cut to the next day at Lover’s Lake where all the cool kids are sipping on Pepsi, swimming, playing pranks, spying on two topless girls covering one another in tanning oil which, in turn, inspires your girls friend to take her top off and try to fuck you on the beach, which you turn down. Seriously, it looks like this Lover’s Lake is happening with a bunch fun loving kids. The stand out amongst them, and who the poster art seems to be featuring, is the blonde in a tight, white and red horizontally striped shirt named Connie (G.T. Taylor, this is her only film role) who is incredibly sweet and kind of a dunce, but is a genuinely fun and charming character to be around. She’s out camping with her friends Brian (David Hawk, in his only film role), Heather (Bridget Holloman from Slumber Party ’57 and Stoogemania) and the engaged to be married love birds Ron (Keith Fisher from Cyberon and an episode of Diff’rent Strokes) and Nancy (Karrie Emerson, the raven haired beauty from Chopping Mall and White Dog). They spend their days frolicking in the sun and at night they put their hands in their campfire to see who is the better man (hint: It’s the man smart enough NOT to injure himself to prove his manhood) and talk about penises. “Why make a big deal out of such a small thing?” Connie asks as Brian and Ron debate sticking their dicks in the fire to prove their manhood.

From Left to Right: Ron (Keith Fisher), Nancy (Karrie Emerson), Connie (G.T. Taylor), Heather (Bidget Holloman) Brian (David Hawk)

There’s another unrelated couple who break into the cleanest, most well kept abandoned home I’ve ever seen. There’s no shit stains on the fuck mattress, the floors looks to be freshly swept and mopped, none of the windows are busted and there’s narry a cigarette butt, beer can or crusted over used condom in sight! What kind of abandoned, haunted fuck shack is this? Anyhoo, the couple Eddie (Jerry Butler as Paul Siederman, prolific porn actor from 1987 to 1995. You may have seen him the XXX films Snake Eyes (1985) or Star Angel (1986) and Joyce (legendary porn actress, Amber Lynn, who is STILL working in the adult industry to this very day, which is remarkably long career in pornography. She has won to AVGN Awards, one for best Sex Scene in a Feature Adult Film in 1986’s Ten Little Maidens and one in 2018’s Humanitarian Achievement Award) strip down and start going to town on the incredibly posh mattress at this crab shack. Well, she strips nude anyway, he actually keeps his jeans on, which I will never understand in slasher films. Fellas, have you EVER fucked with your pants on? Are you afraid of losing them? It’s so much easier just to take them off, I cannot even imagine the zipper burn one would inflict on their wang doodle. Also, I would be remiss if I did not mention Eddie’s dog lick form of smooching. This guy licks Joyce like a canine going after piece of Beefaroni. It’s probably the most energetic moment in the film as he licks all over Joyce’s tits and neck and chin and sucks on her chin, and it’s kind of…kind of gross. Perhaps that sort of tongue bath thing was the height of eroticism in 1985, but for me in 2020 it’s kind of gross.

Joyce gets a tongue bath from Eddie in the nicest abandoned house I’ve ever seen.

Soon we learn that the masked mechanics are actually two great elderly screen actors who turned to horror cinema as soon as the choice rolls stopped coming their way. The two murderous morons for hire are chunky yet fleet-footed Fred (Aldo Ray from many classic films of the 50’s like 1955’s We’re No Angels and 1958’s The Naked and The Dead and would later be featured in 1986’s Star Slammer and his final film, 1991’s Shock ’em Dead) and the intensely perverse and sociopathic Kurt (Neville Brand from the Oscar winning 1959 film Stalag 17, Birdman of Alcatraz from 1962. He eventually went the horror route with Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive in 1976, Without Warning in 1980, and Evils of the Night would be his final screen roll.) These two are introduce as playful lunk heads as they maintain their auto repair shop, but that playful, dopey demeanor can turn on a dime as they strike without warning, cracking your skull with a tire iron, and putting you out with some either, and then dragging you to the abandoned hospital under the promise of gold coins so you can be sucked dry by the vampires from outer space!

Kurt and Fred: The Burt and Ernie of Space Vampire Murder for Hire! Gold Coins only, please.

Let me tell you, Evils of the Night is one exceedingly fun and effective b-movie. It actually takes the time to get you invested in the teen characters, who are actually fun, sweet, kind and adorably dopey. They more often than not fight back with all their might against the aggressors and you cannot help but root for them, especially when it comes down to Connie, Heather and Brian who end up tied up in the clutches of the perpetually horny and blood thirsty Kurt. I’m not going to spoil anything, but anyone can die at anytime and it can be genuinely heart breaking because these characters are so much fun to be around. Not only that, but the reactions of friends watching friends die is deeply effective, too, and that goes a long way to making slasher film murder really impact the audience. David Hawk, who plays Brian, deserves some recognition for really going above and beyond in his grief stricken, rage fueled performance. His is not the norm for such Trash Cinema, where the emotion feels greatly genuine and I found deeply unsettling. I began Evil of the Night laughing my ass off at the cheesiness of the proceedings, but by the films final act I was surprised to find myself rooting on characters in scenes that are actually suspenseful. It goes from laughably cheesy to legit horror out of nowhere and it’s enough to give you whiplash.

Evils of the Night was directed by first timer Mardi Rustam, who shows an affinity for low budget horror, which makes since, since he worked in some capacity as a producer on such legendary no budget horrors as Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive and Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein. That’s one Hell of a schlock horror pedigree! It’s a shame he only directed one other film, James Dean: Race With Destiny in 1996, because Trash Cinema really could have used more films exciting, weird, and uncompromisingly unique as his debut feature. I know the gentleman is still alive, so who knows? Maybe he has a few filthy films left in him.

Evils of the Night is an honest to goodness Trash Cinema treasure and one well worth checking out. It has a little something for everyone including fans of classic actors and actresses from the 50’s and 60’s as well a hard working porn stars of the 80’s! Whre the Hell else are you going to find the likes of Crystal Breeze porking a corpse while celebrated character actor Neville Brand drills holes (literally, with a drill, that’s not a sexual metaphor) into nubile young women? It’s unpredictable, filled with fun, no budget science fiction tropes, great goofy characters, gore, one liners, gratuitous female nudity, awesome villains, awesome 80’s soundtrack and plenty of scenes that will either leave you laughing, scratching you head or actually hoping the characters you like survive…the EVILS OF THE NIGHT!

I am awarding Evils of the Night FIVE out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

WARNING! THIS EVILS OF THE NIGHT TRAILER CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU DO NOT WATCH IT UNLESS YOU’VE ALREADY SEEN THE FILM!

Honestly, this trailer gives away the last third of the film and there are some awesome surprises and genuine shocks. Go see the movie first. I guarantee you won’t regret it.

Apr

Don’t Mess With My Sister! (1985) Stanky Lad’s Junkyard For The Human Spirit

By primalroot Leave a Comment

dontmessposter

a Primal Root written review

“YOU FUCKED A BELLYDANCER, YOU BASTARD!” – Clara, Don’t Mess With My Sister!

There’s no denying Meir Zarchi’s I Spit On Your Grave aka: Day Of The Woman from 1978 is a milestone is exploitation cinema. Among the most notable in the brutal rape/revenge genre that is, for obvious reasons, incredibly divisive. With it’s legendary ad campaign, “THIS WOMAN HAS JUST CUT, CHOPPED, BROKEN AND BURNED FIVE MEN BEYOND RECOGNITION…BUT NO JURY IN AMERICA WOULD CONVICT HER!” and it’s taboo nature, it has become a legendary dark destination in our American Trash Cinema landscape. It’s what Meir Zarchi will go down in history for.

However…There is another.

Oh yes, 1985 Meir Zarchi finally came out with a sophomore effort entitled, Don’t Mess With My Sister! A film that answers the burning question of what would happen if Martin Scorsese got in a horse riding accident, suffered severe brain damage, but once recovered decided to craft a movie for Lifetime Television. It was not the explosive action revenge film I had imagined in my head looking at the poster art, no, far from it. It’s instead, a heavy clunkster of a marital drama about an immensely unlikeable dipshit named Steven (Joe Perce from 1987’s The Hidden and 1989’s Black Rain) who is married to his sweet wife Clara (Jeanine Lemay in her only acting credit), has a little daughter named Candy, is about to graduate from the Columbia Business School in New York and moonlights as the accountant at his brothers-in-law Roberto (Jack Gurci, who went on to never act again) and Dino’s (Peter Sapienza whose only other film credit is 1986’s Osa) junkyard “Stinky Lad’s Salvage (okay, that’s just a name I made up, but it feels fitting since these guys never change their all denim wardrobes), who we find out, are PAYING Steven’s college tuition. Not only that, but we meet Steven on his birthday and his brothers-in-law surprise Steven with a $20 dollar raise! Steven bitches, they raise it to $30! Steven still bitches because he wants to be a partner and it nearly breaks down into a fist fight. Yes, this movie takes place in New York and the characters are all New Yorkers.

dontmess6

So, Steven is a little bitch with dark rings around his eyes, talks like he took several blows to the head with a lead pipe and gives off the most unsympathetic creeper/ghoul vibes I’ve ever come across outside a vampire film and we, as an audience, I assume are meant to root for this horse’s ass.

His wife throws him a surprise birthday party where it’s apparent there are some animosities between the mothers from both sides of the family, the brothers-in-law and Steven, and Steven’s Mom and Steven’s wife. Anyway, everyone is complaining, drinking and at each other’s throats until the belly dancer Clara hired, Annika ( Laura Lanfranchi, again, her only on screen appearance), who manages to entertain everyone, even manages to get Steven’s wine swigging ancient mother up and dancing like it’s Spring Break on Panama City Beach, and catches the illicit gaze of dipshit Steven.

dont-mess-with-my-sister

The very next night, Steven returns Annika’s costume bra to her at school after receiving the worst advice ever from his shrimpy man best bud, Jerry, who tells Steven that girls leave bras behind so that men will sleep with them and that he shouldn’t let this one get away! Oh, brother, hunker down, because here comes the litany of terrible decisions and events that just pour over till the end credits roll. Steven returns the costume bra to Annika and offers her a ride to a private gig of her’s where she performs the dance of the seven veils, or what have you, for an over weight millionaire with NO BACK, and NO ONE there to protect her if shit goes wrong. As wealthy men typically do, he attempts to force himself upon her, when she tries to shove him aside, he lashes out with the typical rapist catch phrases “What did you THINK I invited you here for?” Before Steve hears the struggle all the way outside, in his car, and rushes in the beat the shit out of the guy before Annika murders him with a well placed bottle of wine to the cranium.

dontmess2

So, what to do after murdering an incredibly wealthy rapist, leaving your prints all over the fucking mansion and squealing out of his driveway in front of a woman walking her dogs? What else? You go back to your accomplices apartment, do a culturally insensitive African tribal dance in her living room replete with spear and soundtrack album then fuck in her shower.

dontmess4

Steven eventually makes it home to find wife asleep and levels the excuse that his tire blew out and it took all night to fix. Of course, as these things do, people start talking, who saw what and where people actually were and the next thing you know Steve is getting his ass caved in by Clara, Roberto and Dino in the junkyard. Everyone continues to do violent, terrible things to one another, the murder makes the front page and is all over the news, Clara slices open a stuffed monkey, Steven shoots a shotgun at his brothers-in-law who, now that Steven is packing heat and trying to kill them, wants to make Steven a partner at Stanky Lad’s. It all ends as abruptly as it began and we are left with our heads spinning after witnessing an all-you-can-eat buffet of loathsomeness from a full cast of terrible fucking characters.

What lesson should we take away from Don’t Mess With My Sister? What exactly was this film even about? Who the fuck were these people and how was I supposed to care? It’s an exercise in the most heinous and selfish of human behavior where there’s no good guys and no real payoffs. It’s like an episode of Seinfeld directed by Lars Von Trier with no laugh track. I think it might be trying to say something about the greed of men and how it leads them to covet and do terrible things in the name of getting ahead and trying to seek pleasure where they can and how this lead to a world of hurt to everyone involved. Also, I can imagine that Clara is the sister of the title we should not be messing with? Basically, Don’t Mess With My Sister is a baffling slice of unfiltered shittiness that will leave you pondering what in fucking Hell you just experienced. You’re dropped into a world of scumbags and left with no meaning or ending.

Hey, at least Meir Zarchi was trying to shake the stigma of his greatest achievement and try something new. It really feels like he’s reaching for a Mean Streets vibe here, but he just doesn’t quite have the knack for it. If we were given more history for these characters, some kind of back story, perhaps the drama elements would have worked. It’s difficult to mix straight ahead drama with elements of exploitation and really make a tasty concoction. The drama elements don’t work because the focus is a bit to heavy on all the conflict, but without the base understanding of where everyone is coming from, it just doesn’t congeal and we are left with a bunch of raging, screaming, violent assholes spraying verbal diarrhea that is worthless, meaningless shit to the audience. And the exploitation cinema vibes are there, but there’s no fun to be had. No real over the top excess, besides the constant “fucks” and “Shits” this could easily be a Lifetime Movie of the Week.

Here’s to you, Meir Zarchi, for taking the risk. I only wish it had paid off better.

I am awarding Don’t Mess With My Sister ONE AND A HALF STARS out of FIVE.

Meir Zarchi would not dirrect another film until 2019’s I Spit On Your Grave: Deju Vu. I will get around to checking that one out soon.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Jan

(NSFW) Mausoleum (1983): Demonic Wife? Run For Your Life!

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Mausoleum (1983) and Uncategorized
Tags: 1980's, 1983, 80's, 83, beasts, blood, booty, breast, bush, death, demon, demon woman, glowing green eyes, Gore, haunted house, horror, husband, hynotisim, illogical, Julie Christy Murray, Laura Hippe, LaWanda Page, levitation, Marjoe Gortner, marriage, Maurice Sherbanee, Mausoleum, Michael Dugan, monster tits, murder, NSFW, nudity, posession, practical effects, rich, science, seduction, supernatural, superstition, telekinesis, therapist, transformation, wealthy, wife

poster-780

a Primal Root written review

“I haven’t been this nervous since I’ve been black!” – LaWanda Page as Elsie in Mausoleum

Marriage can be trickier than the Double Dare obstacle course. Yes, it is fun and there are prizes, but you can also end up covered in bizarre substances that are somehow both liquid AND solid and are probably rancid and no matter how many times you reach up that giant nose willed with bright green frosting snot you just CAN. NOT. FIND that fucking orange flag to move on to the brown icing slide! Sure, it should be a piece of cake, but when two people come together and make the decision to spend their lives with one another, they also bring with them their lifetime of emotional baggage as well that shaped them deep down into who they are today. That stuff will manifest and a test of the strength of a marriage often boils down to how both partners in the relationship react to these issues when they manifest. We all have our demons. And then there’s Susan Walker Farrel and the literal malicious, flesh carving, pussy popping demon residing in her cerebral cortex.

That’s right, at a very young age, Susan (Julie Christy Murray) loses her mother and is so traumatized by the loss she decides to take off in a sprint from her Mother’s funeral (whose only attendees were her and her Aunt Cora) and seek solace within an old mausoleum which produces it’s own yellow steam and is lit up like cheap haunted house inside replete with lightning and thunder effects despite it being a sunny, gorgeous day outside. If you ask me, there might be some deep symbolism here that this mausoleum represents the place we try to lay to rest and repress traumatic memories where we hope they will be forgotten the rest of our days and we can pretend it never happened. Okay, yeah, probably thinking far too deeply into this monster movie, but at least I like to think the creative minds behind Mausoleum are trying.

image-w1280

Susan goes into this mausoleum, removes a crown of thorns from a tomb filled with glowing fog and something living within…something…with razor sharp claws. Bestowed upon Susan are telekinetic powers which make her eyes glow neon green, which she puts to work immediately when a homeless man enters the same mausoleum to see if she needs help. Being a strong, independent person who needs no help, she proves this point by psychically exploding the top of his skull off and squirting out a nice gush of brain matter across the Los Angeles cemetery as he is running away in terror. Teach that mother fucker to ask a woman if she is in need of assistance. Susan bows to NO MAN!

Fast forward twenty years or so and Susan (Bobbie Bresee, a blonde, voluptuous, mature bombshell from Surf Nazis Must Die and Evil Spawn) is married to the lovable Oliver (who is played by Marjoe Gortner whom Trash Cinema fans will probably recognize from 1978’s Star Wars knock off Star Crash, but was also the subject of the 1972 documentary Marjoe, an expose on the business of religion and a documentary about Marjoe’s upbringing as a child evangelist preacher, it’s pretty outstanding and led to a life of eclectic Trash Cinema roles, such as Mausoleum, here…anyway, I digress… ) and they are living their best lives in a fucking ENORMOUS mother fucking mansion for just the two of them in the middle of nowhere. I believe this was early 80’s middle class living…

Susan and Oliver decide to go to a local dance club to have a few drinks and dance the night away! They’re not there five minutes before some drunk off his ass, Kenny Rogers doppelganger begins rubbing his only slightly unflacid tube steak all over Susan on the dance floor, rudely interrupting her and Oliver’s fantastic middle aged white person disco gyrating thereby nearly leads to fisticuffs between to two 1980’s prototypical male suitors trying to flaunt their stuff for Susan. Cooler heads prevail as Susan and Oliver head outside, but the drunken beardo stumbles outside, belching, farting and fondling around in his pockets for his keys. He makes the mistake of bumping into Susan and Oliver before getting into his sagging piece of shit Chevy and…Susan’s eyes go bright green as the Kenny Roger’s look alike get roasted alive in his own car as Susan psychically sets it alight! Oliver tries to save the drunken moron, but to no avail. The car explodes like a tater in the microwave and the charmless scumbag is now a smoking husk.

MV5BZTJjY2U1ZDEtY2I5Mi00MjkyLWI5ZjctZDk1ZTE4ZDMyMDQ1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzU4ODM5Nw@@._V1_SX888_CR0,0,888,480_AL_

Aunt Cora (Laura Hippe) is becoming anxious about Susan’s well being as it is soon to be the anniversary of Susan’s Mother’s demise and she also has a lovely, leather bound book all about the Nomed Family history that spells out demon possession and blood rage for every woman in the Nomed family at the point in their lives. Aunt Cora pleads with Susan’s therapist, Dr. Andrews (Norman Burton) but it falls on the deaf ears of science and he refuses to believe there is anything wrong with Susan besides the lingering trauma of Susan losing her Mom at such an early age. But it isn’t long before Susan begins her demonic midlife crisis when one morning the couple’s lecherous gardener, Ben (Maurice Sherbanee) starts moving in on her and getting VERY sexual harassment/rapey when he notices Oliver is gone for the day. It’s like flicking a switch, Maurice is allowed in and she is immediately terrified of him and cowers away. But then, as soon as Ben leaves to go chop the shit out of a stump with an axe, Susan gets those sexy glowing green eyes again and decides to go upstairs and get totally nekkid for the audience, and Gang, Ms. Bresee is stacked like a can of Pringles. She then puts on a towel, heads out to her balcony, makes sure to get Ben’s attention…AND DROPS HER TOWEL AGAIN revealing her lovely mammaries. Now, I have to ask, why the towel? I guess it was to hide her bush from the camera on the six foot journey over to the balcony, but she isn’t shy about showing of her hedge maze later in the film! Again, thinking far too much into this movie…

Mausoleum.mkv - VLC media player2017-12-28 23_38_46

So, of course, Susan fucks Ben’s brains out in the garage a time or two (excellent stamina, Ben, you over the hill rapey gardener, you!) and then proceeds to till Ben’s head and chest regions with a rusty hand rake, spraying blood and gore all over the garage and strategically placed U-Haul packing blankets that are no doubt also covered with the steadily crusting sloppy pleasure plunger drippings from their recent concrete floor garage sexcapade. So long, Ben, you were a piece of shit and a terrible landscaper as evidenced by a montage from earlier showing him eating lunch, spitting on his tools and sleeping by the couple’s enormous private lake.

mausoleum-2

The next morning Aunt Cora heads over to the house with some paperwork pertaining to Susan’s inheritance she is due to receive now that she is thirty, of course, she finds Susan upstairs totally transformed into a hideous, glowing green eyed demon! Susan levitates Aunt Cora over the railing from their third floor bedroom and uses her telekinetic powers to rip poor Aunt Cora in half. You don’t get to see it all, but the effect is pretty brutal, none the less, as Aunt Cora’s chest begins to slowly but surely come open. It’s pretty fucking mean and I have no idea who Susan kept blood from getting all over the plush carpeting downstairs. I suppose we can just chock it up to the powers evil. Evil makes everything possible, doesn’t it?

That night Oliver wakes up to find his wife sitting in a rocking chair in their bedroom fully transformed into the hideous she demon and, instead of screaming in abject horror at the absolute, unspeakable nightmare that this reality would be to wake up to, he quietly sneaks out of bed and heads down to their posh basement bar to call Dr. Andrews and calmly, casually discuss the fact his wife suddenly has glowing green eyes, the complexion of an enraged hemorrhoid, and a gob full of shark teeth forcing her to be a drooling mouth breather, rather than grabbing the keys, bolting out the door and driving off into the sunset at top speed to start a new life with a woman who ain’t in league with Satan. As you might expect, the doctor says there’s no such thing as demons and asks Oliver to tell Susan to go see him. Which he does, and Susan agrees. The next morning, their housekeeper, Elsie (LaWanda Page) heads upstairs to check on Susan only to find the room glowing green and the fog machine on overdrive. Elsie, rushes downstairs, takes a couple shots of “the good stuff” which she hasn’t had a drop of “since she found religion” and mentions “I haven’t been this nervous since I was black!” Both humorous and strikingly poignant bit of dialog reminding us of the dangers of simply being African American in our society, even in 1983. Elise downs her liquor and proves herself the only sensible soul in the movie and heads for the hills never to be heard from again and, I presume, is living the good life on her own private island in the son. Elsie, we hardly knew you, but you brought a special light into our lives through the schlock shake that is, Mausoleum. We bid you, adieu.

MV5BMGJiNDcwNGQtMzFiNC00ZmY3LTg4YWQtNzg0N2ZhOWM0MGU1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzk5MDQ0NA@@._V1_

17854_5

MV5BYzMzMzhmNDktNjlkZS00MTUzLWJjZTMtNzY0ZjZiMGE5NmM5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzk5MDQ0NA@@._V1_

During her trip to Dr. Andrews Susan undergoes hypnosis. After a pretty impressive breakdown over her Mother’s death proving those cars are still pretty deep and easily torn open, the demon emerges and Susan transforms right before the doctor’s eyes taunting him that “I WAS HERE THE WHOLE TIME AND YOU NEVER KNEW!” Needless to say, those green eyes, freaky face and gnarly ass teeth make a quick believer out of Dr. Andrews. Believing this is no longer a mental illness medicine can alleviate, Dr. Andrews researches the family history in that handy dandy leather bound book poor, old, ripped into pieced Aunt Cora gave to him earlier in the film, and it turns out every first born daughter of the family Nemod (IT’S DEMON SPELLED BACKWARDS! THIS IS THEIR KINGDOM!) and, in the meantime, Susan decides to kill another landscaper she seduced into their mansion with her boobs and then telkinetically crushes his skull which squirts out one of his eyeballs into his hand and leaves blood all over the kitchen for Oliver to clean up when he gets home. Seriously, Oliver doesn’t even really question the blood, just whether or not Susan is okay. She shrugs of the blood all over the kitchen and says she’s too tired to discuss it and goes to bed. Oliver seems okay with this somehow…

Maus Nasty Teeth

Maus Cleave 2

Susan steals a painting from the mall after levitating the gallery’s owner from the top floor of a mall and impaling him on an umbrella below before heading home to take a bubble bath and sweet talk her perturbed husband and treat us to some slightly hidden full frontal nudity before transforming and giving us full frontal she demon action and revealing her gnarly, flesh hungry demon tits! Will Dr. Andrews make it to the stately mansion in time to put an end to this foul demons reign of gore drenched terror or will Susan be lost to the ancient inherited evil forever? Also, enjoy one head scratcher of a twist int he last shot of the film. If you have any theories as to what that final shot means, please, let me know in the comments. Thanks in advance!

Maus Green

mausoleum-5

Mausoleum is silly, schlocky and often hilariously over the top and bizarre. It plays like a really well constructed carnival fun house with plenty of fun visual flourishes, imaginative gore and make-up effects as well as a cast who takes the whole story and their performances seriously. It all adds up to a highly enjoyable, well produced but very bad and highly pleasurable piece of Trash Cinema. It has everything you could possibly want, Blood, Breasts and Beasts, a stable of actors willing to give it their all despite how silly it all is and they end up looking and a story that tries REALLY hard to bring some new shit to the demon possession table and sometimes manages to pull it off. I love the idea of burying your emotions and never truly expressing them or letting them out can manifest into something absolutely horrible later in life to the detriment to everyone around you. I mean, who the Hell knows if that’s what filmmaker Michael Dugan of Super Seal (1976) and Raging Hormones (1999) fame or writers Robert Madero (Camp Utopia (2002), Battered (2014) had in mind, but it feels like they were reaching for something legit to say with this film. But whether you want to read into this thing or not, it’s filthy, freakish pleasures will be enough to sustain those looking for a simple, mindless, cheap thrill heavy trip through the spookhouse. Mausoleum is a strange horror film oddity that’s well worth raiding the crypt for.

I’m awarding Mausoleum FOUR out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Nov

The Dark Power (1985): Whip It Good With Lash LaRue To Show You How!

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Dark Power Poster 03

“Feel my whip, you son of a bitch!” Lash LaRue as Ranger Girard in The Dark Power

a Primal Root written review

Whenever Thanksgiving starts creeping closer I always find myself contemplating the many attempts over the years to make horror films based around that specific holiday. Flicks like Blood Rage, and Home Sweet Home (which never explicitly states that it is taking place on Thanksgiving, but the family gathering, turkey dinner and football seem to suggest that it is), the awesome Eli Roth helmed trailer for a nonexistent 80’s slasher entitled Thanksgiving which gave us a taste of what COULD have been if someone decades ago had applied themselves to making a Turkey Day Slasher, and, of course, there’s the Thankskilling movies which blend blood, breasts and beasts with ample amounts of black comedy.

But I tend to veer more towards films which feature the most tenuous of connections to Thanksgiving, things that remind me of the basic elements of the holiday going wrong, primarily family dysfunction. Stuff out there like Desperate Living, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Parents, and Pet Sematary. But there’s this one hunk of cinematic dog food that has always stuck out in the back of my mind as an unofficial Trash Cinema Thanksgiving film. I say unofficial because it doesn’t take place on Thanksgiving at all…it doesn’t even feature a damn turkey. Okay, shit, it has nothing at all to do with Thanksgiving REALLY, but it DOES have to do with Native American Spirits killing off dumbass white crackers who do not respect the heritage which was protecting their uneducated asses since before their great grand parents we even born. So, with my own warped logic, the idea of this land’s native inhabitants coming back from the dead to kill spoiled ass white people who committed genocide against them just rubs me the right way this time of year. It’s a film entitled…THE DARK POWER.

Dark Power Poster 02

When a local Native American medicine man passes away, he leaves his estate to his money hungry, yuppie grandson who immediately decides to rent his grandpappy’s old homestead out to a bunch of sorority babes who were recently kicked out of their dorm. Of course, everyone has heard the local legends that Grandpa Medicine Man’s homestead is haunted by four vengeful, murderous, Native American spirits, known as The Toltec Sorcerers, which he had been protecting the area from for years with numerous safeguards and ancient rituals. Sure, some might be creeped out, but no one REALLY believes the stories of this old house. That is, with the exception of old timer, and close personal friend of the deceased medicine man, Ranger Girard played by none other than the legendary western whipping boy, Lash LaRue! Girard does his damnedest to warn folks, without sounding like a Crazy Ralph, that they’re messing with powers…DARK POWER beyond their understanding and that his old friend has been guarding his game and keeping everyone safe for decades. Sure, it’s all superstition, all these modern, shaved vagina hipsters, say…But Lash LaRue is holding on to that mystical whip the recent worm food medicine man gave him just a little bit tighter.

DarkPower Whip

It isn’t long before the house is full of half nekkid nubile young women, one of which invited her younger brother, who excels at sexual harassment, to live with them, too. The home is frequented by rowdy friends, overweight plumbers and truck stealing 8 year old boys, all of which seem to remove or misplace an artifact set in place to ward off the evil four spirits which will bring unspeakable horrors down on the land they haunt once removed. The girls are all likable enough, one is the main girl, who really doesn’t do a whole lot but survive, there’s the one who is really into fitness and self defense with a good sense of humor and never wears pants, the one that looks like Julia Roberts and is an outspoken racist and future Trump supporter (she’s the one who invited her obnoxious creeper brother to live with them) and there’s the incredibly friendly black girl who ends up having to deal with the Julia Roberts look-a-like’s constant racist bullshit.

Dark Power 06

But not for long! Because soon the four evil spirits of The Toltec Sorcerers are awakened and they emerge from the ground in their expressionless Spencer’s Gifts Halloween masks doused in K-Y Jelly and begin slowly, methodically killing all the assholes int he house and whittling through the least enjoyable characters, to the most and then to the boring ones? Will modern means be able to stop this ancient…DARK POWER, or will anyone be able to WHIP into action and send this…DARK POWER back to Hell?

DarkPower_Screen2

This one is a doozy, Gang. First off, let me just say this one is exceedingly cheap looking, which gives it a charming, kind of made at home vibe. That sort of feeling of watching a movie some friends decided to make one afternoon on a budget of $50 which all went to pizza and beer and their cast and crew consists entirely of their friends and ONE Hollywood legend, Mr. Lash (scene stealer) LaRue. This instantly adds to the appeal for me as a fan of low rent film making. The acting is adorably bad. You can tell these folks are REALLY trying to sell these characters and their bizarre motivations. The standouts are Mary Dalton as Mary Dalton, a local TV reporter, who is an okay interviewer and an A+ horn dog who is constantly hitting on Lash LaRue who is old enough to be her Grandfather. Cynthia Bailey as Tammie, the superstitious and incredibly kind hearted and tolerant young black woman who moves into a house where she will cohabitate with a racist and a racist’s racist sexual harassing brother. Suzy Martin as Suzy, the work out freak, who is forever upbeat and without trousers, even when getting chased by horrifying, bloodthirsty Toltec Sorcerers. Paul Holman as Uncle Earl Coleman who is a pretty solid piece of exceedingly hefty comic relief with a THICK southern accent, a heart of gold and delivers the line “It smells…like a FART!” with perfect diction and excellent comedic timing. Also, there’s a character who just shows up to get in a bathtub, chug a can of Budweiser and show off her boobs, I think her name is Page? Anyway, thank you for providing the ONLY shot of bare female breasts in the entire film with your only moment of screen time.

DarkPower_bath tub

And, of course, the MVP is Lash LaRue, who shows up when all hope is lost and whips the fuck out of anything that looks like it’s intent on hurting someone. The movie even opens with this strange scene that has absolutely no connection to the rest of the film which features a little kid getting berated by his mother about the haunted property the medicine man lives on and how he shouldn’t go near it. Well, the kid sneaks out and starts wondering some trails in the woods near the property where he is chased by a pack of vicious dogs. The kid runs for his life with the adorable, I mean HORRIFYING dogs nipping at his heels. The kid gets to a clearing and BEHOLD! LASH LARUE! Who cracks the fuck out of his whip and sends the raging rovers back into the woods they emerged from. The kid weeps with his face in the dirt, Lash puts his whip away and stares at the kid, emotionless…SCENE. WHAT DID THIS TEN MINUTE SEQUENCE HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING? 1. It pads the film to make it feature length. 2. It established Lash as a force for good against that…DARK POWER in those woods. Seriously, anytime Lash shows up on screen, his charm and good nature come shining through and just make every moment a pleasure to watch. Especially in the final confrontation at the haunted house where he takes on all The Toltec Sorcerers, whipping the fuck out of them and taunting them the whole time. It’s great watching this old timer do what he does best, crack that whip, and be a hero.

Dark Power 02

The effects are effective, but again, pretty cheap. Lots of folks getting shot with arrows, but one death really stands out, there’s this one ginger kid who gets yanked off of a pontoon boat, has his arm slowly pulled off and then has his face, again, SLOWLY ripped off. It’s gruesome and painful, but also delightful in it’s cheesiness. Also, when The Toltec Sorcerers are finally sent back to Hell, their demise is a lot of gooey, melty fun.

The Dark Power 03

This was the first feature directed by Phil Smoot, who has spent most of his life working behind the scenes as producer or Production Manager of other independent films like Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth, Kevin Smith’s Tusk, and Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice. I would LOVE to know more about the making of The Dark Power, but, unfortunately, there’s not a whole heck of a lot out there. One of it’s main claims to fame is being made fun of by Rifftrax.

Dark Power 05

All and all, The Dark Power is a tale about the white man’s lack of respect for Native American culture, their people and their rich heritage. It’s easy to shrug off someone’s ancient beliefs as hogwash, but, it’s never a bad idea to just leave some trinkets in the ground if there’s a slight possibility it will keep you from having your entire face ripped off by a malevolent The Toltec Sorcerers raised from the dead because you thought your front yard looked better without the eagle on the skull decoration left there by the medicine man devoted his life to protecting your dumb, ungrateful white ass.

Dark Power Poster 01

So, this Thanksgiving, I recommend you pick up this hot, smoked turkey for you trash cinema fans to chow down on. It goes down easy, fills you up with cheap, trashy goodness and doesn’t disappoint. Oh yes, there’s plenty to be thankful for, especially this 1985 slice of Trash.

I award The Dark Power THREE out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets. Low-Rent appreciating Trash Cinema devotees, like myself, will adore it. Grab some friends, a case of beer, and have filthy Thanksgiving feast!

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Jul

Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) Hell or High Sperm Count

By primalroot Leave a Comment

hell_comes_to_frogtown_poster_01

“EAT LEAD, FROGGIES!” – Sam Hell, Hell Comes to Frogtown

“We’re gonna get ’em out, and you’re gonna get ’em pregnant.” – Spangle, Hell Comes to Frogtown

a Primal Root Written Review

Never in the annals over cinema has the queasy unease and horror apparent in the possibility of losing your sexual organs been so graphically portrayed as they are in the post apocalyptic 1988 sci-fi comedy action adventure cyber punk sweat and filth caked fever dream, Hell Comes to Frogtown starring the late, great, Roddy Piper, Sandahl Bergman, Cec Verrell, and Farmer Vincent himself, Rory Calhoun!

no condoms

As always, the world is left a post apocalyptic wasteland due to a “difference of opinion” (HAHAHA!) which leads to a nuclear war obliterating all of civilization and leaving the good majority of the handful of remaining men steril. Which is where Sam Hell comes in (played with over the top buffoonery glee by Roddy Piper), we catch up with him as he is about to get his genitals torn off by an angered military Captain named Devlin, whose daughter said Sam raped her, but he actually didn’t, and is now with child. However, the forced castration is quickly put to an end when Spangle (Sandahl Bergman) and Patton (Eyde Byrde) show up just in the nick of time to put him in an explosive cod piece and make his cock and balls official government equipment to be used in the repopulation of the planet. See, he tests way off the charts with the most ammunition in his weapon than they’re ever seen before, which makes him quite the commodity in the wasteland. One of my favorite moments in the film is when he is sitting in the lab of this government repopulation building with his beeping, blinking codpiece on, as he looks around and sees all the propaganda on the walls including a great poster that has a NO CONDOMS symbol over it and states “THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS!” Hell signs his junk away without reading the fine print and is now enlisted to go on missions across the remaining junk heap of Earth in an bulky explosive codpiece he can’t take off or it will explode, if he gets too far away from Spangle, it will electrocute his ball, and then explode. So, he’s basically a a fuck slave for the government.

hell_comes_to_frogtown_sandhal_bergman_us_dvd_00-06-25_cap01

Immediately, Hell is thrown into a mission to rescue a bevy of fertile young women who have been captured and used as sex slaves by a race of mutant amphibians who were exiled to the desert by humans to a place called, you guessed it, FROGTOWN! Hell, Spangle and badass gunner, Centinella (Cec Verrell) head off into the wasteland driving a bright pink Studebaker with a sunroof so Centinella can man the massive machine gun mounted to the top, in order to rescue the fertile maidens and have Hell give them the deep dicking they need to repopulate the Earth. Along the way, of course, we learn Spangle is trained in the art of seduction, which is graphically portrayed as she whips out her late 80’s camouflage and doily adorned lingerie, in order to keep Hell teased, hard, and ready to impregnate when the time arrives. Late at night, Centinella strips off her uniform, whips her puppies out of the chute (providing the ONLY bare breasts of the entire film) opens Hell’s the cod piece flap, straddles our wrestler hero, but gets pulled off right before he enters her ring by a jealous, but posing as protective, Spangle. Ugghhh, repopulating the planet is going be touch when all the women keep getting upset over who owns this guy’s penis.

4q9t9XD

Before long, the trio comes across an actual, honest, to goodness fertile lone woman of the wasteland. Spangle basically terrorizes and bullies the young woman before Hell tells her to back the fuck off so he can talk to the woman. Spangle gets irritated with Sam who balks at the artifice of this who deal and can’t perform under these circumstances. “Hey, you try making love to a complete stranger in a hostile, mutant environment, see how you like it.” But, eventually, Hell and the young woman warm up to one another, and get down to business as Spangle watches on jealously. In the morning, the young woman directs our trio of heroes to Frogtown, thanks Hell for the lust in the dust, give him a big bear hug and is on her way to die of exposure in the nuclear desert before ever even having that the baby Hell just shot down her love canal.

0_52cwcRl81dU9ucju

Okay, entering Frogtown, which is EXACTLY what you might assume it would be. A dark, filthy, greasy, sweaty underworld made up of freakish mutated frog people drinking sewage, reading copies of The Frog Prince, and doing strip teases upon the bar. Spangle’s plan is to pose as Hell’s faux hostage and slave to be traded to a frog pimp that goes by the name of Leroy. Leroy happens to be aided by an older HUMAN gent and acquaintance of Hell who goes by the name Looney Tunes (Rory Calhoun). The trade, however, comes to an abrupt halt when the one eyes frog, masochist and right hand toad of Commander Toty, the King Frog of Frogtown, a mutant who would love nothing more in this post apocalyptic husk of a world than to watch Hell’s package explode into meaty, sizzling chunks. Well, even more than that, he wants to enslave Spangle and watch her perform the highly erotic Dance of The Three Snakes, which is a scene that must be seen to be fully appreciated, no words of mine could every fully do it justice.

960_hell_comes_to_frogtown_X02_blu-ray_

Oddly enough, it feels like the movie kind of drags once they hit Frogtown as Spangle tries to seduce Hell, and he rebukes. Arabella, the shapely frog stripper, tries to get Hell to fuck her, and he rebukes, and she pulls him back and crawls on him, and he puts a burlap sack over his head and says no, no ,no. It’s kind of funny for a minute, but as these interactions keep happening, it gets old quick. But, once Hell is captured, Spangle is forced to dance, and chainsaws start getting pulled into the action, Hell Comes to Frogtown gets back on track and into the action is a big hurry.

frogtown2

For being a New World Picture and the budget certainly being pretty nil, the effects are pretty impressive. Tee frog mutants may not be the greatest effects ever produced, but they’re quite audacious for an indie sci-fi flick. What really saves the day and makes Hell Comes to Frogtown so damn watchable, is the charasmatic, go for broke, comedic performance of Roddy Piper. They man is absolutely hysterical in the movie, calling on his experience mugging and emoting at top dramatic level from his professional wrestling days, the man hams it up to such an extreme, that you cannot help but laugh with the guy. It’s a ridiculous goddamn movie, and where everyone plays it serious, Roddy plays it for laughs, and it makes the film, if you ask me.

960_hell_comes_to_frogtown_X04_blu-ray_

Hell Comes To Frogtown is by no stretch of the imagination a good film, or a competent one and I doubt it would make anyone’s favorite sci-fi action films, even from the 80’s. But, what it is, is a a fucking hoot of a piece of Trash Cinema and one very fun, brain dead ride into a hot, sweaty, dusty abysmal dystopian Hellscape well in need of some good fucks. It’s a flick where humanoid mutant frog people are packing heat, kidnapping scantly clad nubile young women who must be saved by the beefy awesomeness of Roddy Piper. Honestly, what’s not to enjoy?

960_hell_comes_to_frogtown_X07_blu-ray_

I award Hell Comes to Frogtown THREE AND A HALF out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Jun

(NSFW) Recruits (1986): Tittyzens on Patrol

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Recruits (1986) and Root's Written Reviews
Tags: 1980's, 1986, 80's, 86, assault, boobage, boobs, Canada, Canadian, cap city video lounge, cash-in, chauffer, co-ed, comedy, cops, dick, drunkard, excessive, exposed, female, governor, gratuitous, guns, Knock off, knockers, lobster, mayor, motorcycle, not safe for work, NSFW, nudity, parade, penis, police, Police Academy, politically incorrect, public nudity, raunchy, Recruits, sergeant, sex, sexy, shooting, shower, stupid, Tallahassee, Thor, tits, training, trigger happy, Zombie nightmare

recruits

a Primal Root review

“Break and enter, gross indecency, attempted murder, sexual assault with intent to rape… Do you think they’ll keep me in jail for this?” – Howie Gluckstein, introducing himself in Recruits (1986)

The Police Academy films were a staple of my childhood. The plethora of sequels to this unfathomably long running Steve Guttenberg franchise were constantly being played on HBO and I remember being in the single digits and begging my Mom to rent any sequel to the series. Was I, even at that young age, a fan of seeing figures of authority portrayed as buffoons? I doubt it was anything like that, I’m pretty sure it was just the stupid slapstick humor and vibrant, unabashed perverse sense of humor. Hell, it was the franchise that introduced to me the concept of the leather clad gay biker bar YEARS before Nightmare on Elm Street part 2: Freddy’s Revenge had a chance to. But, I digress…

Now, going back and watching these movies, I have no idea what exactly the appeal was of that very first Police Academy film. Sure, it had some great comedic talent, but for the most part, I feel a lot of it was wasted and it just wasn’t that impressively funny, let alone, six sequels and a seventh Mission to Moscow funny.

Which brings me to Recruits from 1986, the first in a series of one Canadian made Police Academy knock-offs that, to my own amazement, beats Police Academy at it’s own game and delivers. Sure, there were at least a half dozen imitators that followed in Police Academy’s wake like, Feds, Night Patrol, Off Beat, Moving Violations, etc. But few did it with a down and dirty purity like the highly perverted and sleaze saturated Recruits.

The basic story is as follows: Sgt. Hardbutt has two weeks to recruit a civilian team to protect the Governor who is coming to town, but they must be so inept, he can pull off an assassination of the Governor in order to promote the Mayor and then replace the position as Mayor Hardbutt. So, he plunders the darkest corners of his prison to recruit about a dozen perverts, sex workers, drunkards, and violent offenders in order to assemble his team of misfits who he then has his Master Sgt. Stonewall actually train like their in a military academy for those two weeks to the point they are actually kind of okay cops by the end.

recruits fellas

We are introduced to this group of characters as they fall prey to their own corrupt and immoral behavior before getting arrested, all of which typically involved exposed female breasts, which becomes apparent real quick, to be the bread and butter of this film. Our main character and Chris Pratt prototype, Mike Budowsky (Doug Annear) is arrested while dressed as a lobster and banging the Mayor’s daughter Lobster style at a fundraising event for her father. Winston and Steve stalk the beach and have an elaborate scam to sexually assault women that involves a hazmat suit and saying they need women to remove their bikinis so they can check them for signs of radiation, which the women eventually smile and do happily once they realize these men are just trying to assault them, tops to the sand, boobs a plenty. And of course, Howie, the four eyed yacht cleaner by trade, who slips and falls into the cuddy cabin of a boat he happens to be cleaning and face first into a smiling naked woman’s bare breasts, who is all about it, until her muscle head boyfriend busts in the room and has him arrested for attempted rape, sexual assault, gross indecency and…attempted murder?

Starting to get the picture?

There’s scene after scene with hardly any connective tissue at all. Here’s some examples. Scene: Female recruit mock arrests our main character and tells him to unpack the “gun” from his pants, of course, they whip out their low back throbber and every one marvels at the size of his appendage which, of course, is kept totally off screen. CUT! Next Scene: The Recruits are handed guns with live rounds and no training and are expected to hit targets, of course, they end up firing bullets into police headquarters and right through the Sergeants coffee mug. CUT! Next Scene: Howie is caught LITERALLY cleaning his gun while in bed, but German seductress Sgt. Schicklgruber (Colleen Passard) assumes he’s beating off, strips down to her elaborate display of underwear, before grabbing his weapon and it fires into the ceiling leaving the two in awkward, stunned silence. CUT! Next scene: Two guys end up in bed together under false pretenses thinking they’re with women, exchange a passionate kiss and then spend two minutes of screen time screaming at one another and spitting on the ground. CUT! Next Scene: Add an absolutely adorable motorcycle training sequence where Jon Mikl Thor of Zombie Nightmare fame, as Thunderhead does some rather lackluster, but supposedly mind blowing stunts, the old, drunk geezer recruit continually falls of his motorcycle and the Mayor’s daughter keeps her bike in place, but grinds her lady bits into the seat as the motor roars and she groans in ecstasy.

Recruits cover

And this bizarre form of comedic story telling, honestly, works in the films favor. You don’t care about the characters at all, but it’s all so goddamn stupid and poorly executed that it works in spite of itself. It’s like a really dumb dog trying to catch a frisbee. It wants to, and it’s trying really hard, but the frisbee keeps hitting the poor, drooling, stupidly happy dog in the face who just keeps smiling like an idiot with it’s tongue dangling out. It’s adorable and you can’t help but love it for all it’s simple minded flaws.

Now, of course, in the year 2018 just about ALL of these jokes have not aged well. Most assuredly the majority of the jokes revolve around women being either totally butt nekkid or topless due to someone ripping off their blouse accidentally…or what seems to be totally on purpose. Let me tell you, I have seen plenty of Trashy movies in my day, and I can with all honesty say, I have NEVER in my viewing experiences EVER seen this many pairs of bare female breasts in one movie. If a woman shows up on screen, chances are you are going to see her tits. Sure, the first five minutes you see about three pairs of tits and it gets an awkward chuckle, “This is funny?” But by the twenty minute mark, what becomes hilarious, is seeing to what lengths the filmmakers will go to justify the gag of a woman having her breasts exposed for the camera. It ludicrous and astoundingly perverted, but seeing a film so tit happy is kind of remarkable. I guess boobs were much funnier in the 1980’s than they are today. Seems like wieners have taken over as the comic relief piece of the human anatomy in the new millennium. Which is fine, but man, do I miss all those boobs…

Another repeated gag that has aged pretty poorly, is the gag attributed to a recruit named Clint. Clint is a character who’s hilarious characteristic is how gun happy he is. He shoots at everyone. Jay walkers, tiny children going faster than him on their big wheels, etc. This day and age, I don’t think anyone is laughing at trigger happy policemen and is a joke that would never be made nowadays, unless it’s Sandra Bullock shooting off a man’s genitals. It lent itself to some uncomfortable laughs and knowing “holy shit” looks exchanged between Bootsie Kidd and I, but this would not even make it onto the page these days.

There’s even a strange racially charged scene where an African Canadian recruit, Winston, goes into a country western bar, trying to emulate Eddie Murphy’s character from 48 Hours (his own words). Winston, once intimidated by the racist white trash rednecks that inhabit the place after he orders a black russian, states that he is a cop. When this tactic fails, Winston claims he has multiple personality disorder, then gets the shit kicked out of him and thrown out of the bar. He later rectifies this situation with a leopard he brings into the western bar at the end of the film to maul the rednecks to death. It’s a very awkward character arc with very little comedic delivery, but it pays off in all kinds of awkward.

All these half hazardly strewn together scenes and story arcs lead to the attempted assassination of The Governor via civial war cannon… because Sgt. Hardbutt wants a “big bang.” The Governor is driven to town by two naked recruits he interrupted while they were fucking, he has the top to the convertible dropped down to he and his wife can wave to their supporters, and all Hell breaks loose! The cannon misses, obliterates the stage, the crowd erupts into a riot, the nekkid recruits literally scream “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” Before running for their lives wearing nothing but their police issued hats, boobs bouncing, and Howie crashes his motorcycle into the back of The Governor’s car, does a back flip of the trunk, grab’s the Governor’s wife’s blouse and rips it off (of course) exposing her huge breasts for the world to see. THE ARISTOCRATS!

As you might imagine, the recruits are fired, but not before, for some reason, the mayor hires them all back because the rest of the police for quits or goes on strike or something. For whatever reason, the city is experiencing riots and looting and the only people who can put an end to it are The Recruits! They suit up and go to work using their highly illegal methods, my favorite is the use of teenage baton twirlers to savagely crush the testicles of a half dozen rednecks looting a farmer’s market, to crack down on the epidemic of crime. Paul Verhoven would later use this plot point to greater effect in 1987’s ROBOCOP.

Will the recruits prove that Sgt. Hardbutt and Master Sgt. Stonewall are the culprits behind the assassination attempt of The Governor? Will they be reinstated as actual police officers so they won’t have to go back to their low paying lives as sexual assaulters? And, most importantly, how many more bare female breasts can we cram into the run time of this fucking movie? I can answer that one for you, AS MANY AS POSSIBLE!

Recruits shouldn’t work. Especially over twenty years later.Recruits is unrelentingly dumb. An artifact from the past filled with politically incorrect humor, unabashed perversion, and the most gratuitous movie I’ve ever seen in a genre picture of this ilk in my entire life in Trash Cinema. Mix all these ingredients together, and you have aGrade A slice of beautifully realized Trash Cinema Comedy Gold well worth the revisit.

I’m awarding Recruits FOUR out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets.

Available to rent on glorious VHS at Tallahassee’s Own Cap City Video Lounge! Or watch it on youtube in it’s uncensored entirety.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Dec

New Year’s Evil: Dropping the Ball

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: New Year's Evil (1980), Root's Written Reviews and Uncategorized
Tags: 1980, 1980's, 80, abduction, actor, bikers, bloodless, call-in show, celebration, cops, detective, disguise, Drive-In, elevator, Eve, evil, horror, kidnapping, live, marriage, Misogyny, mosh, murder, Neon, new wave, New Year's Evil, priest, punks, rock, slasher, spree killing, suicide, switchblade, television

new_years_evil_poster_01

“It’s been a really bad year for me.” – Richard Sullivan, New Year’s Evil

a Primal Root Review

New Year’s Eve! That oh-so special night when we all come together to celebrate the passing of another year of set backs, horrible crimes against humanity and affronts to moral decency as we fill our bellies and blood streams with excessive amounts of alcohol in the hopes we can some how kill away the pain we feel in losing a portion of ourselves to such a godawful twelve months of our lives. That is, before we wake up New Year’s Day and roll out of our crusty, cold, puddle of puke from the night before, pluck the used condom from out of our assholes, we hope, that maybe…just maybe…, to quote The Counting Craws, this year will be better than the last.

You think of the multitude of traditions associated with this yearly world wide party and all the festive goings on and one wonders how an early 80’s slasher film could go so wrong with using this year end hedonistic smorgasbord go wrong? Well, the makes of New Year’s Evil has found a way!

new-years-evil-3

It’s New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles and the supposedly “sexy” host of a rock n’ roll call in show called Hollywood Hotline, Diane “Blaze” Sullivan (Roz Kelly), who looks like a Christian soccer Mom got accosted by Hot Topic, is hosting an all night television New Year’s party where they are celebrating new year’s in every time code. But one caller tells her to call him “Evil” and that he is going to kill someone at every stroke of midnight. Blaze ignores her troubled actor son and focuses on her live telecast responsibilities while trying to get the local police to do their jobs and halt Evil before he kills someone close to her, as he has threatened. This will not be so easy, as the killer is a MASTER OF DISGUISE! Implementing fake mustaches and priest outfits that do very little to change his appearance at all!

As the corpses begin to mount, the cops deduce that Evil is killing one person every hour from 9 to midnight. Will the police be able to track down the killer before the final stroke of midnight and Blaze get snuffed out and is there any hope that they can make this movie the least bit exciting or entertaining?

teri-copley-new-years-evil-2

Okay, New Year’s Evil is one of the greatest letdowns I’ve ever forced myself to sit through. Where does one even begin? The movie is all over the damn place, and not in a good way. It feels like the filmmakers were scrambling to find ANYTHING interesting to thrill us with but are constantly coming up short. There is absolutely no gore to speak of, literally, non. Zip. Nada. Not only that, but there is hardly any nudity to seduce us with. Listen, if you hardly have a story and don’t have a budget for any kind of gore effects in your mother fucking SLASHER movie, at least throw us a bone and feature some nekkid flesh, because watching shitty bands play terrible music in between people talking on the phone, exchanging clunky, passionless dialog, and literally just waiting for something to happen does not an fun, entertaining, or so-bad-it’s-good piece of Trash Cinema make.

new_years_evil_3

Kip Niven as Richard Sullivan who we know is Evil from the very beginning does his very best with the material he is given, with varying results. It goes from being dull as a dog turn to unintentionally comical, but he never quite settles on a tone. Grant Cramer as Blaze and Richard’s ignore son and struggling actor is actually pretty fun to watch, although his screen time adds up to about five minutes. One scene that stands out is when he takes some pills, dons a red stocking over his head and begins angrily pulling rose buds off a bouquet he gave his mother. It’s nothing really special, but in this snooze fest, it actually passes as mildly intriguing. Then there’s Roz Kelly as Blaze, who might be the most poorly cast and most ill equipped actor in the film. The whole films rest squarely on her shoulders, it is her’s to carry and she simply is not up to the challenge. She is supposed to be energetic, down and dirty and fun to be around! She dresses the part but comes off as tired, bewildered and completely out of place during her New Year’s Eve call in television party.

Really, there’s not much to recommend…the scenes meander along and go from one to the other out of duty but you never once sense any kind of passion of the project. You get the vibe that everyone involved is sort of just going through the motions to collect a pay check. There’s no fun to be had, it’s an utterly toothless, literally bloodless feature length film that has nothing to offer even the most easy to please fright fan.

Okay, well, there is kind of one thing I enjoyed. When it’s “Revealed” that Richard is Evil and he explains his motives to Blaze it’s pretty damn funny. He hates that his wife is so busy and doing so well and flirts with other men and ignores her son. I mean, was a divorce out of the question? He HAD to kill several people who had nothing to do with his shitty marriage? “You’ve castrated me and that is not nice.” Richard explains, like the loser he is. Because his wife is successful and he and their son feel left behind, there just had to be a killing spree… “Women are manipulative and deceitful and immoral and very very selfish” And this is coming from a guy who just killed a half dozen people while is disguise and lying to them simply because he doesn’t like his marital situation. Not only is this moment a nice little peek into a dark and slimy world of late 70’s misogyny, but a reminder that these kind of guys are still very much a part of the fabric of our loves, just like cotton, here in modern day America. Only they typically resent women for playing leads in remakes of Ghostbusters and are pissed that women are badass Jedi’s now in their Star Wars sequels.

Also, there is one line of darkly brilliant comedy dialog when Richard chains Blaze to the bottom of an elevator, “Enjoy your farewell party tonight. Get smashed!” BWAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, that was good. If only the ENTIRE movie could have been this witty or darkly comical.

Okay, Richard’s Laurel (of Laurel and Hardy) mask is kind of creepy…

In all honesty, this might be the most boring slasher film ever produced. How fucking sad is that? I think I will commence to getting shit faced now. I cannot wait till New Year’s Eve after watching New Year’s Evil…

ONE 1/2 out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

May

Never Too Young To Die (1986) From Stargrove With Love

By primalroot Leave a Comment

NT6

a Primal Root written Review

If I had a dime for every franchise started that claimed to be “The Next James Bond.” It seems to be a height countless studios have tried to reach since Bond proved so ceaselessly profitable. Classy, violent, misogynistic, and featuring gadgets, over the top improbably action and dynamite opening credit sequences that often times are the highlight of these action and espionage drenched goofball male fantasy spank fests. Bond proved to be a franchise that could carry on indefinitely, changing creative hands, trading out talent, and even continuities and never to the detriment of the fans. Except those who hate Daniel Craig for whatever reason.

The fact is, I’ve never been a huge James Bond fan, but I know the tropes pretty damn well, and every time a wannabe comes along it’s apparent and, in it’s own way, no matter hopeful or interesting it might be, a little pitiful. Why? Because it always feels like these films are trying to “One Up” James Bond. And with a franchise this long standing, there’s hardly a chance. You should probably have some respect for the franchise that inspired your lame wannabe flick. The franchise inspired such unabashed ripoffs as Secret Agent Super Dragon, Operation Kid Brother (starring NEIL Connery), A Man Called Dagger and more recently modern crap that tries to update the formula like XXX starring Vin Diesel, where our new Bond character is an EXTREME Mountain Dew ad of a special agent, and that goofy Kingsman: The Secret Service, where a young parkore kid gets fitted in a nice suite and fucks a princess in the ass. How far we have come, huh? Or should I say, “cum”? Bus, I digress…

Because there IS one James Bond ripoff that I have an immense appreciation for. One that gives it’s nods to the franchise that obviously inspired it, but also blazes it’s own trashy, wonderfully weird and awkward path towards cinematic action glory. It’s Gil Bettman’s 1986 Daddy Issues, terrorist thwarting, action and espionage classic, Never Too Young to Die!

product_detail_3162030205001_5278527028001_5278522558001-vs

John Stamos (TV’s Full House) IS Lance Stargrove! A young man attending a prestigious academic academy and happens to be an accomplished gymnast and a straight A student, thanks to his Asian buddy, Cliff (Peter Kwong) who helps him cheat via wristwatch. Lance is also a gloomy gus because his Mom died years ago and he never sees his Father, Drew Stargrove (George Lazenby of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, SEE! That’s respect! Putting an ACTUAL actor who played James Bond in your goofy James Bond wannabe flick!) When Lance’s Pop’s doesn’t show up the Parent’s Day to watch him hang from some rings, he takes it to heart. Old Dad dropped the ball and let him down again. Little does Lance know, his Dad is a hard nosed, wisecracking, badass secret agent who is missing Parent’s Day trying to thwart a terrorist plot to poison California’s entire water supply with toxic waste. This is the horrifying plan dreamed up by evil hermaphroditic terrorist, sociopath, snazzy dresser, murderer, night club performer and general madman, Velvet Von Ragner (played by show stealing Gene Simmons from the legendary rock bad KISS). When Lance’s Father is double crossed and puts up a valiant struggle against Ragner and his goons (who dress in Road Warrior sheik at ALL times which doesn’t help them blend in at all) in vein, Lance feels somehow feels it in the middle of his gymnastic routine and drops to the floor like a sack of shit.

At his Father’s wake, the official explanation is “car accident”, but lance isn;t buying it. Especially after he lays eyes on the sexy, sultry, mourning, Ms. Danja Deering (Vanity, RIP, of Action Jackson and The Last Dragon Fame) who manages to look good in head to toe black in the sweltering California heat. Lance tracks her down at his recently inherited farm just in time to watch Danja stomp a warrior of the wasteland’s face into some horse shit before the place gets set on fire, igniting a box labeled “grenades” and blowing the whole damn place sky high. After this harrowing encounter, Lance begins whining and and accuses Danja of banging his Dad as she gets disrobed in the kitchen and grabs a gun from above the oven as an alarm goes off warning of intruders. It happens to be Caruthers, a ginger bearded member of the same nameless agency Danja and the late Drew Stargrove worked for, at least as far I can tell. They have their first of many conversations that repeatedly emphasis that Ragner IS A HERMAPHRODITE, and is almost certainly the person responsible for Drew Stargrove’s brutal murder.

2a84f489ec57dfbbe26730f7da64eaf9

Danja heads to an avant-garde biker bar called The Incinerator where Ragner, a known terrorist threat and certainly on The FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List, is performing her strange spoken word rock and roll stage show. Of course, Lance tags along, requests a lube job from a transgendered waitress. Danja tells this idiot to go home, to which he replies, “I don;t have a home!” I suppose the excitement of the day made poor Lance forget about not only his dorm room, but the enormous farm he just inherited. Ragner takes the stage and speaks a diddy about be a hermaphrodite which includes the immortal line “It takes a man like me to be a woman like me!” as Danja reveals to Lance that Ragner is the person who killed his Father. Lance responds by accusing her of fucking his Father again and Danja storms away from the privileged little shrivel dick.

Lance follows Danja into the desert and they are both viciously attacked by mutant road warriors and kidnapped. Lance wakes up at home, which is oddly enough where the goons brought him, and they begin to beat him savagely as they demand to know where a disc containing the map of the Los Angeles sewer system is. After smacking face around the kitchen sink, feeding him a cherry tomato (seriously) and throwing him through half a dozen book cases, Lance fondles his Father’s family jewels and he feels a stirring! He stops cry and uses all his gymnast powers to flip around the den and throw these greases caked fuck faces out the upstairs window before grabbing a shot bun and blasting it into the air at random while screaming, “I’M STARGROVE! I’M STARGROVE!” Cliff soon arrives, having stashed the super secret disc in his new motorcycle. The two discover where Danja is being held captive, head over, and begin callously, mercilessly , killing people left and right. Sure, they’re all bad guys, but Lance and Cliff show up and just start blowing people to pieces and neither one seems all that affected by the death they are dishing out. Have these two gone on murder sprees in the past? Because for two college boys who have not been established as expert gun wielders or people killers, they sure are efficient and emotionless about it. Lance even shoots several folks who are running away from him. Out hero, ladies and gents!

15142_1

As our heroes rescue Danja, we are treated to a scene of Ragner, at his secret headquarters, slicing the throat of his henchman with her extra long middle finger nail for not retrieving the sewer disc. Ragner’s top scientist, played by Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger) show Ragner the specs for redirected toxic waste into California’s water supply. Looking at the computer screen Ragner remarks on what a beautiful shade of purple the merging of drinking water and toxic waste makes, only thing is, THERE IS NO SHADE OF PURPLE WHATSOEVER ON THE MONITOR! That Ragner, he truly IS a madman…

Meanwhile, Carruthers comes up with a plan to flush Ragner out of hiding, by putting Lanca and Danja is a little cabin together and spying on it to see if Ragner will attack. This plan, of course, leads to one of the highlights of the film. See, Danja REALLY want to pork Lance for saving her bacon (HA!), but Lance is all shy and hesitant and doesn’t feel it’s right. So she strips down to a bikini and begins pouring oil all over herself, her tits, her thighs, all while Lance tries to resist by drinking Perrier and eating apples. What really does it, is when Danja finally whips here chesticles out and begins doing a dance of seduction with a filthy water hose. Lance tosses his apple asides, picks her up, takes to bed and begins plowing her soy bean field. It is truly one of the most erotic and sensual scenes in all of Trash Cinema and it must be seen to be believed. The score, the performances, the editing all perfectly capture what it is to seduce a Stargrove.

nevertooyoung15

Before long, the double crosser within the nameless agency is shockingly revealed as Lance and Danja are captured and taken to Ragner’s secret lair which leads to an action packed finale on top of a water dam as Lance Stargrove and Velvet Von Ragner must now battle face to face in a brutal, knock down , drag out, boob biting, bloody battle where one man or one hermaphrodite must perish, and countless lives hang in the balance. It;s breathtaking and truly one of the finest action film finales I’ve ever witnessed. Seriously, it doesn’t get more bizarre, trashy, or unbelievable than this.

It’s difficult to discern whether Never Too Young To Die is trying to be serious, if it’s a parody of the spy genre, or if it’s trying to be a balance of both, because it is hysterical from start to finish. I get the feeling that the creative minds behind this thing really were trying to pay it straight and create a new franchise. But, what the ended up with was a highly entertaining and wholly unintentionally hysterical bit of Trash Cinema Gold. And, as is so often the case, the more unintentionally funny these films are, the better they play. And this is why Never Too Young to Die is a hidden gem of action trash cinema that must be seen to be believed. Unlike most James Bond Cash-ins, Never Too Young to Die works because it doesn’t really work at all. You can see what they were going for, but they miss the mark by such a wide margin, they just about create a different genre altogether. And if you ask me, that’s a remarkable thing.

ragnar-r03

Honestly, the film’s MVP is Gene Simmons he gives a truly phenomenal, over the top, hysterical performance as he ads life and genuine menace to a larger than life villain who I would LOVE to have seen more of in further adventures of Lance Stargrove. Every time Gene Simmons is one screen, his performance is so goddamn balls to wall joyously psychotic, you cannot help but laugh and enjoy every moment of his batshit time on screen. I really wish I could have seen the man in more rolls like this, because he steals the whole damn film.

Never Too Young to Die is as goofy, strange and wonderful as they come. A true tour de force of absolute trash cinema. Chock full of violence, ridiculous action, and a damn fine amount of nekkid breasts, I award Never Too Young to Die FIVE out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets! DO NOT MISS!

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Oct

The WNUF Halloween Special (1987-2013)

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: The WNUF Halloween Special (1987-2013)
Tags: 1980's, 1987, 2013, broadcast, Cat, Chris LaMartina, comedy, costumes, found footage, Frank Stewart, Halloween, horror, hunted, husband and wife, investigation, live, local legend, Midnight Crew Studios, murders, myth, new anchor, news, nightly news, nostalgia, October 31st, priest, psychics, Special, supernatural, trock or treat, VCR, VHS, Webber House, WNUF

wnuf-halloween-special

“This is not some Halloween prank. The grisly evidence of the supernatural is real. – Frank Stewart, The WNUF Halloween Special

a Primal Root written review

This day and age everything we want is right at our fingers tips. All the information (and misinformation) we need is jut a key stroke and a mouse click away. Movies are on demand, Netflix streams their tiny list of titles right into our living rooms…but not long ago we had to dig. A younger generation will not know of the struggle it once was to locate an obscure title or horror film, a rare bootleg of a strange, grotesque, bizarre television occurrence or to pay exorbitant amounts of cash to purchase a copy of something you’ve heard such tall tales of that your expectations are sky high, only to pop in the VHS tape and realize you’ve totally been had. Sure, it was a kind of dark age of horror cinema geekdom, but for every tape you watched that was absolute dog shit, you would come across some absolute gold. Even some strange, unlabeled tapes from the local thrift store, flea market or Goodwill that left you wondering just what the fuck you witnessed and had your grasping desperately at what was left of your Taco Bell and Mountain Dew fueled teenage sanity.

wnuf-halloween-special-2013-00-04-10

However, in 2013 some innovative and intelligent filmmakers decided to try and recreate that exact same vibe with The WNUF Halloween Special, a feature film intended to look and feel like a lost, legendary 1980’s local news Halloween broadcast that went terribly wrong and has become the stuff of Urban Myth. The film begins with the all too familiar bright blue VHS screen we all recall from the era, a white triangle with the word “PLAY” pop up in the top corner as an audible click is heard and we are transported back to a simpler time, a crappier time perhaps, where audio was spotty, video quality was always poor and everything was tacky and damn proud of it. Of course, those living at the time had no idea and it was embraced in all it’s clunkiness.

Our news anchors at WNUF, dressed as a witch and Dracula respectively, are just as cheesy and goofball as you might expect, only going serious face when the story calls for it, like a story about local tragedy where an asian boy dressed as G.I. Joe when to a Vietnam veterans home and was gunned down. It’s a dark chuckle, but a damn good one, none the less. We are also told repeatedly to stay tuned for The WNUF Halloween Special at 7pm, right after the 6 O’Clock News where the ultimate ham and local news anchor, the mustachioed Frank Stewart, played by the dead pan and hilarious Paul Fahrenkopf, will host a stunning exploration into the supernatural and unexplained phenomenon occurring within the walls of the infamous Webber House, the site of ghoulish murders. Frank enlists the help of a famed Husband, Wife and Feline psychic team as well as a local Catholic Priest to accompany him on this journey into the horrifying, the macabre and the unknown…

frankstewart

It’s just as cheesy as it sounds, folks. But it all works in the movies favor, because for the most part, if you can suspend your disbelief just a little bit, it doesn’t feel staged. It all feels pretty damn real thank to the very natural, often improvised performances. What also lends a lot of credence to the proceedings are the fantastic fake local commercials that keep interrupting the action after our perilous reporter looks into the camera telling us, “We’ll be back RIGHT AFTER THIS!” There are some truly wonderful ads created for the fictional but very nostalgic local haunts like Tokens arcade and pizza parlor as well as late night horror movie shows to broadcast later in the evening and even political attack ads! It goes a long way to making the whole film feel more like genuine lost relic of a bygone era than your typical found footage genre entry.

Much like The Blair Witch Project over a decade earlier, it began building hype via word of mouth. Once the Halloween Special was completed filmmaker Chris LaMartina started getting the word out by dubbing the film directly to VHS, hand writing labels with Sharpie and dropping it off without anyone noticing at VHS collector conventions for people to stumble upon. I’ve even heard they drove around Baltimore tossing VHS copies of their movie out the car window in the hopes of people picking it up, sliding it not the VCR’s and getting rumors and copies circulating. I can only imagine how awesome it must have been to be one of the lucky ones who tumbled across one of those original VHS tapes before it became common knowledge that this was all staged and wondering just what you had come across. It must have a been the most wonderful kind of mind fuck.

wnuf_1900monster

Sure, we all know it’s fake now, but I cannot heap enough praise on The WNUF Halloween Special. It has a lot of fun transporting us back the days that folks like us used to look forward to dressing up in costumes, going to Halloween carnivals with our parents and trick or treating around the neighborhood with our friends. The WNUF Halloween Special brings back those feelings of just how special Halloween night was to us as children, sure, it’s still special to us know, but as a child in meant something even more. I for putting so much effort into creating that reality for us, once again, WNUF should be commended.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but by film’s end we see another nightly news broadcast five days after the fact with our original two news anchors discussing with us whether or not what we witnessed on screen during the WNUF Halloween Special was a hoax or not. They mention the disappearance of certain people…then put on their best smiles, forget about that bummer and move on full force into discussing Thanksgiving and Christmas season! Its crasstastic, pitch perfect in it’s dark humor and mocking the attention span of the typical television viewer. But, you know as well as I do, that it’s only one year before Halloween comes round again… The WNUF Halloween Special takes place in 1987…who know what happened in 1988?

I award The WNUF Halloween Special 3 out of 5 Dumpster Nuggets!

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Posts Tagged ‘1980’s

Primal Rage (1988) or Campus Monkey Trouble

Evils of the Night (1985): Invasion of the Platelet Snatchers

Don’t Mess With My Sister! (1985) Stanky Lad’s Junkyard For The Human Spirit

(NSFW) Mausoleum (1983): Demonic Wife? Run For Your Life!

The Dark Power (1985): Whip It Good With Lash LaRue To Show You How!

Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) Hell or High Sperm Count

(NSFW) Recruits (1986): Tittyzens on Patrol

New Year’s Evil: Dropping the Ball

Never Too Young To Die (1986) From Stargrove With Love

The WNUF Halloween Special (1987-2013)

Dumpster Diving

Categories

Blogroll

Top Posts

Posts Tagged ‘1980’s

Dumpster Diving

Categories

Cloud of Categories

Blogroll

Top Posts