Who doesn’t love a tragic, tear jerking love story? The classic tale of star crossed lovers longing to be with one another, only to have those desires cut short by the selfish, senseless demands of those around them. From Romero and Juliet, to Antony and Cleopatra to Return of the Living Dead part III and Bride of Re-Animator, it’s a tale as old as time that caters to universally identifiable feelings of love, longing and loss. And then there are those heartbreaking tales of lost love so unreal, so unapologetically bat shit insane, audiences can’t hardly believe it was conceived, let alone seen to completion. Enter Stewart Raffill’s 1994 teen romance horror comedy fever dream… Tammy and the T-Rex.
Denise Richards (Left) and Paul Walker (Right)
Tammy and the T-Rex begins conventionally enough with a burgeoning romance forming between well endowed, vivacious, twenty something high school cheerleader, Tammy (Denise Richards in her first ever starring role) and her hunky football player beau, Michael (Paul Walker, once again, in his first ever feature length film role). Also shoe horned into the opening is Tammy’s best friend, the flamboyant and over the top early 90’s gay stereotype, Byron (Theo Forsett), who is true blue and the most likable character in the film. The chemistry between Tammy and Michael is awkward and goofy, but it does come across like they genuinely want to utilize one another’s genitals for their intended purpose. Only thing is, Tammy has a psychotic, bloodthirsty ex-boyfriend, Billy (George Pilgrim), who initiates a knock down, drag out beat down with Michael within the first five minutes of the film which ends in a brutal, school yard, “testicular stand-off” squeeze-a-thon to prove his undying love for Tammy. It’s a ball squeezing battle unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed in cinema and even takes the presence of armed police officers (one of which is played by Trash Cinema legend George ‘Buck’ Flower) to intervene. Keep in mind, this is within the film’s first few minutes that all this takes place. The teenage romance, and the risks inherent of their forbidden love, are set and leading to a collision course of violent retribution for even looking at some dipshit’s ex-girlfriend.
We are also introduced to the story’s mad scientist, Dr. Wachenstein (Terry Kiser, Bernie of Weekend at Bernie’s AND Dr. “Bad News” Crews from Friday the 13th part VII: The New Blood) who longs to achieve immortality by transplanting brains into robots, which is why he has built a giant animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex run by a computer…Huh? He aspires to give the T-Rex life, but is missing one crucial ingredient, a fresh human brain. This could be a generic kind of villainous roll, but Terry Kiser chews the scenery and make Dr. Wachenstein a lively, fun and memorable scientific madman.
Leave it to Billy to chase Michael down, throw him in the trunk of his care and abandon him in a nature preserve for filled with ferocious, hungry lions and panthers where Michael is mauled nearly to death by the aforementioned lion. This is creativity under the gun at it’s finest. What a fucking bizarre an unexpected turn of events and a truly dastardly brilliant maneuver by Billy. Leaving some poor guy in a deadly giant feline nature preserve and not tell him where he is? As the song goes, “Welcome to the jungle, baby! You’re gonna DDDDIIIIAAAAYYY!” It’s a stroke of mad unconventional genius and I, for one, was thoroughly impressed by this directorial choice.
Michael, amazingly, survives being savaged by the lion only to be falsely declared dead by visiting physician Dr. Wachenstein, who then kidnaps Michael, takes him to his laboratory, sprays blood all over his puking assistants as he haphazardly saws Michael’s skull open to demonstrate how if he pokes just the right spot he can make Michael’s dying body get a gigantic boner which he can manipulate and make dance around before he slips Michael’s brain out of his skull cavity and slips it into his robotic T-Rex. What could possibly go wrong?
You guessed it, everything. While Dr. Wachenstein’s away banging his lady assistant, he leaves his two other goons in charge and as soon a the pizza guy arrives, Michael goes fucking nuts after realizing he is not a robot T-Rex and starts chomping heads off and stomping people to death. Once he breaks loose, Michael makes a B-Line straight for a party where Billy and his posse of maniacal laughers happen to be at. Michael crashes the party, disemboweling and decapitating all those who have wronged him in gloriously bloody, goopy, gratuitously creative fashion. It’s fun and brutal but also felt a little off kilter for the narrative. Shouldn’t Michael be stalking these goons for the rest of the film and eating them one by one leading up to a final confrontation with Billy? In a more generic film I feel that would be the case, But Tammy and T-Rex is anything but your typical tale of love and revenge. He actually eats everyone responsible for the attack in one blood spattered sequence. Michael even runs into Byron at the party, who is understandably horrified by the situation. When Byron trips and falls to the ground trying to escape the massacre, Michael-Rex actually picks him up, sets Byron on his feet, dusts of his shoulders and walks away. There’s a genuine moment of suspense here, because you’re not sure right off the bat if Michael is just going to go about killing people indiscriminately, or if he will just be devouring enemies. Much to my relief, he lets the lovable Byron go.
So, about half way through the film all the bullies are devoured, including Billy, who has his head torn off and somehow partially hollowed out. I imagine an off screen moment where Michael bites Billy’s head off and then cracks Billy’s skull open like a pistachio so Michael-Rex can then scoop the insides out with his dino tongue before hacking the husk out to splatter all over the concrete backyard patio. Anyway, with that conflict over with at the midway point, where is there to go from here? Actually, there’s plenty to do! Michael-Rex terrifies Tammy by showing up at her house, breaking in through her bedroom window and whisking her away to barn in broad daylight where this nubile young woman and a T-Rex play a game of charades until Tammy finally guesses Michael’s brain is alive and living in the body of this robotic T-Rex. Before long Tammy falls in love all over again with Michael as a robotic dinosaur and the hunt is on the find Michael’s brain a new body and thwart Dr. Wachenstein and his remaining minions evil plans! One major question left hanging, at least in my mind, is whether or not Tammy and Michael have sex while he is in his robotic T-Rex form or not. There is a scene in the barn where they are laying together and it is mildly implied something frisky might have been going on during the cutaway. Because when Byron shows up to bring them food and drink, which friends do for friends all the time post coitus, he asks “Is everyone decent?” before entering. I know, I know, I;m probably reading into this way too much, but as a man who has been in audiences for live readings of Dinosaur Erotica, my mind cannot help but wonder to that most forbidden of places…Jurassic Pork. Anyhoo, maybe we can finally get a sequel where this is all made clear. Because, honestly, if they aren’t making the sign of the double backed Pterodactyl by films end, poor Michael must have the worst case of disembodied blue balls in the history of this fictional universe.
Tammy and The T-Rex is far better than it has any right to be. Honestly, the story is a blast of imagination and utter batshit insanity where any and every concept seems to be throw against the wall to see what sticks, and to my amazement, just about all of it does. Tammy and The T-Rex succeeds in being none stop entertaining in much the same way writer/director Stewart Raffill’s 1988 McDonald’s sponsored E.T. knock off Mac & ME and his misguided Mannequin Two: On The Move turned out to be. They are chock full of bizarre ideas that function on a sort of caffeinated dream logic, just as soon as one mind blowingly surreal moment happens you’re on to another! Sure, this isn’t a recipe for mainstream appeal like your run of the mill Disney output, but for those who thrive on cinema that buck formalities and storytelling conventions, those misfits that the rest of the movie going public reject for being “bad movies,” these are the ones that give us a breath of fresh air as they deliver us something totally outside the expected, something rancid and weird and not fully thought out or planned.
Tammy and the T-Rex is a perfect example of such a film. It might be considered terrible by those who deem they know better, but the charm of Tammy and The T-Rex IS the flaws and imperfections. It’s Grade A Trash Cinema, and everyone in front of and behind the camera really seem to be giving it their all to make this loony concept work, and that is one of the films saving graces. In all seriousness, these are possibly the best performances I’ve ever seen out of Denise Richards and Paul Walker. When Tammy screams in anguish it is genuine and believable, when she calls Michael on the phone to apologize for her behavior, it doesn’t feel phony, and when she hops around the bedroom doing strip tease in a white teddy, it doesn’t feel forced. It’s cornball, and cheesy, but it never has that feel of a disingenuous trash. No, this is the real deal where it’s obvious the folks making it were having fun and trying to deliver something entertaining and as good as they could make it. Tammy and The T-Rex is an absolutely charming and lovable piece of Trash Cinema and one I am thrilled has finally found the light of day fully restored on Blu-Ray, uncut and uncensored, by the good folks at Vinegar Syndrome.
Tammy and The T-Rex is a MUST WATCH for fans of Trash Cinema. It’s like Beverly Hills 90210 meets Jurassic Park by way of Robocop and Ghost‘s illegitimate love child and it is good, trashy, mindless fun from start to finish.
I award Tammy and the T-Rex FOUR AND A HALF out of FIVE DUMPSTER NUGGETS.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre family dynamic has certainly changed over the years and decades since they first made their teenager barbecuing debut back in Tobe Hooper’s 1974 cinematic milestone. They were originally a disorganized banned of blood thirsty, cannibalistic psychopaths trying to stay alive after being put out of jobs over at the slaughterhouse. In Hooper’s 1986 sequel “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre part 2” the clan had adjusted to Reagan era politics, yuppie America and capitalism and even managed to run their own award winning barbecue catering company. By 19990’s “Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre part III” they had gone back to the part of Texas that looks like Los Angeles where the family looks to be expanding a bit and then, by the mid 90’s, Kim Henkel, the was part of the creative force behind the original, steps forward with possibly the strangest and most loathed entry in the entire franchise.
The movie centers on a young, bespectacled girl named Jenny (Bridget Jones herself, Renee Zellweger) who meet as she is getting ready for prom night before being unceremoniously assaulted and nearly raped by her Stepfather. This is in the first five minutes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation and we never see Jenny’s Stepfather or oblivious Mother again. It’s an unnerving note to begin such a story on and has you feeling apprehensive from the get-go. You get that feeling this is to set up that moment where you have that revelation while Leatherface is biting some nubile teenage girl’s well manicured fingers from her hands and another family member smears shit all over his upper torso and you think to yourself, “Ya know, this family isn’t all that different from any other!” Makes you think, don’t it?
Renee Zellweger harnessing her inner Lisa Loeb.
Well, before anyone gets the chance to twerk to “You Look Wonderful Tonight”, Jenny and three of her fellow prom goers end up lost down a backwoods dirt road after a hit and run fender bender. “People don;t know how to build roads!” one idiotic piece of chainsaw fodder declares as they motor towards their meat hook hanging destinies. Then…THEY GET IN ANOTHER WRECK! One that puts their car out of commission and leaves the driver of the other vehicle unconscious laying in the dirt. Jenny and two of her fellow airheaded teens head off into the night to find help while Jenny’s date stays behind to make sure the young man steadily bleeding to death in the mud isn’t ripped apart by voracious raccoons or something.
After a mile of walking and none stop whining, Jenny and her buddies come across the mobile home offices of Darla, who runs a construction business. She seems friendly enough and enjoys flashing her ample bosoms at anyone who throws a rock through her window (…the Hell?) and phones someone to go check on the wreck out in the middle of nowhere and give these kids a “lift.” This mysterious someone is Vilmer Slaughter, a tow truck driving, greased up lunatic with a remote controlled mechanical leg and penchant for screaming like a frat boy at the homecoming game. Vilmer is brought to life by a scene stealing and completely convincing Matthew McConaughey, and watching him play beside Zellweger it’s clear to see where the real talent in Texas resides.
Old Fashioned Texas Nostril Flare Fighting!
BUT I DIGRESS! Vilmer shows up to the scene of the crash, kills the coma boy on the ground and proceeds to chase down Jenny’s lover boy and repeatedly run over him, grinding his quivering teenage corpse into bloody, raw, hamburger meat beneath his Goodyears while listening to 90’s “Alternative” rock on the tape deck and howling like a hyena on PCP. Sorry, but this I fell in love with Vilmer immediately. We need to get this guy and Chop-Top from The Texas Chainsaw MAssacre part 2 together and make a sitcom.
Well, Jenny ends up walking back to the scene of the accident to meet her beau and finds a whole lot of nothing, at which point, she decides to sit in the dirt until her two other pals, who have gone off in a different direction, end up dead and her character becomes relevant again. While she sits the next fifteen to twenty minutes of the film out, her two friends manage to make their way to the home of these lunatics and run into a camouflage wearing, mullet headed Leatherface who screams like a woman whose teacup chihuahua just got run over by a lawnmower for the majority of his screen time. It gives the impression that Leatherface is just as terrified of these kids as they are of him and, in fact, I have a feeling that might just be the case. Either that or these are psychotic screams of redneck frustration. I suppose you can draw your own conclusions. All I know is that later, once all the protagonist men have had their skulls bashed in and Jenny’s been thoroughly chased about the Chainsaw clan’s property and is finally tossed into the dining room in a brand new, and very sparkly, evening dress, Leatherface dresses up in drag and, dare I say it, looks rather lovely. In brain damaged, blood thirsty redneck wearing a hideous female suit of skin kind of way…
“I’d fuck me.”
The evening devolves into a dinner scene of near epic surrealism as Vilmer continues to go nuts over his take out pizza, dry humping his sister, Darla, and pouring lighter fluid on his captives and then setting them on fire only to stomp their heads into pickled relish all over the dining room floor. And that’s the moderately normal stuff happening in this house! The family is visited by some mysterious shadow organization manager who apparently has the Chainsaw clan on their payroll as merchants of fear. The clan is paid to pick up and terrorize unsuspecting young people and, from what I can gather, allow the leaders of this shadow group lick ever bead of sweat and smudge of filth off the captives face while showcasing their own strange abdominal mutilations. When did was this deal struck between the carnage minded Chainsaw clan and some strange Illuminati style group that secretly controls the destiny of society? I have no clue. but it is a strange and intriguing idea to stick within a damn Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. Just don;t expect an explanation, ’cause there isn’t one coming.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation reaches it’s absurd climax as Jenny escapes with Vilmer and Leatherface in a lovely black satin robe, in hot pursuit. Jenny manages to ruin an elderly couples vacation by putting them in the middle of the action and the chase is cut short by a crop dusting airplane. Yeah, if you want to see the visual representation of the term “cluster fuck” this would suffice.
Dear Ms. Zellweger, could you please wear this dress to The Oscars one year? Love, – Root
All in all, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation was a bold attempt to do something a little different with a very stale franchise. In their attempt to infuse the proceedings with a healthy dose of mid 1990’s alternative rock, MTV culture (every chase seen is punctuated by some shitty alt rock/grunge track) and strange conspiracy theories (The Chainsaw clan working for the government?) it feels as if this entry in the Texas Chainsaw franchise kind of get lost under the weight of it’s own absurdity. There’s no consistent tone, only one strange,m off the wall set piece after another. And, although, McConaughey does his damnedest to make this thing lively as Hell, and he does pretty much run the show in this entry even if Zellweger never rises up the remarkable level of both Marilyn Burns and Caroline Williams in the first two entries of the series, the movie itself never really takes off. It has all the elements it needs to be a great Texas Chainsaw Massacre flick, but at some point it starts puttering and finally just stalls out and drifts into the ditch.
I give this flick TWO Dumpster Nuggets out of FIVE!
Well, I suppose I’ve kept you all waiting long enough. It’s time for The Primal Root to take a look at the final installment in Hugh Gallagher’s legendary straight to VHS Gore trilogy. We’ve covered ‘Goregasm’, where a perpetually topless, large breasted woman was paid to spin in circles and then kill her clients providing them with the “Ultimate Climax”. We’ve checked out ‘Goreotica’, the story of a jewel heist gone wrong, necrophilia and the dead body for AIDS patients black market…but now, now it is time for us to delve into what might be Hugh’s most high concept endeavor of the entire trilogy. His ‘Return of the King’, if you will. That’s right, it is time to get elbows deep and take a deep, appreciative whiff of 1994’s “Gore Whore!”
As out tape gets rolling we are treated to some slow moving credits featuring some Atari 2800 level lettering placed over a slide show of turn of the century bondage images which have a large black, spinning dildo superimposed over them. Believe it, or not, this giant black dildo actually plays a major role in the story which is about to unfold. The credits end as the black cock dildo shoots a gob of digitized green cum out the tip and onto the screen spelling out “GORE WHORE”. And so our fantastic journey into the filthy world of undead prostitution, science run amok, peeping on co-workers in the shower and “true love” begins.
“Gore Whore” starts off right in the middle of the action as some greasy fellow in a brown leather jacket flops down on crusty, crab infested mattress in a room with blank, white, walls as he turns his eyes to his prostitute friend who begin doing a wonderful interpretive dace to a mix tape she had made and queued up specifically for just such a magic moment.
And what a moment it is! As prostitute Dawn Day begins sashaying across the jizz stained floors of her low rent apartment stripping off articles of clothing until there’s nothing between her and her client except a thick batch of pubes and a pair of cross-eyed tits courtesy of a birth defect I was also cursed with growing up called, Pectus excavatum. Once it became life threatening it was something I had surgery to correct, but it looks like our leading lady Ms. Audrey Street, decided to live with the deformity and all I can say is more power to her! It certainly gives her character, who is required to get naked in just about every damn scene she appears in, a very strange and unsettling vibe that you just can’t get with the effects a shoe string budget, straight to video production can buy. It’s a deformity that can be very awkward and I give Audrey kudos for having the balls to flaunt what she’s got. I doubt I would have been so brave when I had my concave chest.
Soon Dawn is tying her client down, warning him that condoms won;t be enough to protect him (she must have some very potent pussy grime), proceeds to unzip his fly, whip out his little John and bits that sucker off with a single chomp! He screams bloody murder as raspberry syrup his the bedroom wall and Dawn begins gnawing on his neck. Dawn gnaws for a second or two before he client’s head comes tumbling off just as her mix tape comes to an end and we fade to black. That girls got some serious chompers on her, good god!
Fade up and we’re inside a dimly lit bar where we are introduced to our hero, Chase (played by Brady Debussey, the same guy who played the necrophiliac in a cape who had AIDS in Goreotica), who looks to be spending his day emptying various bottles of whiskey and napping on the bar room pool table wile dreaming of a blonde lady holding a cleaner shaven version of himself in a poorly lit gazeebo. See, Chase lost the love of his life, Susan to cancer a year or so ago, lost his job as the town’s head detective and now just lounges around on gaming equipment completely shitfaced. This is our hero, ladies and gents.
Thankfully, mad scientist Witman shows up to hire Jim Beam, er, Chase to investigate his missing lab assistant who stole an experimental serum of his. And surprise, surprise, the lab assistant in question is none other than Dawn Day, the scrawny, filthy haired hooker from earlier! Witman offers a Chase money up front to investigate and retrieve this serum but Chase isn’t so quick to take up the proposition for some reason. Chase, buddy, you’re stinking drunk, broke and unemployed, just take the fucking money and look into this shit. Who cares if it seems like a waste of time! What are you thinking? Think of all the booze that money’ll buy!
Yeah, looks like hero material to me.
Chase begins his investigation by sitting on the side of a dirt road until Dawn happens to drive by. Chase gives chase but not before we have a completely unrelated cutaway to a very content and happy looking horse just chilling out nearby watching our gumshoe go to work. The horse has nothing to do with the story and never appears again and is the only genuinely happy character in the video.
Hello there!
Chase follows Dawn to a tall, blonde, married Catholic woman’s house. The character with wide, creepy, haunting eyes, long blonde hair, nice, bountiful breasts and a well groomed shaft alley is only known in the script as “Swingin’ House Wife” . Chase peeps through the window as the two ladies begin swapping spit that I can only imagine smells like stale Arby’s and makes the observation “A LESBIAN LAB ASSISTANT!” out loud so the idiocy of the statement is allowed to sink in with the viewing audience before he continues thinking out loud and tells us his next move before rushing off to his dented, sagging, piece of crap Chevy, “While she’s here munching carpet, I better go over to her house and investigate!” the man was the Dick Tracy of his time and place.
It’s as if “Swingin’ House Wife” is staring into my soul.
Swingin’ House Wife has called Dawn over to make out, get totally naked, discuss how her husband doesn’t get her needs or desires and then get ruthlessly, and hilariously butchered on the living room carpet. ‘Swingin’ House Wife’ seems more concerned with keeping the strawberry syrup out of her eyes and hair than she does trying to prevent her own gruesome death by filleting as Dawn flings her butcher knife around in the air as if it’s not making contact with anything. Eventually the massacre ends, bright red, sticky syrup covers nearby scripture, the naked dead body of “Swingin’ House Wife” and Dawn herself, who quickly begins the daunting task of cleaning the mess up with her tongue.
Over at Dawn’s place, which it’s interior is inexplicably covered in vines, Chase discovers a fridge containing nothing but several large containers of blood. how does he know it’s blood? The moron actual sinks his digits in there and then licks the crimson liquid of his sausage fingers. “Blood!” Chase exclaims. “A lesbian lab assistant that drinks blood!” The plot thickens and Chase has now orally contracted hepatitis C. His work here is done.
The Paternity Test concludes, Ronald McDonald, you are the Father!
Chase heads over to the local police department where upon entering we see the only officers on duty are the one officer deep asleep behind his desk and another who is HEY! It’s the pint sized and gorgeous D’Lana Tunnell playing the adorable, cynical, poorly named deputy Pat who has a huge helmet of Manic Panic red colored hair and a not so great grip on her lines, but she does try, and that’s gotta count for something. Chase asks Pat for a bit of help researching Dawn Day in the computer data base, but Pat is reluctant. She throws out an exposition guilt trip about Chase being a sad bastard and a disgrace to the department ever since his wife died (yeah, boo-hoo, you cry baby!) and it’s his own fault for getting kicked off the force and there’s no way she’s helping him out! Chase whips out a crisp, clean $5 bill and Pat is suddenly eager to please! And Chase is the disgrace to the local police department? Between sleeping beauty by the front door and the rockabilly pinup model deputy, this place has a pretty low bar set for disgracefulness.
“Prostitution, Prostitution, Prostitution.” Pat exlaims as she reads from her computer monitor what sounds like the lyrics to a pop song. “Oh, and she shouldn’t be hard to track down. She’s dead.” Ah, thanks Pat, I guess this case is closed. WAIT! She’s dead? Well this just doesn’t make sense! How can a dead woman go to a lonely housewife’s house and tickle her zesty love taco with her slobbery oral love slug? Can Chase follow the clues and solve the riddle? He tracks Dawn down to her final resting place where she happens to be lounging about naked in the mid afternoon sun. Chase watches through his binoculars and Dawn begins filling a syringe with a batch of neon green Re-animator style goo, snaps on the handy , dandy, giant black dildo attachment, runs the it between her tits, down her stomach and into her clam strip with a *GOOSH* noise that really sells the effect.
It’s cock o’clock somewhere!
Chase stumbles back, catching Dawn’s attention. She finishes depositing her green love sauce into her holiest of hollies, slips on her black nightie, deposits her black dildo, green goo kit into an open grave and departs leaving Chase alone to check out the cemetery. As one might imagine, this leads to a scuffle with a nearby zombie decked out from head to toe in some little tan plaid number. Chase and the zombie partake in classic Filipino crotch fighting as the two grab one anthers shoulders and vigorously thrust areas towards each other. Before you know it, the zombie is on Chase’s car hood as he tries to escape at top speed. To get rid of this pesky undeader, as opposed to stomping on the break and making the zombie go flying, Chas e instead rams his car into a parked automobile whose occupant just so happens to be, and I’m not kidding, masturbating to a copy of Swank magazine he had tucked under his shirt. Who are these people? What town IS this? The total carnage results in the zombie falling into a creek and the innocent bystander losing his Johnson. Tragic.
Ensemble by Andre 3000
But the battle doesn’t end there! Turns out there’s a hidden lady zombie in chase’s backseat which behind munching his neck! Chase continues driving at top speed, as opposed to pressing the brake and making a far less deadly situation for himself, goes over a small hill in slow motion, before wreaking his car in a two foot deep gutter. With his car, it’s believable. Chase stumbles out of the vehicle as the blonde, lady zombie in the backseat has vanished, falls on his face only to look up and see Dawn Day approaching. She belittles our alcoholic hero and gives us her M.O. She’s tired of being subservient to wimpy men who buy her company and now it’s time to turn the tables! see, she’s undead, must feast on blood to survive and inject herself with Witman’s green goo pussily once a week. See, she is the undead hooker queen of this dung heap of a town and she’s turning all her tricks into and undead army! THE GORE WHORE HAS RISEN! ALL HAIL THE ZOMBIE HOOKER QUEEN!
Yeah, I’d say you botched this Bris, mister.
Dawn leaves Chase to be killed by a decapitated head and body team brought to vivid life thanks to a hole in the ground and a blue screen effect that puts George Lucas and his Star Wars prequels to shame. In a bit of comedy gold, the reanimated body kicks Chase around a little which in the cutaways make it look like the body is doing some manner of the hustle. Chase impales the body before giving the green foam spewing severed head a little speech about once being the kicker on his high school varsity football team before punting the head into a nearby lake. While soaring through the air the severed head cries “FUUUUUUUUUCK!” adding the cherry to the top of this it’s-so-bad-it’s-bad-but-I-can’t-stop-watching- sundae of awesome.
It’s been a long day and Chase is pretty fucking beat. He makes his way to Pat’s house where she’s in the middle of one of those extended “scrub your tits until they are gleaming” showers where he breasts encounter about an entire Irish springs bar of soap worth of lather. Ladies, is this generally what you do in the shower? Rub your boobs with soap for thirty minutes at a time eatin’ up all the dang hot water? Low budget Trash Cinema is one of the few genres brave enough to graphically illustrate this plight. What a brave, and selfless move on the part of these filmmakers.
But I digress, Chase breaks into Pat’s house, peeps in on her showering for about ten minutes as he hallucinates that the well built, brightly red headed and short D’Lara Tunnell is his tall, lanky, blonde dead wife. Hey, if you have actresses willing to get totally naked for your artistic piece of cinema, you might as well use them! So we are treated to two lovely women lathering their breasts, buns and rinsing out their hair for what feels like a quarter of the movie. Note, I am not complaining. This is Trash Cinema at it’s finest, folks. I rent these kind of movies almost specifically for these scenes!
I guess she couldn’t afford a shower curtain one a police officer’s salary. Times are tough…
Pat steps out of the shower without feeling the need to cover up despite being shocked that a drunken, bleeding, hallucinating mad man is standing in the doorway with a protruding erection in his trousers and drool dripping from his bottom lip and unenthusiastically asks “Chase, what are you doing here?” as chase tumbles to the floor and Hugh Gallagher composes the most beautifully orchestrated shot of his entire career as he provides the viewer with both a magnificent close up shot of the lovely D’Lara Tunnell’s rump AND Chase’s hysterical pratfall. Gang, this is why I go to the movies.
Why The Primal Root loves movies summed up in one single brilliant shot.
When Chase comes to he talks Pat into helping him out in his investigation. She agrees only after, again, telling him what a fucking loser he is for still mourning the death of his wife. Chase gives a dark, sad speech about Heaven and Hell and how Hell is right here and now on planet Earth. It’s not a bad little speech for a flick that’s spent most of it’s running time telling us things we’ve already gathered from the action on screen, but it does kind of his me directly in that little spot in my heart where that emo little teeny bopper “woe is me” self resides. Life can certainly be shitty sometimes, but as we’ve learned from ‘Gore Whore” it’s nothing a bit of self medication can’t solve.
Chase and Pat head out into the hot steamy Bum Fuck Egypt night to follow up on a hunch that Dawn will be at a local watering holw where her favorite band and customers “The Third Graders” will be playing. Cut to- a deserted sports bar where three middle aged guys in colorful wigs jerk off with their instruments and Dawn day performs another one of her captivating dance numbers. The Third Graders make it through one who song before hoping off stage in the hopes of purchasing a piece of tail from Ms. Day. Unfortunately for them, she has other plans, as she whips out her Rosco and pops a cap in all their asses. If only this could have happened to Nickelback.
Chase and Pat, he’s a boozy private dick with nothing left to lose, she’s a feisty, small time cop, together THEY’RE DYNAMITE! Coming this Spring to FOX!
This prompts Chase and Pat to rush in looking like one of the coolest gutter scum, down trodden television cop duos ever devised! Pat pulls her gun and points it at Dawn’s greasy mug as Chase tells her to shoot. “NO!” Pat screams. “She’s unarmed!” Chase, along with the entire viewing audience roll our eyes and scream along with “JUST SHOOT THE UNDEAD WHORE, YOU IDIOT!” At this point Pat lowers her weapon and puts all her attention on her debate about shooting Dawn thereby giving Ms. Day the advantage. Day quickly squirts some green goo up one of the dead “musician’s” asses where he springs to life and takes a whopper of a bite out of Pat’s lovely little neck. Poor, sweet, Pat, you were a mean person who had trouble empathizing at all with anyone and you were a horrible police officer. But what you lacked in humanity you made up for with ample nudity. Farewell, Officer Pat. you were one fetching, wasted character.
Chase doesn’t make the same mistake. He quickly pries Pat’s firearm from her cold, dead hands and pops a fiery load into Dawn Day dropping her to the sports bar floor. Chase grabs Witman’s glowing green, ass and pussy ooze formula and rushes over to the the mad scientist’s lair to deliver the good, get his money and ask a few questions as to what in the Hell he just had to deal with. And Chase doesn’t have to waste any time getting over there because that sports bar where that shooting massacre just occurred was LITERALLY EMPTY. Sure, there was a concert taking place, sure they were open for business, but there was not a soul there beyond the band and Dawn Day. This makes for an ideal getaway for Chase!
Chase arrives to find Witman waiting for him and by this point Chase has had a while to stew and seems kind of living as he begins cross examining the scientist. Winston remains silent and jauntily escapes into his plywood lair where Chase follows. On a wooden table there lays a fresh corse covered by a blood stained white sheet as Witman explains his principals and that he created his re-animation formula quite by accident. He performed several tests on animals before getting his hands on Dawn Day, bringing her back to life, and making her his undead sex slave. It;s all shit we already pretty much gathered over the course of the film but now Witman sets it all in stone. It’s at this point that Dawn Day swoops in from out of nowhere, drop kicks Chase to the ground and attacks Witman, bashing his noggin repeatedly into the floor killing him. chase comes to, grabs an aluminum baseball bat and knocks that Gore Whores mother fucking block off! Her head goes sailing through the lab and crashes against the cement wall with a a pleasant, warm, *squish* sound and leaving a spatter of blood and grey matter on the wall.
MY DOCKERS!
It’s a triumphant moment to be sure, but this flick has yet to reach it’s climax. Chase drags the lifeless body of Dr. Witman down to the cellar and in full, agonizing detail we are treated to Chase sticking a black dildo full of green life cum up his ass to revive him. At this point, all of us watching ‘Gore Whore” know how the procedure works. Then again, maybe they had five minutes of time they just HAD to fill. Witman awake to find Chase standing over him with an axe. Chase looks him straigh in the eye and says “Pain is something you’ve gotta live with.” before hacking both of Witman’s legs off in the most hysterical scene of the entire film. I believe it’s the performance of Paul Woodard as Witman that gives this scene the levity it has.He channels Jim Carrey at his spastic best in his reaction to having both his legs unceremoniously removed. It really is unfathomably precious, especially once Chase goes to the top of the stairs, grabs something off camera and yells to Witman, “HEADS UP!” and tosses Dawn’s chomping severed head at him. It’s one of those scenes you must see to truly understand.
And then Chase shaves and reanimates his wife’s rotted old cadaver so they can make out again thereby ending the film on a rip off of Pet Semetary’s conclusion. That’s pretty fucking weak and far too obvious. I still think it would have been really disturbing if Chase found his wife in Witman’s basement, reanimated and being used as a fuck slave thereby making chase go totally insane and giving him a bit more of a reason to go all Jigsaw on Witman. But, who am I to mess with Hugh Gallagher’s creative vision.
Insert “Getting Head” joke here.
“Gore Whore” is fucking ridiculous from the very first frame to the very last credit. Hugh Gallagher was going for broke on this flick and it shows. From the collection of goofball effects, to the eclectic cast of characters, over the top concept, wall to wall use of naked women, even the added production value of a single, unmotivated shot of a horse chilling out makes this a video store find like none other. I guarantee you, you will never find another film that matches the gonzo, low budget trashiness of “Gore Whore.”
Hell, that could be said about the Gore Trilogy as whole! It’s a three part series of degenerate, disturbed, sleazy ideas made all the trashier by the production values and VHS format. They do have some very creative and interesting ideas scattered withing their rotten running time, and it’s that blend of utter sleaze and sparks of genuine intelligence that make these tapes worth tracking down and giving a look. That is, if you have to stomach for this sort of drek. Again, one man’s terrible, worthless film is another man’s nugget of VHS gold. And for me, it doesn’t get much better, worse, stranger or more enjoyable than Hugh Gallagher’s Gore Trilogy.
Stay Trashy and watch that pooper!
-Root
Ms. D’Lana Tunnell in a still from “Teenage Tupelo”. Another oddity worth tracking down. -Root
Before I begin, let me first apologize for the Year Three hiatus. I am sure most of you heard about the trouble I ran into with my Mac just as 2011 dawned on us. Well, things are back up and running better than ever and I am happy to being you the latest Rotten Review for the 1994, Edward Furlong cyber horror fest, Brainscan!
Brainscan is the tender story of a crippled boy who is into horror movies, grunge rock, plaid shirts and video games. This young man’s name is Michael and he decides to try out the latest in interactive CD-ROM technology called BRAINSCAN. This game of murder turns out to be a little too real for our little Mickey as he learns there is a high cost to murder which includes having to deal with a lame joke spewing villain with an oddly shaped head who goes by the name of Trickster.
Get ready for peeping on the girl next door, bland home decor, annoying best friends named Kyle, Oscar Nominated Actors phoning it in, monsters cocks, fright wigs, cat teeth, gratuitous leg wounds, limping, surprise butt sex, teen angst, name calling, and a TON of Three stooges footage.
It’s the rare horror film with a ZERO body count and brings up some hot button issues as to how much we can blame violent crime on violent entertainment. At the end of the movie, this is all left open for debate. Still, kudos to Brainscan for even bringing it up. I believe you know where I stand on the topic.
Enjoy the latest Rotten Review, Gang! We have a whole lot in store for you in Year Three!
trashcinemacollective.com 