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Mar

Willy’s Wonderland (2021): The Dark Side of the Ball Pit

Categories: Willy's Wonderland (2021)
Tags: 2020, 2021, absurd, action, animatronics, Émoi, Beth Grant, blood, blue collar, business, children, Chuck E Cheese, colorful, comedy, costumes, cult, dance, drifter, Emily Tosta, evil, furry, G.O. Parsons, Gore, horror, human sacrifice, Janitor, job, Kevin Lewis, killer robot, loner, mean, nasty, Neon, Nevada, Nic Cage, Nicolas Cage, nostalgia, pinball, police, Ric Reitz, ridiculous, silent, soda, teens, Trash, violence, Wally Weasel, weasel, weird, Willy's Wonderland, work, working class

a Primal Root written review

“Put on your balls, Evan. We’re going to Willy’s!” Sheriff Lund, Willy’s Wonderland

Man oh man, the stories I could tell you about Friday evenings after getting dropped off by the bus in elementary school, when Mom and Dad would chuck me in the back of their ride and I’d spend hours drifting around a filthy booger and fecal matter filled ball pit, crawling around two stories off the ground in plastic tubes, spending my parents hard earned money to collect tickets on games of chance so I could trade them in for cheap plastic bullshit I’d lose not ten minutes after we left after my parents got their fill of pizza and cheap draft beer. And it was all watched over by one smiling, creepy, spastic animatronic rat and his pals. That mother fucker’s name was Chuck E. Cheese, and he was a bit of a regular Friday night thing.

It’s a bizarre local kind of money wasting tourist trap, only it’s not for tourists, it’s for us desperate 80’s and 90’s locals. A place to exchange your money for absolute worthless bullshit. I have some fantastic memories there, especially when I went back as a teenager trying to be ironically funny and having my birthdays there. It’s a slice of quintessential American nostalgia for several generations. A bright, neon, ode to capitalism at it’s finest in the guise of children’s distractive, hollow, entertainment. It’s an experience that has sunk in like a summer tick in our collective nostalgic subconscious.

Enter the the 2021 low rent, high concept, bargain basement blast of neon nostalgic nightmare fodder Academy Award Winning Actor Nicolas Cage vehicle, Willy’s Wonderland. A film where an exceedingly quiet, muscle car driving, soda addicted drifter blows out a tire on the outskirts of a small town where they don’t have the internet, so to pay off the repairs to his car he is given the option to clean up an abandoned local children’s amusement shit hole, the Willy’s Wonderland of the title. The drifter has no name and is simply credited as “Janitor” in the credits and the character has not a single line of dialog for the duration of the film and happens to be the lead character…and is played by Nicolas Cage. The Janitor is given a Willy’s Wonderland t-shirt, a handshake from the stores owner, Tex Macadoo (Ric Reitz) and silently gets to cleaning the place up, all the while sensing there is something wrong with the eight rainbow colored, ancient, rotten, mildewy, demonically possessed animatronics standing on the Willy’s Wonderland stage…watching him with their dead, lifeless eyes. While also making absolutely sure to take rest breaks every hour to pace himself with an ice cold can of soda and a game of pinball. It’s not long before these robotic creatures begin singing, dancing and then maliciously attacking The Janitor who, without even a second of surprise, shock, or hesitation, retaliates with devastatingly brutal violence. He does not attempt to flee or even scream he has a job to do after all. He simply cleans up the mess left behind and tackles every obstacle that comes his way without so much as uttering a single word.

We are given the bulk of the exposition from two characters. Sheriff Lund, played by the always incredibly fun to watch Beth Grant probably best know for doubting your commitment to Sparkle Motion in 2001’s Donnie Darko, and the young woman who lives with Sheriff Lund and is intent of soaking Willy’s Wonderland in gasoline and burning that fucking place tot he ground, Liv, played by Emily Tosta. Through these two we get an intimate history of Willy’s Wonderland and the horrifically evil deeds that have occurred within it’s walls and why it stands as a death trap and curse in the small town of Hayesville, Nevada. Liv gathers her group of twenty something teenage accomplices and they head to Willy’s to finally burn the “Gateway to Hell” down for good as Sheriff Lund does her damndest to maintain the status quo as the unfazed and seemingly unsinkable Janitor deals with surviving the night, battling the demonic animatronic furry freak show, while dealing with all the issues inherent in small town big secrets and those who are still living to keep them under wraps. Will our Birthday Boy survive the night to reclaim his repaired car? Will Willy and his friends feast on the flesh of the innocent forever more with the help of law enforcement and those who run the town? Will Liv and her teenage fan club destroy Willy’s once and for all? buy the ticket and take the ride…to Willy’s Wonderland and find out, Gang.

Coming out of Willy’s Wonderland I was genuinely impressed with what they were able to create with what obviously seemed to be fairly limited means. The recreation of a Chuck E. Cheese style family attraction is absolute perfection. From the arcade area, to the dining hall, the filthy ball pit, and even the cheap, shitty cheap framed character posters on the walls, it all felt completely authentic and like it was somehow surgically removed from our memory banks, filth and all. It all feels familiar and just like it would be to go back to one of these places today. Trust me, I took a look at the old, still functioning Chuck E. Cheese in my hometown and it’s just as creepy as Wally’s Wonderland is presented. I also MUST compliment the phenomenal soundtrack to Willy’s Wonderland. From the original songs almost entirely written and performed by Émoi to the brilliant selections of old chestnuts, every musical component of this flick nails the very tired, very old and worn out nostalgia of it. Across the board, the performances are greatly entertaining. It’s a movie called Willy’s Wonderland and it’s basically an excuse for Nic Cage to beat the shit out of people in moderately frightening furry costumes, so as you might expect, the performances are either greatly exaggerated, cheesy or over the top. Emily Tosta as Liv is believable as a young, traumatized woman trying to do right, Beth Grant as Sheriff Lund turns in probably the most human and believable performance of the whole film as an old woman in charge of law enforcement who is steadfast but obviously exhausted from constantly coming up with justifications for maintaining this cursed small towns status quo. She nails the comedy, but there’s a lot of heart in her performance, too. Especially for a killer fuzzy monster movie. But, as you might expect, Nicolas Cage steals the show as the silent Janitor. A man who just wants to get the fucking job done and be on his way. He dances, he fights and he scrubs the urinals and he is reliantly captivating to watch in every single moment.

And in this performance of the Janitor, in that characterization, I can’t help but see Willy’s Wonderland as a perfect metaphor for 2020 as a frontline worker asked to go into harms way in order to make ends meet when you have absolutely no other choice. You’re voiceless and you have to follow your orders if you want to get out of this situation. You’re locked in, you can’t get out, you have to get the job done to claim your reward but there’s also this intense, malicious evil that wants to kill you. At the core of this insanely fun horror splatter flick there’s a dark at the core of the proceedings about what it is to be a blue collar working stiff in America, constantly getting fucked over but always expected to rise to the occasion. We keep our mouths shut and we get the fucking job done despite hardly being able to fucking survive. We aren’t surprised when shit happens, because it always does. You adapt, you cope, you don’t ask for anything because you know you’ll never get it. But we do it. We get it done, we do it well, we take our breaks, we play our pinball, we dance when we can and we fucking do it. Because fuck you.

In conclusion, Willy’s Wonderland is fucking great and an absolute joy of a funky little low budget monster movie. It’s spunky, it’s got heart, intestines and severed heads. It strikes all the right notes of this type of outing perfectly and is elevated to a B-Movie instant cult status glory by a grounded badass performance by Nicolas Cage, who without saying a word, embodies the everyday working man perfectly, even while battling the members of Willy the Weasels entourage in a rundown children’s entertainment facility. My only real criticism is there should have many more children getting killed and WHY do you even bother filming sex scenes if the actress won’t take her bra off and the guy won’t hang dong? The movie is already an R-Rated slice of Trash Cinema! Throw us a bone here, Kevin Lewis (who directed this thing)! Every other aspect of the film is schlock perfection and one I highly recommend as a perfect requiem for the year 2020.

I reward Willy’s Wonderland FOUR out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets!

Stay Safe and Stay Trashy, Gang!

-Root

Jul

Nightbeast (1982) White Trash vs. Predator (NSFW)

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: NIGHTBEAST (1982) and Uncategorized
Tags: 1982, 82, alien, Baltimore, battle, beast, blood, breasts, brutal, child murder, creature, cult, cult film, cult following, dead children, decapitation, Don Dohler, electrocution, Gore, gun fight, guns, gut ripping, independent, JAWS, killer, lasers, low budget, Maryland, mean, Monster, murder, NIGHTBEAST, NRA, NSFW, nudity, Perry Hall, Predator, Rampage, sex scene, siege, small town, smoke, The Alien Factor, Troma, vaporized

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“The most vicious creature to ever span the intergalactic void has come to pay it’s respects.” – Narrator, NIGHTBEAST trailer

a Primal Root written review

In 1987 John McTiernan unleashed Predator starring the, art the time, box office juggernauting mother fucker, Arnold Schwarzenegger and penned by snappy patter master Shane Black. As expected, the flick was a huge success, has a massive following of folks who adore it and spout “Sexual Tyrannosaurus” quotes to their significant others that are rolling their eyes and inspired countless cash-in clones the same way Alien, The Terminator, JAWS and Star Wars did in the year preceding it. Something hits big? Expect goofy, trashy, sometimes extraordinarily entertaining knock-offs. It’s a forgone conclusion. If a recipe works, other less talented chefs are going to try to copy it and either come out with a bowl of chicken soup or chicken shit.

But what if I were to tell you there’s a 1982 film that follows a similar premise? One that features a malevolent alien creature who shows up to lay waste to as many primitive human beings as possible as long as they’re alive? One that takes place in the small town of Perry Hall, Maryland and our murderous alien fiend must face off, not with specially trained mercenary badasses whose wise cracks work just as effectively as their automatic firepower spewing hellfire into the jungle, but backwoods rednecks with double barreled shot guns, pistols and no concept of self preservation?

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Enter the quirky, brutal, hilariously over the top independent killer alien rampage film NIGHTBEAST written and directed by independent no-budget horror/sci-fi filmmaker Don Dohler. Don began his film making career in 1978 with The Alien Factor, an imaginative, high concept film about several different species of aliens laying waste to a small town in Maryland and focuses on the local yokels fighting for their lives and trying to defend their little hamlet from the onslaught of vicious aliens. In 1982, Don would write and direct NIGHTBEAST, which would essentially be a retelling of The Alien Factor story reuniting most of the cast from that film, some even in the same roles, but with a leaner, meaner script and some better effects.

I say things got better with NIGHTBEAST, and indeed, Dohler feels like a much more confident as a filmmaker when you;re watching it, but NIGHTBEAST still has the feel of a no budget movie shot in someone’s backyard, which is actually confirmed in the film’s commentary track, that Dohler shot many scenes in the woods of his own backyard. And in this passion and drive to get his film made no matter what, even if it isn’t up to the $30 million Hollywood standard, even if the effects aren’t seamless, even if the acting is below community theater level, that is where the charm and enjoyment of a film like NIGHTBEAST lies. Don Dohler began shooting movie on 8mm in his backyard when he was 12 years old and it was a calling he pursued his whole life and would bring his stories to life no matter what obstacles stood in his way. Don, along with his cast and crew, wanted to bring their idea to life, and nothing stopped them. They made it and that’s what fucking counts.

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NIGHTBEAST begins with our alien crash landing in the middle of the Maryland wilderness and comes out blasting laying waste to hunters, campers, Uncle Dave taking leak and any little brats that get in his way. The NIGHTBEAST is equipped with a ray gun that, like the Martians in MARS ATTACKS, will literally incinerate you. If one of those lasers comes in contact with your body, your whole body will light up like a Christmas tree as you scream in agony and then…nothing. No remains, nothing. Just a puff of smoke. This blaster can EVEN make ENTIRE saggy old station wagons vanish WITH passengers inside! However, it does nothing to tree trunks or stone walls people hide behind. Go fucking figure, I guess no weapon can be perfect. However, that’s not all our alien creature is capable of! In the event of up close encounters it likes to just stick it’s meaty pudge paws directly into your gut or chest cavity and begin sliding out whatever it happens to find inside all over the front porch of your backwoods house as your booty call stands behind the screened in front door screaming in her Wal-Mart brand nightie. See, NIGHTBEAST actually devours human flesh to survive as well! So, he can’t blast all of us into the nothing, he actually has to give his trigger finger a rest from time to time in order to chow down on our tender vittles.

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The aforementioned NIGHTBEAST is a brown, fairly tall, hairless creature with two bugged out eyeballs that are very close together, and a gob chock full of snaggle toothed fangs! The monster has super creature strength, some big, bone crushing, flesh ripping hands with some razor sharp nasty nails on ’em and dressed in an early 70’s silver disco jumpsuit that, apparently, is some kind of “motorcycle range suit” that makes the NIGHTBEAST disarmingly adorable. It even looks like it’s smiling through the whole movie, which makes you wonder if slaughtering living creatures is a laugh riot wherever this thing comes from.

Nightbeast prowl

Well, it’s not long before the Sheriff Cinder (Tom Griffith from The Alien Factor), a man with a porn stache, a sizable salt and pepper perm, and the build of an overlong string bean must face off against the alien menace and sees first hand what sort of blood curdling terror has fallen from the stars to their little backwoods slice of filthy redneck heaven. He heads into battle with his gun toting best bud, Jamie Lambert (Jamie Zamarel from Grease, believe it or not) and the demure but deadly bleach blonde deputy Lisa Kent (Karin Kardian in her first and only role; a hairdresser by trade). The tree lay down a suppressing fire against the NIGHTBEAST, but to no avail, as their trucker hat and plaid posse of deep fried, backwoods locals are blasted into the void around them. And, man, that NIGHTBEAST brings the heat! He blasts at least five or six shots every second. Typically missing everything, even humans just standing still shooting at it. But, when you just spray lasers into the forest, you’re bound to connect with something sooner or later, and about a dozen men are imploded into stars and moonbeams.

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The Sheriff retreats and decide to regroup and wait for daylight with one mission in mind, destroy that NIGHTBEAST’S ray run and then shoot it in the goddamn melon and put an end to it’s right of terror. They enlist a local marksman and his son to help in disarming the creature, which succeeds in destroying the ray gun…but NIGHTBEAST manages to elude death, and in the process, kills the old marksman’s son which leads to a moment of genuine grief as the old man sobs over the loss of his adult son who was blasted into smoke during the daylight battle. I’m not going to lie, watching this old timer cry over his dead son is actually pretty moving for such a low rent, poorly acted piece of Trash Cinema. It’s a well placed bit of real humanity which gives gravity to this batshit insane scenario and it’s, dare I say, poetic?

Nightbeast Cinder

Sheriff Cinder decides he has to evacuate the town and goes to Mayor Wicker (Richard E. Dyszel better known as horror host M.T. Graves) to ask for his permission to do so, setting up a very JAWS like conundrum, because Mayor Wicker is throwing a pool party for the visiting Governor filled with buxom bikini clad beauties and he will NOT close his town because of some alien invasion hoax. That’s right, despite nearly half the town’s NRA members being killed within the last six hours, the main labels this emergency fake news and goes about drinking straight bourbon, fondling his well endowed young lover, Mary Jane (Eleanor Herman) and planning his weird Girls Gone Wild party for the incoming governor. As Sheriff Cinder and Deputy Kent leave, Cinder says he’s going to evacuate the town anyway. Deputy Kent mentions how Mayor Wick isn’t going to like that, to which Cinder replies under his well manicured sexy stache and smoked aviator glasses, “Tough shit!” Something tells me the Mayor is going to be a bit to sloshed to actually care.

nightbeast mayor

If you assumed the only danger in this tiny hamlet with the recently arrived NIGHTBEAST, you would be wrong. DEAD wrong. In fact, there is a resident in town who rides a motorcycle, sports a bouffant hairstyle, a leather jacket, a really well maintained moustache and an irrepressible contempt for everything besides himself. This motherfucker’s name is Drago (Don Leifert from The Alien Factor) and it turns out Sheriff Cinder’s best bud, Jamie, has been banging Drago’s girlfriend, Suzie (Monica Neff) a raven haire beauty who happens to have an extensive beer bottle collection in her little wood paneled bungalow and projects a party girl vibe despite only having about 5 minutes of screen time, half of which she spends without clothes on. Jamie drops in on Suzie while she’s buck nekkid and recently smacked around by Drago and quickly tells her to pack up and evacuate with the the rest of the town, she agrees, and just as Jamie leaves Drago show back up and strangles Suzie to death in a fit of jealous rage and then goes on a bizarre murderous rapey rampage of his own based solely on jealous, lame, white boy rage which runs parallel with the more pure, homicidal carnage spread by the NIGHTBEAST! Drago is really every violent, loathsome, small minded white trash stereotype boiled down and concentrated into one repulsive character.

NIGHTBEAST Drago

Thankfully, we are told that the residents are all on their way out of town, as they are unable to actually show us this mass exodus, and the remaining team of concerned citizens, law enforcement, and medical specialists stick around to defend the town and come up with a plan to defeat the NIGHTBEAST before he depletes all the victims of Perry Hall, Maryland, and moves on to the next hunting ground. But also, a s you might expect, a romance (fuck session) must bloom between Sheriff Cinder and Deputy Kent. That’s right, after one battle with NIGHTBEAST Cinder suffers a severe injury injury to his trousers and Deputy Kent invites him over to HER place for some medical attention as well as some TLC. She yanks the sheriff’s britches off, patches him up, takes a couple longing glances at the bulge beneath his tighty whites, strips nekkid and they jump one another’s bones! It’s one of the most admirably awkward love scenes I’ve ever witnessed and I cannot count the ways I love it. These are two insanely average looking indevidual with bodies FAR from the societal “perfect” form we are peddled to try and strive towards. These are two normal people sharing a vulnerable, nekkid sexy moment together and we are lucky enough to witness this most original and unexpected of fuck scenes. I, for one, am all for this. All these toned bodies and six pack abs and even tans, Gang, it’s goddamn boring. Give me real EVERY goddamn day of the week. This is great, weird, trashy stuff. Because who can resist a little nookie in the middle of your small town’s genocide by alien? Especially after an injury to your upper thigh where, I assume, your Deputy will be grinding in just a moment or two which WILL NOT be comfortable.

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But, I digress, the town’s two medical examiners have an encounter with NIGHTBEAST and come to the conclusion and electricity is what it will take to kill the NIGHTBEAST after it steps in a puddle of water and a loose wire from the dryer in the basement shocks the shit out of it and sends NIGHTBEAST fleeing into the night. It is up to our ragtag group of heroes to stop banging and put together a plan for their final standoff with this most viscous of interstellar visitors.

nightbeast | Tumblr

NIGHTBEAST is a fucking delight and an absolute joy to watch. It’s film driven by it’s filmmaker’s joy in creating and that joy is contagious and radiates from the film, even several decades after the fact. It has that undeniable charm of a backyard movie which allows the audience to forgive and savor the shortcomings and actually look at them as strengths. You can tell there were lessons learned in the wake of Dohler’s 1978 debut film The Alien Factor. There are no long, tedious stretches of exposition and explanation. The story tellers realize the audience is smart enough to follow along and more time is given to alien action, character and the bizarre story beats that drive the action forward. The pacing is pretty goddamn good and keeps everything rocketing to a bloody, shocking, satisfying conclusion. Plus, all the characters are adorkably weird and rural which makes the whole film feel like Trailer Park Boys Meet The Predator but played totally straight.

Don Dohler would tragically succumb to cancer in 2006 and would leave this mortal plane with a catalog of uncompromising films based on his original stories and ideas. Not only that, but he had garnered a sizable cult following in the decades leading up to time. His name might not be a household term like Spielberg, but the man brought his frightening, imaginative, strange ideas to fruition and never gave up despite every hardship that came his way. If you ask me, that doesn’t just make Don Dohler a Trash Cinema Legend. That makes this man a hero.

I give NIGHTBEAST FIVE out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets.

This movie delivers on all fronts with Blood, Breasts and Beasts and manages to tell a great alien invasion horror story effectively with a minuscule budget. This is the stuff, Gang, and I highly recommend it.

TRIVIA:

NIGHTBEAST is filmmaker J.J. Abrams very first movie credit. He composed the score (as Jeffrey Abrams) along with Robert J. Walsh.

NIGHTBEAST is the film Red Miller (Nic Cage) and Mandy Blooom (Andrea Riseborough) watch in Panos Cosmatotos’ 2018 film Mandy.

Jan

(SFW) Spookies (1986) or Billy Learned The Truth at age 13

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Spookies (1986) and Uncategorized
Tags: 13, 1986, 80's, 86, birthday, Bride, buried alive, cemetery, child murder, classic, cult, death, demons, escape, farting, grim reaper, haunted, horror, imaginative, magic, marriage, muck men, no nudity, posession, practical effects, puppets, reanimated, reitual, sacrifice, SFW, sorcerer, spider woman, spookies, trap, VHS, video rental store, Warlock, zombies

spookies poster

“Uuuuuuhh, look at me: I’m Duke, the horny ghost!” – Duke, Spookies (1986)

a Primal Root written review

As an only child of the 80’s my mind is littered with memories of weekends spent at local video stores in the town where I grew up, Tallahassee, Florida. Nothing beat the thrill of an early Friday evening after school, ordering up a cheesy, greasy, sloppy pizza and heading to the video store to peruse the shelves for a new VHS adventure to waste my weekend with either with a fried over or totally on my own. I would head past the New Release section and head straight to the Horror shelf where the most lurid, colorful and creative covers were. I would pick up every single box, gaze at the covers and their suggestive artwork and just let my imagination run wild simultaneously psyching myself up for what I might choose to take home with me that weekend. In the halcyon days of the video rental store era, when there was money to be made and stores were a dime a dozen and each store had THOUSANDS of titles to choose from, the cover art of a movie could make or break a tape. Just like the posters for Drive-In films of the past, you had to reel your audience in with artwork that promised something truly astounding.

One such VHS cover that branded itself on my brain and was always around at every damn video store I’ve ever been to, the 1986 nightmare fever dream…SPOOKIES.

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Direct your eyes to the poster heading this review created by comic artist Richard Corben. Imagine your tiny eight year old hand clutching the tape that contained the movie THAT artwork was based on? The lovely woman with huge breasts straining to pop out of her white dress as she is surrounded by a variety of creepy, weird creatures that seem to have no real connection to one another. There’s a grim reaper looking guy, a little goblin creature, someone with light popping out of her head and other undefinable atrocious monstrosities that leave your young mind spinning at the possibilities! And then there’s the bizarre face looking over this scene, with glowing red eyes and mouth that looks like it might be full of blood and what looks to be a bloody would to the middle of his forehead. What the Hell are Spookies and what in the world could it ever possibly be about. All I knew was that if the case contained Blood, Breasts and Beasts, it was going home with me, because that was the promise of an unforgettable late night and a fantastic story for the kids at school Monday morning. “Guess what I watched this weekend?”

Full disclosure, Spookies freaked me the fuck out when I was a kid and I think it’s due almost entirely to the face that it’s two movies in one. It began life as a film entitled Twisted Souls written and directed by Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran. However, during post-production, creative differences flared up between the filmmakers and their producers, and ANOTHER director, Eugenie Joseph, was hired on to film additional scenes with new actors which would change the film into something else entirely. He added several different subplots and excised over 45 minutes of the original film to create what we now know as SPOOKIES. And, to be perfectly honest, it gives the film a kind of unhinged nightmare logic quality that three me off entirely as a child. It did not follow the rules established by countless other horror films I had seen, so you just never knew what was going to happen, and to me, that is certainly a strength.

The film begins with a little kid named Billy (Alec Nemser) running away from home through the forest. His parents forgot his birthday, so he’s ditching them for the life of a homeless teenage idiot. He, of course, ends up getting stalked by a werecat guy in a golden vest who moves his face around as much as possible to make the latex creature stuff attached to his face seem like his actual face, but it instead just makes him look like a spaz. Billy meets a creepy drifter guy who instantly reminded me of Kiefer Sutherland from Lost Boys, who mocks Billy for being a stupid teenage runaway with nice shoes, clean clothes and an optimistic outlook on life. You think this drifter character is going to come in handy later as either a hero or villain, but as soon as Billy wonders off deeper into the woods, the drifter’s face is shredded into coleslaw by the ever present werecat. Billy ends up in an old, seemingly abandoned mansion and finds a room all decked out for his birthday…but there’s no one there. Not only that, but the balloons don’t have helium and are ties to the ceiling, there’s a moaning baby doll in a chair and teleporting toy robots and being the idealistic idiot that he is, Billy thinks this is a surprise birthday party his parents planned…even though there’s no one there and it’s creepy as shit. So, Billy opens a large present he thinks might be a bowling ball, only to find the severed head of the sorcerer sitting there waiting to wish him a happy birthday. Kind gesture? Sure. But it understandably terrifies Billy who runs off in the wilderness where is is pursued, once again,by the cat man who eventually corners Billy, slashes his face to ribbons, tosses the little boy into an open grave and buries the struggling boy alive, killing him.

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This scene fucked me up as a kid who loved playing in the woods at night living in the heavily wooded suburbs. I could easily put myself in his shoes and wanting to expect the best from my situation only to find myself missing most of my face and being suffocated to death on mouthfuls of heaping shovel scoops of dirt. See what I mean about the nightmare logic of SPOOKIES? It makes about as much sense as your standard childhood nightmare, only you’d wake up as soon as that first fling of dirt hit you in your bloody, stupid, face. In any other film, that kid would have ended up becoming the sidekick of some adult character who showed up. or would end up being the star, booby trapping monster and shit. No. Not in Spookies. In Spookies the 13 year old child dies along and afraid. His parents obviously don;t care about him or love him and he is now gone forever. Dead and buried in an unmarked grave by a catman, never to be mentioned, thought of or cared about for the remainder of the film. Now children, what do you think THAT felt like? It’s cruel, and awesome to 37 year old The Primal Root, but when I was just a Jim Henson’s Trash Cinema Baby, that whole sequence fucked me up real good and proper to the point I lost sleep over it and would get REAL nervous in the woods I used to play in without hesitation. Anyway, enough about me. Lets get back to SPOOKIES!

Spookies Gang

We are soon introduced to our cast of victims who are driving around looking for a party out in the middle of nowhere, where do they end up? Of course, the old haunted mansion where Billy came upon the most surprising surprise party of his short life. The mansion is inhabited by The Sorcerer whose name is Kreon (Felix Ward) and is on the verge of bringing his beautiful dead wife, Isabelle (Maria Pechukas) back to life once the final victims are sacrificed, namely, this new group of “teenagers” and adults looking to party. There’s the three piece suit wearing elder statesman of the group, Peter (Peter Dain), who is constantly butting heads with the “teenage” tough guy, horndog, and bizarrely placed zipper enthusiast, Duke (Nick Gionta) who also happens to take them to this haunted death trap mansion in the middle of nowhere. Along for this trip to Hell is Linda (Joan Ellen Delaney) Duke’s poor girlfriend, the ginger in the tiny periwinkle blue top with the massive tits she never pops out of the chute for us, Meegan (Kim Merrill) who is attached to Peter and I assume is his wife. There’s another couple, Dave and Adrienne (Anthony Valbiro & Charlotte Alexandra) who suffer from Rich being highly insecure and freaking out all the time over Adrienne controlling everything he does even though all she does is watch him freak out. There’s the obligatory joker/idiot Rich Peter Iasillo Jr) who spends the movie tripping over thing, dropping things, making poor jokes and even poorer decisions. My favorite character, Louis, who as I recall has two lines before being sucked down into own grave and dying before the action even really gets started and is never mentioned or again, let alone, mourned. Also, odd lady out, Carol (Lisa Friede) Who starts not feeling well at the mansion, gets possessed by Kreon and uses a special Ouija board to unleash a bouquet of highly creative and vicious practical effect monsters to track them down and kill them one by one.

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The Gang knows their lives are in mortal danger and decide to split up to find a way out of this death trap. Some search around while others find secluded rooms to stay fully dressed and fall asleep in before being savagely gnawed upon by Hell beasts. Spookies quickly becomes a cornucopia of freakish blood thirsty hellions dead set on killing off every last cracker in the house. There’s a legion of little reptilian snake demons, a seductive, blood draining Arachnid Woman, a giant lizard man that shoot out head melting electric tentacles, a scythe wielding Grim Reaper and even a trio of chronically flatulent Much Men who rise from the floor of the win cellar and fart like Grandpa after Christmas dinner, you know, fast, furious, loud and with a vengeance. Not only this, but there’s a legion of zombies surrounding the mansion, making escape impossible.

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People get lost, massacred, tempers flare, fights break as these characters fight for survival in this colorful, bonkers house of blood lusting horrors and it’s just as much fun as it is absolutely baffling. Add in that tacked on subplot about Kreon and and all his various creatures including CatMan and the Jawaesque Korda (A.J. Lowenthal) Son of Kreon and Isabelle, and Isabelle herself, who NEVER interact with the characters from the original film, Twisted Souls, at all despite being shot in the same location and always appearing nearby. It’s actually fun watching how they edit around two totally different stories being told but having to be meant to interact with one another. Towards the end of the film, the plot is left hanging when it comes to our group of party animals that must all be killed in order to give Isabelle life. Some supernatural event occurs where they all begin to age rapidly, an item is thrown, lightning enters a character’s eyes and that’s the last we see of them. Are they dead? Wounded? Senior Citizens? Monsters? What the Hell happened? Instead of us ever finding out, we are treated to an extended zombie chase scene where Isabelle’s clothes get torn off (though she never shows off the goods) as she tries to escape the clutches of the ghoul who resurrected her, the evil warlock Kreon, after she has seduced him and driven a knife deep into his forehead. Will we get any form of closure or will Spookies leave us wondering what happens next? Because if there’s one thing we know…ambiguity is scary.

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Spookies, man, what a fucking ride. It’s a film that feels like a sugar rush nightmare fueled fever dream filled with wild ideas that head down colorful hallways before being utterly forgotten and left for new ideas down even more colorful hallways. It’s like a horror film with A.D.D. and darkly sadistic sense of humor. Where Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm has a similar fantasy/unreality feel to it, Spookies, to it’s detriment or gain, depending on how you like the movie, due to the production issues and different hired hands and stories being mixed together, proves a much weirder concoction. Is the movie good? Absolutely not, it’s total Trash Cinema. But is it entertaining? Gang, Spookies never lets up. It’s balls to the walls ideas, throw it against the walls to see what sticks creativity mayhem. It;s colorful, it’s sloppy and it SHOULD. NOT. WORK. Seriously, this should have been a failure of the highest order. But it is so goddamn unabashedly manic and willing to do anything and go anywhere, you can’t help but join in the glee and stick with it to see just what insane shit will happen next. To me, that’s a Trash Cinema win of the highest order.

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Spookies is a VHS Video Rental store gem that’s well worth tracking down. If you, or someone you know, is even just mildly curious in cult Trash Cinema, Spookies is a great place to start. It’s a deranged and absolute delight. Unless you’re an overly sensitive and imaginative child living in the woods. Then it’s just good, old fashioned nightmare fodder.

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

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Dec

Mandy (2018)Crazy Evil and The Depths of an Exquisite Hell

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Mandy (2018) and Uncategorized
Tags: 18+, 1983, 2018, 83, acid, Andrea Riseborough, art, artist, Black Skulls, burning, cheddar goblin, christian, cocaine, colorful, cult, death, demons, devil, god, Heaven, Hell, horror, King Crimson, life, Linus Roache, love, lsd, lumberjack, Mandy, murder, Neon, Nicolas Cage, nightmare, Pacific Northwest, Panos Cosmatos, psychedelic, religion, Revenge, Satan, Shadow Mountain, tiger, vengeance

MANDY

a Primal Root written review

“I’m your God now.” – Red Miller, Mandy

The stars so rarely align to deliver a piece of art so pure in form and so glorious in it’s delivery as filmmaker Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy. Now, the setup is nothing new. Two souls love one another, find comfort in one another’s presence and deep bond beyond story book love evolves between them, a deep er connection more profound, peaceful and meaningful that most are lucky to find in a lifetime. That love is torn asunder and one of the two must seek revenge in order to find any kind of peace ever again. It’s a nightmare scenario, and one all of us can identify with in one way or another. To imagine the person we love and hold closest being taken away, never to be returned…in our heart of hearts, we would all want bloody revenge on those responsible.

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What sets Mandy far apart and leagues ahead of it’s unifying trope is the means by which our tale is told. It has taken elements as familiar and comfortable to us horror fans as well worn pair of loafers and injects those elements with energy, a clean new take, unfettered originality creating a new kind of monster that lumbering, brutal, and ready to fuck your brain hole.

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Mandy takes place in the great Pacific Northwest’s Shadow Mountain in 1983. Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) is a mild mannered, bearded, beefy, lumber jack who works in the mountains by night and comes home to his uniquely beautiful artist girlfriend, Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough). The two share a log cabin together and live a peaceful existence outside of society where they keep to themselves. That is until a fucking piece of shit christian cult drives through town, and their greasy, psychedelic, long haired, immensely insecure and bullying leader, Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache) gets single passing glance at Mandy and decides he MUST HAVE HER. But, in order to do so, Jeremiah and his cult decide they need some help from some horrifying motorcycle riding, spike faced creatures from beyond the edge of Hell to help pull of their seduction/abduction plans.

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That night, as Mandy and Red sit in front of their television watching the trash cinema epic, 1982’s Nightbeast, and chowing down on what looks like steak and taters to me, the cult organizes their Hell creatures and set their horrible plan into action just as Red and Mandy hit the sack. In a nightmarish, dreadful sequence shot with blue strobe lights, these biker Cenobite monstrosities subdue our two protagonists, tie Red up with barbed wire in the backyard and take Mandy to meet Jeremiah who force feeds her some form of hallucinogenic and attempts to seduce in a prolonged trip of scene set in bright, neon red and purples. Of course, Mandy refuses and laughs hysterically at their weak, piece of shit leader as he shows off his nekkid body after his pathetic “join our lame-ass-cult sales pitch, and it is decided that she must meet a truly heinous and cruel death for her disrespect. The excruciatingly painful murder is committed in front of Red, who must witness the love of his life’s death in all it’s agonizing brutality. We are shown this moment of savagery reflected in the eyes of Red, who is bound and helpless to save her.

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Once the deed is done, the cult packs it up and heads off into the rising sun, leaving Red for dead, still tied up in barbed wire and suffering from a brutal stab wound. Of course, Red manages to get free of the barb wire, has a final, soul crushing moment with his love’s remains, and decides over chugs of vodka and screams of abject horror, agony and rage, that this cult’s time is up and he is bringing them Hell they’ve never even imagined. What follows is a film that straddles a place between the mystic and the psychotic and it a goddamn wonder to behold. You feel Red’s rage as he sifts through what’s left of a life that he and Mandy built together, a love so pure and care free, it breaks your heart, and to see that light they had together so fucking senselessly snubbed out because of the whims of a fucking ego maniacal fuck face, you, as an audience, just wish you could help him get that revenge he so desperately seeks.

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After gaining advice and weapons from some old friends, his crossbow “The Reaper,” and crafts a badass battle axe, Red sets out on his odyssey alone, to settle the score with the men, women and monsters who tore his life apart. Once by one, Red visits these murderers and viciously attacks and delivers his vengeance. Obviously, Red had some previous training in survivalism, but there is a learning curve for Red, which is pretty refreshing for this kind of film. Red gets his ass kicked a couple times and even finds himself captured, but he tends to get better as he goes along. Especially once he snorts some coke and does some tainted acid in the mobile home of the monstrous creatures we learn go by he name,”Black Skulls,” which turns the world into a new kind of technicolor nightmare. A neon blood bath we will spend the rest of the film in.

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A horror film where The Devil is the good guy, the far right Christian cultists are the fucking hive if perverse villainy and Nicolas Cage, who gives a career best performance as a mild mannered guy who has it all taken away battling the forces of evil among Shadow Mountain? Gang, that’s nothing not to love about this poetic acid head, black hearted, beautiful bitch a fucking masterpiece. This is Trash Cinema at it must unrefined and reaching it’s greatest heights. I know a lot has been said about Nic Cage’s performance in Mandy, how it’s just another “freak out” performance from this most beleaguered of Hollywood actors. To me, this is one of the most naturalistic and honest performances of the man’s entire career. When Red is chugging vodka in his tighty whities in the bathroom while screaming in absolute rage and grief, you cannot tell me this is not exactly how your would react and feel if you just witnessed the love of your life burned alive right in front of you. To have held the ashes of that one person that meant everything to you in your hands, who died only because she refused to give in to a madman. Gang, this is a performance that deserves all the recognition in the world. Also, that Cheddar Goblin commercial is a thing of Trashy beauty, too. 😉

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Mandy is a powerhouse of a film and my pick for 2018’s Golden Nugget Award, for Best Trash Cinema Film of the Year.

Five Dumpster Nuggets out of Five.

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Jul

Tearing the Heart Out of Saturday Night: Happy Trails, Joe Bob Briggs

By primalroot 1 Comment

Categories: Root's Written Reviews
Tags: 24 hour, 24 hours, cowboy, cult, Drive-In, farewell, friends, fun, goodbye, hero, horror, horror host, Joe Bob, Joe Bob Briggs, Last Drive-In, last ride, legacy, lesson, love, marathon, Monster Vision, MonsterVision, movie critic, not alone, obscure, outcast, Primal Root, Saturday Night, Shudder, TMC, TNT, Trash, Trash Cinema

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by The Primal Root

I was in middle school and staying over at my Grandparents house for the Christmas holiday. My parents were recently divorced, puberty was kicking in full throttle, we were moving into new places, my parents were always upset and I was, to put it bluntly, a wreck. I had no siblings to talk to, no one to confide in, it was the beginning of the realization that I, for the most part in life, would always be pretty much alone. I was staying up late in my Grandparent’s den and flipping through the channels, no doubt devouring their bag of Cap Cod Potato chips and slurping down cans of Coke. It was the typical mid 90’s hodgepodge of reruns, sports highlight reels, and laundry lists of current political strife scandal and tragedy. TV was a terrible way to cheer up a teenage boy going through deeply troubling changes in his life and coping with the knowledge that everything you thought you knew was about to change forever and you were now becoming a pawn for two people who mean the world to you to hurt one another.

But then I stopped flipping channels when I came across this smiling joker in Western wear sitting in a lawn chair outside a trailer. He was listing Drive-In Totals, speaking of Blood, Breasts and Beasts, laughing, telling incredibly interesting stories about movies he was about to show, and get this, the movies were always cheesy, weird B-Movies and stuff that was normally completely outside the mainstream, stuff mocked and shoved aside and left in the dust pan of history the majority of cinema goers. I immediately knew I had found a kindred spirit and a cool, funny, surrogate brother who I could rely on to be there every Saturday and remind me that I wasn’t totally alone in my passions, my interests or, maybe, in life.

I certainly know I’m not alone in this sentiment. I am now 36 years old and owner of my own video rental store and one screen micro cinema where for a recent 24 hour period I watched Joe Bob Brigg’s Last Drive-In surrounded by a group of the same folks, also now in their 30’s, who made a habit out of watching TNT’s MonsterVision with Joe Bob Brig’s every Saturday night. And as he hosted 13 remarkable sleazy exploitation horror movies, cult and arthouse films, telling jokes, stories and ranting on about the current state of affairs in the world, he would also read letters from the Mail Girl, just like in the glory days. The majority of these letter consisted of middle aged adults, just like myself, pouring over how much Joe Bob meant to them growing up by reenforcing that it was okay to be different and find the joy in what you are into. He taught us to not take it all so dog gone seriously and that our thoughts on how absurd life was, how unfair and ruthless life could be, we all had the ability to find the humor, joy and beauty in our lives, just like we do in those cheesy, outcast movies I grew up to fondly refer to as Trash Cinema.

The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Brigg’s was a remarkable experience. The lineup was a smorgasbord of wonderful horror and cult cinema, interspersed with Joe Bob’s one of a kind witty banter, rants and loving remembrances of the movies he was showing and all the folks who took a part in making them, it was once again a glorious celebration of the underdog and the shared community all of us underdogs live in.

THE LINEUP from 9pm Friday July the 13th to Whenever it actually ended Saturday July the 14th :

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Tourist Trap: This is one that Joe Bob and I have always seen eye to eye on as one of those gems of a horror movie that is so eerie, batshit crazy and unusual that it keeps you on your toes throughout wondering just what the Hell is gonna happens next. Chuck Conners is a whole lot of fun to watch and the movie contains one of the most brutal and bloodless kills I’ve ever seen. Borrowing heavily from Psycho, Carrie and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and creating it’s own unique blend of horror with these elements, it blazed it’s own trail that I think deserves more appreciation.

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Sleepaway Camp: Psycho Sexual Summer Camp Overload! Sleepaway Camp is by far and away my favorite summer time slasher due in no small part to the very natural, very believable performances of the central kids in the story, all in service to one remarkably strange plot for a horror movie based at a summer camp. When most of this ilk are happy to settle for typical Cropsy stuff, Sleepaway Camp gives us something so much freakier and disturbing than we ever expected. There were folks in the audience at Cap City Video Lounge who had never seen this one before and they were shaken long into the next feature after Sleepaway Camp’s conclusion. Plus, that song Angela’s Theme (You’re Just What I’ve Been Looking For) is one groovy track, but during the end credits, is made really creepy. One of the finest from the 80’s and a fine choice.

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RABID: Cronenberg’s sophomore effort, Rabid starring Ivory Sop Girl turned porn star, Marilyn Chambers, is a weird sicky of a film featuring a typhoid mary central character who somehow gets an armpit anus vagina that spurts forth a parasitic gonzo blood sucking penis that thrives on that blood to stay alive. Some folks have claimed it’s all a metaphor for addiction while others compare to the AIDS epidemic. For me, it’s simply a great contagion movie with green goo spewing mutants barfing and biting everywhere. One of Cronenberg’s sleazier ones before he eventually started making Oscar stuff.

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The Prowler: Oddly enough, probably the dullest film to make the marathon. With countless suspenseless scenes of folks walking around white walled dark hallways looking mildly scared and other scenes that take us down narrative dead ins with no pay off, The Prowler aka: Rosemary’s Killer, isn’t exactly a recipe for excitement. However, with a little help from Tom Savini in the effects department, the film is littered with great moments of outstanding gore effects that wake you up as you try to stay awake during the 24 hour marathon. Plus an absolutely stunning pare of breasts on one of first victims and Joe Bob Brigg’s constant interruptions, it was still a damn fine time.

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Sorority Babes in the Slime Ball Bowl-A-Rama: Holy shit, I love this movie. One of those bargain basement Scream Queen cheapies with plenty of bare breasts and a story so ludicrous, with performances so unfathomably bad, it’s an absolute delight. Played during about the 4am shift of the 24 hour marathon, this was the hot cup of trash cinema coffee I needed to keep me going after the prowler. Featuring some great full frontal and behind nudity from Brinke Stevens and Michelle Bauer, Linnea Quigley as a badass cat burglar that can’t afford a bra or a full tank top, a malicious little Imp who stuffed in a bowling trophy who awakens with the promise of granting wishes only to try and fucking kill you AND a great recurring cameo by the late, great, George “Buck” Flowers , this was EXACTLY what the marathon needed and payed homage to a handful of Trash Cinema Legends while delivering the sleaze.

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Daughters of Darkness: Now, for probably the most artsy of the films Joe Bob Briggs selected for the 24 hour marathon. Daughter’s of Darkness is an absolutely gorgeous film with some truly inspired performances bringing to life what I would consider to be the best of the female (or lesbian) vampire films. Featuring a strong feminist message, some great nudity, a fantastic score and some downright jarring moments of violence leading up to a :Wha the Fuck did I just witness” climax, Daughters of Darkness is a ilm that lives up to it’s reputation. A fan actually got a letter read by Joe Bob Briggs read on air where the viewer complained that Daughters of Darkness was”Slow” to which Joe Bob responded, “Yeah, so what? It was MEANT to be slow!” Joe Bob, sir, you are a treasure.

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Blood Feast: I knew he had to show Blood Feast. The movie which created the splatter film genre and a Drive-In Classic directed by the late, great, Herschell Gordon Lewis with the help of the late David F. Friedman in my home state of Florida. Anoyher film that was bittersweet hearing Joe Bob talk about as the man has forever championed this film and became a friend of H.G. Lewis when releasing some of his weird and rare stuff on VHS for the “Sleaziest Movies In the History of the World” collection. Blood Feast is a terrible film by just about everyone’s standards. The script is garbage, the concept is goofy and the performance range from way out there over the top, to I am reading my lines off of the lamp shade. But as a highly entertaining piece of Trash Cinema and a true Drive-In classic, it is hysterical, bloody fun that’s hard to top. Well deserving of it’s place of notoriety in the annals of cinematic history and one of the finest exploitation films ever made. During the marathon Joe Bob Tweeted “Blood Feast is trending nationally? Hershell, are you listening?” Proving yet again that The Drive-In will NEver Die so long as we keep these legends alive. IT was an honor watching this one with Joe Bob during The Last Drive-In.

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Basket Case: Okay, now we’re cooking with fire! Joe Bob picks out Frank Henenlotter’s debut feature, one of the last of the to Drive-In, Grindhouse greats, the sleazy, filthy, profoundly disgusting BASKET CASE! Another of my all time favorite slices of Trash Cinema, Joe Bob was crucial in making Basket Case a hit. As I recall, he either saw this at a screening as either Cannes or Sundance, and was the only other critic in there besides Rex Reed, who write up the film ended up being it’s selling point and was used in all it’s marketing, “This is the sickest movie ever made.” Joe Bob told that little story during the screening but, otherwise, this was one of the flicks I missed the most of as I was grilling burgers and dogs for the Gang at Cap City Video Lounge during our screening. But, Basket Case was one of those films that needed to be seen. And, again, everyone in our theater during this screening has never seen Basket Case before. So, I was happy to get them fed during the screening of this remarkable, legendary, groundbreaking piece of absolute cinematic filth. What really makes it stand out is the amount of heart and true emotional resonance that exists between the body mutilation, panty sniffing, and stop motion deformed creature tantrums. Henenlotter went on to make Brain Damage and Frankenhooker, but neither really surpasses the mix that Basket Case delivers. One of a kind and true gem of Trash Cinema.

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Re-Animator: Oh, Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon’s gonzo filmic interpretation of H.P. Lovecraft’s classic about life and the lengths some in the field of medicine and advanced science will go to in order to preserve it. This came out in 1985 alone with Dan ‘OBannon’s Return of the Living Dead and George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead, three of the finest and most game changing zombie flicks ever made. Re-Animator is a a great ride littered with some really fun, cheap gore gags and gross outs, some FANTASTIC gratuitous nudity from the limitlessly attractive and talented Barbara Crampton, but the true saving grace of Re-Animator is the zany, sharp, and gleefully malicious performance of Jeffrey Combs as the unhinged Dr. Herbert West, the man who has created the Re-Animation agent and causes an undead holocaust at Miskatonic University. Featuring some of the most perverse murders, makeup effects and molestations in the history of cinema, Re-Animator was a golden selection for The Last Drive-In. A sure fire crowd pleaser for the Drive-In Mutants.

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Honestly, it was a lineup to die for and one Joe Bob obviously took good care in covering all the bases while selecting from SHUDDER’s catalog of titles. It was ab absolute joy hanging out with great friends, knocking back brews, and eventually, strong black coffee, as we soldiered through with glee to this 24 hour marathon of the macabre hosted with laughs and vulgarity by the man who brought us here, Joe Bob Briggs.

But there was always a little sting in my heart every time a 28 years older Job Bob would mention a talent whom we had lost in the years since the cancellation of MonsterVision. We hold on to our pasts and those things that made us who were are and we cherish these things. They become a part of us, they define us. But time pushes forward and takes what it wants and as we get older and wiser to these facts the pain doesn’t exactly subside, but we do grow to accept it. There was that shared hope that Joe Bob was going to announce he had made a deal to start up a new show on the streaming service, SHUDDER, where he hosted his 24 hour horror movie marathon, but that announcement never came. Instead, he said his goodbyes, the lights turned off on the set of The Last Drive-In and the credits rolled as Joe Bob sat in his recliner, hunched forward, fiddling with his hat with a look of reflection on his face. As if he will always be there.

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I am not going to lie to you, I had to hold back my tears. It was as if I had just hung out with a long lost relative for the past 24 hours and it was as if nothing had changed, and now that relative has gone away, again, and he’s told us he’s never coming back. But, that is exactly how it all works. We have no say in this, or what those around us decide is best for them. Joe Bob is a saint for coming back at all. For 24 hours it was like being that kid I once was all over again, but instead of being alone in a living room, I was surrounded by my friends this time, in a business I created, that may never have existed without the inspiration folks like Joe Bob Brigg’s provided by teaching me it was okay to be myself, believe in myself and to not turn my back on the things that make me happy. What a great lesson to learn. And those of us who took this lesson to heart, and those of us who carry the torch, we will insure that The Drive-In Will Never Die. That spirit, the spirit of the misfit, the outcast, the weird, the mutated, is something that will be in our hearts always.

Thank you, Joe Bob Briggs, for making me Trashy. We will not let you down.

-Root

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Mar

(NSFW) Tanya’s Island (1980) : Monkey Trouble In Paradise

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Tanya's Island (1980) and Uncategorized
Tags: 1980, 80, 80's, actress, Alfred Sole, ape, art, Beach, blue, Bootsie Kidd, cap city video lounge, cult, D.D. Winters, Don McCloud, drama, dream, erotic, evocative, feminist, Florida, horror, horseback riding, Lobo, Love Triangle, lust, Mariette Levesque, Misogyny, nightmare, nude, nudity, paradise, PierreBrousseau, Richard Sargent, sex, Tallahassee, Tanya, Tanya's Island, thoughtful, trash cinema collective, treasure, tropical, Vanity

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A Bootsie Kidd Review

Tanya’s Island is a love story like so many others, fraught with jungle wilds and imaginary gorilla lovers. Girl meets boy. Girl falls in love with boy. Boy spurns girl. Girl turns to primal nature in pursuit of independence, passion, and fulfillment. Boy changes mind, decides he wants girl and that girl needs him. Girl decides she’ll stick with primal nature in pursuit of independence, passion, and fulfillment.

We open with Tanya going for a run. She is the very picture of strength, independence, capability, hard work, and happens to gorgeous as fuck. This is THE Vanity we’re talking about here, so you know she’s a creature like no other. Tanya is an actress starring in a new King Kong film when her director, Kelly (Mariette Lèvesque), approaches her to state how tired she looks, that her career is more important than her personal life, and to get her shit together, but Kelly’s all smiles and warmth so we’re meant to take it as well-meaning pressure and polite disinterest in Tanya’s personal needs. Distressed, Tanya turns to her artist lover, Lobo (Richard Sargent), who greets Tanya with a pretty brutal goodbye saying he won’t let her “own him”. Tanya seems so wholly unaware of how spectacular she is, in and of herself, seeking love, acceptance, and support from people who have no clue of how nor inclination to give it to her. If it was beauty that killed the beast, Tanya plays roles as both.

Suddenly, a sensationally bizarre b&w scene pops up momentarily within a shower depicting Tanya and Lobo covered in blood while Tanya screams and clammers to escape. The scene ends as suddenly as it arrived, and the next moment we’re in a lavish, morbidly decorated home where Tanya seems to be packing for an escape from this shit when another presents itself. She hears heavy panting coming from up the stairs. As she travels a hall lined with footlights, we hear waves crashing, and upon handling an illuminated seashell, the music crescendos, Tanya opens a door flooded with light and fog juice, and we’re whisked away to sepia-toned, butt-neked Tanya fondling and fake-jogging for the duration of the opening credits.

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Tanya has imagined herself to an island that seems to be her own paradise. And hey! Lobo’s there, but he seems enthralled with her and they live, and fuck, and love their days away. She even has her own beach pony to ride around on just in case it wasn’t obvious enough how sexy she and this island are. Only Lobo still isn’t happy. He gets bored and wants to keep exploring the island. Okay, fair enough. It’s a show strength and character when a movie is realistic enough to concede that even paradise has potential for monotony. Lobo’s an artist in want of new inspiration, a yearner, and this is Tanya’s Paradise not Lobo’s, after all, so let’s give the guy the benefit of the doubt, for now.

Once they move their tent and relentless chimes to another part of an island, Tanya begins to suspect there’s something on the island with them, tells Lobo of this fear, and Lobo mocks, tricks, and scares the shit out of her. Goddamnit, Lobo! Tanya has had it, y’all, trekking back into the jungle finding herself alone in the wilds of her own imagination. The landscapes are breathtaking, and the further she ventures the more brave and secure she becomes, adorning herself with a crown of flowers as if finally fucking realizes she is the queen of all she surveys. It is an especially gratifying, albeit, simple sequence. As Tanya wanders even deeper in the caverns of her paradise, she comes upon the creature lurking in trees. A gorilla with sterling blue eyes that she befriends and names Blue (Don McLeod).

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Despite Tanya reuniting with fuck boy Lobo, he gets butt-hurt over not having Tanya’s undivided attention and the now-apparent fact she doesn’t need his sour-grapes ass for fulfillment, and he attempts to rape her while mocking her desires and affection for Blue. However, Blue is there to thwart that stank dick allowing for Tayna’s escape. But, of course, this Gauguin wannabe motherfucker HAS to win. Despite Tanya’s constant compassion and tenderness, he literally cages her primitive nature, entrapping Blue, demanding that “my rules” are to be obeyed. Lobo barks orders while Tanya tries to salvage what remaining happiness she can in her own fantasy. Her rage intensifies with Lobo’s upgrading abuse until she frees Blue inciting Lobo to construct ANOTHER literal fucking prison around he and Tanya, claiming it as protection. Now it is up to Blue, Tanya’s manifestation of her own wild spirit and independent nature to free her from the colossal douchewad’s clutches.

Watching Lobo’s transformation from everyday self-involved smugness into the filthy, primitive, insecure, patriarchal, rapist piece of shit that was lurking just beneath his surface with Blue taunting Lobo from outside the cage makes for an intense ride. In a frantic sequence of what-the-shit, Blue breaks Tanya free, Lobo is left crying out in fear of loneliness, Tanya fleas deciding she doesn’t need Blue or Lobo resulting in her primal savior Blue eventually catching and beating her to death rather than letting her live independent of them.

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And wouldn’t you know, it was all just a dream! Ugh. She wakes up to the starkly empty room realizing wounds from her nightmarish encounter. She has a blank canvas to work with from here, but scars remain and need time and care to heal. Our minds construct prisons within prisons as well as the villains and heroes to navigate them, and circumstances idealized in the mind that may have been some pretty unhealthy shit can be overcome for living to fight and love another day.

All in all, Tanya’s Island has a lot more substance than expected given other’s reports! Moral of the story for us and Tanya, listen but, in the end, rely on your own judgement and experience. Sure there’s sultry sexin’ and plenty of bare-backin the beach pony, but all of it fits within the context of Tanya’s frame of paradise. It’s thoughtful AND evocative which is especially remarkable given that these two things are never mutually exclusive though typically treated as such in cinematic critique. Director Alfred Sole and the solid performances from Vanity, Sargant, and McLeod creatively reimagined important subjects, and it is one that I hope eventually receives the nods it deserves. Check it out for yourself at Cap City Video Lounge or your local movie rental store!

Jul

(NSFW) Malabimba: The Malicious Whore (1979) The Spirit Wants Inside You…DEEP Inside You.

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Malabimba: The Malicious Whore (1979), Root's Written Reviews and Uncategorized
Tags: 1979, abusive, Andrea Bianchi, assault, battle, Bimba, blowjob, boobs, Burial Ground, cap city video lounge, Castle, Cruel, cult, dirty, Enzo Fisichella, exploitation, family, Father, filth, filthy, flashing, full frontal, furry, garden, ghost, good vs evil, graphic, handjob, Heaven, Hell, horror, in laws, incest, innocence, invalid, Italian, Malabimba, malicious, Mariangela Giordano, masturbation, mean, Mother, murder, naked, Nekkid, nun, Nunsploitation, nurse, Patrizia Webley, penetration, penis, perverse, perverted, pleasure, porn, pornography, possession, Primal Root, public nudity, relatives, religious, rich, sacreligious, seance, seduction, serpent, sex, sexploitation, shame, sin, snakes, spirit, suicide, taboo, tearing clothes off, teddy bear sex, Trash Cinema, trash cinema collective, unholy, vicious, vulva, whore, x rated, xxx

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“You have to look. You have to.” – Malabimba, Malabimba, The Malicious Whore (1979)

a Primal Root written review

You know, some movies you have to wait for them to really warm up and get moving. You’re introduced to characters, you learn who they are, their motives and the roles they play in the narrative, then around the twenty minute mark we get to the inciting incident that sets the thrust of the plot in motion and we continue going through the motions from there. You know what I;m saying? Snooze-A-Rama. Malabimba, the 1979 Italian genre blender flick of supernatural horror and pornography does not suffer from any such issue. No, it hits the ground running and does not let up till the final goddamn frame. Whoever coined the term, “All killer, no filler” might have been talking about Malabimba: The Malicious Whore, because holy fuck is thing a full throttle psycho sexual taboo bending fuck fest like few I’ve ever had the pleasure to endure zipper burn watching, hot diggity dog!

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Young, shy, nubile teenager Malabimba’s (Katell Laennec) mother, and matriarch of a once influential and prosperous (they live in a goddamn CASTLE!) Caroli family, has just recently passed away due to a slight case of MURDER under mysterious circumstances. The film opens on a seance where the family is attempting to contact her spirit for reasons that are not made clear. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for the viewing audience, their medium starts flipping the fuck out before becoming possessed by the perverted, malicious, absolutely vicious spirit of the decadent late cousin Lucrezia who immediately begins berating, insulting and sexually assaulting the family. Pop’s (Andrea played by Enzo Fisichella) has his pants yanked open and his party favor yanked upon before Bimba’s Aunt/Andrea’s voluptuous sister-in-law, Nais (Patrizia Webley) gets her dress torn off exposing her for the entire family to admire then begins making the medium writhe all over the floor in orgasmic screams of horrified ecstacy. As the family carries on with the half nekkid ghostly shenanigans downstairs, the spirit soon flees to other area of the house, first dropping in on the House Nun/Nurse Sofia (Mariangela Giordano, Peter Bark’s mother in Burial Ground), and gets her masturbating a bit before being forced out of Sofia via Sofia’s strong faith in the big boss man in the sky. NOT TO WORRY! Quickly after this rejection, the ghost of Lucrezia lays her eyes upon Malabima…who makes the perfect vessel for her rude, perverse, sexually charge atrocities to be acted out upon her family…

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It’s the perfect goddamn set up and Malabimba has it ALL. Incest, profanity, teen sexuality, Nunspolitation, hypocrisy, softcore pornography laced with heavy duty penetration inserts, demonic spirit possession, cock grabbing, pussy munching, unholy seduction, good vs. evil conflict, murder by oral sex, just to name a few. This is what Malabimba has to offer in a none stop sleazefest that must be seen and experienced to believe. It’s the kind of film that will leave your mind blown out of the back of your head and splattered against the back of your LA-Z-BOY. This is not a sweet, kind, romp in the sheets, no, there is no safety net in any of the unholy love pumping on display in Malabimba, this is a film which boldly charts a moral destroying course to create a filthy, disturbing, highly atmospheric, creepy and erotically charged nightmare unlike any you’ll ever see again.

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Directed by the highly underrated and often overlooked purveyor of many fine Italian Trash Cinema classics as 1981’s Burial Ground, 1976’s Strip Nude For Your Killer and 1972’s What the Peeper Saw, filmmaker Andrea Bianchi has crafted a powerfully nasty, sacrilegious, taboo busting masterpiece in a career built upon such giddy sleaze and exploitation. Seriously, less than ten minutes in Malabimba’s run time and you already have a 90 minute film worth of drippy, sexual naughtiness. And I am not overstating the facts, it IS this loaded with skin and horror. It feels as if the film is always trying to top itself scene for scene by upping the horror and sex ante, and for this lover of fine filth, it is something I truly admire. This film is all you could ever want and I loved every second of it.

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Honestly, the horror elements are somewhat fleeting as they are generally used as a means to an end leading to sexual encounters which range from disturbing and awkward to down right erotic, sensual and titillating . What really impresses is the fact that the story, as it is, and the characters are not just defined by their salacious nocturnal activities I found myself wondering through the entire film just what will become of the young Malabima and the target of her evil seductive prowess, Sister Sofia, will she stay on the righteous path or end up pulled down to the bowels of Hell by giving in to the cruel sex kitten? Malabimba: The Malicious Whore is sexploitation cinema at it’s down and dirty trashiest, which is it’s grandest form, if you ask me. If you think you might like your sexploitation tasteless and over the edge, and you are not offended by the sight of penises entering vaginas and/or mouths, I highly recommend Malibaba: The Malicious Whore. But you don’t have to take my word for it!

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I PROUDLY award this Grade A slice of filth FIVE out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets!

Do not miss this suckers! By the way, this puppy is available to rent on DVD at Cap City Video Lounge in Tallahassee, Florida. 😉

Stay Trashy!

-Root

Oct

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) Samhain’s Darkest Horse

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) and Uncategorized
Tags: 1982, 3, 82, Alan Howarth, alcohol, alocoholisim, anarchy, blood, bomb, bourbon, burning, california, chase, classic, commercial, consipiracy, consumerisim, costume, coverup, cult, Dan O'Herlihy, death of child, death of children, Debra Hill, decapitation, destruction, divorce, doctor, drill, drill to head, druid, evil, factory, failure, fire, franchise, fucking, genre, giveaway, Gore, Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween III, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, head, holiday, horror, hospital, hotel sex, Irish, jack-o-lantern, John Carpenter, joke, lasers, light packers, madman, male nudity, mask, masks, melted, Miller high Life, misfire, motel, moustache, murder, mystery, Nancy Loomis, novelty, obliteration, October, psychotronic, robots, Santa Mira, sci-fi, science fiction, Season, Season of the Witch, series, sex, sexual harassment, shower, Silver Shamrock, skull, skull crush, small town, spying, Stacey Nelkin, stand lone, stonehenge, supernatural, Surveillance, television, third, Tom Atkins, Tommy Lee Wallace, toy factory, Toys, trick or treat, trick or treating, TV, Warlock, West Coast, whiskey, witch, witchcraft

created by Matt Ryan Tobin

“I do love a good joke and this is the best ever, a joke on the children.” – Conal Cochran, Halloween III: Season of the Witch

a Primal Root written review

If you know me int he slightest, it’s not a secret by any means, I am enormous fan and champion of the misfit third entry in the long running Halloween horror franchise began by John Carpenter and Debra Hill way back in 1978 with the original Halloween. The exploits of escaped mental patient Michael Myers aka: The Shape (Nick Castle), his considerably psychotic child therapist, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance), and the blossoming young virgin babysitter, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) came to a close with a fiery explosion at the end of Halloween II. Michael was engulfed in flames that were sure to turn anyone made of flesh and blood to nothing more than a hand full of ash, and CERTAINLY must have killed that goofy nutbag Dr. Loomis who flicked the Bic that blew the explosive gas ward of Haddonfield Memorial Hospital sky high…leaving Laurie Strode alone in an ambulance pondering the terribly contrived and problematic twist that Michael Myers was actually her brother all along, which totally negates the random nature of the horror in the original Halloween and reminds you that if you make sure you know your biological family tree and keep dibs on all the blood thirsty, unkillable maniacs, you can avoid this sort of predicament and spare your friends every Halloween night.

Halloween II would have been a pretty fine conclusion to the story of Haddonfield and it’s brotherly Boogerman, if the original film hadn’t had a far more suitable and deeply unnerving conclusion already, so where was the Halloween franchise to go from it’s 1981 sequel? Would John Carpenter and Debra Hill venture to make another lazy, dull, predictable story about the now totally cremated and burned to smithereens masked madman Michael Myers? Well, if you are familiar with these two remarkably creative, innovative and fearless individuals, you know that this is exactly the road they’re not going to travel. In fact, their decision would go on to become the stuff of legend. The third installment in the Halloween franchise would be a massive departure from the story of Michael Myers and would, instead, tell a brand new, original story based around the holiday of the title, Halloween. It part of an incredibly commercial and brilliant concept of Carpenter and Hill that would make the Halloween franchise a yearly canvas for an infinite number of creative minds and filmmakers to create their own, unique, one off Halloween stories that could birth any number of spinoffs, sequels, remakes, reboots and reimaginings down the road! One paper it sounds like a wonderfully viable and lucrative concept, one that would keep the franchise running strong for decades to come! Debra Hill came up with the basic concept of the story, “witchcraft meets the computer age.” The team contacted Nigel Kneal (writer of the The Quatermass series) who wrote the first draft of the screenplay of what would become Tommy Lee Wallace’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

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Our film begins with the creation of a digital jack-o-lantern set the dark, ominous tones of John Carpenter and Alan Howarth’s fantastic score. Long gone is the iconic Halloween theme that immediately puts audiences on edge. Here, the score is menacing, low, and mysterious. The audience accustomed to the simple stalk and slash formula of the previous entries are clued in right off the bat that there is something different at work here. The jack-o-lantern is no longer something physical we’ve all held, touched and carved before. No, this is something alien and untouchable. As the credits conclude, the computer generated grinning jack-o-lantern begins to flash over white as an audible buzzing is heard. It’s strange, off putting and the significance of this is a totally mystery to us… for now.

The story centers on Dr. Challis (legendary cult icon, Tom Atkins), a flawed, damaged gentleman who is not by any stretch of the imagination your typical hero. This guy is divorced with two kids, a womanizer and, from what it would seem, a functional alcoholic. At every turn the man is sexually harassing his staff (or, I guess it would just be called flirting in the early 1980’s) of knocking back beer or bourbon. Even when visiting his ex-wife she mentions, as his pager goes off to call him to the hospital, “drinking and doctoring: GREAT combination.” She hasn’t witnessed this man drinking, he just showed up smelling like booze. Yeah, this guy is our hero, ladies and gents!

Womanizer. Drunkard. Hero.

Challis arrives at the hospital to care for a man in hysterics who is clutching a popular Silver Shamrock Halloween mask and babbling what seems to be nonsense about “They’re going to kill us! All of us!” Challis sedates the man, puts him in a room, slaps the nurses ass and goes to sleep it off in the doctor’s lounge leaving the poor old guy all alone so minutes later a silent man in a three piece suit can just wonder into his room and dismantle his skull bare handed. When Challis is woken up by the nurses cries over the patients sudden case of collapsed skull, he gives chase, but it’s too late. The silent killer has doused himself in gasoline and blown himself up in his car. Challis looks on with a face that clearly expresses and slightly hungover “What the fuck?” The audience feels his pain.

The murdered man’s daughter, Ellie (the gorgeous Stacey Nelkin) shows up to claim the body and the local authorities try to comfort her by claiming it was just a random psychopath who walked in off the streets and single handidly crunched her father’s head into bloody, flappy chunks. The next day she track Dr. Challis down early in the morning at a local bar and enlists his help to figure out just who wanted her Father dead and why. Dr. Challis, who can never say no to a free booty call, grabs a sixer of Miller High Life, calls his ex-wife to back out of his obligations and heads off the Santa Mira, home of Silver Shamrock Novelties, the town her Father was last seen headed before he became a babbling lunatic with a warrant out for his noggin.

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What Dr. Challis and Ellie uncover between swigs of bourbon and all night fuck sessions, is a vast, deadly, evil conspiracy, one that has been conjured up over hundreds of years and will bring the world to it’s knees as horrifically grotesque sacrifice is made. As the mastermind behind this horrifying plan suggests, “The World is going to change tonight.” And if this evil madman’s scheme does pull through, the world will be transformed forever…

***SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!****

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Okay, so it turns out the guy who runs Silver Shamrock novelties, Conal Cochran (played with enthusiasm and cheerful menace by the late, great, Dan O’Herlihy) is a druid and a warlock with a massive army of murderous robot people. He also has stolen a block from stonehenge and is chipping off pieces of the missing block to add just a fragment of the stone into the Silver Shamrock Halloween masks along with a small computer chip. What is the importance of all this? Why is Mr. Cochran willing to murder people in order to ensure these masks are made and are the hottest Halloween masks on the market? What is the deal with the big giveaway happening Halloween night where all the children must watch their TV’s while wearing their Silver Shamrock masks in order to win? Because it’s all part of a grand scale child sacrifice. That’s right, when the big giveaway happens, those wearing the Silver shamrock Halloween masks will be subjected to a blinking jack-o-lantern. This image in conjunction with the piece from stonehenge will end up melting the head of the child wearing mask and produce copious amounts of roaches, spiders, and venomous snakes.

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Yes, this plan is totally fucking bonkers. Evil always works best when it’s bonkers, if you ask me. It;s so bizarre, so downright disturbing and nightmarish, it totally devastated me when I was a kid watching Halloween III: Season of the Witch for the first time. In the typical language of cinema, the kid never dies. Then you see Halloween III: Season of the Witch, you do not only get to witness a little kid get his head melted, but you watch as he, still living, chokes up rattle snakes, roaches and and tarantulas before his horrified parents eyes. I honestly watched the scene much like Dr. Challis does as he watches through a monitor in Cochran’s secret warehouse. You cannot believe what you’re seeing. It;s so dark and weird and macabre and unflinchingly grim…it then dawns on you that in matter of hours this is going to happen everywhere. In every living room all over the world. I know a lot of people bring up that THE BIG GIVEAWAY is at 9pm and that the movie didn’t account for time zones. Ugghh, I am sure the time zones are adjusted and that the filmmakers just didn’t want to make it monotonous by listing ALL THE DIFFERENT TIME ZONES all of the world. Anyhoo, it’s a nightmare to imagine as kids die a prolonged, agonizing, supernatural death and their poor parents then get attacked by the living, nasty contents of their now melted spawns cranium. I can’t help but imagine what this little practical joke will do to the economic thrust of the holiday season. Shit. Little Buddy’s head is gone, I guess we can return that Atari to Toys R’ Us…

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Also, I must address the Ellie controversy. A lot of people wonder if she was robot all along or not. My theory is that Ellie was a real, flesh and blood human being through the whole movie until she is captured by Cochran and used to lure Dr. Challis to the Silver Shamrock Factory. Cochran had a crude robot duplicate of her made, Dr. Challis rescues that robot,and Ellie is left to burn alive in the Silver Shamrock explosion. Yeah, my theory is dark, bleak and assumes the female lead suffers a brutal death by burning all alone in the bowels of mad toy maker’s factory, but to me that is the appeal of Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Our hero is inept, saves no one, including his own children and the world witnesses the absolute terror that Conal Cochran has unleashed upon the world. The film ends with Tom Atkins, Dr. Challis, screaming into the phone as the Silver shamrock jack-o-lantern flashes on the screen, “STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IIIIIIIITTTT!” And the credits roll. He doesn’t win. We are left to imagine the outcome of this gruesome terrorist attack. To this day, the ending of Halloween III: Season of the Witch sends chills down my spine. If you think about it, that ending could symbolize the corporate take over of America. Our youth poisoned by what they are fed day in and day out through all forms of media until their heads rot and the same nasty, mean, venomous shit comes pouring from their mouths. Fuck…could Atkins have been trying to warn us all long? Did the evil that occurred at the end of Halloween III: Season of the Witch already occur? I take a glimpse from time to time and see what comes spewing into my living room through cable television and it’s not hard to imagine that the kind of televised consumer apocalypse may have already happened.

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Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a the underdog of the entire franchise. History speaks for itself. The movie bombed horribly due to the fact it was critically panned and the fans wanted more of the same, which they got a few years later in the hideously underwhelming Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, which I do enjoy, it’s just a really, really, cheap, poorly shot, and not very entertaining or inspired movie.

To be be perfectly honest, I couldn’t stand Halloween III: Season of the Witch when I first saw it as a child. It was too dark, too mean and there was no Michael Myers!I was right there with the folks who were disappointed in the lack of familiar elements. However, time has been very kind to Halloween III: Season of the Witch, it has grown into a sort of cult favorite among horror movie aficionados. After watching the same Michael Myers bullshit over and over and over I began to go back to Halloween III: Season of the Witch just to remind myself why I didn’t like it. Just like many of my horror brethren, I think many of us found what we initially presumed to be the film’s weaknesses to actually be this movie’s greatest strengths. Folks like myself who revel in the third installments stand alone story, bizarre gore effects, disturbing mystery, incredible fresh and creepy score, nightmarish concepts and and damn fine performances. It’s the last of the high quality, well shot and intriguing Halloween films and possibly my favorite of the entire series, including John Carpenter’s original, which I have tremendous respect for…but Halloween III: Season of the Witch is such a one of kind masterpiece of the macabre, I look forward to watching it every single Halloween season. Don’t get me wrong, I love Michael Myers and the original Halloween just fine, but like I said earlier, I always like my evil to be a bit more fucking bonkers side of things.

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created by Cavity Colors

Every October I watch as people create more and more original art based on Halloween III: Season of the Witch as it’s cult status and admiration grows. I’m not going to lie, it brings a salty tear to this Trash Cinema fans eye every year as I watch what was once the laughing stock and whipping boy of the Halloween franchise become more and more the stand out and most beguiling dark corner of the whole series.

I award Halloween III: Season of the Witch 5 out of 5 Dumpster Nuggets.

Jul

Nothing But Trouble: A Trash Cinema Dog Days of Summer Event!

By primalroot 1 Comment

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WHO: The Trash Cinema Collective
WHAT: A screening of the 1991 cult flick, Nothing but Trouble!
WHEN: Saturday August 6th at 9pm (EST)
WHERE: Bird’s Aphrodisiac Oyster Shack
WHY: Because it’s about time.

As always, NO COVER!

Hey Gang, The Primal Root here, and I am happy to be inviting you out to our August 6th Trash Cinema Night featuring the strangest of early 90’s cinematic oddities, the Chevy Chase Texas Chainsaw Massacre hybrid as well as Dan Aykroyd’s directorial debut, 1991’s Nothing but Trouble! A film that bombed horrendously upon theatrical release only to gain a rabid cult fanbase later on home video.

Nothing But Trouble is a classic tale of New York yuppies driving through rural America where they come across some backwoods locals who want to skin them alive. Only this time around, they are the local law. After running a stop sign, Chris Thorne (Chevy Chase) Diane (Demi Moore), and their driving buddies end up under arrest and must stand trial in the court/home of the decrepit, blood thirsty Judge Alvin ‘J.P.’ Valkenheiser. As the prisoners soon find out, J.P.’s mansion.prison is filled with secret passages, booby traps and other odd/horrifying contraptions. Chris and Diane must out wit the deranged family in order to survive the night and get home alive!

Be prepared for cock noses! Unskinned sausages! John Candy in drag! Pu Collars! Giant mutant babies in diapers! Awesome roller coaster style death traps! A performance by the legendary Digital Underground! A spectacular cameo by the late Tupac Shakur! And a deep wave of nostalgia for the early 90’s and a time when a once promising career for the then thriving Dan Aykroyd suddenly began to fall to pieces.

That’s right! It’s Nothing but Trouble! A strange blend of backwoods horror, comedy, and awkward social interaction! So come on out, grab a pitcher of your favorite ice cold adult beverage, sink your teeth into the BEST damn burger in town, and let’s check out a forgotten nugget of pure Trash Cinema gold! I’ll see you there, Gang!

Stay Trashy!
-Root

May

Basket Case & Brain Damage: A Deep Cult at The Junction Double Feature!

By primalroot Leave a Comment

Categories: Trash Cinema Nights!
Tags: basket case, brain damage, BYOB, cult, Deep Cult, double feature, Florida, frank henenlotter, horror, movie, screening, showing, Tallahassee, The Junction, trash cinema collective, Trash Cinema Nights

WHO: The Trash Cinema Collective

WHAT: A Double Feature screening of Basket Case (film) and Brain Damage!

WHEN: Monday May 23rd at 7:30pm

WHERE: The Junction at Monroe

WHY: Because you need a slice of sleaze to start your week.

$5 Cover

BYOB

Hey Gang, The Primal Root here, inviting YOU to start your week out on the trashiest note possible as we celebrate the work of grindhouse prodigy and life long purveyor of fine cinematic filth, Mr. Frank Henenlotter with a double feature of Basket Case followed by Brain Damage!

Basket Case (1982): What is the secret Duane has hiding in his basket? As young Duane visits New York City and it’s sleaziest dives, whatever lurks within his locked basket is maiming, molesting, and murdering people throughout the inner city. What is the secret behind this bloody rampage of horror splattering the darkest corners of the city in blood and entrails? Come out to our special screening of Basket Case and find out…If you dare.

Brain Damage (1988): One morning, Brian, a young mn living with his brother wakes up to find a talking, singing, disgusting parasite has attached itself to his brain stem. Through Brian’s brain stem, this parasite who goes by the name Aylmer, puts Brian in a euphoric state of happiness…but as we all know, such bliss often comes at a terrifyingly high price. Find out just how that cost is in Frank Henenlotter’s Brain Damage, the Requiem for a Dream of Trash Cinema…

So, come on out and join us for Trash Cinema Night’s Deep Cult at The Junction for a double feature of grotesque creativity, gnarly violence and deeply dark humor! Get some delicious booze to share and prepare for an evening;s filth like none other!

See you there, Gang!

Stay Trash!

-Root

Posts Tagged ‘cult

Willy’s Wonderland (2021): The Dark Side of the Ball Pit

Nightbeast (1982) White Trash vs. Predator (NSFW)

(SFW) Spookies (1986) or Billy Learned The Truth at age 13

Mandy (2018)Crazy Evil and The Depths of an Exquisite Hell

Tearing the Heart Out of Saturday Night: Happy Trails, Joe Bob Briggs

(NSFW) Tanya’s Island (1980) : Monkey Trouble In Paradise

(NSFW) Malabimba: The Malicious Whore (1979) The Spirit Wants Inside You…DEEP Inside You.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) Samhain’s Darkest Horse

Nothing But Trouble: A Trash Cinema Dog Days of Summer Event!

Basket Case & Brain Damage: A Deep Cult at The Junction Double Feature!

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