“EAT LEAD, FROGGIES!” – Sam Hell, Hell Comes to Frogtown
“We’re gonna get ’em out, and you’re gonna get ’em pregnant.” – Spangle, Hell Comes to Frogtown
a Primal Root Written Review
Never in the annals over cinema has the queasy unease and horror apparent in the possibility of losing your sexual organs been so graphically portrayed as they are in the post apocalyptic 1988 sci-fi comedy action adventure cyber punk sweat and filth caked fever dream, Hell Comes to Frogtown starring the late, great, Roddy Piper, Sandahl Bergman, Cec Verrell, and Farmer Vincent himself, Rory Calhoun!
As always, the world is left a post apocalyptic wasteland due to a “difference of opinion” (HAHAHA!) which leads to a nuclear war obliterating all of civilization and leaving the good majority of the handful of remaining men steril. Which is where Sam Hell comes in (played with over the top buffoonery glee by Roddy Piper), we catch up with him as he is about to get his genitals torn off by an angered military Captain named Devlin, whose daughter said Sam raped her, but he actually didn’t, and is now with child. However, the forced castration is quickly put to an end when Spangle (Sandahl Bergman) and Patton (Eyde Byrde) show up just in the nick of time to put him in an explosive cod piece and make his cock and balls official government equipment to be used in the repopulation of the planet. See, he tests way off the charts with the most ammunition in his weapon than they’re ever seen before, which makes him quite the commodity in the wasteland. One of my favorite moments in the film is when he is sitting in the lab of this government repopulation building with his beeping, blinking codpiece on, as he looks around and sees all the propaganda on the walls including a great poster that has a NO CONDOMS symbol over it and states “THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS!” Hell signs his junk away without reading the fine print and is now enlisted to go on missions across the remaining junk heap of Earth in an bulky explosive codpiece he can’t take off or it will explode, if he gets too far away from Spangle, it will electrocute his ball, and then explode. So, he’s basically a a fuck slave for the government.
Immediately, Hell is thrown into a mission to rescue a bevy of fertile young women who have been captured and used as sex slaves by a race of mutant amphibians who were exiled to the desert by humans to a place called, you guessed it, FROGTOWN! Hell, Spangle and badass gunner, Centinella (Cec Verrell) head off into the wasteland driving a bright pink Studebaker with a sunroof so Centinella can man the massive machine gun mounted to the top, in order to rescue the fertile maidens and have Hell give them the deep dicking they need to repopulate the Earth. Along the way, of course, we learn Spangle is trained in the art of seduction, which is graphically portrayed as she whips out her late 80’s camouflage and doily adorned lingerie, in order to keep Hell teased, hard, and ready to impregnate when the time arrives. Late at night, Centinella strips off her uniform, whips her puppies out of the chute (providing the ONLY bare breasts of the entire film) opens Hell’s the cod piece flap, straddles our wrestler hero, but gets pulled off right before he enters her ring by a jealous, but posing as protective, Spangle. Ugghhh, repopulating the planet is going be touch when all the women keep getting upset over who owns this guy’s penis.
Before long, the trio comes across an actual, honest, to goodness fertile lone woman of the wasteland. Spangle basically terrorizes and bullies the young woman before Hell tells her to back the fuck off so he can talk to the woman. Spangle gets irritated with Sam who balks at the artifice of this who deal and can’t perform under these circumstances. “Hey, you try making love to a complete stranger in a hostile, mutant environment, see how you like it.” But, eventually, Hell and the young woman warm up to one another, and get down to business as Spangle watches on jealously. In the morning, the young woman directs our trio of heroes to Frogtown, thanks Hell for the lust in the dust, give him a big bear hug and is on her way to die of exposure in the nuclear desert before ever even having that the baby Hell just shot down her love canal.
Okay, entering Frogtown, which is EXACTLY what you might assume it would be. A dark, filthy, greasy, sweaty underworld made up of freakish mutated frog people drinking sewage, reading copies of The Frog Prince, and doing strip teases upon the bar. Spangle’s plan is to pose as Hell’s faux hostage and slave to be traded to a frog pimp that goes by the name of Leroy. Leroy happens to be aided by an older HUMAN gent and acquaintance of Hell who goes by the name Looney Tunes (Rory Calhoun). The trade, however, comes to an abrupt halt when the one eyes frog, masochist and right hand toad of Commander Toty, the King Frog of Frogtown, a mutant who would love nothing more in this post apocalyptic husk of a world than to watch Hell’s package explode into meaty, sizzling chunks. Well, even more than that, he wants to enslave Spangle and watch her perform the highly erotic Dance of The Three Snakes, which is a scene that must be seen to be fully appreciated, no words of mine could every fully do it justice.
Oddly enough, it feels like the movie kind of drags once they hit Frogtown as Spangle tries to seduce Hell, and he rebukes. Arabella, the shapely frog stripper, tries to get Hell to fuck her, and he rebukes, and she pulls him back and crawls on him, and he puts a burlap sack over his head and says no, no ,no. It’s kind of funny for a minute, but as these interactions keep happening, it gets old quick. But, once Hell is captured, Spangle is forced to dance, and chainsaws start getting pulled into the action, Hell Comes to Frogtown gets back on track and into the action is a big hurry.
For being a New World Picture and the budget certainly being pretty nil, the effects are pretty impressive. Tee frog mutants may not be the greatest effects ever produced, but they’re quite audacious for an indie sci-fi flick. What really saves the day and makes Hell Comes to Frogtown so damn watchable, is the charasmatic, go for broke, comedic performance of Roddy Piper. They man is absolutely hysterical in the movie, calling on his experience mugging and emoting at top dramatic level from his professional wrestling days, the man hams it up to such an extreme, that you cannot help but laugh with the guy. It’s a ridiculous goddamn movie, and where everyone plays it serious, Roddy plays it for laughs, and it makes the film, if you ask me.
Hell Comes To Frogtown is by no stretch of the imagination a good film, or a competent one and I doubt it would make anyone’s favorite sci-fi action films, even from the 80’s. But, what it is, is a a fucking hoot of a piece of Trash Cinema and one very fun, brain dead ride into a hot, sweaty, dusty abysmal dystopian Hellscape well in need of some good fucks. It’s a flick where humanoid mutant frog people are packing heat, kidnapping scantly clad nubile young women who must be saved by the beefy awesomeness of Roddy Piper. Honestly, what’s not to enjoy?
I award Hell Comes to Frogtown THREE AND A HALF out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets.
“Who will dare to face the challenge of the Funhouse? Who is mad enough to enter that world of darkness? How about you, sir…?” -Funhouse Barker, The Funhouse (1981)
Who doesn’t love a night amongst the neon lights, swirling machinery, salt of the earth carnies and deep fried delicacies of the fair? As The Primal Root and lifetime admirer of all things filthy, the North Florida Fair is a true thing of beauty. The aroma of artery clogging treats like cotton candy, loaded cheese fries, funnel cakes and deep fried Oreos co mingle with the unmistakable stench of fresh vomit, Carny B.O. and still warm shit straight from the occupants of the livestock pavilions assholes. It’s the smell of a fine, trashy adventure ready to be had! The sound of screaming patrons as they are spun at incredibly unsafe speeds on rides older than their grandparents and just as rickety as the Bacon Blast they just ate moments ago churns within their stomachs threatening to become a technicolor projectile of half digested nastiness! Because. let’s face it, fun is only bolstered when there’s a constant threat of either being puked on or a fate worse than death. These are simple truths.
Case in point, Tobe Hooper often overlooked 1981 low rent, down and dirty slasher shit kicker, The Funhouse! It’s the kind of film that did fairly well when it came out but never created a sustainable franchise and got forgotten about by the mainstream horror aficionados. Which is a shame, really, because The Funhouse is actually a pretty great slice of the old Trash Cinema Grade B meatloaf.
The story is about a young, very pretty, VERY healthy young lady named Amy (played by the criminally underrated actress, Elizabeth Berridge). She is set up on a date by her two buddies Liz (Largo Woodruff) and Richie (Miles Chapin) with a young stud and gas station attendant, Buzz Dawson (Cooper Huckabee). Against the advice of her parents, Amy and her friends attend the traveling fair that’s in town. Things get off to a rocky start as Buz insults Amy’s Father…but he soon amps up the charm and before you know it, he’s wrapping his arm around her, she’s resting her head on his shoulder and discussing letting Buzz ram his prize winning cock through her fresh harvest cherry with Liz while the hang out in an alarmingly grotesque carnival shit house. That’s right, Amy’s a virgin, Buzz is a”pistol” and Amy’s been saving it for someone special. I mean, this guy DID play that strong man carnival game, ring the bell and win her a stuffed panda, so the least she can do is spread her legs and let him ring her bell, too! Right? Right? Well, that’s how it sorta works in slasher flick logic anyway. And what better place to lose it than by trespassing into the carnival’s FUNHOUSE and staying the night in there? Honestly, it is kind of a romantic notion to lose one’s virginity in there. Imagine, those things are NEVER cleaned so the drippings of your busted cherry will be all over The Funhouse floor FOREVER! So, one day when the carnival comes to town you can share a ride with the grand kids, point to an old brown stain on the floor and say “That’s where I treated a distant memory named “Buzz” to my unspoiled cooter! No, not Buzz Aldrin. This guy worked a gas pump…” But, I digress.
Before you can say, “dead whore”, the kids witness the creepy Funhouse attendant killing a fortune teller by the name of Madame Zena (Oscar nominated actress and Andy Warhol Factory regular, Sylvia Miles) who also doesn’t mind fucking for money on the side. See, Madame Zena simply touches the guy’s dick and he shoots his wad. She keeps the money, says a deal’s a deal, but the Carny who just blew his load doesn’t see it this way. He yanks her tits out and strangles/electrocutes her to death. It;s a pretty horrifying/awesome scene. The Carny is soon joined by his Father affectionately known as Funhouse Barker (Kevin Conway, who happens to play all the other Carnival Barkers in the film) and it is revealed that his son is hardly human at all, and is in fact, some kind of red eyed, sharp clawed, protruding fanged, drooling, screeching albino mutant deformity. It’s a pretty amazing reveal and one that puts a huge shit eating grin on my face every time. As Father and son discuss their plan for covering up Madame Zena’s murder we soon discover that this is far from the first time The Funhouse Barker has had to cover for his son’s murderous ways. In fact, it is even mentioned that his son killed two little Girl Scouts once. Yeah, this twosome is pretty vile. There are several shots in the move that linger on what a general ride goer at The Funhouse would consider fake rotten corpse props hanging from the walls of the ride. But the shots last for quite a while after we are made aware of this Father and Son’s past and you start to wonder how many of those crumbling dead bodies might actually be the real thing?
Father and son decide they will ditch Madame Zena’s body in the woods and then blame her murder on “The Locals.” As if Columbo couldn’t figure this shit out…ANYHOO, Richie drops his lighter, the Gruesome Twosome get wise to the fact that there are witnesses to the murder and the hunt is on!
The Funhouse is in many way a horror movie about horror movies. At the film’s very beginning, as we are treated to a lovely glimpse at Amy’s beautiful boobs, there are blatant and calculated homages to our horror film heritage represented by blatantly by John Carpenter’s Halloween in the form of that film’s killer POV shots, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho as Amy showers and is menaced by an unknown assailant with a knife. As a viewer, we are well aware of all these tropes. We’ve seen them and we know where it is going. The young, naked, nubile woman in the shower is going to get sliced and diced. That’s how these things work. HOWEVER, in The Funhouse, the sense of menace is soon turned upside down as the masked killer is revealed to be Amy’s little brother Joey pulling a prank and scaring the shit out of his big sis. This is meant to represent the horror film experience. Something scary is seen, but it is at the end of the day, harmless. What is frightening and thrilling on the screen isn’t going to actually harm us. James Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein is repeatedly mentioned in one form or another. In Joey’s room there is a poster of Frankenstein’s Monster on this wall above his bed, Amy and Joey’s parent’s are seen watching Bride of Frankenstein on cable TV safe in their living room and even The Killer Carny Creature wears a Frankenstein mask through most of the film to cover his terrifying true appearance. The fictional face of a homogenized, harmless, well loved fictional monster is used to cover up the real terror just under the thin layer of latex. It is a theme throughout The Funhouse. The kids go on carnival rides, scream are thrilled and have a blast. The ride stops and they step off unscathed. They witness a magician, Marco the Magnificent (played by legendary character actor and The Phantom of the Paradise himself, William Finley) drive a stake into a young girl’s heart. She spews up blood as she screams in agony. The crowd is horrified! But then the lights come up and the young girl is shown to be unharmed, and in fact, Marco’s lovely daughter and assistance. It was all an illusion, a trick, and order is restored. Again and again, the teens face things that outside the carnival would be truly horrendous, but here, it’s all an illusion. They are safe.
Safety
Reality
That is, until they witness reality. In one of my favorite sequences in The Funhouse, the teens have snuck into The Funhouse to stay the night. The camera cranes back to show the lights of the traveling carnival shutting off, the rides shutting down, and inside The Funhouse the animatronic figures that populate it wind down to a halt. The notion of being alone, in the dark with all these creepy figures is the stuff of nightmares and is terrifying to contemplate. The camera steadily, slowly pulls back from the traveling carnival as the crowds leave pour out, the rides stop, and the lights shut down. The camera pulls all the way out to the parking lot. The veneer of amusement and fun are now gone and we are alone. Trapped in the dark. And evil is lurking. Just like the horror film itself. You watch it, you have fun at the thrill of make believe monsters and mayhem. But when the movie is over, the credits roll and you go home…the real world awaits.
I fucking adore The Funhouse. No other movie captures the sleazy, greasy nastiness of the traveling carnival quite like it. Hooper populates the movie with some great, memorable, believable characters…and some that are a bit cartoonish and over the top, but it all plays into the carnival atmosphere and it pays off exceptionally well. Sure, on the surface it looks just like another one of the popular dead teenager movies that came down the conveyer belt of the 1980’s, replete with plenty of death, destruction and nudity, but if you just pull back that mask, if you dare to look beneath the surface, The Funhouse is a much more thoughtful, much more intelligent horror film than you initially thought.
I award Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse 4 1/2 out of 5 Dumpster Nuggets. Taking a trip through The Funhouse is well worth it, Gang.
“I think, therefore you are.” -Sutter Cain, In the Mouth of Madness
Few movie openings get me as pumped as that of “In the Mouth of Madness”. The opening synth licks, drums kick in, and the guitar commences to wailing as Sutter Cain’s latest book is being shot through the presses by whirring machines that could draw and quarter you faster than you can say “owee”. Never has book publishing seemed this incredibly badass. If you can imagine Metallica’s Enter Sandman but without James Hatfield’s goofy vocals and composed by cinematic renaissance man, John Carpenter, you’re halfway there. It’s a fucking spectacular start to a movie that’s basically the dark, evil, alarmist version of Reading Rainbow. Who would have ever guessed reading could be so goddamn cool and menacing? In my own head, I like to imagine that if this film had reached a wider audience, we would have seen cool, greaser types with their slicked-back hair, bad boy shades, a Marlboro dangling from chapped lips, leaning against a support beam in their favorite dive bar and flipping through a well worn-collection of Edgar Allen Poe.
So, who is this Sutter Cane fellow? Well, in the fictional 1995 realm of “In the Mouth of Madness” he is the most widley read author in history. His stories have been translated into several dozen languages, outsell every other book on the market, and have even begun to lead to riots in book stores (remember? People used to go to stores that sold books!) when they can’t supply enough to meet the demands of the author’s work. Did I mention this guy does horror? So it stands to reason that the man is also getting the blame for a recent “plague of violence” that has swept the nation with folks brutally attacking one another seemingly at random. Are they getting a little inspired by their page-turner?
As we all know, that’s absolute garbage. Entertainment has as much influence over real life violence as soft serve ice cream consumption has over the migration of gopher turtles.
But, I digress. As it turns out Sutter Cane has gone missing, and his publishing company has hired a cynical, crude, disillusioned insurance fraud investigator named John Trent (Sam Neil) to find out if Cain is alive and if he ever finished his final book, In the Mouth of Madness. Sent along with him is Cain’s editor, the more open minded and vulnerable Styles (Julie Carmen). After some rather impressive investigating along with some trippy and disturbing nightmares, Trent puts together a map which will lead them to Cane who seems to be stationed in a small New England town. And not just any small New England town, but one named after Old Scratch, himself, and which seems to be the inspiration for one of Cane’s books, “The Hobb’s End Horror”.
On their drive to the mysteriously elusive Hobb’s End Trent & Styles get to know one another while chit-chatting about Trent’s love of busting people and justifying his stone-cold cynicism with sharing his view that “the sooner mankind is off the planet, the better.” Styles speaks to her lust for horror, and that if reality as we know it should happen to shift how terrifying it would be to be the last sane one left…hmmm, foreshadowing, me thinks. There’s also an impromptu clown horn awakening that leads to a fun-sized Ruffles Potato Chip beat down that adds a little levity but really just makes me want some potato chips. Great product placement, though! I want to put those chips in my OWN personal mouth of madness where they can settle in my belly of batshit… ew.
Along their journey, Trent sleeps in the passenger seat snoring one of those irritating half snores as Styles gets a nice ripe slice of Hell. She catches a glimpse of bicycle reflectors up the road, but as she gets closer it seems to be a young man in his twenties peddling furiously in the same direction on the deserted highway in the pitch black night. As she drives past. he fades into the red of her tail lights and then disappears into the darkness. This is not a thing uncommon to humans. We pass people riding bikes, yeah, pretty much all the time. But there’s just something freakishly unsettling about this one. Something that speaks to us solely in the language of nightmares. Then, of course, there’s the next moment in which we see this soul, and he’s kind of, let’s say, changed a bit.
Several nightmare scenarios later, our dynamic duo find themselves in Hobb’s End, where the main street is lined with lovely little antique shops filled with what Trent eloquently calls “old shit”. The town looks pretty empty with the exception of a tribe of kids who can’t not run in slow motion after their dog. The two check into a quant little inn that seems to be run by Viggo the Carpathian and Mrs. Pickam (the incomparable Francis Bay). OH! and oI guess it bears mentioning that Cane’s there abducting children and transforming them into his own special brood of creatures bent on spreading his signature brand of mayhem and mutation throughout the town. And where else would HQ be but the comfy confines of THE BLACK CHURCH! A creepy, evil, place whereabouts dobermans attack en mass, the doors have a malfunctioning automatic open feature, and where Cane does all of his writing and evil plottin these days.
Still, despite every gruesome event in “The Hobb’s End Horror” playing out around them, Trent still refuses to believe his own eyes and chocks it up to a ridiculously well-staged Disney World level publicity stunt put on just for him in hopes that he’ll high-tail it back to the big city, and talk up Cain’s “haunted little town.” In this one moment, I agree with Trent when he boldly declares, “Well, FUCK THAT!”
Now, you can begin to imagine Trent getting genuinely freaked out at this point, but the man just won’t give up on trying to find the logical explanation. But it seems to become more blazingly apparent that he’s driven himself right into a hotbed of slimy monsters and crazy shit ground zero. Portraits shift and change to creep the fuck out of city folk, grannies handcuff their naked hubbies to their ankles, and giant reptilians sporting a veritable mess of tentacles occupy the outdoor patio. Yeah. Sure, guy, this is all being staged JUST FOR YOU… I’m hopping on the next non demon-riddled Greyhound and heading to Chi-town as you brush chunks of brain and gore off your shoulder from the ‘actor’ who just unloaded a shotgun into his noggin.
As a mob of mutated town folk slowly inch towards Trent and a now totally whacked-out Styles (oh, yeah, she’s been lustily possessed by her demon-crazed client), the two exchange punches to the face in a Three Stooges of Domestic Battery kind of way. It gets a good laugh in (at least from me), and they head to their car to make a quick getaway. Styles gets all emotional and attention-starved, and commences to eating the car keys. “JEEEEEESUS!” cries our hero and goes fishing down her throat, which, I gotta say, just feels a little gross & sketchy despite the necessity. Trent takes it to that further step, bashing in Styles’s mug, hot-wiring the car, and blazing the fuck out of this podunk Hell hole.
Only Trent can’t get out. No one gets out. He’s stuck in the demonic Groundhog’s Day of road trips as he repeatedly drives down the highway, finds the road lines glow a freakish neon orange, and being transported right back to Main Street USA where a posse of Basket Case 2 rejects await him hungrily. Oh, and by this point Styles is trying to smut it up with Trent, contorted her entire body into a creeping, crackly-boned, monstrosity. The beauty of this moment? These days all this would be done in sad, ineffective CGI, but cinematic treasures like this prove that unnerving realness of scenes such as this are actually pulled off by *real* effects such as the sideshow contortionist who rocked even the creepiest of moments.
After several tedious attempts to escape Trent tries a more direct approach flooring his jalopy right into the crowd! They clear a path which leads right to Styles who just stands there grinning like she just drank all the sherry. Trent jerks his steering wheel to the right and directly into a nasty collision which leaves him unconscious as the minions of mutations laugh and talk amongst themselves in the distance.
Trent then wakes up to have a one on one with the man, himself, Sutter Cain. Okay, this is it. Here is Trent’s chance to defend humanity! And what does he do? Too preoccupied with trying to light his last cigarette, Trent settles on insulting Cain by telling him his books suck. Eh, I hardly think that’s going to bruise the man’s ego, Trent. And then he drops the bomb. Trent, himself, is Sutter’s creation. A character in a book he is writes and controls. Nothing more. Understandably, Trent’s more than a little unsettled by all this, even more so when Sutter rips into his own face with is bare hands to reveal a dark pit framed by torn shreds of a novels pages. Yeah, this is looking less and less like a promotional stunt…
We’re led through a fantastic sequence wherein Trent peers into the darkness while Styles reads from Sutter’s new “bible”. This, of course, plays as narration as he is living the story she reads. It’s a wonderfully creepy piece of cinema where Trent sees creatures rising from the abyss beyond description and we, the audience, are never given a good clear shot. We are only allowed to see Trent’s face as he reacts to what he sees. Styles presents the manuscript to Trent, and Trent makes his way back into “his world”. The creatures gain, Trent trips, and all is lost…or so it seems.
Trent screams in primal terror only to open his eyes and find himself on a dirt road, back in what looks to be classical reality. Birds chirp, kids deliver the newspaper, and there are no creatures beyond description chilling out at the truck stops. Yes, things seem normal, but Trent has seen some pretty heavy shit and can’t so easily shake it. First order of business is to destroy the manuscript, which keeps mysteriously finding it’s way back into his hands. Eventually Trent heads back to the publishing company that hired him in the first place only to find out Styles never existed and that he delivered the In the Mouth of Madness manuscript months ago and that it’s been at the top of the Best Seller list for seven weeks! Trent, having no recollection of this at all, is driven even closer to the edge. He pleads with the publishers to recall the book because what’s in it will drive people insane. Trent is then gently pushed off the edge as it’s revealed that the movie adaptation of the book comes out in a week.
The epidemic of violence continues, no one can put down Sutter’s latest work, our “hero” has gone homicidal as well, bashing in skulls with an axe outside book stores., which is why he has been telling this story from within a padded sell all along. By film’s end we find Trent in a deserted city after the dark power made manifest through Sutter’s work has infected everyone, making them lash out violently and mutate, as he goes into a fully lit theater. What’s playing? In the Mouth of Madness.
Trent sits in an empty theater, popcorn bucket in hand and watches scenes fro the film we have just watched. He begins to laugh a pained, horrified laughter of sad realization. Of being broken. Tears swell up in his eyes as he tits his head back, his laughter becoming desperate and pleading as we cut to black. It”s a cold, dark, deeply unsettling ending because it brings up so many questions about who we are and reality in general. Trent, obviously was born, grew up, has gone through life and made memories, how devastating would it be to find out it were all false. That, in effect, you aren’t real. That you are simply a means to entertain someone else.
It’s a cold concept to think about, that we might be nothing more than the figment of something’s imagination who can change the rules whenever they like and wipe our slates clean in the process. It takes a pretty active imagination to contemplate such an existence, but what a sad and empty way for our world to end. With the realization that we were never, ever, anything to begin with…
WHEW! Sorry about the wait! It’s been a crazy few months since I last reported back to you with a Rotten Review. I never expected for things to get crazier than they did when I reviewed From Beyond and accidentally went dimension hopping with a tentacle sporting dominatrix chick, learning the fine art of optical cavity oral sex, battling tentacle creatures from Hell and stimulating my pineal gland…All Root ever wanted was a quiet evening behind the purple counter at Tallahassee’s last standing video rental store, Video 21.
Alas, I soon realized as I always do, there is NEVER a quiet night when there’s Trash Cinema to be watched. So, in the latest Rotten Review adventure, prompted by a strange customer clad in nothing but a chain mail banana hammock and a double bladed axe, I decided to check out an all time favorite, low rent, down and dirty, sword and sorcery, blood soaked, magic fueled, TnA heavy pieces of Trash Cinema Gold, 1983’s ‘Deathstalker’!
So come along with me and let’s check out some of our Trash cinema heritage and try to survive a little bit of spacial displacement. It’s all in a days work for The Primal Root! Prepare yourself for: Mutant Beatles, people so sweaty they look like glazed doughnuts, multiple molestations, topless large breasted sword fighting, simultaneously funny and disturbing gender bending, giant pig monsters, lots of wrastling, homoerotic overtones, hardcore parties, bloody Mortal Kombat, bitter filthy Muppets in caves and that’s just what I can think of off the top of my head as I recuperate! And what would a Trash Cinema event be if you didn’t make some new friends? And, holy cow, did I make some incredibly sexy, and brutal ones this time out!
So, without any further a due, I present to you the latest exploits of your buddy Root in The Primal Root’s Rotten Reviews Episode 25: Deathstalker!
It’s the trashiest guy you know, The Primal Root, and I am back with a Rotten Review of one of my all time, hands down, FAVORITE Drive-In B-Movie Monster pictures ever made. That’s right, one of the most highly requested flicks you guys wanted me to review, ‘Humanoids from the Deep’! The story of a small, blue collar fishing community eager to do business with a major canning company in order to save their failing economy only to find out too late that this capitalist merger has unleashed something far more sinister i the dark waters that surround their tiny community of Noyo.
Something intent on killing anything in it’s path…and raping anything with a vagina.
This is hands down one of the strangest, sickest, and guiltiest of monster movie exploitation pleasures. The film has a great underlying message of environmental safety, greed, racism, the dangers of fooling with Mother Nature and the hazards technological progress all mixed in with tons of naked, large breasted women getting mauled and savagely raped by slimy green, sea monsters.
So sit back and prepare yourself for on of the sleaziest monster message movies to ever grace the Drive-In movie screens, Humanoids from the Deep! And in this episode Root’s got company…
Thanks to our friends over at FromDuskTillCon.com, I got the chance to interview one of my heros, Frank Henenlotter. The creative genius behind some of my all time favorite films including Basket Case Brain Damage and Frankenhooker. He’s also responsible for helping keep trash cinema alive through Something Weird Video. Here., we take a look back at his classics, his most recent work, and what he has in store for his fans.
The Primal Root: As a young man I know you spent your formative years taking in the thrills to be had at the 42nd Street grindhouses. For those of us born far too late to take in these legendary theaters could you describe the experience for us? What was it like going to these theaters and taking in what are now beloved trashy exploitation classics?
Frank Henenlotter: Try to imagine a block in New York City in which both sides of the street were lined with movie theaters, one after another, and every one of those theaters was showing double or triple features promising sex and violence. In between the theaters was a scattering of stores, most notably porno stores (or, before the days of porn, “adult bookstores”). It was, of course, absolute paradise.
TPR: Growing up on a steady diet of these films which titles come to mind as your major influences? What movies or filmmakers got you interested in creating your own pictures?
FH: It was all of it. Not just a couple of memorable movies, but memorable moments in hundreds and hundreds of movies. And, just as exciting as the movies, were the come-ons: the one-sheets, the photos and, most notably, plywood archways that were fitted around the entrance to the theater lobbies decorated with blown-up photos from the film, usually enhanced with painted-on blood, and simple words like “Shock!” “Lurid!” and, of course, “Sex!” Gateways to the soiled treasures unspooling within.
TPR: The first time I saw Basket Case was on an old worn out VHS tape. I was a kid at the time and it immediately turned me into a fan of excessive violence, toilet humor and deformed freaks of nature. Needless to say, the effect was profound. What was the genesis of this project?
FH: Edgar Ievins had seen a couple of my homemade movies and suggested we do a feature-length film. And we decided to make a horror film since that seemed commercially safe at the time. Meaning, no matter how bad it turned out, it could at least play 42nd Street.
TPR: What still amazes me about Basket Case when I go back and watch it is not only how well it holds up but there’s still a very touching emotional core to the film. Basket Case is a film with a lot of heart. Was this part of your plan all along or did it develop as the movie went into production?
FH: It wasn’t really a plan. I just had a good visual in mind: a man carrying around a basket from which a monster would leap out when people opened it. The trouble was, *why*? Why would anyone carry around a monster in a basket? One night, while eating hot dogs in a Nathan’s in Times Square, it occurred to me that maybe they were brothers. That provided the answer and the hook and whatever emotion the film has.
TPR: Rex Reed’s quote from his review of Basket Case, “The Sickest movie I have ever seen…” was used in the marketing campaign for the film itself which was a stroke of genius. Was this your idea to turn what some might call bad publicity into a selling point?
FH: I had nothing to do with that. Analysis Films, the first distributor of Basket Case, had a good relationship with Reed and simply asked him for a quote since they knew he had seen the film at Cannes. And he provided that quote which, of course, was a great one.
TPR: Some have said Basket Case was the last great Drive-In / Grindhouse film. Did you have the pleasure of watching your film with a 42nd Street crowd? How was the experience?
FH: By the time Basket Case played 42nd Street it had already been in release for two and a half years on the midnight circuit, and slowly playing around the country for another two years, and I was sick of seeing it so I didn’t see it play on The Street. Instead, I was thrilled with how the theater was dressed with a garish plywood archway, full of spattered blood, which also gave away the plot: “His brother is a deformed twin!”
TPR: Kevin Van Hentenryck is really a stand-out as Duane. He makes the character completely believable despite his insane predicament. Did Kevin get the character right away? What kind of direction did you give him?
FH: Kevin immediately got the character of Duane. I don’t remember giving Duane must direction other than us working out individual shots and bits of business. He nailed Duane immediately and I remember constantly chuckling at how hilariously innocent he played him.
TPR: I’ve heard rumors that your crew walked off the set during the filming of one of Basket Case’s more grisly scenes. What exactly happened? Have you ever had to deal with a crew walking off the set since?
FH: Yeah, that’s true. We were shooting the scene where the monster humps the girl at the end. At first, nobody on the crew seemed to be bothered by it. Actually, just the opposite since Terri Susan Smith was lying there naked. But when I added the blood to Miss Smith’s groin, everyone got upset and pissed off and… I don’t know. It seems as crazy now as it did then. But they ended up walking off which was fine with me ‘cause I wasn’t about to wipe the blood off. So it was shot with just me, the two actors – Terri Susan Smith and Kevin Van Hentenryck – and Edgar Ievins under the mattress making Belial work. Virtually the same thing happened on Brain Damage with the “blow job” scene. Fine. Leave the set. And while you’re at it, go fuck yourselves.
TPR: So there’s a big Basket Case reunion coming up in September as part of the Horror Realm Convention. Beverly Bonner, Kevin Van Hentenryck and Terri Susan Smith will all be attending. How long has it been since you’ve hung out with the original cast? Do you have fond memories of working on the film with this group?
FH: I’ve always stayed in touch with Kevin and Beverly. As you probably know, Beverly’s appeared in every film including the latest, Bad Biology. Earlier this year, I was even a guest in one of Beverly’s “Gloria Glitter” comedy shows which was my first and last stab at live theater. And both Kevin and Beverly came to my 60th birthday party this past August 30. I wish I was doing a project I could have them both in again.
TPR: Your follow-up film was 1988’s Brain Damage about a young man named Brian who becomes dependant on an evil, blue, well spoken parasite named Aylmer. The film packs a pretty heavy message about drug abuse and addiction while also mixing in the gory, sick, toilet humor elements that make your films so enjoyable. What was the inspiration behind Brain Damage?
FH: Well, I liked how Duane and Belial interacted and I thought I could do a variation on it, this time with a monster that lives on the young man’s body rather than in a basket. But the same question arose: why would anyone willingly let a monster live on them? Even creepier, why would someone *want* a monster living on them? Came up with dozens of reasons I hated until one day I thought of addiction, especially since I was having problems with a nasty cocaine habit.
TPR: Rick Hearst gives a tremendous performance as Brian. How did you end up casting him and how was he to work with?
FH: Frank Calo, the casting director on Brain Damage, found him and, yes, Rick was perfect. This was his first film and he nailed it beautifully especially since it wasn’t a particularly easy part to play. I’d love to see him again. These days he stars on soaps and keeps winning Emmys.
TPR: Aylmer looks to be a bit more complex than the Belial puppet from Basket Case. Did this present you with a whole slew of new challenges during the production?
FH: Belial was basically a hand puppet. But Elmer (yes, technically “Aylmer” but I’m used to calling him Elmer by now) was an animatronic puppet that was operated by various cables and levers, all put together by Davd Kindlon and Gabe Bartalos. The main problem with Elmer was that it made all sorts of metallic noises, so much so that we had to dub all the dialogue when Aylmer was onscreen. Dave and Gabe also built an oversize Elmer head for closeups.
TPR: I’ve heard rumors that some scenes were cut out of the film altogether on its initial release. What scenes were the MPAA having issues with? Is the current DVD release of the film your cut?
FH: Well, the producers wanted an alternate unrated version for vhs release. That’s why I shot the blowjob and ear pull scene. I never expected that to get an R. But when the film was acquired by Cinema Group Pictures, they hated the film, wanted nothing to do with an unrated version and, anticipating trouble with the MPAA, made a whole bunch of cuts before even submitting the film. Once the MPAA saw it, they wanted more cuts. So the theatrical version as well as the version initially released on Paramount vhs was heavily heavily cut. The version currently on dvd is, finally, the uncut unrated version.
TPR: John Zacherle as the voice of Aylmer was a perfect piece of casting. His voice is so good-natured and disarming you can’t help but feel like you can trust the little guy. Not to mention, it also provides some comic relief. Did you have John in mind all along? What did he think of Brain Damage?
FH: While writing the script, I kept hearing the voice of veteran actor Ronald Colman – a friendly, intelligent, soothing voice that someone might blindly follow. However, Colman was long dead and certainly wouldn’t have done it even if he were still alive. So I went to an agent that specialized in voices. He asked me if I’d ever heard of Zacherly and I almost passed out. I grew up with Zacherly on TV. His show was where I watched my first horror films. I’m embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of him at first. Naturally, I jumped at working with him and it was a joy. He’s an absolute delight. So much so that I also had him do an on-screen bit in Frankenhooker. I never asked him what he thought of the film. I never ask any of the actors because… well, it’s kind of moot.
TPR: The ending of Brain Damage is still one of my favorite endings of all time. Just thinking about it gives me chills. Where did you come up with this image and how did you know this was how the film had to end?
FH: While writing the script for Brain Damage, I wasn’t sure how to end it. One night I was listening to the album Real Life by Magazine. When I heard the song “The Light Pours Out of Me,” I thought, “Yes! That’s my ending!” So you have Howard Devoto to thank for it.
TPR: Frankenhooker is one of the sleaziest exploitation titles I’ve ever heard. So, did the title come first and then the script?
FH: Edgar Ievins and I were up at Jim Glickenhaus’ office discussing another project with him. But he thought that project was extremely uncommercial so asked me what other ideas I had. I didn’t have any other ideas so I just started making up the plot to Frankenhooker. And Jim kept laughing so I kept making it up until finally he asked me what I wanted to call it. I panicked and quickly started running titles through my head at lightning speed: “Frankenwhore? No. Frankenslut? Awful. Frankenprostitute? Hell, no. Frankenhooker? Uh… yeah! Frankenhooker!”
TPR: When I watched Frankenhooker for the first time I couldn’t help but notice some overtones of Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator. Was there a little bit of an influence there as well as some others?
FH: Well, I loved Re-Animator and From Beyond. But we tried to go in a non-graphic, non-bloody direction in the vain hopes of escaping an X rating. So in some ways, I was consciously going in the opposite direction of how Gordon may have done things. It was all rather pointless, of course, since the MPAA still gave Frankenhooker an X rating. In fact, they hated the film. Richard Hefner, then the head of the MPAA, famously called executive-producer Jim Glickenhaus’ office and said to his secretary, “Congratulations. You have the first film rated S.” The secretary was confused, “S? You mean S as in sex,” she asked. “No,” replied the head of the MPAA, “S as in ‘shit’”! Which gives you some idea of the kind of ugly bullshit operation the MPAA was in those days.
TPR: Patty Mullen in the title role is a fucking hoot to watch and has become a bit of an icon in trash cinema circles. How did you end up casting Patty and how was she to work with?
FH: Patty heard about it, came in to audition, and I loved her right away. She was sexy and, at the same time, had that girl-next-door innocence. Plus, she could play comedy! And she was a joy to work with. Every so often she calls me out of the blue and she never says, “Hi.” Instead, she says, “Wanna date? Going out? Looking for some action?”
TPR: The infamous Super Crack sequence. How was that to film and did it turn out as well as you had hoped? Because that scene, exploding hookers and all, is pure magic.
FH: It turned out great. We really didn’t know what would happen. I mean, the artificial bodies Gabe Bartalos created were filled with explosives and what happened happened. At times, flaming hooker debris rained down on me and the crew while filming. The exploding hookers is the favorite scene from any of my films. I never tire of watching it.
TPR: Bad Biology marked your return to film after a decade of absence from the scene. How did you know this had to be your comeback project?
FH: I didn’t. It just happened to be the script I wrote with producer (and legendary rapper R.A. The Rugged Man). Once we decided to go non-mainstream, it just flowed.
TPR: Bad Biology seems to bring your full circle back to body deformation. First it was Siamese twins in Basket Case, now it’s a woman with seven clitorises and a man with an enormous detachable cock with a mind of its own. When and how did you come up with the concept for the story and its religious angle? What were you saying about faith by giving Jennifer a divine purpose?
FH: That’s somewhat complicated. But I’m sick of hearing the Holier-Than-Thou’s out there tell us what isn’t sexually permissible, who cannot marry who, and what can or cannot be done in the privacy of one’s own bedroom. They make it sound as if God is anti-sex which can’t be true since God created the world’s first penises and vaginas. The whole flow of nature is based on procreation so God is very very pro-sex. Taking that a step further, I thought what if a woman born with seven clits is not an aberration but, rather, a deliberate and holy act of God. The next step in human evolution. Hell, if He can make Adam and Eve, He can make a Penis Baby.
TPR: It seems like there might be more to tell with the story of Bad Biology. Can we expect to see a sequel or have you sworn off those? Will Penis Boy one day run into Belial?
FH: Basket Case 3 permanently ended the thought of any sequels in my future.
TPR: Where can fans find a copy of your retrospective film Herschell Gordon Lewis: Godfather of Gore? I can think of no person more fitting of paying tribute to the man who changed cinema forever with Blood Feast.
FH: The documentary will be released next year through Image Entertainment. In the meantime, it’s playing various festivals: Sept. 24 at the Somerville Theatre in Boston; Sept. 26 at the Philadelphia Film & Music Festival; October 10 at “It Came from Schenectady”; October 12 at The Cinefamily in Los Angeles; October 23 at the “Buffalo Screams Horror Film Festival” in Buffalo; November 12-13 at the “Buried Alive Film Festival” in Atlanta. And probably some others I don’t know about.
TPR: Exploitation and sleaze fans owe you a huge debt of gratitude for helping keep our favorite films alive with Something Weird Video. Can you tell us about the company and what you have in store for the future?
FH: I was recently pulling clips for a new documentary Something Weird is making, That’s Sexploitation, and a friend came over. I was sitting on the floor surrounded by pages and pages of notes and on the TV monitor were naked girls. My friend just looked at me and said, “You’ve got the greatest job in the world.” And he’s right. The company belongs to Mike Vraney but I got involved with it in the early 90s doing all sorts of things. In addition to two new documentaries we’re making, we’ve also got some new projects in the works with Image Entertainment including Blu-rays of Blood Feast and Basket Case. I’ll be doing a Hi-Def transfer of Basket Case early next year from the original 16mm camera negative which we thought lost. So the film should look a lot brighter and cleaner than it’s ever looked before.
TPR: The majority of your films were ridiculed by most mainstream critics but over time your films, Basket Case, Brain Damage, and Frankenhooker have all grown into cult classics with impressive followings. Do you feel a bit of vindication knowing now that your films are loved and understood by so many?
FH: What’s more important to me than the critics is how many people still love the old films. I honestly thought they were forgotten about. I was very reclusive for a good many years but making Bad Biology brought me back to the world of the living. Part of my reemergence was to go to festivals with the film. And I was floored when fans showed up with posters and videos and photos for me to sign. What I had forgotten was that a whole generation grew up on vhs and my films were part of that. So that really surprised me. Stunned me, actually. So I’ve made an effort to be more accessible which is why I’m attending Horror Realm, Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors, and going on Facebook.
TPR: What do you plan on working on next? Now that you’ve made Bad Biology are there any other stories you would like to tell? Because your fans are always champing at the bit for your next film.
FH: I don’t like to talk about future projects other than to say there are two I’d like to do and both are extremely different from the others I’ve done. In fact, one isn’t even a horror film.
TPR: Do you have any advice for young filmmakers setting forth and trying to create their own strange, sleazy film epics? Any words of wisdom to the new generation of filmmakers you’ve inspired?
FH: Oh, God. The last thing they need is advice from a guy who took 16 years between films. But, unlike me, if they’re serious, they’ve got to keep busy. Which means you’ve got to keep making things. And not just on video. Film is a very different medium and far more rewarding than video. But whatever you’re shooting on, keep shooting. Keep making ‘em.
Frank, it’s been an honor and an absolute pleasure talking with you. Take care of yourself and thanks for taking the time to talk with us here at the Trash Cinema Collective. Stay Trashy!
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