In the annals of horror cinema, no other franchise has garnered such a scatter shot, batshit crazy series of entires with little to nothing connecting the various films besides a single word like the Amityville series. Sure, the first three took place in the house, but as the series crept along the sequels began collected cursed objects from the house that we never even saw in the damn house before. Clocks, mirrors, lamps, dollhouses, etc. Really ANYTHING to justify the continuation of the series would count even if it meant excluding the iconic home itself. There would be remakes, a knock offs, and cash grabs and gimmicks all hoping to snatch up some cash based on the notorious Amityville name. They were all trash, but the majority of them were at least stupid, fun, trash cinema we can drink and party to with. Some are fun, some are goddamn terrible, but then I saw what, in my opinion, is probably the most unexpectedly funny, entertaining and fucking weird Amityville based film I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching…
Amityville Vibrator.
Yes. Amityville Vibrator. The third film from Nathan Rumler whose previous work includes 2015’s Fangboner and 2017’s Gay For Pray: The Erotic Adventures of Jesus Christ, has created a pornographic Amityville spoof that pays some genuine homage the franchise history, while managing to fill the frame with ample sight gags, funny as shit dialogue and some solid gratuitous nudity to boot! If you like dumb horror tropes, smart yet filthy humor as well as some demonic vibrator penetration? Look no further.
Our film begins on June 6th, 1976 at 6:66am as we are treated to the image of a spread eagled nekkid woman wearing a goat heads rubbing one out of her bush of ghosts with a black vibrator. Things seem to be going along swimmingly until the door cracks open, a shot gun is cocked and an unseen assailant blows the top of goat woman’s head off and bright red meaty chunks spray against the white walls of the room and the her tongue spastically jirates in what remains of the lower portion of her noggin as a geyser of crimson blood and various fleshy pieces spew forth from the fatal head wound. But what we also witness, is that this body that’s been shot IS NOT THE GOAT LADY! No, it seems to be the body the nekkid goat woman had been inhabiting and rubbing her tender vittles with and it looks like this shotgun blast to the cranium was a type of home style exorcism.
Cut to present day and a young woman by the name of Cathy (Corella Waring of CarousHELL fame) who is packing her ex-boyfriend’s shit up as they have just split up and she now resides in this same exact home where the bloodshed took place 6.6.76. To get Cathy’s mind of the sad, bitter end to her relationship with premature ejaculator Chad, her girlfriend Roxy (Mallory Maneater the award winning adult film star and star of Guardia de Malé 2) calls her up and they make a date to go purchase some sex toys together to get Cathy’s mind off of the break-up. We know Cathy and Roxy are the best of friends because they call each other cute pet names like “Bitch” or “Whoreface” and discuss Cathy’s kink for cadavers. Honestly, it’s really cute. Also, Corella, I must compliment you on the Twilight Zone: The Movie bunny rabbit tattoo from Joe Dante’s It’s a Good Life segment. on your inner thigh. Way to represent!
Roxy (left, played by Mallory Maneater) and Cathy (right, played by Corella Waring)
After a masturbatory dream about Chad whipping out his dick and blasting a gooey, massive load in Cathy’s face after taking a gander at her tits Cathy wakes to go on her dildo purchasing adventure with Roxy. Along the way, Cathy begs Roxy to pull over to a garage sale which seems to only be selling hammers and license plates, but when the seller hears the mention of sex toys he can’t help but offer up a average looking, unassuming black vibrator which has been in the family for generations, or as Roxy astutely describes it, “Grandma’s Old Fiddle Stick.”
Cathy is entranced, and when she touched it, the vibrator pricks Cathy’s finger causing her and th vibrator to bleed. Of course, she snatches that vibrator and runs back to the car claiming the vibrator “spoke to her.” As she and Roxy floor it away from the sparse yard sale of cursed objects, the bearded chap who gave them the decades vibrator laughs manically until he chokes on his own spit and must calm himself down.
Really, when you sit back and think about it, wouldn’t a sex toy be the perfect vehicle for evil satanic vengeful spirit manifestation intent on possessing a body in order to do it’s murderous bidding? Mirrors, clocks, lamps, sure they are common household items, but how many of them do you willingly insert inside yourself repeatedly therefore creating an easy pathway for demonic entities? It’s like Satan’s diabolical pièce de résistance, if you can find someone horny enough to stick an antique vibrator within their most sacred of orifices, and truly IS a fitting cursed item in the franchise.
“We Managed to track down and inventory all these possessed items except for that one vibrator that slipped thought the cracks!” – Chad, Amityville Vibrator
Yes, that IS an “I Eat Ass” shirt Chad is wearing.
Turns out Chad (Nathan Rumler) is actually a double agent for a team that is tracking down ALL the cursed objects from The Amityville House so that they can be inventoried and kept from causing any more harm to society. He was dating Cathy in the hopes of getting close to the Amityville Vibrator which is the only remaining cursed item, therefore, typing this film into the original bizarre-o franchise that went all over the fucking place with a litany of cursed objects. It’s actually a brilliant way of placing this film within the established legacy and making having fun with the franchise. Turns out Chad’s partner is a lovely big titted goth girl named Mallory (Emily Hilborn) who has no issue whipping those jugs out from under her pitch black garb whenever her partner Chad is feeling frustrated “This is worse than 9/11!” so that he may stare at them and calm the fuck down.
As soon as Cathy arrives home with her newly acquired satanic sex toy, the crucifix in her house inverts and we are off to the races as she has invited the evil spirits into her home, which emerge from the bathroom toilet and begin forcing their way into her through her splayed open lady bits in a Wayne’s World style extreme close up sort of fashion in a sequence that looks to be paying homage to a similar sequence in one of my all time favorite sickies, Amityville II: The Possession the prequel/sequel from 1982. Check it out, trust me on this. When the sun rises, so does Cathy, newly possessed and horny as an elk. She calls up Roxy, they compare how cold one another’s nipples are through both visual observation and physical groping before getting into a fuck fest that is equal parts erotic and funny as shit.
I really don’t want to spoil all the fucking insane places Amityville Vibrator plunges into for viewers bold enough to go on the ride. This is one of the most enjoyable, entertaining hysterical fucked up Trash Cinema films I’ve seen in a while. The energy is contagious as you watch and you can’t help but embrace and cherish the backyard, do it yourself nature of the low budget production values, the hysterical go for broke performances that all show a genuine knack for comedic timing, the boner inducing gratuitous nudity and the schlocky gut crunching gore and gnarly set pieces within. Nothing makes my nasty little heart sing like seeing a team of creators willing to do anything to bring an astoundingly freakish vision to life that is sure to be disregarded by anyone outside those of us who live to witness the most unbridled, uncompromising, uncensored, visions of fun loving imaginative trash cinema. Seriously, Amityville Vibrator is a madhouse of creatively fucked up ideas sure to have those of us who adore gonzo shit like this clamoring for more.
A Triumph of the Trash Cinema Spirit and one for the record books. Get yourself a copy of Amityville Vibrator if you can snag it! A graphic, gory, filthy wondrous reminder of why we fell in love with Trash Cinema in the first place. Keep up the filthy work, Rumler, you beautiful, sick fucker!
I award Amityville Vibrator FIVE out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets!
For devotees of Trash Cinema and the Do It Yourself spirit, Amityville Vibrator is one that you have gotta see.
“This motion picture is based on a true story. It should serve to remind us that fate allows no man to insulate himself against the evil which pervades our society.” – opening title to Death Game (1977)
Dear Penthouse Forum,
My wife and kid were out of town and I was all alone in my immaculately maintained mansion that my high ranking position at a well-to-do white collar job affords me. I was minding my own business, listening to some records, enjoying the bachelore lifestyle one dark and stormy night when all of a sudden a rapping came at my front door. It was two gorgeous blondes, soaking wet looking to use my phone. I didn’t want to send them back out into the cold stormy night, so I invited them in to use our family telephone and dry themselves off. I mean…it’s the decent thing to do, right? I never for a second had any intention of sticking my penis in either of these blossoming young women…Not a single thought of it…
So commences the simple, provocative, male fantasy the initiates the 1977 horror film, Death Game aka: The Seducers. The film that genuinely gives you a boner and then savagely tears it away, smacks you across the face with it and leaves you standing in your shame. Loving, caring family man and business man, George Manning (Seymour Cassel, Max Fisher’s Dad from Rushmore), is on his own for the next couple nights. See, his wife had to go on an emergency trip to take care of their young son whose appendix ruptured while staying with his Grandparents on summer vacation. While at home along in his expensive west coast home a storm rolls in, and with it, two young women, who claim to have lost their way while trying to find a party. Soaked to the bone, they ask to use George’s phone. He kindly obliges them and gives them robes so that they may dry off.
The two nubile, shapely, incredibly attractive young ladies are Jackson (Sondra Locke) and Donna (Colleen “HELLOOOOO NURSE!” Camp) and after lounging by the fire side with George and listening to records, Agatha and Donna strip nude and lure George into and threesome in the downstairs bathroom…which has an enormous jacuzzi tub and a fucking sauna. George is loaded, Gang. George puts up a minor struggle before dropping trou and getting wet wild with the two luscious vixens. Now, I never figured in my wildest dreams that I’d ever watch the Dad from Rushmore in a hot as balls threesome sequence with the likes of Ms. Locke and my long standing wet dream Colleen Camp, but I can say this, it is a pretty amazing spectacle to behold.
Soon comes the morning, and George finds that Jackson and Donna making a mess in the kitchen as they make a sloppy, disgusting breakfast. They spill food and shit all over the house, destroy expensive stereo equipment, smear food on themselves and act like little psychotic hyperactive kids from Hell as we watch reality start to sink in on George’s face. Donna has even grown a strange, unhealthy attraction to George and has begun calling him, “Daddy.” Gang, this is not good. After threatening to call the police, Jackson and Donna agree to let George drive them to the bus station only to break it no his house later, assault George, tie him up and torture the bastard for the rest of the weekend all while screaming about “Daddy.” Late in the evening Jackson and Donna decide to hold a mock court and put George on trial, accusing him or rape and perversion. George is allowed to defend himself, claiming that his family needs him. The mock court deliberates and find George guilty as charged and will be executed at dawn which is counted down by hour glass.
Now, earlier in the film we see George lovingly spend time with his wife. The two are obviously in love with one another, enjoy each other’s company. He speaks on the phone sweetly to his son. It;s not like George is an abusive, inattentive, cold scum bag. He’s a average guy living the good life. He has everything he could possibly want right at his finger tips. He is happy and content, but never the less, welcomes the sexual attention of the wet, slinky, bosomy foxes who show up on his doorstep while his faithful wife is away. George is never perceived as a bad guy, just the typical man. Death Game implies that the average Joe, when confronted with two dripping wet nekkid seductresses would, when push come to in-out-in out, give in and start log jammin’. No questions asked. And then they throw the pussy out the window. Literally. It;s pretty awesome.
Jackson and Donna quickly turn from being a straight male fantasy (booty to be plundered) to being sinister, embarrassing reminders of the dark side of our carnal lusts and the damage giving into these animalistic wants can incur. The two girls become a threat to Georges safe and happy life. They threaten to destroy his reputation in the community, end his marriage and tear apart his family, even his awesome house is at stake. Jackson and Donna are the darkest side to the male sexual fantasy of getting away with an affair and, in the eyes of Death Game, exposes men as incapable of being trusted and willing to throw everything away for the possibility of a scott free fuck on the side.
Whether or not you agree with Death Game’s thesis, it mercilessly pounds it’s point home as George, a pillar of his community, falls prey to his own sexual desires. Sure, we are witness to images of Jackson as she she bites into a juicy red apple and looking every bit the seductive serpent found in the garden of Eden, but the responsibility for everything that happens to him falls solely on George, who was led by the yearning of his throbbing lower appendage. The two young ladies, who claim to be underage after spreading ’em for George, are clearly insane and deeply scarred, one assumes, due to sexual abuse by the hands of their Fathers. It’s something heavily implied in the subtext of Death Game, and it’s not too subtle, either. One listen to the film’s opening song “Good Old Dad” will clue you in to what kind of nasty subject matter we’re dealing with here and the apparent feminist underpinnings of Death Game’s story.
One of my favorite aspects of Death Game is the way the film’s director, Peter S Traynor, utilizes the male gaze to arouse our voyeuristic impulses as soon as Jackson and Donna arrive at George’s door. We are treated and teased with brief glimpses of Jackson’s bare legs and her panties under her robe, a momentary view of Donna’s impressive cleavage, as we begin to view the two as sexual objects, just as George sees them. This is done seamlessly, efficiently and masterfully. We become around along with George. All three of our central character meld together as images overlap one another during their threesome and all seems right, everything perfect, wonderful, a fantasy made flesh.
But, as often seems to occur with these forms of encounters, in the unforgiving first light of morning, reality has a way of annihilating perception of perfection.
Jackson and Donna usurp George’s male authority in his own home, dominating him both mentally and physically in a series of brutal, sadistic, set pieces. Ultimately, Death Game drives it’s grueling, nasty, (and feminist) take on the man’s true nature home. Donna and Jackson could have knocked on any of George’s neighbor’s door, randomly selected, met any man and the exact same scenario could have taken place. What I believe the message Death Game is trying to deliver is that the real horror, the real evil of is not coming from Jackson and Donna, no, they are a result of sexual objectification and abuse in our society. George could be any man whose desires have gotten the better of him, and Death Game associates that failing with Jackson and Donna’s psychotic and homicidal nature.
You can love or hate, take or leave the feminist politics inherent in Death Game, but you cannot deny how fucking excellent the film is. Sure, the ending is more than a little abrupt and out of left field, but otherwise, the performances are phenomenal and it is directed with precision, skill, and nuance. It manages to both titillate, terrify and leave your pulse racing. But, something I appreciate far more than this, it’s a horror flick that boldly starts a discussion. Death Game is a brilliant film that drudges up the subject of sexual politics and it’s most taboo, discomforting points. The ones we seldom like to bring up or discuss in polite society, again, reinforcing why I pledge my eternal love to horror in all it’s forms. It is not an escape, it is not an exit, it is a long, often deeply disconcerting look in the mirror forcing us to face and question who we are as individuals and as a whole.
Death Game is a damn fine slice of psycho sexual horror and one I cannot dent makes me feel wonderfully, helplessly uncomfortable. I would love for one of The Trash Cinema Collective to show this to either their prospective girlfriend or boyfriend on a first date. Please do, and let me know the outcome.
Also, Colleen Camp, The Trash Cinema Collective salutes. She is one HEALTHY girl!
I award Death Game FOUR AND A HALF out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets.
Watch it with someone you’re sure of. Here’s hoping the upcoming Eli Roth produced remake “Knock, Knock” starring Keanu Reeves *snicker* prompts someone to release a remastered copy of Death Game. Let me tell ya, my DVD of this flick looks like someone shoved the VHS tape up a horses ass and then transferred it directly to a DVD. Really, it looks terrible. Can someone please release a cleaned up copy of this one? Much obliged.
“Is there anything sweeter than desire bound in chains?” – Max, Cafe Flesh
Fucking is a constant. The burning desire for pleasure and acceptance. The need for human contact. it’s unshakable, you can not ignore this primal, basic, animal urge to rock on with the most wonderful way to spend your time, sex. Now, imagine if you will, a post apocalyptic future where those who survived the nuclear holocaust suffered a terrible affliction, one that there is no known cure for. A plaque that keeps you from giving in to the craving, the temptation, the need to get freaky any time of the day or night.
Post WWIII finds 99% of the surviving population completely unable to have any sexual contact with another human being whatsoever, and the remaining 1% are enlisted to put on bizarre live sex shows for those who can no longer have sex anymore. See, the 99% who cannot experience any sexual gratification whatsoever get violently sick whenever feeling sexual stimulation of any sort. Now, this 99% spends their free time in dark clubs watching those lucky few who can pork one another without projectile vomiting across the wasteland watching them slide in and out of one another all night long while drooling and dreaming of an existence that doesn’t so closely resemble Hell.
And when I say these live sex shows are bizarre, I mean to the extreme in most cases. Bizarre to the point of, as Bootsie Kidd so aptly pointed out, resembling Kids in the Hall sketches with real women and money shots. My personal favorite has to be the fuck session that involves a man with an enormous pencil for a head wearing a three piece suit bending a lovely young woman over a work desk and fucking her from behind while a nekkid broad with ample bosom, tied back red hair, and a pair of Poindexter glasses on types away on her computer while insistently asking if we’d like her to type a Memo. IT’s pornography, sure, but it’s pretty goddamn high concept. There’s also a wonderful scene early on where a stay at home Mom gets fucked and jizzed all over by a mutant part rat part man milk man all while her three freak babies do a tightly choreographed dance from their little feeding chairs int he background. It;s a spectacle of low budget, highly innovative and creative pussy pounding unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s the kind of stuff that makes you want to wake up Grandma so she can come watch with you,
Beyond the truly arresting hardcore artsy fartsy sex shows is a stunningly downbeat post apocalyptic science fiction film. I can only imagine the near sducidal depression and frustration the 99% knows as “Sex Negatives” must feel knowing that they will never, ever, in their entire existence know the intimate connection of love and sex with anyone ever again. Not even from themselves. And to watch these lucky bastards being able to use their rock hard cocks and dripping wet lady lairs to their fullest potential…man, in a way, this really is a perfect illustration of Hell.
To make matters worse (or better?) this new society that formed after WWWIII and the “Nuclear Kiss” can sniff out those who are “Sex Positive” and force them into working the sex show trade. Of course, once people get started, they end up loving it. There’s one female character who happens to be a virgin and was saving it. When she is found to be sex positive she is forced out of Cafe Flesh in wrist restraints only to show up later sucking and riding cock like a professional. He sex scene is even sampled in the beginning of More Human Than Human by White Zombie! (You’re good, Rob.) No tears, no regrets, she walks away describing sex as the greatest thing she’s ever know directly into the faces of several poor souls who can;’ do it at all. She gloats and brags as these poor sexless negatives try to hold back the tears and resentment. Yeah, I’m glad your life is worth living, you GOD DAMN ASSHOLE! I get a hard on and I start SHITTING MYSELF and puking all over my futuristic Doc Martin’s!
But not everything is as it seems in Cafe Flesh. There are those among the 99% who desire love, connection, and a good deep dicking, AND ARE TOTALLY CAPABLE, but repress such burning desires in order to keep their partner from feeling left out or alone. Scream Queen Michelle Baur, credited as Pia Snow, plays a young woman in the 99% who finds her self fulfilling a role in just such a melodrama. I will tell you this much, Baur delivers a damn fine performance here, certainly among the very best in Cafe Flesh. And as we all know, when things are repressed for too long, they tend to build and explode into our lives with violent reproductions. Libido…finds a way.
Filmmaker Stephen Sayadian is a credit to the pornographic medium. He has created a one of a kind, beautifully shot, well written, fairly well acted piece of hardcore pornography where the story is far more interesting than any of the mechanized dicking taking place on screen. It’s a dark, bitter, sad pill to swallow but a flick I cannot help but recommend for it’s bold daringness and innovative story. The gonzo porn of today owes a great deal to Cafe Flesh. Stephen Sayadian would make another phenomenal slice of smut entitled “Dr. Caligari” in 1989. The world of pornography desperately needs more visionaries like Sayadian.
Cafe Flesh is pretty goddamn remarkable. I was thoroughly impressed. It’s rare when a pornographic film truly rises above the expectations of it’s genre and delivers a story, let alone a gripping, abrasive and creative. Hell, Cafe Flesh begins with the MC of the sex show, Max, jeering the audience which includes us. Cafe Flesh is able hook us in not simply with explicit sexual images but with concepts, ideas and real conflicts. In it’s short 80 minute run time there’s more originality and high concepts than just about any current main stream science fiction release Possibly the films most challenging aspect is it’s intense disgust for it’s own audience. The 99% sit in their seats and watch like mindless zombies…I cannot help but feel like someone is taking a dig at me as I sit in the dark of my living room and watch people dressed like rodents fucking one another. It’s a dig I take in stride as a Trash Cinema Connoisseur.
If you’re in the mood for a dark, nasty, bizarre and totally unique fuck flick, look no further, Gang. It will keep you engaged till the abrupt and bitter ending, leaving you thirsty for more.
“Let me tell you a little something about love, Dennis. It has a voracious appetite. It eats everything. Friendship. Family. It kills me how much it eats.” -Arnie Cunningham, Christine (1983)
a Primal Root written review
It’s all true, the legends are real, and we all must face it at one time or another: Growing up sucks. When we’re children this is the last thing on our minds as we explore, grow and challenge the world around us. But then there’s those teenage years when the world of adulthood begins to rear it’s ugly head. The prospects of responsibility, paying bills, squelching all aspects of your individuality and creativity in order to fold neatly and unobtrusively into the 9 to 5 rat race world of ass kissing and corporate scumbaggery. The trick is not to fall into that trap so many of us find ourselves in where we become disillusioned, cynical, turning our backs on our dreams, our aspirations and that child of our youth that deserved so much better than us rolling over and letting the world at large stick the societal cock up our ass without lube and ride us the rest of our days. This is the true horror of life, the unspoken tragedy of adulthood.
Enter John Carpenter’s “Christine,” his 1983 adaptation of Stephen King’s BEST SELLING novel. Let me start by saying, yes, I have read the book and I do realize the movie isn’t exactly the book. Let me clarify, this is a completely different artistic medium than literature, this is film, and in the process of adaptation some events and characters must be changed in order to fit this new format. I think Carpenter delivered a lean, mean, intelligent and heartfelt big screen version of King’s tale of adolescent yearning, the pain of being an outcast, the horrors of high school, and the often disheartening and nasty business of transitioning to adulthood.
Christine is the story two childhood friends, Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell) who is living the teen dream as the popular, well built and lusted after captain of the varsity football team who has laid back parents and his own car, and Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon, in a brilliant performance) a stereotypical nerd with greased over hair, thick, black glasses, parents who completely smother him and control his every move and lives a life of constant torment at the hands of the school bully, Buddy Rupperton, who looks to be about 38 years old and seems to live to hurt others along with his squad of goonish teenage sidekicks. Dennis and Arnie grew up together, and as children, they were equals. But as time went on they both grew into their roles and dropped into their place in high school, teenage pecking order. Despite all this, the two maintain a close friendship, a brother like bond.
Arnie is obviously the outsider, ignored by his peers and brutally bullied and picked on by goons like the teenage asshole prototype Buddy Repperton who looks like he’s been held back about ten years and refers to Arnie Cunningham and “Cuntingham.” Get it? Repperton and his buddies live to inflict pain and be absolute jerks to anyone who crosses their paths, focusing the thrust of their efforts and ganging up on those who are the weakest and can’t fight back. Arnie does his best to stand up for himself through this humiliating torment, but he often has to rely on his friend Dennis for help. Shit, when it’s four or five blood thirsty teenage cavemen, we could all use a little assistance. In one intense standoff where Buddy is brandishing a switchblade against the defenseless Arnie, the whole ordeal ends with Arnie getting his glasses stomped upon, Dennis getting his balls squeezed into lemonade and Buddy ending up expelled and lowering death threats at Arnie. Yep, sounds like a typical day in high school to me.
But soon Arnie finds solace and peace of mind in the form of an old, rusted out, Plymouth Fury he spots on the way home with Dennis. “Her name’s Christine.” Bearded, smelly looking, back brace wearing, old timer George Lebay (Roberts Blossom) informs them as Arnie and Dennis check the death trap of a car out. Lebay reflects on the day his recently deceased brother brought Christine home fresh off the assembly line. “My asshole brother bought her back in September ’57. That’s when you got your new model year, in September. Brand-new, she was. She had the smell of a brand-new car. That’s just about the finest smell in the world, ‘cept maybe for pussy.” Ah, George Lebay, you are a delight! Best character in the film and he’s got about 5 minutes of screen time.
Of course, Arnie buys the car and drives it home only to find his controlling to the point of it being borderline psychotic Mother refuses to allow him to park it in their drive way and goes total ape shit over the fact that Arnie bought something without consulting her and his Father (mostly her) first. Dad’s a total pussy and just goes along with what his wife dictates to poor, unfortunate, Arnie who has done everything she’s told him to do his entire life. He defends himself admirably before stomping out of the house, slamming the door and driving his moveable beast over to a local garage owned by seedy businessman Will Darnell (Robert Prosky), another adult who decides to give Arnie a nice little helping of shit, hassling the kid and calling the poor guy a creep before Dennis gives Arnie a ride home where Arnie’s parents are locked and loaded, ready to pulverize Arnie with more verbal abuse. It’s been one Hell of a day for poor, sad, Arnie Cunningham.
Soon, Arnie isn’t around as much. Every spare moment he has he’s at Darnell’s garage working on Christine. The car’s mileage is running backwards, her paint job is restored despite the fact that style of paint isn’t manufactured anymore, and the cracks in her windshield seem to be shrinking. Arnie seems to be changing to, he is cold, distant, loses his glasses and is soon dating the hot new girl in school whom all the boys lust for, Leigh Cabot (Alexandra Paul), which still baffles me when there’s the voluptuous, gorgeous head cheerleader Roseanne (Kelly Preston) around who looks to be up for getting down and dirty. Anyhoo, Dennis ends up getting severely injured and nearly paralyzed during a football game and ends up int he hospital for several months. This gives him a perfect vantage point to witness Arnie’s strange behavior and disturbing changes in character as Arnie drops by sporadically to visit and his spirit becomes darker, meaner.
Before long Christine is in tip=top shape and is the envy of everyone at school. Even Leigh becomes jealous of all the attention Arnie lavishes on Christine. This would be really stupid if it weren’t for the fact Christine is actually full of evil and tries to kill Leigh at the Drive-In by making her choke on a delicious hamburger in a creepy yet somewhat hysterical scene. Sorry, I know I shouldn’t laugh, but Leigh’s chocking face is kind of comical. I know, I’m going to Hell. Thankfully, a nearby Drive-In patron is there to save Leigh in time while Arnie fumbles with Christine’s door handle.
Christine also catches the eye of Buddy Repperton, the local asshole, and his crew of violent idiots. The decide to break into Darnell’s garage after hours and totally destroy Christine in a scene that’s tantamount to a gang rape. The teens bash Christine to pieces with led pipes, sledgehammers, and knives. One even pauses to drop his trousers and drop a Cleveland steamer right on Christine’s dash. This scene is a testament to all those horrible human beings int her world who crave pleasure by hurting others. Watching these complete scumbags work over Christine is infuriating and makes you crave vengeance. When Arnie and Leigh walk into Darnell’s garage and find his beloved Christine in pieces, Arnie’s reaction is completely understandable if not a bit savage. When Leigh goes to comfort Arnie he lashes out at her, screaming at her, calling her a “shitter.”
Suddenly, Christine has become a rape revenge film. Christine reforms herself in a matter f seconds with the coaxing of her teenage lover, Arnie and it’s off to the races as Christine begins killing off each of her rapists one by one. Arnie, in the midst of he and Christine’s nightly killing sprees, visits Dennis and is creepily unhinged, making jokes about the recent death of a fellow classmate who took part in trying to demolish the unkillable Christine. When interrogated about the incident by Detective Rudolph Junkins (Harry Dean Stanton, never anything less than outstanding), the detective mentions how the murdered young man had to be scraped of the ground with a shovel to which Arnie replies “Isn’t that what you do with shit? Scrap it off the ground with a shovel?” Way to maintain your innocence, Arnie. Please, next time, go grab your attorney.
Everyone knows Arnie and Christine are to blame for this rash of killings and all those who love and care for Arnie the most are those who are in danger, the ones Christine has manipulated Arnie into believing are “The Shitters” of the world. Those who want to keep Arnie from being with Christine, the one thing that is his, the one thing that gave him unconditional love in return. It will all lead to a final confrontation at Darnell’s Garage, but who’s motor will be left running when all is said and done?
At the end of the day, cars aren’t very scary. They are inanimate objects that require human interaction for them to work. They are tools to be utilized. However, John Carpenter makes it work by relying one very trick in his film making vocabulary. He focuses more on the human aspects of the story and concentrates on making all the moments between the human players feeling almost painfully genuine. As a film goer, I’ve seen few movies, horror or otherwise, that portray high school and the experience of being a teenager with such bleak, gritty, unfiltered honesty. This time in your life can really suck, and I am sure many of us can relate, even if it is only a little bit, with Arnie Cunningham, the kid who has tried so hard to please everyone and put up with all the bullshit constantly shoved in his face, that when he finally finds that one thing that he falls in love with and loves him back, in this case, cherry red evil on wheels that speaks to him through hand picked oldies radio selections, he loses himself totally to this seduction, this perceived love.
Christine can be interpreted many different ways. At face value, it’s simply a story of possession at the hands of an evil monster car, which is one fantastic B-Movie concept. But here, in the hands of John Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Phillips, Christine offers up so much more than that. I’ve heard a lot of folks compare Christine to a fable about drug addiction, and I can certainly see the what they mean. Arnie finds the one thing in life that brightens his life, gives it some kind of meaning outside of the expectations of others and he follows that road of self destruction to it’s sad, tragic ending. It totally makes sense and I think that interpretation is entirely valid.
I’ve always seen the film as a horrible tale of growing up and away from the kid you once were. Being shaped by those around you and letting their behavior and treatment of you shape you into something you never wanted to be. Bullied, beaten down, mistreated and an outcast, Christine represents Arnie’s out, but also, as the model of the care suggests, the embracing of Arnie’s internal fury, the cynical side, the insecure, self deprecated side which has been nurtured by those around him his the gasoline and Christine is the spark that begins Arnie’s transformation into adulthood, and into a man those around him hardly recognize. A cold, uncaring, mean spirited loner who murders those he, and Christine, perceive as a threat. Christine is most assuredly a form of evil on wheels, but she unlocks something that already existed in Arnie. A teenager who was a really good guy, but always taken advantage of, picked on and made to feel inferior. At one point int he story Arnie says a chilling line to Dennis while visiting him at the hospital; ” Has it ever occurred to you that part of being a parent is trying to kill your kids?” It’s a perfect, if dramatic summation of the child vs. parent in a strict, repressive household. Where individuality is squelched rather than cultivated and the goals and standards of the parent are enforced rather than ever taking into account what their child wants or is passionate about. So is the world of adults, and once Arnie crosses that threshold, there’s no turning back. He can bully just like those who bullied him and he can attack with the same amount of verbal venom as his overbearing mother. His parents took for granted the sweet, subservient son they had and now he’s gone forever.
Sorry to go off on a tangent there, if you’ve read my reviews before, I’m sure you used to it. Christine isn’t all teenage horror melodrama, the film actually boasts a wicked, intelligent sense of humor that helps keep the energy level up and the proceedings a pleasure to watch. One of my favorite aspects of the film is Christine’s ability to play the most appropriate oldies possible in any given situation . someone tries breaking into her? “Keep A-Knockin’, but you can’t come in!” Little Richard begins wailing. Someone tries to destroy Christine? “Rock and Roll is Here to Stay” by Danny and The Juniors starts blasting from the stereo system. It’s a clever and cool way to give Christine her own unique voice.
Also, Christine features one of John Carpenter’s great, sparse synth scores and it’s used to great effect. The theme begins with a wind blowing, giving way to a high pitched whistle where one is immediately filled with a feeling of dread, growing anticipation and given the impression that there’s something truly sinister at work here. This whistling slowly gives way to a sweeter, more charming melody, but it’s played in dwindling, soft, somber tones. It’s the sound of childhood innocence dying away, a void opening up, where an adolescent is susceptible and easily corrupted. It’s a slow, yet blazingly brilliant score that’s both sad and frightening and fits Carpenter’s vision of Christine perfectly.
My biggest disappointment with Carpenter’s Christine is that Arnie’s parents vanish in the final third of the film. After playing such a pivotal part in the majority of the film it’s a real disappointment that we never get to see them grieve or react to what happens to Arnie in the climax. It’s a real let down that these characters are built up through the film only to be completely removed in the final act and given no pay-off, no closure. Also, the death of Buddy Reperton seems a little anticlimactic. That guy got off easy, if you ask me.
I know Christine was never really embraced by either John Carpenter or Stephen King fans, but I’ve always felt this is one of the better King adaptations and among Carpenter’s most underrated films. The visual of Christine barreling down the highway engulfed in flames is the stuff of nightmares, but the moments where Arnie is confronted by the onslaught of human cruelty is a deeply troubling depiction of the nightmare of reality. It’s a beautifully shot film with a flawless score, some astoundingly cool practical effects and a cast that all deliver performances above and beyond the call of duty. However, Christine belongs to Keith Gordon. His performance at Arnie Cunningham is excellent and witnessing the character’s transformation is haunting and heart breaking. Christine, the drop dead gorgeous, cherry red, Plymouth Fury is certainly the eye candy of the piece, but it’s all the human talent in front of and behind the camera that really make hitching a ride with Christine a trip though teenage Hell worth taking.
I give this sucker Four and a Half out of Five Dumpster Nuggets
Ah, vaginas. The warm, wondrous realm from which so much feminine magic resides. Men and women both lust for it, strive for it, Hell epic battles have even been fought over it. They can be lovely or horrendous, loving or cruel, healing or deadly. Vaginas can lead us deep inside a woman’s being, still, how much will you come away knowing? When comparing the sexual organs of both genders, the vagina is the cradle of seductive, tantalizing questions. The cock and it’s dangling balls are easy to read and interpret. There they are, out in the open for the whole world to see. When we’re ready to rock, that fellow stands at the ready. When we orgasm, we blast a ghostly jet of liquid baby. But the vagina…things are never quite so clear. Perhaps some wetness when a lady is sexually aroused, but orgasms are so often only known to the woman herself, and taken on their word by her partner. Well, what if that vagina started talking to you? You know, started cracking wise, quipping away during your first date, and perhaps belting out the oldies as you sat down to brunch? What might her vagina say?
This is the premise of Tom DeSimone’s 1977 bizarre comedy musical “Chatterbox” a film which wastes no time setting up the premise. In fact, the very first line of dialog is the young, gorgeous, beautician Penelope’s vagina blurting out put downs to the gentleman she just had unfulfilling sex with. Of course, the fragile male ego is quickly bruised as Penelope tries to stifle the rude, aggressive voice emanating from her most intimate of female body cavities. See, Penelope would never complain or put down her sexual partner for not helping her to reach climax, but her vagina seemingly has no filter and no concern for feeling’s being hurt. He suitor rushes out of Penelope’s apartment in a hurry and she is left with a vagina that can’t stop running it’s mouth. The following day at Penelope’s hairstylist job she inadvertently seduces a lesbian client due to her vagina’s flirtatious tongue and the two end up going at it and are only halted when her boss, Rip Taylor (of all people) walks in and fires her on the spot.
Obviously, her new, chatty little vagina is quickly ruining her low key existence. When she goes to her therapist, Dr. Pearl, and shows him first hand the otherworldly abilities of her nether regions, rather than offer her aid, he sees a golden opportunity to cash in on Penelope’s peculiar talent and quickly put her one stage, nude for the whole world to see and enjoy this new medical wonder he has discovered! For a price, of course. Before you know it, Penelope’s singing vagina, now named Virginia, has become an overnight sensation! the world cannot stop clamoring for my lip service from her moist, pink, lady bits! Her disapproving mother walks in on a nude modeling session, no doubt for the latest issue of Vogue, and raises holy Hell! That is, until she witnesses first hand the amount of money Penelope’s singing vagina brings in. My, how money changes things…
In fact, half way though the movie Penelope’s vagina, Virginia, seems to become a separate entity all together, no longer a part of Penelope herself. Through it all, Penelope looks uncomfortable, harried and totally unhappy with the superstar lifestyle her vagina has afforded her. Hell, from the beginning she simply wanted her pussy to shut the fuck up, not become a world wide phenomenon! The poor woman is even forced onto a dating show where it seems she might find some solace in a studly young buck she goes home with, but to no avail, this guy just wants to fuck her while wearing a suit of medieval armor and then kicks her to the curb.
Penelope’s situation comes to a head when she is on the set of her first starring role in a major motion picture based on her singing baby factory after Dr. Pearl snatches her a five picture deal with a film studio. As men dressed as roosters and peacocks dance ballet and sing along with Penelope’s vagina as it wails out her big hit “Wang Dang Doodle” , Penelope finally suffers a nervous breakdown and runs out of the studio, across the lot and off to an uncertain future, much to the chagrin off all those profiting from her unique talents.
Chatterbox is pretty goddamn funny and has charm to spare. This charm is heavily supplies by Candice Rialson in the role of Penelope, our doe eyed, innocent protagonist who is taken for all she’s worth once her talking, singing, spotlight stealing vagina is accepted into pop culture as the next big thing. Candice is a scene stealer, not only is her delivery spot on, her reaction to everything happening to her comes off as adorably honest, if not completely air-headed. She a young woman with a big heart that is totally over shadowed by the presence of her talkative genitals. Despite her trash talking cooter, it’s Candice as Penelope whom you can;t keep your eyes off of. She also has copious nude sequences and of the most beautiful pair of breasts I’ve ever witnessed in cinema. Now that’s worth the price of admission alone, but thankfully, they also belong to a damn fine comedic actress in an above average gonzo comedy.
Now, the intent and underlying message of Chatterbox is something I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Is this a women’s lib or feminist flick? Or is it misogynistic? Sure, Penelope’s vagina is gifted, but it brings unwanted attention, in fact, it looks like Penelope is being tormented most of the time and would rather be anywhere than standing on stage with her legs spread for the whole world to see and hear. People lose sight of Penelope herself and end up only caring about Virginia, as that’s really what’s bringing them success and notoriety. Now, Penelope’s vagina blurts out what we can only assume are her most secret thoughts and desires, the ones she would never say otherwise. Often, these outbursts are to the detriment of her personal life when Virginia complains about a lover’s performance or hits on the sexy lesbian woman whose hair Penelope is trimming. But is this some empowerment or invasion of privacy? Did Penelope want this or just her vagina? It’s a strange film in the respect that it bring up some interesting questions and offers no readily available easy answers. Shit, I;m probably thinking too much into a movie about a singing vagina made by a man who directed nothing but gay porn up until this point. Then again, Tom DeSimone did go on to make two of my favorite Trash Cinema flicks 1981’s “Hell Night” and 1986’s “Reform School Girls”, both of which are far above average in the respective genres. I like the think the gentleman knows a something about what he’s doing.
One thing is certain, DeSimone crafted one far out, whacky and hilarious Trash Cinema comedy with his “Chatterbox.” the film manages to balance it’s comedic sensibilities with it’s risque, often sexy subject matter fantastically well. On what appears do be a modest budget, “Chatterbox” delivers the goods, and then some, with a clever concept, story, a wonderful leading leading lady, unabashed creativity and never losing sight of it’s humanity. Seriously, for a talking vagina flick, could you ever hope for more?
this one comes highly recommended. I give it Four and a Half out of Five Dumpster Nuggets.
“Jut pretend it’s a video game. Pretend it’s a movie.” – Brit, Spring Breakers
a Primal Root review
edited by Bootsie Kidd
I walked out of the the theater with what felt like a hangover. My head throbbed, my eyes burned and hazy recollections of what I had recently experienced swirled in my mind like some kind of abstract dream from the night before. Was it all imagined? Was it a reality? One thing’s for sure, the images seared into my mind from seeing Harmony Korine’s latest flick “Spring Breakers” won’t soon be forgotten. It left me feeling as I am sure many young people who go through this yearly right of passage do on their way home. Dirty, a little warped, and and not quite the same as when they went in on their journey.
A title like “Spring Breaks” along with its Disney Queen stable of leading ladies (Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens are both here for the party) and the addition of James Franco sounds like some kind of terribly conceived throw back to the days of ‘Beach Blanket Bingo’ or ‘Catalina Caper’. But Korine came through with his usual catchy darkness and we’re actually given a badass, fever dream of a film about a foursome of young, impressionable college girls (Gomez, Hudgens, Rachel Korine and Ashley Benson) who decide they MUST go to Spring Break in St. Petersburg, Florida in order to find themselves, and are willing to do just about anything in order to obtain the bread to get there. How do they get the cash to go? Why, by stealing a professor’s El Camino and robbing a local fried chicken hut, of course! Three of the young ladies pull off the heist and coerce their religious, naive friend “Faith” to come with them, and it’s off to the land of tits, pot, and Bud Light for a week of exploitative, brain-dead fun under the deep frying Florida sun!
The young ladies dive head-first into a hedonistic wonderland of narcotics, terrible rap artists, and rampant fornication while taking breathers in order to call their Grandmothers to falsify their shenanigans of flashing tits and guzzling beer from cans phallically positioned cock level by men in seedy hotel rooms wearing nothing but jock straps and caked in their own slimy man-glaze. Of course, the girls are testifying to family members that the St. Pete Spring Break scene is possibly the most spiritual place they’ve ever experienced, and in a way, I suppose it might be as these girls find out what they are capable of and just how far they can bend their moral compass. Which, for most of the ladies, their compass has been pointing south since the get-go. The only girl we are even concerned about in the middle of all this chaos is poor, little, Faith (Salena Gomez) who is perpetually 14 years old but looks to be having a blast for a few minutes there.
That is until the girls get busted on a drug charge, and are sent to prison with nothing but their bikinis to cover their asses. It’s up to an ambitious sleazy, local drug dealer/rap artist with a grill of silver and scalp covered in rows of corn, Alien (James Franco in an Oscar caliber performance. Stop laughing!) to pay for the ladies to be released and give them a Spring Break they will never, ever forget. And oh Momma, does the man deliver as the girls get dragged into a seedy, drug-ladened underbelly of their spring Break paradise. Oh, and they, also, become part of a turf war between Alien and the man who used to be his best friend Archie (Gucci Mane) and end up going on a well-armed crime spree throughout the city in a slow motion montage to Britney Spear’s slow and drippy song “Everytime”, (whose lyrics might shed more light on the characters of all involved than one might expect, or could just be as vapid and shallow as some might think these characters are). In what must be a high watermark in current Trash Cinema as girls in bikinis and ski masks prance seductively with shotguns and a cornrowed James Franco plays Britney Spears on a white piano with the Florida sun setting behind him. However, Alien has no idea what he’s in for with these Spring Breakers up in his crib. This is art Trash at its finest and I felt my heart soaring during what might be one of the greatest sleazy flick moments in recent memory. Not since Killer Joe has a movie brought Trash up to this level. You’ll know what I mean when you see it…
Spring Breakers is not for the faint of heart or those who have grown dependent of the tropes of the current motion picture main stream crop of films that must spell everything out and whose sense of humor typically revolves around piss, shit or any combination of the two. “Spring Breakers” ain’t that typical piece of shit. This movie is an experience of both heaven and hell, paradise and purgatory, sleaze and beauty. It took me back to a time and place where movies like Harmony Korine’s “Gummo”, and his collaborative break out hit “KIDS” were the toast of the town and the type of films people actively sought out to see for some unusual, different, grimy, honest and totally unique.
Spring Breakers can be seen as nothing more than mindless entertainment, and it certainly does function on that level if that’s all you’re looking for, but it also can be seen as a meditation on the mixed messages and desensitization of today’s youth in a culture of crassness, sex and violence. It’s not a new message, to be sure, but it is always one worth taking a closer look at with every new generation. Harmony did it once with his screenplay for “KIDS” (1995) and with his film “Spring Breakers” it feels as if he’s showing us just how far we’ve come since then. And Gang, it’s a disturbing, sick, nasty sight to behold. And that’s a good thing.
Well, I suppose I’ve kept you all waiting long enough. It’s time for The Primal Root to take a look at the final installment in Hugh Gallagher’s legendary straight to VHS Gore trilogy. We’ve covered ‘Goregasm’, where a perpetually topless, large breasted woman was paid to spin in circles and then kill her clients providing them with the “Ultimate Climax”. We’ve checked out ‘Goreotica’, the story of a jewel heist gone wrong, necrophilia and the dead body for AIDS patients black market…but now, now it is time for us to delve into what might be Hugh’s most high concept endeavor of the entire trilogy. His ‘Return of the King’, if you will. That’s right, it is time to get elbows deep and take a deep, appreciative whiff of 1994’s “Gore Whore!”
As out tape gets rolling we are treated to some slow moving credits featuring some Atari 2800 level lettering placed over a slide show of turn of the century bondage images which have a large black, spinning dildo superimposed over them. Believe it, or not, this giant black dildo actually plays a major role in the story which is about to unfold. The credits end as the black cock dildo shoots a gob of digitized green cum out the tip and onto the screen spelling out “GORE WHORE”. And so our fantastic journey into the filthy world of undead prostitution, science run amok, peeping on co-workers in the shower and “true love” begins.
“Gore Whore” starts off right in the middle of the action as some greasy fellow in a brown leather jacket flops down on crusty, crab infested mattress in a room with blank, white, walls as he turns his eyes to his prostitute friend who begin doing a wonderful interpretive dace to a mix tape she had made and queued up specifically for just such a magic moment.
And what a moment it is! As prostitute Dawn Day begins sashaying across the jizz stained floors of her low rent apartment stripping off articles of clothing until there’s nothing between her and her client except a thick batch of pubes and a pair of cross-eyed tits courtesy of a birth defect I was also cursed with growing up called, Pectus excavatum. Once it became life threatening it was something I had surgery to correct, but it looks like our leading lady Ms. Audrey Street, decided to live with the deformity and all I can say is more power to her! It certainly gives her character, who is required to get naked in just about every damn scene she appears in, a very strange and unsettling vibe that you just can’t get with the effects a shoe string budget, straight to video production can buy. It’s a deformity that can be very awkward and I give Audrey kudos for having the balls to flaunt what she’s got. I doubt I would have been so brave when I had my concave chest.
Soon Dawn is tying her client down, warning him that condoms won;t be enough to protect him (she must have some very potent pussy grime), proceeds to unzip his fly, whip out his little John and bits that sucker off with a single chomp! He screams bloody murder as raspberry syrup his the bedroom wall and Dawn begins gnawing on his neck. Dawn gnaws for a second or two before he client’s head comes tumbling off just as her mix tape comes to an end and we fade to black. That girls got some serious chompers on her, good god!
Fade up and we’re inside a dimly lit bar where we are introduced to our hero, Chase (played by Brady Debussey, the same guy who played the necrophiliac in a cape who had AIDS in Goreotica), who looks to be spending his day emptying various bottles of whiskey and napping on the bar room pool table wile dreaming of a blonde lady holding a cleaner shaven version of himself in a poorly lit gazeebo. See, Chase lost the love of his life, Susan to cancer a year or so ago, lost his job as the town’s head detective and now just lounges around on gaming equipment completely shitfaced. This is our hero, ladies and gents.
Thankfully, mad scientist Witman shows up to hire Jim Beam, er, Chase to investigate his missing lab assistant who stole an experimental serum of his. And surprise, surprise, the lab assistant in question is none other than Dawn Day, the scrawny, filthy haired hooker from earlier! Witman offers a Chase money up front to investigate and retrieve this serum but Chase isn’t so quick to take up the proposition for some reason. Chase, buddy, you’re stinking drunk, broke and unemployed, just take the fucking money and look into this shit. Who cares if it seems like a waste of time! What are you thinking? Think of all the booze that money’ll buy!
Yeah, looks like hero material to me.
Chase begins his investigation by sitting on the side of a dirt road until Dawn happens to drive by. Chase gives chase but not before we have a completely unrelated cutaway to a very content and happy looking horse just chilling out nearby watching our gumshoe go to work. The horse has nothing to do with the story and never appears again and is the only genuinely happy character in the video.
Hello there!
Chase follows Dawn to a tall, blonde, married Catholic woman’s house. The character with wide, creepy, haunting eyes, long blonde hair, nice, bountiful breasts and a well groomed shaft alley is only known in the script as “Swingin’ House Wife” . Chase peeps through the window as the two ladies begin swapping spit that I can only imagine smells like stale Arby’s and makes the observation “A LESBIAN LAB ASSISTANT!” out loud so the idiocy of the statement is allowed to sink in with the viewing audience before he continues thinking out loud and tells us his next move before rushing off to his dented, sagging, piece of crap Chevy, “While she’s here munching carpet, I better go over to her house and investigate!” the man was the Dick Tracy of his time and place.
It’s as if “Swingin’ House Wife” is staring into my soul.
Swingin’ House Wife has called Dawn over to make out, get totally naked, discuss how her husband doesn’t get her needs or desires and then get ruthlessly, and hilariously butchered on the living room carpet. ‘Swingin’ House Wife’ seems more concerned with keeping the strawberry syrup out of her eyes and hair than she does trying to prevent her own gruesome death by filleting as Dawn flings her butcher knife around in the air as if it’s not making contact with anything. Eventually the massacre ends, bright red, sticky syrup covers nearby scripture, the naked dead body of “Swingin’ House Wife” and Dawn herself, who quickly begins the daunting task of cleaning the mess up with her tongue.
Over at Dawn’s place, which it’s interior is inexplicably covered in vines, Chase discovers a fridge containing nothing but several large containers of blood. how does he know it’s blood? The moron actual sinks his digits in there and then licks the crimson liquid of his sausage fingers. “Blood!” Chase exclaims. “A lesbian lab assistant that drinks blood!” The plot thickens and Chase has now orally contracted hepatitis C. His work here is done.
The Paternity Test concludes, Ronald McDonald, you are the Father!
Chase heads over to the local police department where upon entering we see the only officers on duty are the one officer deep asleep behind his desk and another who is HEY! It’s the pint sized and gorgeous D’Lana Tunnell playing the adorable, cynical, poorly named deputy Pat who has a huge helmet of Manic Panic red colored hair and a not so great grip on her lines, but she does try, and that’s gotta count for something. Chase asks Pat for a bit of help researching Dawn Day in the computer data base, but Pat is reluctant. She throws out an exposition guilt trip about Chase being a sad bastard and a disgrace to the department ever since his wife died (yeah, boo-hoo, you cry baby!) and it’s his own fault for getting kicked off the force and there’s no way she’s helping him out! Chase whips out a crisp, clean $5 bill and Pat is suddenly eager to please! And Chase is the disgrace to the local police department? Between sleeping beauty by the front door and the rockabilly pinup model deputy, this place has a pretty low bar set for disgracefulness.
“Prostitution, Prostitution, Prostitution.” Pat exlaims as she reads from her computer monitor what sounds like the lyrics to a pop song. “Oh, and she shouldn’t be hard to track down. She’s dead.” Ah, thanks Pat, I guess this case is closed. WAIT! She’s dead? Well this just doesn’t make sense! How can a dead woman go to a lonely housewife’s house and tickle her zesty love taco with her slobbery oral love slug? Can Chase follow the clues and solve the riddle? He tracks Dawn down to her final resting place where she happens to be lounging about naked in the mid afternoon sun. Chase watches through his binoculars and Dawn begins filling a syringe with a batch of neon green Re-animator style goo, snaps on the handy , dandy, giant black dildo attachment, runs the it between her tits, down her stomach and into her clam strip with a *GOOSH* noise that really sells the effect.
It’s cock o’clock somewhere!
Chase stumbles back, catching Dawn’s attention. She finishes depositing her green love sauce into her holiest of hollies, slips on her black nightie, deposits her black dildo, green goo kit into an open grave and departs leaving Chase alone to check out the cemetery. As one might imagine, this leads to a scuffle with a nearby zombie decked out from head to toe in some little tan plaid number. Chase and the zombie partake in classic Filipino crotch fighting as the two grab one anthers shoulders and vigorously thrust areas towards each other. Before you know it, the zombie is on Chase’s car hood as he tries to escape at top speed. To get rid of this pesky undeader, as opposed to stomping on the break and making the zombie go flying, Chas e instead rams his car into a parked automobile whose occupant just so happens to be, and I’m not kidding, masturbating to a copy of Swank magazine he had tucked under his shirt. Who are these people? What town IS this? The total carnage results in the zombie falling into a creek and the innocent bystander losing his Johnson. Tragic.
Ensemble by Andre 3000
But the battle doesn’t end there! Turns out there’s a hidden lady zombie in chase’s backseat which behind munching his neck! Chase continues driving at top speed, as opposed to pressing the brake and making a far less deadly situation for himself, goes over a small hill in slow motion, before wreaking his car in a two foot deep gutter. With his car, it’s believable. Chase stumbles out of the vehicle as the blonde, lady zombie in the backseat has vanished, falls on his face only to look up and see Dawn Day approaching. She belittles our alcoholic hero and gives us her M.O. She’s tired of being subservient to wimpy men who buy her company and now it’s time to turn the tables! see, she’s undead, must feast on blood to survive and inject herself with Witman’s green goo pussily once a week. See, she is the undead hooker queen of this dung heap of a town and she’s turning all her tricks into and undead army! THE GORE WHORE HAS RISEN! ALL HAIL THE ZOMBIE HOOKER QUEEN!
Yeah, I’d say you botched this Bris, mister.
Dawn leaves Chase to be killed by a decapitated head and body team brought to vivid life thanks to a hole in the ground and a blue screen effect that puts George Lucas and his Star Wars prequels to shame. In a bit of comedy gold, the reanimated body kicks Chase around a little which in the cutaways make it look like the body is doing some manner of the hustle. Chase impales the body before giving the green foam spewing severed head a little speech about once being the kicker on his high school varsity football team before punting the head into a nearby lake. While soaring through the air the severed head cries “FUUUUUUUUUCK!” adding the cherry to the top of this it’s-so-bad-it’s-bad-but-I-can’t-stop-watching- sundae of awesome.
It’s been a long day and Chase is pretty fucking beat. He makes his way to Pat’s house where she’s in the middle of one of those extended “scrub your tits until they are gleaming” showers where he breasts encounter about an entire Irish springs bar of soap worth of lather. Ladies, is this generally what you do in the shower? Rub your boobs with soap for thirty minutes at a time eatin’ up all the dang hot water? Low budget Trash Cinema is one of the few genres brave enough to graphically illustrate this plight. What a brave, and selfless move on the part of these filmmakers.
But I digress, Chase breaks into Pat’s house, peeps in on her showering for about ten minutes as he hallucinates that the well built, brightly red headed and short D’Lara Tunnell is his tall, lanky, blonde dead wife. Hey, if you have actresses willing to get totally naked for your artistic piece of cinema, you might as well use them! So we are treated to two lovely women lathering their breasts, buns and rinsing out their hair for what feels like a quarter of the movie. Note, I am not complaining. This is Trash Cinema at it’s finest, folks. I rent these kind of movies almost specifically for these scenes!
I guess she couldn’t afford a shower curtain one a police officer’s salary. Times are tough…
Pat steps out of the shower without feeling the need to cover up despite being shocked that a drunken, bleeding, hallucinating mad man is standing in the doorway with a protruding erection in his trousers and drool dripping from his bottom lip and unenthusiastically asks “Chase, what are you doing here?” as chase tumbles to the floor and Hugh Gallagher composes the most beautifully orchestrated shot of his entire career as he provides the viewer with both a magnificent close up shot of the lovely D’Lara Tunnell’s rump AND Chase’s hysterical pratfall. Gang, this is why I go to the movies.
Why The Primal Root loves movies summed up in one single brilliant shot.
When Chase comes to he talks Pat into helping him out in his investigation. She agrees only after, again, telling him what a fucking loser he is for still mourning the death of his wife. Chase gives a dark, sad speech about Heaven and Hell and how Hell is right here and now on planet Earth. It’s not a bad little speech for a flick that’s spent most of it’s running time telling us things we’ve already gathered from the action on screen, but it does kind of his me directly in that little spot in my heart where that emo little teeny bopper “woe is me” self resides. Life can certainly be shitty sometimes, but as we’ve learned from ‘Gore Whore” it’s nothing a bit of self medication can’t solve.
Chase and Pat head out into the hot steamy Bum Fuck Egypt night to follow up on a hunch that Dawn will be at a local watering holw where her favorite band and customers “The Third Graders” will be playing. Cut to- a deserted sports bar where three middle aged guys in colorful wigs jerk off with their instruments and Dawn day performs another one of her captivating dance numbers. The Third Graders make it through one who song before hoping off stage in the hopes of purchasing a piece of tail from Ms. Day. Unfortunately for them, she has other plans, as she whips out her Rosco and pops a cap in all their asses. If only this could have happened to Nickelback.
Chase and Pat, he’s a boozy private dick with nothing left to lose, she’s a feisty, small time cop, together THEY’RE DYNAMITE! Coming this Spring to FOX!
This prompts Chase and Pat to rush in looking like one of the coolest gutter scum, down trodden television cop duos ever devised! Pat pulls her gun and points it at Dawn’s greasy mug as Chase tells her to shoot. “NO!” Pat screams. “She’s unarmed!” Chase, along with the entire viewing audience roll our eyes and scream along with “JUST SHOOT THE UNDEAD WHORE, YOU IDIOT!” At this point Pat lowers her weapon and puts all her attention on her debate about shooting Dawn thereby giving Ms. Day the advantage. Day quickly squirts some green goo up one of the dead “musician’s” asses where he springs to life and takes a whopper of a bite out of Pat’s lovely little neck. Poor, sweet, Pat, you were a mean person who had trouble empathizing at all with anyone and you were a horrible police officer. But what you lacked in humanity you made up for with ample nudity. Farewell, Officer Pat. you were one fetching, wasted character.
Chase doesn’t make the same mistake. He quickly pries Pat’s firearm from her cold, dead hands and pops a fiery load into Dawn Day dropping her to the sports bar floor. Chase grabs Witman’s glowing green, ass and pussy ooze formula and rushes over to the the mad scientist’s lair to deliver the good, get his money and ask a few questions as to what in the Hell he just had to deal with. And Chase doesn’t have to waste any time getting over there because that sports bar where that shooting massacre just occurred was LITERALLY EMPTY. Sure, there was a concert taking place, sure they were open for business, but there was not a soul there beyond the band and Dawn Day. This makes for an ideal getaway for Chase!
Chase arrives to find Witman waiting for him and by this point Chase has had a while to stew and seems kind of living as he begins cross examining the scientist. Winston remains silent and jauntily escapes into his plywood lair where Chase follows. On a wooden table there lays a fresh corse covered by a blood stained white sheet as Witman explains his principals and that he created his re-animation formula quite by accident. He performed several tests on animals before getting his hands on Dawn Day, bringing her back to life, and making her his undead sex slave. It;s all shit we already pretty much gathered over the course of the film but now Witman sets it all in stone. It’s at this point that Dawn Day swoops in from out of nowhere, drop kicks Chase to the ground and attacks Witman, bashing his noggin repeatedly into the floor killing him. chase comes to, grabs an aluminum baseball bat and knocks that Gore Whores mother fucking block off! Her head goes sailing through the lab and crashes against the cement wall with a a pleasant, warm, *squish* sound and leaving a spatter of blood and grey matter on the wall.
MY DOCKERS!
It’s a triumphant moment to be sure, but this flick has yet to reach it’s climax. Chase drags the lifeless body of Dr. Witman down to the cellar and in full, agonizing detail we are treated to Chase sticking a black dildo full of green life cum up his ass to revive him. At this point, all of us watching ‘Gore Whore” know how the procedure works. Then again, maybe they had five minutes of time they just HAD to fill. Witman awake to find Chase standing over him with an axe. Chase looks him straigh in the eye and says “Pain is something you’ve gotta live with.” before hacking both of Witman’s legs off in the most hysterical scene of the entire film. I believe it’s the performance of Paul Woodard as Witman that gives this scene the levity it has.He channels Jim Carrey at his spastic best in his reaction to having both his legs unceremoniously removed. It really is unfathomably precious, especially once Chase goes to the top of the stairs, grabs something off camera and yells to Witman, “HEADS UP!” and tosses Dawn’s chomping severed head at him. It’s one of those scenes you must see to truly understand.
And then Chase shaves and reanimates his wife’s rotted old cadaver so they can make out again thereby ending the film on a rip off of Pet Semetary’s conclusion. That’s pretty fucking weak and far too obvious. I still think it would have been really disturbing if Chase found his wife in Witman’s basement, reanimated and being used as a fuck slave thereby making chase go totally insane and giving him a bit more of a reason to go all Jigsaw on Witman. But, who am I to mess with Hugh Gallagher’s creative vision.
Insert “Getting Head” joke here.
“Gore Whore” is fucking ridiculous from the very first frame to the very last credit. Hugh Gallagher was going for broke on this flick and it shows. From the collection of goofball effects, to the eclectic cast of characters, over the top concept, wall to wall use of naked women, even the added production value of a single, unmotivated shot of a horse chilling out makes this a video store find like none other. I guarantee you, you will never find another film that matches the gonzo, low budget trashiness of “Gore Whore.”
Hell, that could be said about the Gore Trilogy as whole! It’s a three part series of degenerate, disturbed, sleazy ideas made all the trashier by the production values and VHS format. They do have some very creative and interesting ideas scattered withing their rotten running time, and it’s that blend of utter sleaze and sparks of genuine intelligence that make these tapes worth tracking down and giving a look. That is, if you have to stomach for this sort of drek. Again, one man’s terrible, worthless film is another man’s nugget of VHS gold. And for me, it doesn’t get much better, worse, stranger or more enjoyable than Hugh Gallagher’s Gore Trilogy.
Stay Trashy and watch that pooper!
-Root
Ms. D’Lana Tunnell in a still from “Teenage Tupelo”. Another oddity worth tracking down. -Root
trashcinemacollective.com 