“Put on your balls, Evan. We’re going to Willy’s!” Sheriff Lund, Willy’s Wonderland
Man oh man, the stories I could tell you about Friday evenings after getting dropped off by the bus in elementary school, when Mom and Dad would chuck me in the back of their ride and I’d spend hours drifting around a filthy booger and fecal matter filled ball pit, crawling around two stories off the ground in plastic tubes, spending my parents hard earned money to collect tickets on games of chance so I could trade them in for cheap plastic bullshit I’d lose not ten minutes after we left after my parents got their fill of pizza and cheap draft beer. And it was all watched over by one smiling, creepy, spastic animatronic rat and his pals. That mother fucker’s name was Chuck E. Cheese, and he was a bit of a regular Friday night thing.
It’s a bizarre local kind of money wasting tourist trap, only it’s not for tourists, it’s for us desperate 80’s and 90’s locals. A place to exchange your money for absolute worthless bullshit. I have some fantastic memories there, especially when I went back as a teenager trying to be ironically funny and having my birthdays there. It’s a slice of quintessential American nostalgia for several generations. A bright, neon, ode to capitalism at it’s finest in the guise of children’s distractive, hollow, entertainment. It’s an experience that has sunk in like a summer tick in our collective nostalgic subconscious.
Enter the the 2021 low rent, high concept, bargain basement blast of neon nostalgic nightmare fodder Academy Award Winning Actor Nicolas Cage vehicle, Willy’s Wonderland. A film where an exceedingly quiet, muscle car driving, soda addicted drifter blows out a tire on the outskirts of a small town where they don’t have the internet, so to pay off the repairs to his car he is given the option to clean up an abandoned local children’s amusement shit hole, the Willy’s Wonderland of the title. The drifter has no name and is simply credited as “Janitor” in the credits and the character has not a single line of dialog for the duration of the film and happens to be the lead character…and is played by Nicolas Cage. The Janitor is given a Willy’s Wonderland t-shirt, a handshake from the stores owner, Tex Macadoo (Ric Reitz) and silently gets to cleaning the place up, all the while sensing there is something wrong with the eight rainbow colored, ancient, rotten, mildewy, demonically possessed animatronics standing on the Willy’s Wonderland stage…watching him with their dead, lifeless eyes. While also making absolutely sure to take rest breaks every hour to pace himself with an ice cold can of soda and a game of pinball. It’s not long before these robotic creatures begin singing, dancing and then maliciously attacking The Janitor who, without even a second of surprise, shock, or hesitation, retaliates with devastatingly brutal violence. He does not attempt to flee or even scream he has a job to do after all. He simply cleans up the mess left behind and tackles every obstacle that comes his way without so much as uttering a single word.
We are given the bulk of the exposition from two characters. Sheriff Lund, played by the always incredibly fun to watch Beth Grant probably best know for doubting your commitment to Sparkle Motion in 2001’s Donnie Darko, and the young woman who lives with Sheriff Lund and is intent of soaking Willy’s Wonderland in gasoline and burning that fucking place tot he ground, Liv, played by Emily Tosta. Through these two we get an intimate history of Willy’s Wonderland and the horrifically evil deeds that have occurred within it’s walls and why it stands as a death trap and curse in the small town of Hayesville, Nevada. Liv gathers her group of twenty something teenage accomplices and they head to Willy’s to finally burn the “Gateway to Hell” down for good as Sheriff Lund does her damndest to maintain the status quo as the unfazed and seemingly unsinkable Janitor deals with surviving the night, battling the demonic animatronic furry freak show, while dealing with all the issues inherent in small town big secrets and those who are still living to keep them under wraps. Will our Birthday Boy survive the night to reclaim his repaired car? Will Willy and his friends feast on the flesh of the innocent forever more with the help of law enforcement and those who run the town? Will Liv and her teenage fan club destroy Willy’s once and for all? buy the ticket and take the ride…to Willy’s Wonderland and find out, Gang.
Coming out of Willy’s Wonderland I was genuinely impressed with what they were able to create with what obviously seemed to be fairly limited means. The recreation of a Chuck E. Cheese style family attraction is absolute perfection. From the arcade area, to the dining hall, the filthy ball pit, and even the cheap, shitty cheap framed character posters on the walls, it all felt completely authentic and like it was somehow surgically removed from our memory banks, filth and all. It all feels familiar and just like it would be to go back to one of these places today. Trust me, I took a look at the old, still functioning Chuck E. Cheese in my hometown and it’s just as creepy as Wally’s Wonderland is presented. I also MUST compliment the phenomenal soundtrack to Willy’s Wonderland. From the original songs almost entirely written and performed by Émoi to the brilliant selections of old chestnuts, every musical component of this flick nails the very tired, very old and worn out nostalgia of it. Across the board, the performances are greatly entertaining. It’s a movie called Willy’s Wonderland and it’s basically an excuse for Nic Cage to beat the shit out of people in moderately frightening furry costumes, so as you might expect, the performances are either greatly exaggerated, cheesy or over the top. Emily Tosta as Liv is believable as a young, traumatized woman trying to do right, Beth Grant as Sheriff Lund turns in probably the most human and believable performance of the whole film as an old woman in charge of law enforcement who is steadfast but obviously exhausted from constantly coming up with justifications for maintaining this cursed small towns status quo. She nails the comedy, but there’s a lot of heart in her performance, too. Especially for a killer fuzzy monster movie. But, as you might expect, Nicolas Cage steals the show as the silent Janitor. A man who just wants to get the fucking job done and be on his way. He dances, he fights and he scrubs the urinals and he is reliantly captivating to watch in every single moment.
And in this performance of the Janitor, in that characterization, I can’t help but see Willy’s Wonderland as a perfect metaphor for 2020 as a frontline worker asked to go into harms way in order to make ends meet when you have absolutely no other choice. You’re voiceless and you have to follow your orders if you want to get out of this situation. You’re locked in, you can’t get out, you have to get the job done to claim your reward but there’s also this intense, malicious evil that wants to kill you. At the core of this insanely fun horror splatter flick there’s a dark at the core of the proceedings about what it is to be a blue collar working stiff in America, constantly getting fucked over but always expected to rise to the occasion. We keep our mouths shut and we get the fucking job done despite hardly being able to fucking survive. We aren’t surprised when shit happens, because it always does. You adapt, you cope, you don’t ask for anything because you know you’ll never get it. But we do it. We get it done, we do it well, we take our breaks, we play our pinball, we dance when we can and we fucking do it. Because fuck you.
In conclusion, Willy’s Wonderland is fucking great and an absolute joy of a funky little low budget monster movie. It’s spunky, it’s got heart, intestines and severed heads. It strikes all the right notes of this type of outing perfectly and is elevated to a B-Movie instant cult status glory by a grounded badass performance by Nicolas Cage, who without saying a word, embodies the everyday working man perfectly, even while battling the members of Willy the Weasels entourage in a rundown children’s entertainment facility. My only real criticism is there should have many more children getting killed and WHY do you even bother filming sex scenes if the actress won’t take her bra off and the guy won’t hang dong? The movie is already an R-Rated slice of Trash Cinema! Throw us a bone here, Kevin Lewis (who directed this thing)! Every other aspect of the film is schlock perfection and one I highly recommend as a perfect requiem for the year 2020.
I reward Willy’s Wonderland FOUR out of FIVE Dumpster Nuggets!
It’s high time we talked about “The Pit” aka: “Teddy”, one of the creepiest goddamn coming of age movies I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. The plot goes something like this; a young, mentally deranged teenage boy named Jamie (Sammy Snyders) with parents who apparently travel quite a bit and regularly leave poor Jamie in the care of attractive female twenty something year old psychology students. And buy, does he burn through them. See, Jamie is kind of a creeper. The extent to which this kid will go to express his love aka: raging hard-on for just about anything wearing a bra is pretty impressive. He even tries the old “I dropped my napkin” ruse at the dinner table when he’s being introduced to his summer caretaker, Sandy (Jeannie Elias). Of course, this scheme works a whole lot better when you don;t announce loudly “OH NO! I DROPPED MY NAPKIN!” and then lunge your whole body head-first under the table to gaze up a woman’s skirt and into the crotch fabric of their panties.
You’ll wish he’d written “Redrum” when this is all over and done with.
But this is the least of Jamie’s issues. See, he also has a teddy bear he he talks to…and Teddy talks back, stoking young Jamie’s deviant behavior and offering up suggestions on how to be a more effective weirdo. Also, Jamie happens to know the location of an isolated pit deep in the woods populated by furry, malevolent, flesh eating creatures with glowing yellow eyes. Teddy and the Tra-La-Logs (Why, oh, WHY is this not a band name?) are the two folks Jamie feels he can confide in. and it makes sense, seeing as everyone in the town seemingly loathes this kid. From the his teenage classmates who lovingly punch him in the face and pull humiliating pranks on him, to the Librarian lady who refuses his pervish advances, even the elderly woman in the retirement home down the street can’t stand Jamie and even predicts he’ll probably just grow up “to be one of those hippies!”
No one understands me like the beasts on the edge of Hell.
So, yes, Jamie airs out all his issues with a the psychotic voice in his head he hears through the inanimate object named Teddy and a batch of vicious monsters living in a hole deep in the woods. The Tra-La-Logs do not judge Jamie, they simply gnash their teeth, stare at him and drool as he explains the twisted thoughts of his diseased mind. Jamie grows to care a lot about these critters and Teddy hits upon the winning idea of starting to feed the little monsters! So, in between sessions of staring at Sandy’s bare breasts while she sleeps and faking kidnappings in order to snap some Polaroids of Librarian next door’s hush puppies, Jamie steals some of Sandy’s cash and buys a ton of hamburger meat and feeds it to the creatures in the woods.
That’s a bad touch, Sandy.
Of course, this can’t last, as Sandy catches on quickly to the fact her cash is vanishing quicker my singles at a strip club. Where can Jamie find a new, cheap source of meat for this ravaging, razor toothed, carnivorous creatures? Why, yes, tossing the screaming, soon to be devoured bodies of the people who have wronged you is completely valid option! In a montage of great dark comedy, Jamie lures about a half dozen people to their untimely deaths including Sandy’s boyfriend who he tricks into the pit by throwing a football around with him and making the guy “go long”, which leads him right into the jaws of the enemy. Even better, Jamie kidnaps the mean old lady from the retirement home, rolling her down the nature trail as she shrieks and waves her hands around in terror, and launches her into the pit where she is ripped to pieces. I’m not kidding, I laughed so hard I farted. this is prem-o stuff, Gang.
Suck it, Grandma!
There’s even a slightly more profound moment where Jamie is about to roll a young girl into the pit who laughed at him while he was getting the snot beaten out of him. “You sure are a pretty girl. But only on the outside. Inside you;re ugly and you will probably spend your whole life giggling at the pain of others.” a pretty chilling statement about the nature of bullying and the violence it spawns. Treat people with kindness or you might find yourself the main course in gore drenched buffet of fury. Never mess with the kid who is rumored to be psychotic, he may just prove you right. It’s a moment I think all kids who were picked on can relate to. I think at some point we all wished we had a giant hole int he ground we could roll our tormentors into so we would never have to hear from them again. I can see a little bit of wish fulfillment here.
D’Awwww…
After making the major miscalculation of actually showing Sandy the Tra-La-Longs down in their pit, she insists they bring out some scientists to check out the discovery when Jamie made her promise to keep them a secret, Jamie ends up accidentally pushing her into THE PIT where she is slowly ripped into meaty chunks and feasted upon by the ever hungry monsters. It might be the bloodies moment of the movie and works like gang busters and Sandy’s bright red entrails and slurped down and her bones and crunched to pieces by the terror of the Tra-La-Logs. Jamie is traumatized by the death of someone he actually wants to put his penis in, and decides to throw a rope down the hole and let the creatures loose upon an unsuspecting public and, in the process, unleashes holy Hell upon the inhabitants of his little hamlet.
What follows is probably the most ineffective, yet still entertaining, sequence of “The Pit”. The movie takes the focus away from Jamie and, instead, focuses on the rampage of the Tra-La-Logs which are obviously nothing more than short people in furry suits running around the woods. Int he darkness of the pit the creatures came off as scary and mysterious, in the bright light of day they are laughable. Still, they manage to run about the rural area ripping young folks and big breasted teenage skinny dippers (one of which happens to be the director’s daughter) into finger food before a posse of angry, card carrying NRA locals track them back into their pit and blow into blood spattered shag carpeting.
Cut back to Jamie who is now headed to his grandparent’s farm to be taken care of for the rest of the summer, only this time he is not alone. His younger little lady cousin is there and they run off to go play together. It looks like Jamie has finally found a friend. Someone who is not sickened or terrified of his mere presence. The sun is setting in the sky as the two children laugh and run off into the woods…only, they find something…another pit in the ground. Jamie knows all too well the horror that lies ahead. “They eat people…” he says. “I know.” She replies…
It’s basically a prequel to “Ted”
“The Pit” is one very unique, sleazy, unusual and even disturbing little slice of forgotten horror gold. It has the usual limitations you might expect from a low budget 80’s horror flick, but it still manages to pull off it’s concept for the majority of the running time. Sammy Snyders’ performance as the bizarre, creepy teenage killer is damned impressive. This is some very strange and often whacky material for a young actor to be performing, but the guy really gives his all and ends up giving a very believable and unsettling performance. I’ve read interviews with the “The Pit” screenwriter Ian Stuart and his disappointment in what was originally intended to be a much darker story with far fewer flourishes of dark comedy. I understand what he’s saying, and I do wish that version could have been made, but the film we ended up with is still one pretty goddamn strange cinematic cocktail. From the bizarre sexual obsessions and oglings of Jamie, to the crew of bloodthirsty Hell beasts and the psychotic voices in Jamie’s head who transmit themselves through the boy’s Teddy bear, it’s one of those movies so peculiar it truly has to be seen to be believed. I’d put it along side movies like “Tourist Trap” and “Pin”, movies that are damn strange and certainly effective, but lost and waiting to be rediscovered.
Hey Gang! It’s your pal The Primal Root here with a brand new round of Guess the Garbage! The game where I gather a few random screen caps, spatter them here across The Trash Cinema Collective blog and let you take educated and/or wild stabs in the dark as to what Trash Cinema films I tore them from all in the hopes of no reward whatsoever other than having your name plastered below the image you correctly guessed and bragging rights that are sure to get you laid when you tell that special someone how incredibly fucking awesome you are! Longest run on sentence I’ve ever typed? Doubtful. Anyhoo, without any further a due, here’s your garbage! Just post your guesses in the comment section of this post an whoever answers correctly first gets all the glory. Good luck, and Stay Trashy! -Root
1. “Amityville II: The Possession” Guessed by Jason
Sigh, hey there folks, yer ol’ pal Uncle Grumpyfuk sitting here, a bit in the doldrums today. As the grandmaster comedian Jerry Lewis would say, “Creativity is hard sometimes, it’s not an easy thing.” It leaves you speechless. Who says we have no great philosophers in this day and age? Well writing IS hard, it’s not an easy thing, it’s hard to put into words…heh-heh.
It’s like, I don’t know… you know when you’re at the Friday Night Mud Rasslin’ Extravaganza and you eat a big bag of hot roasted peanuts,then later the next morning when you’re taking a squat and they’re slowly grinding and scraping their way out, you rub your inflamed anus clean, the minute peanut crumbs tearing the delicate white tissue,however there remains one tiny jagged little chunk that eludes the toilet paper like a vicious,sentient little sandspur maneuvering to avoid your attempts to remove it so that finally you have to take your fingernail and…what? What?! Oh,I see ‘that’s disgusting’ is it? What, do you think you’re reading the blog of your favorite fairy from the Hallmark channel? This is TrashCinema folks, if you can’t take it then you can wad it up and stuff… sigh, hey, you know what? Fine, Uncle Grumpyfuk is in a fairly mellow mood today so fine, you want something more pleasant? Fine. Something perhaps with beautiful flowers or something? Fine, never let it be said Uncle Grumpyfuk can’t be flexible, at times.. somewhat…a little.
Fine then, ahem, you know what it’s like when you.. when you eat a bunch of fucking daffodils and later when you’re trying to crap them out and the putrid, partially digested petals are sticking to the walls of your rectum like adhesive tape and you finally have to use the tweezers because tp won’t touch them? Well that’s what creative writing is like. Eh? …well fuck you too! I tell you it makes perfect sense, to me anyway,you just don’t ‘know’. Yeah. Well then for the rest of your lives you remember that pretty little mental image I just planted in your minds whenever you see a pot of fucking daffodils! Yeah, ha-ha! I’m starting to feel better!
Well, speaking of bouquets, we’re going to review an aromatic funnel plant of a film today, the bizarre and nonsensical “The Undertaker and His Pals” which reminds me of that old joke; “What did the corpse of General Grant say to the corpse of General Lee on the 100th anniversary of the Civil War?” …Nothing! Jesus weren’t you listening? They’re both dead! My God if i said ‘Simon says stick your dicks in your mouths’ you’d break your spines trying, it’s like talking to the army of fiddler crabs as you run in ever tightening circles around them, causing them to pile up on top of one another in their panic, until you light and throw the M80… but alas, I have no M80s, sigh. You people are soooo fucking lucky! (breathes in deeply) Shit,I feel much better now!
Ok, the film begins with a trio of motorcycles riding in circles at night. They stop at a phone booth, one looks up an address and off they go. As they approach an intersection at which they have a stop sign, they come to a complete stop, look to the left,the right, then the left again and then turn right and proceed,carefully observing the speed limit all the while. ..what the fuck? Grrr, well something is coming,I feel it… or it’s those tulip petals! Ha! Thiiink aboouut it! 😉
They pull up to an apartment building,one goes through the front entrance and finds ‘Lamb’ on one mailbox,while the others park around back and climb up the fire escape,somehow knowing which room is the right one. Hmm. The camera suddenly focuses on a sweet pair of feminine feet – mm-mmm, shrimp cocktail! We pan slowly up a righteous pair of gams that are attached to a pretty hot blonde who is putting the final touches on her latest blacksploitation novel “The Ghost of Uncle Tom’s Choad”. “..and her squeals went unheard as the storm raged outside. The End “. She sighs and leans back into her chair, reaching into the drawer and lighting a reefer to celebrate when a knock upon the door stops her in mid-toke. Damn I hate that! She scrambles to stash when biker #1 at the door bursts in and the two who crept up the back fire escape climb in through the window. She backs away,unsure whether the three figures are, like, real, or whether it’s just the reefer when the front man grabs her. As they struggle the other two pull out really fakey plastic knives and front man throws her on them,and it’s really fake, I mean really. She dies and they cut off her leg then our hearts leap as we think ‘Frankenhooker”? but think ‘No way.’ just as quickly. The Sherman Williams Red No.3 Flat Finish flies everywhere and the bikers escape with their trophy, her leg! …oookay…well, why take just one?
Next we’re outside the front of the local funeral parlour,and they give savings stamps, what a nice service! We see Mama Fat and Papa Skinny enter, Mama Fat blubbering away, heh, get it? The undertaker sees them enter,presses a tape player and the films crazy theme plays for a sec,then he switches to the standard funeral music, he escorts them to the coffin where Blondie Lamb lies,with her eyes open and looking at them! What a great idea! He then hits them with the bill and engages in a little mental torture when they refuse to pay. This guy is pretty cool.
Now we’re at an office where a slick suit is totally dissing his hot-ass secretary, Miss Poultry (easy Grumpy, eeasy!). They get in a righteous set of wheels and head over to the Greasy Spoon where we meet Spike the waiter and Doc the cook,a friendly pair. The couple order the daily special, the ‘leg of Lamb’ and we finally get it! Oho, forcing unsuspecting patrons to engage in cannibalism! Suh-weet! One of those things we’ve all wanted to do in life, if only once. The couple devour the cooked human flesh with relish, literally, ‘goes great with blondes’, 😉 and they leave full and content, resolved to go back for more of that yummy Lamb. It is said you know, by members of that particular culinary fraternity that it is the sweetest of meats!
Slick takes Miss Poultry home and takes off without even getting a quickie in, so inside she’s about to call Spot when she hears someone outside doing the worst cat imitation you’ve ever heard – your retarded sibling can do better…not really. She walks back to be confronted by the bikers who are also looking for the terrible cat-caller,they were going to see if he really did sound like a cat with broken knee-caps. Both parties glare at one another,convinced the other is the afore mentioned cat-caller so Miss Poultry goes on the offensive and comes at them like a fighting cock on Vivarin, however it’s 3 to 1 so she ends up being shish-ka-bobbed on the fence. Meh, it’s been done.
The investigation the next morning yields little evidence, the portly officer in charge being more interested in lunch takes off and Slick turns to see our undertaker has appeared out of nowhere. Slick springs for the cheapest funeral for Miss Poultry,what a guy, then hits the Greasy Spoon for a good meal! Whew, that bitch had been getting way too clingy. What a break the ol’ cosmos had thrown him, yes sir!
Back at the Spoon, Doc is in the back obsessively reading medical textbooks on surgery when the darkie delivery man shows up,and while poking around he discovers the identity of their ‘secret meat’ flavor hanging in the walkin cooler so Doc appropriately buries a cleaver in his noggin, and Spike,seeing what happened, makes a witty ‘dark meat’ remark to one of the customers about the chicken special. Har-har!
Back at the funeral home Slick stops by to inspect the coffin he bought; a bloody shipping crate. He’s quite satisfied, not bad for $149.98! He then heads back to the office and damn, another hot blonde walks in, I mean yowza! Slick plays it cool and pays her to go get some din-din while he masturbates thinking about her elbows, mmmm. She moseys over to the Greasy Spoon, and Doc can’t contain his excitement another moment,deciding this is the day he practices his surgical skills on something other than kittens! “I tore her clothes off!” Spike informs him, “Ah that’s good thinking!” replies the Doc, what a wacky pair of knuckleheads! He slices her open and fondles her inards and she dies, big surprise. So they put her in the meat grinder and Spike changes the special of the day to hamburger. Woomp-waaaaah.
That night the 3 bikers are back on the prowl and we see a hideous hag in a sauna, molting. As her two companions leave our leather-clad trio enter and quite rightfully beat the living dogshit out of her with a chain and we only wish we could take a swing ourselves. Ugh. The thress sub-stooges hack her up and as they’re leaving with a bloody bag of the choisest parts her two companions return to see them exiting out the window. One grabs a pistol and demonstrates the correct posture and body reactions for a hot female when shooting a handgun. LOL!!! Miraculously she manages to shoot the tag off of one of the bikes and the next morning Slick gets word from the fat cop that it belongs to the undertaker. Slick is shocked! He then finds that Doc and Spike are his accomplices! Here he wanted to thank the person responsible and it’s three guys he knew all along! Ain’t life crazy?
Back at the Spoon, Doc and Spike are about to kill the undertaker for leaving evidence, but for some inexplicable reason Doc says something you can’t make out and he and Doc kill Spike then vamoose. Talk about temperamental!
Slick shows up and pokes around, finding Spike has been enjoying an acid-bath until his bones are nice and shiny white! He almost shits his britches when a hand taps him on the back; it’s the twin sister of the blonde Doc and Spike turned into quarter pounders. What she’s doing in the basement of the restaurant is beyond me but this film makes no sense anyway so… He takes her home, the two remaining bikers follow, he falls asleep before even getting any! Man this guy is slick! They take off the next morn, still followed by Doc and the undertaker,I guess they just sat on their bikes all night in the cold.
A few miles later Slick’s car ‘runs out of gas’ and now we think we might see some action, a nipple at least, but he bails and leaves her out in Bum Fuk Egypt as bait. The two bikers come along and chase her around with their little rubber knives and it’s totally funny because she runs just like a girl. All of a sudden a produce truck comes barrelling around the bend and flattens Doc but good, and the undertaker scoots his ass out of there quick-like. Slick informs the blonde that her sister was killed by the trio and she seems about as upset as if he’d told her he drank a coke out of her fridge. She walks outside, looks up and there’s the undertaker waiting to shut her up permanently. There’s a lame chase scene using the same set of stairs a bunch of times from different angles and they end up on the roof where he backs her to the edge, lunges at her and falls over the ledge to his supposed death. Notice I said ‘supposed’. She walks downstairs but we see that the undertaker somehow reached 12 feet over and grabbed a railing as he fell and saved himself…right. Well we reached ‘absurd’ a while back so… Blondie goes back to the office where the cop is rubbing his chubby and as they talk the undertaker stalks up from behind a curtain. Just as his hand is ready to strike however the cop accidentally stabs him. …oi. The End! What a fine film!
Now we have a unique ending, as the credits roll we see everyone who died in the film come back to life and smile and wave at the camera, assuring us they really weren’t killed, and here I was so worried for their families! ,,,Ah-ha-ha-ha!
Well that wraps up another insightful and uppity-fuk review, enlightening your mind and refreshing your spirit. Yer ol’ pal Uncle Grumpyfuk is going to take a little hiatus and tackle a little comedic B-movie of some note that contains many questionable historical facts and references. Yes Uncle Grumpyfuk is going to review “Roots” …and ah, my M80s just arrived!
..Ugh..BUURRRPPP! …oh mighty Crom whisk away my poor hungover soul to thy grim grey mountain abode or let me find that damn pill bottle full of cricket legs! Urp,whew, yer ol’ pal Uncle Grumpyfuk comin’ atcha with some serious peach-fuzz on the brain this ..afternoon, shit. Me and a couple of buddies ..rather, a couple of buddies and I, ahem, had some unusually good fortune last night ..and earlier this morning, wait, what time is it? Uh, nevermind..time is…(eyes cross)..uh, give me a few minutes folks. I know you’ve been there. Buuurrp!
I and my buddy Tangletoe and a fucking crazyass Irish ginger buddy of his…I’ll remember his name in a minute, were sitting in Tangle’s old truck hammering ‘fuckuppers’- Old Ezra Sour Mash Whiskey, Mountain Dew and 14 Sugar Pops -yep the cereal, crushed and stirred in, and a dash of tobasco. Talk about a drink that’ll put fire in your belly and get you going like a handfull of speed! We were listening to the radio and lo and behold, that the local boring shitty rock station was having a ‘beach party’ down at Lake Fornication today at noon so we figured fuck it, let’s pop some more Valium, head down there early and start the party ..13 hours ahead of time! Yee-haw!
We found our way to the landing around midnight and what did our eyes behold but a party tent already set up under which lay 10 kegs of cold beer and 12 bushels of raw oysters, on ice, and a wasted hippy couple standing around a nice bonfire drinking beer and eating oysters,motioning for us to join the party, aaaand we did..post haste! Ugh, buurp. It was surreal, the radio station had obviously set everything up the night before so they wouldn’t have to in the morning and the braindead dj’s didn’t have the sense to leave someone to guard it! Deerrp! ..and to think those people can drive..and vote! Scary.
Anyway the hippies left after about an hour or so, so the three of us stood there in front of a roaring fire,drinking and chowing down, having truly found our personal Shangri-la. A little while later,no idea how long, heh, we hear a distant mechanical growl and soon around 8-10 bikers and their old ladies roared up. We encouraged them to join us drinking free beer and eating free oysters,they finally caved after about .12 seconds and the ‘beach party’ was awn! So we sat there for several hours drinking and eating and trading stories of getting busted and wasted, of smashing rival gang members’ heads in with bricks and collecting comic books. At one point one of them saw me drooling at his skanky old lady’s tits so he let me screw her from behind for my 12.00 pocket knife. Let me tell you, whoever says that bikers aren’t good people has never gotten wasted with them and screwed one of their old ladies doggie-style! Hell, she even let Tangletoe and Sanchez,that’s it! Sanchez! …let Tangle and Sanchez have a go just because they were standing there watching! That’s a real woman for you, by cracky!
Well I guess it was close to 6:00 AM when Tangle and I finally left. Sanchez stayed around for more and the bikers hadn’t slowed down a hair either! When we pulled out of there 2 kegs were empty and a third had been tapped, and almost 4 bushells of oysters had magically disappeared. It was amazing, in over 6 hours not one other person had come by, no cops, no one from the radio station, no other drunken partiers, no one. Shangri-la folks, seriously! After we got home I staggered down the street towards my duplex but felt those oysters wanting to see the light of day again, so, I lurched over to a hated neighbor’s Volvo and puked in the open window all over her upholstery. Ha-ha-ha! We wanted to listen to the radio station this morning to see if they mentioned going out and finding they’d missed their own party, but we totally passed out! Ha! ***
Today my dear fiends, Uncle Grumpyfuk is proud, nay, honored and humbled to review a pivital film in trash cinema history. This is a film that horrified audiences and changed the art of film forever more..for the better! Fuckin’ay! I speak of one, some say the greatest of the Unholy Trilogy of the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis, starring our favorite Playboy centerfold Connie Mason! Yes Mrs. Freemont it is exciting! Ha-ha-ha! …ah but I get ahead of myself. Yes my friends, I speak of the drive-in classic, the one and only, “Bloodfeast”! Yes, yes …(over 7 minutes of thunderous applause erupts, finally the din quiets a bit).. yes, thank you, I know, my genitals are covered with anticipatory sweat too. I shall strive to do my very best to honor the King of Gore and one of his masterpieces – I never have been able to decide whether I think this or 2000 Maniacs is better…AND Gruesome Twosome…I-I don’t know… I just love them all so much! (applause) Yes,we all do. Thank you, thank you.
The film opens with a tense kettle drum beat and we see none other than Barbara Handler, daughter of the creator of the Barbie Doll, who named it after her! It’s her, I’m totally serious. I swear on your children’s’ future graves it’s her! ..Well ok it’s not her, but just look at’er! She’s the spit and image! You just want to pull her head off and give it to the family dog and pour lighter fluid on her body and set it ablaze! Damn!
Anyway she turns on the radio as a report of ‘another murder’, that a girl was found ‘brutally mutilated’ and that all females should stay in after dark. The news ends and she strips her clothes off – tasty, and gets into a bubblebath. Now that is a great opening to any film, regardless of genre. She’s a scrub-dub-dubbin’ away, getting Miss Puss all nice and clean when she’s shocked to look up and see the psychotic eyes and dashing features of the protagonist of the film, one of your favorite actors, and mine; Mal Arnold! Yaaay! .. STAND AND APPLAUD you pisswipes!!! This man is the walking breathing definition of a cult star! ..well he’s no longer walking or breathing since he croaked but seriously you should applaud, I mean fuck. (more applause) Thank you,thank you.
He stabs Barbara in the eye and begins hacking away with a carving knife and smiles proudly at his excellent knife-work, holding up a nice bloody giblet so we can see it real good- what a considerate gesture. He has a little more fun then chops off her leg for a keepsake perhaps? ..or possibly a future piece of folk art. Suddenly the screen is filled with the image of a cheap sphinx and pyramid replica,in front of a hotel in my own home state of Florida,where this film was shot! Yaaaay! ..and the credits roll. Thank you,thank you.
Next we find ourselves down at the pigpen in the homicide bureau chief’s office. Inside he and one of his officers, Pete, played by another “2000 Maniacs” alumni, Connie’s companion Thomas Wood – the two of whom later became married in real life for many happy years; Tom you are the fucking man! – are engaging in some riveting dialogue concerning the murdered women’s’ mutilated states, concluding that a psychological killer just might be involved. Gee, ya think?
Now we find ourselves outside Fuad Ramses Exotic Catering where our hero Mal, or Fuad runs a grocery/catering operation. In walks a ditzy rich blonde wearing a baby harp seal around her neck and a huge flowery hat any fat old black woman would be proud to wear to church’. She approaches the counter and begins to introduce herself as Mrs Freemont when her voice is cut off by Fuad’s intense,cobra-like gaze that leaves the air-headed bird mesmerized for a short spell, such is his irresistible charisma! At this point I have to mention Mal’s hair and eyebrows; they’re more thickly matted than a sloth’s fur, sans the vermin and disease, and although they appear to be grey, his hair and eyebrows blend in with everything in the background that’s blue. Tre chic Mal! How about it folks? (applause) Thank you, thank you.
Mrs. Freemont explains that she wishes to throw a surprise party for her daughter, something different and unusual. “What do you consider to be unusual Mrs. Freemont?” inquires Fuad. She doesn’t know of course, stupid bitch, so he delivers the classic line “Have you ever had, an EGYPTIAN FEAST?” and we get a full-on shot of Mal’s dynamic peepers, whoa. She explains her daughter is into ancient Egyptian crap and that it sounded perfect. Fuad gets payment first, then hypnotizes her again, commanding her to give him a sloppy blowjob,then ejaculates on the back of her expensive coat, so that after she left everyone pointed at the gargantuan load dripping down her back like the fucking Blob’s albino offspring,with the dingy ditz blissfully unaware. Fuad you dog-you! Am I right folks? (applause) Thank you,thank you.
As she leaves he slinks to the back of the store, through a back door to a room where he prays to an incredibly cheesy idol of his chosen goddess Ishtar, a department store mannequin, painted with cheap make-up and sporting the most dubious expression as if she just really isn’t sure about this guy and his goings-on.
Outside Connie reads the headlines of the daily paper, “Legs Cut Off!” Heh, we’re way ahead of them aren’t we folks? The baffled cops are still pissed and clueless.
After night-time has set in we see a couple of young lovers laying on the beach sucking face. She’s nervous but Tony really wants some snatcheroosky,so they begin rutting when she looks up and screams. Tony was confused; he hadn’t even mentioned trying anal yet! Wtf! Then he gets a split second glance of Fuad looming over him, machete raised and ready before Fuad smashed him good, then repeats with her. He cuts off the top of her skull for a really neat cereal bowl and takes her brains to boot! ..um, I don’t mean to boot as in kick it around in the dirt, I mean,you know, ‘in addition to’…just clarifying there. Anyway the camera shows some excellent shots of her ‘Jane Mansfield Look’ and concludes by showing some blood and bloody skull fragments in the sand, and about a foot-and a-half away is a boa constrictor being pulled out of camera range by an unseen hand. ..oookay.
The cops arrive and revive Tony who blubbers and carries on like a foreign woman, totally unable to give them any pertinent information. The performance by the actor portraying Tony is bad on a magnificant scale, Bravo,bravo- actor who played Tony! ..what’s his name? Hell I don’t know, there’s the remote,you rewind it and look it up! Shit, lazy bastards.
Back at the station the girl’s parents are carrying on like foreign women, at least the mother is, in a truly horrendous performance. All the cops learn is that she belonged to a book club.
The screen goes red and we see Fuad’s hand placing some meat into a bloody pot and then he gives it a stir. Yummy! ..oooh Uncle Fuad when’s it gonna be ready? I’ze so hungry! Haw-haw-haw! What a knucklehead!
Next we’re outside the hotel again,I mean apartment building just in time to see a sweet convertible pull up and out climb Abe Vigoda and Doris Day – it’s them I swear! 😉 – four sheets to the wind drunk. They manage to make it upstairs to her apartment door, she ‘gets a headache’, so he heads back down to the car and ends up falling asleep spanking his monkey. Two hours later the police arrive to find him, slimy cock still in hand, snoring away. Take it from yer Uncle, that is SO embarrassing!..though my paw thought it was hilarious. Hmph!
Well while Abe is slappin’ the sloth who appears peeping around the corner? Yeppers, that devil-may-care kinda guy, our Fuad, up to his shenanegans. He knocks and Doris opens the door, thinking it’s Abe with more booze and one of the most shocking scenes in film history,up to that point anyway, takes place. Fuad reaches into Doris’ mouth and rips out her tongue and once again generously holds it up for our inspection. It’s every bit as awesome as it sounds. It’s said that when Cecil B. DeMille viewed that scene he puked his guts out; talk about a compliment! Damn! Actually it was a sheep’s tongue,but that’s irrelevant, and when Fuad held it up for those 60’s audiences to see they fucking freaked out! I know,you’re envious too, it must have been pure bliss.
The next scene is priceless. Connie and her mom are at home talking in the living room, discussing the upcoming surprise party and it’s easy to see that Connie is reading all of her lines off of cue cards placed around the room. ” I just shudder when I think about that butcher… that maniac,butchering all of those girls!” That’s a keeper there boys! What a woman,whew, down boy.
That evening Connie and the cop, we’ll call him Maxwell Notsosmart, attend a lecture on ancient Egypt,the orator’s subject being ancient cults, namely the cult of Ishtar; priestesses, virgins, sacrifices, orgies, dirty rabble – some bloody fun times back then but talk about hazing, geez! As he speaks we get a flashback from those ancient times, of an ancient high priest, who turns out to be our own Mal Arnold again,showing his versatility by playing multiple roles! Thank you,thank you. A female sacrifice lays prostrate on the altar, Mal the high priest offers the sacrifice to Ishtar and places the handle of a plastic knife on her chest! He then quickly pulls it away and attaches a plastic blade with red paint on it and cuts out the girls bloody heart! Barbaric! Oh, and the boa constrictor is back hanging around the scene …but that’s why they call them the good old days folks. Now you point a fucking bb gun at someone’s ass and the feds put the whole fucking nation on magenta alert and declare martial law!
After the lecture Connie and Maxwell go a-parking. Yay-yuh! He leans back and relaxes while she goes to town on that pole, slobber flying everywhere,showing how she got that Playboy gig! 😉 Heff you suck so badly..you fucking boss!!! Suddenly a radio bulletin interupts the suckfest and announces that another mutilated chick was found somewhere,or something. Pressed for time Maxwell says ‘fuck it’, grabs two handfulls of that golden hair,wraps it around his throbbing manhood and jerks off on top of her head. They teach’em that in cop school. It’s ok, Connie was totally up for it.
Back at the station Chief tells Maxwell that the girl is still alive though her face looks like she made out with a weed eater. They race to the hospital and after the doctor tells them not to get her excited,they punch her in the stomach and slap her a few times to wake her up and answer a few questions. She tells them it was a wild eyed, wild looking old man who said ‘it was for Eetar, Eetar!’, so they put out an APB for Christopher Lloyd. Then she croaks and it’s really,really funny. I mean it’s a film so of course it’s funny when someone dies,but when she exhales her last breath and falls down,so much dogfood, there’s a little ‘Womp!’ from a trombone,signalling that she’s gone. It’s downright hysterical!
You know,one thinks sometimes what we’d do differently had we created the universe ourselves, like give sea turtles the ability to breathe fire, or shrink all of the assholes to 4″ in height,to be preyed upon by insects and frogs, give eternal life to the members of Motorhead,that type of thing. It really is an ingenius idea,having it so whenever someone dies, have a little fart-like trombone sound effect signify that life has passed from the mortal shell. ‘Womp.’ “Well,he’s gone..heh-heh-heh.” That would be so fucking funny!
At the grocery store Fuad opens a letter; an order from Connie for his book, “Ancient Weird Religious Rights”, otherwise known at the AA Handbook, a copy of which each victim has owned. Hmm. He calls and realizes Connie is Mrs. Freemont’s daughter,for whom he’s preparing the banquet! It seems he thinks the feast and sacrifice will bring Ishtar back to life. You never know, Uncle Grumpyfuk says it’s worth a try! Things are just going too well for him and his sly demeanor as he hangs up the phone is truly Oscar worthy. Notice the hair blending in with the blue items behind it? So cool, isn’t it folks? Mal Arnold ladies and gentlemen. (applause) Thank you, thank you.
Connie and her friends are over at her house enjoying her swimming pool and Connie, now get this, is reading a book! I shit you not. She looks down and reads a page then laughs and it’s like her skull is made of rice paper and we can see her very thoughts. “Words are funny! ..and when you put them together they mean things!” Yep, a real keeper- lucky-ass Maxwell! As she’s looking at the pictures we see the shadow of a menacing hand float over her body,but when she looks she sees nothing. When we look we see Fuad, right over there, climbing slowly and clumsily over the wall then limping away slowly. He’s like,right there. A keeper folks.
One of her friends decides to go shopping at Xmart to see if there are any larger dildos than her own available (there aren’t). Connie makes sure to warn her to about not getting her head bashed in by the killer-at-large,but she gets it mixed up and as she’s walking down the sidewalk, Fuad sneaks up behind her in broad daylight, and bashes her head in with a rock. Her reaction when hit is as hilarious as watching Mal try to pick her lard-ass up and carry her off to the crock-pot! That’s how you injure your back by the way folks, that is what henchmen are for,for goodness sake, to do the heavy lifting! Fuad is a ‘One Wolf’ kinda guy though so, no-go. His really fakey limp doesn’t help.
The cops can’t find Lloyd. Connie invites Maxwell to her mom’s feast of Ishtar, he secretly hopes for the six days of rapine and gluttony but knows better. Dern it.
Fuad is adding more meat to the pot, wink, and gives Connie’s friend a good whipping with the ol’ cat’o nine tails until acheiving a disappointing orgasm. (applause) Thank you, thank you.
Maxwell sits at his desk at the office, repeating “Eetar, Ishtar, Eetar, Ishtar…”, he thinks it would make a pretty cool song! After a few he and Chief get hungry so they head over to Fuad’s for some grub, arriving just after Fuad left with the ‘feast’. They go in and find Connie’s friend and it looks like the makeup guy sat there and dripped fake blood over every inch of her body,very cool. Realizing they’re too late,they smell the delicious aroma from Fuad’s cooking and head over to the Freemont residence,stomachs a-growling!
Fuad has arrived already and with great flourish announces that the banquet is about to begin, and requests that Connie assist him in the kitchen. If all goes well Fuad thinks, he can perform the sacrifice and still get home in time for ‘F-Troop’ reruns! Connie can’t remember to do anything right so by the time Fuad finally gets her in position in comes mom just in time to prevent him from bringing to life the great goddess Ishtar! Damn it I wanted to see if that was going to work! Stupid bitch. The cops arrive, tell everyone that Fuad is the killer, that Connie’s friend was the main course and Mrs Freemont wisely sums it up; “Well I guess we’ll have to have hamburger for dinner!” – extra cheese on mine please!
Fuad takes off with the cops hot on his tail, through the neighborhood, across the nearby landfill, I bet it smelled nice filming on that location! Fuad manages to reach a trash truck that’s just leaving and jumps in the back,only to be crushed to death by the merciless jaws of the trash compactor. It’s a tragic and sombre moment. Maxwell then explains to Chief in lengthy, unnecessary detail how he brilliantly realized that Eetar and Ishtar sounded similar! The Chief doesn’t look too bright though so perhaps it was necessary to draw it all out for him. The End. (thunderous applause erupts and continues for several minutes) Thank you, thank you.
Well that wraps it up folks, a true classic that is now 50 years old, hard to believe, and it still holds it’s own – the sign of a true masterpiece. Uncle Grumpyfuk hopes you vermin have enjoyed this one,I endeavored to do Herschell Gordon Lewis’ masterpiece justice, I pray to Crom I have succeeded, so this is yer ol’ pal Uncle Grumpyfuk signin’ off until next time!
I’ve never seen a movie like it. That’s probably the most accurate critique I can give Larry Cohen’s jaw-droppingly bizarre and nonsensical 1989 supernatural comedy opus, ‘Wicked Stepmother’. A forgotten oddity of the VHS era, probably best known for containing Hollywood empress Bette Davis in her final screen performance, ‘Wicked Stepmother’ has got to be some kind of hallucinatory cinematic comedy milestone. Who knows if Cohen & co intended this movie to be such a rapid-fire array of awkward moments, dumbfounding performances and cheesy effects. All I know is that it all comes together as an if not totally enjoyable film, certainly an outlandishly botched witch’s brew movie delight. One thing that may be said with total confidence for ‘Wicked Stepmother’, you will never, EVER see another like it.
This fiasco begins with a police investigation led by TV’s Tom Bosley who you may remember from ‘Happy Days’ (RIP) or if your grandparents were fans of the ‘Father Dowling Mysteries’. His mission? To locate an evil witch with a penchant for marrying her way into families and using her powers to make them unimaginably wealthy before robbing them blind, shrinking them to the size of plastic army men, and stashing them in shoe boxes under the bed. It sure seems like a waste of time for a witch of such immense power. There’s just gotta be a more effective way to maintain a steady cash flow.
The witch in question is Miranda Pierpoint, played by the legendary Bette Davis (RIP) putting forth a stiff monotone and (we can only assume) unintentionally disturbing performance. Miranda has just gotten hitched to an elderly widower, Sam (played by the late, great character actor Lionel Stander with that unmistakably gravely voice). In one of my favorite sight gags of the movie, we see images of Sam’s first wife on his night stand. Low and behold, it is Joan Crawford, Bette Davis’ long time rival.
The new marriage comes as a shock to his adult daughter, hyper-allergenic and moderate psychopath, Jenny (Colleen Camp, who should win some kind of lifetime achievement award for this one, single cringe-inducingly campy performance). Her husband Steve (David ‘I’ve gotta’ Rasche, desperately try to keep up with Colleen’s camp) though surprised by the sudden change in homestead seems to be taking things well, and attempts to mediate between his wife’s control freakery and his new chimney stack of a mother-in-law. Their son Mike (Shawn Donahue, who would play his final role the next year in 1990’s immortal classic, ‘The Willies’) is appropriately willful and mainly just refuses to refer to the new addition ‘grandma’.
To Jenny’s fury, Miranda smokes more than the entire cast of Mad Men, combined, in the families’ WASPy digs. She also cooks, eats, and tempts the family with nothing but grilled meats despite Jenny’s insistence in that everyone bow to the nutritional excellence of her broccoli souffle. Although Steve is clearly inclined to give into Miranda’s politically-incorrect ways, Jenny throws her hubby one of her well-practiced psycho glares and puts the guy back in his place. He hunches over the dining room table to choke down his helping of lettuce and oatmeal while thinking about his genitals and how nice a home Jenny’s made for them in her handbag. Miranda also has a cat which unlocks an avalanche of comedic potential as Jenny is…get this…ALLERGIC to cats! So she spends much of the movie sneezing at inopportune moments and standing around sniffling and delivering her lines with her stuffed up, mongoloid voice. Really. It is a laugh riot. Yeah.
However, my favorite scene in this mayhem shows up early as young Michael is at a beach, unchaperoned, watching some coeds in bikinis bounce & bop around via a game of volleyball. Earlier, Michael has told Melinda he’d never call her “Grandma”, that she can, basically, burn in hell, then proved himself the deeply cool thug he is by popping the collar on his jean jacket and walking away. Apparently he was strutting his way to the beach where his requests to join in the volleyball game were denied. However, as luck would have it, the lovely young witch Priscilla (played byTia Carrera’s sister, Barbara! SHWING!) shows up, complete with beflowered sun hat and black veil and winks at Michael, which apparently bestowed upon him with the power to do front flips over the volleyball net. For what purpose? Who knows. It impresses no one in the game and even seems to piss off the more hyper-hormonal boys of the pack. And yet, poor little 12 year old Michael has caught the eye & libido of a twenty something beach bunny. Unfortunately, as often happens at movie beaches, two buff, blonde dickweeds start kicking sand in Michael’s face while he’s chatting up his new dish. Again, the young lad is in luck as Priscilla gives him yet another power of Filipino Flip fighting through which Michael hops around cracking bimbo dude skulls. All of this results in a scene of total prepubescent wish fulfillment, the busty beach bunny takes off her modest shirt to reveal her ample cleavage and offers herself up to the young man with the unmistakable innuendo, “Come here, I’m gonna show you something…” A goofy grin spreads across Michael’s mug as she leads him off to rock the freckles off his face.
The kind of Wicked Stepmother all young boys dream of.
It was around this moment I began to wonder just who was the projected market for this film? It’s a wicked stepmother, fairy tale kiddie charm, sure, but the focus is primarily on adult relationships. In fact, Michael is led off to be statutorily raped, and that’s pretty the last we see of the kid with the exception of him showing up for group shots lasting mere seconds in the final scene. This thing’s obviously not quite for youngins… but the humor is on a pretty even keel for adolescents despite it meandering between adult issues (i.e. marriage difficulties & geriatric homicide) and it’s unchecked childish hokeyness. 99.9 % of the films run time is spent dealing with figuring out how to murder an elderly woman and a married man fantasizing about/having adulterous sex with Tia Carrere’s sister while a writhing cat tail wags around out of her pooper, growing vines in the yard against an painfully-obvious blue screen under the guise of “decorating for the holidays”, answering trivia questions on game shows, and figuring out a way to write Bette Davis out of the movie since she walked off set about two days into production. The leave was publicly attributed to her disgust with the script, though it was later stated that the true cause was her deteriorating health.
How do they write her out, you ask? Remember Priscilla? Well, she and Miranda apparently share the body of a black cat. But, see, both spirits can’t cohabit in one body at the same time. “There’s no room for two people in one cat!” a witch academy instructor exclaims revealing this terrible piece of plotting. So, after Miranda’s 11 minutes or so of screen time are up, she vanishes to be replaced by Priscilla. Don’t fret, gang, the cat Miranda inhabits also smokes as much as she did, so it’s like she never left! In fact, one of the most bizarre moments of the entire film are cutaways to a black cat hand puppet paws holding cigarettes up to it’s little feline mouth and puffing away, it’s unnaturally large, bugged out yellow eyes and dilated pupils nervously darting around in their sockets.
Eventually the detective character shows back up at a clandestine witch class where Jenny also happens to be attending so she can look for answers as to how to get rid of Miranda/Priscilla for good. Priscilla learns a couple words in Latin and is ready to take on Priscilla in head to head in the ultimate blue screen combat! It’s a breathtaking sequence that pulls no punches in the bargain basement action and effects arena. Will Jenny be able to banish the money hungry witches from her home? Or will her family end up pint-sized, broke, and shoe-boxed? To be honest, I was too busy laughing my ass off to care.
The bottom line is that ‘Wicked Stepmother’ is one of those films that must be seen to be truly understood. It’s terrible. I mean, this thing is bad. This sucker is Samurai Cop, Troll 2 level bad. But it is still ridiculously entertaining. The intended jokes all fall flat on their faces, but it is totally made up for with unintentional hilarity. It’s like some kind of surrealist fever dream that just keeps getting more absurd and illogical as it progresses. None of it makes a lick of sense and there are an abundance of moments that will leave you wondering if you just actually witnessed what you did. Better Davis’ performance alone make up for the absurdity of the opening portion of the film. She is never without a cigarette in her hand and recites her dialog in the emotionless drawl of a late 60’s TV robot. Once Bette departs the film, the hammy acting, and cheese ball effects really become the stars of the show and lift this sucker up onto another plateau of Trash Cinema altogether.
I may have said too much already. I don’t want to spoil this sucker for you. But when I look back lovingly upon ‘Wicked Stepmother’, no words can really do this acid trip of a film justice. I’m not sure if exactly if it’s my strong palette for trash that allowed me to enjoy this thing or if it can be experienced by others and be loved just as thoroughly. I was not expecting myself to end up with the affection I now have for this piece of wack-o film making. Please, if you haven’t seen it, do so. And if you have, please, share your thoughts with us here at The Trash Cinema Collective. Again, in the annals of cinema, there is nothing like ‘Wicked Stepmother’.
Valentine’s Day is a strange holiday. Unlike Christmas or Thanksgiving, no one gets Valentine’s Day off. It’s not like Halloween which is renown for it’s fun frights and sugar fueled excess, St. Patrick’s day with it’s green beer and date rapes, but what of Valentine’s Day? There’s no way to avoid it. You take your special lady friend over to the pharmacy to pick up her birth control and you are greeted with aisles upon aisles of heart shaped, overpriced pieces of cardboard stuffed with enough tooth decaying sweets to put the entire population of the east coast into a diabetic coma as well as grotesque stuffed animals that play Marvin Gaye’s “sexual healing” when you squeeze the shit out of them. Like anyone wants that kind of sentiment coming from a furry friend such as a bear or a cat. The whole notion is sick! JUST SICK!
But, I digress, ANYHOO, with our collective taste in cinema, Valentine’s Day is a tricky day of the year, especially for us Trash Cinema Connoisseurs. Which is why I am compiling this list of movies that we might watch on Valentin’s Day, but might ruin any shot you possibly had at getting some Valentine’s Day love friction.
However, if you do watch these with that special someone and they still glance at you longingly as opposed to sheer terror before bolting out a closed window (ala: any 80’s/90’s action flick) followed by a restraining order arriving in the mail 30 days later…you’ve found a keeper. 😉
On with the awkward, grueling and stomach churning!
5) Street Trash (1987) dir. J. Michael Muro
Because if there’s a batch of thing you want to think about when you’re groping your lover after dinner at 4 star restaurant, it’s the aroma of a career New York City hobo. Street Trash tells the tail of the internal strife and trouble of the immense Hobo population of NYC who live in a sprawling metropolis of filth and shit puddles down at the local dump. A new threat has been introduced into their world in the form of a long lost batch of booze known as Tenafly Viper which turns anyone who drinks it into a thick, brightly colored puddle of glop. The very first unlucky victim end up slowly, horrifically and semi-comically melting into a toilet and inadvertently flushing himself down it.
Street Trash is a sick and twisted little film that comes off feeling like one of Peter Jackson’s long lost early works. the film features necrophilia, an fairly nightmarish group rape, police officer’s beating people within an inch of their lives and then puking on them, and a moment where a lovely young woman nearly gives a bum a blowjob…a filthy, stinky bum who hasn’t bathed in months and has been sporting the same pair of crusty B.V.D.’s out in the summer heat. Who in the world would put themselves through that?
As hobos melt, women get repeatedly raped and fat guys explode, Street Trash is sure to douse the flames of burgeoning passion pretty fucking fast, my friends.
4) The Brood (1979) dir. David Cronenberg
Ah, David Cronenberg. The master of body horror and making us not only feel intense anxiety regarding our physical being but basic human interaction in general. Which could be the reason he appears TWICE in my Top 5 Valentine’s Day Mood Killers List. The man have a panache for pulling the rug out from under the typical sappy cinematic notions of love, romance, sex (that’s for damn sure) and the notion of a classical happy ending. Hence, his 1979 classic embittered divorcee film, “The Brood”.
Speaking from a experience, unless you are with a partner that is incredibly confident, bringing up an old relationship or flame is a sure fire way to throw a bucket of cold water on any kind of romantic moment. I know many guys and girls are guilty of that whole past relationship jealousy trap. It’s ridiculous when you boil down, hell, you’re with this person now but for some reason you can;t get over the fact that *gasp* your lover had a life before you! You should be thanking your lucky stars their ex (girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, gimp, dominatrix, stalker, etc.) isn’t manifesting their intense bitterness and hatred into child sized, hoodie sporting, murderous minions born through saggy, goop filled abdominal pulp sacks…Really. You’ve got it good.
The Brood is one of those films that’s going to do little else than make you and your closest companion feel uncomfortable. You’ll end up watching and imagining a few psycho ex-partners and how if they could make little midget killer sacks pawns grow out of their gut fat and come after you with malicious, creeping rage and a meat clever in hand, they would not hesitate to do so. And who in the world wants that shit running through their head when you’re laying on the cough with your lover in your arms? And nothing brings on a make out session like a woman gnawing open some grotesque, dripping belly goiter and then licking the living contents clean with her tongue. No amount of smooth talking is going to get the mood back after that kind of viewing experience.
3) I Spit On Your Grave (1978) dir. Meir Zarchi
Oh boy…yeah, I guess this one really goes without saying, but if you REALLY want to obliterate a sweet, lovey-dovey evening beyond the point of no return? Meir Zarchi’s quintessential rape/revenge epic is your weapon of choice. When you absolutely, positively have to turn off every mother fucker in the room? Accept no substitute.
But, in all honesty, rape is probably the last subject you want to bring up with perspective girl/boyfriend let alone an established relationship. I Spit On Your Grave features one of the longest gang rape sequences ever committed to film. Just when you think our victim/avenger, Jennifer (the stunning and talented Camille Keaton) has escaped she runs afoul of another rape happy redneck ready to violate her.
I Spit on Your Grave is the purest antithesis of the Valentine’s Day mood setter. Between the jaw droppingly vicious rape sequences to the well deserved revenge of Jennifer’s, which reaches it’s pinnacle during a bubble bath castration sequence that just made my genitals recede into my abdomen at just the recollection of it, I Spit on Your grave is pound for pound the heavy weight champ of the awkward evening with your sweetheart. Which might be why I Spit on Your Grave has become a tradition on Valentine’s Day in the Root household. I’m kind of a weirdo, gang, it’s time you learned this.
SO! Unless you want to watch this thing out of some odd, twisted, trash cinema sense of logic like I do, I would keep I Spit on Your Grave OFF your Valentine’s Day viewing itinerary.
2) Cutting Moments (1997) dir. Douglas Buck
Ahhh, the American Dream perpetuated by the constant rotation of the Hollywood conveyor belt. The beautiful wife, the kids, the quaint house in the suburbs with the white picket fence. These are the measures of success as prescribed to us by society at large. It’s a common, cliched romantic notion that so many of us buy into hook line and sinker. But, as we have gathered through our own experiences of watching relationships and people around us fall apart due to the constant struggle to attain these perceived obligations, the dream more often than not, fails.
But on Valentine’s Day no one wants to believe in unhappy endings! that things won;t all work out for the best! One things for certain, if you do decide to get hitched, produce some hell spawn, get a mortgage and dwell int he suburbs there’s a good chance things will never reach the level of bloody desperation chronicled in Douglas Bucks’ short film, “Cutting Moments”.
I’ve seen a lot of sick, dark, depressing, stuff, gang. But never have I seen a more harrowing portrayal of an American nuclear family marred by repression, guilt, shame, secrets and lies. My god (Cthulhu) watching this not even 10 minute long short film is just about all you’ll ever need top swear off marriage forever! The majority of the film is spent in silence with nothing more than the empty sounds of cutting. Whether it’s trimming the hedges, or cutting up carrots. Hardly anyone speaks.These people are so dead inside already it’s like they live in a tomb. There’s no passion, no love, no spark and there’s even the insinuation of child molestation. My god, did that rhyme? It’s like they live in a vacuum. It’s only when wife and mother, Sarah, takes drastic measures to put the intimacy back into the relationship with her husband that the blood finally flows back into their lives reminding them once again of the flesh and blood that makes them human.
Too many folks lie to themselves and tell themselves they are with the right person in order to fulfill these empty societal ideals. They get hitched, pop a baby or two out and then either hold all their resentment and bitterness inside or get divorced and use their kids as emotional leverage against their former spouse. It’s all just as sick and saddening as what’s present in Cutting Moments. Watching this puppy on Valentine’s Day is sure to fill your head with enough “What if’s” to have you heading to bed along that night.
1) The Fly (1986) dir. David Cronenberg
Alright, now this is a love story! It really is! When watching Cronenberg’s masterful remake of The Fly it’s easy to forget about the love story at hand taking place between journalist, Veronica and Seth Brundle, the brilliant young scientist working on a breakthrough in matter transference. Veronica falls hard for the quirky, charming, and intelligent Brundle and they begin a whirlwind romance. Two smart, attractive, young people in love…what could go wrong?
Holy fuck…
The Fly is like a check list of all the things that could possibly go wrong in a loving relationship. Clingy, stalker ex boyfriend? CHECK! Being careless and doing incredibly stupid things in order to prove your love to your partner in a fit of misguided jealousy? CHECK! Inide-Out bloody monkey moosh? CHECK! These two start out as such a believably cute and perfect couple that it makes all the events that much more tragic as Seth begins his transformation from his sweet, adorable, self into a sickly, revolting monster replete with loose body parts and a need to vomit on everything. It’s a terrifying and devastating transformation as we watch, along with Veronica, her love disintegrate and go mad before her very eyes.
The Fly is one of the most epic of all cinematic tragic love stories. Many critics and commentators have weighed in on the film’s apparent HIV/AIDS subtext, and that’s a smart deciphering of the film, for sure. But The Fly is also a testament to how truly heart wrenching and deeply devastating love can be. Veronica is unable to leave Seth’s side and tries to help him, to take care of him, however she can only to end up, with all hope lost, and having to come to terms with losing the one she loved and putting the beast he has become out of it’s misery. Only someone who really feels love and compassion for another is willing to do such a thing.
Upon first viewing it’s easy for the love story to get lost under a puddle of neon green battery acid fly man digestive puke. But once you get over that initial shock and awe you begin to fully realize and appreciate the romantic tragedy that is, The Fly. By the end of the film you and your sweetheart may have a deeper understanding of the obligations true love requires. Well, this is kind of a drastic example, but you catch my drift. It’s not much of a romantic notion, but in some situations, there are no happy endings. Even if you’re in love.
Well, those are my top 5 Valentine’s Day Mood Killers! Keep in mind, these are just my picks. There are about a million flicks out there to choose from and I would love to hear which Trash Cinema Epics you recommend as the true cinematic equivalents of a romance epicac. Please, drop us a line in our comments! I would love to hear some of your favorites. 😀
Until next time, remember to wrap it up every time, don’t name it after me and love the one you’re with!HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!
Hey there folks, Uncle Grumpyfuk cumin’ right atcha 10-4 good buddies! I just got back from the local Cub Scout Jamboree, teaching those juicy young lads the safe and correct basics of leathercrafting and knot tying – valuable life-skills we adults should feel obligated to teach the young,velvet-skinned leaders of tomorrow, and as David Carradine taught us, we don’t want any embarrassing little accidents happening,no sir Grasshopper! The boys were great, their minds (and bottoms,heh!) are just like sponges at that age, just ready to soak up anything you throw at or on them! Mercy!
Well folks today we’re going to review an arousing little piece of horrific splendor entitled “The Horrors of Spider Island” or “How the Swiss Family Robinson Should Have Gone!”.
We begin with a righteous set of wheels pulling up to a building and a well-dressed couple gets out,the tension makes “Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer” feel like “Mary Poppins”,shit! The bright sunny afternoon and open air add to the ominous pall that creeps into our souls and private parts. We quickly gather that ‘Gary’, a twinkle-toed Italian guy with impressive man-boobs, and Georgia, a woman with less than impressive woman-boobs are two agents contracted by Zepo Marx to secretly hire a troupe of transvestites for a dancing tour of Singapore to contract the deadly Unmellow-yellow Mono-gono-rhea and return home to infect the unsuspecting American public. I know,I know, I wish I’d thought of it too but we gotta give credit where credit’s due, sigh…
We’re introduced,one by one to the ‘girls’ and Uncle Grumpyfuk has to admit,they look and dance even better than Rupal on muscle relaxers so ships ahoy! we can easily envision some some happy ass Singapore sailors in the near future- eight eager trannies looking good enough to where a couple of bottles of Boonesfarm and some horse tranquilizers could make for an evening of serious potential blackmail material! ..heh!…ahem…aaanyway..
The group boards a small twin-prop airplane and after taking off and traveling a good ways over the Pacific it transforms into a much larger 4-prop bomber, pretty cool I must say. They suddenly begin to take flack from a small island below,the Japs who had diligently waited for the cursed Yanks since the war began in ’43. They were right on target and the bomber takes a nosedive into the drink,exploding like Justin Beiber’s cherry at a John Waters sleep-over, and all lives are lost. …except for our entire group of she-males, their manager and his assistant, who all managed to bail with a life-raft, landing in it one by one so that they all escaped possible death and a certain wetting.
Hair implants still in place they drift for days and days thousands of miles out to sea, even though there’s a rock sticking out of the water to the right. After some unruliness on the part of a dark shaggy brute that goes by the moniker ‘Linda’, Gary is forced to establish his dominant pimp-status and, as punishment, throws all of ‘Linda’s’ amil nitrates into the water,enjoying ‘her’ wails of despair. He then has to put his foot down again and set Jersey Joe, or ‘Babs’ straight after catching ‘her’ rubbing the mouth of the water bottle on ‘her’ crusty anus for laughs. Finally submission is achieved, gotta keep those man-bitches in line yes-siree!
After many days,drifting tens of thousands of miles out to sea one of the guys spots our movies’ namesake, Spider Island…well, actually there are two islands,they don’t tell us which one is Spider Island and they don’t tell us the name of the other island, and it will haunt me ’til my dying day,what was the name of the other island?! Sand Flea Island perhaps? An island inhabited by a mad scientist and his genetically mutated, radioactive sand fleas, as big as spaniels, who he loves as his own children! … I’ll never know.
When they reach the island the ‘girls’ begin to whine and carry on like typical queens and Gary is even forced to carry one of them ashore after discovering ‘she’d ‘ taken half a bottle of Nyquil. They collapse on the beach and after a spell Gary whips them into order and marches them off to explore the island. They moan and whimper until Gary spots a condominium in the distance,orfices quiver however upon entering they find an old bondage slave trussed up like Marilyn Manson at his 10th birthday party, however this old chili-dog knave was deader than a living carbon-based life form no longer imbued with life.
The trannies bolt as one, prancing about ,hamming it up to the umpteenth degree just like real women do,while Gary and Georgia, upon closer inspection deduce that the eunuch’s master had taken things a little too far (wink!) and his heart and left testicle had simultaneously exploded. Unfortunately the cabin reeked from the old slave’s bowels releasing and Gary forces the gagging yammering fudge packers to clean things up. They submit readily enough, quietly hoping for the murderous master’s return in anticipation of a fight with Gary for control of their leathery anal cavities, but no sign of any other people soon dampen their hopes.
After about 2 minutes a fight breaks out over someone’s mention of cellulite and those two blokes go at it like cats, woo-hoo!! I mean they even fight like women(!),slappin’ and rasslin’ about, pulling hair, damn if the ol’ pickle didn’t stiffen a tad! Gary breaks it up, showing once again who’s the boss and tells them they BOTH need to lose some weight! Ha! You ‘da man Gary!
Suffering from serious stress due to pharmaceutical withdrawal and lack of anal deposits has the group’s nerves on edge,and combined with the tropical heat they begin to disrobe. Now I gotta tell you, you’ve got to be impressed with the skills of plastic surgeons and reluctantly admire the dedication of these guys to starve themselves and keep so thin and feminine-like, the ol’ zipper is straining once again I gotta tell ya’! To add to the nuance, while this is going on some of the best soundtrack music of all time begins to play, that saxophone sounds like it’s spooging all over the front row of the audience by golly! I can’t wait ’til this comes out on cd!
Meanwhile Gary, exhausted from his busy pimp duties finds the condo owners Glock 9mm automatic,which he refers to as a revolver, ( hey, pimps don’t have to be smart just forceful right?) and takes off into the woods for a little walkabout. As he walks about he’s plagued with huge sand fleas ( yeah, uh-huh, right!)…and while he’s swatting at one on his temple, with his gun hand, he manages to decorate the surrounding foliage with small bits of skull fragments and brain matter, leaving our rugged manager a tad dazed and confused. He proceeds to wander off in search of zinc and Bob from Sesame Street, leaving the insecure girly-men alone to fend for themselves.
The next morning the guys put on their makeup, split up and search around fruitlessly (ha, get it?) for Gary who has meanwhile found his way back to the condo and unfortunately stumbles upon ‘Linda’ whom he gleefully forces to bob for river rocks, indefinitely! He then then spots Tiny Tim floating on the horizon, motioning him to come to him and wanders into the ocean never to be seen again until his next film.
The girls give up looking for Gary after a good 20 minutes of searching and after 3 more hours finally find the condo where they find the buoyant ‘Linda’ still bobbing for river rocks. They run in circles and shriek until they get tired and as they sit and continue to wail and carry on Georgia digs a deep grave in the rocky baked earth. Arnold or ‘Anne’ see his chance and stands at the edge of a cliff, totally faking it, until the others finally notice and ‘save’ him, fawning over him and carrying him back, fucking attention whore.
Unrest follows the leaderless group and soon Jersey Joe and Murray are at it like pro rasslin divas, and they may be guys but wow it’s more stimulating than a weeks’ worth of episodes of Romper Room! Then they see Gary’s hands come through the window as he tries to snatch a tampax but he disappears as quickly as he appears.
After a few sticky weeks a pair of Mary Kay reps motor up to the island and as soon as they unload their gear the older Moe heads down the path to the local hacienda to engage the occupants to the wonders of the Suckiu Vacuum Cleaner. As soon as his partner is out of sight the younger Bobby heads through the brush to the back of the compound and waits until Moe has the owners distracted. He then plans to sneak up behind the unsuspecting patriarch and finish him off with razor wire before he even suspects his adopted children will soon be orphans once more,for a short time anyway for then the pair plan to help themselves to the contents and occupants of the house for dining and sport (wink!). My kinda guys, eh folks?!? Yeah,ha-ha!
However just as Bobby begins to leave the boat he hears the unmistakable sound of men giggling and after climbing a slender tree trunk several times to get that ‘good feeling’ he climbs a larger tree overlooking the sunny lagoon and what do his horny eyes behold but several of our troupe of trannies splashing around in the shallows, washing the filth from their bodies and scouring the crusty scabs from their rank and pock-marked anuses with the fresh stinging salt water! Sha-wing!
Driven to near hornyological hysteria he sneaks down to the edge of the rocks where Gregory, or ‘Gladys’ has drifted away from the others. Bobby tazes him violently and while still spazzing like my neighbors cat in the bug zapper! …would probably look, you know, if it hit the bug zapper, heh…ahem, yes..anyway the other guys who only hear the commotion bolt like party-goers at Corey Haim’s most recent shindig leaving Bobby and a still twitching ‘Gladys’ alone to become acquainted with each others’ back sweat,(winky-wink!).
The guys all join up in the woods and the wetter ones begin to tell of ‘Gladys’ fate when they hear Moe coming down the trail singing that song, you know, that song …by that hot chick with the brown hair..YOU KNOW…that song!!! Shit! Anyway after capturing Moe and forcing him to lick Georgia’s still unwashed twazzer to prove he’s a friend they lead him towards the condo for humiliation games and s’mores! Bobby and a shaky ‘Gladys’ soon join the group and the party,she is on!
The guys dress up in their Singapore Island Whore hula-hoochee girl outfits and damn, the horse tranquilizers wouldn’t even be necessary! It’s a South Sea Sausage Fest, crabs for free, with raunchy saxophone lounge music and drunk swinin’ trannies, yee-haw!! Well Moe and Bobby spend the evening taking turns abusing the giggling choad worshipers purty mouths until Bobby is lured into the bush with a promise of candle waxing and crystal meth.
Unfortunately on his way to the lagoon Bobby falls to his knee- years of cheap cigarettes, rotgut island rum, stimulants, depresents and an addiction to monkey adrenal gland pancakes, courtesy of IHOP, have taken their toll and he lays projectile vomitting all of the precious alcohol and monkey glands he’d just consumed, and continues to do so until reduced to a withered corpse that bears a striking resemblance to a male Joan Rivers. Things are also not going so well back at the condo either.
After dining on lobster marinara the guys are sitting around comparing califlowers when Butcher McCree, or ‘Teena’ leaps to his feet and starts raving about fiddler crabs with Sharon Ozzborne faces and suddenly dashes out of the cabin,into the woods. The shocked group look at one another when they one by one begin to also feel a bit queasy and anti-gravitational.
Apparently the canned mushrooms that ‘Babs’ used in their meal were 2 weeks out of date and the hallucinatory effects were beginning to make themselves known…good deal!! Sadly ‘Teena’ wasn’t aware and the guys decide to try to find him before he hurts himself,it’s his turn to wash the dishes anyway! They light torches and join in pursuit of their addled member but are quickly distracted by the killer trailers produced by the torches they were all carrying. As they run in circles whirling the torches around and laughing, poor ‘Teena’ runs head on into some quicksand and hastens his demise attempting to dive for pearls. The guys laugh it up and head back to the condo,finishing the night out by tying up and buttfucking poor Moe. Then we see a ship sailing off.
The end.
Truly a great film, I was momentarily confused by the end credits,what with the womens’ names,then I thought about it, duh, stage names! Sorry folks,brain fart. Well I guess ol’ Grumpyfuk is going to jump online and check out hottrannies.com and see what there is to see! I’m used to them a bit younger,I do love my veal but we must always be open-minded and always try to experience and bugger new things in life! Ariba!
Take care folks, Uncle Grumpyfuck will be back atcha soon with another sharp and insightful critique of another golden piece of spider poop! I’m outta here!
In retrospect I guess the reason they called it Spider (singular )Island must have been because there was only one spider.
Action films have the potential to overwhelm you and move way too fast, and before you know it you find yourself walking to the police station, silently in the dark, with mascara streaming down your face and a head full of bad memories. This is not the case with The Good, The Bad, and The Weird, which is a casual affair that escalates at a natural pace and graduates toward its title characters expertly pounding away at your pleasure centers with a respectful attitude that leaves you feeling good about who you are when wake up in the morning. There is no walk of shame, but when this movie is over the practical result is the same: you have just been gangbanged. The difference this time around is that you were a willing participant. You were an insatiable beast, hungry for intimate appendages made of pure adrenaline.
The Good, The Bad, and The Weird is a Korean western that contains motorcycles and a smattering of 1980’s technology. That is to say it’s quite eclectic, but adeptly so. It takes place in a time not represented by any single moment in history and concerns three central characters who are all in search of a fabled treasure. Their paths cross continually as numerous Korean cowboys dressed like WWII era pilots are laid to waste. The Good, The Bad, and The Weird is a title that describes both its main characters and the styles of action it displays on screen. The Good is the competent hero who takes down evildoers with a high degree of skill, The Bad is an unrepentant villain with an unbridled penchant for violent behavior, and The Weird provides a source of comic relief that catches his opponents off guard when combined with his competence in combat. The tried and true characters combine with a simple plot and an undeniably diverse setting to form the perfect balance of everything you ever loved about action movies. It takes all of the commonplace elements of the action genre and masterfully applies structure and pace in a way that allows its slapstick to co-mingle with explosive action without stepping on the toes of it’s violence.
Tone in action flicks is often applied poorly, ranging from flicks composed entirely of people walking away from explosions in slow motion to films consisting of little more than blood splattering across the frowns of the innocent. The Good, The Bad, and The Weird, however, is a monument to hitting the mark. It employs the best of everything in action films in a wholly satisfying manner. A possible downside is that it does play it a bit closer to the vest than you might be used to. One consequence of its thoughtful pacing is a sacrifice in the more over the top moments you might find in other action flicks, but in doing so it gains a minimal number of low points. But be not afraid, The Good, The Bad, and The Weird is a well done and solid piece of action.
Another thing to note is that because this is a Korean movie, you will be forced to read subtitles, but I promise that someone will get shot in the face before you have any time to form a volatile reaction to being forced to read when what you should really be doing is watching things blow up.
Maybe there is a fourth kind of Trash Cinema. One that is born of imagination and is so far outside the norm it leaves both audiences and critics completley dumbfounded. A type of Trash that’s so imaginative and introverted no one knows quite what to make of it. Films born of trash and bound for glorious cult status. David Lycnh’s Eraserhead certainly meets this criteria.
As an avidly devoted fan of all things David Lynch one question I always run into is “Why?” followed almost instantly by the blanket phrase “I don’t get his stuff.” To which I look them dead in the eye and say “What is there to get?” Why must you always be blatantly given something by a film? The one thing I feel all fans of Lynch’s work have in common is a deep abiding love for mysteries and the simple and obvious concept that, hey, maybe there are no easy answers? No quick solutions? No pretty package wrapped up and ready to be presented to you upon completion. It’s one of the more frightening conceits that maybe…just maybe…we’ll never know the answers.
Recently I was asked about one of David Lynch’s most heralded works and possibly one of his hardest for viewers to grasp. Eraserhead. Coincidentally, this happens to be my favorite of Lynch’s work and one of my favorite films ever made. Why is there so much love for this film? Why are certain people in our society completely bat-shit crazy about this strange little fever dream of a picture? Well, fellow Trash Collectors, I’m going to try my damnedest to express my personal admiration and deep abiding nerd love for this most legendary of midnight movie cultism.
And no it’s not about just “I get it and you don’t.” That’s all bullshit if you ask me. It runs far deeper than this simple declarative statement.
David Lynch’s debut feature film, 1976’s Eraserhead, is like a living nightmare. It is surreal but there are undeniable human truths and emotions there. Dread, pain, abandonment, longing. But that there is also hope and there is love to be found. As the song says, “In Heaven everything is fine.”
But like all dreams, nightmares, and art, their meaning must be interpreted by those experiencing it. The intent of the artist no longer matters. Eraserhead to me is one of the most honest and disturbing depictions of masculinity and the fear of fatherhood ever put to film. About the insecurities we must mask, the emotions we must bottle up, the dreams we must abandon, and the people whom we are that must be repress in order to get by in society. And the desperate hope that maybe, just maybe, there is light at the end of a very dark tunnel. It encompasses all my fears as an adult male. That I am not good enough. That I will fail at business, life, love and be left behind. It’s the darkest fears lying dormant but always weighing heavy on a subconscious level.
But see, my reason for loving and appreciating Eraserhead, and my interpretation don’t mean anything! Lynch created a totally subjective piece of art! My reason for loving it is a million miles away from why this guy or that girl love it. And some people just can’t stand it and that’s absolutely fine as well and completely understandable. But for a group of us Eraserhead struck a chord and there is something distinctly human there. Something warm and indescribable. Hidden in our deepest, darkest, places . Rather than give us answers Eraserhead boldly suggests that we find or make our own. That in life there are no easy answers to these mysteries so much greater than ourselves. That it’s up to us to find our own.
Stay Trashy,
-The Primal Root
In Heaven Everything is Fine. You Got Your Good Thing and I've Got Mine.
trashcinemacollective.com 