Grindhouse Classics : “The Pink Angels”

 

It pleases me to report that my home state of Minnesota recently became the 12th state to legalize same-sex marriage, and gay and lesbian couples will be free to say “I do” beginning on August 1st of this year. There were many celebratory shin-digs, large and small, thrown to commemorate this historic moment, and there will be even more if whack-job congresswoman Michele Bachmann follows through on her promise to move to a more socially retrograde region of the country, and it’s certainly no stretch to imagine  that there have been plenty of movies playing, at least in the background, at many of these joyous get-togethers. But I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that director Larry G. Brown’s 1972 Crown International gay-biker flick The Pink Angels wasn’t among the viewing choices on offer at any of them. Call it a hunch, if you will.

Not that the film itself is especially offensive, mind you, even though most (though not all) of the characters are stereotypical “swishy” ’70s queens rather than the leather-clad “bear”types you’d probably expect to be a bit more representative of the reality of the homosexual motorcycle-enthusiast community. It would likely be quite a reach to describe this flick as being in any way a respectful treatment of its lurid-at-the-time subject matter, sure, but at least our titular Angels are depicted as being, by and large, decent, fun-loving guys who just want to be left alone to pursue their livesi n their own way, and the bad guys are the authority figures and gay-bashing, overly-macho hetero  Harley-heads who are out to rain on our (for lack of a better term) heroes’ parade.

Still — it’d giving it far too much credit to describe this film as a monumental leap forward for gay rights and/or tolerance in general, either. So what exactly are  we talking about here, then? Well, weird as it may sound to say this about a movie centered around gay folks made in the early years of the so-called “Me Decade,” The Pink Angels seems to have no political or social agenda whatsoever! But that’s just part and parcel of a larger issue, really — that being that it seems to have no clue what sort of flick it wants to be on any level, and Brown and company were quite obviously just winging things from the get-go and willing to settle for, well, whatever they ended up coming up with.

All of which means, of course, that’s this is an absolutely fantastic watch from start to finish — even if it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Or maybe because it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

 

The “plot,” to the extent that such a thing can even be said to even exist here, revolves around our erstwhile flamboyant protagonists making their way out to Los Angeles (from where it’s never stated) in order to attend a drag ball, and along the way they have a fancy roadside picnic, raise hell at a hot dog stand, get hassled by the cops, get hassled again by some of their straight freewheelin’ counterparts (led by B-movie stalwart Michael Pataki and future Grizzly Adams star Dan Haggerty) run afoul (from a distance) of a bumbling military General, pick up hitch-hikers, try on dresses, and generally engage in pointless tomfoolery just because — hey, they can. Throw in some bargain-basement wannabe-surrealism, a lame-ass pseudo-funky/pseudo-folkish soundtrack, uniformly bright and sunny cinematography, and the general “making this shit up as we go along” ethos of Easy Rider, and you’ve got a recipe for one thoroughly entertaining, always-engaging cinematic disaster.

Of the six principal players, John Alderman stands out as scruffy, rough-and-tumble leader Michael, Tom Basham takes a memorable turn as the ultra-effeminate David, Bruce Kimball does nicely as hulk-with-an-overly-sensitive- side Arnold, and Henry Olek is all kinds of stupid fun as the supposedly British, wanna-be-Oscar -Wilde-in-leather Edward, but it’s all such overtly campy and OTT stuff that you can’t fairly single out anyone as doing a “better” job than anyone else, I suppose.

 

And then there’s  that ending. Now, according to someone on IMDB who claims, at least, to be this film’s executive producer — one Gary Radzat — what they were really going for here was some kind of “cinema verite” thing, but director Brown was batshit insane, couldn’t keep things in order, and neglected to film a final reel altogether! So they had to get everybody back together and shoot some kind of conclusion (under whose direction the supposed Radzat never says), since CIP had picked it up, sight unseen, for distribution, and what they came up with was shockingly downbeat, even tragic, absolute “bummer” that, sure, at least ostensibly brings together the various strands of the impromptu “story” that had been left dangling and didn’t seem to be destined to meet up in any way, shape, or form, but that completely turns the light-hearted atmosphere established in the first 70-or-so mutes on its ear for no apparent reason other than a kind of ruthless-outta-nowhere expediency.

In other words, it’s fucking perfect.

 

Let’s be honest — anyone who wants to watch a flick that fits anything like a standard definition of “competent,” or that even has anything vaguely recognizable as a point,  will have checked out of this one at about the 15-minute mark. Those of us still left standing by the time they need to put a wrap on things are pretty much willing to take anything the filmmakers serve up and just go with it. Sure, it’s a shocker to have such a crash-and-burn (not literally, mind you, but it may as well be) finale tacked onto an essentially harmless — and formless — romp, but hey, nothing  else about the proceedings makes any sense up to this point, either, so why start now ?

 

So — what are you waiting for? Grab Mill Creek’s 3-disc, 12-movie Savage Cinema DVD bargain pack  (where it’s presented with a nicely-remastered widescreen picture, pretty damn good mono sound, and no extras) and give The Pink Angels a go right now. It’s quite literally unlike anything else ever made — which doesn’t, of course, mean that it’s actually any good, but is still pretty much the highest compliment I can think of to bestow upon anything.

Grindhouse Classics : “The Big Snatch”

Honestly, with the absolutely harrowing news that’s come out of Cleveland over the last few days, you’d think — perhaps even hope — that I’d have the good sense and just plain human decency to not go anywhere near legendary exploitation producer David F. Friedman’s 1971 softcore sex-slave sleazefest The Big Snatch right now, but since I’ve never really been noted for my sense of timing —

I suppose the fact that no one involved in the actual making of this film wanted their real names to be associated with it probably tells you everything you need to know right off the bat (check the credits for hilarious pseudonyms such as “Jim Nasium”and “Mary Goround”), doesn’t it? Shot for a paltry $11,000 in Southern California by co-directors Byron Mabe and Dan Martin (who mas moonlighting from his gig as an L.A. county sheriff’s deputy and billed himself as “Ronnie Runningboard” in case his bosses ever got wind of this thing), The Big Snatch centers around the hare-brained scheme of two truck-driving yokels (ringleader Bart, played by a guy calling himself “Harry Chest,” and dim-witted sidekick Momo, played by a guy calling himself — well, “Momo”) to kidnap five beautiful young co-eds and turn them into their own personal low-rent harem. The  gals spend a pretty good chunk of the flick stuck inside a drained-out swimming pool,then they all get raped in turn (“rape” in this case being portrayed as a series of largely listless softcore dalliances featuring plenty of full-on nudity and simulated pseudo-penetration), a bit later one of the ladies tries to escape and has her panties yanked down before being tied down, spread-eagled,  to a revving car engine that’s had its radiator cap removed (the infamous “steamed clam” scene you may have heard about), and then the industrious gals actually do manage to  effect an escape en masse, whereupon they immediately strangle Momo to death before twisting and crushing  Bart’s cock with a pliers and then tossing him down onto a dirty old mattress and “gang raping” him for about the final 30 minutes of the film, although I have no idea how his “junior member” was even supposed to be functioning by that point.

Anyway, that’s what happens when you refer to women as “pigs” and order them to call you “master,” I guess.

It it all sounds pretty rancid and sleazy, well — it is. But it is fun to see future sexploitation semi-starlets such as Peggy Church, Jane Tsentas, and especially incomparable Russ Meyer stalwart Uschi Digard in early roles, and the truly atrocious “acting” is a hoot to sit back and absorb. Beyond that, there’s nothing much on offer here — the camerawork is all pretty straightforwardly haphazard (if that makes any sense), the revenge factor is decidedly dialed down since the rapes were portrayed as being an enjoyable experience for them women, and the whole thing’s quite obviously just a flimsy excuse to get some uniformly very good looking ladies to debase themselves for what had to have been an undoubtedly paltry paycheck. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — we all know that people will do anything for money, but it’s what they’ll do for no money that’s truly amazing.

Even for a “roughie,” this is a pretty mean-spirited affair, and even for a cheapie, its production values are astonishingly low, but I gotta (shamefully, I assure you) admit — as a curious memento of a largely-forgotten cinematic age, The Big Snatch makes for some strangely compelling — if crushingly, achingly dull — viewing at times. Which is hardly the same thing as me actually recommending this film, as I hope you’ll agree. If you’re foolish enough to attempt to take this flick seriously, you’ve gotta put aside not only your sense of what’s good and bad, but also what’s right and wrong. But who says you’ve gotta take something seriously in order to fully absorb what it’s all about? I’m not going to go so far as to say any of you good people will actually enjoy what’s on offer here, and chances are you’ll find yourself as flat-out bored during the “sex” scenes as I was, but there’s a certain amount of bravado on display here by our anonymous-at-all-costs filmmakers for even thinking that they could get away with making something like this in the first place that’s, while certainly far from admirable, at least interesting to witness.

And if witness it you must, you’ll be glad (I guess) to know that The Big Snatch is available on both VHS and DVD-R from, you guessed it, Something Weird Video. It’s presented full-fame with mono sound, neither of which are very good (which is, I’m sure you’ll agree, quite appropriate), and the only “extras” to speak of are a smattering of trailers for other SWV titles. All in all,  bare-bones release for a bare-bones movie with a very bare-bones “idea” behind it. But shit, since the bare breasts are all anyone cares about here, I guess it all works out. Just please don’t go getting any ideas from this thing , I beg you.

“Demon Cop” Takes A Bite Out Of Crime — And Your Brain

I don’t know who Rocco Karega is. I assume he’s from Colorado Springs — or at least that he lived there in 1990, which was  when he got the bright idea to write, direct, and star in a little number he called Demon Cop. He never made another movie, and he’s probably bagging groceries somewhere now, but we all should be in awe of the factl that, at one point, he had the decidedly poor judgment to chase his dream and make this lower-than-lower-than-low-grade straight-to-VHS Maniac Cop cash-in quickie, because it’s really quite unlike anything else you’ll ever see.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that it’s good — you know that. Nor does it mean it’s “so bad it’s good,” a la the cinematic works of Ed Wood, Ron Ormond, Coleman Francis, or — I dunno — Steven Spielberg. Sorry, our guy Rocco lacks the earnestness and tunnel vision of these blind-to-their-own-weaknesses auteurs. Simply put,  he had to know he was churning out absolute crap here, there’s just no other way of looking at this thing. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t create a piece of must-see viewing here (actually, you could fairly call it a “piece of” many other things, as well) — or,  at least, he did  if you’re either brave, bored, or reckless enough to be willing to gamble your  perception of reality itself  all for under 90 minutes of “entertainment” that is, in all honesty, anything but.

By this point you’re probably quite confused, as well you should be, but trust me when I say anything I write here won’t be nearly as baffling as is Demon Cop itself. You or I — with no experience, no money, no equipment, and no fucking clue — could hit the streets with a camera tomorrow and come up with something better than this. And therein lies this film’s mystifying power.

A slumming Cameron Mitchell turns up as a psychiatrist of some sort at the outset (and again at the end, but by then, well — just keep reading), apparently relating a “true-life case” of one of his patients, a cop who suffered from a rare blood disorder that turned him into a vaguely lycanthropic creature with a thirst for human blood. He’s talking, needless to say, about Karega himself, the titular Demon Cop this story’s ostensibly about. He’s generally offing slimeball “gang- banger” types, but the Colorado Springs PD want to catch him anyway even though some of their more hard-assed members — and many in the community at large — feel he’s doing folks a favor. There’s a quack scientist everybody ignores (of course) who’s trying to convince humankind at large about the dangers of this rare blood disorder he’s discovered that has turned a former cop into a vaguely lycanthropic creature that might just  exhibit a propensity for killing slimeball “gang- banger” types, but — oh, shit, I’m repeating myself already. And quite a bit, at that.

Notice, though, I did give myself a bit of an “out” when it came to that wretchedly-worded (on purpose, your honor, I swear it!) plot recap — I said this movie was really only ostensibly about the story it presented. And if you’re watching Demon Cop for its dramatic value, trust me — you’re making a huge mistake. Not just because it has none, but because even if it did , that’s not where the real action is to be found here. Not that it has any action. Not that — oh, dear God, I really am hopelessly out of my depth here already, aren’t I?

In any case, friends what I think I’m trying to say is that this is a flick that you should be watching solely for its naked-for-all-to-see incompetence. Actors flub their lines with alarming regularity and keep going. Edits that make no logical sense become a matter of course. Poor camera angles are elevated to an accidental art form. Laugh-out-loud special makeup and creature effects (supposedly from the “creators” of Terminator 2 and Leviathan — yeah, right!) lurk around every corner, while impenetrably lousy lighting does its best to hide all the proceedings from view. Dialogue that would earn an “F” on a third-grade creative writing assignment assaults your eardrums and brain cells. And then, about an hour in, you slowly begin to realize something truly extraordinary —

Don’t ask me how it happens. Definitely don’t ask me why. Shit, don’t ask me anything at this point, because I’ve seen this thing twice and am therefore no longer qualified to comment on any subject whatsoever. What the hell am I on about here? Just this, dear readers — Demon Cop has the power to make you a dumber human being simply for subjecting yourself to it (that’s the “extraordinary” thing I was talking about — whoops, you probably had that figured out already, I shouldn’t assume that everyone — or even anyone — reading this review is nearly as stupid as I am at this point).

Call that what you will — unintentional genius? Nah. There’s nothing within even remote sniffing distance of “genius” going on here. The universe exacting karmic revenge on those lacking the good sense to turn this thing off within the first ten minutes? Possibly — we certainly deserve to be punished on some level. Occult power? Absolutely — Demon Cop is a full frontal assault on all things competent, and a relentless one at that, and that definitely qualifies it as a magickal working of some sort in my book.

So let’s go with that, shall we? Let’s give Karega and producer Hal Miles the credit (such as it is) they’ve earned — this is a singular piece of rancid celluloid garbage so profound that it taps into the very forces of creation itself and causes them to revolt against our entire species in disgust. After all, no life form capable of creating the likes of Demon Cop can survive for long — nor, frankly, does it (and by “it” I mean “we”) deserve to. The die has been cast. We’ve gone too fucking far. We’re doomed. And it’s all Rocco Karega’s fault.

Fortunately, no other members of our fallen lot have ever been foolish enough to release Demon Cop on DVD, apart from a Region 2 bootleg that’s floating around out there somewhere. Some careless souls, however, have uploaded it on various locations around the internet. I’ll let you figure out exactly where for yourself, since I have no desire to be an accomplice in your spiritual and mental demise. Just know that if and when you do find it, you’ll never be the same. You’ll have crossed a threshold you immediately know, in your heart, you never should have. If you still possess any faith in your fellow man, please — I beg you! — leave this thing alone. Quit reading my shell-shocked ramblings right now and forget you ever heard about Demon Cop.  But if you absolutely must play with fire — if you’re willing to play a kind of warped Russian roulette where your very sanity is at stake  — well, I’ll see you, here, on the other side of madness.

Yo, Ese, Dis Be A Review Of “Hip Hop Locos,” Homes

 

Please note : I cannot be held responsible for any typos that may occur during the course of this review. Frankly, some of the terms most often used in 2001 shot-on-video shitfest Hip Hop Locos are ones I don’t even know how to spell, so you’ll just have to bear with me. Also, I should make it clear from the outset that I intend no disrespect toward Hispanic Americans, or anyone else for that matter, here — I’m merely trying to ape the absurdly over-the-top speech patterns of the two principle characters in this flick for the sake of — I dunno, authenticity, I guess. If you find the whole thing hard to understand, well — so is the movie. And trust me, I use the words “homes” and “ese”  far less than they do in the “script” for this thing, where each is employed in, at last count, every single fucking sentence from start to finish. And now that we’ve got all that out of the way —

Hey, homes, whas’is I be hearin’? Vatos be tellin’ me da’choo don’ like Hip Hop Locos, ese. Dey say you be dissin’ dis movie, homes. Dat true, ese? ‘Choo got somethin’ to say, homes, you say it to mah face.

Yo, ese, wha’s you’ problem, homes? Dis movie don’ be hard to understand or nothin’, homes. Da whole plot is right dere on de cover, ese, an’ it gets scrolled across da muthafuckin’ screen at the start, too. You slow or somethin’ ese? Ain’t nothin’ confusin’ goin’ on here, homes.

 

Okay, ese, maybe it looks confusin’, homes, dass true. Lorenzo Munoz Jr, de director o’ dis biyatch, he don’ point his videocamera in logical places. Even though de whole movie pretty much be nothin’ but closeups o’ “rapper”/”star”s Unodoz an’ J10, he don;t show ‘em so clear an’ shit. He uses fucked-up camera angles an’ shit, homes. ‘Choo don’ like it? Muthafuka, watch somethin’ else, homes. ‘Choo can see da sides of da faces an’ necks an’ shit o’ dese guys plenny, ese. Iss all good, homes.

An’ yo, dis be da real shit, ese. Dis be da hip hop lifestyle, homes. Dese muthafuckas got dreams, ese, an’ dey gon’ make ‘em happen. Dey gon’ be hip hop stars. Dey don’ need no talent, homes. Dey don’ need no eqipment, homes. Dey jus’ need’a take what dey ain’t got, dig? ‘Choo don’t like it, ‘choo don’ know da streets, ese.

 

Maaaaan, fuck you, homes. Dis art. Dis ain’ no bullshit, ese. ‘Choo don’ need’a see what be happening ta know what da fuck be happenin’, homes. An’ even if ‘choo don’t get it den — well, like I fuckin’ said, ese, dey ‘splain it to ya in words an’ shit. An’ ain’t no need to spend no muthafuckin’ money on nothin’ here, ese — dis jus’ take a camera out onto da streets an’ see what the fuck happens,  homes. Shit gets fuuuuuucked up, ese, ‘choo know dat’s right!

‘Sides, homes, iss only, what, ese? Maybe 70 minutes long an’ shit? ‘Choo ain’ ‘dat busy, homes — ‘choo can make it t’rough dis. An mebbe you even learn some fuckin’ shit, ese — like, I mean, ezzackly how not to make a muthafuckin’ movie an’ shit, homes. ‘Cuz Hip Hop Locos at least be a — wha’choo call it, ese? — a tex’book ‘zample a dat.

‘Choo wanna find dis muthafuckin’ thing, homes, it ain’t hard — dem vatos at Brain Damage Films done put it out on DVD an’ shit, ese. Prob’ly it gots extra features an’ shit on dat, too. But I ain’t seen it like dat, homes — I caught dis bitch on the Decrepit Crypt Of Nightmares 12-disc, 50 fuckin’ movie box set from dat Mill Creek label, muthafuckin’ Pendulum Pictures, ese. Iss full screen wit mono sound an’ it look an’ soun’ like shit, homes, but fuck it, ese — iss all good an’ shit.

‘Choo wise to whassup yet, homes? ‘Choo gon’ see dis t’ing? Or ‘choo gon’ keep talkin’ shit, bitch, like you some expert ’bout somethin’? Man, choo don’t know notheeng, homes. ‘Choo fucked up. ‘Choo talk too much. ‘Choo donno da muthafuckin’ streets, ese.

 

Anyway, fuck you, homes. Dis da gen-u-wyne- muthafuckin’ t’ing. ‘Choo can’t see dat, homes, you ain’ got fuckin’ eyes in yo’ muthafuckin’ head, ese.

 

“Cheering Section” : Rah, Rah, Sis-Boom-Blah

 

It’s no secret to those who have been reading this site for awhile now that I’m a huge fan of the lower-than-low-rent Animal House knock-off King Frat. Even though Code Red’s release of it under their short-lived “Saturn Drive-In” label left a lot to be desired, I really don’t care. Full-frame, direct-from-VHS rip or not, I was just glad to finally have it available on an “official” DVD release. What can I say? Sometimes I can be pretty easy to please. It wasn’t until last night, though, that I finally watched — on a complete lark —  the movie it’s paired with on that disc, director Harry Kerwin’s 1977 teen sexploitation “comedy” Cheering Section, and discovered I really hadn’t been missing out on much all these years it’s been sitting, unviewed, on my shelf .

For one thing, Code Red, more times than not the gold standard in exploitation as far as I’m concerned, did an even lousier job with the transfer on this title than they did on King Frat. It looks like it’s been ripped from about a third (or greater)-generation VHS copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a — well, you get the idea. The full frame picture features colors that are completely washed-out, the image is grainy and blurry in the extreme, and the mono sound completely sucks and has to be cranked up in some spots and lowered, quite quickly, in others. There are no extras to speak of, but hell, maybe that’s a good thing.

 

The technical specs aren’t nearly as lamentable, though, as is Cheering Section itself, an unimaginative, uninspired, unimpressive, and well-nigh unwatchable riff on the previous year’s Crown International release The Pom Pom Girls — the first cheerleader-themed film to gain wide release after the Supreme Court decision legalizing hard-core pornography, and thus quite a bit tamer  than earlier entrants in the genre which were basically soft-core sex romps with 21-year-olds dressed up as high school girls. The Pom Pom Girls was hardly a classic by any stretch, but it did stake out new ground, since the suits at Crown realized early on that, with “the real thing” now readily available for audiences to see, they needed to tone down the (frankly usually dull) simulated sex scenes and dial up the hijinks and comedy. There could still be plenty of bare boobs on display, of course, but explicit — or even semi-explicit — sex was out, since that market was now essentially cornered by the likes of Marilyn Chambers, Linda Lovelace, etc.

Fly-by-night Florida distro outfit American General Pictures took note of this profitable formula not long after, and the result is this plotless, laughless mess. Ostensibly focused on a group of high school jocks who cruise around in one of those “pussy wagon” vans so popular at the time (they even mark their “conquests” by placing a new pussycat sticker on the rear of the van for every girl one of them scores with), things take a turn when an immediately-popular, pretty new girl (played by Rhonda Fox) shows up at school and they all compete for her attentions and/or affections. She takes a real liking to the purported alpha male “leader” of the bunch (played by Corey Pearson), who also just so happens to be the star quarterback of the football team (of course), and he likes her, too — there’s just one problem : her dad is his new, hard-ass coach.

Yup, folks, we’re firmly in “stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before” territory here, and trust me — you’ve seen it done better, too. There’s a sure-to-set-the-cause-of-women’s-equality-back-by-at-least-a-century subplot about the main school here literally betting their cheerleaders against their rival school’s cheerleaders on the outcome of the forthcoming big game, but that’s all about as interesting as it sounds, as well. Honestly, the whole thing’s just a dreary mess, and everyone’s so plainly just going through the motions — and even them just barely — that sticking with it as a viewer becomes a real effort.

 

Still, if you’re the sort of person that can be reasonably entertained by more or less any movie that bares enough young, perky, female flesh, you might find Cheering Section at least vaguely interesting enough to sit through — although probably only once. Me, I’d have rather watched the flagpole rust. Proceed down this road solely at your own risk — I’ve done my part by warning you; my conscience is clear.

Grindhouse Classics : “The Sex Killer”

I know, I know — it’s customary around these parts to feature the actual poster for the movies being reviewed on these virtual pages at the outset of our (okay, my) reviews, but when it comes to Barry Mahon’s 1967 16mm black-and-white quickie The Sex Killer (also released under the only-slightly-less-lurid title of The Girl Killer), no actual, stand-alone poster seems to even exist for it — which probably indicates (along with its scant 55-minute run time) that  it was always part of double- and even triple-bills at the various downtown exploitation houses and rural drive-ins where it got its most-likely-quite-limited-in-number theatrical playings — so the cover for Something Weird Video’s DVD release of it (where it’s presented full frame, with mono sound, and the usual plethora of SWV extras which have very little to do with the films on offer themselves, but  at least bear some tangential relation to the overall theme of the proceedings), which finds it packaged up with The Zodiac Killer  and Zero In And Scream, will just have to do. Sorry in advance, and I sincerely hope its poster-less nature won’t deter you from seeking this curiosity of a bygone era out.

For that matter, I hope the movie’s  obviously-dubbed-in-during- post-production sound, low-rent production values, and risible “acting” won’t scare you off, either, because honestly, the rank amateurish nature of this film isn’t just one of the interesting things about it, frankly it’s the interesting thing about it. The story — or variations on it, at any rate — has been told elsewhere, told much better, and certainly told with more polish — but the gutter-level realism of The Sex Killer really does give it an immediacy that most of the other, slicker fare of this nature (notable exceptions like William Lustig’s classic Maniac notwithstanding) lacks. In short, this flick has an uncomfortable habit of feeling quite like the real thing.

There’s no point in kidding ourselves — this semi-realism is entirely a function of Mahon’s budgetary restraints, but what the hell — it works. The basic premise is pretty well foolproof — a quiet loner named Tony (played with near-documentary naturalism, except when he’s talking, which fortunately isn’t too often, by Bob Meyer) works in a dilapidated New York City mannequin factory with a bunch of rough-n’-ready yokels who question his manhood at every turn. Tony doesn’t need them for much, though — he’s got the head of one of the dummies he works on to keep him company, talk to, and even take out on the town! Still, that gets a bit dull after awhile, as you’d probably expect that it would, and our soon-to-be-lust-murderer decides to start spending  his off days spying on topless female sunbathers at the rooftop pool of a supposedly-ritzy apartment complex through a pair of binoculars. Even that doesn’t keep him too interested for too long, though, and next thing ya know he’s raping, killing, and then re-raping (yes, there’s some necrophilia in here) the ladies he was quite happy, just a day or two previously, to marvel at from a distance.

Give Tony some credit — he’s not content to rest on his laurels when new avenues for advancement through the sex predator ranks present themselves.

I guess that’s all you really need to know about what goes on in this movie because — well, that’s all that goes on in this movie. But Mahon (upon whose wartime exploits Steve McQueen’s  character in The Great Escape was based — seriously!), like his contemporary Ray Dennis Steckler, manages to translate the seamy, sleazy, sordid world of his protagonist onto the screen with almost no stylistic “filter” at all — simply because he can’t afford one! It’s entirely possible — hell, even quite likely — that he would have liked The Sex Killer to be a more professional,  or at the very least competent,  piece of film- making, but let’s thank our lucky stars that he didn’t have the cash to do so, because while the end result of his probably-less-than-a-week’s-worth-of-work-here may not be “good” by any (yawn) conventional definition of that word, it certainly is memorable — and that’s often worth so much more.

Appropriately enough, the film ends without credits (although seasoned viewers of New York-based exploitation productions may recognize Rita Bennett, Uta Erickson, Helena Clayton, and Sharon Kent, among others, as some of the female flesh on display here), which further amplifies the “slice-of-life” aesthetic established from the outset. Lots of movies these days, particularly in the horror genre, are going for a “found footage”-type feel, and while some of Mahon’s supposed binocular angles defy logic or explanation, he by and large achieves exactly that with The Sex Killer.  If somebody popped in an unlabeled VHS tape of it and told you they’d just found it sitting in a trash can or at the bottom of a box in an old yard sale — or better yet, in a dusty corner of a police evidence locker — you’d believe it. I can’t think of higher praise than that — and I’ll take entirely accidental cinema verite over $50 million Hollywood  ”realism” every time.

“Easy Rider” Checks In To “The Last House On The Left” In “Wild Riders”

It’s definitely a tough call, with many worthy contenders to the “throne,” but if someone were to ask me what the out-and-out sleaziest entry in the Crown International Pictures “canon” is, I’d probably have to go with writer/director Richard Kanter’s ultra-mean-spirited, deeply misogynistic Wild Riders, a bikesploitation flick that positively oozes ill will toward the fairer sex and does its best to make tragic heroes out of a pair of thieves, rapists, and murderers. As is so often the case with movies we look at around here, they sure don’t make ‘em like this anymore, and maybe that’s not always such a bad thing —

Consider : the “action” here starts with two obviously fucked-in-the head bikers (our titular “Wild Riders”), whose names we later learn are Pete (the comparably “suave” one, played to the hilt by Arell Blanton) and Stick (the scruffy one, played by Alex Rocco in the same year he’d take his legendary turn as Moe Green in The Godfather), not only raping some luckless lass, but then proceeding to nail her to a fucking tree, an act so outlandish and beyond the pale that it proves to be too much even for the outlaw Florida cycle club they’re riding with, with the end result being that the gang gives ‘em the boot and Pete and Stick make tracks for sunny California (which is where the supposed “Florida” scenes were shot, anyway).

Our psychopathic twosome doesn’t waste too much time getting to know the lay of the (La-La) land once out west, deciding almost immediately to go have some — ahem! — “fun” at the snazzy Hollywood Hills home of a good-looking young lady they spy laying out by her pool. It turns out the aforementioned mistress of the house, buxom brunette Rona (Elizabeth Knowles) , who likes to live on the wild side a bit, is sharing her semi-palatial digs for a few days with her equally-buxom, but frankly kinda repressed, red-headed gal pal Laure (I know, I know — it looks like there should be an “i” in her name, but there isn’t — oh, and she’s played by Sherry Bain) while her apparently-not-all-that-missed hubby, an accomplished cellist, is away. If  all that sounds to you like a sure-fire set-up for disaster —well, you’re right.

Pete manages to smooth-talk his way into Rona’s pool, then her house, then her bed, but things don’t go so well for semi-retarded dirtball Stick and Laure, and when she insults his manhood, he ends up raping her in rather savage fashion.  To her credit, she doesn’t take this indignity laying down (no pun intended, honestly) and after informing Rona what her new house “guests” are really like, Pete flips his lid and decides to get just as rough as his buddy. An odyssey of home-ransacking, hostage-taking, and violent sexual assault soon unfolds — and then things get really weird.

Despite his rather sudden and violent about-face, Rona actually finds herself falling in love with Pete (hey, actor Arell Blanton did, in fact, sing this movie’s low-grade folk-ish theme song, so maybe he’s got other hidden “talents,” as well), and Kanter most definitely plays up some kind of pseudo-sympathetic angle vis-a-vis his thoroughly sadistic protagonists, to the point that what when the cello-wielding man of the house makes his return , finds what’s happened to his home and his honey (and her friend), and uses his instrument to exact murderous revenge on the interlopers, we’re actually supposed to feel, well — kinda sorry for them!

I’m sure, at this point, that this all sounds, as the title for this review would imply, like Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda have wandered into Wes Craven’s classic The Last House On The Left, but this movie actually came out a year before Krug and his fucked-up family changed cinematic history forever. Am I saying Craven copied Kanter in any way, shape, or form? Probably not — it’s been well-established that Bergman’s The Virgin Spring was the thematic progenitor for Last House, and we’re definitely supposed to sympathize with the victims and their grief-stricken paretnts in both those films rather than their attackers, but the timing is quite interesting, to say the least.

Still, to be perfectly honest, that strange historical parallel is probably about the only reason I can think of to recommend that anyone sit through Wild Riders. This is some thoroughly unpleasant stuff, and the “just a good ol’ boy, never meanin’ no harm” angle that Kanter plays is only compounded in its offensiveness when he has one of his victims end up having her hear stolen by her victimizer. I’m normally the first guy in the room to enjoy it when all conventions of good taste and morality are thrown out the window (the less enlightened might go so far as to celebrate this film’s “political incorrectness,” but there’s nothing noble about bucking the supposed “PC” status quo when we’re talking about rape, for Christ’s sake), but this one was a little much even for me. Sure, later fare like I Spit On Your Grave is much more graphic and brutal, but at least Meir Zarchi had enough sense to know who the villains were in his film.

What the hell, though — if you’re curious, Wild Riders is available on DVD from Mill Creek as part of their three-DVD, 12-movie Savage Cinema collection, where’s it’s presented with a nice-looking widescreen transfer, good mono sound, and no extras. This set’s pretty heavy on biker fare in general, so all in all it’s a solid purchase — especially given its well-under-$10 price point — but honestly, this particular flick is only worth taking in for its value as a historical curiosity, and is repugnant enough to probably  make even the most die-hard Tea Party supporter and/or Fox “news” viewer thankful for at least some social progress.

Grindhouse Classics : “Detroit 9000″

 

Arthur Marks has certainly been getting a lot of love around these parts lately, hasn’t he? Recently I more or less politely begged for a long-overdue reappraisal of his fine Pam Grier flick Friday Foster, and today I’m here to spread the good word about what is undoubtedly his absolute masterwork (a term regular readers of this site will know I don’t toss around loosely), 1973′s Detroit 9000.

Honestly, this is one of those movies I probably should have reviewed ages ago, but now’s as good a  time as any seeing as how Lionsgate has recently re-released it on DVD alongside The Mighty Peking Man and Jack Hill’s Swtichblade Sisters in a nifty little package called “Quentin Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder Pictures Triple Feature,” Tarantino having acquired the rights to all three titles back in the 1990s for the midnight screening/revival circuit. None of the films contain any extra features to speak of, but they do feature nicely remastered widescreen transfers and perfectly serviceable mono sound, and seeing as how the disc retails for under ten bucks from most online outlets — well, how many ways can you say “essential purchase?”

But enough with the free plug for Lionsgate product. What sets Detroit 9000 apart from much of the other blaxploitation fare of the time (a category which this flick may or may not actually fall into — it’s certainly debatable) is the intelligence and extra level of humanity and characterization that Marks, his fine cast, and screenwriter Orville H. Hampton inject into the proceedings. Sure, this is a pretty goddamn violent pressure-cooker of a flick, with uneasy police partners Lt. Danny Bassett (the legendary-in-my-book Alex Rocco) and Sgt. Jesse Williams (Hari Rhodes) tasked with tracking down the armed masked men who ripped off $400,000 from a black-tie fundraiser for ethically-questionable African-American congressman Aubrey Hale Clayton (Rudy Challenger), and okay, Scatman Crothers pops up along the way as — gosh, what a shocker — a crooked preacher-man, and fair enough, some bits of dialogue are “borrowed” directly from Dirty Harry, as is a heavy dose of atmosphere,  but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a slice of B-movie bad-ass-ness worth taking seriously.

 

For one thing, nobody here is a saint. Both leads are deeply flawed, all-too-human individuals, and Rocco and Rhodes turn in superb performances that bring out all the nuances in the script. This is an intelligent story delivered by intelligent performers with a firm grasp on the surprising subtlety inherent in the material. sure, the old “this is a conspiracy that reaches all the way to the top” angle was predictable even by 1973, but come on — would you honestly have it any other way? Some things become formulaic simply because — well, they work. And Detroit 9000 doesn’t just work, it works overtime, providing a very real sense of the intense political weight being brought to bear on these guys to crack this case open, and crack it open quickly. As long as they find an “acceptable” solution, of course —

And that means, of course, even more stress for our fallible-yet-intrepid twosome, since it’s a lead-pipe cinch that the answers they find aren’t going to be what the higher-ups want to hear. Rest assured, though — in a world where the good guy aren’t so great, the presumed bad guys aren’t necessarily so bad, either (even when they are, if you get my meaning), so definitely expect a few surprises along the way.

 

Marks, absolute master of pacing that he is, keeps things moving along at a very nice clip here, and there’s never a dull moment — the action scenes are explosive and fraught with drama and tension, but even the quieter moments aren’t so quiet as every word in every off-handed exchange does at least something to propel the main narrative forward. This is a very economical film (both metaphorically and, I’m sure, literally), and the always-resourceful Arthur doesn’t waste a frame. Run to the kitchen or bathroom and you’re guaranteed to miss something — good thing for that “pause” button.

 

Detroit’s a simmering powder keg of barely-subsumed racial tensions here, as well, and that only adds to the brooding-bordering-on-oppressive vibe that this film captures. Anything could happen at any moment — look at a guy the wrong way and things are gonna blow sky high. Any alliances formed are temporary, purely for the sake of expediency, and susceptible to fracture without a moment’s notice. Buckle up, folks — the road start out bumpy and it only gets bumpier. All of which is fun, of course, but it means you’ve gotta keep your wits about you, as well — and trust me, when the shit hits the fan at the end, you’ll be glad you did.

 

There’s no two ways about it, friends — Detroit 9000 (the title refers to a distress code on the police radio band, if you were wondering) is the real deal. There’s no slack in its act. It’s not afraid to get its hands dirty because they were never clean to begin with. Good times are fun and all, but they’re transitory, fleeting; the best times come with a price and force you to remember them, even when it’s inconvenient. This flick is a terrific piece of crime drama from start to finish, but it demands — and takes — its pound of flesh along the way. Get your ass off my blog and watch it right now.

“Psycho Cop” Pulls You Over — And Reels You In

There’s a question that’s been tugging at the back of my mind lately (and, I hope, yours too) — just who the hell are they, anyway?

You know who I’m talking about — the shadowy, faceless, nameless cabal who issue pronouncements from on high intended to influence the average person’s view of, well, just about everything : they say this is a good place to eat; they feel that so-and-so’s last book was better than his new one ; they don’t care much for some artist’s latest exhibit or installation; they can’t stop talking about Mad Men (even though nobody you talk to actually seems to watch it).

Yessir, whoever they are, they  seem to have an opinion on everything. As if that weren’t bad enough, though, they also seem to have obtained a pretty solid hold on the levers of political and economic decision-making : they say that tax cuts for the rich will stimulate the economy; they believe that throwing Wall Street crooks in jail where they belong will dampen our so-called “recovery”; they tell us that we need to compromise our civil liberties in order to fight the so-called “war on terrorism” ; they have decided that the “high” salaries of teachers, cops, firefighters, and public works employees are the cause of state budget shortfalls.

But hey — maybe I’m being too hard on them. After all, maybe they deserve all this power and authority, because, as it turns out, they also have a direct pipeline into the very mysteries of creation and the universe itself, from the most momentous to the most mundane : they tell us there’s an invisible God who loves us (as long as we do what he says); they say he created everything in just six short days (of course, they don’t tell us which kind of “days” they’re talking about here — a day on Mars is different to a day on Mercury is different to a day on Neptune is different to a day on Earth); they promise us that we’ll live forever — after we’re dead (go figure that one out); they say it’s going to rain on Thursday.

No doubt about it, whoever they  are they’ve done their homework. Maybe we don’t really have much reason to be suspicious of them, even if we have no idea who they are.

The thing is, though — what if they’re wrong?

Case in point : writer/director Wallace Potts’ 1989 straight-to-video efforts Psycho Cop. Whoever they are, they don’t seem to like this one very much. They  say it’s a low-rent Maniac Cop rip-off with hammy acting, a predictable, story, no intelligence, and that it’s loaded with obvious, sophomoric humor.

Okay, so they’re right about all that. But then they go and tell us that means it’s a bad film. And that, my friends, is the point at which we need to tell them to fuck right off, because Psycho Cop is some seriously awesome shit.

Bobby Ray Shafer (or Robert R. Shafer, as he bills himself in his more recent, supposedly “respectable” work) plays Office Joe Vickers, a Satan-worshipping, homicidal nutjob who just so happens to be a duly-sworn officer of the law in some po-dunk country town. Six supposed teenagers, played by “actors” you’ve never heard of, are heading out to the sticks to booze it up and get laid. The kids cross paths with Vickers and he proceeds to torture, humiliate, and kill them all in turn, often snapping groaningly-bad one-liners along the way, such as when he rips one of the youthful good-timers’ hearts out and says “have a heart.”

This may not sound like much — and they will certainly concur with that — but I’m here to tell you that it’s a blast, and it’s all down to Shafer quite obviously having the time of his life from word “go” to word “stop.” Sometimes a movie doesn’t really need much more than a star giving it his or her all to elevate it far beyond what its means would suggest are possible — and yeah, okay, maybe that’s all Psycho Cop really has going for it — but trust me, if you think that Z-grade films come any better than this, well — maybe you’re one of them. The rest of us? We’re  just out for a good time, kinda like Shafer probably was here, and his infectious performance pretty much guarantees that our simple desires will be fulfilled.

Just to spite us, though, they have seen to it that Psycho Cop has yet to receive even a bare-bones DVD release, so if you want to see it, you’ve either gotta hunt down a tattered old VHS copy, or find it online somewhere.Fortunately, a good number of anti-authoritarian souls have, indeed, posted it for public consumption on various locales around the web, but hey — I  had better leave it to you to find out exactly where, since I  don’t want to get into trouble with them. Just rest assured that finding it takes a very minimal amount of effort, and you’ll be glad you did.

Still, for all the trouble they’ve  gone to in terms of bad-mouthing this flick, maybe they’re finally coming around to our way of thinking, at least after a fashion : a few days ago,   a bunch of real-life Psycho Cops in the Boston area were kicking in doors, holding innocent people at gunpoint, rifling through homes, and destroying people’s property — all to find some 19-year-old kid they think might be the same one seen in some half-assed, grainy surveillance video footage.  Once the police (“supported” by a military that’s not supposed to be operating on domestic soil) found him, slowly bleeding to death in some boat in a family’s backyard, it was decided that it would be too much effort to even bother to take five seconds to read him his rights — and they  are telling us these cops are heroes.

Jack’s Back — For The First Time, At Any Rate — In “The Ripper”

When director Christopher Lewis ventured behind the camera again in 1985 to make his second feature,  hot on the heels of the previous year’s Blood Cult, he had a pretty tough act to follow. After all, “sophomore slumps” are a notoriously common fact of life in fields of human endeavor, and —

Oh, wait a minute. What the hell am I talking about here? Blood Cult sucked. And I say that as a guy who really does appreciate its place in history, given that it was the first-ever shot-on-video, direct- to-VHS horror movie ever made, and I generally love ’80s SOV/DTV  stuff — still, much as I really am thankful that Blood Cult opened the floodgates for what was, by and large, a fairly fun sub-genre, the fact is that it’s an almost preposterously lousy flick in and of itself.

But hey, it did turn a tidy profit for Lewis and his business partners, so less 12 months later, they did exactly what (probably) you and (certainly) I would have done in their situation — hustled up 75 grand and gave the whole thing another go . And this time, they even had a bankable horror icon on board with them.

Notice I said “icon” there, not “star,” because, let’s face it, much as I absolutely love Tom Savini, it’s always gonna be his work behind the camera that he’s most renowned for, rather than his work in front  of it. Which isn’t to say that he’s a “bad” actor by any stretch of the imagination, just that he’s — how can I put this kindly? — rather limited. Still, in 1985 he was getting restless in his role as top horror special effects guy in the world, wanted to give the thespian life a go, and Lewis, canny businessman that he was (and probably still is), figured that just even having the Savini name attached to his project would guarantee, at the very least, a modest return on his (admittedly minimal) investment.

I guess it all worked out as far as that goes, since the finished result of their collaboration, The Ripper, did indeed turn a tidy little profit. So that’s at least one thing they can hang their hats on, at any rate. Beyond that, though, well —

Our “story” here, such as it is, revolves around one rather asshole-ish college professor, played by Tom Schreier, who happens upon an ancient ring that was apparently once worn by Jack The Ripper himself. Whenever he puts it on, he turns into Tom Savini and kills somebody — usually a young woman, and usually via throat-slitting. Then when he takes the ring off, he can’t remember what the hell happened, and reads about his crimes in the paper the next morning. Now, you or I, we might simply stop wearing the ring,  just to be on the safe side and all — but he keeps putting the damn thing for reasons that, I guess, are known only to him. Maybe blacking out and reading about grisly crimes on the front pages the following morning is just his idea of a good time, or maybe he really is just too damn thick to put two and two together — I dunno. What I do know is, that’s about all the “plot” recap that’s necessary to sufficiently clue you in as to what’s going on here.

Incidentally, if all of this sounds somewhat similar to Rowdy (Road House) Herrington’s 1988 film Jack’s Back, starring James Spader, maybe it is a little bit, albeit with a couple of key differences : if I remember correctly (and it’s been awhile, so I can’t rightfully claim that I do) in Jack’s Back, Spader’s character was a  then-modern-day serial killer inspired by Jolly Jack’s crimes, rather than his outright reincarnation ; and, more importantly, Jack’s Back was actually a halfway decent little movie, while The Ripper,  frankly, is anything but.

Shit — who are we kidding? I’m being too generous. Fact of the matter is, The Ripper is downright painful to watch. The acting is uniformly deplorable, the soundtrack “music” is among the most grating in cinematic (or videomatic, or whatever) history, the production values are shit (in particular the laughable “flashback” sequences where Lewis and Co. try, without success, to recreate Victorian London on the streets on Tulsa, Oklahoma), and, perhaps most surprisingly, the makeup effects are beyond lousy. Seriously — I know Savini was otherwise occupied on this production, but you’d think that when he saw what the crew were trying to pass off as blood and gore here, he’d have at least stepped in and offered a few pointers. Apparently — and obviously — he didn’t.

Anyway, all these years later, The Ripper is, if you absolutely must ignore me, available on DVD from VCI, the company Lewis founded with the cash he netted from even-less-than-half-assed “efforts” such as this. It’s presented full frame with mono sound, neither of which is anything to write home about, and includes both a dry “making-of” featurette on the flick’s production and an even drier feature-length commentary where Lewis drones on at length about how much “work” went into this production. I can’t imagine much of it being of any interest to anyone other than die-hard Ripper fans — assuming such an animal even exists in the wild — but I did get a kick out of checking out this movie’s comments section on the IMDB where the author of its screenplay, one Bill Groves, states that, if Lewis loved the script even half as much as he claims he did on the commentary, “then how come he treated it like one of The Ripper’s victims?” Ouch. Gotta love that.

But wait, there’s more! If you’re in the mood for even more self-abuse (and not the fun kind) than watching this provides on its own, VCI has also released it as part of something called “The Ripper Blood Pack,” a three-DVD set that features not only The Ripper, but Blood Cult and its if -anything-even-worse sequel, Revenge, as well. If you’re tired of pushing saltwater-soaked safety pins through your nipples, attaching untreated heated copper wire to your scrotum or labia, stapling your eyelids open for days on end, or clamping your toes between shards of steaming dry ice, then might I humbly suggest trying to watch all three of these movies, consecutively, in one sitting — that, my friends, is some real pain.