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December 9, 2013

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The Body Shop (1973)

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All righty!  This is what I’m talking about!  Here we have a creepy, sick, disturbing and underrated splatter classic from writer/director J.G. Patterson Jr., who worked with and drew inspiration from H.G. Lewis but managed to make a movie that is actually kind of good!  The Body Shop – also known as Doctor Gore (a better title IMO) – serves as a prototype for Re-Animator with its theme of a doctor that tries to bring his dead wife back to life.

Now I don’t know if Stuart Gordon was inspired by The Body Shop but the main, glaringly obvious thematic difference between the two movies is that Dr. Brandon (played by Patterson) had no altruistic goal in mind.  In fact, when I said he wanted to resurrect his wife, I meant to say he wanted to create a really hot woman from the parts of other women and bang her a whole lot.  I’m not kidding!  How else could a creepazoid like that get a woman?  Well he did inherit his dead, rich actress wife’s will but I digress.

According to the poster above, The Body Shop was filmed entirely in North Carolina but why does the doctor’s house look like a castle you’d find on the European country side?  Was his house that big?  Pretty crazy.  Within the house is where the doctor does his experiments assisted by a typical, cliche laboratory hunchback who just wants the doctor to fix his body.  The doctor of course has other goals in mind; that is to assemble the parts of female corpses to create the ultimate super woman.

The story gets a little strange at this point though.  You see the doctor apparently has the capability to seduce and/or hypnotize women into going back to his lab, where he proceeds to cut off a leg, arm or whatever is necessary.  But, if he’s such a charmer, why does he NEED to assemble a woman in the first place?  He picks up one victim from a local bar where undiscovered country heroes Bill Hicks and the Rainbows are performing.

I suppose his seducing women just to use them to build his “super woman” adds to his being a completely loathsome character with no redeeming qualities.  And, to be sure, the scenes are hella gorey!  It’s obvious how the effects were created; whether it be a carefully hidden limb or a “severed” head sticking out from somewhere but the fact is the effects look real and gross.  The doctor cuts off limbs, cuts open torsos, cuts out eyes and does a whole bunch of unsavory things with his creepy set of surgical tools.

Eventually he builds a woman and she definitely is quite hot.  He attempts to teach her stuff the way a parent would teach a little kid.  But, as these things typically do, the plot goes awry and, well, I’m not going to spoil it for you.  The Body Shop has its obvious flaws with the least of them being its miniscule budget.  There are moments that don’t make that much sense and an ending that’s a tiny bit confusing but as a whole, it’s worth the 80 minutes you’ll spend watching it.

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Color Me Blood Red (1965)

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I don’t want to ruffle any feathers and cause any brain aneurisms at the thought that your entire world might be turned around by this ground breaking statement but Herschell Gordon Lewis is a lousy director.  Don’t get me wrong; I love his stuff and I’ve seen all his movies but they’re not any good.  Gordon has more or less said that he’s not aiming for any artistic merit but just to entertain.  And that’s the problem!  Unless he’s filling the screen with gore, violence, perversion or just nogoodniks doing nogoodniky things, he really sucks!

Case in point: Color Me Blood Red.  I saw this one a while ago and remembered it being way more entertaining but, upon second viewing, I was surprised by how boring this movie is.  80 minutes that seem interminable.  And I don’t want to turn potential viewers away from the films of H.G. Lewis by such a negative assessment so I’ll at least attempt to explain what Color Me Blood Red is all about and why I think it failed at doing what it was supposed to do.

After leaving the world of nudie cuties (which he’d later return to), Lewis with producer David F. Friedman set for the uncharted territory of wanton gore and splatter.  As evidenced by Blood Feast which caused a traffic jam upon its inaugural showing at a drive-in, it worked and Lewis/Friedman had a new gimmick to exploit.  And yes, Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs, Color Me Blood Red, The Gruesome Twosome, The Wizard of Gore and The Gore Gore Girls are all very gross, bloody and gory; just as bad – possibly worse – than a lot of popular R rated slasher films.

The problem is that stuff has to happen between the gore sequences.  Lewis not only is lousy at his direction, which consists of home video quality photography that often sits on nothing in particular but also can’t build up suspense worth a damn.  I won’t bash the horrendous sound since he probably could only afford one boom mic.  This leaves only two things to enjoy; the hokey acting and the gore.  The gore movies especially are unique since, instead of horny teenagers who bang within 10 minutes of the opening credits, you get to see an immense level of gore juxtaposed with 1950s-early 60s “golly, gee whiz!” dialogue and action.  Color Me Blood Red just has way too much of the latter.

Color Me Blood Red is sort of an update of Roger Cormon’s artistically superior A Bucket of Blood.  In that film an artist killed people and covered them in clay, producing works of “art” for pretentious, know-it-all critics.  In Color Me Blood Red, the artist Adam (Don Joseph) uses human blood to give his canvas extra color.  Guess how he gets it.  Aside from the hilariously sickening scene of him passing out from using too much of his own blood, he begins to kill people and use theirs.

Unsurprisingly the local critics really love his work; violent, sick and daring!  Soon the body count picks up until a group of local kids gets wind to what he’s doing when they discover a rotting corpse on his beach side property.  Seems like a hoot, right?  It would be if there was more killing!  He stabs his annoying fiance, runs through someone with a harpoon on a motorboat and uses a woman’s lower intestine to color his canvas but there are just too many scenes of beach party bingo nonsense and goofy kids literally doing nothing.  They splash each other, crack corny jokes and frolic about but remain remarkably un-killed!  BOOORRRRIIIING!!!  And these are the annoying kids that I wanted to see get killed!  And he doesn’t kill a single one of them!  Arrrrghghgh!!!

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December 1, 2013

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Wilbur and the Baby Factory (1970)

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For further proof of how wonky the rating system was prior to when the MPAA figured it all out (meaning that, if the major studios do it, it’s okay but if independents do, we’ll make you slice up your movie until there’s barely anything left), here an interesting picture for you that absolutely did not deserve its X rating.  When I surveyed the trailers on the Something Weird DVD from which Wilbur and the Baby Factory came from, it seemed that all of the films were pornography.  As evidenced by Tanya, the other film featured on this DVD, that would appear to be the case.  However I was delightfully surprised by Wilbur and the Baby Factory.

While no masterpiece, Wilbur and the Baby Factory is a bizarre and intriguing counter-culture thriller with only minimal amounts of sex.  You would think otherwise if you saw the trailer since the trailer only shows you the sex scenes but the sex scenes in the trailer are the extent of the sex scenes in the movie.

Wilbur… is about a genuine “for the people”, social worker named Wilbur Steele (Peter Ford), who leaves his post at a non-prophet organization – the kind which helps old ladies keep their homes from greedy banks, etc. – to be part of a strange experiment where his sole purpose is to sire children.  The program is run by a group of scientists led by Dr. Wednesday (Keith McConnell) and on a Eugenics type mission to control the Earth’s population so it’s not overrun by undesirables.  Their current subject seemed to have lost his mind as evidenced by scenes of a crazy looking guy who takes to strangling women in the heat of passion.  Wilbur, who seems ambivalent to the project at first, questions the scientists about how love and human emotions play into the whole thing.  The answer of course is that they don’t.

What the scientists didn’t anticipate is that Wilbur is ultimately planning a sabotage, hence the footage cut to the guy listening in his van via wire tap.  That doesn’t prevent Wilbur from doing a whole lotta fucking though.  Again, the sex *scenes* aren’t too gratuitous with a few exceptions that might push the boundaries of our modern NC-17 rating but are no worse than say, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.  The majority of the film is actually  a pretty compelling story; from Wilbur’s training sessions to get him “up to speed”, to conversations between Wilbur and the doctors and various other side plots.  The most interesting of these is Karen and Kristine, twin sister played by adorable, German red head Larissa Schubert.  One is normal, the other a nympho who admitted how much she liked getting gang banged when she was 10 years old in the most dry, matter of fact way possible.

Also what makes the movie also watchable is that it’s actually well made and looks nice!  Writer/director Tom McGowen actually knows subtlety with the camera and the scenes just look cool; very 60s, mind you with make shift sets and antiquated, retro-futuristic technology, but cool nonetheless.  The film also uses some neat editing tricks like the aforementioned cross cutting to the spy van and the freak who keeps strangling the women during experiments.  There’s also a few original tunes thrown into the movie for good measure; a mixture of folk and psychedelia to give it that timely feel.

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December 1, 2013

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Tanya (1976)

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On a Something Weird double feature DVD with Wilbur and the Baby Factory, the movie Tanya makes me question if the Something Weird guys are really just gussied up porn peddlers.  I mean, come on… Tanya is seriously just wall to wall sex.  There are maybe a couple minute of dialogue or other stuff other than sex.  And, to be sure, these are not soft core scenes.  Okay you don’t see full on penetration, but it’s pretty clear the “actors” in the film are having real sex.

Tanya was inspired by the 1974 Patty Hearst kidnapping, in which a high society girl gets napped by a group of radical, left wing revolutionary types who set out to make a statement.  The only statement they make is how much they like sex.  There are five members in the group, their radical black leader Cinque (B.B. Hinds), an overweight white guy who looks like David Crosby, two white chicks and a black chick.  Then enter Tanya (Maria Arnold), a sexy but innocent woman who is about to be married but very quickly learns that bedding with every other character is so much more fun.

And that’s the plot!  The kidnappers kidnap the girl, she fucks everyone, the end!  There are little bits in between involving a news reporter on a black and white TV, whose role is pretty useless and there are scenes of dialogue, usually your typical left wing mumbo-jumbo, one scene where they kill a police officer – it’s implied that Tanya exerts him to death with sex but we are not exactly sure – one scene where Cinque uses raid to kill some bugs and a few pointless, outdoor training sequences.  But, other than that, there’s just sex and more sex.  In fact, just to show how much fucking Tanya does, there is a montage of the same sex scenes we already saw earlier.  With the exception of one exterior shot and the news reporter’s studio, the majority of the movie takes place in a dingy, wooden hideout.

The sex was somewhat erotic – involving all types of positions and approaches that need no description –  barring the scenes with the overweight, balding David Crosby lookalike.  And that about covers it.

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December 1, 2013

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A Band Called Death (2013)

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Well there you have it folks; the poster says it all… but that’s not really true.  Come on.  Maybe some people think that “before there was punk, there was a band called Death”, but we all know the truth; you could just as easily say “before there was punk there was a band called the Stooges, MC5, New York Dolls, Modern Lovers, Dictators, Electric Eels, Mirrors, Rocket from the Tombs, Simply Saucer, Dogs and a bunch of 60s garage bands.”  The fact is that, had Death released their music in 1975, they would have been one of many bands like the Dictators or the Flamin’ Groovies whose pre-punk brand of rock would have won an audience among the hip, “in the know” people of the era while the rest of the mainstream would remain oblivious.

Now that I’ve got the negative part of the review out of the way, let’s discuss why I thought A Band Called Death is a good movie!  Well, it’s a not a good movie or a good documentary.  Our filmmakers Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett aren’t exactly artistes or have a whole lot of style.  They just stumble their way through the film and are helped by the genuine fact that they’re telling a compelling story.  The work was sort of done for them.  Either way, I liked it.

Death was founded by David, Bobby and Dannis Hackney, three of eight children, who were spiritually awoken upon watching the Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964.  It wasn’t long before David picked up the guitar, Bobby went on bass and Dannis sat behind the drum kit.  At first they played a mixture of funk and rock but, by 1974, they officially coined themselves Death because, as David Hackney said, “death is real” and went for pure rock ‘n’ roll.

As the story goes, Death amassed some wickedly killer material – a hard rock/punk rock hybrid of hard edge Who riffs and Hendrix-y solos – and thrashed it out in their local Detroit ‘hood for a few years, annoyed the local neighbors who probably preferred the sound of Motown over loud rock, recorded a demo, ditched a major label deal because Dave Hackney didn’t want to change the group’s name, relocated to that punk rock central known as… Vermont, changed their name to the 4th Movement and became a Christian rock band. After releasing one record, they broke up, Dave Hackney moved back to Detroit and the rest of the band hooked up with new players and became a reggae band called Lambsbread.

Then, years later, a few savvy record collectors discovered a Death 7″ single for the songs “Keep on Knocking” b/w “Politicians in My Eyes”, which went for a small fortune on eBay and the living members (David Hackney passed away in 2000) dug up the old tapes out of their Detroit attic and authorized their release as the album …For the Whole World to See.  The band toured with their kids’ band Rough Francis in the support and everyone lived happily ever after or something.

Again, let me stress, I like Death a lot.  A lot lot.  Their record is awesome!  They have a second one called Spiritual Mental Physical, which has a bunch of demos on it and that one is also great.  And the story of discovering old tapes is always interesting. But it’s not unique.  In fact, two years ago there was a documentary on Pentagram whose story, though not exactly the same, has similar parallels.  The point is I’m glad the record came out and that Death got their due.  In my estimation though, they should have told brother David Hackney, “listen dude, we’re changing our goddamn name because Arista have a deal for us” or, at very least, they could have moved to New York where there was a punk scene like the Dead Boys did.

As for the movie, we get some neat tour footage, some interviews, some spiced up photos, a tour of the old house, etc., but nothing that will blow you away.  Like I said, the story speaks for itself.  Oh, one last thing; the interview subjects outside Death and their group of close friends/family were Henry Rollins, Alice Cooper, Kid Rock, Mickey Leigh (Joey Ramone’s younger brother), Elijah Wood (?!) and some record collectors.  Come on, kids… where was Iggy, Niagra, Wayne Kramer or any of the underground heroes of Detroit’s rock scene?

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November 4, 2013

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Vengeance of the Zombies (1973)

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Don’t be mislead by the title for this film.  It’s neat sounding but, in order to actually take vengeance, you have to be motivated by someone who violated your personal, social or moral code.  And zombies can’t do that because zombies can’t think!

Anyhoo, Vengeance of the Zombies is a movie I thought I really loved upon first viewing but, after a second viewing induced by the stupid netflix DVD skipping, I realized that I didn’t really get what happened or what the purpose was.  It hits all of my quintessential check points; it has voodoo, Satanism, gore, nudity and is shot in a European style by one Leon Klimovsky but is a little dull in parts and, I dunno, kinda silly.

As far as I gather, Paul Naschy, who plays three different roles, goes around using voodoo to raise the dead and those zombies go around killing people.  But I found it a little confusing; is it because I’m stupid?  There was a guy who looked like V from V for Vendetta that went around killing people violently without the aid of zombies.  Who the hell was he?  There are a couple of neat stalking and killing sequences.  A lecherous couple get impaled by a knife and then the killer strangles the girl with a metal string.  One old woman’s head plops clear off her head.  One man is forced to slice his own throat via voodoo.  One old man gets axed in the face.  Like I said, it’s a pretty gory movie.

But, aside from gore, there are Satanic sequences that make no sense at all.  Are they dream sequences?  I couldn’t tell!  It’s cool looking!  The Satanic, sacrificial room with its altar of sacrifice is designed well and the camera has a cool fish-eye effect during the first sequence.  Paul Naschy has cool, goat horns and his face is painted green in this segment.  And there is another segment where Naschy’s face looks all burnt up.  The makeup job is great!

Also I must say the zombie resurrection scenes were actually kind of creepy.  The opening scene with the graverobbing couple getting trapped in the mausoleum and being attacked by a white, clear sheat draped, female zombie who rises from the coffin and brutally dispenses with the couple drew me in to the whole thing in the first place.  But, also what annoyed me is that the film’s supposed main character, Elvira (Romma) didn’t really drive the plot and more just seemed like a casual witness to the proceedings.  She seemed virtually immune to all of the violence surrounding her and I didn’t quite understand why.

Lastly the score was something else entirely; funk jams, percussion filled afro beat (I think?) and messy jazz music; all quite enjoyable if you ignore the fact that they rarely fit the film’s scenes.  Only one time is this not true and that’s aforementioned stalker and murder sequence.  Other than that, minus making much sense, this film is pretty darn cool!

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October 19, 2013

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CBGB (2013)

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Complete and utter shit.  I had already read the reviews and seen the trailer so I wasn’t surprised that this movie was going to suck.  I just watched it to see how bad it stunk and I was not  disappointed.  It did not even come close to rising above the absolute wretchedness which I had expected.  What’s sad is that CHEETAH CHROME WAS INVOLVED!!!  It’s mind boggling to me that a former participant on the CBGB scene could be involved in such a piss poor travesty and allow himself to be portrayed as a complete buffoon.  Chrome is a smart dude!  He’s well spoken and reads a lot and certainly must have been aware of how the actor portrayed him as a completely moronic thug.

But let me start from the beginning.  I wasn’t there.  I didn’t witness the first ever Ramones performance where each member played a different song, angrily stormed offstage and came back to play “Blitzkrieg Bop”; one of those legendary performances where the people in attendance had no idea that they were witnessing history being made.  But I’ve read Please Kill Me along with a ton of other literature on this topic and I’ve seen plenty of live footage from the era and, for chrissakes, I listen to all of these bands!!!

CBGB the movie is total VH1-style, biopic nonsense.  A few key scenes were underlined and recreated as stylistically bankrupt as possible (unless you consider crude comic book panel transitions a “style”).  But what do you expect from a film made by the same guy who directed Houseguest? A clever, post-modern docu-drama in the style of 24 Hour Party People?!!!!!

Like I said, I read Please Kill Me so I knew exactly what scenes they were recreating; the aforementioned inauspicious inaugural Ramones performance, Stiv Bators from the Dead Boys receiving oral sex onstage, Legs McNeil, John Holmstrom and Mary Harron interviewing Lou Reed for the first issue of Punk and Johnny Blitz’s stabbing among others.

And there you have it; the key stories behind the CBGB club excepting early performances from a bunch of other bands that were left out for practical reasons (I understand there might not have been room for Devo, the Cramps, the Misfits or the Damned but where the hell are Johnny Thunders and Heartbreakers or the Dictators in all of this?)… but the execution is a complete and utter joke.  The only one that actually, kind of works is the Talking Heads one.  They actually do look like the early Talking Heads but that only lasts for a couple minutes.  The Ramones in the movie are completely laughable.  Joey, who most considered typically cool, sounds like Woody Allen!!!  He sounds like a neurotic, New York Jew and not like a too-cool-for-school rock ‘n’ roll guy.  Apparently Linda Ramone, wife to deceased Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone, approved one Ramones song to be in the movie but… instead, for some reason, they use a Joey Ramone solo recording.

The rest of the performances stink; actors that kinda sorta resemble Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, the Dead Boys (pre-Jeff Magnum who, for some reason, never appears in the movie(?!)), Television (with a pudgie Richard Hell(?!)) and the Police (who inexplicably “save” the club at the end (?!)) poorly mime to studio recordings of some of the greatest songs ever written.  The movie is also full of blatant, easily avoidable mistakes; there were stickers all over the wall for bands who hadn’t even played there yet, Patti Smith performs “Because the Night” two years before it even came out and basically the Dead Boys’ entire story arc is a complete insult to the group, which I’ll save for the next paragraph.

I’m surprised Cheetah Chrome says anything positive about the movie since the Dead Boys are treated like Hilly Kristal’s big mistake.  The movie only shows the Dead Boys’ public persona as a group of Midwest, white trash thugs where, in actuality, they were smart, charming and polite people!  The actor who plays Stiv looks like Parry Farrel and does a bunch of stupid, overly-exaggerated “punk” poses and the Cheetah character keeps making nimrod, little kid, “nyeah, nyeah” faces while looking completely incapable of holding a guitar.  If you watch any Dead Boys TV performances, it’s obvious they’re tight musicians who have quite a bit of charisma onstage.  None of this is shown in the movie.

They do show the onstage blowjob and Cheetah Chrome shows Young, Loud and Snotty producer Genya Raven his pubes.  This is important stuff, ya know.  And they do show people shooting dope in the CBGB bathroom and guys giving each other head, which did happen, I guess.  And they do show some dramatic scenes between Hilly (Allen Rickman) and his daughter Lisa (Ashley Greene) and how Hilly can’t handle money and was involved with some shady bikers and some other vaguely historical shit or something.  But who cares?  There is so much awesome early footage available of every single one of these performers on youtube that the only reason to watch this is to see how much of it they get wrong.  Oh and the guy who played Iggy Pop is too tall.

But, if you want to see for yourself, here it is on youtube.  Save yourself a trip to the theater or DVD rental and watch it here while you can:

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September 22, 2013

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Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)

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I guess I’m a little surprised that Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, which is also known by a plethora of other titles including most popularly Don’t Open the Window and The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, hasn’t gotten a bit more recognition in the world of zombie cinema.  If it did I know I would have heard about it way sooner.  It’s possibly the first post-Night of the Living Dead zombie flick which holds true to the now popular zombie movie cliches (i.e. get bit by a zombie and become one, their coming to life because of radiation, etc.).

And to be sure, Jorge Grau’s stylistically shot picture was admittedly influenced by Night of the Living Dead.  In fact several of the plot points are directly parallel to those in George Romero’s masterpiece.  The most obvious comparisons are the characters themselves.  It’s obvious that Romero’s black protagonist is meant to be some sort of anti-establishment symbol; same with George (Ray Lovelock), a long-haired, hippie type, who rides a motorcycle and somewhat resembles Charles Manson.  At the beginning he meets Edna (Christine Galbo), a cute red head, and the two, through a series of events are forced to fend off flesh craving zombies.  The unlikely pairing of the man and woman also parallels Night of the Living Dead.  Only, in this case, Edna acts cooler and savvier than the ditzy Barbara.

A wrong turn leads George to a field where a group of guys are using radiation as a form of pesticide.  Unbeknownst to them this causes a group of zombies to rise from their graves and start killing people.  When one kills the husband of Edna’s drug addicted sister, the authorities assume the hippie George was responsible because he has long hair and looks weird.

Then the gory gut chomping starts.  And boy is it gory, not just for a movie made in 1974!  It’s also vividly shot in color with lots of style and grace, as one would expect a Spanish-Italian horror film to be shot.  The landscape of the British countryside is lush and marvelous and an excellent foil to the grotesqueness that transpires.  And, I suppose if you’re one of those substance people, it also has an environmentalist message.  But seeing how many times George says stuff like “man, look at what you’re doing to the Earth, man!”, I wonder if the message was sincere or just a way for the director to give his movie some edge.

That hardly matters though.  I highly recommend this film.  I read a review somewhere on the net that it takes its time to get going but that’s bullshit.  Sure, it doesn’t just shove twenty corpses in your face in the first few minutes but, come on, this was made before everyone became afflicted with A.D.D.

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September 22, 2013

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Guess What Happened to Count Dracula (1971)

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Guess where I found this movie!  You got it!  It’s the other movie on the Something Weird DVD from which I watched Dracula (The Dirty Old Man)!  Like most Something Weird DVDs, the disc is loaded with cool stuff including 10 or so movie trailers, two short films and a gallery of exploitation art.  Before I get into discussing Laurence Merrick’s and Mario d’Alcala’s boring and shitty theatrically released home movie Guess What Happened to Count Dracula, I’ll briefly talk about the special features.

The trailers are awesome and, inevitably, make me want to check out Caged Virgins, Blood Suckers, The Body Beneath and a whole bunch more I can’t remember.  I’ve already seen H.G. Lewis’ A Taste of Blood, however.

The two short subjects were both pornographic home movies with vampire themes but were also pretty funny.  “Dracula and the Dirty Old Witch” begins with the vampire waking completely naked (except he’s wearing a cape) out of his coffin, stalking a girl who he kidnaps, taking her to his underground lair where he has other women chained up and attempting to make her his vampire bride.  Then the witch plays a joke on him, giving him brew that turns him gay, making him turn to a male prisoner and profess his love.  The male prisoner replies, “I’ve already got a husband.”  Har!  The other short subject, “Sex and the Single Vampire”, has a bit more blood related jokes, a bunch of couples fucking (which I think is real) before the vampire kidnaps all the men and sleeps with the women who are immediately turned on by his huge cock.  In the morning, with the women surrounding him in bed, he turns into a skeleton.  Double harr!!

I don’t need to say that much about the gallery of exploitation art except for what is that freakin’ song at the end???  It’s a cute, catchy 1950s rock ‘n’ roll song with a lady singing, “I love love love you, baby” and “I want your love but all I get is your money.”  Can someone help me track down this song and artist???

2014 update!!!  The artist in question is Betty Dickson and the song is “Shanty Tramp”, the theme for the film Shanty Tramp!!!  Triple harrr!!!

Guess What Happened to Count Dracula combine’s the Anton LaVey documentary Satanis: The Devil’s Mass with vampire themes, meaning it has the look and feel of that documentary with the cool, underground hippie cult dungeon and Satanic references but is also a narrative with a supernatural theme to it.  And I know I’m not full of crap when I say this because, in addition to mimicking the underground, cult-like feel of LaVey’s Church of Satan, the vampire also has a pet tiger; which, if you remember, LaVey adopted a baby lion that grew too big to take care of.

As evidenced by the “GP” rating, the movie is devoid of sex or violence.  It’s completely family friendly and not particularly compelling.  In fact, it’s down right boring.  The poster lists a bunch of quirky characters like “Imp”, “Hunch”, “Vamp” and “Runt” but they’re all entirely underused and just serve as set decorations.  The vampire either cages up the Imp or the Hunch, I forgot which, and all the Imp or Hunch does is make noise.  The Vamp just bares her teeth every now and then and that’s about it.  I remember the Runt being there too but I don’t remember him doing anything at all.

The story is about the generic, Dracula-like vampire, Count Adrian, kidnapping the girl and turning her into another vampire.  The good guy goes to stop it and a bunch of other useless crap happens.  If this was made by a competent director, then there might have been some suspense as the girl gets sicker, loses more blood and sees more teeth marks on her neck.  But, instead, it’s just tedium spiced with really lame jokes.  The worst of which is when the doctor, who’s office looks like a kitchen, talks to the nurse and they imply they’re going to “do it on the table”, before the doctor pulls out a chess board.  Also, upon seeing the vampire bites on the girls neck, the doctor more than once says, “tell your boyfriend to take it easy!”  Haha!  Because human teeth have the ability to put two conveniently spaced holes in a person’s neck, haha!

I mean, the ONLY redeeming quality about this film is that it looks like Satanis: The Devil’s Mass with its poorly lit, sepia tone and underground dungeon scenery.

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September 22, 2013

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Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) (1969)

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I don’t even know where to start with this one.  I’m on a quest to see everything in the Something Weird library and William Edwards’ classic Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) just happened to be the next film up and, well, it’s pretty shitty.  I mean, it’s no worse than most of what I’ve seen from Something Weird and not even half as boring as say, Monster at Camp Sunshine or a number of sexploitation/nudy cutie flicks.  Hell!  It even has a special effect!  Dracula disappears and reappears!  How did they do that!?

Uh, right… so this 68 minute feature is about a vampire who dresses like Dracula yet talks in an old Jewish/Yiddish accent, which must have been a deliberate attempt at schlocky Jewish humor since the Jackal-Man character is named (sigh) Dr. Irving Jekyll.  Basically Count Alucard goes around kidnapping women, taking them back to his dungeon and biting their boobs, leaving two vampire bite holes.

His slave, Dr. Irving Jekyll does the same thing, I think.  I don’t know.  Actually, the movie is pretty darn insulting.  The vampire constantly remarks about how one of the girls he kidnaps and chains up is overweight and how another has small boobs.  Elsewhere the characters make fun of each other and there are some necking couples here and there.  There’s also some gore, which would be affective if it actually looked like gore and not piled on red slop and if a character actually looked like he wounded another character rather than just implying it before the camera cuts away.

The dubbing is also piss poor which unintentionally (or maybe not?) makes it that much funnier and the Jackal-Man just looks like he’s wearing a cheap Halloween mask.  Ohhh, crap… the Jackal-Man is supposed to be said as Irving Jackalman, hahahahahaha, oy gavolt!  Apparently this movie was dubbed into several languages, which means, I assume, that several of the Jewish jokes were lost on people.  This thing actually showed at different festivals!  It’s a fuckin’ home movie for crying out loud!

I made my friend Sarah watch this with me and she said, “Edwin, you have the shittiest taste in movies.”  And I said, “mmm, it wasn’t that bad.”