Saturday, December 28, 2013

Invitation To Ruin


Invitation to Ruin Directed By Roger Gentry (as Trygge Rone) Starring Jerry Delony (1968).
The only reference I had for this film was trailer I saw on Horror Of 42nd Street of a tubby looking satanist sitting between a busty blonde with a giant beehive and in one of the first Something Weird catalog's I ever laid eyes on. Now I have the hardcore insert version (I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into, but It's time to wade waist deep in a pit of scum and refuse).

What's that rancid odor coming from your zipper? 
   They don't waste time with the beavers and random pop-shots, you can tell immediately when they switch back, because the film stock looks like it was kept under a pile of razor wire (I've never watched a film with more spaghetti film scratches and cigarette burns in my life)! That's OK, because I'm certain the top quality script and seamless editing will make it all worth while (yeah right)! 
   Bob Cresse, exploitation dealer and allegedly Lee Frost are responsible for this inept pile of shit, they've worked together on filth like Love Camp 7 and Frost later made one my favorite racist goofball comedies, The Thing With Two Heads.
   A girl in a an overly processed weave brings in the invitations and we're off! Mr. Alexander gets his wiener waxed (I imagine they hauled in a barrel of ghastly sex loops thrown away from a random adult theater and spliced back into this atrocity). 
Why Yes, I'm a celebrity!
   But wait, it gets better, a famous celebrity is in our midst, who could it be? It's someone only Skunkape, Richard Linklater and I care about, Jerry Delony from Slacker and Ilsa, Harem Keeper. That vampiric, bordering on tranny looking, dapper gentleman from Texas (incidentally both him and Gentry are both from Austin and the director collaborated on two films featured on TOG: The Love Butcher and Black Gestapo).
   Deloney plays an undercover agent trying to bust Ernie Pulaski and his dominatrix with gigantism lurking in the basement. This flick consists of tons of random scenes of people sitting in rundown offices and chatting, while flashbacks or porn inserts start to happen. 
   Ernie Pulaski (Moe Weise, who stopped acting after this) a scuzzy flesh peddler who runs a prostitution ring, convinces Jerry Sloane (director/actor "Jim" Roger Gentry) to go into business with him. He goes to work, nabbing dopey girls off the street to be trained like animals over at Ernie Pulaski's dungeon. The unnecessary porn inserts continue and get really tedious! 
   Pulaski looks like a cross between Jerry Stiller and Anton LaVey and there's a beastly women down in the pit who looks like Clarabelle (played by Bertha Bigg), the clown from Howdy Doody, giving topless girls fifty lashes!


Whip it good
   A character named The Sheik (not Ed Farhat!) makes an appearance (he looks like Paul Bartel with more hair) he proceeds to have some of the nastiest, vomit inducing sex ever captured on screen! It was so gross, that bile started to slither into my throat, his saggy body looked like a flesh covered elephant! 
   Jerry (Gentry) falls for creepy Ernie's daughter, what little thin fabric of storyline there exists is very dull. 
Gimme a salami and liverwurst sandwich to go with this boob
   The spliced in porn scenes get more abrupt and they even use the same library music heard in the "Tide" segment of Creepshow and later NOTLD (Romero should remake this, instead of wasting his time riding on the success of The Walking Dead, yeah right)!
They show a frumpy old lady whipping a girl in the dungeon, where they condition them for human trafficking. If I had a video copy of this, I'd smash it with a hammer and flush the plastic pieces and magnetic tape down the toilet!  

AVOID AT ALL COSTS!
   

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Exclusive Interview With Frank Doubleday


Interview with actor Frank Doubleday
By Kris Gilpin
Frank Doubleday was an intimidating actor but a very nice guy in person, he kept shrugging, smiling & saying, "Banana, banana," like it was a friendly catchphrase of his. I got him for a science-fiction fan-fiction mag (with frustratingly poor printing) which frankly never realized/appreciated what I was doing for them, when I got Herschell Gordon Lewis for them & they didn't even mention him on the cover, well, I quit them shortly after that...
   On the evening of April 21, 1985, I had the chance to speak with actor Frank Doubleday (from Escape From New York, Assault On Precinct 13, The First Nudie Musical, Avenging Angel) in a Beverly Hills at The Beverly Hills Cafe. 
Despite his intense screen appearance, Frank is quite soft spoken in person.

Kris Gilpin: How did you get your start in acting?

Frank Doubleday: Professionally, I got my start with an industrial film; that got me my card. From that I just started doing TV, and then film, and it fluctuated up and down through the years. Before that, I had about 10 years in theater.



KG: One of the biggest shocks I've seen on film is when you blew away (then) little Kim Richards in Assault On Precinct 13. Did you or John Carpenter have any qualms or problems filming that scene?

FD: No, they knew the intensity they were creating; Carpenter's a very good director.
My attitude with that event was not to show good or bad, but apathy, and that's the most dangerous; it's like blind authority, you can't see it and you can't control it and you can't stop it and it doesn't care.

KG: When your character was later shot to death in that film, he just stood there and took it. Why?

FD: He was the type of man who had a sense of immortality; his apathetic approach to life made him greater than human in my eyes, and less than human in ours. So when he took the bullets, he was surprised that they went in, and then--boom--he falls; that was the moment; he just couldn't believe the event.


KG: He took the bullets but his expression  never changed.

FD: Right. He was dead [apathetically in his mind] before the reality. He died twice. Normally, either organs fail and stop the brain or the brain fails and stops the organs; very rarely, unless it's in an accident, does a person die completely.So he was dead, and that was his immortality standing there.

KG: What is John Carpenter like to work for? Are you guys old friends?

FD: I did two movies for John; Assault was his second movie out of college. Yeah, I love him, because he gives you a path and lets you go down that path as you choose; he gives an actor an awful lot of freedom, but not uncontrollable freedom.

Carpenter directing Halloween a few years after Assault

KG: How much freedom is too much, from a director?

FD: Personally, it depends on what we're doing. If I have a lot of resource for the character in question, then I don't want a director giving me more; but if I'm low on something, I want a director out there who can say, "X, let's concentrate on X", and go that way. I don't think any actor can play all roles; you're limited because of your personality, so in some regards you really need a director to guide you through. And I've had directors do that. There was one time I did a Western, for a TV show The Quest, in which the high moment was when I got shot, and the director was mirroring me off camera--as I was going down, he was doing exactly the same thing at the same rhythm. Because I could see that, it become a gracious moment and stopped everybody.

Frank and Diana in The First Nudie Musical

KG: I thought it was hilarious when you simply laid your chains across the railing on Diana Canova's thug boyfriend when she was flirting in The First Nudie Musical. How do you find doing comedy, as opposed to drama?

FD: It was a trip. I'm gonna have to think about that one. It was a low budget movie and I wasn't sure what my character was going to be in the end; I didn't have him all the way. It was a fun thing to do, but not a high moment in my acting career. Do I like comedy better than drama? If it's better written; I'm a sucker for character. Ed Begley Jr., originally had that part, but he was going to do something else, so he called me up and I went over and picked the part.

Romero the deviant street punk from Escape

KG: You were the first guy, the punked-out  one with the spiked hair, to come and talk to Kurt Russell in the street in Escape From New York. How much of that character's wild appearance was your creation?

FD: It was all mine; they gave me the costume, and from there I said I wanted the hair straight. They also gave me the teeth, but I don't know if they were defined as well as they should have been, or whether it was even necessary. But that image was what I saw.

KG: It looked like more of an actor's creation, as opposed to a writer's or directors.

FD: Yeah, but that's what's good about Carpenter. We filmed it in St. Louis, and a week before we went he called me over to his office and asked me if I had any ideas at that time of what I'd do, and I said, "Yeah, but I probably won't know until I get there." He trusted me since we had worked before; he knew I'd come up with something.


The inspiration for Escape From New York's iconic punk Romero


KG: Was that hiss you gave Russell at the end of that scene your idea too?

FD: (Nods) The Witch Witch of the West was where that came from. She was destroyed by water and, for my character in Escape, that hiss was his way of being watered upon--all the air leaves the body.


KG: How did you get the part of the suited son in Avenging Angel?

FD: I went in for the part of Stardust, and I went in a direction that the director didn't have in mind, but was very interested in; one thing led to another and he just wanted me in the film. The director said that he wanted my eyes for the son, because the son was shot and he had large eyes that wouldn't move at all. [He gets shot between the eyes.] Basically, I had to sit in the chair and concentrate on not moving my pupils. They did it twice. I could do it if I was going in a straight line, but any kind of vertical change was damn near impossible.


KG: Do you ever tire of playing villains?

FD: Yeah,sure. But in Tinseltown you get type-cast, and since I don't look like the guy next door, they're gonna cast me in another direction. But I get to choose my own plays, so that's how I compensate. [Frank has won two best actor awards for his stage work, in Waiting for Godot and Bird Bath.] I don't mind playing a bad guy if it's a real bad guy, but more of it is cartoon. I think Romero in Escape from New York was believable; I don't think that 85, 90% of the television bad guys that I've played [in T.J. Hooker, Charlies Angels, Starsky & Hitch, Police Story are really bad]. They wear the black hat and they carry the gun and they're in the car being chased and that's that. I don't really think I've enjoyed doing any television at all; I just don't care for it. They take three shots, and that's it; in other words: hit your mark, tell your joke and pick up your check.

KG: What stage work have you done?

FD: Mostly drama. I've done Shakespeare, O' Neill, Williams. I've done off-beat plays, like Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool Dry Place [Which Doubleday also directed]; I like that play. I love to do Hamlet, and one that I'm working on now: Dylan Thomas; I love that character. I may be doing an O' Neill play, Hughie in a few months.

KG: Is it more draining to do plays or a film?

FD: A play. Because with a film you may be drained for a day, and the next few days you may have off, or you may just be doing some simple pick-up shots. But theater of more draining.

Frank's wife Christina as one of the hookers in Charley Varrick

KG: Your wife is also in acting

FD: Yes; she is Christina Hart (Charley Varrick, The Mad Bomber), an excellent actress. Basically she's done what I've done a lot of episodic television, a lot of theater; not much in the last year, though, because we just had a child, a girl. She's  doing a play right now in Beverly Hills, and he last TV movie was about a year and a half ago, about this cop in San Francisco who is shot and he lost his hearing and went after the bad guys anyway, she turned state's evidence. I met my wife in acting class.


KG: What part did you play in Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, The Early Years?

FD: Just on of the gang members; I just had a few scenes in that, more of an establishing more of an establishing gang character who played with spears; and stuff like that. My experience with Richard Lester, the director, was that he was very conscious, very alert at the moment; if you saw something that you thought would work, he's instantly go for it. There was one shot where he was rounded up by the deputies and walking out of the cave in which the gang lived, and the guy playing the deputy behind me poked me a little too hard and I kind of backlashed on him just for a moment. Then the director ran down the hill and said, "That's good. Now push him, and start to run". So he was very much there.





KG: Who were you in Jack Lemmon's film, Alex and the Gypsy?

FD: It was an opening scene; (laughs) I forgot what I did; I think I burned my girlfriend for cheating on me. That film was death to do; Jack Lemmon said on Carson there were a couple of movies which were his worst, and that was one of them. The reason that film didn't work was that it should have gone comedic; Lemmon is phenomenal to work with, he is just a fantastic actor and individual. He saw that also, but it just never got filmed that way. For the record I'm gonna blame John Korty, the director for that.



Frank's split second role in The Big Fix

KG: What did you do in The Big Fix?

FD: I was some hit guy; there were two of us. No character to speak of; I don't think I had any dialogue at all; it was just run with the gun and stuff like that. I lost my eardrum making that movie; there was a scene where the two of us break into--I think it was--Dreyfuss's room, and they're waiting for us and they blow us away. I went down against the bookshelf, which they'd squibbed [with little explosive blood packets], and a squib went off in my ear and one burned my chest; I had my ear patched and went to the nurse's station. When I got back to the set, the only other bad guy in the movie had his ribs smashed by the actor, and they were taking him away in an ambulance. Now, I can't go below 7 feet of water, or travel in air unless it's depressurized, or it'll blow again!






KG: You're in an upcoming film called Nomads.

FD: That's just an extra part; they paid me a lot of money, but I just race around. I don't know much about it; I didn't read the script.


KG: What types of parts have you always wanted to do, but haven't had a chance yet?

FD: There're several characters that I'd like to do. Theatrically, I want to play Willie Loman; I'm most interested in the sinner; in the story Billy Budd, Budd is all good, yet he destroys more than Klagert, who is evil. I think sinning is part of the human psyche--I'm not saying we should go out and do wrong, but I don't think our wrongs can be swept under a hep psychologist's couch, or things like Est or Scientology. Yet it seems that, in our society right now, our humanity is being lost and we've got to sin; we have to err. We have to pay for it, we have to regret it, but I'm most interested in the character who sins and knows that he sins, but tries to compensate for that in a way. And the Good Guy image that you have, on TV especially, bores the shit out of me, and I think it's inhuman. And I think that's dangerous; that's where the danger is, when you think that the cop is God.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Come And See


Come And See (Idi i smotri, Kill Hitler) Directed by Elem Klimov. Starring Aleksey Kravchenko (1985).
   Immediately, I knew what to expect from reading different reviews online about this film, it's devastating, horrific and gets under you're skin long after you've viewed it. We here at TOG like to goof on shit all time, so as deranged as it may seem, there are fleeting moments of humor in this misery soaked Soviet perspective on the Holocaust. 
   Any movie strange enough to open with an angry kid talking in a goofy voice, not unlike Herve Villachaiz/ Froggy from the Little Rascals is off to a good start, this child is one of two young boys playing war games in the dirt amidst real bombs in Nazi occupied Russia in 1943. The film is supposed to make Schindler's List look restrained, that's a bold statement, but I didn't let it hinder my appreciation for the stark realism. I don't believe you should bother to make a Holocaust film, if you're not going to go for the throat, because if it's too soft, it comes off even more offensive and Come and See delivers in the abysmally gloomy department!
   This is a rare film that intrigued me and I hoped that it would be as captivating as I found The Tin Drum, it's completely different though. It's not even on the radar of highly regarded film snob best of lists (at least not by my inclination),why have I just become aware of it? Most of the reviews claim how harrowing and nightmarish this film is and it most certainly is. I almost wish I was totally unaware about what's to come, because I'd rather be shocked by it than desensitized. Make no mistake, this film is still a rough experience! 
a brief moment of rest on a dead cow

   Florian Gaishun (the brilliant young actor Aleksey Kravchenko) is unknowingly drafted,(or hurled onto a cart with an eye wound from a turkey peck), at first he seems excited to carry a gun, this is because there's no one to fight yet.
   The boy is ecstatic to help out and march into the death realms of the Nazi war machine, joining the Soviet resistance.
  The army mentions how Hitler's weapon is fear, which reminded me of my humanities teacher, someone I deeply respect, who said; "The Nazi's believed in Hell and used it as a model to bring it to Earth, had they not been influenced by The Catholic Church, they wouldn't have this to draw from". The title "Come And See" is from a Bible Passage in Revelations about the Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse.  
   Florian leaves the camps and finds a crazy girl named Glasha, (Olga Mironova, who stopped acting after this). She is found weeping in the forest, his crying causes her to laugh and vice versa. Their awkward, abrasive first encounter is upended by bombs dropping from planes.

The bombers constantly circle through-out the film 

   He brings his new girlfriend back to his family, little does Flora know that they were murdered (their rotting bodies are seen lined up against the back of the cabin). The couple sit in the empty cottage and eat rancid soup as flies buzz around their ears. 
   Suddenly Florian runs screaming into the wilderness and they trudge through a thick like molasses mud pit in agony, the boy keeps claiming that his family is there in the bottom of the swamp. This is an irrational response to try and unplug his brain from the harsh reality surrounding him. The freezing mud looks authentic and their anguish seems genuine. 
   Those displaced from the village fashion a grisly carcass like sculpture that resembles Hitler and they take out their rage out on it. 

Achtung, my freakin ears!
   Flora quickly shuts down and becomes introverted, a relative decides to chastise him as his final death rattle and makes matters worse. This causes him to blame himself for his families death and the man with cooked blistered skin, croaks out a few harsh words, confirming his fears.
   The death planes resonate with an eerily pleasant sound and seem to constantly be in flight.    
   Every single review spoke about the bleakness and humorlessness, I disagree, there's some moments of levity among the funeral procession grimness (it's very brief, but it's there), it's usually crushed out, right after a shred of happiness occurs. Flora giggles as a runaway cow moves along a barren field and then dies from a hail of bullets (which apparently were real)! Nothing can sustain the scorched wasteland and as he callously plunges a knife into the cattle carcass, his sanity starts to chip away.  
   According to IMDB, they hypnotized the boy so he wouldn't become traumatized by the "real" horrors, but of course it didn't work! Come on Klimov, don't rob the kid of stark realism, were the kids in Men Behind The Sun spared of any real torment, definitely not, what would Eisenstein think?
   The Nazis shove all the helpless women and children into a an overcrowd barn, watch the innocent squirm then firebomb it. They cackle like immature babies as they watch them burn to death.    
   Florian's face starts to crack into a leathery, wrinkled one, out of terror as children are dragged around by their hair and murdered, his disturbing reaction is haunting and he looks petrified. His trance-like appearance was supposedly achieved by hypnotism (but Kravchenko claims it never worked, which is testament to his superior acting skills).

I hope they don't market my face as a gimmicky mask


He looks toward the sky and feels a sense of calmness from the death plane buzzing, which eclipse the wretched sound of screams. The Nazis show their weakness by posing pictures with a gun to a frightened boy's head as their trophy of conquest. 
  
Nazi's are like Paris Hilton with their use of pet accessories
    I can only describe this film as "Ratcatcher goes to the Belarus", they both have similar protagonists living in filth, enduring miserable conditions and meeting a grisly finally. They are both devastating films with children as the victims to their caustic environment. James, the boy in Ratcatcher had a better existence, compared to Florian, who walks around in a constant state of fear, his soul and humanity quickly evaporating (he'd be more at peace dead).
   They would make a nice double feature together, I could see Howard Scott and the giggly outside right now, handing out Up-Chuck-Cups!


   They could hand out Florian fright masks like in Cut Throats 9, I say bring back the William Castle style hokum to the stodgy arthouse!
   Klimov never directed a film after this one, when asked why, he said that he had accomplished everything in this one film, fair enough! This is a brutal uncompromising, gut punch that doesn't sit well with you later on and why should it, its a very effective anti-war film that deserves high praise. 

BUY HERE

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

I Like To Hurt People


I Like To Hurt People Directed By Donald G. Jackson (1974).
You might be scratching you're head and thinking what has happened to Theater Of Guts? These wimps have sold out, what are they doing reviewing a dumb wrestling movie from the mid 70's or interviewing a guy who made a documentary about Christmas songs? We like to branch out from time to time, who doesn't? Sometimes we get bored too, but fear not, the carnage will resume later! 
I like Limburger cheese!
   For now relax and kick back with an ice cold Bud in the can and prepare you're self for wrassling and trashy hicks courtesy of Mr. "Frog town himself, Donald G. Jackson! 
   Feast your eyes on some prime footage of  the 70's classic roster of American superheroes like Dusty Rhodes, Andre The Giant, Terry Funk, Abdullah The Butcher and Ox Baker from Escape From New York.
   There's something authentically Spinal Tap about the whole sha-bang, from the ear-splitting metal to the improv stylizings of random people they stuck twenty bucks into their pocket to "act". 
   The man who likes to "Hurt People" is The Sheik (not the Iron one, just plain Sheik or Ed Farhat), his song goes "They call me Mr. Cool shoes…" 
   A lot of these unfamiliar wrestlers remind me of Mike Tyson's Punch Out villains like Mr. Sandman and Von Kaiser.

   There's an Artie Fufkin/ Paul Shaffer type creep slinking around haphazardly trying to slap together a thin story line with bubblegum. I'm betting Jackson would've been fine just playing terrible keyboard driven rockandroll over various matches and clumsy interviews. 
   Then Heather Feather shows up (fresh from a match wrestling a bear) into a tabletop arm battle and later they let her wrestle a man. She's the most fascinating character to me, because I like how she wants to level the sexist playing field.

I want to wrestle a man-bear-pig
   Terry Funk "Mr. Barbara Streisand's Nose" comes in and does a seizure dance, while paramedics take him away. Funk and his brother Dory vow to destroy the Sheik, they should stand in line, everyone wants to kill him. Let me explain that Terry Funk song if I could, it's one of the best/worst novelty songs on that 80's wrestler all star album, it must be heard to be believed!
Pardon me, I gotta go take a shit

 The film is an unintentionally hilarious 70's wrestling time capsule.This was Donald G. Jackson's first film, a few years later he made Demon Lover with Gunnar Hansen. He also worked with James Cameron on Galaxy Of Terror and the original Terminator. 
   I remember seeing this on alot of rare bootleg lists and now it recently showed up on Youtube (it will most likely disappear), if you're like us and dig Andy Kaufman in the ring or enjoy watching hillbillies yell at the screen for an hour and change then check it out!


I killed this snake, it's a calamity!


Have my agent call Rob Reiner

A truckload of bacon has been hijacked, film at 11

This is Brad Delp from Boston, reminding you that charcoal is hazardous

Monday, December 16, 2013

Ms. 45


Ms. 45 Directed By Abel Ferrara, Starring Zoe Tamerlis (1981).
I first became aware of this film in middle school the same way I fell in love with Vice Squad and NightHawks thru clips seen in Terror In The Aisles. When I saw it in the theater recently, I was hoping for the same marijuana addled, drunken frathouse seen in Terror with the ghost of Donald Pleasence seated between us and people yelling at the screen, sadly this never happened. 
   I did have a blast and had read many conflicting reviews in the past regarding Ferrara's symbolism (the methodical kissing of bullets in a nun habit, that type of nun-sense would resurface in Bad Lieutenant). Also certain critics were appalled that the rapes made her more powerful and sexual. It's not clear to me why this film is back in the theaters, although I'm glad it is, I've seen it five times and it has gotten better with age. I'll spare going into detail on the plot-line (since this film has been overly reviewed)! 
One of Terry Hawkins pals escaped!
   In my opinion there are certain religious and psychotic elements that delve deeper than just a typical vigilante exploitation flick. Thana (Zoe Tamerlis Lund) specifically targets all men, regardless if they wronged her or not, just the fact that they exist, merits her furious rage and with each murder she gets more attractive. There's never a moment where she breaks down, sheds her soft spoken demeanor and goes to a gun store, it just naturally appears once she loses her sanity (it's becomes an extension of her hatred toward the opposite sex). She is more introverted than ever and even though she's surrounded by stronger female characters, she never communicates to anyone on how she is feeling and internalizes it until it transforms into psychotic frenzy. The men don't do us any favors by acting like drooling horn dogs or self diluted jag-offs.
Fashion designer jag-off

   Thana, after deciding not to join her work friends for a drink, heads back to her apartment and becomes the unfortunate victim of two ugly sexual assaults in the same day (one by the director in a clear mask). After spending five minutes recovering from being humped on a trash can (ahem excuse the Harmony Korine accidental reference), another dude rapes her at gunpoint. I like how, she uses her seamstress skills to pummel the creep with an iron and then hacks through his fully clothed arm with a kitchen knife! 
Ironing off the clock
   She has nightmares about her snooping, but likable landlady (as a child babbles and dogs incessantly seem to bark). The hounds bark almost on an endless loop throughout the film and all men in 45 are some of the most lurid and skeevy, (all of them are unhinged predators or sad sacks). 
So What, I know I'm talented
   Out of her gaggle of co-workers, my favorite is the attractive street tough Laurie (Darlene Stuto, who sadly stopped acting after this). Laurie is the only one with the balls to stab Thana in the back in the final shootout, she looks like one of the Lizzies, the all lesbian gang in The Warriors
   In most of the rape/revenge subgenre there's a heroine that emerges (usually it's Linda Blair) and in this case, the sexual assaults psychically change Thana from a frail timid mute to an lethal feminist enforcer. The murders seem to give her enough strength and confidence to wipe out every male in the five Boroughs.  

Glow in the dark barracuda mouth
   In the new version, I noticed that her crocodile-like mouth glows in the dark like E.T.'s heart beat, It was unintentionally hysterical! There are some quick edits that are still enact from the original cut (but this new version of the film is more complete than ever). I forgot that she walks around each day dropping off pieces of the rapist's corpse throughout the city.
   The music is lowdown squawky saxophone or chilling piano, during the party scene I thought it was strange that they played it over a fake band using a trumpet, the score is being re-released by Death Waltz Records
   The only comparison people use for this film is Death Wish and like that series, I never felt justified as people are mowed down, Thana is more of a serial killer than a vigilante, because she hunts down any male in sight, she even ridiculously kidnaps her landladies dog Phil and points a gun at him! Vigilantes always get away scott free and since she's a selective killer, she dies.
Stop spoiling the ending Cranky!
   I always feel relieved when Laurie kills her at the end, because her suffering is over. Tragically in reality, Zoe Tamerlis died of a drug overdose at only 37! 
   Practically everyone in the film disappeared, never to act again (unless IMDB is broken again). I thought I had recognized the boss as actor Kenneth Nelson (Hellraiser, Boys In The Band), but it's not him, it's an actor named Albert Sinkys and I'm glad I never bet anyone because I would have lost. You'd think that women would be repulsed by this male revenge fantasy enacted through an attractive feminine killer, but I've found it's rarely the case. The audience I saw it with got all the jokes and I'm glad to see the uncut version of this exploitation classic getting the attention it deserves, don't miss it in theaters.
  

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Scum People!


Turd Of The Month by Eliot P. Ness

Artist's representation of Mr. P. Ness
   Dear ladies and gentlemen, I sit here before you (or, rather, my Olympia manual) with Creeping Bile of the Throat; no amount of fresh excrement can appropriately express the disgust I experienced at a recent Hollywood Boulevard screening of a new screaming Shit Flick. People were degraded to the level of Sub-animalistics (Cro-Magnon species) and blood, vicar, and human excrement ran rampant and in equal measure throughout the film's running time.
   And that was only the theater audience!
   I knew I was in trouble upon approaching the box office of the tiny Wormhole Theater (constructed, apparently, in the early 1500s); therein sat a younger (apparently female) of indeterminate age with two enlarged cold sores (at least I hope that's what they were) on her/his lips, giving the exaggerated mouth the appearance of a puckering aborigine.

 photo tumblr_m11u12f9Tc1qgwdgbo5_250.gif

   I wiped off my ticker and handed it to the doorman, who seemed to be draining Niagra Falls from his nose; he kept picking and wiping at his flowing nostrils and I declined to take back my half of the ticket stub. 
Abandon all hope, yee who enter!
   At the concession stand (which looked to have about half the populace of Southern California in front of it) I asked for an Orange Bang and a six-ounce box of something called Iris Rings (on sale for 3.95); I saw to my horror that the concession man had an eye patch (his one good eye kept drawing to the bridge of his nose, as if to catch sight of the phantom eye that was no longer there), and kept running from spigot to spigot, frantically screaming, "Is this it?! Is this it?! as he tried to track down the drink you wanted. The little children in the crowd (they were a virtual melting pot of pre-pubescence) were all laughing--and even spitting--at him, being urged on by their equally-ridiculing parents; I even heard one mother in the crowd ask her little girl, "Look Janey; aren't that man's eyes funny?" By that time, however I was almost crying for this poor man, and I decided to cut out of the sea of sweating bodies and head for the bathroom (due to an old war wound, I have to urinate before and after each film I see, lest my water starts to seep from out of the pores in my thighs). 
Orange Bang and Iris Rings just 3.95!
   Upon entering the bathroom, my senses were assaulted by clouds of rusty-smelling marihuana smoke (I started to choke almost immediately) and the horribly dense, thick scent of rancid feces; I have actually smelled foxholes full of dead bodies that were less offensive to my nasal cavities, yet most of the countless men there were laughing loudly and heartily eating their candy and popcorn items, all the while practicing intense and highly-audible flatulence, as if to see who could produce the most noise from their anal cavity.
   Walking past the unending lines before the urinals (I cannot relieve myself in front of others) I headed toward the old spotted toilet stalls (someone had apparently tried to rip all the doors off their hinges years ago), and was utterly shocked to see, sitting at a small table just beside the last urinal, a bathroom attendant, complete with towels and a shoe-shine kit! 
   I could see that he had half of an old cigar box on the table (he was an old black man), which looked to be completely filled with trinkets, buttons, broken soiled prophylactics. One young black man, after pissing an unending yellow stream on a strip of wall between two urinals, wiped his excessive member off with one of the towels and threw it into the cigar box. The old man smiled and thanked him.
The bathroom attendant


 I managed to squeeze inside a stall and do my awful business (being repelled by the moving of my own bowels, I try to hold it off as long as possible--sometimes as long as two or three weeks--but this day it could not be avoided--get it?). Almost twenty minutes later, after I had finished, I heard a most horrible gagging coming from the next stall (by this time most everyone had cleared out). Upon washing my hands, I noted that the bathroom attendant was not at his table, and there were two pairs of shoes sticking out from under the noisy stall, one pair facing the nearest wall and one pointing in the opposite direction. I didn't care to investigate any further and upon turning to leave, saw a sight I suppose I shall never forget; apparently unable to find an empty stall, an unashamed midget had hoisted himself up and was sitting in one of the urinals, smoking a long cigar and spitting, and making offensive grunting sounds while dangling his funny trousers around his size 2 1/2 Keds. With that, I all but ran out of the men's room and into the auditorium. 

 photo tumblr_ljcminxbeu1qgwdgbo1_500.gif
NO INTERMISSION TIME!

   Finally, the film started up. It was some brand-new and immediately obscure little item entitled The Scum People. Unfortunately (or perhaps the opposite is appropriate here), I was not long for that movie theatre, and never did finish the screening.
   Although the film had already begun, there were several patrons who insisted on playing their portable tape players at near-earbursting levels, so after a moment the projectionist compensated by turning the volume up the soundtrack of the film. This went on until the noise in the movie house was almost deafening, which somehow caused the multi-nationalized children in the audience to jump from their seats and run rampant around the theatre auditorium shouting "Mee-mee-mee-mee!!" as if they were on fire. This caused their parents to laugh loudly--the film trying to run all the while--as they threw pennies at their little sons and daughters, treating them as moving targets; most of the coins bounced off people's heads, and when the occasional patron would sustain an eye injury in this manner, loud laughter and hand slaps could be heard over the victory. 



   Meanwhile, it seemed that The Scum People was a grainy, ass-held camera production about a family of ultra-poor folk on Skid Row who had literally countless numbers of children; kids by the dozen constantly passed in front of the camera, as the fat greasy father (who changed lightbulbs for a living, was forever farting (always getting a child in the face, which seemed to be the running gag) and blowing snot from out his nose by pinching the opposite nostril. The mother was a bag-lady, who would repeatedly beat other such decrepit women with her plastic K-Mart shopping sacks, proclaiming "This is my corner!"
   The filmmakers (who actually go unnamed in the film's credits) seemed to have been producing a half-assed attempt at social pathos here, as all family members are forced to wipe themselves with their own clothing ("You think we can afford ass-wipe?!" Mr. Scum would scream with venom at several complaining children. "What do ya think we are, the goddamn Rockerfellers?!") but, by mid-way through the film, seem to be laughing at these people, and it was to my ultimate horror and disgust that I viewed the film's apparent director come on the screen to explain that the extreme human depravity depicted in the film was in fact real, and that "The Scum Family" (as he so jokingly referred to them) were in truth a real-life family who had agreed to be in this documentary. "What started out as a terribly touching human interest story," explained the director, as the title "Mr. X" flashed on the bottom of the screen while he spoke, "turned into a comedy! I mean these people are scum!" he said, laughing. 
Patriarch of the Scum Family

   Well, needless to say, I was appalled! Even if it all were a joke, I found it unspeakably offensive! However, most of the audience were no longer paying attention by this point, as various theatergoers were walking about the crowded room, talking loudly to one another, completely ignoring what was on the screen. What did these people pay their money for? I asked myself incredulously. To talk to their neighbors? Two young men were even throwing about a Frisbee, and one of the persons who owned a tape recorder turned it up to the max, getting a couple of women to dance with him in the aisles to the banal beat of the Negroid rhythms, enticing them on with shouts of, "C'mon, Mama!" It was precisely at this point that they projectionist cranked the soundtrack up to its highest possible decibel, causing the theatre speakers (not to mention my earholes) to very audibly pop, as Mr. Bojangles called up to the projection booth, "Hey deer, White Boy! Toin dat shit down!" I turned around to see the projectionist press his stiff middle finger against the glass, as the dancer stated matter-of-factly, "You is dead meat, Mistah White Muddahfuggah!!" as he let up the aisle with a basketball player's stride.
   I turned back to the screen, horrified, while all around me people laughed and sat backwards against the tops of their seats to get a better view of the approaching slaughter; I even heard some people making bets as to which man, if either, would live past, the next five minutes.
   Oh' please God, I thought, let me get out of here in one piece! Or at least make this all a horrifying dream! But, alas, that was not the case.
   On the screen now, Father Putrid had received a phone call from his well-to-do uncle in Boston; the uncle had an acquaintance who'd recently been viscously struck down by an out-of-control 7-Up truck. "Come on out here!" ounce urged the farting father. "I've got a great idea!" The relative lived in a small section of Boston, and it was when he dressed up as a carnival barker (complete with bushy mustache and straw hat) and pitched the sight of his comatose friend to the residents of his small town that I got up to leave, absolutely amazed and incensed that such inhumanity be present within the same family.
   But, before I could even squirm out of my row of seats, I heard a horrid scream come from the booth, as the film suddenly broke on the screen. I turned around to see the black man beating the projectionist over the head with a large, hour reel of film. 
   That was when everyone in the place scattered, some laughing, some screaming, but all heading for the doors. I looked to the screen to see a man being chased across the stage by a huge policeman, who was swinging a club and saying, "Stand still so's I kin smash you, you sonuvabitch!" 

   Well, I shot up that aisle like Gamera on speed! In the lobby I saw people charging the large glass street doors, breaking one of them. One person was even vomiting, for some reason. 
   Outside the theatre, a couple paddy wagons drove up, out of which jumped a couple dozen cops, all grinning insanely, resembling wild animals about to kill and feast upon their prey; one of them even intoned, "Let's get 'em, boys!!"
   After a moment, I heard screams coming from inside the movie house, as the police were happily performing their civilian duties. On the marquee a theatre attendant was changing the title of the now-showing movie to something called "Colostomies on Parade".


  When I asked the manager why the film had been changed after only one day of its run, he replied, "Why, isn't it obvious? The Scum People is simply too controversial a film; it's inciting riots!" as if I were the stupid one.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...