Ain't No Way Back

No Way Back Directed By Michael Sweney, Starring Campbell Scott. (1990).

Everything about this opening from the commodore computer graphics to the corporate high-rise is pre-Neil Breen before that chucklehead even existed. It's a no budget Deliverance copy with Campbell Scott, the guy from such Gen-X classics as Singles and Powder, he reminds me of Michael Stipe. This was churned out by Troma, I found it even worse than Dumpster Baby if that's an endorsement! Lloyd Kaufman and company have so much garbage it's always weird to me how Chas resorted to peddling them on the street market. This one is described in the catalog as containing "Moonshiner mutants" but there are zero to be seen, maybe this is the wrong movie.

does this hat make me look like Merle Haggard?

The narrator reminisces about his gay relationship with his chum. Could this be a Proto Brokeback Mountain?

We've tackled A few hixsploits before like Poor Pretty Eddie, Prime Cut, Hunters Blood but so for this one seems like a lamest of that genre. Maybe I had a feeling about it, that's the reason it's taking me so long to review it. There's a lot of terrible stock footage with Campbell acting or reacting to it. I wish they would remake this with Aziz Ansari and Michael Stipe in an off Broadway play. The scary hillbillies wear newsboy caps and suspenders not a very menacing look.

Hicksters, PFFT am I right?

Campbell Scott even mentions how he doesn't want to be chased by the cast of a certain copyrighted John Boorman film, even though the banjo kid ended up in Blastfighter.

Did you say you were a film buff or a buttfreak?

The Azis guy wears a red baseball cap, now every time I see it I think of the stupid Nazi president. 

Scott hobbles around because he got stuck by a giant twig. All of a sudden it morphs into an episode of Little House on the Prairie with Uncle Leo from Seinfeld.

you mean I gotta leave Miami because of that antisemite? 

I watched Little House as a kid, because my Dad was obsessed with it, I just can't believe that old timey bullshit was ever on TV.

It's even weirder that Troma acquired this release because who has the attention span for a rejected old timey prospector episode?

ACKKK MAKE IT STOP! I'll do a sequel to Powder!

Campbell gets shot and nursed back to health buy buy some hillbilly chick. And then he teaches her about capitalism--way to go America. Remember how Powder was controversial because the director was convicted child molester, I saw that in the Coral springs movie theater when it came out. As shitty as that other movie was it makes this one look even worse. This film is halfway thru and they still haven't introduced any inbred rapist or southern justice kind of crucial plot elements that would make it any better. Well one hillbilly scares him enough to try and figure out how to use a gun. Mildly interesting but really not enough to save this film. The only interesting part so far is one Uncle Leo forces Campbell to kill chickens for dinner.

DON'T BOTHER, TOTAL UN REDEEMING GARBAGE.

Dear Dead Delilah

Dear Dead Delilah Directed By John Farris (1972).

I saw "Shakespeare Was a Big George Jones Fan", an insanely fun documentary on the Shout Factory app about Cowboy Jack Clement. Clement worked with most of the famed artists of Sun Records and discovered Charley Pride. He was close friends with Johnny Cash, George Jones,Waylon Jennings and wrote shit that rocketed them all to superstardom in the real deal country heyday of Nashville before it was all ruined by the pop country swill. Clement mistakenly decided to delve into the sleazy world of film production. He even mentions this movie in the documentary and seems slightly embarrassed by it. As he should because it totally sucks, but it's not like he wrote it. The writer and director of this John Farris, penned The Fury for Brian DePalma and one of my favorite Masters of Horror episodes about the ice cream clown played by William Forsythe.

This one is on a double feature with Savage Intruder (which we reviewed before from j4HI.com). If you like hillbilly weirdos and Agnes Moorhead than you'll be as thrilled as a cornpone hick at a Cracker Barrel buffet.

I always get the IGNORMOOSE in that Cracker barrel peg game.

It begins with a swollen eyed gal who must've slaughtered her mother, because she talks to a corpse, stunned and rotting on the stove covered in blood. Then a girl with 2 black eyes and a soiled wig gets into some shenanigans. The whole flick is scratchy, strewn with film lines and cigarette burns. It all plays out like an even duller Tennessee Williams rejected play. Sometimes the tubby blonde who wears all white blends into the bedsheets which are also white and it looks like those 2 black eyes and teeth are hovering around. The Ormonds knew what they were doing with technicolor and music, you'd think Cowboy Jack would've joined forces with them and not gone out of his way to make Trashville look so fucking mundane and uneventful.

The main actress looks sort of like Meg Whitman, that Benjamin Franklin looking candidate who lost to Jerry Brown. If you're craving to see Agnes Moorehead on a rampage you're shit outta luck, watch that episode of the Twilight Zone where she beats the tar out of those robots instead. Everyone drinks then stares at the camera and does a little dull soliloquy. Seriously, I have no idea who or what these people are doing or what's going on. So like Veronica Lake in Flesh Feast, this is that bitchy Mother-in-law you know and love's from Bewitched and Citizen Kane's swan song.

I'm a bargain basement Rebel Wilson.

I was happy to see Michael Ansara, the Indian medicine man from my all time favorite stoner film The Manitou. One dude has the same hair as Dirk Benedict from the A-Team and Battlestar Galactica. I can't believe it, but I swear to God, Hillbillies in a Haunted House is a better movie than this piece of shit! I'm starting to think this is just a lost episode of Mama's Family with less interesting results. After watching that documentary you'd think Cowboy Jack would have more sense but maybe he was just trying to lull people into a deep sleep, for whatever unknown reason!
This one is rough but not as painful as another Guinea Pig sequel or root canal, that's a positive right? Kindertrauma dug it and I almost always side with them, they compared it to S.F. Brownrigg who I despise and Blood and Lace, which is a bazillion times better than this dreck. Don't take my opinion though.

In the XXX version of Bewitched they felt my actual name was porny enough.

I like my Manitou'd broiled and topped with gorgonzola.

BLOODFREAK!

Artist's representation of Charles The Bizarre Alien

Crank here (0r Erok, Eric, whatever the cat's out of the bag now, so I guess I should drop all these internet handles)! I've been looking for new writers and have found one with Charles, he's here to tackle one of my all time Turkeysploitation favorites. Enjoy and stay off the poultry! 

BLOOD FREAK (1972 Steve Hawkes, Dana Culliver, Heather Hughes, Larry Wright and Brad Grinter as the narrator . Written produced and directed by Steve Hawkes and Brad Grinter )

(image from Cinema Arcana, Bruceholecheck.blogspot.com)

Review by Charles The Bizarre Alien 

PRAISE JAYZUS! Gobble! Gobble! Gobble! Just say NO to drugs! Hallelujah!!!! Blood & guts! Agggggggggghhhhh!!!! Wha???????

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you an AMAZING film, well at least to me, it is because it is well, amazing! Considered the world's “Only turkey-monster-anti drug-pro Jesus GORE film!” Yes my friends, it really IS all that and more! Around 2006 or so I got into the band Blood Freak thanks to my old friend and ghoulish president of Razorback Records, Mr. Billy Nocera whose label subsequently released 3 albums by them. Great death/grind/gore/metal madness with their mascot being this blood thirsty nutjob maniac 'turkey monster'. 
Turns out it was from a movie and after I looked it up I knew I HAD to see it! Not to long later the stars were aligned just right and I found it in a local store used/mint for about $8! 

Blood Freak the band

I took it home and watched it and I was like WHOA! What we have here is a film that starts right out with this cigarette smoking gentleman (who reminds me of Russ Meyer for some odd reason) introducing the film by stating some philosophical mumbo jumbo about life and blah.blah.blah. Thru out the film you will be interrupted by his story telling, which I thought was and is pretty funny and kinda cool. I still wonder how many cigarettes he smoked and how many takes he had to do? Ha!ha! 

Blood Freak's message? that cancer sticks are healthier than weed

Anyhoo, the movie finally begins and we've got this very tall “muscle bound biker” gentleman by the name of Herschel (producer/ co-director Steve Hawkes). The biker is having a nice time riding his motorcycle on a beautiful sunny day when he sees a lovely young Lady (Angel played by Heather Hughes) on the side of the road experiencing some kind of trouble with her engine. There's barely any dialogue what so ever and he follows her to her house where we meet some heathen hippies who are sitting around smoking the green and snorting poppers.

She said I was a tiger she wanted to tame just like that Billy Ocean song

Angel is a fine Christian Lady who loves Jesus and tells Herschel all about it . He doesn't seem to mind and is a nice decent moral fellow. A sexy swinger hippy Lady approaches him and he kindly tells her “no thanks!,” which she's offended by, but her partner looks like he is about to shit his pants when she tells him that guy over there said “i'm a whore” (which he didn't, in a manner of speaking ). 

I can totally suck a golfball through a garden hose!

Herschel is introduced to Angel's free loving, sexy pot smoking, drug loving sister Ann whom he turns down repeatedly! Herschel isn't a "Christian", but he has got them MORALS people! 

The story continues as a Christian/anti-marijuana/anti free love film and is kinda slow but not boring mind you! The feathers start flying when the main character, finally gets SICK of Ann pestering him about being a loser and decides to try some weed that one of Ann's hippie band drug dealers hooks her up with (he also wants revenge for the Elvis clone insulting his girlfriend, so this is a “special” kind of pot)! Before you know it, Herschel is ADDICTED! 

Great, now I'm also addicted to tryptophan! 

Besides suddenly becoming a hardcore pot head, he also needs a job. Luckily, around the same time, this guy who happens to have a turkey farm/laboratory offers him a job to clean up around the place and do various chores, like picking up the birds and putting them back inside the fence la la la. He is also offered extra money if he'll try some “harmless experiments", which has him just saying YES to eating turkey meat that turns this once happy bible thumping jesus praising just say NO to drugs and illicit sex lunkhead into a total WTF!? THIS IS A TOTAL GOOD TIME GOBBLE FEST!  

This Thanksgiving I implore you to eat a nice baked ham instead

NO sooner does the innocent biker (who resembles the fused DNA results of Elvis Presley and Peter Steele both combined with some serious muscle-age (otherwise known as DANZIG, -ed). He turns into a freaked out looking turkey headed hippy blood drinking psycho monster freak-o and the rest of the film is spent with him killing random women and men here and there, including a would be rapist (the guy gets a deal to use Ann as a blow up doll by another greasy dirtbag dope fiend!) until her BF gets a hold of him, resulting in one of the most HILARIOUS gore scenes ever in my book! 

What the sadistic San Diego Chicken does off the clock!

He chases the dude into a warehouse that just happens to have a table saw and after sawing off one of the guy's legs (after he knocks the guy out then places him on the table)! The guy nonstop screams in a loop that had me in PAIN from LAUGHING my ass off! It's also a little disturbing as the guy is holding his stump and it just drips drips drips! It almost sounds like the sample from an early industrial noise band like SPK or one of (early) Throbbing Gristles creep-fests, Just hilarious and odd! The same scream is heard a few victims before too which cracked me up as I drank my beer! Am i giving away the entire plot? Well dang it, I got caught up alright? 

TG's unrecorded "Annual Jive Turkey Report" went over like a led balloon

There is more to this movie and lemme just say, if you want full entertainment with some Bible studies, moral/immoral friction between 2 hot sisters (sorry, NOT sexual friction!), unintentionally HILARIOUS dialogue, 2 clueless lab technicians, (the balding large guy is beyond HILARIOUS! I wonder if the actor got into comedy)? 

Isn't Turkey, the Chicken of the Sea?

If you want to see a guy plagued by moral dilemmas now thanks to Marijuana and sweet lovin, a very odd and dark make-out scene between a girl and her Turkey monster lover with the words of “Gosh Herschel, you sure are ugly!”, a sketchy 'Turkey' scientist, a cool soundtrack, a narrator that looks like Russ Meyers cousin and/or an aging porn star, Turkey hunting 'whoa dude!” hairball hunter and praising the Lord, among other oddball assortments, then get off your backside and check out this fine film! 

Released on DVD by the fine folks from the legendary SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO! The disc also comes with literally a TON of extras! Tons of trailers, some shorts (wanna see the director/smoking narrator Brad Grinter NAKED? Watch the nudist short “Brad Grinter, Nudist!”) and a buncha other fun wacky stuff for your entertainment and educational means! 

Nobody asked for this!

As the WARNING states “This program contains nudity, sexual situations, violence and gobbling”! Ha!ha!ha! On a side note, actor Steve Hawkes (“Herschell”) portrayed Tarzan in 2 films, but was badly burned during a scene and later did this movie, which he quotes as “This was during a SAD time in my life!” Well, speak for yourself Mr. Hawkes! This movie is GREAT man! I SALUTE you! Years later he appeared in an episode of ANIMAL PLANET and apparently is a very cool dude (especially for his works, caring about animals and nature) I doubt you'll ever see a movie like this ever again. Cheers to the fine feathered folks behind this great film! This has been The Bizarre Alien saying KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES and beware of blood drinking Turkey headed man monsters! Yeeeee-ha! Gobble! Gobble! P.S. 2-3 beers were consumed as I watched this again! It helped! (seems like you should've had more to drink, -ed)!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

BUY HERE

Blastfighter

 -Reviewed by Skunkape- 

 "Remember those two old bucks up above the falls, who were buttin' each other until they locked horns and they couldn't get loose...they died that way."

-the words of Jake "Tiger" Sharp to his old rival Tom

"Can't we all just get along?"

Directed by Lamberto Bava 1984

 Blastfighter aka "Mustache vs Beard!" At least that's what I call it! Well, not really. It stars Michael Sopkiw who is sporting the stash and the bearded one is none other than George Eastman. (Drop an Eastman movie title in the comment section where he doesn't have a beard! Can you?) The two previously worked together in Martino's 2019 After the Fall of New York and are back in this Lamberto Bava genre mash up. I think ultimately Blastfighter is an action movie at heart but throw in all the exploitation elements that Italian cinema is known for and the results are mind blowing.

"Say hello to my big friend."

Sopkiw is Jake "Tiger" Sharp, an ex cop who got in way over his head. The film begins with the heart pumping sounds of Fabio Frizzi's theme as Tiger is released from the slammer after serving eight years. While on the force he witnessed one of his fellow officers gunned down in cold blood by some goon. Unfortunately that goon was on a corrupt politician's pay roll and heads to Tiger's place to kill him. Tiger isn't at home but his wife is and the deviant brutally stabs her in the neck. With the politician's protection and no where to turn Tiger makes the decision to have his revenge and blows the criminal away, causing him to not pass GO, sending him directly to jail. Now out of prison, a close friend of his from the police force gives him the ultimate weapon so he can blow this politician straight to hell. Tiger seeks him out looks through the scope but can't do it. He decides revenge will not put him at ease and heads to his old home town out in the country to live out his life peacefully, but this is where the real problems begin.

"I killed your wife, nanny nanny, boo boo!"

 While he's driving we hear Tommie Baby's country cover of "Evening Star", originally composed by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb! As soon as he gets into town and stops off for a few groceries the locals stare at him with unapproved. Not only that, but banjo boy Billy Redden from "Deliverance" is even there making a cameo. Tiger or Tige for short goes up to his cabin of solitude and with his new 'blastfighter' of a weapon goes on a little hunt. Three other assholes cross his path and shoot a deer but won't put it out of its misery. Tiger saves its fawn and takes it up to his house to take care of it. He drives the animal into town to purchase a baby bottle. When he comes back to his car the locals have cut the deer's throat. This means war and he easily kicks redneck ass. This puts him back in the local jail but he's bailed out by an old friend, Tom.(Eastman) The two men who once were best buddies had a falling out and Tom lays down the law for Tige. The reason the hunters never actually killed the deer while hunting is that an Asian poacher uses the half dead animals to make medicines. He pays good money to these yokels and Tom is in on the cut aside from running a lucrative saw mill. One of those three hunters from earlier is Tom's little brother Wally, and he makes it his official duty to make Tiger's life miserable, even going as far to sabotage his brakes. For his actions Tiger strikes back, pushing Wally's hunting truck down a hill. This pisses off Wally and his barefooted overall wearing friends even more. (Hell, they deserved it!)

Dueling Groceries

Who killed Bambi?

Buck Lo Mein

A strange pretty lady shows up at Tiger's place and for some reason won't identify herself. We find out later that she is Tiger's daughter Connie and she wants to be part of his life. Connie is played by Valentin Forte who also hooked up with Ruggero Deodato (in more ways than one) for the films Cut and Run and Body Count. Tige tries to push Connie away feeling sorry for himself, exclaiming that he's not a good father and a failure at life. He gets some more support when his cop buddy from earlier shows up, the one who gave him the gun or blastfighter if you will, and a friend of Connie's who's a park ranger in training. Pete the ranger is played by none other than Michele "The Church" Soavi. Tiger now comes to his senses and decides it's time to leave and start fresh with his family and friends, but is it too late? Tom's prick brother rolls barrels of fire down the mountain setting their transportation on fire. All the rednecks from town have come together to kill Tiger and his friends and they do kill Tige's cop buddy and Pete the wannabe ranger. They almost even rape Connie. Tiger's had enough and with his massive weapon he goes on a hunt of his own, the hunt for an entire town of redneck pricks!

"I like turtles"

It's the Blue Collar Comedy Tour

This movie works very well as a revenge film. Bava pulls all the strings to make the viewer pissed and keeps you rooting for Tiger all the way. The dialogue is pretty dopey throughout but I did find a few tender moments and some real chemistry between Tiger and Connie as the father and daughter.
You won't want to miss the finale when Jake "Tiger" Sharp goes head to head with fifty plus rednecks and has a final showdown with George "Big Ape" Eastman!


A little First Blood, a little Deliverance, with maybe a touch of Bambi, this all-star cast is directed to perfection by Lamberto Bava.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
10/10 ON THE CULT-O-METER

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Hunter's Blood

Hunters Blood Directed By Robert C. Hughes, Starring Clu Gulager (1986).

This film is packed to the rafters with cult celebrities. We've got Bruce Glover (Crispin's pop with a scary albino eyeball), Clu Gulager (ROTLD), Sam Bottoms (Apocalypse Now), Billy Drago (Freeway, Invasion USA) and even Joey Travolta! You need a Poseidon Adventure style cast to keep a Deliverance style hixploitation afloat, right? Shelley Winters already starred in Poor Pretty Eddie, one of the best ones, so it makes sense that she'd sit this one out. Billy Bob Thornton apparently was in the background somewhere, on IMDB this is his first screen credit on a film. I didn't see him, but there's a very dark bar scene that he may have been present for. This film has a noodling guitar theme by John D'Andrea that sounds as if the composer was fucking around at the guitar store and recorded it while he was there, saving the production company a huge chunk of change in the process. 

   It begins with David Rand (Sam Bottoms, whose brother I fondly remember as a George W. Bush impersonator in "That's My Bush"). While in the middle of a filthy shower session with his girlfriend played by Kim Delaney (NYPD Blue, Body Parts), he gets interrupted by his "city slicker" buddies who are all keyed up for a hunting trip.

We've got hunting sores and boners

   Uncle Al (Ken Swofford) picks everybody up in his red Ford Bronco and they head out into hillbilly country to bag some deer. Al says really gay stuff like "I'm gonna ream your butt", and other ass-related antidotes-- he's actually my favorite character in the entire film. Joey Travolta (who I remember as the spaceman goofus with a chimp on his shoulder from Amazon Women on the Moon) plays Al, a comic relief with amateur wilderness experience. The first sign of trouble occurs once they reach a redneck bar. They all seem thrilled to chuckle at some slack jawed yokels while driving through the scary hills of Arkansas.     

I'm doing an Elizabeth Banks Wet Hot American Summer impression, now pucker up!

   Al pisses off two scary hicks with BBQ sauce smeared on their faces and overalls. They know what they're in for when they see a sign that says "No Colords (sic)" and all they have is Bud in the can. The lollipop sucking bartender floozy makes a fuss that they want beer nuts and calls them "nutlovers" and "cocksuckers".

What kind of organic ale do I have on tap, you say?

   Dave and his pals start up some shit with the rednecks and seem to be asking for trouble. Don't they know they're in a Deliverance ripoff? It's kind of funny how the first hillbillies they encounter in the bar look like a bizarro version of Dave and the boys. It gets a lot worse for them later as they venture deeper into inbred territory.

Try some of Ted Nugent's Conservative headcheese

    Once the night creeps in and the hunters gather around a campfire, it gets pretty terrifying when a group of aggressive bloodthirsty crackers show up once they fall asleep. Talk about a rude awakening! Bruce Glover cackles like a idiotic witch and Billy Drago pisses on one of the yankees. Their bearded leader is Lee de Broux, an actor I've only seen in Robocop. He's the guy who Clarence Boddicker confronts in the coke warehouse and rudely dips his fingers into his wine. 

I've dealt with shit head punks like you before in ROTLD

   Things get scary and primitive at the same time, it's funny how a lot of the men all talk about their peckers for some homoerotic reason. There's just something queer about the wilderness I guess. Clu Gulager who plays Dave's father is pretty bad ass and isn't afraid of these hicks, who all threaten to rape him and his friends. The mongoloids who are seen chopping up deer heads and offal scatter after two game wardens show up. It gets really nasty after the two cops are skinned alive by the redneck maniacs and tacked to a tree (the make-up effects by Mike Spatola, whose work included Little Monsters and Bud The Chud are pretty convincing).

I'm so cold, can I borrow some flesh?

      Everybody sort of freaks out and are convinced that they'll be next. Travolta looses his cool the most and Uncle Al slaps some sense back into him, its a tender moment that you don't usually get in an exploitation flick. Dave's dumb girlfriend even drives out to the woods to meet up with them with out his knowledge and almost gets brutally raped.

Dick Cheney strikes again

   Clu Gulager gets shot and wounded and they all panic, it gets really intense toward the last 30 minutes. Dave becomes the unhinged hero and starts slaying each hillbilly one by one. He starts by jabbing the first guy in the throat with a huge knife. One character named Purty Boy gets his face completely blasted off till its caved in! Another character named Washpot (Mickey Jones from V and Total Recall) gets deer antlers plunged into his back, OUCH! The gore quotient starts tipping the scales at the end and the revenge is pretty satisfying. The ending is kind of dicey and can be interpreted a few ways, they seem to escape, but leave on a train owned by Razorback Meats (the hick's company). That means they could've ended up in the clutches of more insane hillbillies or just escaped unharmed, thats where it ends and there was never a sequel. All in all, Hunter's Blood is an effective Hixploitation that delivers the goods!    

I'm from the Southern Hospitality commitee!

Billy Drago was born William Burrows, good thing he changed it

   The script by Emmett Watson is surprisingly well written (or maybe it's the performances that extenuated it). Watson wrote some clunkers like 9 Deaths of the Ninja and New Years Evil. I enjoyed both of those films despite the weak spots in the Sho Kosugi vehicle and the lame ass non ending in New Years Evil. This film is available from J4HI.COM on a "Hunting Humans" double feature with Bridge to Nowhere from New Zealand. 

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