The End of The Wicked (1999)

The End of The Wicked (1999)
Directed by: Teco Benson
Written by: Teco Benson (screenplay), Helen Ukpabio (story)
Review by: "Machine Gun" Kristin 

I discovered "End Of The Wicked" through a user made list of movies on the website, letterboxd.com. The list is titled: Atrocities, Odditites, Trash, Trippy, Religious, Tinfoil Hat, WTF, The Worst in Film & Video and boy, is it ever. haha. After sifting through over a thousand films in the list, I found some hand painted posters produced in Ghana. I recently researched these strange film posters, which are displayed and preserved in a nice space in Chicago called the Deadly Prey Gallery. There, you can look at the many different types of movie posters, all pretty much the same style, painted in oils onto hand sewn flour bags. The poster interpretations of American films (mostly action and horror) are just as strange as you may have anticipated if you're familiar with other bizarre foreign posters from countries such as Thailand or Poland. The Ghana posters are in wide, gruesome brush strokes and make some movies look way more interesting than they actually are haha. I couldn't help but be reminded of the "The Mutilator" drawing from the art classroom scene in "Ghost World".

"Oh. I thought maybe this was supposed to be your father."

The thin plotline of "End Of The Wicked" consists of a group of Nigerian shape-shifting Beelzebub worshippers with what looks like hamburger meat plastered onto their faces. Their Lord is a white face make up covered man with a hairy bloody chin and Fat Albert's voice. He commands them to retrieve enough blood to fill a lake in 24 hours, although this goal is never achieved. The dialogue is either difficult to understand through bad audio and thick accents, which ends up being really unintentionally funny. In one scene, where a group of children are being initiated into the Satanic cult, a girl is told to "blow up all electronics in your home, drink bleach, glasses and then cause fever and failure to all of the children in your home" 

 

Beelzebub's Glamour Shot

The sets look to be decorated from those terrible large shops that say "antiques", where everything is brand new, dark pink, fake period piece style chairs, and particle board entertainment systems. Bleecchhh. Or better yet, they hired the set decorator from one of those strange religious shows that sometimes pop up on broadcast TV, with the giant desks and potted ferns in the background. I'd imagine this movie is a cross between "Black Devil Doll From Hell" (which I still haven't seen yet) and "Mystics In Bali" for the absurd special effects and bizarre, super awkward perverse scenes. In "Bali", the floating head (with organs intact), eats a baby right out of the womb, whereas in "Wicked", we're assaulted with the visual of main character Chris' Satan-worshipping mother (aka Lady Destroyer) raping his wife with a giant magic penis. Fun! Even better, we're somehow treated to not one, but two scenes involving bloody crotches! Yay! I feel like I should be running down the "drive-in totals" like Joe Bob Briggs there are so many wacky things in this gawd-awful movie. In one scene (brought to life in a GIF I made below), the evil children summon a plate of inedible looking pasta on the back of some poor guy while he's trying to sleep. After they devour it with their bare hands, the man wakes up in major back pain. So gross. Later, this same man is subjected to his eyes literally popping out of his head in a dream and he wakes up blind. I'm not even 100% sure what he did that was horrible to deserve this, but he ends his life by stabbing himself to death. He definitely made somebody in this movie mad. 

"I Wanna RAWK!"

Meanwhile, our main man Chris is (unbeknownst to him) still constantly being tortured by his witch mother throughout this movie. Until he's finally transformed into a goat and his throat is slaughtered. They appear to have actually sawed a poor goat's throat to achieve this scene and it is gruesome and horrible to watch. Speaking of real life horrors, this movie was concocted by Helen Ukpabio. She appears in this film as a pastor who I guess is supposed to save everyone from evil, but that doesn't seem to happen. This film was produced by Ukpabio's company called Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries and it's basically Christian propaganda. She's a wealthy evangelist that apparently through her teachings has influenced many to abandon and sometimes actually murder their children believing that they are in fact witches in disguise. There is a documentary on the subject called Dispatches Saving Africa's Witch Children on YouTube. There's a barrage of very negative press about her career and her bizarre teachings. She was actually banned from entering Britain in 2014 and she has sued the British Humanist Association (BHA) for defamation for basically twisting her words around. BHA's reply: 

“The fact that she is threatening to launch a legal claim for half a billion pounds over an alleged distinction between being accused of exorcising "Satan" or "Vampires" tells you all you need to know about Ms Ukpabio.”

Completely crazy! 

Watch "End Of The Wicked" (in two parts, first part linked here) HERE!

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Chained Heat

Chained Heat Directed by Paul Nicholas, Starring Linda Blair (1983).

There’s been a serious lack of Linda Blair or John Vernon films on TOG, which has been around for over 5 years!

I dunno why I waited so long, maybe it’s because we’ve scraped all the brine out of the pickle barrel (or the Deep Red catalog) and have all the mangled shitty flicks left like Joe’s Toe Tag autopsy vid (thanks William Wilson for the tip off on that hideous home movie that was sold on Ebay for 70$).

So, we decided to venture back into the beaded curtain of the 80’s Adult soft core area and bust out the goods, our perverted readers demanded it! Well, actually I just really love this movie and wanted to wax nostalgia like all over it—ahem excuse me.

Sweet! The meter's out of order!

So yeah, this is one of Linda Blair’s wimpiest performances but Dean Wormer or John Vernon’s most outstanding, they both were in another rape revenge classic Savage Streets together. Think of them as the Dolly and Porter of the sleazoid exploitation circuit, sure let’s go with that old school Nashville reference. In my review for Julie Darling, (which was written and directed by Paul Nicholas the same person for this film, I called Chained Heat the “Citizen Kane of WIP flicks”). That’s right it’s that good or if you missed that reference go with the Mr. Burns lost his teddy bear Bobo episode of the Simpsons!

It starts off in lewd fashion with a rapist pig played by Robert Miano, he looks like David Hess crossbred with Damone from Fast Times. He goes to molest a blonde armed with a fake gun as 5 cops blast away at her grassy knoll, magic bullet style—from all angles and blow her to bits. That’s just a set up for more extreme ridiculousness yet to come or the fuse in this powder keg of debauchery.

The first time I saw this trashter-piece classic was on Showtime’s dirty secret, the FLIX network (or at least back in the good old days it was). The acting range is on par with another fun WIP boneriffic flick Reform School Girls, and everything is sleazy and over the top—it’s incredible. Linda Blair is Carol Henderson, a goodie two shoes prison virgin who mopes a lot and is too vulnerable for the usual take charge nature of the former Exorcist, Roller Boogie, Night Patrol star. All the girls are cartoonish stereotypes and the authority in charge are a million times worse. The first we see Ernie the warden (John Vernon) is when he’s soaking in his office scum tub getting all naked with Penthouse Pet and Amazon Women on the Moon star Monique Gabrielle. The water they bathe in is pee colored—RETCHHHHHH.

Every character is constantly in the middle of making lurid back alley deals, trading favors for drugs and whatnot. Louisa Moritz from The Last American Virgin is in a brief cameo in the holding cell as Bubbles. 

Tamara Dobson, the leader of the Black gang hisses “I told you, I don’t deal shit” and she’s always extremely clenched up and serious. Her most famous role was Cleopatra Jones and this was one of the last films she appeared in.

Billionaires sucking up to Putin? Not in my America. 

Snitches are dealt with accordingly in this boiler room looking cellblock with extremely long hallways. This cast is a mix of nameless bimbos and cult stars like Stella Stevens, Henry Silva and Sybil Danning (who shows her beautiful meat balloons often), plus everyone is dynamic and fun to watch. Sybil and her white trash sidekick Bobbie (Dee Biederbeck) are my favorites. She has this giant comb over and has bulging eyes and a short stature. She looks like one of the bad girls from that high school scene in Female Trouble. The girls immediately fuck with Carol and her surrogate protector Val played by the extremely intense Sharon Hughes. She’s been in a couple of films almost always getting naked and apparently was the inspiration for Little Red Corvette by Prince. She was in a film I reviewed for Monster #31 called Grotesque with Tab Hunter and Linda Blair as well. There’s some hilarious graffiti on the walls, like penises, pentagrams and smiling Raisin Bran looking suns.

Bitch don’t make me bust out 2 scoops of raisins! 

Stella and Henry Silva are a corrupt super team and get uncomfortably close with each other, I mean it’s icky. But it’s a total ruse, they’re stabbing each other in the back.

Dobson overly emotes in the most unhinged way and delivers her lines in that manner. If you ever wanted to see Sybil Dancing massage Linda Blair's boobs, while girls sporting full bush frolic in the background, this one’s gotcha covered. Carol is such a whimpering victim, very against type for Linda. Ernie the warden has the most swinging bachelor pad office, with a stuffed tiger, hot tub and most likely hep C.

Yeah I aborted Rick James' baby, so what!

There’s some light racism, nothing as overt as Alan Clarke’s SCUM. Sybil calls Dobson a “Nigger” though and they fight by a chainlink fence, but it only registers as general horsin’ around. There’s a fake Bette Midler or Elaine Boozler named Spider, who gets fucked over and licks her razor toothbrush weapon. That actress’ name is Carole Ita White, she’s been in almost every women in prison movie like The Naked Cage, Hellhole and also Savage Streets. Henry Silva has a secret pimpin’ operation where he peddles the prison bitches to rich cokeheads at a fancy party.

I'm so happy I could cry.

  

John Vernon must’ve done this movie for scale or for even less, I mean he constantly gets to cuddle with naked babes in his office. Val (Sharon Hughes) who’s got some high assed processed hair, requests some Mr. Bubble and puts her feet in his face.

Later on, it all escalates into a gratuitous prison riot. One of my favorite parts is when the night stick wielding guard goes to beat Carol and she spits out “You Must Love Pain”. It’s definitely an intentionally dominatrix kinky moment. It doesn’t get any better than this women in prison film, it’s makes all others fall flat in comparison. The weirdest part to me is how hard it is to find, there is a Mr. Skin triple DVD pack with two clunkers (well, I need to watch Red Heat also with Blair). Bottom line is, this flick deserves better and someone should re-release it pronto.