Delirium aka Psycho Puppet

Delirium (Psycho Puppet). Directed By Peter Maris, starring Barron Winchester (1979).

This film should not be confused with the busty Serena Grandi erotic slasher or another film from 1972 with the same title that starred Mickey Hargitay. Why everyone wanted to reuse this title is a mystery but it was sure hackneyed. Since I'm obsessed with lists and have OCD, I've made it a top priority to see all the video nasties, I was pleased as punch to find that this low brow Namsploit is a laugh riot! All the laughs are unintentional which are the best kind! There are so many cop characters showcased that you'd think it would ruin the pacing of this serial killer on the loose out chopping away at hitchhikers film, but it's so wacky that it registers as entertaining. I'd imagine to play this on network TV, they'd cut out all the gore and just make it about all the plaid stallion looking dudes all befuddled by Charlie. Yeah that's right the crazy Nam vet is named Charlie, could they get any less creative?

We need those TPS reports

I could see this on a double bill with Blood Beach another migraine inducing nonsensical pile of shit. Who's this Charlie you may ask, he's a drifter out killing babes with a meat cleaver or other non-military weapons. To bring out the big guns, they enlist the bald aviator shades wearing dweeb on the cover played by Barron Winchester. He's got a mahogany office with tons of dead animal trophies adorning the walls, the 70's called it wants its everything back! If Ron Burgundy existed this flick would be his inspiration to get up in the morning. 

Boojie Boy, start the nuclear reactor, commence Devo-lution

At a secret kangaroo court, worried Polyester wearing business cretins hand out death sentences like they're going out of style. Every time Charlie assaults a girl, (some scenes look as if he man handled these women a little too hard). They play this library song that I have in my iPod which I got from a long gone stock music blog called Retrotique. There's tons of incidental music from the British gameshow Mastermind. They even borrowed the crashing glass track from Last House on Dead End Street (which used some of the most harrowing library music that ever existed). Check out this informative Video Nasty Podcast by Chris Brown (no not that rapper guy).

Get ready to play BBC's underwater Mastermind. 

All the hideous fashions are a delight and an eyesore simultaneously with most of the police sporting helmet hair. Two guys with plaid jackets and identical mop tops are the main good guys. Nobody really has to say or do much for this film to be enjoyable, even when nothing is going on. The heavy office chatter reminds me of the two crew cut cops from Blood Feast talking about long hard ones (we've covered the Bill Kerwin classic Avenged). Voices drive Charlie to murder women and command in series of echoey emasculating statements. 

The Staten Island backyard scenes of Vietnam depicted in Combat Shock were actually more realistic than the low rent ones here. I get the feeling all extras were slipped 20$ before filming resumed and originally it wasn't a gore flick at all but a Barney Miller style spinoff that they re-edited into the bullshit we have here. If you like offices and paunchy gentlemen with greasy hair swept to the side, this ones gonna be your favorite new discovery. Don't forget there's a Rotten Cotton T-shirt available! 

Anyone who saw this back in the 80s was probably screaming at the TV, "WHEN IS SOMETHING GONNA HAPPEN!?" 

If you have no expectations going in then you might enjoy Delirium, I doubt I even have to go into it, but I don't believe the brain trusts over at Mary Whitehouse's censorship board even watched this one. Skip this weak shit and see My Friends Need Killing instead, an undiscovered Namsploit with teeth. I didn't like this as much as the Werewolf And The Yeti if that's any kind of endorsement!

IF YOU MUST, IT'S ON YOUTUBE FOR A LIMITED TIME. 

Cannibal Mercenary

Cannibal Mercenary

AKA The Jungle Killers

Directed By Hong Lu Wong

Starring: Lek Songphon

Review by "Machine Gun" Kristin

 The opening credits to "Cannibal Mercenary" show us an alternate title and a mixed bag or real and fake sounding names (Alan English?!). This film is a frightening vision on what seemed like a Thai war against the Viet Cong, filled with sad flashbacks and horrible present images. Each step main character, Sgt. Wilson takes in the very beginning has this massive delay sound. It's a wonder how these guy's asses he's kicking can't prepare for this guy coming around the concrete corner.

I had a hard time watching this movie, trying to piece everything together. I probably thought about it too hard. Many visuals torment Wilson as he fights his way across Thailand (or Vietnam?) with his gang of comrades trailing behind. He constantly thinks about his daughter who has Polio and her doctors voicing their bleak diagnosis. At one point his daughter exclaims in an overdubbed middle aged woman's voice, "Pa, why can't I walk like other kids?" Ah man, cue the water works!

The pacing on this film is a little slow (maybe it's more fun watching with friends), but the final half of the film makes up for it with its gritty harrowing scenes of gore. I wonder how close this film is to any war related situation in real life, past or present. Certain scenes of this movie are filmed at seemingly different times of day. One moment, we see Wilson walking with his buddy on his back in broad daylight and then all of sudden he's in this blueish tint of evening sky. I don't know if this is a simple continuity problem, or it's some sort of intentional hiccup to further prove the mental instability of Wilson and the rest of the cast.

This movie has an eerie score which from what I read, was mostly lifted from "Dawn Of The Dead" (which I haven't seen in awhile). Some music portions actually reminded me more of the opening from "Last House On Dead End Street", where its lead character Terry talks about "lousy drugs". Incidentally, Wilson is offered $500,000 (by a grunting old man who sounds like he's chowing down on a delicious cheeseburger) to fight through the jungle to kill off a drug lord and his flesh eating cronies. Then he's supposed to meet someone named Jumpa who'll tell him exactly where to go from that point. Throughout his journey, Wilson kills a man with a boot to his throat, pressing as hard as he can so his eyes start bulging out. The first lady he picks up in the jungle isn't Jumpa, but a pregnant spy (?) who sexually teases one guy and then cuts his wienie off. This is the first of many penis related annihilations. Another happens with a swollen faced gang whizzing on the poor soldiers. I guess don't tell a stranger you're thirsty next time. This is when the movie just gets weirder and it finally earns it's title as things start to escalate. A particularly realistic, gruesome sight is a knife being hammered into one's head then being devoured.

I couldn't really find much information about the director or cast online. Maybe one of you TOG-devotees knows? There's apparently a few different versions of this movie, cut and uncut otherwise. One review I read stated that a cut version of the film had different scenes and was somehow totally rewritten. I wonder if it was anything like the TV version of "Cheech And Chong's Next Movie" where the entire film is completely different from it's original version. Planet Ass anyone? 

You can watch "Cannibal Mercenary" HERE

You can purchase it HERE

I have no button made for this film at this time, but please feel free to check out what I've got in stock at the moment. As always, lots of random weird movies and more!

UPDATED!

I now have a "Cannibal Mercenary" button you can purchase HERE! 

The Last Hunter

The Last Hunter (Hunter Of The Apocalypse, L’ Ultimo Cacciatore) Directed By Antonio Margheriti. Starring David Warbeck.

            This is an Antonio Margheriti Nam flick that I would like to forget, it’s pretty dreadful. All the right ingredients are here for something epic, so why does it crash and burn? Everyone from Tisa Farrow to David Warbeck comes off soggy and confused, stuck in the jungles of derivative misery. According to Wiki, this one is classified in the subgenre of “Macaroni Combat” (The film term that makes me giggle like a kindergartener, it reminds me of "Pasta Yacht", the one I coined)! I'm a big fan of Mr. Margheriti and he is better than this wretched film. It was made to cash in on The Deer Hunter and sold in Italy as Deer Hunter 2 (using the same Fulci marketing tactic of sticking a number 2 onto a popular movie like Dawn Of The Dead, aka Zombi 1). 

           Warbeck and Tony King as usually a welcome presence, but they just phone it in and the whole "sarcastic hero fighting in the jungles of Nam" premise is more entertaining when there are some cannibals to battle. There is no cannibalism however, just straight laced Namsploitation fare. All the star power in exploitation horror can't save this sinking ship (you even get Bobby Rhodes, the infamous pimp from Demons 1 & 2) and that couldn’t make this plausible. 

           So here’s the story, grizzled Captain Morris is stuck in a club house (complete with strippers,pinball and a bar). And yet some people are still unhappy as his buddy shoots another soldier and then plugs himself. He hooks up with a journalist played by Tisa Farrow (who's seen better days) and they aimlessly run around for forty minutes! Dark Sky Films is restoring this and putting out the complete uncut version, so it's a possibility that I may have missed the director's original vision (I'm betting I havent though). 

            David Warbeck has charisma as a leading man in a Robert Forster Aligator type of way, it's not his fault this movie sucks so bad! John Steiner (Tenebre, Caligula) looks like a scrawny Nazi-esque captain, hulled up in an underground cave listening to the death cries on the surface, but again nothing ever builds and The Last Hunter just stalls. 

           I'm really disappointed in my favorite screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti, it's like he took tracing paper over a copy of the Deer Hunter script and spilled his Macciato and got pizza sauce stains all over the pages.  According to Wiki, Marghereti attempted to make a positive Vietnam War epic?? As far as I can tell, that makes this one a propaganda film in league with shit like John Wayne or Chuck Norris (two fucktards in my opinion)! This makes absolutely no fucking sense, especially if you've seen his superior film Cannibal Apocalypse. I'm not sure why this one is in the Deep Red catalog because it has no redeeming qualities what so ever! 

USE AS A COASTER!

Go ahead, I'll catch the bullet in my teeth!

Sweet Rammstein cameo!

Fuck this shit, I'm going to trade school to become a nurse

My Friends Need Killing

My Friends Need Killing (1976) Directed By Paul Leder. Starring Greg Mullavey

  Paul "Leadfoot" Leder wins for the greatest title in exploitation history for this epic. It's a bargain basement namploitation flick that astoundingly everyone involved went on to mainstream shit! His daughter directed one of the dumbest flicks of all time, Deep Impact and star Greg Mullavey went on to alot of TV like (ICarly, Charles In Charge and Automan, so there's that). 

Gene plays a disturbed vet haunted by Nam flashbacks (stock footage). After seeing a lot of these psycho war vet flicks I noticed a pattern, almost all of them start off with an easy listening country song, (both Rolling Thunder and The Exterminator). This one has a jaunty, mildly irritating Hellen Reddy style number (which sets up some unpleasantness to come later)! The title song was actually sung by Meredith Mccrae. All of Gene's army buddies are nervous for some reason? Gee I wonder why? 

  His first victim is tied up on a bed and left to slowly bleed to death out of a tube sticking out of his arm, he tells him about all his plans of murder. He wants to track down all his buddies in Nam and kill them one by one for their crimes of legally sanctioned murder. He flies out on a plane as that bouncy 70's flute music plays (everything in this film takes place in bright sunshine)?! Why is it so happy? 

Laugh now, pay later

  One of his pals gets too drunk and talks about a gangbang that happened during Nam with a girl named Leena the Laughing Hyena! When the slappy cornball music is shut off it's replaced by very loud room tone. All of his friends know that he flipped out in Nam, but none of them suspect he is planning on destroying their lives. 

  The most disturbing part of the film happens 30 minutes later as Gene beats the shit out of his pal and then rapes his wife (fully clothed by the way). The awkward jolly music is pumped in again, extremely loud as Gene and his other soon to be murdered friend sight see around Sausalito, Ca and the Golden Gate bridge. The back and forth between happy and depressing is unnerving. It starts to get strange again and slightly homo erotic as he forces his pal to perform Macbeth for him and convinces him to drink wine and pills and then die. In the last few minutes an army buddy plays into his flashback by enacting a scenario that they already went through together (which seems dangerous). It all ends with Gene delivering a baby and his own suicide (which is featured on some box covers)!

With friends like these, who needs friends

  The psychotronic review of this was very negative and Weldon talks about how sick and depressing this film was to him, I didn't find it any worst then any run of the mill excessive 70's TV movie. It is pretty effective and convincing for such a minimal budgeted film. The anti-war message is a timeless one and once again, the mental health industry and the government create victims out of soldiers that fight and die for the American myth.   

WATCH HERE

Combat Shock

Combat Shock (American Nightmares) Directed by Buddy Giovinazzo. Starring Ricky G. (1984).

    Troma has a surly reputation for buying up trash, churning out sewage and spewing out underrated treasures without anyone noticing. Many of them are worth your time, but get caught in the tuna net of scum or eclipsed by the massive output of diarrhea.
    I first saw American Nightmares waay before Combat Shock in high school (1990). Combat Shock is the truncated version of Buddy G's film school thesis and I never saw that cut until my good friend Skunkape graciously mailed me the pristine Troma (Criterion style) remastered edition. The only difference I could tell was that they added Nam stock footage and the drawn out beginning was shorter, which sped up the pace along better. Buddy G. is vastly ahead of his time as a filmmaker (that people are still unfamiliar with and should know his work)! If you need further confirmation see his equally violent and nihilistic “Life is Hot In Cracktown”. Frankie (played by Ricky G.) is a struggling vet who lives in a bombed out apartment with a ventilator constantly running (one of the many tributes to Eraserhead). His ugly wife is constantly bitching at him and his Agent Orange afflicted child will not stop crying. Right from the moment he awakes from a flashback into a vicious reality nightmare, we are doomed from the start. The socio-economic climate today on the surface is better (everyone has a computer on their phone, everyone can access instant movies), but not much has changed. Staten Island at the time served the storyline perfectly to convey the bleakness and hopelessness. It looked like a warzone (on the commentary with Nekromantik director Jorge Buttgerit, Buddy mentions how the city complained how it was portrayed). This film has aged well with time and comes off more prophetic then dated. Frankie walks around endlessly around the garbage infested wilderness like a zombie. The casio soundtrack is oddly infectious and performed by Ricky G.

    When Frankie finally does snap and all events directly lead to a boiling point you can’t blame him. An acid trip like effect is used to project jungle footage over his face (making it almost a no budget 2001:A Space Odyssey tribute). You never can identify with him once he crosses over and kills his family, shoves his child in the oven takes it out and cradles it while drops of gore spill on his Keds. You are not allowed to identify with him, but you can’t help feel empathy for his wasted existence as a thrown away tin foil soldier. Drug kingpin “Paco” and his henchmen who run the streets are pathetically menacing (one looks like Zach Galifianakis in Asian gear). Eddie Pepitone (future Sara Silverman background actor) and Mike the junkie, scutter around like drug infested vermin. Mike cuts open his vein with a hanger, pours in a packet of drug powder and O.D.’s.

   During this time, Reagan was in charge, Chuck Norris and Rambo were kicking ass on the silver screen. And of course mental health issues and post traumatic stress were ignored or not taken seriously. Things haven’t changed much in that context for today’s  society. How can I justify my review of this tape without mentioning the brilliance of The Father, Son and Holy Ghost video the holy grail of retarded  metal videos! After the depressing film the music videos are a welcome addition. Also included are the insanely entertaining short works of Buddy G. (also on the DVD) and the horrifically chipper/ cryptic songs of Buddy and Ricky G’s band Circus 2000 A.D.!! They sound like a combination of Billy Joel and Devo! I couldn't live with myself if I didn’t mention that brilliance!
Check out the rare In the Name of video (that I thought was directed by Buddy G. but wasn't) ((LINK))
and Troma's cut of Combat Shock. Watch Here
Circus 2000 Vid

Mutant Baby

Psychedelic freakout!

I go back every night without fail