USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK: Stitches

STITCHES directed by Alan Smithee.

Here it is May again, time to re watch The Wicker Man and participate in the sacrificial ritual of USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK. The gift that keeps on giving, it’s a pleasurable struggle like mowing the lawn or walking the dog. Sadly Jim Hendricks aka Commander U.S.A. passed away recently into the great basic cable graveyard beyond he was inspirational to many and will be missed.

What if Porky’s wasn’t set in a boring fucking high school but a morgue among students akin to Herbert West? You’d watch that shit right? I mean that segment of Fast Times where Vincent Scavelli pulled out a human heart and Spicolli went “GNARLY” was enough to get the script writer here typing away on an entire movie based on that premise! So here we are Stitches what cha got?

GNARLY

During the credits three medical students dressed like cadavers scare the shit outta some people venturing into the institute, they kind of resemble the jaundiced corpse from ROTLD.

Ralph (actor) the googly eyed fellow from The Devil’s Rejects and Human Experiments gives a coffee machine an enema—funny right?

Don’t hide your head in shame yet because this is the only other film I can recall that has the Asian exchange student from Revenge of the Nerds in it. I wonder what Harvey Pekar thought of this movie if he was that pissed off about the Robert Carradine vehicle? That’s one of the most overreactions against that film I can remember. Eddie Albert from Green Acres who played the president in Dream Scape. The Mahoney/Guttenberg prototype is the not Shaun Cassidy Hardy Boys sibling Parker Stevenson.

Ahh a punk rocker! They spit on people.

There's one part with a one way mirror gag that goes awry and a offensively gay dude who's super horny and makes dick jokes for awhile. That gay dude is none other than Murray The Unknown comic! The Asian guy dresses like a hypodermic needle. Eddie Albert from Green Acres hosts a party where everyone dresses punk, Halloween style, which is yet another reason the Destroy All Movies book included it. If you like King Frat or Beach House you'll eat up this one. I immediately told Paul about it but I don't think he dug it.
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Beach House

Beach House (Down the Shore) Directed By John A. Gallagher, starring Kate McNeil (1982).

Paul Sharky Vandervoort alerted my attention to this schlock-ter-piece and he knows good trashy teen movies! So I bartered with him and he finally agreed to peddle a copy in an unknown location sold for a high ransom among other paraphernalia out of his Studebaker beater so that I could dish out the dirt here for your enjoyment, hope you appreciate it. 

You've seen King Frat and Ghost House, now get ready for what I can only describe as "Mook House" as in an all Italian American frat party! The "Beloosh" of this Animal House is the tubby bleach blonded slob Baby (played by Paul Anderson)! He wears sunglasses at all times and calls everybody else baby, hence the nickname.

The music is really lethargic power pop or sometimes fake Freddy Cannon. There's all sort of famed prefab punk stars involved in the music like one of the Paley Brothers and Adam Roth. Roth who plays Googie was very close with Dennis Leary and played guitar on his hit song "Asshole" and was in The Del Fuegos. He also had his own catchy song check it out here. According to this movie, it's all happening not at the Joisey Shore, but at Ocean City!

BOO! DISCO SUCKS!

Down at "Phil's Rock Room and Disco Inferno (see ya get best of both music genres) they all pogo to "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand! Cecile (Ileana Seidel), a frizzy haired chick jaunts over to the hotel of Baby and his cohorts and lets everybody slobber on her after her snaggletoothed afro-ed boyfriend can't get it up. She is just asking for trouble and all the girls at the party hate her! Sometimes the lighting guy nods off and forgets to turn them on (during the night scenes you can't see shit) that's one of my main complaints about this flick, which is otherwise jam packed with entertainment value.Usually I'd save this one for USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK but I twisted Sharky's arm off and forced him at knifepoint to upload his video tape to Youtube.

Marty (Al Wheatley), a total creepy perv wanders in while girls are bending over or minding their own business, he gives off a serial killer vibe.

People say I look like Greg Lowery

In Beach House there's this strange "turkey and tequila" party or a TNT! Maybe it's a Philly thing, which is where this film takes place, not sure. There's one birther type guy who keeps bringing up George Washington and trying to embarrass his girlfriend in front of the portrait. I gotta consult my Destroy All Movies book to see if this one is in there (actually I confirmed that the co-editor did review it). It's got waay more punk looking people and music than even Surf 2! One girl wears a shirt for a Boston power pop band called The Marshalls. Marty the perv turns out to be an aggressive stalker/ rapist and almost attacks Cindy (Kate McNeil)! That actress must have a great agent and is still consistently working, she was in Monkey Shines and a bunch of popular tv shows like Madmen and X-Files.

Last Supper?

During the last few minutes all these incidental characters we don't really care about all bone while the band (which doesn't seem to have a name) plays "When You Find Out" by The Nerves!

Don't worry it's all gluten free

It's pretty frustrating how the last half takes place during the night because there's not even a street light and I think they might've forgotten what type of movie this is because it shifts gears into slasher territory. The music even gets more Casio sounding ala Don't Answer The Phone as Marty chases Cindy on a merry-go-round! My head hurts, I'm very confused and I didn't eat one of those magic brownies again by accident! Stick it out if you can because this is one weird underground punk infused beach party train wreck.

SHIT, I'm so wasted on Tryptophan!

If you live in the Bay Area make sure you go see The Teutonics who are amazing and do a cover of the song they play at the end! Thanks again to my best pal Sharky for hooking me up! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Tenement

Tenement Directed By Roberta Findlay, Starring Dan Snow (1985).

When I first saw this film it was back in the glory days of Netflix I had the three DVD's deal and no streaming capabilities. I know that sometimes I come off as a technophobe, but streaming every possible film on the planet has made us all basically spoiled brats! I like the convenience but miss the days of blindly renting something and taking a stab at an unknown film that hasn't already been over-saturated by whiny reviews online about how it sucks before you even get to see it. Anyway, I digress but the reason I'm bringing this is up is because the film in question tonight is one I was stoked about just by the cover art. Having just seen William Lustig's Vigilante, which totally blew me away and Don't Go in the House, I was all keyed up for another scummy grindhouse hit and Tenement just didn't measure up at the time, if anything it left me cold. 

As cold as a nice refreshing Rolling Rock on a toilet?

Did I unfairly misjudge this Roberta Findlay production, which even has Dan "Cigar Face" Snow basically as himself? At the time I was really excited to check out every punxploitation flick that I could get my mitts on and this one just formed a huge question mark over my head. Chas over-sold it too with phrases like "ultra violent urban assault" and "a wet rollercoaster ride through inner city hell". What was I missing, this film has it's sect of fanatics, so why do I not respond to it?

I took a break from this one for about five years and then felt that I should re-evaluate it and surprisingly enjoyed this grimy street punk outing a lot more the 2nd time. It's still incredibly cheesy but at least I had more of a sense of humor, having detested the film so hardcore at my first viewing. 

From what I've read about Roberta Findlay, she was a porn director who dabbled in exploitation occasionally and was most famous for directing Snuff (1976) with her husband Michael who was killed later on in a freak helicopter accident. Roberta cut her teeth in SWV style porn like Curse of Her Flesh (and other Flesh related titles in the series). In the Jerry Butler porn book, which shits on everyone in the biz, he refers to her as "A Nice Lady", good for her!

This flick opens with one silly happy rap song (that's actually pretty catchy) Walter E. Sear who composed my favorite broken casio/Collecovision score for the VHS of Dr. Butcher and The 7 Doors of Death version of The Beyond actually produced this and handled this film's soundtrack!

Some coke snorting Bronx punks hang out in the shittiest looking scum pit (beer bottles are seen on the toilet). Of course they're up to no good, one dude snacks on a dead rat and talks about how delicious it is. These lowlives are more pathetic than The Orphans, the saddest gang in The Warriors and have zero class. I bet the rabid punks from I Drink Your Blood would turn up their nose at these shit heels. Their leader Chaco, played by Enrique Sandino kind of resembles Miguel "Puman man" Fuentes if he were scagged out on smack. The actor who plays him is pretty laughable and even delved in TV on Miami Vice and The Shield. 

There's a certain amount of inept charm that this film has going for it that keeps it afloat.

Sometimes it comes off like loose improve (as if there was hardly any script). There's the constant presence of a time frame, or countdown I guess, as the punks end up at the prison building for three seconds before getting back to the ghetto and abusing all the tenants. One of the worst, most unlikeable "good guy" characters is Mr. Rojas played by Larry Lara (who's whereabouts are unknown, maybe he's a manager at Arby's now)? His performance as a slumlord is pretty entertaining with his heavy "Ricky Ricardo style accent".

I'm the Joe Spinell of horsey sauce and curly fries!

They intercut the punks getting dusted and the "decent folks" at a community party trying to figure out what to do. The score (which is some goofy stock library guitar music) sounds like it's playing from a boom box on the set. The domestic situation filler is pretty excruciating between the different dull characters and adds nothing to the story. For a more effective realistic ghetto drama check out Life is Hot in Crack Town instead.

One black female character who hates her living situation is gang-raped by all the horny punkers, it's pretty grim how the film seems to be punishing this woman for believing that she's too good for the ghetto and it's kinda fucked up!

You've mistaken me for someone else, I'm Nose-chain-face, got it?

One Spanish Baba Booey looking character is knifed in gruesome detail, what this movie needs is an elderly vigilante--I mean where's a B-rate Charles Bronson when you need him right? 

Halfway through Cigar Face, (or should I say Nose-chain-face, because he has jewelry that differentiates him from the Toxic Avenger character) sadly O.D's and has a seizure that kills him. I was sorry to see him go, because after that, all we have left to identify with is Rojas (to reiterate, he's a racist slumlord--GREAT)! One of the strangest parts of the film shows the gang leader have sex with his girlfriend and they slather each other in a victim's blood kind of like those vampire fetishists, very gross!

FA FA FOOEY, NOW YOU DIE!

Eventually the tenants fight back, but they're so unorganized that it comes off as ridiculous and fake. I mean not even the bumbling cops from Police Academy or New Yawk's Guardian Angels show up to help these citizens patrol their shitty apartment complex. The only way to get through this film is to suspend all logic, turn off your brain and sympathy, so in other words get a lobotomy and Tenement will be your favorite movie! Get me outta here! Even though this film is awful, it's kind of shocking in it's ballsiness to be so unpleasant and hard to like that it's almost existential.    

*1/1-2 OUT OF 5 ON THE CULT-O-METER.
THE CINEMATIC EQUIVALENT OF CHEEZ WAFFIES, ON THE OUTSIDE MAY LOOK TASTY, BUT A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT!

Remember in the 80's when this Sandino poster was super popular?