Heavy Metal Picnic

Heavy Metal Picnic Directed by Jeff Krulik (2010).

First came the sexual revolution then the drug, now this is the first I've ever heard of the psychotic revolution--who shall lead them? Billy Gordon and the Bluerockers! Just like all of Jeff Krulik's movies, here we get yet another documentation of a lost time period and odd music scene that can only be captured brilliantly in this way by one film maker. It all took place at a similar drug fueled gathering in 1985 (one year before the famed Priest parking lot fiasco happened). The Full Moon Jamboree was the place to be in Potomac MD. You get all sorts of loveable goofballs, bikers, stoners and even punks. It’s all very fascinating and there’s all kinds of memorable characters like the guy in the band Pentagram who looks at the camera and says everybody eat all the bloody pussy you can! I'm guessing he didn't feel like being on camera and just wanted to gross people out!

The HM picnic was all about the hardly mentioned Maryland scene which includes two well known doom bands Pentagram (who have their own doc) and The Obsessed who have a really fun tour film that features Wino's high school chums Henry Rollins and Ian McKaye. We catch up with Asylum (who I was unfamiliar with) and it's band members. Unlike the other parking lot ventures, we get immediate updates on what most of the people are up to and it's still a lot of fun to watch.

The Pentagram guy wishes he were a Tampax, uptight white and outta sight.

I'm really grateful that I went to the Nashville Rock and Pod Expo, which held the Heavy Metal parking lot reunion with my pal Ryan Brush and talked to Jeff Krulik. Two cast members from the parking lot were there and graciously autographed my copy, the DC 101 guy and The Graham of Dope dude. It was a pretty epic weekend and Mr. Krulik handed me a free copy of PICNIC in order to spread the word about this rare flick to the masses that read this blog. 

You gonna get Southern style Booglar-ized.

 Billy Gordon has that classic 70’s Satanist look (sadly it’s not mentioned if he’s ever delved into incantations or witchcraft). He seems to hang out with Gene Simmons a lot lately (which is pretty uncool at least to me). It’s all about bugging the squares though and they definitely achieved that, many suburbanites were pissed. The Krulik style, which is infectious, endearing and reaches a fine line of artistic clumsiness and intentionally funny really resonates with me. Lately however, it's unfair that his films have such a difficult time getting out beyond the film festival circuit because they deserve mass appeal and global attention. Come on Netflix or Amazon Prime, What's the deal?

I hope I ordered enough Dominoes for the incantation.

The film makers illustrate the disconnection between the youth and the moronic tyranny of Reagan. One concert goer talks about how Ronnie is a “Fucking Nazi”! His goof up in Germany where he referred to the SS as victims like the exterminated jews, pissed off every sane person at the time, especially Joey Ramone who wrote the famous Bonzo Goes to Bitburg about it. The CBS logo clipped to the mic that's passed around during the Jamboree was ganked from The Gipper's inauguration apparently. It's even more disturbing how the current morons running the country into the toilet are outwardly pro-white power and arrogant racists using rhetoric to ensure billionaires run the nation like a McDonalds. 

well at least things are running like a brainless dictatorship again only worse!

Sadly, the housing developers eventually mowed down the partiers, destroying yet another fun sub culture. The public access Blue Rock TV appearance on “Monty’s The Rock Shop” where they introduce the band in wacky outfits is insanely hilarious and was the highlight for me! Plus you get the unedited cut as a bonus on the DVD.

I approve of this message.

The best thing about Billy Gordon is that he never retired from the party biz, he just got smarter and more careful about it and now works with motorcycles (here's the link to his site). Jim Powell reached out to the different bands through his zine Grinder which he screams at anyone who’ll listen to “subscribe”—he looks blitzed out of his mind! There’s tons of shirtless fights and people “stoned to the bone” to quote one dude. I want to thank the director again for giving me a copy of his film and just like Led Zepplin Played Here, I loved it, another instant classic. Found Footage Festival offers a copy for sale along with other wacky looking titles. Here's the official link as well.

OFFICIAL SITE

BUY HERE

Lolly Madonna XXX

Lolly Madonna XXX Directed By Richard Sarafian, Starring Season Hubley (1973).

Review By Kris Gilpin

Additional notes by Crank in Blue

In 1973 Richard (Vanishing Point, Fragment of Fear) Sarafian directed Lolly Madonna XXX (aka The Lolly Madonna War), a backwoods drama about two feuding hick families, the Feathers (headed by Rod Steiger) and the Gutshalls (cool name), whose patriarch is Robert Ryan. The X's mean hugs and kisses not what you'd think, I bet alot of suckers tried to download this thinking Rod Steiger was gonna get down to some corn holing with Season Hubley and were sorely disappointed. The porn rating didn't exist yet, but my perverted mind immediately went there.

Their kids are an amazing group of young character actors: Jeff Bridges, Scott Wilson, Timothy Scott (who gave one of my fave sleaze performances in the lost revenge flick, The Farmer), Ed Lauter, Randy Quaid, Paul Koslo & Gary Busey (!). (I gotta check out The Farmer, sounds really scuzzy. It features a little known but memorable character actor named George Memmoli who was in a horrific on set accident that led to his death and him bowing out of Taxi Driver, as the psychotic passenger who was played by Scorcese. I loved his role as Swan's henchman in Phantom of The Paradise-Ed).  

Deliverance roleplay 

It was written by Sue Grafton, from her own novel. She's also famous for writing tons of her alphabetical detective novels (A is for Alibi, etc.).

Season Hubley arrives in this one-pig town and, via a mistaken-identity prank, is kidnapped by scumbags Lauter and Wilson. This slowly begins another feud which eventually escalates into almost everyone getting killed. (I always think of Season as the hooker that George C. Scott abandons and uses after he finds his daughter who despises him and thought she did an excellent job in Vice Squad, she also has a similar short haircut in this too-Ed).

stop type casting me crank, I'm more than just some street hussy!

Bridges is a good son who connects with Hubley, and Carey is his good brother. Lauter (who has fantasies of being a huge mouth harp star--!) and Wilson rape Gutshall girl Joan Goodfellow, who I remember from the B-rape/revenge movie Buster and Billie, with Jan-Michael Vincent. And Quaid is the youngest sibling, who has mental problems. (The boys are constantly getting haircuts or having their stitches sewn up by the Granny. Ed Lauter does a pretty good job as a cross dressing hillbilly and I loved the interview he did for Shock Cinema where he mentions that Hitchcock was so enamored by him that he had all these roles specifically planned out for the Long Island born character actor who sadly passed away a few years ago-Ed).

who did you say sexually assaulted you, George Glass?

And meanwhile, as things get batshit outside, Steiger eventually goes crazy and makes a big sammich ("Tell im I'm busy!"). Folks get shot, beaten to death and have their brains blown out...

(There's an amazing super slo-mo death scene with Steiger gunning down a few dozen horses, it looks uncomfortably real and Gary Busey's noggin gets an exit wound for his brain to escape).

would you happen to have any chow-chow for my possum sammich

This was just seen uncut on Turner Classic Movies, and is definitely worth you checking it out ;-). Warner Archives offers a DVD.

BUY HERE

Oops I slid into first and felt something burst!

USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK RETURNS: Motel Hell (1980)

MOTEL HELL. Directed By Kevin Conner, Starring Rory Calhoun (1980).

Reviewed By Goat Scrote

     I have really enjoyed this movie ever since I was a kid and I watched it on cable late one night (or early one morning, technically). It’s streaming on Amazon Prime as I write this, and it’s one of the more entertaining horror-comedies to come out of the 70s and 80s. It displays a twisted sense of humor on the part of the filmmakers that I can really appreciate, as well as deep affection for the scary movies which it pokes fun at.

     Farmer Vincent (Rory Calhoun) witnesses a motorcycle accident involving a man and a woman. They’re knocked out and Vincent swoops in to clean up. He immediately develops the hots for the blonde woman, Terry, so he takes her home to nurse her back to health. When she awakens, the farmer sadly informs her that her biker boyfriend Bo is dead. In a twist on the way this scenario usually plays out, Terry falls for her older rescuer. She clearly has a thing for older men, given her previous boyfriend is also two or three times her age.

I just took ten viagras and a shot of pig testosterone. Ready your cooch, woman!

     The situation is complicated by Ida, who is Vincent’s crazy evil daughter… er… sister?… um… wife, maybe. Possibly all three. They leave that question open for quite a while before they establish that they are siblings, but I don't think that necessarily rules out the other options. Vincent also has a kid brother, Bruce, who is the law in these here parts. A love triangle develops when Bruce develops a crush on Terry as well. She likes her men with a little more seasoning than the young police officer, however.

     The family runs a motel but their main business is making smoked pork. People come to the farm from far and wide to buy the delicious sausages. A couple of little girls wander into the slaughterhouse and are seriously traumatized by Ida, who chases them while wearing the severed head of a pig. What a nice lady.

     Wolfman Jack, the growly-voiced radio DJ who also starred in his own saturday morning cartoon, has a part as a sleazy televangelist.

Oddly enough this doesn't make me want to wolf whistle.

     A bumbling livestock inspector keeps showing up, trying to secretly figure out Vincent’s secret recipe. He regrets finding out when he discovers a garden patch full of people buried up to their necks. Their vocal cords have been cut so they can’t scream. This turns out to be the fate of all of the victims Farmer Vincent collects. He is planting living humans and harvesting them!

     Vincent lays out a bear trap on the road and we realize that Terry’s motorcycle accident wasn’t an accident at all. This time the trap snags a van with some super stylin’ 70s airbrush art, carrying a band called Ivan and the Terribles. Vincent’s dialogue with Ida here is priceless. He explains how finding ways to abduct people gives him a chance to exercise his creativity. Meanwhile, Ivan and the Terribles end up in the garden.

You never Sausage a place! (apologies to South of the Border's Pedro)

     Elsewhere, Terry and Bruce settle in to watch a drive-in movie, “The Monster that Challenged the World” (a classic 1957 sci-fi flick). Terry has to fend off Bruce as he tries to force himself on her. This tender felony is interrupted by a call on the radio from a woman who is being chased in her car after seeing someone (guess who?) abduct her friend.

     Vincent continues to kidnap people, exhibiting a cheerful disposition all the while. One funny sequence involves a couple of swingers who show up and invite Vincent and Ida to their room for some bondage. The swingers get tied up and planted, of course.

     Ida is jealous of Terry, so when they go inner tubing at the local reservoir Ida arranges an “accident” to try to drown her competition. Vincent has other plans for the girl so he rescues her. Terry is ever so grateful to her rescuer, and tries to seduce him unsuccessfully. This turns into a marriage proposal, however, and she accepts. Kid brother Bruce is crazy with jealousy.

Did you remember to stuff the cavity with headcheese dressin'?

     Later Ida and Vincent drug Terry so they can go tend their special garden. They use big hypno-wheels and flashing lights to daze the survivors and turn them into nearly-mindless vegetables. Vincent extols the virtues of a “radical hypno-high… heavier, smoother than any trip you’ve had”. To harvest the people out of the garden they tie nooses around the victims’ necks, and pull with the tractor to kill them instantly and yank them out of the ground. At one point the villainous Vincent wonders about the “karmic implications of these acts” of murder. He feels he is doing the world a favor with his culinary genius!

Phish concert goes tragically wrong.

     Bruce start uncovering evidence of Vincent’s crimes and reveals them to Terry, but the two are captured by Vincent and Ida. Meanwhile one of the vegetables planted in the garden frees an arm enough to dig himself out, and then frees the others. The movie takes on a bit of a zombie vibe with growling brain-damaged savages out for bloody revenge. The vegetable squad soon takes out Ida.

     Bruce has a chainsaw duel with Farmer Vincent, who is wearing the head of a pig, while Terry is on a conveyor headed for a meat-slicing machine. This ending gave me nightmares as a child. The cop vs. flesh-wearing psychopath chainsaw duel is awfully similar to the ending of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2” (1986) but “Motel Hell” did it first. Vincent ends up with a chainsaw stuck through him, and with his dying breath admits his secret regret, the one thing he is ashamed of: He has been using preservatives in the meat all along!!

Charlotte's Web 2: Wilbur's Revenge

MAKE SURE YOU BUY THE SHOUT FACTORY BLU-RAY/DVD 

Manson

MANSON Directed By Laurence Merrick and Robert Hendrickson (1973).

The first time I saw this rare documentary which is still only available on VHS was in middle school, it's powerfully depressing and has some of the most idiotic people you've ever seen or heard in your life. All the girls wear punk haircuts and skimpy shorts as they brag about their shotguns and giggle while hurling anarchistic psychobabble your way. The girls cutesy antics wear out real fast. Lots of people have either fetishized these moronic chicks or sampled their dialogue in hardcore songs by Integrity and Poison Idea or industrial weirdos Skinny Puppy. The only reason they convinced half of the actual family members on the lam to participate in this film was because they were all given the opportunity to blab about how awesome they all were. Ah youth, almost all of these people currently wish they'd never met a con artist loser and extreme manipulator like Charlie. The ones interviewed in the film like Steve Clem Grogan aka "Scramblehead", Mary Brunner and Paul Watkins who does the eerie folk soundtrack were all released. Brunner who had a child with Manson, mentions how her baby just plopped out one day without any medical assistance at all! Watkins was a huge snitch and spoke out against the Family early on, he seems disturbed by Charlie's whole deranged concept of love byway of murder. The way Bugliosi breaks down the Helter Skelter concept reminds me of Joe Friday but don't underestimate him, later on he tried to convict GW Bush for war crimes. The whole warped ideology of Manson hearing The Beatles speaking directly to him about The Black Panthers taking over America and exterminating all races besides his appointed group hiding out in Death Valley is almost too idiotic to fathom.

We're warning you with Peace and Love, racial dominance is on your side Chuck

It's really fascinating to hear about how these dopey girls slept with grocery store managers so they could dumpster dive and get the best garbage in order to survive. Manson was basically their pimp and stepped on their necks to live out his messiah fantasy. The older I get the less I understand how any of this even happened, I mean how many drugs can you take before you'd listen to a maniacal dwarf rejected rockstar like Charlie--I just don't get it.

does this Manson caricature I bought on the pier for 5$ look inbred enough? 

Watkins mentions how they were on 30 or 40 acid trips a day, that would probably fry your brain enough to make you fall for any variety of bullshit. They showcase Manson's ceremonial psychedelic embroidered vest with human hair woven in from all of the girls heads and most of their crimes were recorded on it. The girls all enthusiastically boast about this shit like the documentarian is so privileged to hear about it. Later on, Lawrence Merrick was mysteriously killed even before the film was released. The most unsettling part for me was when the narrator talks about how the children born on Spahn Ranch smoked dope, dropped acid and even took part in group orgies! Yikes, these kids, now adults are most likely in intensive therapy I'm willing to believe.

It's actually made from Skunkape's butt hair

Brooks Poston (who joins Watkins on the eerie folk stylings) mentions Dennis Wilson for a couple of seconds and that they're jealous of his mansion. It's quite the opposite, Manson would do anything to latch onto Wilson's fame and the main reason the Tate/ LaBianca Murders were triggered. They were actually searching to butcher Terry Melcher for taking the song "Cease to Exist", changing the lyrics and not paying Charlie his due. There's a really cool documentary about the subject on YT. And there's a funny/terrifying scene in Beach Boys: An American Family, the tv movie, where Dennis' home is taken over by the family and he leaves and never comes back.

I also stole Kokomo from Geraldo's most famous meal ticket, thanks loser!

It gets pretty gross the way Watkins describes the crazy mescaline deflowering virgin's freakout on the beach. It's clear to me that all of these women were being used, in a later interview with Patricia Krenwinkel she even wonders if Charlie ever partook at all and forced all his wasted flunkies to do his bidding.

Nancy Jordan talks about how Manson had bitey sex with her and they do a four shot split screen ala-they told two friends and so on and so on. They talk to Veronica "Ronnie" Howard who says by the time you see this film, I'll most likely be dead because she broke the Tate-Labianca case. She died in 79 a few years later, she was kidnapped and beaten by a gypsy cabdriver, it's not proven however if it was related to her role in the conviction of Susan Atkins. It's pretty sketchy though and that case seems opened ended to me. 

Answer the phone for lesbian dial-a-date!

Atkins, who became a born again Christian in jail and had her leg amputated was released in 2001 and died a few years after. The way they describe her stabbing Sharon Tate's unborn child without any remorse or some dude who blew his brains out while they were fucking as totally "groovy", it's almost impossible to feel any sympathy for her. A lot of these lurid details to to have inspired Roger Watkins to make his film Last House on Dead End Street.     

UGH I don't feel so good I must've eaten too many ladies panties 

I used to have a xerox copy of Charles Manson with a box of celebs on a list that they targeted underneath (it's kind of pathetic to think about now). I love when they describe how they wanted to hang Sinatra on a meathook, skin him alive and sell purses they made out of his flesh to hippie shops! I was actually excited to check out Jim Van Bebber's Charlie's Family (aka The Manson Family) years before it came out and promoted in Deep Red Alert #1.That film threw in scenes from this documentary and went out of its way to make the interviewed subjects look like clowns.

Rocky Dennis post facelift

One of the most irritating bitches in this film is Sandy Good, who brags that their coming revolution will make Nazi Germany look like a picnic. I think if they slipped in some psychiatric drugs or thorazine in with their psychedelic shit, maybe all of this madness would've been avoided. You can obtain this film on a DVD-R signed by Robert Hendrickson for 30$ bucks from the co-director, I'm guessing that no one owns the actual rights to this film. I hadn't thought of this film for awhile until one of my favorite radio shows The Best Show with Tom Scharpling mentioned it, which intrigued me to review it. When I went to TV production school I was obsessed with a couple of things, this movie, the Paul is Dead Beatles theory and made a couple of music videos with the footage, one was for Violent School by The Dead Milkmen.
There have been so many wimpy watered down homogenized TV movie versions of the original story, but this one is the real deal. It's pretty nauseating psychologically and still baffling that this ever happened at all.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

ORDER A SIGNED COPY FROM THE CO-DIRECTOR

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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