Movie Review: Lisa, Bright and Dark

Lisa, Bright and Dark
Directed by Jeannot Szwarc, Starring Kay Lenz (1973).

Movie review by Greg Goodsell

This “Kindertrauma” favorite had all my fellow classmates in junior high talking about it the day it was telecast on November 28, 1973. Lisa, Bright and Dark had some strong shocking content for its day and innumerable links to the horror genre as well. We will get to this in a moment …

When we first meet Lisa (Kay Lenz), she appears to be just yet another spoiled rich kid whiling away her senior year before embarking on to her college years. Her mom (Anne Baxter) and dad (John Forsythe) are terribly conservative and wealthy, although they seem a bit old to have a 17-year-old daughter. Straight away, things begin to go awry. Subject to mood swings, she tells off her steady boyfriend Brian at a party in front of a bunch of her fellow students, only to re-emerge minutes later smiling and friendly. Something is drastically wrong however. After a shopping spree collecting the latest “Marcia Brady” drag, she forces her way into the car of a complete stranger. Lisa then decides her clothes are too young for her and sets them alight in the car! Imagine all that melted polyester meeting that ugly plaid interior!

YICCHH I shudder at those bad 70's fashions

Things are spiraling wildly out of control for our deluded female student, and a trio of her friends (TV standbys Anne Lockhart, Debralee Scott and Jamie Smith-Jackson) decide to form their own “group therapy” session. Poring over a few “self-help” books from the library, along with some practical experience – “I was in analysis for three years!” one of her friends declares, Lisa’s “hen group” tries to bring her back to a semblance of normalcy, but things only go from bad to worse.

Lisa, Bright and Dark is at its heart a low-to-no budget telefilm with ghastly fashions, but remains highly relevant today. Mental illness remains highly stigmatized in the United States today, and many young women may find themselves in a home situation where the parents and guardians refuse to acknowledge it as it reflects negatively on them. There is also an anti-psychiatrist bias as well. High school guidance counselors, unable to deal with the complexity of teenagers, often reach for the mantra of “Your child needs professional help …” whether it be for nail biting or multiple personality disorder. Not helping the situation are contemporary mental health professional themselves, who glibly prescribe “happy pills” for patients in lieu of addressing their root problems.

Did you get that audition for the Brian Depalma Catsup commercial?

Lisa, Bright and Dark has many connections with the horror genre, with scenes calling to mind films of that era. The scene where Lisa douses herself with red paint in art class prefigures Sissy Spacek in Carrie (1976), as well as a scene where she throws herself through a plate-glass window in the manner of Marilyn Burns in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). (A scene where Lisa carves her name in her arm with a straight pin calls to mind the excesses of recent “torture porn” films as well.)

WRONG! It's spelled SLAYER!

Director Jeannot Szwarc is no stranger to horror film fans, directing William Castle’s Bug (1975) as well as the most horrifying Night Gallery TV episode, “The Caterpillar.” He is also the man responsible for such fan favorites as Jaws 2 (1978) and Somewhere in Time (1980), and remains active in television in the present day.

Hey can you drive me over to the set of Match Game, I'm pretty stoned

As for Lisa, she does “get help” at the end of the film, but we are left with the definite impression that she’s currently pushing a shopping cart and picking through Dumpsters. Overall, Lisa, Bright and Dark still packs a punch and raises many questions that have yet to be addressed in current society.   

BUY HERE

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (Zombie Graveyard, Things from the Grave) Starring Alan Ormsby Directed By Bob Clark (1972).

Alan Ormsby and his theater buddies as themselves perform a Satanic ritual in a graveyard and pay for their idiotic mischief. I know Ormsby as the guy who used peanut butter in his stage blood recipe and worked with Tom Savini on Death Dream, he wrote and co-directed the brilliant Ed Gein biopic Deranged. I've successfully avoided this film until it showed up in HD quality format on Youtube and god damn it, if I'm not gonna check it out and review it for you faithful readers so those in the minority who haven't seen it yet can decide if it's worth watching this cult item. ((Spoiler Alert)) it's not, don't waste your time, it's a dreadful mind numbing experience--get out while you still can! Ok now that the more sensitive members of my audience are busy crocheting, what a bunch of chickens right? Now the truth about this film can be told, read on to find out.

Are We Not Devo, Nope We are A Shitty Santana cover band

If this movie hadn't involved Bob Clark and Ormsby didn't write one of the coolest Monster make-up books that I bought one year in Kindergarten at a book fair, then I wouldn't have subjected myself to this level of dullness. I thought it was great how in that book they talked about lighting and facial expressions when transforming into Jeckyll and Hyde by using red lights, shadows and Orange and Black Cherry soda as a potion-- it was inspiring. Ormsby was also the mad genius behind Hugo: Man of a Thousand Faces, the Kenner puppet that comes with a million disguises, was featured on the Uncle Floyd Show and allegedly inspired The Love Butcher.

an exerpt from Ormsby's Monster make-up book. 

This film, which flows at a draining, agonizingly slow pace has some of the cheesiest hippies imaginable to boot. Alan Ormsby with his van dyke beard, wizard cape and stripey pants looks like Gallagher's second cousin. The cast, who all appear as themselves, resemble a less scary version of the Satanic cult from I Drink Your Blood or Last House on Dead End Street for the family friendly neutered set. If you think about those two aforementioned films and the way they manage to deliver so much deep seated terror and creepiness with little to no budget, it's fascinating to me how they accomplish it. CSPWDT tackles similar situations involving evil hippies and it came out at the same time period, so why does it all add up to a lackluster and dull effort, I don't know. Ormsby is no slouch by any means and he wrote one of the best coming of age bully drama's My Bodyguard (1980) and I even enjoyed Popcorn (1991), which he was an uncredited director of. In fact this may be the lowest point of his career, but what's so perplexing to me is how it's so widely known. Another strange coincidence that makes perfect sense now that I think about it is Jeff Gillen the chubby guy with Larry Fine hair played the scary Santa Claus in A Christmas Story. 

I can't believe you tried to blame that fart on the corpse

One stand out seen in Dead Things has two gay positive characters, which was shocking for the offensive 70's when society was still very ignorant and homophobic. One of them wears a zombie mask and pops out of a coffin to scare Jeff the fat guy, causing him to piss his pants! They find a real corpse named Orville (played by Seth Sklarey) and put a hanky on his head to perform a Satanic ritual, sounds like a generic Friday night--am I right? Check out this hilarious interview with Orville the corpse from http://www.badmovies.org/interviews/sklarey/

Do you mind, I'm trying to masturbate!

Anya, Ormsby's real wife at the time, chickens out (I'm not sure why they'd exhume a corpse anyhow, perhaps they want to go all Nekromantik style on the rotting carcass). Anya hams it up like nobodies business and makes everything tense for this gaggle of artsy types. For a group of hippies there's a serious lack of beer or weed, maybe these are straight edge highbrow dweebs. As dull as this film is, it's still mildly enjoyable and I'll take these flesh eaters over the current trend of sad sack WWZ or "Walking Dull" moronic zombie trends any day. The trailer for this film which I've seen on the Mad Ron's Prevues tape is more exciting than the finished product, I'm sorry to say. The high light of the movie which doesn't really get going almost towards the end is when the corpses finally show up, their make-up is very good and they all have that cruddy Thing Maker style effects that I love.

Remember Kids, Count Chocula Cereal may cause dysentery 

Ormsby handled most of the undead effects along with Lee J. O' Donnell who also worked on Zaat (aka MST3K's Blood Waters of Dr. Z), that flick is so abysmal without Mike and the Bots goofing on it. Dead Things was filmed in Miami Florida which means it was probably sweltering but as someone who grew up in South Fl, you could never really tell on camera. If anything Bob Clark (going by Ben Clark) should get most of the blame since he wrote and directed it, but he's had such a prolific career that I just can't do it. I'm thinking this film is a 70's horror rite of passage, you see it once and that's it--you got it out of the way pat yourself on the back. I just watched Let's Scare Jessica To Death which is infinitely worse than this film and also another super famous cult item. Both Clark and Ormsby would work on better projects later considering this was what they slapped together in college, I gotta give them some credit, but yeah it's pretty lame.

No Don't make me watch it again not enough Beer on the planet!

NOT WORTH THE HYPE, VERY SLOW AND BORING!

The Flesh And Blood Show

The Flesh And Blood Show Directed By Pete Walker, Starring Robin Askwith (1972).

Make sure you got your classic headache inducing red and blue 3D spectacles as you watch This Pete Walker film or you'll be shit out of luck once the technicolor visual assault splatters across the screen. I bet it was glorious in the theater, but in this version we don't get the original eye popping ending, just a black and white one. So forget what I said, unless you've got a time machine.

 I like Walker's style and the music by Cyril Ornadel really sets up the next hour and a half. A blonde bird with luscious bosoms runs totally naked over to a "stupid bastard" named John (played by David Howey) with a fake pen knife sticking out of his belly. He knocks on the door late at night and lunges in, pretending he's been stabbed, pfft, method actors! All of the actors work on horror films-- man I love films within films-- they're cinematic egg rolls stuffed with delightful goodies instead of cabbage and sawdust. The cheeky sense of humor is a welcome presence after a long hiatus from Walkers work here at ToG. This month we've been covering a lot of British treats that Fandor carries and it's good to see another fun one has arrived. 

My bleedin' ulcer

There are a lot of itchy sweaters and mod clothes in this film, the fashion is pretty swell. More actors and producers show up, the London film scene is booming. I'd like to see Randolph Caer star of Garth Marenghi's  "Bitch Killer" show up, he's most likely based on a murderous Walker style character.

more spaghetti sauce please!

The actors all show up at a spooky Grand Guignol style theater, where they find another naked blonde and Robin Askwith with giant mutton chops. The production manager is the spitting image of Donovan. On stage the actors prance around like cave people in loin cloths and the women wear thigh high boots. Schizo was featured in the catalog instead of this, but don't bother with that tepid bore, The Flesh And Blood Show is waay more entertaining.

Now that I've gotten your attention let me sing you a song about Atlantis

Two babes in skimpy prehistoric garb massage each other in a vaguely sexual way; in fact this is the most flesh I've seen yet in a Walker production. I'm also ecstatic to see the title is not bullshit, because we're treated to buckets of blood and mounds of female flesh.

The actors investigate a creaky noise they heard in the bowels of the theatre and all head down. They find a bunch of wax statues, but no one notices but there's a panting weirdo in their midst and what looks like a female corpse.

Mike the "Donovan stunt double" calls the police but is almost arrested for pranking them. It turns out the dead body in the cellar was just another wax dummy. A mysterious new girl shows up played by Luan Peters and all the other women are jealous! She kind of looks like Faye Dunaway in her prime, only cuter. The stupid bastard who likes to play dirty tricks seems to be a creepy voyeur and is always lurking in the corner spying on people. 

Carol, the top heavy blonde, leaves and checks out the beach on a cold dark night and is almost sexually assaulted by a homeless guy with a long knife. 

I'm the porn parody version of Faye Dunaway 

The rest of the troupe figures out that John the leering creep is the most likely culprit. After they assume this, he disappears. They have some tea with a couple of old timers and they think it may be some kind of Shakespearean curse. This gives them a chance to investigate the history of the costal town down at the library which may involve someone named Alfred Kingsley (who's most likely the sinister Major Bell). Candace Glen Denning from Snape island shows off her perky tits she's very cute but not much of an actress.

Don't be jealous because we look like rock stars and you look like a second rate dink

Carol stumbles upon a group of skeletons and somehow ends up stuck on a seaside stairwell ( I know that sentence seems weird, but that's what it looks like to me)! I'm no seaman or anything, guffaw! 

John isn't responsible and we see him in the morgue, it's kinda shitty how his "friends" accused him of sexual assault and dropped him like a sack of garbage.

I'm so alone, and I never got laid

Major Bell (Patrick Barr) one of the old timers shows up in one girls dressing room. He starts reciting poetry from Othello in the theatre, he's wacked out of his mind, maybe he forgot his brain medicine! They flashback to his time and it turns out he was an actor in that very institute who murdered his wife. His scene is shown in black and white and even though he's supposed to be Othello, he looks like Rasputin, the Mad Monk! 

In Russia this is 3D scene (in Yakov Smirnov voice).

There's a very disturbing sex scene that has a little kid in the background, as major bell interrupts his cheating wife and ties the couple up naked.

I like how his reaction to their debauchery has him yelling "excrement!" During the last 10 minutes he kind of takes over. So step aside young hipsters and watch this old coot get fucking mental! This along with The Comeback is one of Pete Walker's strongest films, I loved it and found it to be a total blast! Fandor is currently streaming it.

HIGH RECOMMENDED!  

WATCH HERE

Horror Hospital

Horror Hospital (Dr. Bloodbath, Frankenstein Horror Klinik, Computer Killers) Directed By Anthony Balch, starring Michael Gough (1973).
 
If you're looking for a ghoulishly fun British horror film, this is a must see! Not even five minutes goes by before we get a motorized decapitation Rolls Royce with a handy dandy head catching basket. This film is in league with cryptic Brit favorites like Theatre of Blood, Dr. Phibes and the work of Peter Walker. 

Michael Gough and his dwarf pal Frederick (Skip Martin) are perturbed that two patients with blood soaked bandages on their scalps attempted to escape. They pay for their insolence with their lopped off heads. I remember seeing the image of the two victims on the cover of a zine in middle school called Demonique in the Fantaco catalog. 
    

They went alittle crazy with the condiments

      
   Jason Jones (Robin Askwith, who looks like they cloned Brian Jones) decides to take a vacation away from the music scene after a glam band steals one of his tunes. His ripped off song "Mark of Death" by Mystic is a pretty hilarious and sounds like Eric Burdon trying to imitate Alice Cooper. Askwith was also in Horror On Snape Island before this, which I've yet to see but remember fondly from the "Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell" tape.
     

Gingivitis I hardly knew yee

   Mr. Pollack (played by Ealing comedian Dennis Price) is a gay rotten toothed travel agent for Hairy Holidays. After checking out Jason's bulge he watches as the mop-toped yob sets off on a train. Jason meets a cute girl named Judy (Phoebe Shaw) who's timid at first, but he eases her mind by saying "Listen honey, I'm not gonna rape you". Yeah that's a reassuring opener, which I guess worked in 1973 because she trusts him and they become a couple. They check into a drafty health clinic where they are greeted by Fred the dwarf from the beginning who's unusually chipper and wears a yarmulke. Skip Martin, who was also in Vampire Circus, brings most of the black comedy to the film. 

This corn beef bloody better be kosher

   At dinner time, the couple (who are getting friskier by the minute) see a table full of pale teens with head wounds, there are glasses of green Kool-aid in front of them. 
I'm beginning to think Hairy Holidays is a scam to commit hippies to an insane asylum or worse!

Coloring books were often used to fool Hippies into impromptu lobotomies

   Dr. Storm (Michael Gough) shows up at the hotel and his midget servant keeps telling everyone to brush their teeth, he's an advocate for tooth wellness, not brain health. Storm has a grayish complexion, wears black leather gloves and travels in a wheelchair.
   
   There are two motorcycle henchmen who reminded me of the axe hacking maniac biker gang from The Undertaker and his Pals. They beat the piss out of Jason in the forest which really taps into that fantasy you might have in wanting to see one of those 60's era Rolling Stones jerks get what's coming to them.
 

Oh wait, you didn't drown, is Hendrix still alive too?

   This movie hates hippies and Dr. Storm uses the travel agency to lobotomize the teenagers.
He's kind of like Phil Spector and anyone that deserts him gets slaughtered, even those who were loyal to him. At the end he explains how he worked for Pavlov and after Stalin installed new adolescent runts, that was the last straw and the reason he hates the younger generation. His form of retaliation was to create a lobotomized human zoo. They tried this concept in Barn of the Naked Dead with unappealing results. It gets even weirder as we find out Dr. Storm is a mutant creature made out of melted wax and is seen fornicating with different girls. 
      

It's embarrassing but you're right we both have the same hair stylist

 

   The director Anthony Balch is a counterculture fixture who hung out with Burroughs and Kenneth Anger, later on he distributed some of the most highly regarded cult flms like Haxan, Supervixens and The Corpse Grinders (which was on a double bill with Horror Hospital). He never made another film and sadly died of stomach cancer in 1980, he was an extremely talented director. The score is great and uses stock music from the De Wolfe catalog to great effect, I guess I'm a sucker for library music as someone who is obsessed with all the Romero tracks from Dawn and Creepshow. This film is a total blast and a must see for people who are on the fence about British horror, it may just convert them.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I gotta run this over to the set of Brain Damage

Hold on! I'm indecent!

Mutant 69 which I guess you could call a 74

The Night God Screamed

The Night God Screamed Directed by Lee Madden, Starring Jeanne Crain (1971).

There's a shocking amount of Manson-sploitations out there that were clamoring for the all mighty dollar in the early 70's, most of them are inferior to my favorite Satanic hippie flick I Drink your Blood! The Jerry Gross company Cinemation Industries actually put this tepid, awful excuse for a "horror movie" out. I kept hoping that cool skeleton mask would show up, but it never did!  

   The VHS quality on this Youtube presentation is all shades of squiggly pink and brown the only place to get a better copy is thru Just For The Hell Of It (JFHI.COM). 

   A creepy crawly bunch of Manson-esque slippies congregate around a swimming hole, as a tripped out Steve Railsback impersonator uses a hooded figure to drown a girl he believes is a narc. I find it strange that Helter Skelter didn't come out until a few years later, maybe Steve copied this guy? Wait that can't be right because they're both copying the ultimate hammy loser and former Beach Boy! The credit sequence font in this film reminds me of A Hard Days Night!

I call the sawed off shotgun on my lap "HIPPIE SKULL VENTILATOR"

  A woman named Fanny Coogan (Jeanne Crain) who works at a homeless shelter is fed up with everything- God, being broke and just ripe for some messianic wacko to jump in and brainwash her! Her ridged preacher husband scoffs at her depression and chalks it all up to God's will. 

  What this movie needs is "Billy Jack" or "Bibleman" to step in and crack some skulls! The hippies hassle the religious couple at a truck stop and aim to steal a pretty sweet cross they lug around in the back of a pickup truck.

Just lounging around waiting for the rapture

   The rag tag cult shows up late at night while Fanny's husband is alone and they actually nail him to his own giant cross! It's all done in grainy darkness in a PG way so you don't get the ghoulish benefit.

I like how the Christ-like leader says "God's on our side, not yours" in a high whiny fashion!
I mean in this scenario if some punks snuck into an ex-evangelical president's church and did the same thing would anyone feel that bad? I guess the husband dies, because we never see him again.

Oh Fiddlesticks, now I got heartburn too!

   Fanny is so receptive to mind control and has a guilty conscience that she feels bad for Billy Joe Harlan! That's right folks, the scary cult leader played by Michael Sugich is named Billy Joe! This was Sugich's last known performance in acting, I wonder what he's up to now, maybe he works at Trader Joes?

   The scary hippies take a break for awhile and return later only through prank calls. Sometimes this film resembles a really dull episode of Night Gallery. Besides the crucifixion, there's little to no violence. 

   There's a good reason, this film isn't mentioned that often and J4HI.COM carries the only available DVD, besides them you can only find it on poor quality VHS tapes. This one is still a rarity while Death Bed is available on Blu-ray? It's a sick world I tells ya!

   They should have called this "The Night the Audience Snored"! There's a twist ending that's not worth sticking around for.
   This is among one of the earliest films inspired by the infamous Spahn Ranch lunatics along with The Love Thrill Murders (Sweet Savior), The Manson Massacre and The Deathmaster. Some of these are blatant portrayals of the infamous hippie cult, while others are a coincidental jesus freak or vampire sect. Then there's Lawrence Merrick's documentary with the real Family in 1973, this concludes our Manson trivia portion of the review! 

  Martin Landau oddly enough would do a scarier job with the fake Manson's catch phrase,"Vengeance is mine sayeth the lord!", later on in Alone in the Dark. If you really need to see this worm ridden filth, J4HI.COM has got you covered, don't ruin your eyeballs like I did.

                                                       ORDER NOW

Death By Invitation

poster taken from Mondoexploito.com/

Death by invitation Directed By Ken Friedman, starring Shelby Leverington (1971).

As a horror fanatic with a fondness for falsely accused women of the middle ages condemned to death by a mob of church folk, you may think I'd seen every "witch burning" movie under the sun and then at 3am, a movie I'd never heard of called Death by Invitation shows up on TCM (licensed from the fine degenerates over at Vinegar Syndrome). This is writer/ director Ken Friedman's start as a film maker, he would later switch to a screenwriter for gentle fare like Cadillac Man with Robin Williams and harder edged stuff like Johnny Handsome (which I sort of enjoyed). This is another Something Weird Video repackaging by VS, like Evil Come, Evil Go (which was a lot better than this). Vinegar gives you more bang for your buck because if you hate one movie, there's a chance you may like the next one!

   A soiled mob of angry sex obsessed puritans catch a young girl and plan on burning her alive. One of them looks like Paul Reubens in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Another chubby fellow with a dirty face goes into a whispered angry diatribe about the woman's naked writhing body-- tempting him-- oh my!

you thought you'd seen the last of Vampire Pee Wee Herman?

The style is SF Brownrigg-ish (Don't Look In The Basement ), though I'm hoping the film is more enjoyable! 

   In a flashback, Lise (Shelby Leverington who later appeared in Michael Bay's The Island), the accused witch seems like a slutty hippie, her father (the whispery chubby fellow) doesn't approve of her hanging around what he calls "way-out people"! Doesn't he know that's where the fun is, Way Out?

The Way Outs!

   The locations are ugly with wood paneling and green curtains--they remind me of suburban basements I've seen in Long Island, during my childhood.

   The music in this film is horrendous it's the kind that only dogs can here.

An oily fellow takes a cab into the big city to get laid and finds Lise working in in a torture dungeon.

The dominatrix goes into graphic detail about an orgiastic hunt--I guess some people pay good money for a sexy story-- but this is a waste of time in my mind.

SNORE, Oh My God this story is so sexy

   The dad's extremely hammy delivery is my favorite part (he makes it almost watchable) and all the men have that mutton chop Mersey beat hairstyle. Sometimes there's an audible projector sound for no reason.

   I get the feeling that Vinegar Syndrome was set up to showcase porn oddities and off shoot SWV nonsense that no one else would touch with a ten meter cattle prod to quote Dan Ackroyd.

Death by Invitation soon unravels into a 70's showcase of awkward sets and weird haircuts. That's not really enough to hold anyone's interest. At one point the library music blasts over the actors and the father can't even hear them and says "What? I can't hear you"!

There's a lot of office and dinner table scenes. This movie makes "Touch of Satan" look like a riveting thrill ride!

   But then sometimes reserved and mellow is good, I mean just watch one of those Alpha Blue Archive satanic porns and tell me you wouldn't beg for mediocre bullshit! I appreciate what VS is doing, but don't understand the appeal of half baked softcore crap. Eventually they will put out something decent and are still a company to watch out for (I mean who else is left in the DVD realm, not repackaging the same product over and over again in a Ray Kroc fashion).

WATCH RERUNS OF MATLOCK OR WALKER TEXAS RANGER INSTEAD!

available from Vinegar Syndrome 

Why all the FUTZ (1969)? NOT the worst of its type

FUTZ! Directed By Tom O' Horgan (1969).
Review By Greg Goodsell

Interested in a story involving incest, bestiality and murder in a rural rustic community? Performed by a cast of hippie hillbillies that screams, sings, shouts and flail about as if in an epileptic seizure? If so, you are directed to see Futz (1969), a notorious counter-cultural bit of flotsam that serves as an argument that what may play well in a 99-set equity waiver theater may not translate that well to the screen.

Futz first dropped on my radar when Neal Gabler on PBS’ “Sneak Previews” (1982; both he and Jeffrey Lyons replaced original critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert) declared it as the worst film he had ever seen. Unable to find film clips, Gabler showed black-and-white photos of the cast’s spastic farmers as proof that this bizarre feature, about a sustenance farmer’s love affair with his pig, existed. (On the same show, Lyons had announced the Charles Manson-inspired schlocker Sweet Savior (1971) starring faded teen idol Troy Donahue, as his personal worst.)

Carrot Top -- the homeless years.

Based on an avant-garde play by Rochelle Owens, Futz was adapted to the screen by none other than Joseph Stefano, the man who adapted Robert Bloch’s Psycho for director Alfred Hitchcock in 1960! Futz likewise deals with psychosexual issues in a far less successful way.

By the light of the silvery moon -- incest!

The “story” if it can be called that: Our hero, Cyrus Futz (John Bakos) has foresworn off all normal human relations to the consternation of his erstwhile girlfriend Majorie Satz (Beth Porter). Futz has sworn all his romantic allegiance to his pig, which is hopefully platonic. No, Futz doesn’t plumb the depths of The Wedding Trough, aka The Pig Fucking Movie (aka Vase de noces, 1975) – wait for it. Meanwhile in the village, Oscar Loop (Seth Allen), the village idiot has brutally murdered a girl, saying that what he saw in Futz’ barn drove him to it. Oscar is executed, and Futz is tried as an accessory to murder.

Audience reaction to FUTZ!

This thumbnail sketch can’t begin to convey the texture of Futz. People scream, fly across the screen, strike poses and speak incomprehensible dialogue. It pretty much wears out its welcome within the first 10 minutes, and navigating through the film’s 91 minutes is quite a chore. Beginning with a highbrow orchestral recital that descends into chaos, Futz gibbers and screams across the screen. 

Have we ever seen a flutist flouting it as heavily as we do here?

Behind the camera is world-class photographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who was still cutting his teeth on negligible grindhouse fare such as Al Adamason’s Satan’s Sadists (1969) and Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970) at this point. His photography is by far the film’s best fea-ture, with beautiful compositions of the stark country-side. Futz has solid production values, with great photography, high-strung performances and an important mes-sage. At heart, the story of Futz is one on the importance of personal liberties, and how a community can work to ostracize those who are different. It’s all buried underneath attempts at being unconventional. As such, Futz remains a highly dated vision of hippie utopia as filtered through an old Bethel Buckalew hicks-ploitation film.  

This is the film in essence. Ugly hippie art.

Believe it or not, as lame as it is, Futz is NOT the worst film of its particular type. This reviewer argues that Strong Medicine (1981), also based on an avant-garde play by director Richard Foreman is THE WORST film of this particular type. Calling to mind a mixture of Samuel Beckett and Edward D. Wood Jr. with dialogue recorded verbatim from the dementia ward of a retirement community, Strong Medicine’s “story” is open for debate.

O.K. everyone get up on stage, and present their ideas on how to get out of this movie.

Strong Medicine’s heroine, Kate Manheim attempts to take a vacation but is met with opposition by characters dressed in 1930’s attire. Everyone wears thick eye makeup, men included. Sentences spoken by the performers change in midstream and usually end with the actors flailing about on the floor. At one point, Manheim dresses up as a chicken to everyone’s disinterest, and then stabs herself to death to satisfy the unspoken wish fulfillment for the audience. Buck Henry has a one-line spoken cameo and actors Raul Julia and Carol Kane are also reportedly somewhere in the debris as well. 

Quick! Before the church buffet is picked clean!

Anyone interested in seeing films that are different, very, very different – but not good, should put both Futz and Strong Medicine in their movie-watching queue. You can see Futz for absolutely free on YouTube by going here!
 
 

                                    STRONG MEDICINE: Chicken woman. Cluck cluck cluck.

Push the button, Frank!

Oh, you Futz! He majored in animal husbandry until they caught him at it.

Igor and the Lunatics

Igor and the lunatics Directed By W.J. Parolini, Starring a bunch of nobodies (1985).

After trudging through the muck and slime of utter doldrums (e.i. Bloody Wednesday) I needed to take a break and watch something that I knew would cleanse my brain palate, something classy or category III. I knew I would at least not feel like I had metaphorically crushed my own balls in a vice again and could look at myself in the morning without utter hatred for mankind.
   Then why the hell am I watching a B-rate street gang (or not yet formed garage punk outfit) feature by the brain trusts over at Troma? Two reasons, Rick Sullivan's "Gore Gazette" review made it sound so retarded that it became a must see flick and Troma had a trailer that was hard to beat, I mean the narrator did a little fancy pants voice inflection when he said Lunatics, why, what's the deal?
   I know I'm in for some more torture but just call me Albino from Mark Of The Devil's bitch because I'm goin to bite the bullet, whatever happens, happens! No turning back now!

http://www.j4hi.com/page205/Best%20of%20GORE-GAZETTE-page5.html

I hate you John Fogerty, but I love you Captain Beefheart

   The opening is better than three Italian Warriors/Escape From NY ripoffs put together, well maybe not, but the music sure is snappy!

A topless girl is strapped to a giant sawblade and cut in half as a dude getting ready for a Charles Bronson look-a-like contest awkwardly tucks his wife in and leaves.

Next week I have a Donald Sutherland look-a-like contest to go to

   The wife wakes up and reads a letter that paints a grisly picture of his involvement with a groovy Manson-esque cult. Paul is the leader, but Igor constantly tries to upstage him. Paul uses mind control to subdue his followers and they act like hall monitors if someone is seen in town without permission. The pastural locations and amateurish acting work in its favor, I mean yeah its a shitty movie but I enjoyed it. Igor out of the hippie cult followers was the most untamed (he kind of looks like a hippie version of Bruce Brand, the drummer from Thee Headcoats).

want some fried chicken?

   They rewind the sawblade scene again (which eats up twenty minutes) so they can show it splitting her naked body in half, it was a decent effect. Igor wears out his welcome very fast and may be the most hammy actor I've seen in awhile. The fuzz show up and attack the hippies when they throw punches goofy whipcrack sounds clickity clack.

Hold on, let me drink some more annoying juice

    

   A baby is left behind and the former cult member continues to bring us up to date as Paul and his group (who so far haven't been called The Lunatics) get out of jail. Igor takes a scalpel, guts a black female victim and offers her fried chicken. The actor that plays Igor goes out of his way to be antagonizing and stupid beyond comprehension, my only hope is that he put this on his acting reel and was laughed out of every agency in town.

this painting sucks

   Mary-Ann the red-haired wife from the beginning, gets stoned and has a nightmare about Igor and one of her pals starts off a joke "What's the difference between a duck…" and never finishes the punchline, it was infuriating! 

   Tom Turner is seen on TV condemning his former cult past, he rents a car at Budget and hits the road to revenge. 

   Mary-Ann's house gets broken into by the baby left behind from the beginning. This movie takes all these sidetracks in order to show screaming middle aged women being chased or cut up by stupid Paul and Igor, there's no one here to like or care about.

See the belt goes down here, not up there

   I'm not surprised to see that no one ever worked again in this film. The way the story evolves is clumsy, they might have pulled it off had more competent talent been involved. 

   I only wish the frothy mouthed hippies from I Drink Your Blood fought Igor and the lunatics, they would've wiped the floor with them.

   Mary Anne does a decent job of beating Igor to a pulp, which was my favorite moment, he's one of the least likable characters in recent memory.

   These are the kind of blood thirsty hippies that take to murdering their own like ducks to water. I mean yeah they deserved it and I guess the only way to move on is to literally kill your past. The ending, which takes place in a famous 80's fake Japanese restaurant was totally random and I remember it featured on some of the VHS box covers. So keep your expectations low, drink a six pack and make sure there are some friends around for you to crack jokes with and you might even like this trash.

I'm so baked

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