Five Before Chaos

One of the great things about my significant other is that she’s a cinephile, and has turned me on to a lot of good movies, in particular, old ones that I’ve never seen before. And, of course (as a prerequisite for hangin’ with me), she doesn’t offend easily. That’s a good thing, as I’ve reciprocated by showing her the joys of grindhouse trash, which, surprisingly, she seems to find entertaining. She actually sat through all of the original Last House on the Left, one of the few movies I’ve seen where I actually felt like I needed to take a shower after, but she couldn’t make it through Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.

Anyways, the other night we watched Black Mama, White Mama. As far as the “women in prison” sub-genre, it was pretty tame, but rather craptacular. Pam Grier stars as a hooker who ripped off her pimp and needs to escape to get the money, and Margaret Markov (in a hilarious twist) stars as the leader of a “revolutionary army” who needs to get out to help the “revolution” (on some small island on the Philippines, where this was filmed). Loaded with horrendous dialog, thousands of plot holes so big you could drive a truck through, and loads of gratuitous tit shots, it was a hoot.

I saw this one a few weeks ago, a recent film from Norway which features Nazi zombies (always a plus in my book) and a lot of stuff stolen from Raimi’s Evil Dead films. It was mildly amusing. Some highlights: hot Norwegian girls, the fat guy’s brain falling out, and some couple having sex in an outhouse right after the guy finished pooping (must be a Scandinavian thing, I guess). It streams on  Netflix as of now, not fantastic, but a good time-killer, and quite funny at times.

I live for this shit. Seriously. I don’ t know how I only managed to find out about this a few days ago, but last year, a blaxploitation spoof came out, Scott Sanders’ Black Dynamite, starring Michael Jai White. If you know and love these films like I do, you have to check this out, as it has just about every convention and cliche from the films, and it’s funnier than hell, too. It’s a lot funnier than that Wayans Brothers spoof, I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka. No review… just see it, already.

When exploring the sweaty crotch of exploitation/B-movie cinema, there’s one thing I’ve noticed. A crappy movie by an indie studio almost inevitably seems to be much more entertaining than a crappy movie by a major studio. For good examples, just go into the blaxplotiation genre. You have something gritty and harsh, like Black Shampoo or  Jack Hill’s Coffy, chock full of tits and brutal violence, and then you have Warner Bros. Black Sampson, or Cleopatra Jones, which have all of the conventions and clichés of the genre, without any of the grit (often with a PG rating, to boot). Also, the production values are often a bit too good to allow the sheer incompetence that often makes those movies so enjoyable (ahem… Al Adamson). I often find myself, when watching a big studio B-movie, incredibly bored.

Case in point: a week or two ago, Jen and I watched Race With the Devil. Now, when you see “Starring Peter Fonda and Loretta Swit”, one tends to think there may be some serious craptacular potential. But those hopes are quickly dashed  when you see “20th Century Fox presents…”, and the result is just crap. It also has Warren Oates, who’s awesome in everything, and even he can’t save it. It’s about two very boring couples who go on a trip together in their RV, when they accidentally see some girl murdered in a Satanic ritual, and then they themselves are seen. So they get chased across Texas, admittedly with nothing much happening to them, other than some chases by a bunch of ordinary hicks and some rattlesnakes being put in their RV.  Oh, and they get stared at menacingly quite a bit, too. It seems that just about everyone in central Texas, from the local sheriff to the construction road crews 300 miles away, are all in the same Satanic cult (well, that would explain a lot of the idiocy that comes out of Texas, I guess).

The role of the two wives is like a throwback to an earlier time, as they just sit there irritatingly and scream, waiting for the men to help them (and remember, a few years earlier, we have Pam Grier going out and talking out baddies with shotgun blasts, singlehandely). To make matters worse, in addition to the anemic pacing, the PG rating makes sure we won’t see anything too risqué. All I was hoping for was a glimpse of Loretta Swit’s boobies, but alas, all I got was her in a bathing suit, and more or less still as annoying as her character on M*A*S*H. Hell, the killers first discover them because she comes out of the RV late at night yelling “Frank? Frank!?”; I was almost expecting Larry Linville’s Frank Burns character to come weaseling in out of the darkness. And the ending sucked, too.

Ok, file this under “so-fucking-bad-it’s-genius”. Schlockmeister Al Adamson gave us this followup to his bike flick “Satan’s Sadists”, and this one is truly mind-boggling. Me and Jen watched it a few weeks ago, and had a blast. Barely cohesive “plot”, things that happen for no apparent reason, a Charles Manson-like guru who lives in his “commune” (which consists of one shack next to a restaurant and about five people), who kills people who find the bales of pot he has in his shack, just about every guy is a rapist, and just about every cliche about the 60′s counterculture is in here, in highly exaggerateed stereotypes.

And note in the trailer, the guy who gets “raped” by the women (“These sex or-gees is unnatural!”)is none other than Broadsides‘ Michael Colby, albeit a bit chunkier. Classic, gotta get it. You’ll puke laughing!:

Adamson’s original biker flick, Satan’s Sadists, not nearly as incompetent, but crappy, nonetheless. It killed West Side Story’s Russ Tamblyn’s career, that’s for sure.

Director Al Adamson, who married Regina Carrol (the “freak-out girl”) was later found murdered, buried under the concrete and tile-covered whirlpool bath in his newly remodeled bathroom. His contractor did it.

With the exception of the first one, click for bigger view.

I know I just posted an FTG:PM a few days ago, but this is too sweet not to put up. And remember, keep declaring a  “War on Christmas”, if only to give the lunatic right a chance to be right about something for the first time ever.