Michael Monterastelli is a writer for the website CHUD.com, where he reviews films and contributes a weekly column called CollectingVHS that features rare exploitation movies currently not available on DVD. You can also ‘like’ his Collecting VHS Facebook page and follow him on Twitter @VHSnerd.
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DANGEROUS MEN
2005
Directed by John S.
Rad
Perhaps one of the most obscure and utterly soul shattering
films ever created by man, it has only been witnessed by a fringe cult of
psychotronic movie addicts who share the experience like an old war battle they
fought in together. The filmmaking is inept in every conceivable way to such an
extent; I thought for the first forty-five minutes that I was watching a parody
of bad female revenge/cop films from the late 70’s - early 80’s, only to come
to the realization that nobody on Earth is capable of being this clever. The first three quarters of
the movie were shot sometime in the early nineteen eighties, which is made
clear from the hair styles, fashions, music and general tone of everything.
Then just when the plot is starting to pick up some steam, blammo, the lead
actress we’ve been following since the beginning of the movie abruptly
disappears (along with her storyline) and we are introduced to a whole new
group of characters that are fighting a weird albino drug dealer named White
Pepper in what appears to be the mid nineties (?!). This confusion laden, decade-spanning
crime epic will roast your brain like a peanut.
SKATETOWN U.S.A.
1979
Directed by William
A. Levey
Forget ROLLER BOOGIE! F. U. XANADU! SKATETOWN U.S.A. is the
ultimate roller-disco movie! Never made available on home video, so if you were
lucky enough to catch this gem back in the day upon its original release or
sneak a peak on cable T.V, count yourself among the
blessed. It stars HAPPY DAYS’ Scott Baio as a hot shot trying to catch the eye
of pretty Maureen McCormick from THE BRADY BUNCH. But first he must win the big
roller-disco dance competition and beat an evil young bully played by DIRTY DANCING’s
Patrick Swayze, whose henchmen is a bearded Ron Palillo from WELCOME BACK KOTTER
(!). Flip Wilson, Ruth Buzzi, Billy Barty and Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratton
round out the rest of the bizarre casting choices. The most amazing thing about
this movie is the incredible roller-disco palace that the film is shot in,
which is filled with glowing neon, short shorts and a D.J. sporting an enormous
white afro who can summon lightning from his fingertips at will. Can you dig
it?
1980
Directed by James C.
Wasson
Without a doubt, one of the greatest killer-Bigfoot movies
ever made! Professor Nugent takes his anthropology class into the woods to look
for a crazed Sasquatch that’s been going on a full-blown rampage. The
pissed-off Yeti kills campers, a couple of innocent girl scouts, and rips off a
biker’s dick while he’s in the middle of relieving himself by the side of the
road1 Just when you think this Bigfoot can’t possibly get any worse, he totally
crosses the line and commits a violent rape, which results in a mutant Bigfoot
baby! Made by a man rumored to be an actual meth maker. Caution: This movie
will rip your brain’s dick off!
1985
Directed by Ronald W.
Moore
A group of “mutants” have taken over the inner city streets
of Austin, Texas and are led by a psychopath named Splatter, whom seems to be
the most heavily affected by all the toxic poisoning going on. A group of
rambunctious fraternity brothers decide to enter the mutant territory for a
prank, but are hunted down by them over a case of mistaken identity. This
totally 80’s exploitation flick combines the sci-fi and horror genres with a
little T & A sex comedy flavor for one trashy bouillabaisse of insanity!
ANIMAL HOUSE meets THE WARRIORS on crack.
1986
Directed by Mike
Marvin
When it comes to gross-out comedies from the 80’s, nothing
is louder, dumber and filled with more fart sound effects and boobie shots than
this one! The plot concerns a thirty-something college student who keeps
getting kicked out of every school he attends because women just can’t stop
fucking him. His last chance is Buster Burger University - a college which
teaches its students the basic equation that beef + buns = bucks, and is run
like a fascist prison camp by a racist and homophobic Dick Butkus of the
Chicago Bears. This film joyously celebrates America’s love affair with
burgers, fries, fast food, farting and big titties… so enjoy!
AKA KUNG FU CANNIBALS
1982
Directed by Edward D.
Murphy
This sleazy, low budget, action-packed exploitation epic
concerns a group of martial arts experts and friends known as “The Burbank
Karate Club,” as they all take a singles cruise aboard a luxurious yacht to the
mysterious Warriors Island. Suddenly, their ship is attacked by a band of
vicious pirates that pillage the vessel and set it aflame. The Burbank Karate
Club fights back and escapes to the island along with the ship’s alcoholic
skipper, his hen-pecking wife, a friendly Asian Kung Fu master, and a few
attractive young ladies. However, they soon discover that their tropical
sanctuary is anything but! Turns out the island is controlled by a cabal of
monks that employ the pirates to bring them captured young women, so they can
be used to perform a cannibalistic ceremony in which the dead bodies of ancient
Kung Fu warriors are reanimated to fight once again… but they didn’t count on
having to deal with The Burbank Karate Club! This movie has everything a
fifteen year old boy could possibly want, but no longer gets: nudity, violence,
martial arts, samurai zombies, ninja zombies, pirates that wear Nazi helmets and
Superman t-shirts, a main villain who wears a white suit and sports a Hitler
mustache, cannibal monks, cheap ass explosions, ridiculous gore, insane action
and man-eating piranhas! And it’s all in one motherfucker of a movie! It’s one
of the few exploitation films I’ve seen that completely lives up to the promise
of its awesome VHS box art! Virtually every incredible image from the cover is
actually in the movie at some point. Except the piranhas, which are a pleasant
surprise you don’t see coming. I’d also like to point out how totally radical
it is that the letter O in the logo for Raw Force is a deadly Chinese throwing
star. Bravo! The movie shifts genres on several occasions. It starts off like a
women-in-prison flick, and then it turns into a T & A sex comedy on board
the boat, where an acid-mixed-with-cocaine-Boogie-Nights-style party ensues. A
drunken (literally) Cameron Mitchell serves as the ship’s captain and the
film’s (not so) comic relief. When the pirates attack, we’re suddenly thrust
into an action/adventure movie with lots of Kung Fu fighting, gun shooting, an
attempted rape and one of the cheapest explosion effects I’ve ever seen. Once
on the island, we are introduced to the horror portion of the film. You truly
haven’t lived until you’ve seen a movie that features zombies using Kung Fu and
fighting with swords. It’s such a beautifully insane idea. Needless to say, The
Burbank Karate Club is victorious by the film’s conclusion and the boys fly off
into the sunset with their grateful gals… THEN a title card pops up that reads:
TO BE CONTINUED! Well, it’s been almost 30 years now and I’m still waiting!
1986
Directed by Donald G.
Jackson
The place: The City of Lost Angels. The time: The Second
Dark Age. In the ruins of a sun-drenched wasteland, a mystical cult of scantily
clad, roller-skating nuns known as the Bod Sisters must stop the evil Doctor
Saticoy and his army from obtaining a magical crystal of great power and save a
helpless child from torture and death. Armed with their unique roller-martial
arts style and incredible psychic healing abilities, this sisterhood of
bodacious babes on wheels embarks on their brutal quest, but first they’ll have
to roll their way through the Acid Zone and battle the many savage gangs that
roam there. Gangs like the Spikers, the Wiseguys and the Samurai Devils! Roller
Blade is not a B-movie. It’s a C-movie. But it’s one of the craziest and most
fun C-movies I’ve ever discovered in my life. Describing it to those who
haven’t experienced its madness is difficult, but if I were to attempt to put
it into cinematic terms, I would say that it’s as if Alejandro Jodorowsky had a
four-way with Russ Meyer, Fred Olen Ray and George Miller, somehow a mutant
offspring resulted from the tryst and they all decided to name it Roller Blade.
It was shot on what appears to my trained eye to be video and all the voices
are dubbed by different actors giving it a foreign exploitation feel, even
though it was shot completely in Sun Valley, California for what appears to be
a very, very small amount of bus fare change. Roller Blade entertains from
start to finish and I’m pretty sure that all the weirdness was meant to be
taken humorously, but at times it appears as if it’s being played straight,
which makes it all the more delightful. It’s Zardoz on skates, with big tits
instead of Sean Connery and I love it. At the end of the credits there’s a
title card that reads: Watch for Roller Blade Part 2: Holy Thunder. This
particular title was never made, but there are four sequels in this franchise
and I hope to see them all someday. One of them is called Rollergator!
1991
Directed by Sylvio
Tabet
In this brain-damaging sequel to the low budget sword &
sorcery epic THE BEASTMASTER, Marc Singer returns as Dar, a warrior who can
communicate with the animals. He is forced to journey back to Earth through a
time portal (specifically Los Angeles in the early nineties) where he is forced
to team up with MTV’s Kari Wuhrer in an attempt to stop his evil brother
(played by a crazed Wings Hauser) from obtaining an atomic bomb that could turn
the wasteland he comes from into an even larger wasteland. The campy tonal
direction this film veers off into could give fans of the Don Coscarelli’s
awesome original a bad case of whiplash to their cerebral cortexes, but that’s
what makes it all so wonderfully bad.
1984
Directed by Danny
Steinmann
No bad movie list would be complete without something from
Linda Blair’s filmography. The B-movie queen of the late 70’s and early 80’s
had quite a ride, but not one of her flicks from that golden period of horrible
movie making can quite match up to the sheer ferocity of SAVAGE STREETS. Blair,
along with an incredibly talentless cast of actors that are all way too old to
play teenagers, play teenagers in a crazy high school revenge tale set on the
slimy streets of Hollywood. An altercation between a group of girls and a gang
of local punks results in the brutal gang rape of Blair’s mute cousin, played
by the always-naked Linnea Quigley. Vowing vengeance and armed with a crossbow,
Blair takes the gang of cowards out one-by-one, Bronson-style! The movie shifts
from wacky humor to brutal violence faster than a Tom & Jerry cartoon on
meth, and by the time the film is over you will believe that the streets of
L.A. are filled with gangs of insane straight guys in their thirties with
massive gay issues, looking for trouble… and you’d be right!
1977
Directed by George
Barry
This is one of the strangest horror films I've ever seen
before. It's an oddity that has been known about in a few cult movie circles
for over thirty years now, but has finally been rediscovered by a new
generation of fans who truly love insane cinema. Behind a scary old mansion
lies a strange stone building that contains only a single room. In the room lies
a bed that is cursed with evil power. It craves the flesh and bones of whomever
dares to rest on its soft, comforting mattress - pulling them deep down inside
and digesting their bodies with a bright yellow acid bath. In the same room
there is a painting on the wall that contains a sympathetic ghost trapped
behind it (?!). The soulful spirit is forced to watch helplessly as the bed
claims one victim after another, but can do nothing to warn them. We learn from
the ghost's narration that the bed's deadly origin is due to a demon who was
once saddened over the death of a fair maiden he loved a long time ago and
cried two tears of blood on its sheets. Voila, instant Death Bed!
The stone structure was erected around it when the mansion was built and the
bed has gorged itself on every generation that has ever lived there. Due to its
reputation, the place is empty and the bed hasn't eaten much in about ten
years. However, it still gets its share of visitors and weary travelers looking
for a place to rest. I know, all of this stuff sounds like I either made it up
or took two fists full of peyote and hallucinated the whole thing, but I
didn't. If you're a fan of uber-obscure, face-meltingly bizarre cinema, then
this movie will rip your mind a new asshole! I suggest you watch it as soon as
you can! Trust me, you've never seen anything even remotely like it before.
It's pure 70's trash cinema combined with an art-house finesse and no-budget
aesthetics that is as magical a combination as any I've bared witness to in
some time. I do recommend that you abstain from the usage of any mind-altering
substances while watching this film simply because, you really don't need any.
It already is a mind-altering substance.
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