Adults Only Giveaway: Driller: A Sexual Thriller

In yesterday's post, I told you all to get your minds out of the gutter.  Well, now I want you to put them right back because we're getting dirty today.  That's right, SOC is giving away smut!  Here's your chance to win your very own copy of Driller: A Sexual Thriller courtesy of Wild Eye Releasing.
What is Driller, you ask?  It's exactly what you think it is, a porno version of Michael Jackson's Thriller.  I'll wait for you to make your kiddie jokes.  Done?  Can we go on now?  Good.  Anyway, this is old style porn from the Golden Age.  There's actually a plot surrounding the sex.  In this one a girl is infatuated with a Jackson type singer.  He shows up in her dreams, turns into a werewolf with a comically huge "drill" dong that shoots blackish/greenish... well, you know.  Then he drags her back to his dungeon.  Along the way we have song and dance numbers featuring some pretty decent choreography and professional dancers, hunchbacks, a hilarious soundtrack, dubbing that will crack you up, and lots of bush (it was the 80's).  Speaking of ex-presidents, a couple of them show up in the climatic orgy (no, I'm not kidding) along with zombies, gimps, and more mid-group sex dancing.  This is a flick that really has to be seen to be believed.  I doubt anyone's gonna be getting off to this one, but it's insanely entertaining.

You're gonna have to get a little creative to win this one, Cellmates.  Well, first you have to go like the facebook page HERE.  Yes, that is a requirement.  Then we get to the fun part.  There's been a lot of horror porn parodies released in the past with great titles like Evil Head, Re-Penetrator, A Clockwork Orgy, Edward Penishands, The Sexorcist, The Texas Dildo Massacre, Muffy The Vampire Layer, and Night of the Giving Head (my personal favorite).  What I want you to do is leave a comment on this page with your email address and your best porn parody title.  Try to make it something that isn't already out there.  On October 10th, I'll pick the one that makes me laugh the hardest as the winner.  Ok, let's recap.

HOW TO WIN:
1. You have to be 18.  I'm giving away porn here, so this one is for the adults only.  If I don't know the winner, I may ask for proof.
2. Like the facebook page HERE.  
3. Leave a comment with your email and the cleverest, funniest, porniest  XXX horror parody title you can muster.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the perverts and weirdos who read this blog come up with, so get those entries in folks.  Then, you can throw in this DVD at your Halloween party this year.  I guarantee it'll get a reaction one way or another.

What A Short, Strange Trip: A Review of Dropping Evil

Gather ‘round, it’s story time boys and girls.  Back in college, I used to ride MARTA, Atlanta’s mass transit system, from the dorm to the campus every day.  On this particular morning the only seat available as next to a bum.  No one else wanted it, so I took the bait.  Immediately he started talking to me.  What followed was a 15-minute tirade that went from the government to aliens to god to whores to the police to telepathic animals and everything in between.  I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but I was transfixed.  It was confusing, insane, and fascinating.  We got to my stop, and my friends told me it was time to go.  Well, I didn’t make it to class that day. I rode that train all the way to the end of the line because I had to see where this guy’s diatribe was gonna go next.  He stunk horribly, but I was willing to look past that for the sheer bizarro trip he was taking me on.  When he finally shambled away from me, my mind felt like it had been raped by a psychedelic angel.  I knew that if I pondered what he had said it might do irreparable damage to my brain, but the experience of his rant was just so beautifully, profoundly f**ked up that I was glad I ignored the stench and took the ride.  Why am I telling you this?  Because watching Dropping Evil was a lot like that MARTA ride.

Synopsis: After his group of friends slip him some LSD during a camping trip, the ultra-nerdy and God-loving Nancy begins to hunt them down one by one after the drug reveals their “true” natures to him. But a mysterious corporation is very interested in this teenage blood bath, and has their own plans to control and contain the evil that has been unleashed, luring the doomed teens to a mysterious cabin in the woods where they can be studied and developed into something even more sinister.

Technically, this is not a good flick.  Its shortcomings walk the fine line between damning and endearing though.  The camera work is pretty shoddy at times.  The high schoolers look to be in their late 20’s.  There are a lot of sound issues.  The acting ranges widely in quality.  Armin Shimerman, who some of you might remember from Buffy or Deep Space Nine, acts circles around the rest of the cast.  Tiffany Shepis, who I’ve always felt is underrated as an actress, is good in her small role.  My favorite moment in the film belongs to her.  It made me laugh and jump in the space of about three seconds.  Fred Williamson does his usual Hammer thing as Commander Death Blood.  Yes, that’s actually the character’s name.  The main four “teens,” who all look to be in at least their late 20’s, are decent.  Zachary Eli Lint is just plain weird as Nancy.  Why a psychotic Jesus freak’s forearms are covered in cutesy skull and heart tattoos is never addressed.  It’s very obviously micro budget.  That’s not a drawback as far as I’m concerned, but I know it would turn some less adventurous viewers off.

This flick also doesn’t make a damn lick of sense.  Many will see that as a failing on the part of the filmmakers.  Honestly, I don’t think it’s supposed to make sense.  It starts out normally enough, looking like any other generic “kids die in the woods” flick.  Then it starts piling on the weird.  God is missing, zombies are rising, there are ancient beings in the form of Ms. Shepis and a Scandinavian version of Nathan Explosion, nuns in monochrome, biological experiments yield eyeball cameras and Cronenbergian bioguns, a tactical strike team films their activities with VHS camcorders, and a generic mysterious evil corporation is doing, um… stuff.  None of it even comes close to coherence.  This one just throws every concept possible at you and says, “No, we’re not going to explain it.  You got a problem with that?”  I admire this flick’s moxy and ambition.  I’m pretty sure the budget for this flick included an allowance for hallucinogens to fuel the writing sessions.  Enough concepts for 10 movies are stripped to less than bare bones, duct taped together, and presented for the world to scratch their heads over.  I’m cool with that.

As usual, Wild Eye excels as far as the extras go.  They’re like the Scream Factory of schlock.  Here we get three shorts that serve as sequels to the film.  I’m not sure why the filmmakers decided to do it this way.  The movie is only 72 minutes.  Why not incorporate them into the main narrative?  As it stands, you really need to watch the whole package (film, shorts, deleted scenes, etc.) to get the whole story.  Even then, it doesn’t explain shit.  The cover art, by the way, is pretty bad ass.

I really dug Dropping Evil.  It will leave you shaking your head in disbelief, but you’ll be laughing as you do. If you’re the type that considers a 3 million dollar flick a “low budget indie,” this might not be your cup of tea.  It’s not glossy at all. It’s got a lot of cracks in its armor.  What it does have going for it, though, is originality, an interesting voice, and sheer WTF factor.  I often compare the different types of independent horror films to choosing between two types of women.  One is gorgeous but boring and prudish.  The other is just alright looking, but she’s fun and kinda kinky.  I’m sure you can figure out which one this flick is.  I’ll pick the latter every time, and Dropping Evil is well worth spending the night with.  7 hitchhiker presidents out of 10.  Nathan says check it out and SUPPORT INDEPENDENT HORROR!

The Wild Eye Releasing Fever Dream Marathon Part 2: Gothkill and The Bloody Ape

STOP!!!  If you haven’t read PART 1 of this transcendental journey into the world of modern low budget exploitation cinema, go do so now.  If you don’t how else are you gonna know that I was watching these out of my mind on codeine cough syrup (which might as well be orally administered heroin), tons of cold medicine, and a 104 degree fever.  How would you know that I had already watched Blitzkrieg: Escape From Stalag 69 and The Disco Exorcist?  I mean, if you didn’t read part one, you would have no idea that I was tearing through a stack of flicks sent to me by Wild Eye Releasing.  So you should really go read part one.  On, now that you went and did that, on with the movies!

If you watch a lot of indie horror cinema, you’ve undoubtedly run into a few of those “I have a bunch of goth buddies and a camera” movies.  You know, films like Goth, Hollywood Vampyre, and about half of any Pendulum Pictures box set.  I’m always rooting for these pictures, since I love that DIY sensibility and have a weakness for goth chicks.  The problem is, most of the time they’re impossible to get through.  Some of the worst movies I’ve ever seen fit into the “gothsploitation” subgenre.  Luckily, Gothkill was infinitely more entertaining than your garden-variety black lipstick flick.

 Synopsis: When Catholic Priest and Inquisitor Nicholas Dread finds out that innocents are being burned as witches he decides to do something about it. Unfortunately for him, his superiors don’t agree and he’s burned at the stake alongside two women he forced confessions from. While dying, Nick curses god and makes a pact with Satan to reign over his own kingdom someday at any cost. Now, in 21st century New York City, Dread has returned to finish the deal. His end of the bargain with Satan must be fulfilled, and many will die so Dread can take the throne in his kingdom of over one hundred thousand corrupt souls. He just has to find the right bunch of victims…and it just so happens the best Goth Club in the city is ripe for this bloodthirsty butcher bent on revenge! Can a group of Goths and wanna-be vampires hold their own when the real thing arrives?

I’ll probably alienate some of you with this statement, but I find a lot of the people in the goth and fetish scenes absolutely hilarious.  Not in a “oh my god, look at the freak” way, that would be pretty hypocritical of me, but the ones who take themselves deadly serious without any sense of humor or irony kill me.  The pretentiousness is just too much for me to take.  That’s one of the reasons I enjoyed this flick so much.  Far too often the “gothsploitation flicks” fall into that pretentious category.  Gothkill actually has a sense of humor.  These guys don’t mind poking fun at themselves and the more ridiculous aspects of gothhood.  It’s so refreshing to see the subculture willing to make fun of itself.  Anyone who knows a lot of goths will laugh that “oh my god, that’s just like so and so” laugh repeatedly.  Michael Day as Lord Walechia is especially hilarious.

The main thing that carries the flick is Flambeaux in the lead role.  Yes, his name is Flambeaux.  Freakin’ goths.  Anyway, asinine stage name notwithstanding, this dude has serious screen presence and a lot of charisma.  It’s a trip watching him throw himself into the role and go balls to the wall with it. He spends a good amount of time narrating directly to the camera, and he makes it work.  It may be the fever (or the drugs) talking, but I love this guy.  Why haven’t more filmmakers picked up on him?

The flick doesn’t really work as a horror movie, but it does as a horror comedy.  The problem is, it’s kinda hard to tell how seriously we’re meant to take it.  Flambeaux, the goth-skewering comedy, and a little eye candy are more than enough to gain my favor.  Hell, even if it wasn’t, at 75 minutes, it doesn’t really have time to overstay its welcome.  Punched up with more nudity and some more gore beyond the “throw some Karo around” minimum, this could have been a gem.  That’s not to say it’s not entertaining though.  You’ve most definitely seen a lot worse.  Those with ties to the goth community will enjoy this far more than those just looking for some horror.

By this time, my loopy-ness was reaching its zenith.  I soon realized that this put me in the perfect mindset to watch The Bloody Ape.  How can you not love a flick that advertises itself as “100% Pure Underground Trash?”  Well, it’s pretty easy, as 99% of intentionally bad underground trash isn’t nearly as much fun as this, but that’s a rant for another time.  The movie is shot on Super 8mm (mostly expired according to the bonus features), which normally imbues a flick with a grainy, low-fi, washed out look.  This day, however, it was more of a hallucinatory quality, like a spectral vision shown to me by the Ghost of Regional Exploitation Movies Past. 

Synopsis:  THE BLOODY APE is the most outrageous, drive-in movie take on Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" ever committed to film. A carnival barker foolishly releases his 400 pound gorilla, who then literally goes bananas on a rampage of raw rape and boffo butchery - leaving the low rent population of Long Island either sexually violated, slaughtered - or both! From maverick indy filmmaker Keith J. Crocker (Blitzkrieg: Escape from Stalag 69), THE BLOODY APE is a gore-soaked love letter to the sex and violence of the grind house movie era that pulls no punches and offers no apologies for wallowing in a skin-drenched stew of crudeness and camp! Banned from numerous festivals around the world, ignored by critics and loathed by the politically correct....but now there just is no stopping THE BLOODY APE!

I never went more than a couple of minutes without laughing hysterically.  The dialog is insane.  Almost every character is an over the top parody of a racist, and you will never stop being amazed at the things coming out of these people’s mouths.    If you’re one of those whiney, easily offended, politically correct types, stay the hell away from this movie.  The non-racial dialog is just as funny, with characters spouting lines like “My love for you is as deep and as wide as the expanses of your vaginal cavity.”   Just so you know, to get that quote, I decided to play a little game.  You just read that in the Jigsaw voice, didn’t you?  Couldn’t help yourself, could ya? Instead of going back to the flick to get the actual verbiage, I googled “bloody ape vaginal cavity.”  I was either gonna find the quote, or be irreversibly mentally scarred.  Luckily the quote came up first, but I don’t recommend gambling with your sanity like that kids.  That could have been traumatic. 

The acting is just as outlandish as the lines these “actors” deliver.  As far as I can tell, there isn’t an actual actor among the bunch.  Well,  perhaps the guy who plays Duane Jones, the token black guy named after the most beloved token black guy in horror history.  He was pretty good.  If you are the type who gets a kick out of bad acting, this flick just might be the holy grail.  Paul Richichi as Lampini is a study in awkwardness.  The scene where Lampini is running around asking people (who seem to have been recruited on the spot) about the whereabouts of his ape is hysterical.  George Reis, playing Detective LoBianco in a hilarious wig and fake beard, is a caricature of every 70’s New York cop movie cliché.  The moment when a naked woman is attacked by the ape, and shows her terror by looking directly into the camera and laughing just might be the most exquisite example of the fine art of screen acting that I’ve ever seen.  Second take be damned! 

The monkey mayhem is magnificent.  Among his other exploits, our simian friend castrates a hippy, tears a rabbi’s leg off, and rapes the rabbi’s wife (covering her in his seed, which looks suspiciously like whipped cream) before gutting her with his bare hands.  During the scene with the rabbi’s wife, the thought of the monkey intoning “Rape Ape” in the “Grape Ape” voice occurred to me.  At that moment, it was the funniest thing I had ever come up with.  I kept repeating it in my mind and guffawing.  Then I realized I was actually repeating it out loud.  I’m glad no one else was there to see that.  Anyway, this ape doesn’t limit his activities to the usual horny and homicidal stuff you’d expect from an ape.  No, monkey man actually steals a car and goes for a drive.  Yep, a gorilla steals a car.  If that’s not enough to sell you on this one, I don’t know what is.  The nudity perhaps?

The Bloody Ape purports to be a throwback to the days of the drive-in.  It’s notable that this movie was made back in 1997, a full decade before Grindhouse made these homages trendy.  While being shot on film does lend it the aesthetic of an earlier time, it comes across to me as a throwback to the 80’s DIY flicks that came out of the initial explosion of the home video market.  You know, those flicks where you can tell that someone decided to make a movie because they had a camera, an idea, 50 bucks, a bunch of friends and family to be cast and crew, and a weekend off.  I love the homegrown quality of those flicks, and I love the homegrown quality of this one. 

At this point, my brain could take no more input.  As the calliope music of The Bloody Ape’s title screen played, I stared vacantly at the screen trying to make sense of the last 8 hours or so.  It was a heady, almost psychedelic cocktail of naked women with machine guns, gorillas committing grand theft auto, vinyl dresses, Nazis, disco, tits, blood, fire, bad acting, castrations, sex, demons, hilarious dialog, and pure indie horror madness.  Later that night, my fever finally broke.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Brothers and sisters, I was healed by the power of gore and sleaze.  Hallelujah!

Now, before I wrap up with the severed thumb scores, I have to mention that Wild Eye did a bang up job with these releases.  You wouldn’t expect smaller releases like these to have a lot in the way of bonus features, but they all come pretty packed.  Hell, The Disco Exorcist is the sparsest of them all, and it has a commentary track, deleted scene, and all of the flick’s various trailers.  Gothkill has a video commentary (which is cool, but the little box in the corner of the flick gets annoying at times), a Q&A with the director, a featurette on the live experience, and promo materials.  The two Keith Crocker flicks get the full on Special Edition treatment, with commentaries, retrospective featurettes, shorts, test footage, stills, trailers, promo materials, VHS covers, and more.  Kudos to Wild Eye for giving you this much bang for your buck.  Hit them up on facebook HERE to keep up with their releases.

Ok folks, the final verdict is…one severed thumb up for Gothkill and one and a half severed thumbs up for Blitzkrieg, Disco Exorcist, and Bloody Ape if taken separately.  Two severed thumbs way up if you plan on doing the same marathon I did, hopefully without the “sick as hell” part.  Nathan says check ‘em all out. 

The Wild Eye Releasing Fever Dream Marathon Part 1: Blitzkrieg: Escape From Stalag 69 and The Disco Exorcist

I’ve been sick for the last few days.  Not really sick, just a cold.  No big deal.  It did get me thinking, however, about the last time I was sick.  Back in September, just before Netherworld started, I got sick.  Profoundly sick.  Fever, chills, hacking up chunks of lung, can’t breathe, can’t hold food in either end, praying for death kind of sick.  It’s a miserable state of affairs, but an interesting situation that can arise only out of such illness sometimes rears its head.  There is a phenomenon that I like to call the Fever Dream; and while it may not be nearly as enjoyable, it is far more powerful than any psychedelic drug experience known to man.  This is what happens when lack of sleep, a high fever, and copious amounts of medications combine.  It’s a condition where you slip back and forth between being awake and dreaming vividly without knowing where the boundary lies or being able to distinguish which one you are doing at the moment.  I’ve only been sick enough to experience it a handful of times.  If you think I sound crazy or don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ve never truly experienced the flu.  Just wait.  Captain Trips is coming.  M-O-O-N, that spells Super Flu.

Well, on this particular day my fever kept bouncing back and forth between 103 and 104.  I hadn’t slept in two nights because every time I dozed off, I would cough myself awake.  I was full of Mucinex DM (which for some reason f**ks me up worse than a fifth of anything), that prescription codeine cough syrup (sizzurp – as in sippin’ on some - for my ghetto readers), and both the Daywalker and Nightbreed varieties of the mighty –Quil.  I was out of my mind.  There was no hold on reality.  In short, I was more or less tripping my balls off. 

It was in this state that I decided that I should delve into my screener pile, in particular a killer stack that Wild Eye Releasing had sent me.  These guys really hooked me up.  They sent me a box of flicks including Hack Job and I Spill your Guts (which I’ve already reviewed here on SOC), a cool documentary about Rock and Roll Comics, a XXX Thriller parody from the 80’s that I’ll review when the time is right (meaning I’m holding onto it for viewing in Jimmy Bickert’s backyard drive-in), and the four flicks that would comprise my hallucinatory journey through low budget Nazi-sploitation, sexploitation, goths-ploitation, and ape-sploitation nirvana.  What follows is a chronicle of this whacked out odyssey as best as I could reconstruct it from my nearly illegible and incoherent notes.  Let the “ploitation” begin!

I started off with  Blitzkrieg: Escape From Stalag 69.  Hell yeah, Nazi time!  For the record, “Hell yeah, Nazi time!” is an exact quote from my notes.  It took up half of a page.  I worry about myself sometimes.  This is the flick I initially contacted Wild Eye about.  As I’m sure you Cellmates are aware, I love me some Nazisploitation.  I’ve waxed poetic about my love for Third Reich cinema before, so I’ll spare you.  With a few notable exceptions, however, it’s a subgenre that is sadly neglected these days, so I was truly stoked to discover a new addition to the annals of Nazi nastiness.  The first thing that struck me about Blitzkrieg was actually on the back of the box. This movie is 2 hours and 15 freakin’minutes long.  To the best of my knowledge, that makes it the longest Nazisploitation flick of all time.  Yes, Schindler’s List was longer, but that’s not the kind of exploitative, offensive Nazi flick we’re talking about here.

Synopsis: Enter Stalag 69, where torture is just the Beginning for this bloody band of Nazi Butchers! Germany, 1945. Stalag 69, a POW camp ruled by the sadistic SS commandant Helmet Schultz, is nothing but a blood-soaked playground for this perverse Nazi monster who uses his American, Russian, and British prisoners in cruel and ghastly biochemical weapons experiments. When a group of young, wanton USO girls are captured and fall into the hands of Schultz and his battalion of butchers, the brutality is turned up and the unsuspecting girls are gored, gouged and ground up - all for the pleasure of Schultz and his SS brothers and sisters. Now it's up to the rag-tag survivors of the camp to strike back against their captors and Escape from Stalag 69, alive or on a slab!

I came into the flick expecting all of the hallmarks of Nazisploitation, meaning nudity, torture, sleaze, and bad taste.  I definitely got all of that.  There are multiple castrations, flogging, nipple-ectomies, branding, humiliation, and various other tortures.  It also contains one of the greatest cinematic sequences of the past decade.  I won’t spoil it all, but it begins with an I Spit On Your Grave homage and ends with a bare ass naked woman running through the woods with a machine gun mowing down Nazis.  Read that sentence again.  If that isn’t enough to sell you on a movie, then the way your mind operates is completely foreign to me.  Violence and sleaze; check.

What I wasn’t expecting from this film was an actual story.  A lot of story.  A whole freakin’ lot of story.  This movie is HEAVY on the dialog.  For the most part it’s pretty well written, but it’s also pretty long winded.  As the movie progressed, however, I noticed something happening.  I was getting more and more into the story.  I knew exactly where it was going, but I couldn’t help but get swept up in it.  I don’t know if it was my altered state of mind or the deliberate way of building the plot, but I never had the urge to hit the fast forward button once in two and a quarter hours.  The last time a movie that long kept my attention that well was I Saw The Devil, and that was my #1 flick of last year.

The acting is all over the place in fact.  Some of the performances are outstanding.  Special credit goes to Tatyana Kot as Natasha.  She spends 90% of her screen time naked and being tortured.  This shoot had to be grueling for her, and she handles herself with a great intensity.  I enjoyed Steph Van Vlack as the sadistic Dr. Zuber a lot.  The very sexy Tammy Dalton was pretty good as Candice.  I sure do wish director Keith Crocker could have talked her into a nude scene, but I digress.  Then there are the others.  Charles Esser as Helmet Schultz fits in both the good and, um…”other” categories.  Sometimes he is so over the top that it seems like he thought he was in a comedy.  Other times he’s got such earnestness in his delivery that it’s obvious he’s playing it seriously.   It’s a really bizarre dichotomy that works…sometimes.  I’m not gonna name names, but aside from those I’ve mentioned, most of the actors and actresses in this flick either seem to be half asleep or are trying to chew straight through the scenery.  There’s no middle ground.  The mixture of the “upper and downer” acting schools makes these scenes the cinematic equivalent of a speedball.  Well, that may be stretching it.  A Jagerbomb perhaps.  Some of the best entertainment in the whole flick is watching them struggle with the various accents of this “international” cast of characters.

There is definitely some dopey moments here.  A 70’s style soul mama with a tramp stamp is doing in a WWII concentration camp comes to mind.  There’s also enough torture and sleaze to satisfy the prurient interests, enough of a story to engage those interested in plot, and enough camp appeal to make it all just plain fun.  Blitzkrieg is ambitious as hell in scope, and it succeeds to a point.  Yeah, it’s long, but it never stops being entertaining.  It’s dirty, sick fun with a little respectability thrown in; and it’s a worthy addition to anyone’s Nazisploitation collection. 

Next up I popped in The Disco Exorcist.  Right away I was torn on this flick.  On one hand, I’ve had just about enough fake film grain filters to last me for the rest of my natural life.  This flick is awash in digital attempting to look like analog.  It manages  better than many, but I still could do without it.  One strike.  On the other hand, it is a longstanding cornerstone of SOC film theory that, 9 times out of 10, boobs within the first minute of a movie means that I’m gonna like the flick. They actually occurred at 1:14, but let’s not get technical here.  At this point, my brain decided to argue with itself about what my expectations were for this film based on these two divergent facts.  Do boobs supercede fake grain, or vice versa?  This continued until the counter on the DVD player suddenly informed me that I was 20 minutes into the film and my brain was too busy debating with itself to register anything I had just seen.  Dammit.  Time to take more medicine (my mind can’t argue with itself if it can’t form coherent sentences) and restart the movie.

Synopsis: Suave swinger and womanizer Rex Romanski loves and leaves evil black magic priestess Rita Marie. Naturally, Rex incurs Rita's lethal wrath by spurning her. Can Rex figure out a way to stop Rita's subsequent rampage of revenge, murder, and destruction as well as reclaim the soul of his new porn starlet gal Amoreena Jones before it's too late?

Despite my not liking the fake grindhouse look of the flick, it didn’t take it long to win me over.  Whereas Blitzkrieg tried to at least put up a front of playing it straight, Disco Exorcist gets down and revels in its cheese and sleaze.  There is copious nudity, some fairly messy gore, and some truly inspired references to classic 70’s horror and exploitation cinema.  They honestly didn’t need the filters, because the art direction is spot on in capturing a 70’s low budget feel. 

Many of the cast members come from stage acting backgrounds, which would explain why the acting is of a much better quality than probably any other film in this little marathon.  Ruth Sullivan steals the show as the evil and vengeful Rita Marie.  That scene of her writhing around naked and bloody in the center of a pentagram is a thing of beauty.  I found myself wishing that this flick had backed off of the laughs a little at times and gone for some more actual horror moments; but she is genuinely creepy, pulling off the whole Fatal Attraction meets Witchcraft thing beautifully.  I’d love to see her in some straight up horror flicks. 

Basically, this movie is an exercise in bad taste, humor that is goofy without being too stupid, tits, gore, and lots and lots of sex.  Ladies, for those of you who complain about the female to male nudity ratio, there is a lot of swinging meat on display for you in this one.  I can see this being a great party movie.  I would have enjoyed it a lot more if they had left out the fake grain and those goddamn “scene missing” gags that I loathe so much, but that’s just my personal preference.  Disco Exorcist is fun.  That’s the best word I can think of to describe it.  Fun.  It feels like the filmmakers had fun making it, and I had fun watching it.

Wanna know how many severed thumbs up Blitzkrieg and Disco Exorcist get?  Wanna know where this insane afternoon of exploitation took me next?  Wanna hear about some gorilla rape and back-from-hell goth bashing?  Of course you do!  Well, you’re just gonna have to wait until tomorrow when The Wild Eye Fever Dream Marathon concludes.  Don’t you just hate cliffhangers?  Look at the bright side though, I’m not making you wait ‘til freakin’ February to see how this turns out like someone else we all know…

Review: I Spill Your Guts

Watching James Balsamo’s new flick, I Spill Your Guts, and to an extent his first film Hack Job, is kinda like having my most recent ex-girlfriend tell you a story. It’s a very “stream of consciousness” storytelling style. There is a central through line, and it will end up at the right place, but on the way there it will meander, split off, and follow tangents; weaving in and out of itself so many times that occasionally you forget what the actual story was until you unexpectedly find yourself back in it. The difference is, with I Spill Your Guts, at the end of the approximately hour and a half long experience, you are left entertained and glad that you went for the ride instead of just being glad it’s finally over. Also, I doubt the movie would get all butthurt if you start singing “The Neverending Story” at it. There is one similarity between the flick and one of (name withheld)’s grueling stories though, if you find that the movie isn’t working for you for one reason or another, you always have the option of just zoning out and focusing on the tits.

Synopsis: “Two friends Dennis and Joe join the military together. While on a routine mission, the two are quickly surrounded by enemy fire. When Joe stands up in the line of fire to run, Dennis pushes him out of the way and takes a bullet in the throat. Dennis wakes up in hospital to find Joe rewarded as a hero. Joe told a lie and took all the glory, and Dennis was left as a mute from the accident. Dennis can't talk, but actions speak louder then words. The two return home to N.Y. and now the war rages in the streets. Dennis wants revenge on Joe, so he will kill everyone close to him. One little lie will cost so many innocent lives.”

One of the things I enjoy about finding a director early on in their career is watching the evolution of their work. I really enjoyed Hack Job (REVIEW) as a first feature, and it’s interesting to see Balsamo’s progression as a filmmaker. One of the main differences between the two movies is that this time Balsamo went for a single story instead of an anthology. To be honest, with how “all over the place” Hack Job was, I had my doubts as to whether or not he could pull off a feature length plotline. He does so quite well actually. As I mentioned, it does swerve all over the path, and we see the writer/director’s penchant for asides like showing a music video in the middle of the flick or a scene involving wrestling that has nothing to do with the central plot, but it’s not a problem. He definitely makes it work and the central story stays strong. In I Spill Your Guts, the schizophrenic energy of Hack Job has actually gelled into a legitimate, discernable filmmaking style. Those who subscribe to auteur film theory could make an interesting study out of Balsamo. He even manages to skillfully use social commentary without becoming preachy, a feat that some of the genre’s old masters even have trouble pulling off.

While it does maintain a sense of humor, ISYG is far less silly than HJ. The story of a veteran coming home from war and turning psychotic and homicidal is not exactly new. That motif has been used in films like Forced Entry, Combat Shock, Death Dream, The Ravager, The Exterminator, Targets, Cannibal Apocalypse, Bayou, and others. The “revenge for stolen glory” angle is a new twist, however, which is always appreciated in the often derivative world of low budget filmmaking. Not only is the story fresh, but The American Executioner (who Balsamo also portrays) is a great character. The camo army jacket paired with that genius American flag mask is a look that stands side by side with some of the classic slashers of horror history. I would like to see him return, as I think the character has franchise potential.

Another thing I dug about this flick was the gritty New York City atmosphere. The film manages to capture that seedy, grimy, dangerous, 42^nd Street quality of a bygone era of the Big Apple. It’s the same atmosphere that helped make films like Maniac, Basket Case, Frankenhooker, and Driller Killer so good. The sleaze is palpable. It’s something I haven’t seen done right in a horror flick since the ACTUAL grindhouse era, and it’s impressive that this one was able to pull it off.

The sleaze factor is, of course, helped by the fact that there is a copious amount of nudity. We never go more than a few minutes without some eye candy. The movie is bursting with bountiful bare breasts and flush with full frontal fun. James, you’ve definitely got a good handle on the basics buddy.

The soundtrack will be a polarizing feature of the flick. Metalheads will love it. Others, maybe not so much. Some will say that the soundtrack overpowers the movie, but I contend that this soundtrack is so integral to the film that it is a character in and of itself. Featuring metal bands like Cannabis Copse, Suffocation, Ghoul, Mausoleum, Skeletonwitch, and way too many more to list, this is definitely the best movie soundtrack since, well, James’s last movie. For the horror punk lovers like me, there are also contributions from Calabrese, Order of the Fly, Thee Flanders, Nightmare Sonata, and the almighty Bloodsucking Zombies From Outer Space. Trust me, this flick could attain cult classic status based on its music alone.

As is becoming his trademark, Balsamo has jam-packed I Spill Your Guts with cameos. Of course Uncle Lloyd is in there. Dave Brockie (aka Oderus Urungus from GWAR), Debbie Rochon, and Lynn Lowery also make a return. We get cameos by the incomparable John Link (Spiderbabe, The Collective vol. 2) and Tim Dax (Mr. Bricks, CSI). Andrew W.K. drops in to get his head split. The movie features some great independent film directors in acting roles, like Joel Reed (Blood Sucking Freaks, Bloodbath), Tim Ritter (the criminally underrated Truth or Dare series), and Donald Farmer (I Will Dance On Your Grave: Cannibal Hookers, Savage Vengeance). We even get to see ECW legend Balls Mahoney nearly cave someone’s skull in with a steel chair. These cameos run the gamut from a five second long non-sequitur (Brockie) to a major role in the story (Rochon), and playing “spot the cameo” makes for an additional dimension of fun for the viewer.

As far as the gore goes, it was damn good. Really damn good. Some of the kills are downright brutal, and that “getting head” scene was a classic. The final kill in the junkyard was awesome. I love that the effects were all practical, and they look great. There were a couple of kills that occurred mainly off screen though, and a couple that looked clipped for some reason. I understand that it was probably a budget thing. Like I said, there is plenty of gore on display, but with a title like I Spill Your Guts, I kinda expected an over the top, “paint the entire set red,” full on Das Kommabrutale style splatterfest. Then again, I’m horror-jaded as hell, and there’s no such thing as enough gore in my mind (I think Dead Alive still could have used more blood), so take that with a big ‘ol grain of salt. I do tend to ask for far too much as far as the grue goes.

The only thing I can really call this flick out on is the sound. Just like its predecessor, there are issues with the sound mix. The musical interludes are far louder than the dialog scenes, and the transition can be jarring. That needed to me smoothed out some. Seriously, that’s the only thing I didn’t like here. Well, there is the fact that the opening news footage was re-used later in the movie. That was kinda redundant. Other than those two things it was all good. Sure, there is some shaky cam, but the vast majority of it is first person, so it makes sense. That’s more than I can say for a lot of big budget studio releases these days. Sure a few of the performances are amateurish, but that’s to be expected, and the really good performances (especially the one by newcomer Billy Walsh) more than make up for that. Now if they would just fix that damn sound.

Random Thought #1: I absolutely love the Acid Bath Productions title animation. Love it. It cracks me up no matter how many times I see it.

Random Thought #2: All of the grammar in the text was right this time. Excellent.

Random Thought #3: Kelli Lynn Sage, who plays Heather, is insanely hot.

I had a blast watching this film, and I mean every word of praise I’ve given it, but I would be remiss if I didn’t throw out the same warning I did with Balsamo’s last flick. This is a “Video Fringe” film. Read the Hack Job review if you don’t know that term. It’s not glossy, it’s not “state of the art” from a technical standpoint, and it isn’t mainstream. It doesn’t have big budget gloss. It doesn’t have the current star from that CW teen drama. It doesn’t have contrived, safe scares. You know what else it doesn’t have? CGI. I love that. What it does have is originality, heart, soul, and balls. It also has some awesome death scenes and a killer soundtrack. Oh, and boobs. Can’t forget the boobs. What I’m saying is this, if you can’t get beyond the sanitized, hollow, cookie cutter drivel that studios are trying to pass off as “indie horror flicks” these days, then this probably isn’t for you. If you love a low budget, rough around the edges, fun as hell, truly independent horror flick with a head on its shoulders and another on the sidewalk, you will dig I Spill Your Guts just like I did. I can’t wait to see what Acid Bath serves up next. Both Hack Job and I Spill Your Guts are currently available from Wild Eye Releasing (LINK). One and a half severed thumbs up. Nathan says check it out.