All posts by Rod Lott

Horror

God’s Bloody Acre (1975)

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Deep within the Grand National Forest live – well, for the time being – three redneck brothers: Larry, Darryl and Darryl Monroe, Ezra and Benny. They’re about to be displaced, thanks to a new campground opening in time for the July 4 holiday weekend. Monroe (William Kerwin, Blood Feast), the only sibling literate enough to read the sign that indirectly serves as their eviction notice, has other plans: “Ezra, we’re gonna run ’em off. This time, we ain’t leavin’.”

Efficiently, that’s the first scene of God’s Bloody Acre, and should be all the plot a hickspolitation flick needs: hillbillies vs. capitalists, as Monroe, the old one with suspenders; Ezra (Daniel Schweitzer, of the director’s 1977 follow-up, Tomcats, and nothing else), the one with facial hair and neck hankie; and Benny (Sam Moree, ditto), the Afro-sporting, simpleminded mute who sheds tears when tree limbs are felled, band together to take their revenge. Part of their plan involves chucking rocks at the guy operating the Caterpillar bulldozer. Part of that plan does not involve said operator getting bisected by the blade, but that’s what happens. Upon this grisly discovery, one of the dead guy’s hard-hatted colleagues asks if this means they “can knock off early.”

Curiously, director Harry E. Kerwin (Barracuda) and his co-writer/co-producer, actor Wayne Crawford (aka Jake Speed), dilute the film’s initial intent of pure, unfiltered revenge by adding buckets of subplots — one of which even overtakes that of the Monroe clan: the one featuring Crawford.

Under the nom de plume of Scott Lawrence, Crawford plays Scott, a proto-Jerry Maguire who impulsively quits the white-collar job he doesn’t believe in and hops on a motorcycle, searching for an America he doesn’t find anywhere. But, after his ride breaks down, he does find love — or at least lake sex — with Leslie (Jennifer Stock, Shriek of the Mutilated), a young woman in a VW Bus, fleeing an abusive relationship. Viewers see their individual backstories, as we do for the two occupants of an RV: a virulent racist (Robert Rosano in his lone credit) and his long-suffering wife (Suzanne Robinson of the director’s adults-only Sweet Bird of Aquarius).

We expect not all of these travelers will make it to the final reel; we do not expect to get to know them more than the siblings. As God’s Bloody Acre progresses — rape, murder, it’s just a shot away — Monroe and company becomes less like characters and more like faceless villains. File Harry E. Kerwin’s decision to do so not under “abject failure,” but “missed opportunity.” The finished film is unique enough in that its Greenpeace-friendly themes give us a glimpse into what might have happened if Rachel Carson had made The Hills Have Eyes instead of Wes Craven. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Mystery

Honeymoon of Horror (1964)

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After a whirlwind meeting-cum-courtship, blonde beaut Lilli (Abbey Heller) marries curiously mustachioed sculptor Emile Duvre (Robert Parsons), then goes straight from exchanging vows to embarking on a Honeymoon of Horror. Considering what follows, she should have had him sign a prenup, preferably one containing the phrase “promise not to kill you.”

After the couple lands in their love nest, those within their circle of friends begin to perish. The new Mrs. Duvre is not immune to murder attempts, either, most notably by gravity doing its thang on a giant metal globe objet d’art suspended above their swimming pool, because of course. And because all artists are weirdos with posses of weirdo pals, there is no shortage of suspects. Besides Emile himself (whose Euro accent signals viewers that he is not to be trusted), the culprit could be his mistress (Beverly Lane), his leering brother (Escape from Hell Island’s Alexander Panas, who also wrote the underwritten screenplay), a fellow sculptor who is blind, a spry dwarf and, last but not least, Hajmir (Vincent Petti), Emile’s turbaned live-in servant.

It is Hajmir who tells Lilli, “Madam is no doubt confused” — a statement applicable to anyone who dares watch. Befitting its later alternate title of Orgy of the Golden Nudes, the Florida-lensed indie is more interested in asses of lasses than knots of plot, despite the utilization of Monroe Myers (Adam Lost His Apple) as, more or less, Exposition Cop. Speaking of investigation, the movie is more mystery than horror, but because the ad man in me recognizes the power of alliteration in audience appeal, I’m letting that misnomer slide.

One could draw a direct line between this film and Blood Feast, and I don’t just mean on a map of the Sunshine State. The former traffics in the garish gore that Herschell Gordon Lewis pioneered one year prior, but with less panache (yes, panache) and considerably less in delivering what’s promised on its bill of goods. Honeymoon marks the lone shot at directing for Irwin Meyer, who plowed greener pastures as a producer of made-for-TV movies (e.g., 1998’s exclamation-theirs Legion of Fire: Killer Ants!), and one can see why.

Still, it’s not a vacuum of entertainment. Where else — in today’s society, especially — will one hear a woman speak the line “Yes, but he’s just a minor sex maniac” as a point of justification? —Rod Lott

Get it at Something Weird Video.

Thriller

Pets (1973)

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Pets introduced audiences to not only one of the B-movie world’s most beautiful debutants, but also its eventual queen in Candice Rialson (billed here as “Candy”). In an approximate five-year stretch before choosing early retirement, the buxom blonde made a string of low-budget hits, most notably in three Roger Corman productions: Summer School Teachers, Candy Stripe Nurses and the self-aware sublimity that is Hollywood Boulevard. While not as well-remembered or -reviewed, Pets got there first, showing what the gorgeous, all-American girl could do with ease to a grimy, sugar-stained screen: light it up.

As with The Centerfold Girls the following year, Raphael Nussbaum’s Pets eschews the route of plot for an episodic structure of three stories; other than sort of ending without an ending, the only element they share is Rialson, front-and-center throughout as Bonnie. Even the last scene gives up on closure, asking, “THE END …?” as if Bonnie’s misadventures were ready to play out in a weekly prime-time slot. (We should be so lucky.)

Having just fled her abusive brother (Mike Cartel, Runaway Nightmare), the presumably teenaged Bonnie meets Pat (Teri Guzman, Five Angry Women), an African-American woman who teaches her street-survival skills by making her an unwitting part of a kidnapping and robbery. Their target: a married man (Bret Parker, This Is a Hijack) all too willing to give them a ride, presumably in exchange for another.

Then Bonnie wanders from that bad situation into another, entering a live-in business-and-boudoir arrangement with Geraldine (Joan Blackman, Macon County Line), a lesbian painter whose jealousy flares brighter than the colors on her canvas. Finally, Bonnie accepts an invitation to hang out at the home of wealthy art patron Vincent Stackman (Ed Bishop, TV’s UFO), whose hidden basement doubles as a private zoo. This final segment lends Pets its title, as well as its meant-to-shock marketing depicting Guzman and Rialson chained at the neck — something that never occurs and primes the viewer for a bucket-brimming serving of vile, debasing pornography. This is not that movie …

… but it more than earns its R rating. Nussbaum (The Amorous Adventures of Don Quixote & Sancho Panza) clearly knew he was holding dynamite with Rialson carrying the picture, so the TNT is pushed into scenes of T&A often. This being her first speaking role, Rialson is not as comfortable and charismatic as she soon became, so she lets her pink blouse do much of the heavy lifting. Pets is just sleazy enough to placate drive-in crowds, yet smart enough to not let the sex and violence entirely drown out its message of — yep, believe it! — female empowerment and its questions of who’s possessing whom. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Reading Material

Reading Material: Short Ends 7/26/18

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Even if you’re not a fan of the 1974 parody Flesh Gordon (and I’m not), the autobiography of leading man Jason Williams makes for an eye-opening read on the member-raising adult film industry. In I Was Flesh Gordon: Fighting the Sex Ray and Other Adventures of an Accidental Porn Pioneer, the all-American Williams (with an assist from blogger Derek McCaw) shares how he went from near-starving actor to the titular role in an instantly infamous, X-rated mainstream hit … and yet remained just outside Hollywood’s periphery. Just as intriguing as his on-set remembrances are his at-home ones, when he tiptoed around how much he should (or should not) tell his then-girlfriend about his workday — in particular, the scene in which he was mounted by a German stranger who guided him inside her when they could have gotten away with, y’know, acting. Published by McFarland & Company, the slim and breezy volume loses steam toward the end, because Williams’ follow-up film, the 1976 pornographic musical version of Alice in Wonderland, has neither the wealth of juicy stories nor the cultural impact of Flesh. It’s this summer’s bio you didn’t know you wanted to read!

The only thing unsatisfying about People Only Die of Love in Movies: Film Writing by Jim Ridley is that the author isn’t around to see it. A longtime force of nature behind the influential alt-weekly Nashville Scene, Ridley was editor when he passed away unexpectedly in 2016; this Vanderbilt University Press hardback exists as a tribute and wasn’t in the planning stages during his lifetime, but it was bound to happen, posthumously or not, for one reason: The way he put words to page was — and is — the very definition of craft. For this collection, co-worker/close friend Steve Haruch assembled nearly 100 of Ridley’s reviews — a generously representative swath that includes a defense of Jackass, a pan of Schindler’s List and liner notes for the Criterion Collection’s release of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. My favorite piece, however, isn’t a review at all, but a long-form look back at the making and legacy of Robert Altman’s Nashville on the eve of the divisive classic’s 20th anniversary that makes a revisit immediately tempting, even if you were lukewarm on the picture. That he could do the same for works on as wide a range as Howard Hawks and Rob Zombie is indicative of his immense gift.

Two years after writing the très informative Films of the New French Extremity, Alexandra West looks closer to home with The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle: Final Girls and a New Hollywood Formula. Kicked off by the word-of-mouth phenomenon that was Wes Craven’s Scream, the dead-teenager subgenre that briefly flourished thereafter is a fascinating movement in modern pop culture, and certainly one worth studying. This McFarland release isn’t going to be the definitive word on the trend, but for now, it’s as close as we have. If you were sober through much of the Nineties, you can skip the history refresher of the introduction and somewhat redundant first two chapters, and delve right into the chronological countdown of carnage, from comedic flirtations with the genre (My Boyfriend’s Back) to the all-out spoofs (Scary Movie) and inevitable reboots (Scream 4). West demonstrates a firm grasp of the material and presents it across pages that flow with ease, no matter how many uses of “codified.” I just wish her attention to names were as mighty; in discussing Teaching Mrs. Tingle (likely in more depth than anyone on the planet), she double-mangles Jeffrey Tambor as “Jeffery Tambour,” while 40th POTUS Ronald Reagan is rendered throughout the book as “Regan,” no fewer than thrice. —Rod Lott

Get them at Amazon.