All posts by Rod Lott

Horror

I Drink Your Blood (1970)

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Arguably more famous for being the bottom half of a grindhouse-celebrated double bill with Del Tenney’s far-tamer I Eat Your Skin than actually being seen, I Drink Your Blood serves a cautionary tale for hippies who consume intentionally contaminated meat-based pastries. If only one viewer’s life has been saved, this film by writer/director David E. Durston (Stigma) has done its job. Never again, America! You hear me? Never! Again!

“Let it be known,” hippie cult leader Horace Bones lets it be known in I Drink’s woods-based cold open, “that Satan was an acid head.” Horace (charismatic India native Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury) tells this to his small circle of unwashed disciples during one of their nighttime rituals of devil worship, poultry sacrifice and full nudity. When he notices they’re being watched by a local girl, he orders the gang to beat and rape her for her God-fearing curiosity. She lives in Valley Hills, population 40 (down from 4,000 … and dropping significantly further within the next 80 minutes), a quaint and dinky town that plays home to one bakery, one veterinarian and much misery.

idrinkblood1When “that gang of savage hyenas” finds itself stranded in Valley Hills due to a broken-down groovy van (which Horace orders his free-spirited followers to push over a cliffside), they choose an abandoned home at random, move in, drop LSD and round up all the rodents they can to roast for hearty, stick-to-your-ribs meals. Take heed, society: These cats may worship pure evil, but at least they’re self-sufficient.

Meanwhile, eager for revenge for the hippie gang’s unholy treatment of his sis, whippersnapper Pete (one Riley Mills, never to act again) spikes his family bakery’s daily batch of meat pies with the tainted blood of a rabid dog. Going from gullet to gut, the bad blood turns the troublemakers into mouth-foaming zombies; the makeup for such is as if the infected guys paused their shaving duties after applying dollops of cream and forgot to finish. It even makes Horace visit a nearby snake farm, where he looses its star attraction: per the sign, a “GIANT BOA KONSTRIKTER.”*

Competently made by Durston, I Drink Your Blood is wholly deserving of its enduring cult reputation. Although the acting overall is lacking, the performances are delivered with such earnestness, you’re willing to overlook those deficiencies. In fact, unlike so many other B movies we watch to test our own tolerance, you’ll find yourself legitimately drawn into its semi-original spell. This is the rare gore film you want to hug, and it will hug you back. That’s not to say it “wusses out”; its initial X rating for violence wasn’t affixed by the MPAA without merit. —Rod Lott

*Flick Attack’s Joke-O-Matic: Pick Your Own Punch Line:
1. Konstrikter? I hardly know ’er!
2. Konstrikter? Dude, I had all their tapes when I was going through my hair-metal phase.
3. Konstrikter? Lemme guess … a dating app?

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Comedy

Ace Ventura Jr.: Pet Detective (2009)

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aceventurajrRemember how annoying the drama students at your high school were with their Jim Carrey impressions and no “off” switch? That’s nothing compared to the 12-year-old equivalent running for 93 agonizing minutes and passed off as an actual movie: Ace Ventura Jr.: Pet Detective.

Carrey’s comic creation — foisted upon an unsuspecting public in 1994’s surprise smash Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, then quickly followed up by the less grating Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls one year later — is nowhere to be found. But his chunky son, Ace Junior, is. As played by Josh Flitter (Big Momma’s House 2), the “meddling kid” (his own words, mind you) lives with his zookeeper mom (A League of Their Own’s Ann Cusack, for whom I feel sorrow, taking over the Courteney Cox role). I know what you’re thinking, because I thought it, too: deadbeat dad, right? Well, probably, but as Mrs. Ventura puts it, the official word is that Dad disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle.

aceventurajr1Like father, like son — not in the department of mysterious absences and related lousy excuses, but an undying love of animals and an undiagnosed social disorder. Ace Junior eats his meals from a dog bowl and drinks from a toilet bowl. The nominal story plops the brat in his first “real” case: locating the whereabouts of Ting Tang, the zoo’s stolen (man in an obvious, frightening) panda (costume). Until this mystery, the kid has made his rep tracking down lost household pets, from your average dogs and cats (“Yikes! Tabby’s been nabbied!”) to more exotic companions, like a skunk, which he attempts to subdue by farting in its face — one of three flatulence gags the movie offers in the initial 16 minutes alone.

Best known for 1993’s peculiarly beloved The Sandlot, writer/director David Mickey Evans practically dares us not to loathe his young star from first frame, saddling him with the lines, “I’ve got you now! That’s it, my little misunderstood friend! Nibble the powdery cinnamon bliss!” Fast-forward (hypothetically speaking, because you are not watching this one) to the courtroom scene in which Ace Junior appropriates A Few Good Men’s iconic “You can’t handle the truth!” speech, and Flitter is so amped-up insufferable, you’ve already dug out that old embossing label maker from the kitchen drawer, just so you can slap “TRYING TOO HARD” to his visage onscreen.

Poor Flitter was old enough to know what he was doing, but too young to know how it would play on our side of the camera: like a friggin’ train wreck. He was merely the caboose to Evans’ overencouraging engine, but — and I would never hit a child — you’ll want to punch him all the same. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

The Hitcher (2007)

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hitcherI’m only against the idea of remakes when the new version emerges from the oven as a charred chunk. That is the fate of 2007’s Michael Bay-produced The Hitcher, whether compared to the 1986 original or standing on its own. Lead Sophia Bush (John Tucker Must Die) says as much when she informs the authorities during a chase, “This is bad. … Listen, we’re really not too good, okay?”

She’s being much too kind.

Shortly after urinating at Grandy’s (now that’s product placement!), Bush’s college student Grace hits the road in a un-air-conditioned car with her shaggy-haired beau, Jim (Cherry Falls’ Zachary Knighton, no C. Thomas Howell), to meet her parents. When night falls, accompanied by a downpour, they nearly run over a hitchhiker (Sean Bean, Black Death) standing still in the middle of the rural highway. Odd behavior, right?

hitcher1So odd that they neglect to give him a lift … until he catches up with them at a gas station later, and then they agree to let him ride shotgun … whereupon he pulls a knife. Says Jim, in what should be rhetorical given the events of the preceding paragraph, yet isn’t, “How was I supposed to know he was a sick-fuck lunatic?” Don’t answer; kids today never learn.

Foolish director Dave Meyers sure did; he got behind the wheel of this next-gen Hitcher after helming music videos for the likes of Britney Spears, The Offspring, OutKast, Missy Elliott, Jennifer Lopez and Creed, and those roots show — none more apparent than the aforementioned, intended-to-be-intense chase sequence, which unfortunately is scored to Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.” The whole movie is one chase after another in some form or fashion, feeling like a washing machine stuck on the final rinse cycle. Will it ever stop? Will this ever end? Won’t someone please get ripped apart by two trucks? —Rod Lott

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Action

Invaders of the Lost Gold (1982)

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invaderslostgoldAs World War II comes to a close, three Japanese soldiers — aka the losing side — hide a bunch of gold in a cave in the Philippines. Thirty-six years later — round numbers, phooey! — some honkies go a-hunting for it, in an expedition so dangerous, one of them remarks, “I knew this was going to be difficult.”

Viewers of this truly terrible film, Invaders of the Lost Gold, no doubt will agree at the outset.

Staying in what appear to be tents purloined from a traveling circus and/or an annual Renaissance fair, the members of this Horror Safari (the movie’s alternate, better, yet still deceitful title) include:
• the presumed leader (Stuart Whitman, Guyana: Cult of the Damned), eternally grouchy and quick to call someone a “bastard”;
• his former partner (Edmund Purdom, Don’t Open Till Christmas), now a cut-and-dry conniving villain;
• in his final film role, Harold Sakata (Goldfinger’s Oddjob) as the sole surviving point of the aforementioned Japanese triangle, thereby making him the only person who knows where the loot is, thereby making that Lost Gold portion of the title entirely irrelevant;
• the safari funder’s “confounding daughter” (Glynis Barber, Edge of Sanity), because every he-man needs a love interest, even in a movie bereft of affection;
• a second woman (Black Emanuelle herself, Laura Gemser), because every Z-grade adventure needs an actress willing to provide nudity;
• and poor Woody Strode (Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead), Invaders’ only African-American not part of the demeaning ooga-booga tribes.

invaderslostgold1Strode has so little to do (which may have been for the best) that all I remember his character doing is scratching his head. I’m sure it had to do with the jungle heat, but one can’t help but think the man’s mind was processing some cosmic question like, “How in the hell did I go from John Ford and Stanley Kubrick … to this?”

By “this,” we mean the work of Killer’s Moon director Alan Birkinshaw, working from a screenplay he co-wrote, from a story dreamt up by his producer, exploitation legend Dick Randall (Pieces). While I admire a great deal of Randall’s vast filmography, Invaders of the Lost Gold is the rare entry that doesn’t cut it. Ostensibly a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style adventure of Eastern Hemisphere exploits, the flick cuts its own throat — with a dull machete, fittingly — by being excessively lazy and shoddy, even by Randall’s low standards.

Merely one example: One unnamed character unclothes to starkers — oh, did I just give her identity away? — and takes a dip in the river, only to scream in mortal terror at … well, something. She’s dead, Jim — yet we never find out how or why! That’s just how Birkinshaw rolls: with patches of mold. —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Inseminoid (1981)

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inseminoidOur world has no shortage of Alien imitators, but to find one from the UK is so rare, it makes Inseminoid something of a novelty. I mean, Italy, sure — God, yes! — but Great Britain? The royal land of tea and crumpets and Masterpiece Theatre? The mind boggles …

… and the opening narration certainly does, wearing us down with minutiae about the Horror Planet (the film’s alternate title) we neither asked for nor need: its past population, average temperature, number of suns — holy geez, save something for the Wikipedia page! Here are the essentials: scientists, alien, death. Done!

If the title of Inseminoid strikes your ears as rather reproductive, it should, because the movie’s squatty creature rapes one of the characters (Judy Geeson, It Happened at Nightmare Inn) specifically for spawning purposes. Director Norman J. Warren (Bloody New Year) frames said alien rising between Geeson’s spread legs, as if it were an OB/GYN finishing an exam. Inseminoid’s ick factor reaches peak revulsion as Geeson is impregnated via what looks like pickled eggs plucked greedily from the local pub’s communal jar and then, with Re-Animator fluid as a lubricant, slid directly into her womb through a Habitrail.

inseminoid1Later, as the body count rises parallel to audience boredom, surviving crew members plant bombs around the cavernous facility to win their otherworldly war; I swear the explosives are red Wiffle balls. With props like that, Warren was in no danger of hitting this project out of the park.

Despite an interesting cast that includes Stephanie Beacham (Schizo) and former Steve Martin spouse Victoria Tennant (1987’s Flowers in the Attic), this upper-crust, low-wattage blend of sci-fi, horror and accents nearly requiring subtitles is never quite what you think or hope it will be. Inseminoid is a seed that finds no purchase. —Rod Lott

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