1. When the studio you made millions for has forgotten how to spell your name. —Rod Lott
All posts by Rod Lott
Tourist Trap (1979)
“Oh, this can’t be scary. Old movies aren’t scary like Insidious,” said my tween daughter as she entered the room just after the opening credits of Tourist Trap had finished. One minute and one mannequin appearance later, she bolted for the door.
I wouldn’t qualify Tourist Trap as scary, but several moments of it are extra-creepy and genuinely unsettling. Mannequins and dolls that suddenly, inexplicably move tend to be. This film’s killer even wears a mask that covers all but his lower jaw, which is also unnerving, especially since it makes him look like Leatherface (albeit the transvestite one from Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation).
The titular site refers to Slausen’s Lost Oasis, an off-the-beaten path, now-closed-to-the-public wax museum owned by the lonely widowed Mr. Slausen (The Rifleman‘s Chuck Connors, giving it his square-jawed all). A group of vacationing youngsters (including Tanya Roberts in a tube top) end up there after an irreparable tire strands them. Bet you know what happens from there. (And in case you don’t, then welcome to your first horror movie, and know that they’re terrorized by those things that department stores use to sell you the latest fashions.)
Directed by David Schmoeller (The Seduction, Puppet Master), this decent, semi-novel, inexplicably-PG supernatural slasher comes from the era when Charles Band productions not only didn’t suck, but actually played theaters. If you can remember those golden days of Ghoulies and Troll and this, congrats! You’re old. (Meet you for dinner at Furr’s at 4.) —Rod Lott
The Black Cobra 2 (1988)
I’d like to think The Black Cobra 2 is the only Fred Williamson movie in which he wears a Members Only jacket and with a preponderance of cowbell on the soundtrack, but since there’s a number in the title, I can’t be too sure.
Fred stars as Malone, a Chicago cop who gets in trouble for exploding a bad guy’s helmet-clad head like a watermelon with a single bullet, just following perhaps the longest opening credits known to man (eight minutes!). So his cantankerous, overweight police chief sends Fred to Manila to hook up with Interpol office Nicholas Hammond (several hills below The Sound of Music and, for that matter, his Spider-Man TV series). To the filmmakers’ credit, it accurately captures enough of the Philippines’ local flavor to make you never ever want to go there.
The Italian-backed actioner almost seems like two movies for the pain of one. In the first part, Fred falls for a buck-toothed, barfy faced girl whose con-man father was found murdered (“I hate to be the barrier of bad news,” Fred says; couldn’t they have dubbed that over?) and then rescues her after she’s kidnapped by slimy terrorists looking for $10,000.
Then she’s out of the picture and part two begins, with said slimy terrorists holding 350 schoolchildren hostage. Since one of them is Hammond’s short-pantsed son, Nick and Fred rub black greasepaint on their faces (well, okay, just Nick) and get all Die Hard-y as only a film like Black Cobra 2 can’t. I’d like to think they don’t show a single one of the 350 kids because of budgetary reasons, but since they didn’t bother to overdub Fred’s gaffe earlier, I can’t be too sure. —Rod Lott
The Prowler (1981)
Joseph Zito’s The Prowler is a refreshing work. Whereas every World War II vet I’ve encountered mistakes something as insignificant as a friendly nod of the head and respectful smile as “tell me your life story in long, agonizing anecdotes, and spare no details,” the Dubya-Dubya-Two vet here doesn’t speak at all. Plus, you can’t see his face, so you aren’t distracted by liver spots. So what if he also carries a big bayonet? Doesn’t that trump having to hear yet another yarn about fapping to Betty Grable pin-ups in the barracks?
It does, even if this vet holds quite the grudge (or, ju-on, if you prefer). After receiving a Dear John letter from his best gal while he’s overseas, the guy returns home to find her necking with a new beau at the graduation dance, so our vet puts a pitchfork right through ’em both. That’ll show ‘er!
Thirty years later, the town holds the dance again for the first time post-body count, and wouldn’t you know it? The vet is back, and he’s got a hankerin’ to kill all those meddling kids! Perhaps most notably, a busty co-ed gets all points of a pitchfork in her tummy while she’s soaping up in the shower, and Zito doesn’t dare puss out by cutting away.
That’d mean squat if the effects sucked, but they do anything but. Tom Savini outdoes himself here, crafting practical gore scenes that look so realistic, the payoff they provide is worth Zito’s sometimes too-long build-up of suspense. The director next did Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, arguably the best of that series, and the rest is splatter-flick history. —Rod Lott
Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin’ (2011)
A number of names are bandied about in this documentary: heels, babyfaces, bullies. If a guy was an asshole, he’s called an asshole, and that no-holds-barred, candid nature is what makes Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin’ so watchable, even for those of us who don’t give a squat about the sport.
For the newbies among us, the Memphis style of wrestling, we’re told, is all about “fire and action,” thereby turning the goings-on within the ring into a meld of athleticism and circus acts (and sometimes a freak show). As the decades progress and the gimmicks are introduced, we see how a two-bit, traveling circuit eventually birthed a billion-dollar business, once Vince McMahon noticed the light bulb hovering above his noggin.
It’s a colorful history of pioneers like Gorgeous George, Sputnik Monroe (“He was the only person I know who could get run over by a Greyhound bus and not get hurt”), karate-chopping Tojo, black masked wrestler Sweet Ebony Diamond, arrogant Jackie Fargo (“I was meaner than a damn rattlesnake and tougher than a two-dollar steak”), the infamous Jerry Lawler and celebrity opponent Andy Kaufman, not to mention matches against bears and with midgets (“You could put midgets on your card, and your house would double. … I liked a lot of those midgets”).
These fine fellows are interviewed on camera by debuting director Chad Schaffler, and they mostly seem to pine for the days when they annually averaged 100,000 miles on the road and outdrew the World Series on local TV, and yet barely made a buck (with exceptions, of course). Because they’re not bitter and because they’re chock full of hysterical soundbites, Memphis Heat emerges as a winner, with very little bruising. —Rod Lott