As the son of an abusive backwater prostitute, Wheeler (John King III, Alien Zone) can’t help but be a Psycho from Texas. With hair not unlike a witch’s broom, he works odd jobs here and there — in this film’s case, it’s to kidnap oilman William Phillips (Herschel Mays), who lives in a mansion with his hot daughter (Candy Dee) and appears to drive the Family Truckster from National Lampoon’s Vacation.

Wheeler succeeds with the help of his not-so-slick partner, Slick (Tommy Lamey, Timestalkers), he of the poo-log mustache and habit of chewing strike-anywhere matches. Post-abduction, Wheeler goes to town to cash a big, fat Phillips check and score some weed; meanwhile, Phillips wrangles loose and runs and runs and runs, through woods and wild hogs, with Slick right behind him.

It’s not exactly roiling with plot. However, being a low-budget hicksploitation effort, no one demands it be. The only movie written, directed and produced by stuntman Jim Feazell, the El Dorado, Arkansas-lensed Psycho from Texas is an entertaining single serving of sleaze and a marvel of atonality. The soundtrack’s boing-boing-boing of a jew’s harp is squarely at odds with the homicidal action onscreen. Same goes for the original song “Yesterday” — not that one — which gets needle-dropped in the oddest of places, possibly to justify whatever Feazell paid for it.

If the regional thriller is remembered for anything, it’s as the debut for scream queen Linnea Quigley (Witchtrap). She plays a barmaid to whom Wheeler brings a box of Kentucky Fried Chicken and demands she dance for him. She refuses. He forces her, with the howler of a line, “Now, bitch, let’s dance!” As she tearfully gyrates, he keeps screaming, “Dance! Dance!” and dumps a pitcher of beer over her fully nude body. With this scene, King goes for broke and kick-starts a career — just not his. —Rod Lott

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Undoubtedly one of the most controversial films ever made, William Friedkin’s provocative tale of a homosexual killer on the loose in the sultry sexual playground of New York City in the 1980s is constantly being re-evaluated and reinterpreted through far more educated eyes than mine, but time has aged it well enough for me to at least admit that it’s an incomprehensible serial-killer flick that you just can’t look away from.

When a human arm is found floating in the harbor, Al Pacino — who resembles a then-current Lou Reed, oddly enough — stars as a New York City police officer that goes undercover in the extremely sensual gay leather underworld to hunt down the brutal killer who sing-songs a nursery rhyme when engaging in his deadly deeds, mostly thanks to a dead father that gave him the worst (imagined?) parental advice possible.

Becoming a well-liked regular in the highly sexual bars and clubs around town — the beautifully graphic leather-daddy scenes are still legendary for pushing the boundaries of the MPAA — Pacino quickly finds himself questioning his own heterosexuality as he gets deeper and deeper into his supposed undercover character, going out into the night, hanging around the park while dressed in leathers, shorts and a handkerchief hanging out of his back pocket.

When Pacino finally does track the killer down in said park, it’s hard to exactly say if the movie ends on a typical Hollywood ending or, as he breaks the fourth wall and stares directly at the audience, something darker has happened inside him that were not privy to just as the credits roll, blasting Willy DeVille’s “It’s So Easy”; either way, it’s an enthralling mess that I could watch again and again, possibly even questioning my own aesthetic draw to the subcultures in the film.

The Arrow Video Blu-ray has a brand-new commentary from Friedkin that explores many of the themes above, if you’re at all interested; additionally, a pair of archival featurettes document the still-relevant controversy surrounding the movie and, up until that point, its (justifiably) tarnished legacy. Cruising is a disturbing, challenging film that some will like, some will hate, and some will totally get off on — maybe even a combination of all three, if you’ve got the time. —Louis Fowler

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Three years after Norway showed Hollywood what a contemporary disaster movie can and should be with The Wave, it does it again with the unlikely sequel, The Quake.

The first film’s tragedy has left geologist-cum-hero Kristian Eikjord (Kristoffer Joner, Mission: Impossible — Fallout) an addled mess, unable to shake (forgive me) the memory of the hundreds of people he wasn’t able to rescue. As a result, he remains in Geiranger alone, estranged from three people among the hundreds he did save: his wife (Ane Dahl Torp, Dead Snow) and two children. Meanwhile, in Oslo, when a colleague dies from falling debris in a tunnel, Kristian gets the feeling The Big One is about to rock that highly populated capital city, where his family now resides.

Given Kristian’s PTSD, no one believes his ranting and raving until, of course, the earthquake arrives, splitting the ground like a wet paper towel and toppling building like a toddler to Jenga blocks, in truly special effects. With his colleague’s daughter (newcomer Kathrine Thorborg Johansen) on hand for assistance, Kristian must save the Eikjords once more, heading to a hotel skyscraper whose flaccid top dangles precariously over downtown.

Taking over from Wave director Roar Uthaug (2018’s Tomb Raider) is Headhunters cinematographer John Andreas Andersen, and the transition is seamless. He proves quite adept in staging action and suspense, as well as working within Ulthaug’s established look, mood and skillful balance of spectacle and drama so Wave viewers will feel right at home, so to speak, ensuring continuity of genuine care about the characters.

Now, to address the plausibility of this scenario, it helps that the disaster this time around is frackin’ manmade. As with The Wave, the core incident is based on an incident in Norwegian history. Real science is rooted in the story, as is real pain; The Quake goes into territory the big-and-dumb blockbuster likes of San Andreas wouldn’t dare. That’s not an outright dismissal of American disaster movies, but the pairing of these pictures is all the justification needed that the genre does not require curdling. —Rod Lott

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It’s just not Carla Harris’ week. First, before their anniversary dinner is even digested, her husband is killed trying to save a woman being attacked in the L.A. restaurant’s parking lot. Second, after moving back to Silver Lake to live with Mom and Dad, she’s sexually assaulted by six guys in her own living room. Third, one of those blue-collar assholes shotguns her parents to death when they interrupt the party.

Once Carla emerges from a state of shock, it’s time for some vengeance: Naked Vengeance.

From Roger Corman’s Concorde Pictures and Filipino exploitation legend Cirio H. Santiago (Death Force, Vampire Hookers, et al.), Naked Vengeance gives Deborah Tranelli of TV’s Dallas her only film role, and damn, it’s a meaty one — the kind of meat whose second name is spelled M-A-Y-E-R, but meat nonetheless.

Her Carla is an actress whose career never took off beyond a dog food advert, so returning home a widow is doubly humiliating. In her absence, it appears every Silver Lake male who’s not her father — the gardener, the bartender, the grocery butcher, the car mechanic, even the ice deliveryman — has become a walking, mouth-breathing example of the “unwanted behaviors” section from your HR department’s anti-harassment policy.

They’re also close buds who drink together, lift weights together (one in a Garfield T-shirt), bowl together (for the Farm Fresh league) and, yes, rape together. For the kind of movie in which a cop uses a flashlight outside on a sunny day, the scene of the group attack is Carla is harrowing … and then nearly self-parodic, because Santiago — like his villains — doesn’t know when to stop. The viewer’s sympathy for Carla quickly morphs into embarrassment for Tranelli.

Because this is also the kind of movie in which the sheriff (Bill McLaughlin, Santiago’s Silk) is unwilling to take action, Carla does. Call it My Shoulder Pads and I Spit on Your Grave. Tranelli commits to her vigilante role in the rather enjoyable, yet unoriginal rape-revenge pic as if it were a drama opening on the Great White Way. Among the actors portraying her dirty half-dozen of abusers, only Kaz Garas (Steve Trevor from the 1974 Wonder Woman TV-movie) turns in a performance that, if not grounded, at least doesn’t float any higher than a month-old helium balloon; the other guys emote with bulging eyes, unnatural motion and raised voices, as if they were being mo-capped for a cartoon that never got made. One wishes shelved status also awaited the movie’s theme song, the Tranelli-warbled power ballad “Still Got a Love,” which we hear about three times too many. —Rod Lott

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As a kid, I gained an incredible amount of film history — not to mention history, period — through back issues of Mad magazine. My favorite features were the movie parodies, which I often read years, if not decades, before actually seeing the films they spoofed. Only once has this practice soured my enjoyment: Mad #191’s “Sobsession” all but ruined Brian De Palma’s Obsession for me. Even though 35 years passed between my reading and eventual viewing, knowing the twist excised nearly all the suspense — and, therefore, the fun.

The cozy, coddled life of real estate magnate Michael Courtland (a drab Cliff Roberston, Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben) turns to crap when his wife, Elizabeth (Genevieve Bujold, Earthquake), and their young daughter (Wanda Blackman) are kidnapped from their own home and held for a sizable ransom. Due to a hiccup in the negotiated drop-off, tragedy strikes, leaving Michael to bury and grieve his loved ones.

Sixteen years later (which pass in one bravura 360˚ shot on De Palma’s part), the widower still hasn’t moved on. When work takes him to Italy, where he met Elizabeth, he meets her spitting image in Sandra (also played by Bujold). Whether they fall in love for happily ever after is a moot point; this is De Palma, not Nicholas Sparks.

Something else it’s not: great De Palma. Although visually sumptuous, even with its gauzy haze, Obsession bores on the level of narrative. Co-written with Paul Schrader (the no-slouch scribe of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver that same year), the film finds De Palma further exploring — and more deliberately so — the idea of the Hitchcockian double, injecting his own Sisters with airs of respectability.

As intoxicating as its setup is, the film starts to falter. Those looking to have their itch for a De Palma set piece scratched will get it … at the very end, itself abrupt and possibly a concession to the studio suits. All that sits in between indeed just sits, lulling viewers to a light nap. You may find yourself roused whenever John Lithgow (2019’s Pet Sematary) pops in as Michael’s business partner; I’m not sure what he’s doing here with full Southern Gentleman affectation, but damn is he ever doing it. —Rod Lott

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