Schoolgirls in Chains (1973)

schoolgirlschainsNot much occurs in the pedestrian and paltry Schoolgirls in Chains beyond what the title promises, and even that is a misnomer. I get it, though: Sexploitation is sexploitation, which requires salable sizzle, and “schoolgirl” tickles a particular — and particularly popular — fetish. Like Troma’s infamous Mother’s Day seven years later, this feature from The Love Butcher director Don Jones centers on two adult brothers who live a screwed-up existence with their screwy mother in a home just middle-of-nowhere enough to be ideal for their peculiar method of entertaining members of the opposite sex.

Frank (Gary Kent, Jones’ The Forest) is the brains of the Barrows boys; the mentally challenged John (John Parker, The Mighty Gorga), the brawn. Through automotive mishaps and what have you, the brothers nab the nubile, take them home and chain ’em up in the cellar with the others. On occasion, John likes to play doctor with them, whereas Frank has little patience for games — he just out-and-out rapes. Jones’ choice to score this grimy scene with romantic sax music is all the more troubling.

schoolgirlschains1Equally as troubling is the film’s highlight: a flashback in which Mother (Greta Gaylord) ruins Frank’s chances at marriage by telling his fiancée that while he used to wet the bed, he now just gets her wet in bed. Translation: incest. We can’t place all the blame on Mrs. Barrows, however, because in the same scene, when she asks her son for a massage to relieve the pain she’s having, he complies; the “pain” is in her breasts. I know women like to see how their husband-to-be treats his mama, but this? It’s a red flag that sews, raises and waves itself.

Yep, kids, SiC (!) is one of “those” kinds of movies: not pornography, but misguided eroticism. Hey, it takes all kinds to make the world go ’round. It takes a village! —Ed Donovan

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Heist (2015)

heistSix long years after organizing the underrated action film The Tournament, Scott Mann finally plants his ass in the director’s chair again to deliver another underrated action film in Heist. Although deprived of originality, it’s kinda great.

A loyal, longtime dealer at a riverboat casino, Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, The Losers) is in quite a pickle: His little girl is in the hospital receiving treatment for a life-threatening ailment, but all that is about to stop because he can’t afford to pay. After going to his gruff boss, Pope (Robert De Niro, not far removed from his Sam “Ace” Rothstein character in Martin Scorsese’s Casino), to ask for a $300,000 loan that promptly is turned down, Vaughn does the only thing he feels he can do: Rob Pope’s place. Teaming with an opportunistic security guard (Dave Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy), Vaughn uses his access code to gain entrance to the vault — and thereby $3 million of laundered dough. Help yourself.

heist1As happens in heist films, the heist doesn’t go quite as planned, sending the crew scrambling with gunfire at their heels until they hop aboard and hijack a city bus full of innocent civilians. Thus, with an hour left, Heist becomes Speed, minus the mph gimmick. As the wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round, all through the town, Vaughn and company are chased by Pope’s right-hand man (a believably imposing Morris Chestnut, The Call) and the cops, including a sympathetic officer played stiffly by Haywire’s Gina Carano, a former MMA fighter.

One looks at the pace and polish of Heist and thinks, “Why not give Mann the next Fast and Furious sequel?” His action scenes are alive and cut in a way that keeps them easy to follow — a huge difference in today’s marketplace, as is a lead performance as solid as Morgan’s. The ending is as predictable as any, yet detonates a few surprises to get there — the most shocking being the charm and humor brought to the pic’s second half by Saved by the Bell vet Mark-Paul Gosselaar, of all people! It’s like the part was written for Ryan Reynolds, but they couldn’t afford him once De Niro boarded ship, so they “settled” for this former teen TV heartthrob. Against all expectations, he steals his scenes and is terrific. —Rod Lott

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Gamera: Super Monster (1980)

gameraSMjpgIf you see only one Gamera adventure from the Daiei studio’s initial run (not to mention outside of all those Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes), might as well make it Gamera: Super Monster. Playing like Gamera’s Greatest Hits, the Saturday-matinee movie largely comes cobbled together from the giant flying turtle’s previous adventures. This eighth flick inadvertently sent the Godzilla knockoff to the franchise cemetery, where it stayed buried for a full 15 years.

Directed by Noriaki Yuasa (as with the other seven), the film opens on a pirate spaceship in battle. Don’t get your hopes up for an epic star war, however; Super Monster is so cheap that the skirmish is depicted only via stationary illustrations. Nonetheless, the ship sends a female alien to attack Earth, yet Earth is protected by the Spacewomen, a superhero trio. When not in their matching costumes, the three ladies individually work at a pet store, a school and a Mazda dealership. The Spacewomen occasionally shrink to fit inside a dog carrier; ride in the pet shop’s van, which takes flight as a glowing orange oval; and have a loyal friend in the genre’s required little boy in short pants. Not to stereotype, but like all good Japanese students, he plays a mean rendition of “Camptown Races” on a Yamaha keyboard.

gameraSM1If there’s one thing the kid likes to do more than smile, roam the metropolitan area freely and hang out with older women, it’s watching Gamera defend the world. The Spacewomen don’t do a whole helluva lot beyond some kung-fu sparring with the alien; a good two-thirds of Super Monster is given over to the fight scenes culled from the aforementioned other movies (the American versions of which often have vs. in the title). Gamera pulls out all his tricks — breathing fire, spinning like a goddamn pinwheel, doing gymnastics on industrial constructions — as he goes head-to-turd-resembling-head with the creatures Gaos, Zigra, Viras, Jiger, Guiron and Barugon — or, in respective scientific terms, a bat-dragon, a shark thingie, a squid with an extra chromosome, a dentally challenged dinosaur, a knife-headed reptile with built-in ninja stars, and I don’t even know what.

Early on, a kooky cop dismisses a Gamera manga as “just funny old fairy tales” — as good a review as any for this and any other Gamera outing. They have their place. —Rod Lott

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Puppetmaster (1989)

puppetmasterTurns out Tourist Trap was a test run of sorts for director David Schmoeller in the Shit That Should Not Move horror subgenre. Having made that low-budget chiller and its mannequins so effective in 1979 for producer Charles Band, Schmoeller earned himself the gig of helming Full Moon’s flagship, Puppetmaster, which has served as Band’s bread and butter ever since, for better and often worse.

Set at the Bodega Bay Inn, this inaugural entry in the Puppet Master series (two words beginning with the first sequel) isn’t so bad. In a 1939 prologue, puppet creator Andre Toulon (William Hickey, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie) already has discovered an ancient Egyptian method of giving life to the inanimate. As the Nazis come charging in his room to swipe his secret, Toulon bites a bullet, ensuring it stays out of the Führer’s hands. Fifty years later, a select few people gifted with extrasensory powers are summoned to the inn at the behest of colleague Neil Gallagher (Jimmie F. Skaggs, 1988’s Ghost Town) who has unlocked Toulon’s secret … and since committed suicide.

puppetmaster1Gallagher’s cohorts stick around to collectively figure out, y’know, what the hap. They include an anthropology professor (Paul Le Mat, Strange Invaders) with midtransformed-wolfman hair and dreams of things to come; a fortune teller (Irene Miracle, Dario Argento’s Inferno) who carries a stuffed dog; and, most hilariously, a scalding-hot psychic (Kathryn O’Reilly, Jack’s Back) who experiences the past of her surroundings. Seriously, she steps in the elevator and senses a rape; she plops onto her hotel room’s bed and feels the oohing and ahhing of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard’s mattress activity of decades prior. (Apparently, the Bodega Bay Inn doesn’t retire mattresses.)

Oh! And there are killer puppets. No one in Gallagher’s party possesses peripheral vision, because Toulon’s puppets roam about the halls rather freely and without causing alarm … until they decide it’s time to commit murder. Although they have no names in the movie, Band’s Full Moon catalogue of action figures, comics and other merch will not let you forget their cute monikers. Each is labeled for his or her defining trait, e.g., Jester, Pinhead and Tunneler. Leech Woman pukes up the slimy, bloodsucking worms onto the chests of her prey (an act that look like she’s defecating from the wrong end), while the skeletal-faced Blade (a dead ringer for Invasion U.S.A. villain Richard Lynch) stabs his victims. In arguably Puppetmaster’s most overt point of humor, Blade’s pupils pop out as bolts when he peeks through the keyhole as the sexy psychic in undress.

With more of a mystery vibe at play, not to mention legitimate storytelling in general, Puppetmaster bears little resemblance to the double-digit sequels Band continues churning out, now with crowdfunding assistance. While the puppets are the draw, they are not the focus. When they are onscreen, however, it’s for the benefit of Schomeller’s picture because David Allen’s stop-motion animation is quite good, particularly on a Band budget. Then again, on projects big (Young Sherlock Holmes, for which Allen was Oscar-nommed) and small (this) and really small (Equinox), Allen delivered. —Rod Lott

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