Going to the theater: It’s not just a movie, it’s all out war for freedom!

Going to the movies these days has become a bit of a nightmare. First of all, here in Kansas City, even finding a good movie is a chore. We get NO indie films unless they are French, a Bollywood musical thing or feature Urban themes and a large Black man in a dress. Not that there is anything wrong with any of the above, but it sure makes for some damned narrow choices. Gone are the awesome Martial Arts films. Indie Horror is pretty much gone as well.

You see, the local Baptist regime seems to love ruining my entertainment. First, they picket our Best Buy stores to get exploitation, horror and anime removed… then they had to go after the multiplexes. Our AMC was so lacking in balls that they would not even carry MILK and it was an Academy Award nominee. It took a huge revolt and a petition signing to get it to show for 2 weeks. Now of course, this same AMC gets EVERY damned Christian propaganda movie released. Films that play NO WHERE else, will play here as a result. No one ever goes to see them, but they still play here. The last one a couple weeks ago was about taking Satan to court. I am not kidding. This is a movie theater, not a damned church. I think I should go and picket their church and damned no good Christian bookstore where all of this stems from.

I was sitting at a local Pizza place, Minski’s, and I overheard a group talking. They had all been at Bible Study. The two guys were so happy. Their Pastor, a guy that also manages the local Lifeway Book Store, had really shown them some love. Why? Well, one of them had been hired as a receiver of stock at the local Wal Mart and the other guy’s brother was in charge of the backroom at Best Buy. They could control what gets put on the shelves. I kid you not. It took everything in me to stop me from crowning them with a Pizza pan. Bastards.

And then I found out that Anderson, who also stocks half of the videos at Wal Mart and half at Best Buy, and is responsible for many indie titles, is also involved with them! Last week Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and 3 came out on BluRay. All of the local Best Buy stores that she serves said they had it in stock, yet no one could find it. Finally one smart employee found it on a cart of RETURNS. A brand new batch of BluRay movies, all Horror, on the RETURN cart. Hmmmm. Same thing at the Wal Mart. Scary thing is, I have grown to know almost all overnight employees at my local Wal Mart and I have now over 10 witnesses on this. Even managers. The day crew, led by this woman and a few others, have hidden movies all over. Even in PAMPERS boxes. Always the same two types of movies…. Horror and Martial Arts. I go into Wal Mart at Midnight and it takes them till 2 AM to find my hidden movies EACH AND EVERY WEEK. If they even find them at all. Recently I overheard these people saying that Martial Arts was the gateway to Satanism. !!!!!. I can’t make shit like this up.

Of course Wal Mart carries Gangsta movies, Sex comedies uncut with “Naked Commentary” and those insane JackAss movies with balls flying every 3 seconds, also uncut – they carry Hunting DVDs showing real killing of animals – they carry drug movies and tons of redneck boozing CDs … BUT NO WAY can we get our Horror or Martial Arts movies – those will lead to SATAN!

And this is just one example. Our local Vintage Stock stores get no Horror BluRays, yet the ones in nearby areas get a ton! Hell, when we got our Borders, it was the lamest Borders ever. No wonder the went out of business!!! You could order anything there and get it except Horror or Exploitation movies! They would never show up, get “lost” or simply someone would forget to order them!!!! And no matter who you talk to, you get the brush off. No one cared about the customer!!! People smile and nod and then go back to being a damned clone asshole. “We’ll look into it.” or “Man, that doesn’t make sense… I’ll talk to the district manager.” And again – blow off. The local Blockbuster gets Sex comedies and Drug movies all uncut, but they get Horror cut and tamed down – unless it’s some major studio release because we all know that a major studio these days would NEVER do anything to shake the boat.

Last time I checked, this was still land of the Free and home of the Brave. How dare these religious idiots think they can censor my life for my own good. It’s time to take a stand. And I am doing that. I am searching for names, e-mails and other info about these people and when the time is right, I will release the info via my radio show, Nightwatch. It is time to stop the madness.

And this is simply the beginning of the nightmares when going to the movies are involved…. next week, I’ll continue this with Going to the Theater 2: Texting Zombies From High School Hell. Be here.

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Eerie Midnight Horror Show

Eerie Midnight Horror Show

Continental Video – 1975 – Unrated – 85 mins

Ok, I know what you’re thinking… Why is Todd watching some film that sounds like a third-rate rip-off of “Rocky Horror Picture Show?” Well the answer is easy. That is only a title given by a U.S. distributor, but this film was originally known in Italy as L’Ossesso and released here as The Tormented, The Sexorcist and the lame-oid title above. This one has a bit of everything in it and so I cannot resist. Yep, you guessed it, we’re strapping on the big ones and heading back to Eurotrash country again this month. This one is a mid- to late 70s epic of sleaze. We’re talkin’ trashola classic here – and you will know why…

OK, Stella Carnacina stars as this kinda cute but not really brunette girl named Danilla who specializes in restoring old, run-down statues and other artwork.

The movie starts with Danilla and some guy going to a an old, abandoned church to pick up a strange life-size crucifix statue with some guy on it that looks kinda like David Hasselhoff without the afro. Danilla talks too damned much right here with a bunch of art critic types and we get some background stuff that does not matter really cuz it has no real bearing on the plot. Danilla thinks the statue is groovy and insists she works on it as soon as possible. They take it back to her art studio and sit it on a huge table. They figure the figure on the cross was made from a tree cuz he’s all one piece of wood and they take him off the cross and leave him on the table.

Next thing is Danilla going home that night to see her swinging parents are throwing a party where everyone dresses badly and dances worse. We get some real bad 70s funk music and lots of shaking butts. Here we meet Danilla’s Mom and Dad. Her Dad is in a card game, and her mom is trying to pick up some guy that looks like Joe Namath from the KC Chiefs! Soon Mom and Joe shamble off to a bedroom and she takes off her bad clothing and Joe says “You’re a gorgeous piece” and he grabs some roses and beats her naked body with ’em, leaving scratches. Mom not only is one sick chick, she needs to put her bad fashions back on. But I do know for a fact that this scene is important to the plot because Danilla sees her Mom and this guy going at it and leaves the party to go back to the art studio.

Now is when the plot really kicks in. Danilla is working on some painting of an old guy that I think might be someone famous, like maybe Col. Sanders or something. The statue starts breathing and stuff, but she doesn’t notice until the cross that he was on, now leaning on a wall, bursts into flames. Then the David Hasselhoff wanna-be statue comes alive and jumps off the table and tears off Danilla’s bad dress and they go into the mating ritual of the double humped goosenberry beast on the floor, if you know what I mean, and someone turns on a giant fan cause the scene must be getting too hot and lightning flashes and we find out it was a daydream Danilla was having while working… or so we think.

Danilla then freaks out about her daydream and calls her boyfriend who looks like a bad Robert Redford and they meet and she tells him her Mom is a freak that belongs in a sideshow and some other junk. He takes Danilla home and she climbs a million stairs to get to her bedroom only when she reaches the door she figures it’s a good time to freak out and go to town on herself, if ya know what I mean. I am not sure why, but these 70s Eurohorror/trashola flicks always have to have the girls get crazy and make like Madonna on themselves. Anyway, next thing her parents hear her and run to the room to see her flopping around on the bed like Linda did in the Exorcist. I am not sure if her bed is sitting on a bare electrical wire, or she just does the Madonna thing REAL good if you know what I mean, but she sure flops around like a crazy woman. While she flops, she scratched her stomach with her fingernails for no reason, but I am sure this is also important to the plot.

The parents talk to the boyfriend or something and decide to all go on vacation because they figure poor Danilla has just worked too hard. On the trip, Danilla has another daydream, only this time along with David Hasselhoff wanna-be guy we also get some witches in white make-up that look like some goofy Goth Rockers and only wear capes and they all put Danilla on the cross and they hammer her hands down. We get some pretty cool spewage here, and the effects are OK for an old movie. Then they get to her feet, but since he only has one spike left, he makes her cross her feet so he can nail em both. Some more groovy splooge effects and she screams a bunch and the witches all say some strange stuff in Latin or something and then they drink some kool-aid from goblets and Danilla wakes up again. Now she is in her bed, but she is totally freaking out and the parents run in and are mad because they have no Ritalin for her to take and they call the doctor. Danilla grabs her Dad by the head and clobbers him like she was Mr. T or someone. The Dad blames the Mom for being a twisted side-show freak. Then the doctor finally shows up. Danilla spits some green stuff out and they have all just watched “The Exorcist” so they know they gotta call a priest up and get some fast prayer action goin’.

The priest arrives and meets Danilla and she gets even wilder, thrashing around even more and banging the bed against the wall and sounds like she’s singing Marilyn Manson songs. They drag her out of the house and take her to a big church with some nuns running around. She gets meaner now with red eyes and spews up some more green goo. Then Danilla says all kinds of rude things and cusses a bunch. Her Robert Redford boyfriend finally shows concern. Danilla tries to seduce him and the priest because David Hasselhoff tells her to do it but nobody listens to her because they remember that she throws up green stuff. Then Danilla starts wailing on the priest like she is in a WWF grudge match and kicks his butt a while and the priest finally remembers he is a priest and starts praying and stuff and she spews more green stuff, only this time it’s got some insects in it and stuff so we can all get grossed out… These guys knew to keep things moving and to keep the plot important we had to make the spewage grosser each time! In his last breath, the priest drives out David Hasselhoff and his evil minions and Robert Redford comes in and picks up Danilla, who is no longer possessed and they go home. They just leave the dead priest there I guess because the film ends on a freeze frame of Danilla.

Now as you can tell, this is a great Exorcist rip-off with enough crapola sleaze factor to keep the plot fresh and fun from Italian director Mario Gariazo. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys nice family entertainment, with some religious overtones, or just for people who like rose whippings, Madonna imitations and bad fashion. A classic.

5 / 8 / 8

Up Smokey! Russ Meyer’s Chainsaw Massacre… almost

Up Smokey

Family Home Video (damn!) – 97 minutes – year unknown – directed by Rudd Meyer

Next up, we have “Up Smokey” directed by Russ Meyer. The film starts with a crazy naked chick sitting in a tree played by Kitten Natividad, who seems to always be in Russ Meyer movies. She seems to basically be the narrator of this fine flick. After the credits we cut to a castle with some german guy getting whipped by an Indiana Jones wanna be The German guy looks like Hitler (!) and some Asian women come in and sit on his head and the German guy tries to talk but can’t.

Next scene we cut to a tree where two lesbians are having a special meeting and one does some tongue exercises, if ya know what I mean. Then one of the women drives off in a big rig. Then we cut back to the Hitler guy as some gloved maniac throws Piranha fish into the tub with him and blood fills the water and ol’ Hitler thrashes around like someone threw an electric clock in the water and then he dies.

Now the naked girl from earlier comes back on and spouts some lines like “Choosing, comparing one with another..” and “A misty phantom of passion wallowing in the sea of carnality.”. I have no idea what the hell this means. But when she is done talking we meet a sheriff and he is driving along and tries to pick up a hitchhiker with huge garbonzas, only she isn’t ready to accept a ride. Then we get some shots of the killer, I guess it’s the killer anyhow, wearing a black leather sex mask and eating a banana through the zipper mouth part. I am sure that this is either symbolic or very important to the plot. More Naked woman talking follows, telling us about something but I kinda tuned her out as she has a tendency to ramble.

Now we cut to a diner where our Indian Jones guy is working. I guess that being Indiana Jones is his hobby and this is his real job. He watches the sheriff pull over a girl with a big afro and she follows the sheriff to his car and they work out driving violation if ya know what I mean. She makes him blow the toes out of his shoes. Then he goes into the diner and acts like nothing happened and we get some more BS dialogue. Then everyone starts coming into the diner, including some axe guy that orders double chili with honey mustard. Then the hitchhiker girl walks in and they hire her to help out in the diner.

Next thing I know, we cut to the sheriff in some bedroom with a girl dressed like Pocahontas. She bounces around the bed and grabs a light that hangs over head and shocks the hell out of the sheriff and herself then runs away naked into the woods. Then the hitch hiker waitress comes over and looks at the sheriff and sees his vulnerables and says “you’re all read, you’ve been screwing that damned Indian.”  Then we get that naked tree girl talking some more, only this time she’s go-go dancing while talking in a lake someplace. She says all kinds of strange stuff that makes no sense.

Meanwhile back at the diner, the place is packed and Indiana Jones is very happy about the business, but he thinks someone is a killer. Then the axe guy shows up all pissed cuz someone stole his axe. So the diner people find him another one and he celebrates by slamming the table and screaming “beer! beer!” until the hitch hiker girl decides to do a dance for everyone. Bad jazz plays on the jukebox and she starts doing some bizarre dance, Now, I figure this must be some special fertility dance of the axe gods or something because the axe guy gets all worked up and grabs her. Pretty soon he throws her onto the table and starts making the double slamming flamingo with her right there. Everyone starts cheering in the bar. Indiana Jones sees this and thinks it’s really disgusting and we cut to the sheriff speeding to the diner with Lone Ranger music playing. The sheriff jams an axe in the axe lovers back and blood sprays out. Then the axe dude rips the axe out and slams it into the sheriff so he can see how it feels. More blood spews then the axe guy grabs Indiana’s girl and the hitch hiking waitress and kicks out a wall and leaves. Then the sheriff yanks out the axe and gets up. He is mad at the nasty red stain on his shirt and grabs a chainsaw from off the wall. Indiana follows him as they pursue the axe freak.

Indiana is madder than ever after he notices his white pants are dirty. The sheriff catches the axe freak and says “Rosebud!” as he slams the saw into the guy. Blood goes everywhere and the saw pops out the axe freak’s back. Then the sheriff and the axe dude fall off a cliff and the girls sob a second then start fondling each other and soon they are working out them tongues. Indiana finally comes along and sees them and smiles and says “Aw shucks.” Then the hitch hiker goes home and takes a shower and some gloved maniac with an axe comes in and tries to kill her only she pulls off her mask and she turns out to be one of the lesbians we only saw in that one scene at the beginning. I have no idea why she is the killer. Neither does she. Pretty soon both girls are naked and fighting in a lake and they talk a bunch while fighting to try and make sense out of all of this. They fail.

Finally, the naked tree girl comes back and says some crazy stuff, including “cocoa!” a bunch while she flops around on a fallen tree and dances around and finally has sex while finishing telling the story. The end credits roll and my mind is still reeling. What a crazy, screwed up movie! It had FOUR epilogues! I have no idea why, but it just kept going and going. I never drink and have never taken a drug, but I figure the world might seem like this movie if I did. This was one massive party for me watching… and I bet most people who love Grindhouse type movies would love it like I did.  If you happen to drink, then please get sauced major big time and watch this one twice in a row.

5 / 10 / 8

Attack Of The Beast Creatures

Attack Of The Beast Creatures
Western World Video – Unrated – 83 Minutes

I dug deep and found this very rare little splatterfest to review for this month, and though it may be hard as hell to find, it is a cool little low budget oddity that surprised me.

OK, the film starts off with a ship sinking, kinda like a Z-Grade Titanic deal, during the opening credits. The amateur actor survivors all row a boat to a nearby Island. Before you can say “Gilligan,” these castaways are convinced they are all alone on the Island… only we know different because we get some hand-held POV shots that are suppose to be someone watching from the nearby bushes.

Next we get some people screaming at each other for a few minutes kinda like on the WWE nowadays cuz they save all the actual WRESTLING for Pay-Per-View and just yell a bunch on free TV,and this one old man character is like Archie Bunker, only an amateur version.

Director Michael Stanley has set this film in the 1920’s and one character is a flapper. The plot starts to bog down here so Archie Bunker gets thirsty and decides he needs a drink, only when he bends over and takes a swig of the lagoon, it eats his flesh off in a cool gross out effects scene. Face melts, hands drip, gooey slime and blood pour everywhere. We’re talking first class chunk blower here. The rest of the flick zips along at a fast rate from here on out as crew members off-screen throw these creatures at the cast that look like that Zuni demon doll thingie from Trilogy of Terror with all the big sharp teeth that chased Karen Black all over. Same kinda thing except different. These demonic little dudes ain’t dolls and they hunger for a lot more than Karen. We’re talking absolutely no plot from this point on, just some great scenes of people getting attacked and swarmed on by these creatures. I haven’t seen flesh eating swarms of little killers like this since Piranha! I could go on, but I don’t wanna ruin it in case you are lucky enough to dig it up someplace.

I will say that the director and screenwriters must have done some way crazy drugs and watched Gilligan’s Island before making this thing… Original and way off the wall.  A true surprise!

6 / 8 / 2