Entry Thirteen: Nekromantic (1988)

Nekromantic (1988)

Dir: Jorg Buttgereit

"Death is just the beginning..."

Somewhere, I promised I'd close off "sexy movie November" here in the Basement of Sleaze with something extra-special, and here it is:  the German necrophilia fuckfest Nekromantic!

After the title card "Warning: some of this film may be seen as 'grossly' offensive and should not be shown to minors!!!" and a close-up shot of a woman pissing in a field, we're introduced to Rob (Bernd Daktari Lorenz, who went on to become a German porno writer/director and helped out with the music and effects on this film), who works cleaning up corpses on and around the autobahn.  Quiet, creepy Rob is new to the job, disliked by his seasoned co-workers and enjoys taking body parts home from work (which include a fetus; all lovingly detailed in a montage).  His girlfriend Betty (Beatrice Manowski, from Wenders' Wings of Desire (!)) gets naked a lot and bathes in bloody water while singing and wearing sunglasses.  Eventually, Rob brings home an entire rotting corpse and affixes a dildo fashioned from a wooden bedpost to it (complete with condom!), which Betty fucks while he caresses and kisses it.  In a slo-mo scene, Betty makes the corpse give her head after reading erotic literature to it (fuck me; I can't believe I just typed that!).  When Rob loses his job, bitchy Betty calls him a wimp and leaves to find a rich man who can supply her with corpses.  Rob kills a cat, writhes around in its guts and attends a porno movie, where he sits next to a dude who bears more than a passing resemblance to Bill Nye, the Science Guy.  He tries to sleep with a prostitute in a graveyard, but murders her and goes to the bone-zone with her corpse, instead.  In the end, Rob takes his own life by plunging a knife into his guts, graphically ejaculating while doing so...The movie then closes with mondo footage of a (real) rabbit being killed and skinned.

I know you're all masturbating right now, so I'll not interrupt with any closing remarks.  Happy Thanksgiving, folks!

Entry Twelve: Vampire Hookers (1978)

Vampire Hookers (1978)

Dir: Cirio H. Santiago

"Warm blood isn't all they suck!"

First of all, I have to admit to having a soft spot for this shitty movie, but only because I saw it for the first time at an Atomic Shock midnight screening hosted by LEGENDARY Minneapolis horror host Rock N' Roll Ray.  Ray always put on a GREAT show; it's a good memory, and I miss those days.  But enough waxing nostalgic; on with the (shit) show!

The movie begins with a very old, bored and drunk-looking John Carradine quoting Shakespeare's "The Tempest.  We are then introduced to studly Tom and goofball sidekick Terry (the late Trey Wilson, of Raising Arizona and...um...Twins), two American sailors on leave in the Philippines.  Out cruising for strange, these lusty seamen run afoul of our titular trio of voluptuous vamps and their undead master, Richmond Reed (Carradine), as well as his wannabe vampire/confirmed special-needs person assistant, Pavo (Vic Diaz).  These lascivious "ladies of the night" usually ply their trade in order to bring fresh blood back to Reed, but this time fall prey to Tom and his incredible deep-dicking skills long enough for Terry and badass (and fantastically mustached) cabby Julio to save the day...OR DO THEY?!

I can't deny that this movie is a piece of shit; the dialogue consists mostly of "hilarious" double-entendres ("The music in here is blowing my eardrums!" "It's not my eardrums I want blown!"; "Coffins are for being laid to rest, not for being laid."), Pavo not being able to sleep because he keeps farting in his coffin is exemplary of its sense of humor, the performances (except for Wilson, who seems to be having a blast) are anemic and the nudity is too brief and infrequent for the bishop-bopping crowd.  On the plus side, it's silly and inoffensive, Karen Stride is a fetching (but wooden) lead vampiress and, at 79 minutes, it goes by quickly.

Before I go, you need to know that the FUCKING BEST part of this film is its TASTY pseudo-rockabilly end theme song!!!  Yes, I've got a CD copy and it makes the regular rotation here in the basement!  Check out part of it below (I can't find a link to a decent complete version):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0mcAL8oBk8     

Entry Eleven: La sorella di Ursula (The Sister of Ursula) (1978)

La sorella di Ursula (The Sister of Ursula) (1978)

Dir: Enzo Milioni

Dour, man-hating Ursula (Barbara Magnolfi, Suspiria) and understanding Dagmar (Stefania D'Amario, Zombie) are young Austrian sisters on holiday in Italy after the death of their estranged father.  Women begin turning up dead at the hotel their staying at, and psychic Ursula, who has visions of the murders, is convinced she's the next victim.  Sleazy club rat Filippo (Fulci regular Marc Porel) is the prime suspect.

When it comes down to basics, this late-period giallo is a (particularly nasty) softcore skinflick masquerading as a psycho-thriller.  There are lots of borderline-explicit (and totally superfluous to the plot) sex scenes and D'Amario has a full-frontal scene three minutes into the movie.  The film has an obvious obsession with genital-fondling and endless hairy bush shots (an instant **** review from my friend, Mr. Cyteles).  The killer uses a razor-sharp dildo to dispatch his victims, which surely inspired a similar scene in 1995's Se7en.  Unbelievably angst-ridden Ursula has some hilariously melodramatic lines (in an early scene, she asks a Christ statue "Where are your eyes?  Did we gouge them out, or did you remove them, so as not to see us fall into the abyss?")!  Director Milioni lacks the talent to keep the proceedings suspenseful, relying instead on the copious amounts of naked female flesh and always-atmospheric Roman locations to hold the viewers interest.  As a side note, Magnolfi and Porel were married in real life until the latter's death from heroin-related complications in 1983; he plays a heroin addict in this film.

Entry Ten: The Sinful Dwarf (1973)

The Sinful Dwarf (1973)

Dir: Vidal Raski

Torben (he only NEEDS one name, like Prince) IS Olaf, the sinful dwarf!  Steel yourselves for this one, folks!  Our lascivious little person gives precisely zero fucks about anything other than making them Benjamins, which he does by kidnapping young women, hooking them on smack and making them turn tricks to get their fix!  We first meet Olaf as he walks down the street with his cane (which he needs not because of any physical disability, but because he's a motherfucking pimp).  When he comes upon a lonely young woman (whose clearly old enough to know better), he distracts her with a wind-up plush dog, brains her and drags her back to his sex lair, which he runs with his down-on-her-luck former actress mother, Lila (Clara Keller), out of their boarding house!  Cue opening credits, set to montage of wind-up plush animals walking against a black screen...

After the credits, we're introduced to our protagonists, Mary and Peter, who are desperately looking for a place to live.  Peter is an out of work writer who can't afford the ten pounds a night charged by most normal boarding houses, so they end up at Olaf and his mother's (they only charge six!).  Mary is immediately put off by Olaf and his scarred old mum, but Peter is insistent and they take a room.  This leads to an explicit scene of celebratory fucking, which consists mostly of shadowy close-up shots of asses (Peter's thrusting, Mary's pale and goosebump-ridden), which Olaf spies upon through a hole in the wall.  This scene is immediately cut to a shot of a boy playing with his dog, OBVIOUSLY symbolizing orgasm.  Lila and Olaf keep their girls chained up in a room right next to the one they're renting out, and Mary is concerned about all the noises she hears at night (unbeknownst to her, "Johns" coming in and out). Lila and Olaf decide that they want the too-inquisitive Mary for their harem, so they trick Peter into accepting a phoney job for their drug-runner that will take him out of the country.  Mary is lured into the "dungeon" by a toy train (yes, really), gets drugged-up and hallucinates that Peter shows up and fucks one of the other girls (gratuitous blowjob and doggystyle shots follow), and then gets cane-raped by the pint-sized pervert.  In the end, Peter arrives to rescue Mary with the cops, who decide to give him free reign with a pistol (standard police procedure) and allow him to blow away Lila.  Olaf spitefully clubs one of the girls to death before committing suicide by jumping out the window.

Jesus fuck, I haven't even mentioned Lila's drag performance scene, the endless bush shots, the interminable scenes of Lila and Olaf palling around with the former's old actress pal (played by Gerda Madsen, of the excellent Haxen), the bearded drug dealer who refers to himself as "Santa Claus," Olaf whipping the shit out of a trick who's using too much smack or the gratuitous topless scenes featuring upper middle-aged Keller.  This is grade-AAA sleaze, folks; you can practically SMELL the jizzum-encrusted raincoats on the print.  I wish I could've seen this in a theatre.  I can't, however, recommend that you watch this movie; let reading this entry be enough.

Entry Nine: The Final Terror (1983)

The Final Terror (1983)

Dir: Andrew Davis

"Without knowing, they have awakened an unknown force.  Can anyone survive?"

Councilors Mike (Mark Metcalf, Seinfeld's "Maestro") and Melanie (Cindy Harrell) take a group of JD kid screw-ups into an isolated area of the woods on an Outward Bound-type adventure.  Being responsible adults, Mike and Mel slip off to fuck in a waterfall and are slaughtered by an unseen assailant.  The kids (including Adrian "Bachelor Party" Zmed, Rachel "The Thorn Birds" Ward and Daryl Hannah) must use only their (limited) wits and whatever nature provides to defend against this menace, which seems to simply disappear into the woods.  Is it crazy, irritating camp maintenance man Eggar (a very young, very thin Joe Pantoliano)?  Is it an escapee from the local asylum?  Is it (as the ludicrous marketing campaign insinuated) some sort of alien being?  The kids build Rambo-style traps using the local flora, perpetual screw-up Zorich (John Friedrich, who's really good but retired from acting after this) takes some strange mushrooms and freaks out and the whole thing ends with a body count much lower than you'd expect.

This fun mash-up of First Blood, Deliverance, and the slasher movies popular at the time is the directorial debut of Andrew Davis (who went on to helm Code of Silence, motherfucking Under Siege and The Fugitive), and he does a nice job of moving things along at a quick pace.  His use of close-frame shots and 1:78 aspect ratio give the film a REALLY claustrophobic feel, even though the whole thing is set outdoors.  The title is generic and terrible and tells you absolutely nothing about the film, and the ad campaign heavily implied that an alien life form was stalking the kids (spoiler alert: it isn't, and aliens are never once mentioned in the film).  This movie was obviously an inspiration for Predator, as the killer wears a ghillie suit that allows it to blend into the forest and the kids make use of carved stakes and a log trap in the final confrontation.