Entry 66: Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)

Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)

Dir: Mark L. Lester

"One's a warrior.  One's a wise guy.  They're two L.A. cops going after a gang of drug lords.  Feet first."

 

Dolph Lundgren (Red Scorpion, The Punisher) is a white samurai/cop (an archetype that repeats with unlikely regularity in 80s/90s action cinema) raised in Japan, and Brandon "son of Bruce" Lee is a half-Asian, half-white cop raised in the valley ("I don't eat raw fish.") in this violent, comedic, should-have-been-a-hit action movie from the director of Class of 1984 and Commando.  These two unlikely partners trade quips and bust heads as they attempt to take down Yakuza overlord Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Licence to Kill, Mortal Kombat), who killed Lundgren's parents and is currently running drugs through the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles.  Tagawa makes for a great villain; he decapitates an informant during sex after making her smoke crack, lops the hand off a biker who calls him "slope-head" and rapes waitress/informant Tia Carrere (Wayne's World, True Lies) while making her watch a recording of him murdering her friend.  After Lundgren stops Carrere from committing seppuku, they become lovers (an obvious body double is used for her nude scenes).  Our heroes get tortured with electrodes and Lee tells Dolph "I have to tell you, you have the biggest dick I've seen on a man!"  There's a great, bloody fight scene in a bath house with a sumo wrestler and the whole thing ends with a sword fight between Lundgren and Tagawa, who has one of the all-time great death scenes: he's impaled on a parade float and explodes (!).

Showdown in Little Tokyo doesn't offer much in the way of character development, and the plot is certainly threadbare, but Lester keeps the action so relentless that you'll never notice.  Lee and Lundgren have great chemistry and the whole film is a real treat for action fans.  Plus, at 78 minutes, it never comes close to outwearing it's welcome.    

Entry 65: I, Madman (1989)

I, Madman (AKA Hardcover) (1989)

Dir: Tibor Takacs

"Lose yourself in a good book."




Sexy used bookstore clerk/acting student Virginia (Jenny Wright, Near Dark) is addicted to a series of lurid pulp horror novels by a Malcolm Brand.  Problem is, her nocturnal reading sessions begin to end in hallucinations in which Virginia imagines herself to be the female lead from the books who is menaced by Brand's deformed antagonist, mad doctor Alan Kessler.  Soon, fantasy intrudes on reality, as Virginia's real-life acquaintances begin to show up dead and mutilated, victims of a straight-razor wielding killer.  Are these crimes really being perpetrated by a fictional character come to life?  How are they connected to the mysterious Brand?  And can Virginia convince her skeptical cop boyfriend (Clayton Rohner, Just One of the Guys, April Fool's Day) to help before she becomes the next victim?

On the surface, this is obviously yet another attempt at creating an iconic, supernatural slasher icon in the Freddy Krueger mold, yet I, Madman has a bit more going for it than most of it's by-the-numbers brethren, perhaps coming closest in tone and feel to the excellent, original Nightmare on Elm St.  The supernatural story story has more in common with gothic horror literature than it does with a typical stalk-n-slash cheapie, and director Takacs (the similarly underrated The Gate) gives the movie a dreamlike, slightly surreal atmosphere filled with odd colors, smoke and fog, piercing car headlights and occasional bursts of Raimi-inspired wild camerawork.  As played by nonactor Randall William Cook (the film's effects artist, who had worked on The Thing and Ghostbusters and would go on to the Lord of the Rings trilogy), Kessler doesn't have the screen presence of Freddy Krueger, nor does his ever-changing appearance (he augments his own damaged, mutilated body with parts removed from his victims) allow for him to acquire any sort of iconic totem, like the masks of Jason Voorhees or Michael Meyers.  Still, Cook's piercing eyes and impressive physicality help to sell the character and do provide a genuine sense of menace.  The performances are all better than average for a late-period slasher, with special marks going to Wright as the put-upon heroine.  She plays the part with absolute conviction, helping to sell some of the story's sillier aspects.  Watch for a scene in a porno book publisher's office that features great posters for East of Edith and Moby's Dick!  I wouldn't go so far as to call this a forgotten classic, but it is an overlooked little gem that horror fans should enjoy.

Entry 64: Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Entry 64: Cannibal Holocaust

Dir: Ruggero Deodato

"The one that goes all the way!"




Today is my birthday!  Yes, dear reader, a woman actually gave birth to me; I didn't just crawl out of a rat-infested gutter somewhere.  In order to celebrate, Mrs. Basement of Sleaze makes her triumphant return to join me for a film from my birth year.  Yes, it's one of my all-time favorites, Ruggero Deodato's immortal 1980 classic, Cannibal Holocaust.

When a documentary film crew disappears in the Amazon while shooting a film about cannibalism, Anthropologist Monroe (porno actor Robert Kerman, who also had non-porn roles in Night of the Creeps and Spider-Man) is dispatched to discover what became of the vanished videographers.  After a harrowing jungle journey, Kerman returns with reels of film documenting the film crew's abuse and torture of the native people, culminating in an orgy of violence as the subjugated natives take their revenge against these "real professionals."

Despite some indefensible on-screen animal deaths, this is a great film.  It's stomach-churning gore serves a purpose, as the film is meant to be an indictment of media culture's need to seek out more sensationalistic and violent material to showcase.  It's breathtakingly lensed by Sergio D'Offizi and features a beautiful, iconic score by Riz Ortolani.  This is perhaps the most influential horror film of the past three decades, as it's the first "found footage" flick, which means you can blame Deodato for Paranormal Activity 37 or whatever piece of shit will be clogging up the multiplexes this October.  Anyway, you get to hear from me all the goddamn time; let's hear what my better half has to say:

Holy fuck, I enjoyed this film. It was well done and looked amazing. I was anticipating more gore, (shame on me?) so it was easier to handle than expected. (We did watch the animal cruelty free version so maybe that had a little something to do with it). I'm not hip to actors names and previous flicks they've been in like MJH but I'll tell you, naked Miguel, OH YEAH! and when the professor skinny dips with the native ladies and one of them playfully splashed him and CUPS HIS BALLS...I laughed. It was great! After that I was in, unfortuately almost everyone else naked had something awful happen to them so, buzz kill. The scene that impacted me the most was after they gang rape the poor native girl, find her dead on a post ritualistically murdered and gaze at her body, both intrigued and enamored with what had just been done. Also, when Faye is captured, raped dragged off to certain death, BOOM! Vag shot, slit and all..dang girl, sorry about your head. In the end these smug jerks get what's coming to them. (They chop off a guys dick! Just because!) I enjoyed the message of the film. Who are the cannibals, really? ....Us, we are...in case you didn't know what I was getting at.

Thanks for your comments, Mrs. BoS...We'll catch you guys later!

"I wonder who the real cannibals are..."

Entry 63: The Power (1984)

The Power (1984)

Dir: Stephen Carpenter & Jeffrey Obrow

"Pray for them.  They have unleashed...The power."

 

In honor of my impending birthday, Mrs. Basement of Sleaze took it upon herself to mop up all the blood and semen and sweep away the rat corpses and stale popcorn down here.  Now that I'm living like a king in a freshly-cleansed basement, I figured the best way to show my appreciation would be to take in a movie and write about it.  It's 1:30 in the morning, however, so this is gonna be a quickie...

A group of college kids come into possession of an Aztec idol and, during a seance at a cemetery, bad shit happens and a maintenance worker winds up dead.  They bring their story to a pair of bickering, will-they-or-won't-they tabloid reporters.  The male half of this intrepid journalistic duo winds up with the idol, which turns him into a rubbery-faced monster who proceeds to stalk the kids.

I'm not going to put about as much effort into this entry as this film's two (?) directors put into it's production, which is none at all.  The heroine and villain being adult tabloid reporters is the only interesting/unique aspect of this entry into the 80s slasher catalog.  This film first caught my attention as a young man when I saw some intriguing stills from it in an early edition of John Stanley's Creature Features movie guide.  Sadly, the film itself is an aggressively-mediocre mashup of John Carpenter's Halloween and Sam Raimi's Evil Dead, but bereft of the directorial stylishness of either of those classics.  Co-writer/co-director Carpenter is best known today as the creator of the inexplicably popular television series Grimm.  For 80s horror completionists only.

Entry 62: Roller Boogie

Roller Boogie (1979)

Dir: Mark L. Lester

"It's love on wheels!"
 
  
Linda Blair, the unofficial Queen of the Basement of Sleaze, returns to cleanse the palette after our difficult-to-watch last feature...Prepare yourself for a rocking, rolling, rambunctious, raucous good time...that's right, motherfuckers; it's goddamn Roller Boogie!

"Hey 'Phones, let's skate!"  With these words begins an odyssey for the ages, as a duo of young rollerskatin' dudes is joined one-by-one by other members of their neighborhood (including a couple of scantily-clad babes, a guy with a terrific mustache and an alarmingly-30something man they refer to as "Jumpin' Jack Flash") until the group is large enough to form a full-on rolling dance routine, interrupted only by a tall, gangly, awkward skater who breaks their ranks (whatta nerd!).  After that, we're introduced to roller skating queen Terry (Blair), a poor little rich girl (she has a car phone in '79!) who's peeved because her socialite parents don't pay any attention to her ("I thought I'd go down to the beach today and commit suicide!" "That's nice, dear; have a good day.").  Hot-dogging skater Bobby (Jim Bray, who apparently retired from acting after this) is a poor kid who has the hots for stuck-up Terry, but her parents have already set her up with rich kid Franklin (Christopher S. Nelson, Without Warning, who sweats profusely and leers at Blair's knees during a clarinet recital).  Terry hires Bobby to teach her to "dance while skating," and the two begin to bicker/fall in love, while Bobby is advised by his buddies Phones (Stoney Jackson, Streets of Fire, Jocks), Hoppy (James Van Patten, brother of Timothy and featured in the Saw movies) and Gordo (Albert Insinnia, Corvette Summer) and Terry is consoled by an enormous pair of walking breasts named Lana (Kimberly Beck, Friday the 13th-the Final Chapter).  Will these two star-crossed kids find love in time for Terry to win the big Venice Beach roller boogie competition and raise enough dough to save the local skating rink from mobsters?  Are my lungs black and rotting? 

I love, love, LOVE this movie!  It's a supremely silly movie, in which street punks are able to defeat mafioso-types by throwing rotten vegetables and kids on roller skates can outrun a speeding car, but it touches me in all the right 70's places: big collars, shirts buttoned only once or twice, jumpsuits, tight pants and great disco and glam tunes.  The whole cast is enthusiastic and earnest, and Blair is genuinely sexy and confident (in her first big post-drug bust role).  Dean Cundey (who lensed previous entry The Witch Who Came from the Sea and went on to work with Carpenter and Spielberg) provides plenty of neon-drenched color to the proceedings.  Best of all, this was directed by the once-godly Mark L. Lester, who also directed undisputed classics Class of 1984 ("Take a look at my face, I am the future!") and motherfucking Commando ("Let off some steam, Bennett!"), before giving up and blowing his (considerable) talent on direct-to-SyFy Channel features.  The entire plot of this film (literally scene-by-scene) was recycled for the more famous Breakin'.    

Entry 61: The Witch who Came from the Sea (1976)

The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976)

Dir: Matt Cimber

"Molly really knows how to cut men down to size!"


Molly (Millie Perkins, The Diary of Anne Frank, Wall Street), babysits her two nephews on the beach, regaling them with tails of her father, who she describes as "beautiful" and "as great as Christopher Columbus!"  See, pops was a sea captain who disappeared at sea 15 years ago, leaving Molly and her older sister Doris (Peggy Feury, All of Me) to fend for themselves.  Doris disagrees with Molly's opinion of their late pops, describing him as a "drunken bum" and a "monster."  Molly gets disturbed when she watches some prime 70's beefcake pumping iron on the beach (the slow-motion photography in these scenes and the short-shorts on display made me think I'd temporarily wandered into a gay porno flick).  After getting drunk, she hallucinates that a football player on television speaks to her about sailing the sea, then dreams of getting naked with the player and one of his teammates and erotically tying nautical knots (I'm not fucking with you).  Their conversation builds from initially playful beginnings and turns intense, ending with bear-titted Molly messily castrating both men with a dull straight razor.  Coming out of her alcohol-induced fantasy, Molly heads to a sleazy pierside bar, where she works as a cocktail waitress.  Molly's co-workers are all miserable people; bartender Long John (Lonny Chapman, The Birds, 52 Pick-up) complains endlessly about the menopause symptoms of his older employees, head waitress Cathy (Vanessa Brown, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir) gets drunk and calls him a motherfucker and regular patron Billy (Rick Jason, TVs Combat! and motherfucking Manimal) is a dirty old man obsessed with deflowering young virgins.  Molly is fucking Long John and, when she wakes up in his bed the next morning, a news report informs her that the two football players she fantasized about killing have, in fact, turned up dead.  As her sanity continues to unravel, Molly begins having visions of herself as a girl, with her father kissing her or showing up naked (in one particularly disconcerting sequence, young Molly screams repeatedly, her voice become more distorted with each shriek).  After having an S&M encounter with Billy at a party, Molly sleeps with commercial actor McPeak (Stafford Morgan, Another 48 Hrs, The Stunt Man) and has a naked mermaid tattooed on her stomach.  She has another flashback/hallucination in which her father becomes enraged over a B&W TV clown and his bellowing voice turns into howling wind (at this point, the movie has fully veered into Lynch territory).  As the police close in on the killer (the cops believe it to be a woman, though Cathy blames "faggots"), McPeak ignores Molly's phone calls and she hallucinates him slashing his own throat in the shower.  Later, she actually slashes his throat and castrates him post-coitus, then returns to Long John's covered in blood.  While Molly has visions of the dismembered bodies of her victims as chum on a raft, she confesses to the murders to Cathy and Long John, and we get a final flashback, which reveals that Molly's father (who had a mermaid tattoo on his stomach) died while raping her.  If things weren't already fucked up enough, Long John helps Molly kill herself with an overdose of pills, then invites her nephews to pour her a glass of vodka when they show up.  "Boys, aunt Molly needs to take a nap now..."

Jesus Christ, what else to say?  This is a difficult film to watch, and it's psychological dissection of a damaged, pitiable heroine reaches far beyond the usual Basement-of-Sleaze fair.  Perkins gives a fearless, riveting performance as Molly in this unfairly obscure psychological horror film/character study.  At it's (questionable) best, this film produced in me a level of discomfort equaled only by Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.  And while it may not quite equal Lynch's masterpiece, it's still a daring, uncompromising and unapologetically grimy piece of filmmaking.  Director Cimber (a blaxploitation vet best known for The Candy Tangerine Man) keeps the camera prowling, the angles odd and, with the aid of moody cinematography by Dean Cundey (Halloween, Jurassic Park) creates a dreamlike atmosphere worthy of the film's fairy tale-ish title, but his insistence on toeing the line between trashy (lots of extraneous tit shots) and genuinely harrowing gives the movie an occasionally schizophrenic feel.  Worth a watch, but not the right choice for kicking back and relaxing with a beer after a long day's work (or family movie night!).