Entry 109: The Food of the Gods (1976)

The Food of the Gods (1976)

Dir: Bert I. Gordon

"H.G. Welles, the master of science fiction, tells his most frightening story..."



A regular reader recently suggested that I take a look at the filmography of America's favorite revivalist minister-turned-actor Marjoe Gortner, who was briefly a big star/heartthrob in the mid-70s.  I've decided to turn this May into "Marjoe May" and look at quite a few of his films, but as I'd just recently watched this flick, I figured I'd give you an appetizer.  So put on your fanciest dinnerware and join me in the Basement as we sample The Food of the Gods!

In this low-buck Welles adaptation, Marjoe stars as Morgan, the captain of a pro football team who decides to take a little off-season RnR on a secluded island with a couple of his teammates, Davis and Bryan.  After lots of unnecessary slow-mo shots of Marjoe and friends hunting deer on horseback through the woods, Davis (Chuck Courtney, Billy the Kid vs Dracula, Pet Sematary, and no relation to Joe), is thrown from his mount and killed by a swarm of cat-sized wasps!  Looking for aid at a nearby log cabin, Gortner is attacked by a ridiculous, bear-sized chicken in the stable.  Upon confronting the occupant of the farm, Mrs. Skinner (Ida Lupino, TVs Batman, The Devil's Rain), he discovers that she's been feeding the chickens slop from containers marked "FOTG."  Inquiring as to the origin of the mysterious foodstuffs, he gets the reply "It came from the good Lord. (THAT never ends well!)."  After a VERY padded sequence in which Morgan and Bryan (Jon Cypher, Man-at-Arms from Masters of the Universe!) take a ferry to the mainland and we get MANY close-ups of Marjoe looking concerned, we get to see Mrs. Skinner attacked by giant maggots in her home, in the film's most off-putting sequence.  Meanwhile, Mr. Skinner (John McLiam, Cool Hand Luke, First Blood) returns to the island after a business deal on the mainland to sell "FOTG" and is torn apart by enormous rats!  Morgan and Brian head back to the island to destroy the wasps and meet up with sleazy pharmaceutical rep Bensington (Ralph Meeker, a LONG way from playing Mike goddamn Hammer in the classic Kiss Me Deadly), his cute assistant Lorna (Pamela Franklin, Necromancy, The Legend of Hell House) and vacationing young couple Thomas (Tom Stovall, Silkwood) and pregnant Rita (Belinda Balaski, pretty much every Joe Dante movie).  Eventually, these disparate individuals hole up in the Skinner farmhouse while besieged by pony-sized rats that have gotten into the FOTG.  Asshole Bensington gets torn apart and eaten, Brian heroically sacrifices himself and, in the film's most howl-inducing, sanity-doubting moment, smitten Lorna asks of Marjoe "I want you to do me a favor.  I want you to make love to me" as the rats are literally trying to eat their way into the house.  Marjoe comes up with a plan to use the farms water supply to electrocute the rats and he, Lorna, Rita and Thomas make their escape but, in the requisite 70s twist-ending, the FOTG-tainted water makes it's way into a reservoir and is served to school children...

Food of the Gods has found it's way onto all sorts of lame "worst movies of all time lists," and it truthfully isn't very "good" in the commonly-accepted sense, but I'll be goddamned if it isn't a lot of fun to watch.  Marjoe overacts like crazy, playing every scene as if he's on the verge of a heart attack, Meeker looks like he'd rather be anywhere else and Cypher's Bryan is a take-no-shit badass who I was genuinely sorry to see go.  The movie features some truly awful projection, compositing and miniature effects, but some of the full-size rats (built by a young Rick Baker) are actually quite good.  Gordon (who had been making films since the 50s) is an at-best-serviceable director and a truly awful screenwriter, but there's something charming about the low-rent ineptitude of his body of work.  And credit where credit's due-the man just released a new film last year at the age of 92!    

Entry 108: Podcast 1-The Blood of Heroes (1989) & The New Gladiators (1983)

The Blood of Heroes (AKA Salute of the Jugger-1989)

Dir: David Webb Peeples

"The time will come when winning is everything."

 


The New Gladiators (1983)

Dir: Lucio Fulci

"No one survives this show."


Hey folks, this is the first installment of the new (hopefully monthly) Basement of Sleaze podcast!  Because you can't have any kind of REAL internet presence without a goddamn podcast these days, here it is:

https://ia801509.us.archive.org/24/items/BoSPodcastEpisode1/BoS%20-%20Podcast%20-%20Episode%201.mp3

 I want to take the opportunity to thank Benjamin, the engineer for the podcast and the man chiefly responsible for prodding me to get off my ass and get it recorded.  Thanks also go out to David, Barbara and Cassandra, who kindly sat in and shared their thoughts on the films as panelists.  I'll be back soon with another traditional blog entry and should have another podcast up in about a month.

Entry 107: The Shadow (1994)

The Shadow (1994)

Dir: Russell Mulcahy

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

   

Hey, I told you guys before; they aren't ALWAYS gonna be sleazy!  The bulk of this blog will ALWAYS focus on exploitative flicks from the 60s-80s, but occasionally I like to take a detour into big-budget, mainstream releases; ESPECIALLY those that have kind of slipped through the cracks of our collective pop-culture consciousness over the years.  So break out your fedora, but on your blackest trenchcoat and journey into the Basement with me as I discover what evil lurks in the hearts of men with The Shadow!

In a truly bizarre prologue, we meet Lamont Cranston (Alec Baldwin, Beetlejuice, Miami Blues), a Caucasian opium lord in post-WWI Mongolia (?!) with a weird goth-rock look.  Through plot contrivances I can't fully explain (and I was sober AND giving the film my full attention), he runs afoul of a martial arts-fighting mystic who offers to teach him his magical ways of combat so that he might use them to atone for his sins and fight evil.  Cranston says "Fuck it.  Why not?"

Several years later, Cranston has moved back to America, settled in NYC and used his ill-gotten opium money to become an eligible playboy bachelor by day.  By night, however, he dons a black fedora and trenchcoat, red scarf and twin .45s and becomes the Shadow, scourge of the city's underworld!  In addition to his fearsome visage and weaponry, he has the ability to turn invisible, cause selective amnesia with a gaze and has some sort of ill-defined psychic powers ("the Shadow knows!").  He also has a ring of informants/assistants scattered around the city, led by cab driver Moe (Peter Boyle, Joe, Young Frankenstein, who seems to be having a blast in this crazy movie).  Out to dinner one evening, Cranston meets Margo Lane (Penelope Ann Miller, Kindergarten Cop, The Relic), with whom he shares a psychic link.  That's pretty cool, because she's a sexy babe who quickly becomes smitten with our dour hero.  Significantly LESS cool is that Cranston shares the same link with the newly arrived Shiwan Khan (John Lone, Iceman, The Last Emperor), who also shares many of the Shadow's mystic, vaguely-Asian powers.  The last descendant of Genghis Khan, the evil Shiwan is determined to finish his ancestor's mission of conquest by destroying NYC with a proto-atom bomb (Yeah, it doesn't make any goddamn sense to me, either).  The Shadow and his allies race against time to defeat Khan, ending in a "psychic" duel in which our hero manages to get the upper hand and lobotomize Khan!

When Warner Brothers released Tim Burton's Batman in 1989, in was a wildly successful smash-hit, and every one of the major studios wanted a Batman of their own.  Unfortunately, Warner Brothers owned the entire roster of DC characters, and all of Marvel's world-famous heroes were locked up in dead-end deals with Corman and Golan-Globus or mired in legal copyright problems.  In response, the other studios looked to indie comics (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), The Rocketeer (1991), Judge Dredd (1995), newspaper strips (Dick Tracy, (1990), The Phantom (1996), or, in the case of The Shadow. pulp novels.  It seemed like a perfect idea; the Shadow had started as a radio drama persona before making the leap to the pulps and, eventually, his own comic book licensed to DC.  In addition, Burton's brooding, gothic take on Batman had much more in common with noir-inspired pulp heroes than it did with colorful, contemporary superheroes.  Though I ragged on it a bit in my summary, The Shadow is about half a really solid movie.  Baldwin is likeable as Cranston and appropriately menacing as the Shadow, and he's supported by a phenomenal cast that includes, in addition to the names already mentioned, James Hong (Blade Runner, Big Trouble in Little China), Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Clue) and Ian McKellan (The Keep, every Lord of the Rings movie).  Mulcahy (Razorback, Highlander-an underappreciated director who had bad luck picking scripts) does an admirable job of aping the dark, occasionally manic energy of Burton's Batflicks while toning down the expressionism and ghoulishness (honestly, this film probably comes closer to the tone and feel of the Batman comics than any of the Batman movies).  It's got great, noirish cinematography by DePalma regular Steve Burum, striking costumes by Bob Ringwood (Excalibur, Dune and...um...Batman) and elaborate, period-appropriate production design by Joseph Nemec III (Terminator 2: Judgement Day).  Where the movie fails (and fails fucking HARD) is in the nonsensical script by David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man).  From its baffling Mongolian prologue to its nebulous "psychic duel" ending, this picture makes no fucking sense!  How, exactly, did the Shadow get his powers?  Why, exactly, did he decide to give up being a drug lord to fight crime?  Why does he share a psychic link with Margo?  Why does he share a psychic link with Khan?  Why does Khan want to blow up NYC instead of just using his psychic powers to conquer it (at one point in the movie, he ACTUALLY DEMONSTRATES that he's capable of mass-hypnotism!).  The problem is that the Shadow has appeared in many mediums over the years and, in each one, has slightly different powers/abilities.  In trying to combine all of them, and add a couple new ones, Koepp lays out WAY MORE than he can explain in a 100-minute movie AND still tell an engaging story.  Also, as a personal irritant, Baldwin is in the Shadow costume for MAYBE 15 minutes of screen time; beyond that, it's a LOT of Lamont Cranston running around in a tuxedo looking smug/slightly mysterious.  Anyway, The Shadow was a major commercial failure upon it's initial release, partly because it had the misfortune to open opposite The Lion King and the inexplicably-popular The Mask, and partially because audiences already seemed a little tired of the brooding, gothic superhero trope.  Shadow action figures, costumes and making-of books collected dust and were clearanced out.  Sadly, as a result of the film's failure, Mulcahy's A-list career officially came to an end and he was banished to the realm of direct-to-video and syndicated television.  Despite it's flaws, I hope he feels vindicated knowing that his film at least has aged better than the fucking Mask.  He probably doesn't.     

Entry 106: Pet Sematary (1989)

Pet Sematary (1989)

Dir: Mary Lambert

"Sometimes dead is better."

   

Lock up your pets and small children, 'cause tonight I'm leaving the Basement and wandering down that dark path in the woods to the Pet Sematary!

Chicago doctor Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff, Nightmare Weekend, TV's Time Trax and the prototype for Nathan Fillion) moves to rural Maine with his wife Rachel (Denise Crosby, 48 Hours, TV's Star Trek: the Next Generation) and children Ellie (the excellently-named Blaze Berdahl) and Gage (Miko Hughes, the son of John Hughes and a prolific child actor) to take up a residency at a small college.  Unfortunately, the Creed's new home is situated directly next to an insanely busy highway.  Louis befriends folksy next door neighbor Jud (the late, great Fred Gwynne, TV's The Munsters, My Cousin Vinny), who reveals to them a surprisingly well-stocked pet cemetery hidden in the woods behind their house (it's decrepit sign, misspelled years ago by a child, gives the film it's curious title).  When Ellie's cat is killed on the highway, Jud reveals a secret to Louis: beyond the pet cemetery lays an ancient Indian burial ground with strange powers.  Jud implores Louis to bury the cat in this ancient holy ground and, much to Louis' surprise, the cat reappears the next day, but with a noxious odor, dead eyes and a surly disposition.  Louis is astonished, but agrees to keep the secret with Jud.  When toddler Gage tragically wanders in front of a speeding semi, a grief-stricken Louis decides to bury his son at the Indian grounds, much to Jud's objection.  Gage returns, but as a terrifying, unhinged, scalpel-wielding monster.  Can Louis put his own risen son down before further tragedy strikes his family?  Fuck no, and the result of his folly leads to a satisfying (if mildly predictable) punchline of a conclusion.

Full disclosure: I went through a Stephen King phase in junior high and high school, but I never got to this film's source novel, so I can't make any comments about it's accuracy/effectiveness as an adaptation.  I do know that it was one of King's favorite novels, and he protectively refused to sell the film rights until his close friend George Romero and his producing partner, Richard Rubinstein, showed interest.  Romero was set to direct, but had to bow out when Monkey Shines proved to be a difficult and overlong shoot and would have delayed the start of this film (he ended up doing a King adaptation anyway; 1993's The Dark Half) and music video vet Lambert was brought onboard (she directed the promos for Madonna's "Like a Virgin" and Janet Jackson's "Nasty," among others).  While having no desire to direct again after the fiasco of Maximum Overdrive, the overprotective King insisted on being present during filming and required the film to be shot on locations near his Maine home.  Okay, now that the goddamn history lesson is over, what about the film?  It's a good one; in fact, it's among the finest of the King adaptations.  Lambert doesn't quite ratchet up the tension or create much of a sense of impending doom in the beginning, resulting in a pretty slooooow first 45 minutes.  Once things kick into high gear, however, she brings the house down with effective, claustrophobic framing and the occasional break into manic, Raimi-inspired camerawork.  Hughes (who I normally find irritatingly cloying and cutesy) is chilling as the reborn Gage.  Scenes of him stalking and terrorizing Gwynne and Crosby are pants-shittingly scary and evocative of similar scenes in Cronenberg's The Brood.  Gwynne is phenomenal as the good-hearted neighbor who harbors a dark secret and Midkiff, though initially coming off a bit bland, really ratchets up the intensity of his performance as the horrors pile upon his character.  The film's only real problems (aside from the aforementioned languid beginning) lay with King's script.  The idea the Ellie has some sort of psychic powers is touched upon a couple of times in the film, but never explained or expanded, nor are the visions Rachel continually has of her deceased, spinal meningitis-suffering sister or the bizarre hatred that her father exhibits toward Louis.  Most jarring is Victor Pascow (Brad Greenquist, Mutants in Paradise, Lost Souls), a college student killed by a car on Louis' first day of work.  Because Louis tried to help him, Pascow appears to him in dreams to warn him of the evil of the burial ground and appears as a spectral figure occasionally watching over Rachel.  Pascow ultimately does nothing to help the Creeds and his presence adds nothing to the story; instead, he comes off as a less-effective copy of Jack from An American Werewolf in London.  I'm sure these were all meaningful subplots in King's lengthy novel, but they don't really belong in a 100 minute film.  Script issues aside, some strong performances, fantastic production design and an intense final half that never lets up makes this well worth your time.  Oh, I almost forgot; the score by Elliot Goldenthal (Alien3, Blank Generation) kicks fucking ass!  
  

Entry 105: Pieces (1982)

Pieces (1982)

Dir: Juan Piquer Simon

"You don't have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre! Pieces...It's exactly what you think it is!"

   

I'll admit that I'm glad to be done watching porno movies for awhile, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to wallow in degenerate sleaze!  Join me in the Basement as I spend a little time with the INSANE Spanish horror flick Pieces!

In a 1942-set, Halloween inspired cold opening, a woman overreacts by threatening to burn all of her son's belongings when she catches him putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a naked woman.  When she also threatens to kill him (!?) if she catches him with porn again, he takes "get them before they get you" to heart and messily offs her with an axe before hacking her body to pieces with a handsaw.  40 years later, the now grown-up psycho is up to his old tricks, this time mutilating nubile young coeds on a college campus with a chainsaw.  But who is the killer?  Is it the slightly sinister Eurotrash Dean of Students (Edmund Purdom, Don't Open Til Christmas, Nightmare City), the cartoonishly sinister groundskeeper Willard (Paul Smith, Midnight Express, Dune), rapey anatomy professor Brown (Jack Taylor, Autopsy, Conan the Barbarian)?  That's what put-upon cop Bracken (the late, great Christopher George, Grizzly, Enter the Ninja) is tasked with discovering.  As the body count rises, Bracken, in a crackerjack bit of policework, deputizes honor roll student/manwhore (seriously, he seems to be fucking every girl on campus!) Kendall (Simon regular Ian Sera), putting him DIRECTLY in harms way.  In a bit of character development worthy of an '80's G.I. Joe filecard, Bracken also gets help from Mary Riggs (George's real-life wife Lynda Day, Day of the Animals, Mortuary), a professional tennis champ who grew bored with competing and decided to become an undercover cop!  The films ends with Purdom revealed as the killer as he takes Mary hostage...can Bracken and Kendall get to her in time?

Holy.  SHIT.  Words cannot express the sheer joy and happiness that swelled up in me while watching Pieces!  Where to start?  It's filled with overwrought performances (Smith's mugging is worth the 86 minutes of your time this film will take up alone!), BAFFLING character choices and plot developments the will make you doubt your sanity (Bracken deliberately putting a student in harm's way, Day's entire character...and how, exactly, did the midwestern kid from the prologue grow up to become VERY British Purdom?)...Jesus, did I mention that Day gets attacked by a KUNG FU FIGHTING NINJA out of FUCKING NOWHERE?  Yes, he's explained away by Kendall as the school's martial arts instructor before making a pricelessly non-PC joke about "eating bad chop suey!" in cartoonish broken English before disappearing from the film forever.  It's gory as hell, with plenty of severed limbs and decapitations done explicitly in-frame (the film was released unrated) and features plentiful female AND male full-frontal nudity (Sera's enormous wang should receive it's own credit)...something for everybody!  Oh yeah, it also features perhaps the finest "what the actual fuck?" twist ending in all of slasherdom.  For fuck's sake, seek this one out!

Entry 104: Oriental Blue (1975)

Oriental Blue (1975)

Dir: Bill Miling



It's a few days late, but tonight Fuck Flick February ends with a bang (pun ABSOLUTELY intended)!  Lube yourself up, toss on your best kimono and join me in the Basement of Sleaze for the gloriously un-PC-titled Oriental Blue! 

This picture opens with some great, authentic '70's 42nd Street footage before introducing us to "dragon lady" Madame Blue (Peonies Jong), who runs an underground NYC brothel.  Blue enjoys an "impeccable reputation" for supplying "product" to the WBA (World Brothel Association, naturally).  She keeps her "product" stocked by kidnapping young women off of the seedy, late-night streets of NYC, then making then drink her ancient-recipe "love juice" herbal tea, at which point they instantly transform into insatiable fuck fiends.  In order to keep the "merchandise" satisfied between Johns (or before being shipped off to other WBA-member locales), she employs stud Antonio (Tony Richards, from Abel Ferrera's 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy) to keep them "occupied (what a rough gig!)."  Because this malicious madame also has a thing for the ladies, she also occasionally coerces them into lesbian encounters and/or three-way trysts with her ("You're my complete whore, and you get anything you want.").  She employs "brutal, hard man" Rocky (Ashley Moore) to acquire a "negress" that she can "really sink my teeth into."  A WBA representative, Max (Bobby Astyr), that stops by for a conference manages to find time for a three way with Blue and her "best slave" Angel (C.J. Lang).  Blue is troubled by rogue agent Brock (porno legend Jamie Gillis, looking A LOT like Elliot Gould here), who threatens her empire by refusing to conform to the rules ("My cock isn't for sale...Nobody tells me who to fuck.").  Brock brings a down-on-her-luck Nebraska girl, Antea (Bree Anthony), back to his abandoned-theatre home/sex lair, drugs her with "love juice" and forces her into a three-way with his friend Antonio while Linda Ronstadt's original version of "You're No Good" plays on the soundtrack (I find it VERY hard to believe that the producers paid for the music rights).  Brock has an epiphany, falls in love with Antea and refuses to turn her over to Blue.  Blue pays a visit to another of her agents, Stefan (Stephen Lark), a Frenchman who looks and dresses like Dr. Strange and tasks him with "recruiting" a French girl for the WBA; after finding and seducing one ("Do you want to go somewhere and fuck or something?"), he has sex with her in a neon-lit abandoned theatre while the camera occasionally quickly cuts to neon-lit dildos (this is the best-shot scene in the film, and clearly predicted '80's music videos).  Brock is forced to give up Antea when Blue threatens to kill Antonio; when Brock relents, Blue gives Antea some "love juice:" "Now you will become MY sex slave!"  In a montage sequence, a vengeful Brock has rough sex with Angel while Blue seduces Antea, but Blue also falls in love with the Nebraska nymphette.  At this point, Max shows up again and forcibly has sex with Antea to the strains of the Beatles' "Hey Bulldog (again, most certainly unlicensed)."  Brock shows up, beats up Max, rescues Antea and kills Blue (but naturally, as this is a porno flick, not before having sex with her first).  As her last act before dying, Blue kisses Brock with a cyanide capsule, and Antea and Max decide to inherit her empire.

Oriental Blue is pretty standard seventies porno fare, but it's elevated by a solid performance from Gillis (who was a classically-trained actor before becoming a porn star), occasionally decent cinematography and some excellent, shot-on-location NYC footage.  It's not particularly sexy or erotic, and is recommended for sleaze enthusiasts only (naturally, I own a copy).