Entry 127: Snuff (1975)

Snuff (1975)

Dirs: Michael Findlay, Horacio Fredriksson, Simon Nuchtern

"A film that could only be made in South America, where life is CHEAP!"

 

Hey there; c'mon down!  Welcome to the Basement of Sleaze.  Clear a path through the stale popcorn, used condoms and hypodermic needles and make yourself cozy.  Y'know, I've been writing this stupid blog for TWO years and, though my output slowed a bit in my second year, I've no intention of stopping...It's just too much goddamn fun.  I thought I might take a moment, on this momentous occasion, to reaffirm my statement of purpose.  I spent a good deal of my late childhood and pretty much all of my teens digging through magazine bins at used bookstores, record shops and seedy newsagents trying to dig up cheap back issues of horror movie review 'zines (Psychotronic Video, Slime Time, Cinema Sewer, Shock Cinema, etc.).  I poured over those goddamn rags, thrilling to the lurid descriptions of films I could only dream of tracking down and witnessing for myself.  Later, when greater mobility (and the advent of the internet) made hunting said films down much simpler, I discovered a simple truth: oftentimes, READING about these movies is infinitely more fun than watching them!  Many of those old mags aren't around any longer (though Steven Puchalski's Shock Cinema is still kicking and STILL the shit; check it out!), it is in the yellowed, dog-eared spirit of those publications and their various creators that I continue to do this.

Now then, I've decided no to do anything TOO special for this anniversary entry, but I will be taking a look at a particularly notorious piece of filth that I haven't covered here yet.  Join me, won't you, for a stiff celebratory cocktail as we head down to South America...where life is CHEAP, for Snuff!

The film opens with a couple of choppers cruising down the highway to the strains of an instrumental version of Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" that's JUST different to avoid a lawsuit and driven by a couple of cute, leather-clad hippy chicks.  The bikers are Susana and Carmela, disciples of Manson-like Brazilian cult leader Satan.  When fellow cult member Ana holds out on some sweet drugs from the rest of the cult, Satan orders Susana and Angelica to disable her via gunshot and cut her toes off!  We then see Angelica stab a man to death at an airport where exotic foreign film director Max Marsh and his beautiful leading lady, Terry, are arriving in Brazil to film a movie.  Terry is publicly "with" Max, but she's actually fucking local playboy Horst on the side (Horst drives a sweet ChrisCraft speedboat, so you know he's loaded).  In a plot twist that you absolutely WILL see coming, Horst has a housekeeper/fuck buddy who is...yup, Angelica, the murderous supplicant of Satan!  In a goofy flashback scene, we see a naked Angelica swear allegiance to Satan while they frolic in a lake with his other (female) acolytes, and he orders her to get close to Horst; to infiltrate his world and "make them trust you."  When Terry becomes pregnant with Horst's child, he kicks Angelica to the curb.  We're then treated to an endless-feeling sequence at Carnaval, where scenes of Horst going down on Terry are intercut with scenes of street performers, "climaxing (heh heh heh)" in Terry reaching orgasm while Max is murdered by Angelica with a Rambo-style combat knife.  Angelica and Satan show up at Horst's house but, after an incomprehensible argument involving Nazis, butchers and knives, are thrown out by Horst's father and blast down the highway on their sweet hog, while once again the "Born to be Wild" knockoff plays.  After a lengthy flashback details the origin of Angelica (which involves rape, mutilation and patricide), Angelica and the rest of Satan's disciples descend upon Horst's home.  At this point, the film jarringly cuts to a scene in which an actress (who I assume is supposed to represent Terry, but looks nothing like her) is (very unconvincingly) mutilated on-set by her co-stars and crew.  Title explained, film over.   

Having seen the recent, belated third sequel to The Blair Witch Project, I was recently reflecting upon the significance of that film; chiefly, how it represented an absolute triumph of film marketing.  Using then-nascent internet culture, distributor Artisan turned a cheap found-footage film into a multimillion dollar success.  Well, a quarter century earlier, Snuff exploited marketing in a similar fashion.  If the results weren't quite as financially rewarding, they cast an even wider net over pop culture in general.  In the early seventies, urban legends of "snuff" films began making tabloid headlines.  Like any good exploitation producers, filmmakers Roberta and Michael Findlay (Shriek of the Mutilated, several porno flicks) seized the opportunity to make a buck.  They took a Manson-inspired hippy cult murder film they'd made (and never released) in 1971 called The Slaughter and released it under a new title, complete with a tacked-on, newly-shot ending that made it appear as if the lead actress in the film had actually been murdered on-set.  Taking into account the facts that the actress in the newly-shot footage bared little resemblance to the actress in the old footage, and that canny horror film aficionados would spot the deception a mile away, the Findlays presented the film as a limited-engagement, "roadshow"-style exhibition, and hired local actors to pose as priests, nuns and women's rights advocates protesting the film.  The deception worked like gangbusters, and the notoriety surrounding the film made national headlines, culminating in the producers having to appear in court to testify to the fictitious nature of the film, all the while riding the wave of controversy to millions of dollars in ticket sales, and a film that continues to be condemned by those not "in the know" to this day.  In actuality, Snuff is a pretty unremarkable film; it's poorly shot, filled with unconvincing blood and gore effects and features atrocious performances, further hindered by terribly ADRed dialogue.  Worst of all, JUST as you're getting into the (threadbare) plot of The Slaughter, the film cuts away to the bullshit "snuff movie" ending, and you never get to see how the story concludes! 

Snuff certainly deserves its place in the annals of film marketing, and even horror film history in general, but I'd be lying to you if I said it was a particularly engaging film to watch.  The sad thing is, I would have genuinely liked to know how the pseudo-Manson flick The Slaughter ended!  By all means, read an article or two about the film itself, but you can safely skip watching it.

That's a cap on two years, dear readers; if you stick with me, I'll see you for several more!                      

 

Entry 126: Endless Descent (AKA The Rift-1989)

Endless Descent (AKA The Rift-1989)

Dir: Juan Piquer Simon

"You can't hold your breath and scream at the same time."

 

Jack Scalia (Fear City, TV's Dallas) stars as the improbably named (and even more improbably coifed-seriously, this guy has an 80's lion's-mane pompadour that would make Overboard-era Kurt Russel green with envy) Wick Hayes, a genius nautical engineer.  When an experimental submarine he helped design disappears on its maiden voyage, Wick is strong-armed by the government into joining the crew of another submarine dispatched to recover its black box.  The crew of stereotypes Wick accompanies includes a take-no-shit southerner captain (R. Lee Ermey, Full Metal Jacket, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake), a jive-talking comic relief black guy (John Toles-Bey, Trespass, Waterworld) a sexy-but-frigid woman (Ely Pouget from the underrated Death Machine), a snooty Frenchman (Emilio Linder, Pieces, Monster Dog), Wick's ex-wife (soap actress Deborah Adair) and...um...Ray Wise (Robocop, appearing here the same year he first played Leland Palmer on Twin Peaks).  Arriving at the last known location of the previous sub, the crew must deal with mutated, enlarged algae and a gigantic, murderous cephalopod before they discover a naturally-pressurized underwater cave.  Within the cave, they discover giant, mutated fish, aborted human/amphibian hybrid fetuses and giant brain-like mollusks that consume human flesh.  It turns out that the first sub was involved in illegal government weapons testing, and (in a very Alien-inspired subplot) that the current crew has a traitor in their midst ordered to ensure they don't return to report their findings...I did mention Ray Wise was in the cast, right?  Oh yeah, the algae they encountered earlier is also capable of spreading a fungal virus to any humans who touch it (think Stephen King in Creepshow).  Can Scalia and Adair defeat Wise, avoid the fungus, escape to the surface AND rekindle their romance?  I wouldn't bet against it!

Endless Descent was the last of the cycle of underwater monster movies unleashed in 1989, a cycle that also included The Abyss, Deepstar Six, Corman's Lords of the Deep and Leviathan.  Actually, Leviathan producer Dino De Laurentiis also backed this much lower-budgeted flick on the side (he's uncredited).  It's a C-movie, to be sure, but it IS a lot of fun.  The sets are cheap-looking, but the creature effects (provided by folks who'd worked on Alien and The NeverEnding Story) are surprisingly decent and the gore is explicit and plentiful (including a GREAT half-decapitation).  The performances are mostly just serviceable, but Scalia acquits himself well as an action hero (even if you never QUITE buy him as a savant-like engineer) and Wise gets to indulge in some joyous scenery-chewing once he's revealed as the villain.  Director Simon also made the amazing slasher flick Pieces and legendary, MST3K-fodder E.T. knockoff Extraterrestrial Visitors (AKA Pod People).  On a technical level, this is probably his best film, though it isn't QUITE as much fun to watch as Pieces.

Hey, I know I don't post this quite as often as I used to, but I'm working on it!  I WILL be back in three days for my 2-year anniversary entry, which will probably be pretty much like every other entry.      

Entry 125: Sssssss (1973)

Sssssss (1973)

Dir: Bernard L. Kowalski

"Once this motion picture sinks its fangs into you, you'll never be the same."

 

I'm feeling a little cold blooded tonight, folks; better grab a sweater, bundle up and enjoy the 1973 fright flick Sssssss...Remember, "don't say it, HISS it!"

After his research assistant disappears under...*ahem*..."mysterious circumstances," herpetologist Dr. Carl Stoner (whose name will no doubt elicit endless guffaws from all your ganja-rocking buddies and who's played by Struther Martin, The Wild Bunch, Up in Smoke) hires grad student Dirk Benedict (TV's Battlestar Galactica and The A-Team) as his new assistant.  Benedict moves in to Martin's rural southern home, where he conducts mysterious experiments on reptiles and raises money for his research by treating tourists to a show in which he milks his prized possession, a huge Indian Cobra.  What Benedict doesn't realize is that Martin is a deranged coot who believes that reptiles are destined to inherit the earth, and that the "anti-venom serum" that Martin routinely injects him with is actually a mutagen designed to transform him into a snake.  Martin, in turn, doesn't count on the handsome-ass Benedict catching the eye of his twentysomething research assistant daughter, Kristina (Heather Menzies, Piranha, TV's Logan's Run), who has no idea of the more sinister agenda behind her father's work.  This raises the ire of her dumb, redneck, jock suitor, Steve (Reb motherfucking Brown, The Howling II, Space Mutiny, in a VERY early role), who retaliates by killing her favorite pet snake!  As Benedict and Menzies get closer and begin swapping spit, Martin uses venomous snakes to bump off Brown and a meddling colleague (Richard Shull, Klute, Cockfighter).  When Benedict and Menzies visit a traveling carnival, they encounter a pathetic, mewling reptile man in the freak show who makes them both uneasy.  When Benedict refuses to see her the next day on the grounds of sudden illness, Menzies returns to the carnival for a closer look at the haunting reptile man.  Back home, Benedict begins to rapidly mutate into a great-looking snake man (makeup effects courtesy of John Chambers, who had worked on the Planet of the Apes movies and would go on to do the prosthetic effects for Blade Runner).  When Menzies gets a good look at the circus freak snakeman's eyes, she recognizes her father's previous research assistant and rushes home to warn Benedict...But can she possibly make it in time?

Sssssss was a late-night local station staple when I was a kid, and it served as one of my earliest introductions to the lurid, sleazy, often downbeat world of 70s exploitation flicks, and for that I owe it a debt of gratitude.  It's a classic 50's mad scientist/creature feature retrofitted with a veneer of southern-gothic atmosphere and 70s cynicism (I remember the ending REALLY bumming me out as a kid).  It's got GREAT effects and director Kowalski (Attack of the Giant Leeches, Flight to Holocaust) creates a nice, ominous atmosphere shot through with rural weirdness.  The performances are solid, as well-Benedict is a fairly bland lead initially, but really pulls through in conveying his character's anguish in the final third of the movie.  Martin brings just a bit of sympathy to his role as a murderous madman in the Victor Frankenstein mold and Menzies...Well, as much as I wallow in nudity and degradation down here (this IS the Basement of Sleaze), it's nice to see a female lead in this type of film who isn't overtly sexualized or victimized; her character is ultimately defined by her brains, not her boobs (though Kowalski can't resist slipping one brief topless shot into the movie's sole love scene).  And it's DAMN fun to see Brown, several years before becoming a Z-grade action movie hero, bringing his...unique delivery and acting choices to a "douchy frat guy"-type role.  As an aside, Menzies would reunite on-screen with Brown six years later, playing the love interest to his Steve Rogers in the 1979 Captain America TV movie.

Sssssss is EXACTLY the kind of movie folks went to the drive-in hoping to see 40 years ago.  Those days are long gone, but there's no reason you can't have a blast watching it with a few friends...
Recommended!