Monday, November 29, 2010

"The Last Exorcism"(2010)d/Daniel Stamm

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Your body is suddenly invaded by a foul denizen of the nether regions.You spout obscenities,blasphemies,and speak in dead languages that you've never learned.Welts,bruises,and stigmata appear upon your skin.Your joints lock up and your back and extremities flex at impossible angles.You crawl around on the walls and ceiling like a hellish insect.Others are frozen in terror,while I have just one thing to say.Baby,where you been all my life?You come at me oozing sexiness like that,and I'll send your soul parasite screaming back to Hades with an ice pack between its tentacles after a non-stop weekend in Grafenberg Heaven.You may be demonically possessed,but I'm Italian.That's a sucker bet.I've got Giardiniera coarsing through my veins,I've got more obscenities,blasphemies,rough foreplay,and pioneered pleasure positions(that'd have the peanut colored rascals behind the Kama Sutra turning beige)that you can shake a biforcated tail at.Don't make me have to chase you up the ceiling.Compared to most of the so-called "normal" chicks I've sampled,you're deep soul kisses at sunset in a suite at the Chateau d'Esclimont.
Needless to say,I was amped to hear about the upcoming release of tonight's feature,co-produced by Eli "Hostel" Roth,with visions of pillow-chested sex kittens skittering across my walls.The viral ad campaign on the interwebz was classic and effective as fuck.Of course,after I finally screened it,I was faced with a different kind of film than I was expecting at the outset.Exorcism is a mockumentary,in the "you are there" style and tradition of Blair Witch Project,[rec], and Paranormal Activity(which we'll be checking out some time this week,so keep your eyes rolled back for it)with a twist ending that seems like a throwback to Satansploitation fare of the seventies.Sounds great,right?Well,it would have been,if not for that goddamned shaky handheld camerawork that got real old about two movies after it caught on.There's plenty of it on display here,cockblocking a really cool idea from rising above mediocrity.Not to say there aren't cool things happening in Exorcism,because there are a few.If you're into movies about abductions by dark otherworldly forces or a stickler for mood-capturing camera placement vaguely reminiscent of the degree to which your humble N is,you might have a harder time coming out of a viewing feeling much good about it.
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Cross illumination?Just make a right past the second cornfield then pull in behind Skeeter's Bronco.
Cotton Marcus(Patrick Fabian)is an evangelical minister who's lost his faith.Naturally,he gathers a documentary film crew to debunk his whole former existence like a jaded magician revealing his secrets in front of the camera lens.He proves his flock are mindless sheep who don't even listen to the words of his sermons by randomly throwing "banana bread" into a filmed one and getting the same applause and cheers from his religious followers.Another of his Godly tools,exorcism,he has sworn off of after reading of a child suffering from autism being smothered to death during a botched rite,too close to home for a father of a disabled boy,as he is.Deciding to perform one titular last exorcism for the cameras,he randomly chooses a letter from a desperate farmer in a remote area of Louisiana who claims his teenaged daughter Nell(Ashley Bell)is possessed by the Devil himself.While seeking directions to the Sweetzer farmhouse,Marcus is advised by a teenaged boy(who turns out to be Nell's brother,Caleb)to go back from whence he came,and the back window of the crew van gets pelted by a cow patty to boot.Nice neighborhood.At the farm,Marcus meets Louis,Nell's father,and assures the God-fearing man that he will rid the girl of the demons inside her.Upon Iris(Iris Bahr)'s direction and in front of Daniel(Adam Grimes)'s lens,Marcus apes for the camera with hidden speakers in his clothes,smoke-billowing crucifixes,and a creaky bed repeatedly slamming the floor,convincing the farmer he is battling a powerful demon named Abalam.He collects a cash fee after he concludes the demon has been exorcised,only Nell mysteriously shows up at the crew's hotel room in the middle of the night,five miles away.
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Another satisfied customer dragged kicking and screaming away from the kid over here.Abalam bam,thank you,ma'am.Sorry...
Marcus takes the girl to the hospital,hoping psychological and physiological tests will prove to her father that she suffers from an entirely worldly problem,but the tests all come back negative.Louis takes Nell home,and chains her to her bed for slicing Caleb's grill with a knife(seen that on Cops about three hundred times,big deal).While the farmer takes his son to get his face unfucked at the hospital,Marcus and crew free the girl from her chains,only to be awakened by the sounds of a crying baby in the middle of the night,and Nell standing blankly in the hallway,after which she retreats to the bathroom to drown one of her baby dolls in the tub.The crew finds a juvenile drawing of a dead cat.Hmmm,that's peculiar.That night she steals their camera,pulling and stretching her face in front of it,then smashing the beejeesus out of the family cat with it in the barn before trying to discreetly brain Marcus' dome with it.They find more paintings.Depictions of Marcus being consumed in a giant flame,his director mutilated,and the cameraman beheaded.Strange.Louis makes it home from the hospital to hear an answering machine message that his daughter has a cupcake in her Easy Bake Oven.Marcus deduces that the farmer is an incestuous kiddie fiddler when Sweetzer tells him the demon must have impregnated her,matter-of-factly.Nell attacks Marcus again,and the minister agrees to perform another exorcism rather than let the hayseed blow her away with a shotgun.Out in the barn,Nell lets the evil presence inside her come forth,contorting her body and neck at inhuman angles,speaking Latin,breaking two of her own fingers backwards,identifying itself as Abalam,and asking the holy man if he wants a "blowing job".Marcus,certain that a demon wouldn't flub such choice obscenity,gets the girl to admit she was knocked up by a local boy named Logan and committed her wild aggro play out of the shame of her deeds.Only when they question the alleged fornicator,they discover he's got a bright future as a hairdresser or interior decorator.They return to an empty farmhouse swathed in Satanic symbolism(pentagrams,inverted crosses,ICP graffiti)nad when they roam out into the woods to investigate weird noise,they stumble upon a horrible sight.Most of the town,led by the local Protestant minister, in black occultist robes,chanting over Nell,outsretched on an altar in front of a bonfire,while her father is tied to a pole nearby.She gives birth to something inhuman which the cult tosses into the fire,causing the flames to rise to towering proportions as demonic voices billow out into the night sky.Marcus,faith regained by the Hellish sight,pulls out his crucifix and rushes towards the flame,alerting the cultists to their presence.Iris eats axe-driven Satanic death as Daniel flees the scene,camera in tow.When he stops momentarily to catch his breath,Caleb appears out of the darkness,and beheads the shit outta him.The camera hits the ground,fade to black.Satan-1,Cotton Marcus-0.
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Body by Auntie Anne,eyes by the dark lord and master.
The German Stamm's previous feature,A Necessary Death,is another palsy-cam production.There's a shocker.Ashley Bell,who's even pretty cute when she's in control of her own body(and did all her own twisting,being naturally hypermobile....mmmmmmm),acts next in The Day,an apocalyptic film(yaaaaawn) in 2011.The Pennsylvania native,Fabian has cut his teeth in television,appearing in everything from Big Love to Reba,ferchrissakes.Producer Roth,who recently had a cameo in Alexandre Aja's 3D Piranha remake,has giving his faux trailer for Thanksgiving a full feature treatment and The Funhouse 3D next on his "to do" list.I just really hate shaky camerawork,and you probably should by now,too.It doesn't signify "scared" more than "lazy" to me,and really detracts from the genuinely creepy bits which had a chance.I'd love to give this one a higher rating,but we don't grade on failed potential here at the Wop,only finished product.Two wops.Worth a look.
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Stay just like that.I'm getting my Levi's off right now.
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Sunday, November 28, 2010

Un merdonaccio per il mondo di merda:End of the Year WOPdates

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Two brawdz out shopping for essential wall candy...
As we speed towards the end of the biggest year ever here at the Wop(much to the dismay of all naysayers,d-bags,jealous bitches,genre scene Johnny-come-latelys,and all the cult/exploitation blogs interwebz-wide from number three on down...you guys look like fucking ants from up here!Bwahahaha!),I figured it'd be boombalahtinous of me to take a moment out of my busy evening of nicotine,caffeine,and acute megalomaniacal narcissism to get you woprophiles up to specs on the coming month of events.First and foremost,shout outskis to the most pedigree chum I've got,a guy who digs film as much as I,and my writing partner on several upcoming film projects(genre,of course!) that'll blow all this recent mediocrity right outta the big screen agua.Of course,I'm speaking upon the Doctor,who you'd do well to add over at Facebook,if you're looking for a standup geezer who'll NEVER let you down,no matter what.Best friends don't grow on trees,and even if they did,I still wouldn't want another one.No homo.While we're doling out acknowdgements,Pluck You Too is another top notch website you oughta check out,and further than that,add directly to your favorites(apply directly to the forehead?).We'll be shuffling an eclectic mix of the best of cult,horror,and exploitation as we bid 2010 farewell,covering some teenage sex comedies,gialli,slashers,new releases,big budgeted flops,and of course,genre-osity from my fellow wops in the next few weeks.As always,filmmakers,if you'd like to see your work under the woproscope,e-mail me for a shipping addy,and we'll take it from there.The same goes for any genre sites that'd like to exchange banners or links,as well.Also,this month'll see the outset of the glorious "Wop-ette of the Month" feature.You don't have to be a professional model,scenester,OR even Italian(!) to get in on the hijinks,just send the photo you'd like to see featured in jpg or bmp format to the e-mail addy I hyperlinked above,and be the object of desire for thousands of woprophiles and envy of all yer boob-havin' pals,appearing in flesh-tones(or B/W)on this very site.Nudity is not a requirement,btw,but it's pretty choice,don'tcha think?Well,that oughta do it for now.Keep reading,voting us up over here,and spreading the good word,droogies,and I'll do my best to keep you well entertained.A promise I'll have no problem keeping!
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Saturday, November 27, 2010

"Friday the 13th Part VI:Jason Lives"(1986)d/Tom McLoughlin

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Ah,we've finally arrived at one of my favorite Friday flicks!People either love this one or hate it,mostly due to the tongue-in-cheek humour within,but honestly,how could the series' producers take this material seriously after seven years worth of cookie cutter stalk and slash fare centered around everybody's favorite indestructible homicidal retard?Besides resurrecting Jason from the grave,this entry is also notable for bringing Alice Cooper's musical career back from several years of bargain bin Hell,with the shock rock pioneer providing three tracks(Teenage Frankenstein,Hard Rock Summer,and the title track,He's Back(The Man Behind the Mask))for the soundtrack,but by this time the corny,synth-heavy,cop out-metal image reinvention,though it returned him to pop stardom,delegated him to shlocky parody status,just like the goalie masked villain he shared the spotlight with here.Before you start to get the wrong idea,I was right there in the theater seat for the opening weekend of tonight's review,like so many other kids my age,eager to see Jason throttling fuck-starved teens in his supernatural mitts.Anything was an improvement over Part V,and Jason Lives plays to the strengths of the series and the genre with a self-mocking wit,a knowing wink to its core audience.You either got it,or you didn't.
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Tommy(Thom Matthews)and Horshak(Ron Palillo) vainly try to dig up the remains of Epstein's muddah...Ooooh!Ooooh!
Tommy Jarvis(Matthews),who you might remember as a nearsighted twelve year old just two years earlier,is pushing thirty as he breaks out of a squirrel farm with Horshak from "Welcome Back,Kotter" just to travel to the grave of mass-murdering mongoloid Jason Voorhees,to ummm...well,jam a section of iron fence through his rotting corpse in a furious rage,I guess.Too bad a bolt of lightning travelling through the maggot-ridden flesh was just the ticket to bring the misshapen fiend right back to life.Tommy even conveniently brought the old boy a new hockey mask and some gloves.Jason,ever the thankful motherfucker,repays the would-be assassins by punching Horshak's heart out(something those of us who watched Kotter wanted to do for twenty years) and climbing from his earthen plot to once again pile up the mutilated bodies of any nearby young folks foolish enough to try to have a good time.Tommy hurries to nearby Forest Green,the town formerly known as Crystal Lake, to warn the town of the impending danger,pissing off the local sheriff,who speaks almost entirely in tough guy movie cliches,and attracting his daughter,Megan(Jennifer Cooke,who'd easily be this movie's J.V.I.L.F.,if she ate it),in the process,buying him a law enforcement-escorted ride outta town,which he shortcuts in a chase to the cemetery to prove that Jason wasn't in his coffin any longer.Too bad the caretaker filled in the grave,ignorant to the fact the hockey goalie from Hell had bailed,leaving a sweathog in his place.Meanwhile,Jason's back at it.Two counselors on the way to the new camp eat cemetery gate spike skewer-death.Then he hits the jackpot when he stumbles upon a company's weekend paintball war in the woods.Arms get torn off,a face gets smashed into a spray painted smiley face on a tree,and there's a triple decapitation,from which Big J also scores himself a new machete,hunting and throwing knives.Merry Christmas,rascal.
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Voorhees.Jason Voorhees in..."The Mong Who Eviscerated Me",coming soon to a theater near you.
After erasing the wisecracking drunken caretaker,he sets his good eye on counselor Cort,who's fucking Nikki in a Winnebago while listening to Alice Cooper.He slams the girls head into the toilet wall so hard that an outline of her airhead comes out the other side,Cort obliviously jamming in the driver's seat until the aforementioned hunting knife gets rammed into his temple,the camper screeching to a halt on its side and setting ablaze as Jason emerges out the top,unfazed by the wanton awesomeness he's just brought to the big screen.The sheriff,meanwhile,is convinced that Tommy is responsible for the growing local body count,and locks up the rubber room refugee in his jail cell.Megan,knowing that Tommy's inno and grooving off the way the coupling pisses off her father,breaks Jarvis out of the hoosegow.As Jason kills off the last two counselors,Paula and Sissy(no J.V.I.L.F.,that's a first),Tommy and Megan are researching the black arts for a method of removing the methodical monster from the equation for keeps.After an officer takes throwing knife-based forehead trauma and Megan's dad gets broken backwards,Tommy lures Voorhees to the very lake he drowned in when he was...not a very good swimmer back in 1958,just as the spellbook must have called for,and manages to slip a huge chain around his neck,the other end attached to a Wile E. Coyote-sized boulder,sinking him to the bottom of the drink in a gasoline circle of flame.Th-th-th-th-that's not all,folks.He grabs Megan,who's swum out to save Tommy's waterlogged ass,by the ankle,but a well-placed outboard motorblade to the grill breaks Jason's neck and he lets go.The next morning,Jason,still chained at the bottom of the lake,opens his eye.Part VII,anybody?
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Spencer's Gifts "Impressions-Sheet Metal Art" kits were a lot more difficult to work with,and thus less popular than their Pin Art kits back in the eighties.
The director,previously resonsible for interesting genre chunk,One Dark Night(1983),went on to direct an assload of television,including segments for the Friday the 13th series and Freddy's Nightmares,ironically.Matthews,so memorable in his performance in Return of the Living Dead the year before,went on to act in television and a slew of direct-to-video forgettable Wednesday nighters,as well as the Ling Dead sequel.Oh,and countless conventions.Cooke married the guy who founded Celestial Seasonings(!!) and was never seen again.The one actor who's had the most varied career of the entire cast is arguably Palillo,who's done loads of television,movie appearances,and voice work.He even played Horshak again.Great.There was a subplot involving never-seen before Mr. Voorhees,Jason's father,that never came to be,but looked pretty clever on storyboards anyway.I have no problem throwing this one on anytime,it's a pretty good time.On the scale,two wops,and heads and tails over many of the other sequels in the series.
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Too obvious for a witty caption?I think so.

"Fritz the Cat"(1972)d/Ralph Bakshi

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As we meet tonight at the Wop,we bid a bittersweet adieu to actor,Leslie Nielsen,whose body of work contained many excellent genre roles in films like Forbidden Planet,Day of the Animals,Prom Night,and Creepshow,before achieving great popularity in light comedies and spoofs later in his career.It was a little distressing to see the number of people paying tribute to the late actor yesterday that totally neglected to notice what a great performer he was in dramatic roles.He was much more than a "funny guy",and let's hope history will remind folks of that.R.I.P. Leslie,you held your breath a long,long time.Onward...
Tonight's feature,a long time favourite of mine,got a lot of screenings at the legendarily decadent "working class holidays" at One Cherry back in the nineties.Through a fog bank of smoke of questionable origins,the parties cheered on the outrageous antics of underground artist R.Crumb's anthropomorphic cat,brought to life on the big screen by animation legend Ralph Bakshi and voiced by the insincere-sounding Skip Hinnant aka/Fargo North,the word decoder of '70's childrens' staple,The Electric Company.Jaded after toiling away on cartoons like Deputy Dawg and Heckle and Jeckle,Bakshi looked to animate a feature film that contrasted the bright and cheerful world of Walt Disney,and found it in an East Village bookstore in Crumb's satirical comics.The production was plagued with trouble from its problematic start,as the ever-squirrelly Crumb was reluctant to sign over the rights to his character,some animators walked off the job,refusing to draw the controversial sex and violence in the script,and distribution was stifled somewhat by the MPAA's X rating given to the feature and decadent material,but in the end,Fritz was a worldwide success,earning nearly two hundred million to date.
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New York,from the fish-eyed viewpoint of hustlers and hippies.
After arriving too late to make any sort of impact on the burgeoning Washington Square Park folk guitarist scene,Fritz the Cat(Hinnant)notices three young girls taking a shine to a crow nearby.When the object of their interest turns out to be gay,he makes inroads with the trio by pitching them a steady flow of existential bullshit,ultimately landing him in a ganja-veiled bathtub orgy with them at a hippie squat.When two beat cops(pigs)raid the party,Fritz manages to sneak one of the officer's pistols out of his holster in the clouded confusion,shooting the toilet,and washing the entire writhing,stoned mass out into the streets.Fritz ducks into a synagogue full of lions,only escaping the long arm of the law when a radio announces that the United States is about to fund more weapons to Israel,causing the rabbis to jump up and dance.Back at his college dorm,his roommates are too zooted on bennies studying for exams to notice Fritz,or pay any attention to his exploits,causing him to gather his notes and papers into a massive pile and set them on fire,vowing to live life to the fullest from there on in,as the entire building is set ablaze.He enters a crow bar in Harlem,where he befriends a pool hustler named Duke,who saves the cat's feline hide when he mistakenly calls the bartender,"Boy"(!),then sends the entire bar into hysterics when he says "bug out",a cat using crow lingo,dig that!Duke and Fritz steal a car and head to Bertha's,a fat crow prostitute,to blow some pot.Bertha stuffs multiple reefers into the bewildered cat's yap,causing him to hornily seduce her in a nearby junkyard.She laughs at his manhood,exclaiming,"You aint black enough,honey!" before giving him a piece anyway.In midstroke,Fritz has a revolutionary revelation,and rouses the neighborhood crows to riot in the streets.Duke is shot and killed by the police,and Mickey Mouse,Minnie Mouse,and Donald Duck(all in silhouette)cheer as the Air Force drop napalm on the ghetto.
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A minyan of kosher lions tear through the Torah.
Hiding out in an alley garbage can,he's found by Winston Schwartz,a fox he goes out with now and again,who convinces him to pack up and move to San Francisco with her.In the middle of the desert,Winston's car runs out of gas,and after a redneck dog with a pickup full of chickens in cages(that he clobbers to death with a two by four with a nail in it)diagnoses their engine,Fritz is left to walk back to the gas station with a bucket.Weary of Winston's droning,he decides to abandon her for a smackhead nazi-biker rabbit named Blue and his old lady,Harriet the Horse.Together they ride Blue's chopper to his terrorist cell's underground hideout,where his two snake pals in hooded robes plan to start the revolution by blowing up a power plant.Harriet doesn't like the idea,and after voicing her opinion,gets the snot knocked out of her by Blue who punches and chain-whips her.When Fritz voices his discomfort with the situation,the head snake puts a candle out in his face,leaving him to watch in horror as the three beat and rape her as she's helpless to defend herself,chained to a cot.Later,Fritz drives with one of the snakes to the power plant,where the cat climbs the structure and puts dynamite in place.As Fritz has a change of heart,the snake lights the fuse and drives off,leaving the feline to struggle to remove the dynamite as the fuse burns down.The power plant blows up,and Fritz with it.In a hospital in L.A.,his room is guarded by a policeman,who denies entry to the original three girls from the NY park who have rushed to see him in his critical condition.A nun arrives to offer last rites,and the girls sneak in with her.She removes her hood to reveal that she is Harriet,as Fritz groggily regains consciousness amidst his life support machines and full body cast.He struggles to relate the valuable lesson he's learned from all of his adventures:a reprisal of his decadent hedonist lifestyle,as he throws the girls down on his bed and fucks them all in a flurry of bodies and bandages.
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Fritz(Skip Hinnant)has fought many a good man,and laid many a good woman.I can relate,baby.
Bakshi who voiced the opening narrative("Happy times,heavy times."),would also lend vocal talents as one of the pair of bumbling pig policemen therein.He would not return for the sequel(which we'll check out later on down the line,kiddies),and went on to direct Heavy Traffic,the controversial Coonskin,Wizards,Fire and Ice,and American Pop,among others.Most of the dialogue in Fritz was recorded raw in real life situations,the background chanting in the synagogue scene taken from a recording of Bakshi's own father.Hinnant would go on to voice Fritz in the sequel,appearing sparsely on television,ultimately becoming the president of the S.A.G. in New York.Crumb allegedly didn't like the film treatment of his popular cat very much,claiming the movie was a departure from the stories in Head Comix and Cavalier that the script drew upon.When watching the thing straight,it's hard not to notice the haphazard manner in which it's paced,but overall it remains a pretty damned enjoyable slice of seventies grindhouse entertainment.On the ratings scale,Fritz hits the pipe,and exhales a very respectable three wops worth.Dig it!
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Heckle and Jeckle done come a long way,baby,can you dig it?
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Lee Jun-fan(Bruce Lee)

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May your tea hold the sweetest leaves,Little Dragon.


27 November 1940 – 20 July 1973

Friday, November 26, 2010

"Српски филм" aka/ "A Serbian Film"(2010)d/Srdjan Spasojevic

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What's the worst possible thing you can imagine having to bear witness to?Take a minute and think about that one.Got it clear in your head yet?Doesn't matter,really,'cuz you'll see it,and things that probably trump it,transpire before your very eyes when you sit down to the controversially despicable,"A Serbian Film",which takes the recent genre phenomena of "torture porn" and effectively ENDS it,once and for all.Franchises like Hostel and Saw play like "Ernest Goes To..." movies compared to this depraved mound of freshly-squeezed Eastern Bloc filth.Even the late Italian pervert-king Pasolini has been punked the fuck out.You'll need to send your fucking soul out to the dry cleaners if you dare viddy this one.Trust me,I'm not daring you to watch the infernal thing.I like all of you too much,and wouldn't want the repercussions hanging over my head...
Chances are,if you've read anything on the net about tonight's entry,you've encountered something like the above paragraph,less stylishly written in most cases(!),leaving you to mull over one of two gut feelings,I'd surmise:A)I have to see this! or B)I'll never sit through this in my entire life,no matter what you offered me!Uncle Wop is here tonight to let it be known,if you chose B,you'd be denying yourself an opportunity to see an original,well-crafted,gripping cinematic gore-nucopia that bites down hard with the psi of an adult male rottweiler(328,much higher than any pit bull,thank you very much!)and doesn't let go until the end titles roll.Sure,it's gross at times,the last forty minutes or so serves up some memorably gory set pieces so chunky they make Campbell's soups look like water,salt,and celery (you'll be thinking about a few of these nasty little ditties for a while afterwards,trust me),but the most heinous of the subject matter within is thankfully implied a la Texas Chainsaw Massacre,making Serbian's gut punch that much more effective(most likely duping the oceans of sensitive interwebz Nancys crybabying about the movie into thinking they've just seen something that they really haven't.Cue:Nelson Muntz HAH-hah.).For all true woprophiles,this should be at the top of your "Must See Immediately" lists.I can hardly wait to see what director Spasojevic has in store for filmgoers next,although,admittedly,I hope he moves on to much classier material!
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Vukmir(Sergej Trifunovic),a pornographer so morally bankrupt,the mere mention of his name makes Roman Polanski itch.
Milos(Todorovic),a retired Serbian ..."actor" who's known for a baby's arm-sized pants crank that never quits in pump n' dump films,comes home to find his young son viddying one of his timeless classics on television.He takes the opportunity to tell his wife that he's been approached by Lejla,one of his regular pieces of silver screen fuckmeat,to once again spear some gash in an art film,the payoff being more than enough money for the happy trio to never have to look back again.The man behind the generous offer,a visionary named Vukmir(Trifunovic),assures Milos to sign the contract without knowing exactly what he'll be doing for it.Yeah,that's probably not the best sign,going in,there,'los.When he's driven to an orphanage/home for children the next day for a porn shoot,he probably should have torn the contract up right then and there.He doesn't.Wearing an earpiece from which he receives direction from Vukmir,he's led through the halls,followed by cameras,witnessing strange abusive behaviour and underage girls sucking on popsicles on tv screens while getting fellated himself,but it's all just a harbinger of terrible things to come.After he's instructed to put the blocks to a bruised and beaten woman in front of a pre-teen girl dressed as Alice from Through the Looking Glass,he angrily refuses,but is physically forced to stay and perform.Then,Vukmir proudly shows him a piece of film he claims will usher in a new genre.A naked,very pregnant woman gives birth in a dirty,Hostel-esque room,aided by a burly bald goon in a wifebeater,who,uhhh...yeah,I'm not gonna take that one a single word farther.He storms out to his car and drives off,but when his vision gets foggy at a red light,he's suddenly seduced by a scantily clad she-doctor type,after which he awakens in his own bed,bruised and bloodied,with no memory of what's transpired the past three days.This,dear Milos,is a blackout best left in the darkest recesses of your subconscious...
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Milos(Srdjan Todorovic),in a drug-induced fervor,serves her what she deserves before the lens of Serb pervs.
He drives to Vukmir's estate,only to find it empty,apart from a video camera and a handful of tapes,which he uses to slowly,painfully piece the events of the previous three days back together.He learns that the filmmaker had injected him with cattle aphrodesiac,turning him into a sexual psychopath,ready to fuck anything and everything thrown in front of him.First he's given a naked blonde handcuffed to a bed,which he's instructed via earpiece to beat and anally devastate for being the cheating wife of a fallen Serbian war hero.In midstroke,he's handed a machete which he uses to decapitate the girl,still hamslamming the headless body as rigor mortis sets in when one of Vukmir's thugs kicks it away from Milos' weapon with a well-placed boot.Another tape shows two of the director's guards descending upon Milos' unconscious body with a camera,packing his fudge and mugging for the lens.The next tape shows his former co-star,Lejla,suspended nude from chains in a ceiling,bleeding profusely from the mouth after having all of her teeth pulled out.One of Vukmir's men comes in and forces his manroot into her yap,causing her to gag on the bloodflow,and asphyxiate.The tapes lead him to a horrific conclusion.He is led to a room,where Vukmir and his men have set up cameras around a mattress with two bodies covered with sheets.Still perpetua-horny from the bull viagra,Milos packs coal on one,then forces his monster endowment into the shitter of the other,much smaller body.He is then joined by a hooded man who begins sodomizing the previous body.Mid-fuck,Vukmir removes the man's hood to reveal that it is Milos' own brother,Marko.He then removes the sheet to show that it is Milos' drugged wife that his brother is assfucking.He then removes the sheet from Milos' victim to reveal that he has been sodomizing his own little boy.Talk about horrific realizations.An apeshit melee of revenge ensues,with Milos snaking a handgun off of one of the pornographer's guards and emptying the clip into everybody responsible.Milos' less groggy wife crushes his brother's head with a heavy bust.Out of ammo,Milos struggles with the last bodyguard,whose sunglasses are knocked off in the process,revealing that he's missing an eye.Milos proceedes to ram his erect cock into the thug's brain through the empty eyesocket.Vukmir,dying,happily labels the sickening events "true art".Milos then gathered up his devastated family,took them home and locked them in the basement.At his house,the traumatized man lies in bed with his wife and son,and kills himself and his family with one well-directed bullet.Later,another director and cameramen arrive to find the bodies still lying in bed.He directs his star to "start with the little one".The man starts to unzip his pants.I don't know about you,but I could use a hot shower after that.Maybe two.
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Now that's what I call being overdosed on cattle aphrodesiac and flaying your own genitals with a lead pipe.
The screenwriter/director has been battling the negativity,claiming that Serbs are fucked from birth to death due to the country's brutal recent past,and though that's certainly true,it comes off as a limp cop out to me.You made a brutal movie unlike any other out there(for shock value's sake mostly,I'm thinking),man the fuck up about it.From a technical standpoint,the film is mint,strong cinematography,killer soundtrack by Sky Wikluh,who's apparently big in Serbian hip hop(I was unaware the Serbs even had a rap scene...comin' straight outta Belgrade,crazy mufucka named Boris...eh,to each his own,I guess),and solid acting from the entire cast.Seriously,this film,despite the negative press,the investigations,and last minute film festival omissions(all of which,when you think about it,are amazing publicity for a horror movie,don'tcha think?),is a hardcore piece of exploitation that screams to be seen by all fans of such.Cast your reservations aside,put your big boy pants on,and pick yourself up a copy immediately.You might not enjoy it(if you do,you've got some problems,for sure),but you definitely need to see it.I personally have never seen anything like it myself,and would like to keep it like that for a while til my balance is regained.Four wops.
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"Murray Langston??What the hell are you doing in the snuff porn industry!!!"
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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Sunday, November 21, 2010

"Rude Boy"(1980)d/Jack Hazan, David Mingay

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"The only band that matters",really?I never saw it that way.I think the lyrics to "Suburban Rebels" by The Business sums up the vast majority of their fan base at the time,not counting the whole embarrassing Big Audio Dynamite debacle that was to follow(no coincidence they were called B.A.D.,it describes their garbage magnificently).And all this is decidedly before you factor in Joe Strummer's nifty Red Brigade t-shirt(I reckon he had about three shirts total) and rotten toofuses,and Mick Jones' horrible mullet.Don't get me wrong,I dig some of their music,for sure,they're a hard band not to like at least some of their stuff,they just never grabbed me by the cazzies really.I'm not out to whiz in the Post Toasties of anybody who feels differently about them here,just throwing my personal opinion out there for posterity.
One thing I highly dig is British culture of that same era,obviously,and this movie,equal parts fiction and documentary,apart from the misleading title(Ray Gange,the film's star hardly qualifies as a proponent of rudie stylee!More of a punk,don'tcha think?),does a pretty good job putting it up there for your approval.The soundtrack,which combines an assload of Clash tracks(naturally)and some original sixties bluebeat and reggae like Soul Sisters,The Slickers,and Junior Marvin,is pretty choice.The political climate that serves as a backdrop for the story,though admittedly pretty volatile(left v. right will probably be at each other's throats up until that final mushroom cloud signals our abrupt finito,Benito),never detracts from the action.Gange is a likeable salt of the earth type of geezer that I could buy into,Hell,I've probably known twenty or thirty guys just like him over the years.Ironically,The Clash themselves weren't big fans of the production,to say the least.Quadrophenia it ain't.Sorry,boys.
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"But he's just like everyone,he's got a Ford Cortina that just won't run without fuel..." 'Ullo,Joe,got a new motor?
Ray(Ray Gange)watches ho hum...another protest forming on the streets outside his tower block,which is swathed in NF style graffiti like "get out you dirty black bastards","ku klux klan",and the ever-popular "Kill filth",and jaywalks to the unemployment benefits office.Roll credits over some fireworks,of which there aren't many from here on in.The socialists and communists protest,the National Front counterprotest.The cops have seen it all before.Meanwhile Ray toils away at a late night stroke shop,selling black sex mags to respectable British chappies.On his drunken walk home,he's harrassed by a detective,who puts him in her majesty's nick for coming funny.The next morning he's released with a five pound fine and drunk and disorderly charge,before hitting the local pub with a young skinhead mate he's not seen in some time.More organized protests amidst a see of coppers with tits on their 'eads.The lefties start chucking bricks and rocks at the bill.Oh,The Clash?They play some tunes.Ray is in attendance.He walks through the market over strains of "Police and Thieves"(the original,much better version,mind you).He plays some Clash vinyl in his flat,drinking a beer in his drawers while opening his dole cheque.Pub time,and a political chat with Joe Strummer.Ray slags off the left wing,and Strummer agrees with him,but still prefers his parlour tricks tinged leftish anyway.Ray wants to be rich,and have,as opposed to the have nots,which fucks his chances of getting into the Young Communist League or being a roadie for The Clash,dunnit?
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Leave it out,ya piss-taking cunt!Skins rule,don't they?
The Clash rehearse in a garage.Ray attends a dance hall,getting his knob slobbed in the ladies room by a punkish space cadet,who later bails on him when he admits he doesn't believe in love.You think she blew you for nothin',matey?He later breaks into a poolhall with his bootboy pal,shooting a game over the skin's disgust for all things communist.The Clash play a "Rock Against Racism" gig in Victoria Park,and are joined on stage by Jimmy Pursey for "White Riot".Ray's in attendance,but his disgust for the reds in the audience gets him bounced off the stage.He ends up doing roadie work for The Clash anyway.At a gig,Mick Jones barks at Ray for trying to untangle cables on stage,so he wanders off and gets into a fight with bouncers who are kicking the shit out of some poor bastard backstage.On stage,the band yell at other bouncers for kicking the shit out of patrons who are dancing,not fighting(some things never change!)."Cool it!Simmer down.Control yer tempah!We've still got another song to do yet!"Like it'd have made a difference anyway,A.B.A.C.(All Bouncers Are Cunts),ain't they?I know I've probably been one when I'm on the door and/or working the stage.The Clash play a few more gigs,go into the studio to record "Give 'Em Enough Rope",play yet more gigs,Ray's on the piss,very nearly incoherent when he does manage to spit words out,and the band rehearses,as well.In Europe,one hundred and thirty-three minutes worth,in America,one hundred and twenty-seven.Probably could've gotten away with a condensed hour and change run time,and everyone'd have been a lot happier.
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I'm totally having a Naks by the Tracks flashback.Sorry about the sink,James.Was all HER fault!
The directors did a decent job of encapsulating the working class punk rock lifestyle in England(probably a very alien,boring thing if you happened to be a posh cunt,but there you go)here between lots of live Clash performance footage.Where many critics claim the movie's failure lies,is the film's strength,in my opinion.I'd rather watch the daily banalities of a drunk conservative fuck stumbling through his depressing existence than a band playing sloppily in front of a entire park full of screaming leftist student-types more often than not.Former Sham 69 frontman Jimmy Pursey would probably disagree with me.Joe Strummer played with the Clash,who were eventually inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame,until 1986,staying musically active(even taking over for Pogues' front-drunk,Shane McGowan,for a time)until his death,due to congenital heart failure,in 2002.He also had a pretty extensive acting career,the high point having to have been cast in a non-speaking cameo as "Street Scum" in Martin Scorsese's King of Comedy in 1983.Rude Boy stumbles drunkenly out of the Sex Shoppe with a three pack of dirty mags,giving the abrasive Old Bill two wops worth on the rating scale.Worth a look,if you haven't seen it.
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Jones gives his best "hard cunt look" to a mirror,I'd imagine.I'd be equally mad if I looked like that.
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"The Untold"(2002)d/Jonas Quastel

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Once again,the Boss of the Woods pokes his anthropoid peepers out from behind a massive redwood just long enough for another genre cameo,this time a Canadian indie feature,known south of the maple leaf,as "Sasquatch",and marking the first of a few sightings in the past decade, of Lance Henriksen in a 'foot flick.Andrea "Rescue Me" Roth is also on board here for a surprisingly fair slice of squatchploitation with several passable moments that just might leave an oversized footprint in the hairs on the back of your necks if you aren't careful.My main argument against the film achieving anything more than meager monster-driven mediocrity is a double-edged gladio;Adequate suspense is built throughout the movie with shadows in the trees and the obligatory heat based monster's eye view a la Predator.It's just that after all that buildup,the film suffers from terminal Snowbeast-itis(see:1977 Bo Svenson Yeti-terrorizes-ski-resort-and-ends-up-looking-like-missing-member-of-the-Banana-Splits telepic for details).Thyrza Richardson,the FX-slinger here,totally dropped the ball,opting for a baldheaded,oilslicked Captain Caveman look,instead of the more familiar hair-covered evolutionary rascal we've come to know and love in other efforts.Slightly attention-grabbing,but better served with the rest of Richardson's work on Stargate:Atlantis than carrying a murderous MoMo movie.Also raspberry-worthy here is the total lack of the red red kroovy throughout the picture.Everybody knows when you place several unlikeable characters in the middle of a vast b-movie forest setting,the payoff for the audience is seeing them snuffed in gross and inventive ways.You aren't gonna get any of that round these parts,stranger.The few deaths are sadly,off-camera and pretty bloodless.If those factors were both strengthened beforehand,this could have very easily gotten mo' love.The story,is said to be based upon "true events".Yeah,and an hour and a half of Gallagher smashing fruit and vegetables with a mallet is said to classify as comedy.
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Did Andrea Roth have a bobbler double?If so,does said pair o' stunt tits have my phone number?
Self-made president of Bio Comp Industries,Harlan Knowles(Henriksen) has organized an expedition into the mountains,headed by Winston Burg(Phil Granger),a big game hunter/author,and guided by one of those annoying all-knowing part-native American types named Tyne(Russ Ferrier),to locate any survivors from an earlier company plane crash which his daughter,Tara(Erica Durance),was a part of.Knowles must have assembled his crack team with an emphasis on heavy douchebaggery;Burg is a flask-tipping snob,while Tyne's the obligatory outdoorsman who's probably never seen a cordless phone,let alone a gps unit.And they get worse from there.Knowles' technerd assistant is a thinly veiled cryptozoology buff who's constantly spouting folklore and striking out with the ladies when he isn't looking for a random Cadborosaurus in the waters of the mountain's lakes.The team's eye candy,Marla Lawson(Roth)is a ruthless gold-digging opportunist slut,offering Knowles a slice of hair pie as reward for letting her plunge her siphoning proboscis into his company's cash veins.Knowles,well,he looks around a lot,thinking about all the opportunities he's blown to salvage his relationship with his daughter,who could be very well toes up at this point.Something spies on the bickering city-slickers as they trudge through the forest,just beyond their line of sight,in the shadows.Burg fumbles the ball in finding the plane wreckage,which,by coinciding scratches in the towering redwoods,was dragged for miles by something from the point of impact.Burg wings a male grizzly bear,who turns up writhing in agony on the forest floor with a broken neck from a massive boulder wielded by...something.
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Sasquatch or early Pogues gig closeup.You make the call.
After happening upon a cave full of primitive drawings along the way,and while Tyne discovers rancid-smelling hair samples on trees,and Burg is busy revealing himself to be a drunken story-embellisher with a nervous trigger finger and little nature savvy,Knowles stumbles upon the real reason he put the search party together,a black metal box that resembles an old top-loading vcr with a shoulder strap,the portable prototypical focus of a project called Huxley,that can classify any living human or animal's dna in seconds.So yeah,put that "World's Best Dad" coffee mug away for now.The techdork gets a video camera in the plane wreckage working,and Knowles is treated to Blair Witch-style narrative from his hysterical daughter after the crash,and the other survivors shooting wildly out of the twisted hull at whatever it is that dragged them from the site,having taken a blood sample from outside the plane that the Huxley machine,with its full database of all known living things,classifies as "unknown".After Burg is stripped of party leadership,he's relieved of living by a massive shadowy figure in the darkness.While the others search for Burg,Lawson makes off into the woods with the dna unit,and after Tyne discovers a sheltered burial mound that includes month-dead plane wreck passengers,including Knowles' daughter,and Winston's fresh corpse to boot.They stumble upon Lawson's twisted body in the foliage,with Knowles snatching up the undamaged Huxley box,then ordering the remaining survivors to descend back down the mountain without him,allowing him a mano a claw-o square off with the shadowy hulk that killed his daughter.Knowles loses.Awakening from his shit-kicked-outta-me,he discovers he is lying next to a primitive grave for the sasquatch that his plane hit and killed when it went down,and a living sasquatch observing him from a short distance away.Understanding why the beast had been so bloody umpy in the first place,he raises his rifle,but instead of plugging the legendary monster,he shoots the box instead.When he looks back to see the creature's response,it has disappeared into the mist.On the mainland,nobody believes the crazy technerd's wild Bigfoot stories,and he gets institutionalized for his troubles.True story according to who,Baron fuckin' Munchausen?
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Using his magical crypto-vision,Bigfoot noticed the selfish campers were burning a fattie without him.
While Henriksen continues acting in movies and television,even supplying his trademark gravel-grinding voice to video games,Ferrier worked mostly on tv series,and hasn't done anything of note in a couple of years.The same is true for Granger,who can be spotted in Galactica spinoff,Caprica,and the V series remake.Roth,the curvy Canuck,most recognized as Denis Leary's troublesome wife on Rescue Me,also does other tv work.Director Quastel,who made his debut with tonight's entry, continues to toil away in lesser genre fare like Ripper 2:Letter From Within,and Scourge.Like I said earlier,it's no Legend of Boggy Creek(1972),but then again,it isn't as bad as Sasquatch Hunters(2005)either.As middle of the road monster mayhem(light on the mayhem)it earns two wops on the ratings scale.Worth a look,especially if you dig He of the Oversized Footprint and Smelly Ass forest clan,and the myriad of b-level movies made in His image.
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"I'm not gonna chuck you through the forest,Henriksen.You were in Piranha Part 2,you've suffered enough."
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Monday, November 15, 2010

"The Ghastly Ones"(1968)d/Andy Milligan

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We're in the midst of the biggest week o'hits ever here at yer favorite one stop Wop shop,I'm pleased to announce.Pass the good word on to all yer genre pals,and above all,keep reading!I'll never stop throwing my two hundred lira into the pot,offering up exhilarating exploitation,captivating cult,and the most horrendous horror reviews,from the critical eye of a genreholic of the highest/lowest order for nearly forty years running.Burning a fresh one,sipping an AMP,and cueing up some obscure gem while kicking back on a comfy sofa,you kiddin' me?If there's much choicer than that,I still haven't discovered it(save for a good old school circle pit,the adrenaline rush after dusting somebody the fuck off,or the old in-out,in-out with a righteous fuck kitten.Those are given.).I gave it the ol' schoolboy try writing for fanboy rags years ago,but shady dealings with serpentine editors stifled my growing megalomania,and thus,Wopsploitation emerged from a puddle of primordial hate-dripping ooze,to rear its sexy head in the shadow of the dying drive in projector light,oft-imitated around teh vast interwebs,but never duplicated.Onward.
After three years of genre reviews,we're finally taking a look at one of Andy Milligan's films here at the Wop.I humbly apologize to the readers...for not waiting another three years at the very least,but there you go.I first encountered tonight's review,Milligan's first of many increasingly feeble attempts at horror,in a colorful video box roughly the size of Delaware,on a shelf at General Radio in Wilkes-Barre,which I snatched up on my brand spankin' new membership card they issued me when I bought a Betamax and my infamous Betamovie camera.Even as a young horror-starved creep,I was bummed the fuck out when I slipped it in back home.There are some inept directors,and then,there's Andy Milligan.I've had less grainy nights a fifth of Everclear in,blacked out on my feet in South Jersey,screaming bloody murder.How about the editing.Looked like someone fired on the film with a Kaiser Wilhelm Geschutz Long-Range Gun from close range.Acting?Nearly every line of dialogue carried out by a caucophany of coffee house thespians is either completely over-the-top or so muddled it sounds like it's occurring two floors below you.You may never want to see characters bicker amongst each other ever again.You certainly won't wanna watch another Milligan movie,and if you do,seek professional help right away.
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Honestly,doll,you're a little too happy in the flappies for someone in a Milligan movie.
Oh there's an annoying couple in Victorian garb traipsing through the weeds outside an estate in Staten Island with a torn parasol at the outset.There's a couple of on-screen kills clumsily executed by a bug-eyed goon in a cabbie with a meatcleaver,choppily edited(you can hear directions being shouted at one point)and so amateurish they'd end up on H.G. Lewis' cutting room floor(if he even had one).You don't have to strain much to pick out Milligan's shadow in some of the shots either.Roll opening credits.Cut to three daughters and their husbands(Richard Romanus is in there somewhere,doesn't matter,they're all tear-inducingly bad.)as they're read their father's final will and testament by Lawyer Dobbs,who must've taken a wrong turn off the stage during a collegiate production of "A Christmas Carol" somewhere.His final wish is for his three children to spend three nights at his mansion in sexual harmony(Every dying father worth his "Number One Dad" coffee mug would expect no less from his little girls),after which Ebenez...umm,Dobbs will return to the estate,and tell them what fabulous prizes they've earned themselves.I dunno,sounds a little squirrely to me.When Colin,the resident handyman/goof with protruding teeth(a recurring cheap effect in Milli-flicks),introduces his big-assed chompers to the tender underbelly of an outstretched hare,all bets are off.Or at least they should have been.
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Attention kids:Easter's been cancelled this year.Love,Colin.
A lot of bickering between the couples transpires under circumstances murkier than swampy bottomland in Fouke,Arkansas at midnight.Such is the case when a fifty-watt lightbulb takes your project over budget.There's some implied sex,more bickering,more implied sex,and then a mysterious figure starts picking these randy rascals off one by one.A better director with a grasp on filmmaking might have done justice to mean-spirited and brutal ideas like a man mounted to a cellar I-beam by pitchfork through the neck,then disembowled with a knife,but this is Andy we're talking about here,ferchrissakes.There's what looks like a wax midsection,and perhaps some red kool aid.A dead rabbit in one of the girl's beds.An X marked in blood on one of the bedroom doors.Two servant women drone on about Colin being committed to an institution years ago(what about the director?).Then Elizabeth's head is served for dinner.Forced screams.More mysterious murky death.Finally,Hattie the servant fesses up to the killings in a long-winded,overacted speech peppered with forced maniacal laughter,interrupted by Colin,who she thought she dispatched in the last scene,only to have Toothy plant the signature meatcleaver clumsily in her head,forcing her to slide down the stairs,unconvincingly screaming,and squeezing the blood packet,which sprays the ugly wallpaper like a ketchup squeeze bottle at Jack in the Box,before falling dead.The survivors are met with a knock at the front door.Why,it must be Lawyer Dobbs.Zoinks,Scoob.
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Signature Andy:A relatively brutal idea,shoddily carried out with shaky camerawork, under shabby lighting.
It blows my mind to think that a high-profile actor of the silver screen and television such as Richard Romanus cut his acting bicuspids in a pile of shit like tonight's entry.I guess something positive came out of this snoozer,afterall,eh.Still,it must torture the cazzies off the poor guy,having to list Ghastly on his imdb page.I know it'd fuck with me.So why bestow one Wop upon such a cinematic mess,you may wonder?As hopeless as Milligan was,as the eternal stink off of his legacy of crap will forever attest to,the guy never gave up.That's gotta count for something,right?I think Bob Martin's with me on that.He may have renegged his position since,and who would blame him.And his "films" got progressively worse as the years passed,believe it or not.By the time he took his embarrassing show on the road to Hollywood from Staten Island,each successive production suckled at the teat of incoherency to the point that Andy deserved a new classification for his efforts.When something is Milligan-bad,that ain't good,kids.
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Whoa.A disembodied head in a pot.Didn't see that coming from a marathon away.
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"Monsters,Marriage,and Murder in Manchvegas"(2009)d/Charles Roxburgh

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Haaaaavin'...haaaaavin'...HAAAAAAAAAVIN'!Havin' some summer fun.I haven't had a song this jammed up in my head since Bro Smith warned everybody that Bigfoot was comin' and liable to get us if we didn't watch out,back in 1977.Speaking of "He who was shakily caught on 16mm film in 1967 displaying a sagital crest and big,hairy bobblers for the world to see",the makers of Freaky Farley are back at it again,with another independent film worth noting here at the Wop,the alliterative Monsters Marriage and Murder in Manchvegas,and your humble N's here to tell you:This is a highly bizarre and thoroughly entertaining budget restricted ride through a weird world full of newspaper routes and childish pranks,detectives who stumble through their lines like they're banged out on quaaludes and half-nude babe-napping gospercaps.Yeah,there's a little bit of something in this production for everybody.Roxburgh and Farley pulled out all the stops this time around,playing within their limitations,going for laughs,with enjoyable results indeed.And then there's that song.I won't even go into that at this point.Big studios dump millions into retread ideas like Avatar,aka/Dances With Aliens,or Skyline,aka/Titanic with Aliens,when homemade films like this one serve up laughs with a sincerity and innocence those overblown piles of crap sorely lack.Not to mention,these guys are inspired by b-movie gold from the seventies,and that's never a bad thing around these parts.Pick up a copy of Monsters for yourselves from Farley and Charlie,chances are,you'll see exactly where I'm coming from here.
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Goddamned Crispin Glover lookalikes get all the hot brawdz.
Marshall(Matt Farley),Jenny(Marie Dellicker),and umm..."All-Star Pete"(Tom Scalzo) comprise M.O.S.,or the "Manchvegas Outlaw Society",although you wouldn't see these cats rolling around New Hampshire on choppers or throwing each other out plate glass bar windows,they're more likely to be seen pulling a red wagon full of newspapers,paperback novels,hot dogs,and lemonade around the neighborhood while wearing their custom personalized M.O.S. jerseys.So,despite their name,they're not tatted up one percenters as much as they're a group of twenty-somethings caught in a Little Rascals/Josie and the Pussycats vortex of clubhouses,tin can phones,and prank offs with Southcott(Bryan Fortin),Manchvegas' version of Richie Rich,except he's pushing thirty and highly jealous of their afternoons spent rope swinging into the Merrimack River,and self-produced number one single,"Summer Fun"(there it is!),that they peddle from their wagon while delivering on their paper route.Jenny seems to be slightly outgrowing the adolescent hijinks,going out on dates,which get sabotaged by Marshall,who's secretly got Kindergarten-style hots for her,in between her M.O.S. missions.Meanwhile,Melinda(Sharon Scalzo)has her sights set on Vince(Kyle Kochan),but her father(Kevin McGee) objects to a potential romance between a girl in finishing school and a grocery store broom pusher.When Melinda decides to skinny dip in the river(Some slo-mo and full-frontal nudity would have been choice here.Just sayin'.),pelting her disinterested Crispin Glover lookalike beau with discarded clothes,she suddenly goes missing...
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"There are rules and reguulershens.I MUST FOLLOW."
While Manchvegas' top detective(James McHugh)stumbles over clues...and his own dialogue,M.O.S. discovers a nearby university-funded archaeological dig for bones of the elusive Gospercaps(a local skunk ape legend involving six or so actors done up in fur suits,weird rustic masks,and cloth remnants),that have managed to capture Melinda,covering her naughty bits in some extra bits of cloth they must've had lying around(Gospercaps are sticklers for decency,so the legend goes),and tie her to a tree.The Gospers descend upon the student diggers,raining cryptozoological death on the poor bastards.Meanwhile,local brides-to-be are turning up snuffed,leading Melinda's pop to join forces with a local reporter to pressure the aforementioned detective to bring in Vince for questioning(like he doesn't have enough pressure on him to spit out his lines,ferchrissakes?).Soon enough,M.O.S. is on the case,in between cannonballing in the river and shooting basketballs around,of course,and Marshall agrees to pretend to be engaged to Jenny to draw the killer out into the open,leaving many questions to be answered...will M.O.S. help trap the murderer?Will Jenny,tired of Marshall's indecisiveness,wash her hands of this kid stuff and end up holding hands with Southcott instead?Does Southcott really wear ladies underwear?Will the Gospercaps ever untie Melinda from her bark-encrusted prison?Can M.O.S. top their "Summer Fun" single with "Autumn Fun",the obvious choice for a follow up?What is All-Star Pete an "all-star" in exactly?I'll leave you to discover the answers to these for yourselves,when you snag yourselves a copy of this outrageous production.It's something else.
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Avatar didn't have Gospercap subtitles.Just sayin'.
Sure,this entry rehashes a few ideas from the earlier Farley;the Marshall character isn't all that far removed from Freaky Farley,the female extrovert is here again(same actress,too),the monsters just outside the town,but despite defying classification for the most part(Comedy?Horror?Drama?All?None?),Monsters is a highly entertaining romp that makes for a well-spent eighty minutes,and when it comes down to it,that's really all that matters,isn't it?Though I had some difficulty seeing much connection to their influences within,I got a huge kick out of it.McHugh's dialogue-based ineptitude(and knowingly nodding,lemon-sucking face whenever he finished stumbling through the lines) had me rewinding his scenes over and over again.These guys must be having a blast making these movies,and it certainly translates to the screen here.I can hardly wait to see their next offering,or some of the previous ones,included in trailers on the dvd.Sign me up for M.O.S. while you're at it,boys.I think I might do thirty straight rope swing cannonballs for one of those hot dogs and a cup of lemonade.Check it out,droogies,it's a pretty good time.For real!
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Marshall(Matt Farley) tries phoning Jenny,but her can is off the hook.
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