"Curtains" (1983) d/ Jonathan Stryker

Apologies for an erratic August as usual, review-wise, here, I've been squeezing in all my late summer partying, and along with that, comes the inevitable late summer slacking. How about you? Have an unforgettably raucous and decadent week in Bermuda that you documented with thirteen thousand pictures you're going to graciously share with the rest of us, via Instagram? Who cares. Cult movies are our champers in the tub here, snots n boogs, and here's a surprisingly proficient slasher from C to the -anada that utilizes one of the creepier giant sized little girl dolls in recent memory (it's got the face of that weatherbeaten broad down at the far corner of the bar who's looking for a Wednesday night charity pumpin', oof-ah.) and an effective latex hag masked giallo-style killer among a gathering of would-be leading ladies of the cinema that includes Lynne Griffin, Samantha Eggar, Lesleh Donaldson, and Canadian ballet dancer Anne Ditchburn. Oh yeah, Dean Wormser's in there, too, and throw in a nasty-looking sickle, just for kicks, while we're at it. The whole affair was directed by Richard Ciupka, under the alias Jonathan Stryker, the director character's name in the movie. I see what you did there...


Not bad for starters, but seriously, where's the grapes, mirror fulla coke, and most importantly, the two other chicks? "Sorry, I can't hear you. As you can plainly see,  we're having eighties hot tub sex with each other."(Matt Berry voice)
Wow, that was a busy caption. Too many episodes of IT Crowd and Snuff Box rolling around in me brains, 'innit? Shoulda rolled with a simple play on words or something. Back to the story. After allowing marquee star Samantha Sherwood (Samantha Eggar) to get herself institutionalized to research her upcoming role as the highly disturbed Audra in his latest film, Jonathan Stryker (John Vernon) conveniently forgets about her while she's among the loonies, and announces that he'll be re-casting the role on a private weekend at his out-of-the-way mansion in Variety magazine, which just so happens to have a subscriber in the same squirrel farm that Sherwood is indefinitely checked into. Naturally, she escapes in time to show up as an uninvited sixth actress to audition, since the original sixth woman is mysteriously snagged on a miserable looking little girl doll strategically propped up in the middle of the road in the rainy downpour, and promptly mowed down by a car before she can emote for the womanizing director.


Tonya Harding takes it to another level. More at eleven...
Of course, there's still Patti (Lynne Griffin) the comedian/comedienne (...do we even distinguish between the two anymore? Just a thought.) whose flat, predictable jokes lead her to try out for the part, Laurian (Anne Ditchburn) the contorting interpretive dancer, Christie (Lesleh Donaldson) the ice skater who has a memorable slo mo incident on the frozen pond with our murderous pal in the hag mask, Brooke (Linda Thorson) the established actress, and Tara (Sandee Currie) the aspiring musician, all jockeying for position with the puppeteer Stryker, who's not ashamed to go from bedroom to bedroom in his inclusive elimination process. Nobody's too surprised to see Samantha, who's fresh from an asylum escape, and eager to bicker quietly in the shadows with Stryker, as the masked figure whittles down the would-be competition, each in their own creative manner, of course. These cinematic serial killers always seem to keep us well entertained over an hour and a half with their homicidal shenanigans, don't they? And wouldn't you know it, they even had the heart to throw in your obligatory twist ending, too. Thanks, guys.


I'd feel worse for her if her shoulder wasn't visible in the bottom of the frame, Gods love 'er.
Lesleh Donaldson made quite a name for herself in genre movies during the eighties, appearing in Funeral Home (1980), Happy Birthday to Me (1981), and Deadly Eyes (1982) in succession at the outset of the blood-stained era. Lynne Griffin you'll no doubt remember from Benjamin "Bob" Clark's highly celebrated seasonal slasher opus, Black Christmas (1974), and perhaps one of the greatest cult comedies of the eighties, in Strange Brew (1983), as well. Ms. Eggar is no stranger to our favorite genre either, with titles like Cronenberg's The Brood (1979), The Uncanny (1976), The Exterminator (1980), and Demonoid: Messenger of Death (1981),  all under her belt. If you don't instantly recognize John Vernon as Dean Wormser from Animal House (1978), you'll surely recall one of his half million genre credits, from Dirty Harry (1971) to the Chiodos' Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988). Synapse released a remastered print of the film on all formats earlier this year, each with a smattering of choice extras, so hunt it down, if you haven't already gotten it, that is,  me 'ol beauties. Like... Arrrrgghhhh. On the scale, this set of Curtains draws itself a respectable pair of Wops, and is well worth checking out. Nicely done, Canada. Nicely done.


She's probably relieved that the killer's only cutting her head off, and not cutting footloose (Eff you, Kenny Loggins).

"Sweet Movie"(1974)d/Dušan Makavejev

During my adolescent years, I first got wind of this strange and controversial Yugoslavian rarity through one of the VHS bootleggers I used to deal with, and my curiosity was further sparked by later mentions from trusted genre writers in various publications I regularly flipped through.It wasn't until last night, though, when I finally got the opportunity to screen this one for myself, thanks to the folks at Criterion and Doc's all-encompassing current NetFlix queue.If you're not into all the footage of exhumation of the 22,000 estimated mass graves containing Polish nationals executed by Russian troops on the order of Joseph Stalin contained within, there's always plenty of simulated and unsimulated coprophilia, emetophilia, genital fondling, teat-suckling, and implied paedophilia for you to wrap your glassies around, and if there's one thing that enhances a movie experience, it's seeing John "Animal House" Vernon pissing on-camera out of his erect dick, painted gold for effect.Yeah, not really.Anna Prucnal, the blonde actress who's center of the second narrative, which Makavejev was forced to write when lead actress Carol Laure up and quit after having to fondle a guy's bare uncircumsized junk on-screen (the last straw for her, after enduring several unsavory acts her character performs in the script), was banned from re-entering her native Poland for years after authorities deemed the movie both pornographic and anti-communist in nature.C'mon fellas, those are two of my own finest qualities.Though I was mostly unimpressed with the movie, there are some brilliant sequences with rich visual style contained herein that I'd be upset about never getting to experience if I hadn't watched in the first place.So effective, they are, that I'd revisit them separately in the future.Forwards towards, me hearties.

"Why you gotta flash me yer beaver, lady?Can't you see I'm on the shoe?"
First, we're introduced to Miss Canada(Carol Laure), as she wins a Most Virginal contest, as determined by a gynecologist on stage(Miss Yugoslavia is a burly broad who body slams him into the examination chair), winning a lucrative marriage to an eccentric milk tycoon named Mr. Kapital(John Vernon) who introduces her to the joys of matrimony on their wedding night by whipping out his gold-painted hard on and taking a whiz on her while his creepy old mother and a band of hippes garbed like religious leaders serenade the couple from outside.Embarrassed by Dean Wormser's weiner, she relates a desire to split to Kapital's mom who nearly drowns her before leaving her to the black musclehead(Roy Callender) who serves as family bodyguard.He jumps rope naked and stuffs her into a suitcase(!), which ends up on the Eiffel Tower, where a film starring a Latin lothario named El Macho(Sami Frey) is being filmed.She soon falls prey to his animal magnetism and they have sex right there on the landmark, but a group of touring nuns interrupt their coitus and scare them into a state of penis captivus(he gets stuck inside her!!).After being freed from the ahem, liplock, by French painter/writer Roland Topor, she finds herself in a therapy commune of artists led by Otto Muehl, where she breastfeeds from a lactating hippie, and after a particularly gross meal sans utensils, one of the other members experiences a rebirth of sorts, crying like a baby, pissing and shitting while the others pamper him.Finally, we see her writhing naked in a pool of liquid chocolate for a film crew.Clearly, this is not an ad for Godiva chocolates...or is it.

Choleric over her character's on-camera uncut cock-coddling, Carole was compelled to quit.
The second intercut narrative deals with a failed communist revolutionary named Anna Planeta(Anna Prucnal), who captains a massive, gaudy boat full of candy (with an enormous papier-mache Karl Marx head on the prow, mind you) down a river, where she spots a sailor named Potemkin(Pierre Clémenti) pissing in broad daylight on the shore and opts to give him a lift.After they reminisce and joyously sing old commie songs together, she warns him not to fall in love with her, else she'll be forced to kill him.Potemkin ignores her warnings and pleas to leave the ship, and ends up putting the blocks to her in a hanging nest full of sugar, after which she bites his granule-covered skin, drawing blood, and shanks him in the labonza repeatedly, twirling the blade and mixing the sweet substance with his red red kroovy.She warned you, pal.Her next passengers are a group of adolescent boys who she seduces with candy, stripping off her garments and teasing them with her nakedness.In the end, she's apprehended and hauled off by the authorities as police officers lay plastic sacks containing the childrens' lifeless bodies on the shore in front of a crowd of terrified onlookers.Later, when the crowd has dispersed, we see the children rising from the plastic like butterflies from their cocoons, reborn.

Potemkin(Pierre Clémenti)'s pelvis is promptly perforated while plunged in a cistern of sugar.
Say what you will about Sweet Movie, but you could never accuse it of being boring.A little excessive, like locking yourself in the hall closet with a box of candy bars, but those aforementioned sequences make it a worthwhile viewing, both visually stunning and thought provoking(I got a kick out of the vintage stock footage of baby gymnastics.Baby gymnastics, really?), truly a tightrope balance of exploitative elements and museum quality art.Definitely not for everyone, especially not those individuals whose minds are on lockdown from the bizarre, perverse, and the absurd.Laure's choco-nudity is liable to leave you Yugo-slobberin' for more, while Prucnal's scene with the boys will most likely disturb you deeply.Or leave you itchy, one or the other.Both women have gone on to successful singing careers, with Laure continuing to act in French television and films all along.On the scale, it earns two Wops, mainly because I can't see myself ever compelled to watch it again for any reason.After seeing it once, I can't imagine many of you will either.

If they made this outta chocolate, I'd be in a hyperosmolar nonketotic coma by now.