"Blood Stalkers" (1975) d/ Robert W. Morgan

After seeing his familiar, inquisitive bald pate turn up in Bigfoot: Man or Beast? (1972), Monsters: Mysteries or Myths? (1974), and Mysterious Monsters (1975), cult audiences were surely wondering what was next for Robert W. Morgan, a "tough, hard-driving man". Tonight's review should answer that question for most.
The familiar stench permeating the air this time around doesn't roll off the hairy back of a sasquatch per se, but rises instead as a fervid reek from the theater's projector, a foul reminder of what can happen when you set out to make a movie, but aren't exactly certain how to accomplish it. It goes like this...


"...you folks have any spare Antiseen tickets?", queries Pip (David Farris Legge).
Two couples station wagon it down to the swampy goodness of Bumblefuck, Florida for a two week lovers' getaway (Really?). There's Mike (Jerry Albert), an obnoxious, pudgy "performer" (translation: homosexual, as evidenced by his polyester slacks and miniature schnauzer),  and Jeri (Celea Ann Cole), a ginger brick shithouse with zero chemistry towards her ahem...man, as evidenced by the way she smothers him with forced Grandma kisses and plays with his face meat during their overly long, poorly lit, dramatic dialogues. There's also Kim (Toni Crabtree), a happenin', skinny dippin' chick who ties off her tops just the way we like it, and Daniel (Ken Miller), a pock-faced war hero who may or may not have blown up a house full of civilians, according to Mike, who claims he doesn't know the whole story, but then relates the whole story, anyway. They're warned against further road trippin' hijinks by an ornery, busted straw hat wearin' gas station attendant who resembles a rural methed out Lance Henriksen, and warns of their impending arrival in "Blood Stalker country".


"Oh noooooo! Jeri found my candy dish and all my Joan Crawford postcards!"
They run into Jarvis, Lester, and Pip (Morgan himself, John Meyer, and David Farris Legge, respectively), and though these cats look as though they're about to break into a lower tier regional wrasslin' promo, they're actually the poach-crazy bad guys. Also, it should be mentioned that there's a wandering loon who communicates with pops, whistles, and wild hand gestures. Yeah, pop pop pop pop to you, too. Some weird muddy footprints, studio-enhanced panther growls, and a mutilated lap dog later, Daniel leaves the girls in Mike's protection (good luck with that) while he slo-mo runs for help over what fluctuates from a repetitive gospel soundtrack to something you'd hear while Buddy Ebsen lays the shoulder on a fleeing purse snatcher on network tv. Meanwhile, something hairy emerges from an upstairs room at the cabin...is it a blood stalker stalking his daily blood? Is it the most man-like...human gorilla that you've never seen? I won't spoil it for you here, not even in pops and whistles, but mainly because the expiration date on this one came and went over forty years ago,  by now.


I always wondered how you soulless gingers got your hair so red.
Interestingly enough, Morgan also penned the script for Mako: The Jaws of Death (1977), a movie by William Grefe', a regional cult director I actually appreciate. You'll no doubt remember Toni Crabtree as "Hooker" in The Greatest (1977), or "Mona" in 1981's Eyes of a Stranger. She also turned up in Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988). Ken Miller was a silver screen veteran by the time of his appearance here, having nabbed credits as an extra in things as far back as East of Eden (1955), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), and Attack of the Puppet People (1958). Celea Ann Cole was known as Cissie Colpitts when she made her acting debut in 1971's Billy Jack, but she later moved on to projects like Porky's II: The Next Day (1983) and tv gigs on shows like Laverne and Shirley, Love Bat, and Too Close for Comfort. Anyway, I applaud the "twenty-four countries" that saw fit to ban Morgan's departure from groovy Bigfoot documentaries, and only wish I followed suit by skipping out on the weatherbeaten Vidmark vhs copy I snagged from a long defunct mom and pop outfit, in which case, I wouldn't be here laying the old single Wop down, playing the same harmonica melody over and over again...


I was gonna axe to see yer tits, but somebody beat me to it.

"Sixteen" (1973) d/ Lawrence Dobkin

The trials and tribulations of turning sixteen are taxing enough without throwing ignorant swampy genetics into the mix, as we find in 1973's Sixteen, the subject of tonight's review, the late end of a teensploitation double feature I screened at the spot the other night. The low budget effort was the follow up for sultry blonde Georgia-born star, Simone Griffeth, who'd debuted in Swamp Girl with country music star Ferlin Husky, two years earlier. I fondly think of her as the "Marcia Brady, Backwoods variant,  of Seventies Exploitation Flicks" during this stage of her career, personally, but some of you woprophiles out there might see it differently. We all have valid opinions on things, man. Accompanying Ms. Griffeth this time around are the likes of Mercedes McCambridge, who you'll remember as the caustic voice of Pazuzu in The Exorcist, that same year, and Ford Rainey, who later lent his eyeball to the production of Halloween II (1981) as Dr. Mixter.


Bruvver n' Naomi (Simone Griffeth) got an incesty zest fer lahff.
After coming into eight thousand dollars in folding money as a settlement from the government, who are building a road through the swamp, and subsequently, through their property in said bog, the Irtley clan are beset with a plethora of problems that they previously thunk were exclusive to city slicker-types. Gone are the halcyon days of teenage siblings Bruvver and Naomi (Simone Griffeth) frolicking lazily through the bottoms, occasionally stopping for some voodoo trinkets from Aunt Ada (Maidie Norman), or an innocent skinny dip in a filthy pond followed by a round of the top party game on the Appalachian Trail, "Hey, sis...whut's 'is heyuur?" After rolling, Ingalls-style in a horse-drawn buggy, into town to collect their loot, there's much general store aisle carousing, and maybe a secret bottle of mountain dew (actual moonshine, not gamer fuel, in this case) thrown in for good measure. Back at the shanty, the family is pestered by a money-hungry preacher, who's also out to drain Pa (Ford Rainey)'s bottle. Ma (Mercedes McCambridge) sends him a-running in the end with some well-placed mop fu. They decide to bury their troublesome new ducats under the shack, and celebrate their good fortune by taking a bus to thet tharr carnival, God bless 'em.


If'n that aint worth a quarter, I'm the granddaddy of all liars, I reckon.
Temporarily blinded by the cheap shininess of the fair, the ignorant family gets split up and preyed upon by unscrupulous carnies when Ma and Pa are forced to leave the fairgrounds with young water-squirting, tire-flattenin' J.C. (who's named after Penny's not the saviour, btw) on the last bus out, having done zero to find their kids up to that point;  not even a loudspeaker notification from these bumpkins. Meanwhile Bruvver has been entranced by a busomy over-the-hill tent stripper named Carmelita (Beverly Powers), after leaving Naomi, screaming at newfangled scares on her own, in the middle of the haunted house attraction. Luckily for her, she's rescued by Jake (Peter Greene), the resident carnival stunt rider, who's got designs on turning her out in front of an audience of creepy carnies, after his show,  later on. Carmelita finds out that the toothy hayseed has come into money, so she takes him out to a bar and gets him knackered on whiskey. Meanwhile, the Irtleys sit around the shack 'til the mule train comes back. What transpires next, is something you can discover for yourselves when you snag a copy of this rarely seen seventies swamp oddity.


Add an eight track of Survival of the Fittest and an ounce of spooky papyrus to the mix, I'm going in. Don't bother sending a search party.
The actor/director Dobkin mostly took the chair for television productions like Hawaii Five-O, Charlie's Angels, Vega$, etc. Dedicated cult fans will also recognize Simone as Annie Smith, in 1975's Death Race 2000, the dynamite-looking driving partner of Sylvester Stallone. She's done a whole mess of television since then, as well, having retained (if not, increased) her innocent charms and beauty along the way. I'm normally a brunette guy, but Griffeth is surely upon my list of top shelf genre blondes of the decade. She looks great here, too, and makes this otherwise pretty pedestrian swampy backwoods dramedy worth a look, for sure. On the scale, a standard Two wops sounds reasonable.


That's fucking oyster bib city right there. You kiddin' me?
 

"Rituals" (1976) d/ Peter Carter

Just when you thought it was safe to tuck the entire mutant redneck sub-genre off to sleep for twenty years or more (I'd be cool with "or more" by now), along comes this grimy little early survival horror entry from our pals in the Great White North, reminiscent at times of Boorman's Deliverance (1972), and Lieberman's Just Before Dawn (1982), which came over a half decade later, but I happened to see prior to tonight's review, also released ten minutes shorter, as The Creeper in 1977. Hal Holbrook of  The Fog (1980) et al, takes center stage here, along with the film's producer, Lawrence Dane, though the real star of the picture is the dense-then-desolate Ontario landscape, intensifying the harrowing feeling of isolation that steadily grows amid the main protagonists throughout, in this obscure Canadian shocker.


"Who's Jeffrey Dahmer and why is he throwing us a 'Stag Party' ?"
We're introduced to five doctors as they embark on their yearly vacation, backpacking fifteen miles into the wilds of Canada this time around, with a destination called the "Cauldron of the Moon" by local Indians, as the optimum fishing spot for six days free from humanity, before they're picked up by the plane that dropped them off. Almost instantly, things go wrong, as all five men's hiking boots are lifted right under their noses from their campsite on the first night. D.J. (Gary Reineke) volunteers to hike off in the direction of a hydroelectric dam up river, to find help, while the others are left to bicker among themselves, smoke pot, fondle blow up dolls, and drink excessively. Except someone or something has left a stag's headpiece, freshly skewered on a bloody stake, as a grim memento. The remaining campers, shaken up by the experience, decide to follow D.J. towards the dam, but  someone hurls an enormous beehive bursting with angry bees at the men like a shrapnel grenade, killing Abel (Ken James) in the process, before the treacherous foam of the rushing rapids hides crippling bear traps, which leave Martin (Robin Gammell), D.J.'s gay brother, unable to even stand on his own.


"I'm only on the edge of my seat because I've been crucified to it..."
Forced to stretcher a burdensome and steadily worsening Martin through impassable forest and a rocky waterfall, Harry (Hal Holbrook), a Korean war vet who cut off his alcoholic father, and Mitzi (Lawrence Dane), are driven past the point of breaking, snapping at each other, as they stumble upon Abel's head on a stake in the same manner as the stag, with x-rays dated from the World War II era attached to it. The doctors surmise that whoever is responsible for their predicament is exacting vengeance upon them for what terrible maltreatment they've suffered at the hands of other doctors in the past. Soon the overgrown forest becomes a burned out, post-apocalyptic landscape, with sheer rock faces set against a dreary sky. The men come upon the dam, which has long since been abandoned, looking as though it had been bombed out during the war. D.J.'s battered body, barely clinging to life, and impaled to a chair, is also discovered, and Harry is forced to put the dying man out of his lingering misery with hands that are accustomed to saving, not taking lives. On a far off plateau, the silhouette of a man is seen, watching intently...


Tune in next week on "Fucked Dynasty" when Cousin Zeke will show us how a burst roadkill 'possum can feed twenty-five of your nearest and dearest kinfolk...
Peter Carter you may remember as the director behind The Intruder Within (1981), an Alien-inspired made-for-tv ripoff. He's truly inspired here, with some exemplary use of atmosphere, cinematography, soundtrack, and solid acting performances from the cast to whip together a slightly disturbing, though mostly bloodless and altogether boobless ride (you're only kidding yourself if you're expecting a gore-drenched bloodbath from a Canadian film made in 1976), rendered obscure by poor distribution (maddest props to the folks over at Code Red for the definitive dvd restoration and release, to date) , that's sure to satisfy genre fans looking for something that's different, yet the same... much like Cheech and Chong's band uniform concepts, I guess. To me, the whole experience was excellent, indeed, genre movies the way they used to make 'em. Three wops, and a strong recommendation. See it!


...followed by Wicker Man, M.D., check your listings for details.