"Sledgehammer" (1984) d/ David A. Prior

As somebody who experienced the eighties firsthand, let me state that tonight's review, a no budget shot-on-video slasher movie called Sledgehammer, is a beautifully inept example of everything that was right and wrong with that decade. The entire cast is comprised of meatheads with Chachi haircuts and zero acting ability or screen presence, who wouldn't look out of place in a Chams De Baron clothing commercial getting hugged on by some Brooke Shields-looking hooker. I'd be willing to wager that the director, one David A. Prior, likes slow motion a lot. He's also pretty fond of lingering on the exact same establishing shot of a house that he uses over and over again throughout this thing. This golden turd that must have been whipped up over a weekend full of bad decisions. Some people might have gotten pissed while choosing this one off the shelves at the local video store back then, but I wouldn't have been one of those cats by a long shot. Had it been born out of my own personal Sony Betamovie camcorder, I would have recorded over the takes with kung fu movies and porn, granted, but it's also exactly the movie that my friends and I would have had a blast tearing the shit out of and laughing our balls off at. So, let's finally have at it...


"Shirts are for fags.", says Chuck (Ted Prior).
A horny Puerto Rican in a silk nightie locks her hysterical son in a closet, so she can slink downstairs for some strange dick, only someone with a sledgehammer serves cock blocking, smashed skull death before it can progress past awkward shoulder rubbing and flubbed dialog. Fast forward to the present day, where a gaggle of Chachullets and their C grade steady big haired trim have decided to party down in the very house where the dome flattening occurred years ago. Names aren't important here, there's a blond muscle prep who goes for romantic shirtless slo-mo strolls with his squeeze, romantically balancing an open beer on the top of her head, along the way. There's also a guy who looks like the retarded steroid-blasted variant of Louis CK who stuffs food in his mouth and spits chewed food on the blonde dude's girlfriend's head. The blonde dude consoles his girlfriend by squirting mustard on her head. There's also a guy who looks like the result of Geraldo Rivera and Tony Orlando, sans Dawn, dumped into a giant blender. The mustard incident kicks off a gross food fight that lasts a long time, and a subsequent food fight clean up scene that's even longer. The blonde guy plays a melody on his acoustic guitar on the porch, to offset how abusive he is to his girlfriend the rest of the time, I guess.


"And then the Swamp Witch and the Zombie chased the kids around and Scooby and Shaggy put on disguises and made a giant sandwich..."
Once they're seemingly finished drinking cheap beer from the can and shouting stupid things at each other (and over each other), it's seance time, seance being a word that Muscle Louie comically cannot pronounce correctly. Ha ha. An unconvincing campfire story follows, along with a replay of the intro murders, and then more murders finally start happening, when a flannel-wearing goon in an expressionless clear mask materializes on the steps and skewers one of the lads through the neck, dragging him off. Geraldo, reluctant to bed his companion to this point, caves in and takes her upstairs for some awkwardly blatant non-sex. Sledge makes the scene and bashes them both in, leading Muscle Louie to issue a slo-mo beatdown to the killer. The bodies of Geraldo and his girl are laid out in an underfurnished white room (they pretty much all are) with a sloppy blood pentagram drawn on the corner of a wall. The killer pops up, courtesy of a video dissolve effect. He's the goon. He's the kid from the intro. He's the goon again. Louie takes a knife to the back. Blonde guy fights the goon, and his shirt disappears during the scrap. Mustard Head is forced to fend off the goon alone, and electrocutes him with a charged doorknob. Blonde guy reappears and clobbers him with a sledgehammer for good measure. As the couple is walking out of the house, the goon is watching from an upstairs window. Joke credits follow (I.C. Knun, Mike Hunt, Jac Meough, Nick Gnoes, etc.).


I had the same expression watching this.
I should probably mention that the director didn't stop here, going on to helm thirty-four movies, including gems like 1987's Killer Workout, Deadly Prey (1987), Future Force (1989), Future Zone (1990), and Invasion Force (1990). It's also worth mentioning that the lead actor here, Ted Prior, is his brother, and has appeared in things like Nudes in Limbo (1983), Surf Nazis Must Die (1987) and Karate Warrior 2 (1988). Needless to say, this one is a one Wopper all the way, but most definitely one of those legendarily rotten one Woppers that you're bound to get a massive kick out of, under the proper circumstances. If you revel in the rotten, this one's for you.


"You'll be tiptoeing through traction if you don't give me back my fucking ukelele!", demands Tiny Tim.

"Death Shock" (1981) d/ Steve Perry, Frank Thring

A quick glance at the VHS box for tonight's review might lead one to believe they're getting vintage 80's zero budget S.O.V. slasher fare, and though, they wouldn't be entirely wrong to entertain such a notion, as there is a bit of that going on here (roughly ten minutes worth against the hasty forty-seven minute running time),  the vast majority consists of floppy British bangers of all sizes, arses, hairy fannies, and simulated sex scenes that come pretty close to hardcore in certain instances.


"It's nine'een-bloody-eighty-one, darlin'. Let me trim down that bush for yer."
So this bicycling bird hears some piped in chanting as she pauses her ride for some cheeky upskirt shot opportunities whilst climbing over a wooden fence, and when she investigates further, she stumbles upon some nude blokes in the woods 'aving one of those sacrificial ceremonies of sorts. Escape plans are for naught, as she's fetched and sacrificed in the nude herself, leading us into a freeze-frame title shot, like we've come to expect out of things like this. We're then introduced to three couples, one of which is a pair of topless lesbo-sunbathers, the other two of the traditional guy-girl variety, as they enjoy some midday balls-out sinning, completely nude, mind you, and inside and up against their motor, under a shady tree in the meadow. Just loverly.


Lovely weather for a naked group shag up against the motor,  out in the open,  in broad daylight, innit?
When their petrol pump quits, they're rescued by a vicar (one of the film's directors) who drives them to the nearby home of  the aptly-named Mr. Blackley, who likes to oil up his housekeeper's tits while she's tied nude to a support,  in the name of Satan, and squeeze them, continually. Meanwhile, the couples are off having a shag, though the lesbians' tryst is interrupted when the virge of the pair is scared off by a sizable dildo that her partner keeps trying to shove up her against her wishes. The jilted lover joins one of the hetero couples for a three-way, and then the housekeeper joins in on a foursome, while the virgin is forcibly strapped to an altar, as her tits are oiled up, naturally, and then she's sacrificed to Satan, while all of her friends get it on, oblivious to her fate. The next morning, they all leave together, after breakfast, unaware that their former virginal travelling partner is now the Devil. Pt two is promised during the equally minimalist end titles.


" 'Ere you are, Luv...chalice full of ceremonial banger-oil. Satan likes a bit of crumpet now and again, he does."
Linzi Drew shows up here, in her first go at acting (insert snickers here) as the busty housekeeper. You'll remember her (or not) as the busty porn star in the "See You Next Wednesday" sequence in An American Werewolf in London (1981). Her pillowy boobs would score her roles in everything from Aria (1987), to Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm (1988), and even Jodorowsky's Rainbow Thief (1990). Bet you never imagined Russell and Jodorowsky getting mentioned in a review like this, eh? Overall, there's not enough gore or sex to please fans of either here, really, and why else would anyone have ever rented or bought something like this in the first place? Mostly a drag. One wop.


Witchcraft-hooligan chant: Get yer tits out, get yer tits out, get yer tits out for the dark lord n' mastah!(clap-clap-clap)

"Boarding House" (1982) d/ John Wintergate

Who could ever forget the laughably inept trailer for tonight's review amongst the coming attractions on Paragon video tapes back at the outset of the eighties? That's where John Wintergate's 1982 shot-on-video feature and I first crossed paths, heading my VHS of Gates of Hell aka/ Paura nella città dei morti viventi with a ludicrous coming attraction worth of embarrassing video effects, cheap computer titles,  unintentional laughs, and ten cent splatter shoveled up in a way that's been done thousands of times since, but holds special memory, for me at least, and perhaps a sparse handful of others, for being a pioneer in the d.i.y. shot-on-video ass pie sweepstakes, unapologetic in it's delivery of inept lo-fi insanity that defies explanation and begs for position among the greatest/worst movies of its time, somewhere in front of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984), but well behind Garbage Pail Kids:The Movie(1987), if it were up to me, I tell ya. Thirty years later, magnanimous fellow that I've matured into ( kinda disappointed about that, but at least I'm still pretty hot ),  I've decided to give it another look in the spirit of the coming holiday season, for your reading enjoyment. Here we go...


Blackie Lawless appreciates your dedication to metal, sister.
After a disclaimer tells us that a black glove in front of some pixelated tv screen and some ominous synth are the signals for the audience to make like Mr. Chicken, and some eighteen hundred dollar 8-bit titles (roughly the cost of the IBM computer to generate them, at the time) over some more synthesizer that sounds like the Knight Rider theme on salvia divinorum, we learn that the Hoffman family, leading experts on the occult and telekinesis, are found mutilated at their sixteenth anniversary party in 1972, leaving behind one child, who's committed to a sanitarium shortly afterwards, having just witnessed a double suicide. Then an old guy does a flopper off of his pool lounger and drowns amid some mean looking wavy video shapes and piped-in screams. A woman ignores some out-of-place wolf howls and loses her arm down the trash compactor,  and we're treated to more scrolling computer data about subsequent owners having mysterious strokes and whatnot, until the keys to the infamous Hoffman House are handed to the lone surviving heir, Jim Royce ( Hawk Adly, or director Wintergate, either way, the guy needs to put some friggin' pants on). At the sanitarium, a black gloved hand compels a nurse to strip down to a negligee and hang herself with a pantyhose rope, while orchestrating an orderly pulling his own entrails out. Naturally, Royce moves into his new ten bedroom digs and turns the troubled old place into a boarding house for girls between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.


"...we've got an accumulation of cheesy low budget 80's video effects down near Upper Darby and the surrounding areas..."
Debbie (Lindsay Freeman) joins a bevvy of airhead babes renting from Jim, and it's not long before mind-controlled ice picks are injuring lovely lodgers, and bathing blondes imagine they've got old pig faces and dead mice in their mouths. The sketchy gardener (also Wintergate) looks like one of the Ramones on a Carbona bender, with a dog chain arm sling, for some unknown reason. There's a hair dryer in the tub electrocution, and a nightmare chase sequence through a graveyard that begins with a half minute of black screen. When Jim isn't cocking down his tenants in the shower (the first time I've seen a chick climax while a fake cat gets the stage blood hammered out of it, I've gotta say), he's teaching them how to harness their own telekinetic powers. There's a party, and one of the dames (named Kalassu, mind you) sings a terrible, un-catchy song with the band out by the pool, while a black dude with a 'fro is willed to shoot his date, then himself. A metalhead chick rips her own eyes out in the kitchen, as Debbie reveals herself as the last Hoffman, which leads to an inevitably underwhelming finale huff and puff brain-off between she, Jim, and his mental understudy/dime piece, on a fog machined up sound stage. Cue up those fancy computer data readouts one more time, Wintergate, 'cuz we're outta here!


Leif Garrett reacts to seeing himself on Solid Gold for the first time...
Personally, I ran a boardinghouse for wayward teenage nymphettes in the eighties and nineties in Northeastern Pa ( and again in the 'oughts in A-Town, against my better judgment ) to the disgruntlement of all my Cherry Street neighbors, who, upon nightly weed smoke exhaust from the bedroom window, accompanied by all manner of devil's racket, and robust chesty young female climaxes amid Nugent's familiar hollow-bodied Byrdland sex-twang, must have been envious, to say the least. My mother never took much to topless tattooed chelsea girls padding into the bathroom in the early hours of the morning in leopard print knicks, but then, they weren't in town for anybody's benefit but my own, can you dig it? Some review sites serve you dirtweed off the brick, but at the Wop, you can always expect nothing but the choicest HG nugs of genre film for discussion and dissection for your mind to groove on. Put that in your bubbler and reef on it. On the scale, Boarding House earns but one wop, with it's out of place sound effects, blaring synth score (that thankfully drowns out much of the non-acting taking place), and aforementioned rotten gore effects. Hell, I even counted a few times where the "warning signals" preceded absolutely nothing at all. Can you believe people are paying fifty bucks a pop for the OOP Code Red dvd on eBay?? Insanity.


An old-pig-face-in-a-shower-cap-with-a-dead-mouse-in-the-mouth looks like the perfect opportunity to take a crack at some fading 80's movie or pop star here, but I'm too high to eff with karma right now, man.

"Blood Cult"(1985) d/ Christopher Lewis

The first time I saw this image staring back at me from a clamshell VHS on the shelf of a mom n' pop joint ( that probably had a zeroxed sketch of me behind the counter that read "Do NOT rent to...") at a point when I was also exploring the possibilities of translating genre fare on Beta video(spoiler: it doesn't very well at all.), and seeing that someone had actually gotten their work on the shelves right next to Fulci, Argento, Romero, and the rest of my favorites had proven to be very reaffirming to me. My expectations for the flick weren't bad out of the gate, either, the giallo-esque black glove and meat cleaver on the sleeve promised me I wasn't in for a cookie cutter slasher padded out with mile upon depressing mile of dialog delivered by line-flubbing amateurs and hacked prop limbs spattered with stage blood, all shot with the ambience of a vintage Ginger Lynn DP scene. One would assume that was the case, and that night in front of the big floor model tv in the parlor, I discovered that it couldn't be farther from it.

"Alright, alright ! Maybe we could use a fine set of encyclopedias ! "
Some hacked n' slashed sorority gash has the local small town sheriff(Charles Ellis) baffled in his investigation into the mysterious black gloved fiend, who isn't the least bit opposed to ktfo meddling roommates with severed eighties bimbo heads when he feels so inclined, leaving as always, a cryptic dog's head medallion at the scene of the crime in place of heisted body parts. Luckily, the sheriff's daughter happens to sort out the card catalogues at the college library, and with a little effective Nancy Drew-age, turns up an antique book on the occult that illustrations of the medallion appear in, and may even tie the recent slayings to a coven of eighteenth century witches.

And then, the only military service that would have her was the arm-y. Sorry...
After what seems like at least ten more dialog scenes than in real estate nail biter, Glengarry Glen Ross, the Dean of the school sends the sheriff out to respond to alleged poachers making a racket and setting fires in the nearby forest disturbing the evening's peace, and he brings along his daughter's bookworm-esque boyfriend(James Vance) for reasons only he could explain, knowing full well it couldn't be the blood cult out there, sacrificing future Saved by the Bell extras in diabolical black rituals, and more importantly, the whole infernal occurrence would never end in a ludicrous twist, like so many slasher copies before and since, would it? To cut to the chase, the correct answers in this case are : "Why, yes, yes it could" and "It most certainly would". Just the way you like it!

This broad's neck has just experienced what the newsmedia would probably refer to as 'a brief moment of political unrest'...
You might also remember the director's other release the same year, as covered right here at the Wop. Despite how snore-producingly bland and un-great this one no doubt is, in comparison to later SOV genre efforts like Cannibal Campout and Wally Koz's  555, it may as well be a Leone epic. Retro videophiles and crap cinema enthusiasts alike will be able to dig more merit out of it than I have just now, I'm sure. Still, it deserves a place in genre history as a victory for independent filmmakers everywhere, turning significant home video profits that were once reserved for the studio giants alone. One wop.

He especially likes the part of the song where Glenn Danzig says, "We are 138" eight times in a row. Almost knows all the words, now.

"The Ripper"(1985)d/Christopher Lewis

Ah, 1985, I remember you well, with your Wayfarers, moussed-up mullets, Docksiders, and your fucking parachute pants.I was a junior in high school, trying to fly under the radar on the "pay-me-no-mind-unless-you're-a-Madonna-wannabe-who-fancies-getting-turned-out-in-the-back-of-my-'70-Cougar-XR7-outside-the-cemetery-where-Mary-Jo-Kopetchne-is-buried" list, with my preppie side-comb and ethno-fragstache, looking like the missing member of Laibach-meets-'Saved by the Bell' hallway extra.Horror movies remained a staple on my diet, as always, and by then, I was fueling my growing habit at the drive-in, through mail-order companies like Video Mania, who offered cheap pre-recorded factory originals of cult classics and rare Euro-sleaze, and at every video store within driving distance, one of which being where I first encountered tonight's entry, the second of three SOV slashers helmed by Christopher Lewis.I was instantly drawn in by the giant clamshell case with yellow-eyed Savini depicted on the cover, my wallet three clams lighter for the rental fee, having used my silver tongue to avoid having to pay the fifty-plus in late charges on my account in the process.If the clerk had decided to hold me accountable for my laziness, I'd have ducked out the door and found a copy in one of the six or seven other stores in the area, returning a week later to rent again when someone who didn't recognize me was working the register.Hahaha, Nuuuuuge.Of course, the excitement only lasted as long as it took to slip the video cassette in back at home, because it was obvious from the first tracking fine tune that I had another fucking mutt on my hands.

"You sure you didn't pry this thing off of one of Liberace's fingers?"
After a hearty flashback hooker hack'd from Saucy Jack, we enter the college classroom of Prof. Harwell(Tom Schreier), a poor man's Tom Jones slinging lessons on, skip the drum roll, Jack the Ripper.We learn that Harwell is romantically linked to the aerobics instructor, Carol(Mona Van Pernis, who's an R away from having a great joke name, isn't she?), and after a nausea-inducing dated aerobics workout/dance sequence, the pair visit the local antique shop, where Richard spots a huge gaudy ruby ring that he struggles to put down without some effort.Through more classroom claptrap, we're introduced to Steve(Wade Tower), one of Richard's students that shares a love for horror movies with his instructor, who dozes off while screening a slasher, and dreams of icing his old lady, ripper-like.Harwell sees the same ring he'd looked over at the curio shoppe in the pages of a book about the Whitechapel murderer himself, and it isn't long before he's back at the dealer's place, begging to buy the ring.Once he's gotten his digit through the ugly thing, he suddenly becomes left-handed and his violent dreams of ripping young girls start to translate into lifeless bits o' crumpet littering the campus around him.When Steve's date ends up ripped in the bushes right under his nose, he sees a man in a small town theatrical Jack the Ripper costume fleeing the scene, somehow losing two pursuant police cruisers while on foot.Must be the cape...

I think he may have killed her...
Soon Steve suspects the worst: Harwell has gone and gotten himself possessed by the immortal spirit of Jack the Ripper by wearing his ring, and after dropping in on the suspect results in a struggle over a gun, etc. etc., with Richard escaping to liason with Carol on an atmospheric, romantic date in a dark, musky warehouse.Inside, the professor physically transforms into Saucy Jack(Tom Savini), who turns out to not be a member of the British aristocracy or deranged surgeon, but an Italian combat photographer from Pittsburgh, afterall who can't be harmed by bullets while delivering a dramatic monologue(but shooting his ring finger, among others, off works like a charm).The fuzz busts in and pumps the prof fulla skeet, and he transforms back into the mild-mannered educator of youth as he lies dying on the bloody concrete.Later, a scruffy band of young scalawags discovers the ring as they're bounding along by a set of railroad tracks, and take it home to show the folks, threatening us with a possible sequel, if we weren't careful.Thankfully, the threat was an entirely empty one...

Excuse me, ma'am, I just thought you should know that your windpipe is showing.
Lewis also directed Revenge(1986), and Blood Cult(1985), which we'll be looking at in the coming days here at the Wop.Savini has been busy lately, turning up on an episode of Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1(Aqua Teen Hunger Force, for any non-animaniacs in the audience), Machete(2010), Horrorween(2011)(!), and several productions in the works, including a role as SS-Standartenführer Dirlewanger, rockin' for the golden race in an upcoming nazi movie alongside cult indie director Andreas Schnaas and Sean "Dog Soldiers" Pertwee, though I doubt Rebelles Européens will be handling the soundtrack release.Congrats, regardless, on your continued good fortune in the industry, paisano, you deserve it.Apart from some ultra realistic misogynistic gore, horrifically amplified by the clarity of the video format, and Savini's ten minutes at the end, there aren't many goings-on to get excited about in this one.Still, it's worth a Wednesday night look if you've put the barflys and cheap lager pints aside for the evening.On the scale:

"Arrrgggh! I fap with this hand! You foolish mortals will pay for your insolence!!!"

"Psychos in Love"(1987)d/Gorman Bechard

Get outta my fuckin' head, Carole.After having just laid out the screenshots and poster art for tonight's review a few hours earlier, I was carousing Carole's current content as I often do(as should you mugs, if art, metal, dead shit/weird shit, and/or the female form are your fancy), and lo and behold, the same low budgeted, guerilla SOV slasher comedy by director Gorman Bechard decorating her wall, so I just thought I'd take a moment to say: Knock it off, cyclops, you're creeping me out.Anyway, this one takes me back to the dusty shelves of a local M & P vid joint that I've recently namedropped for an upcoming documentary on the era, but that's another story.The obligatory huge Wizard Video box adorned with marvelously splattery artwork guaranteed it a rental that I remember coming away from feeling satisfied despite the obvious budgetary limitations and amateurish gore.The self-aware dialogue rolls along wittily at a furious pace, and the two leads, Carmine Capobianco, who's also the asst. director/writer/musician/FX tech/you get the damned idea already, and Debi Thibeault share good on-screen chemistry and sense of comedic timing together.The whole thing plays like a romantic comed-umentary as dreamed up by Troma; in fact, I was pretty surprised to find out that those rascals weren't behind this, the second feature by Bechard.Don't let the chick flick reference scare you away, the production, as finally lovingly released on an extra-packed dvd through Media Blasters' Shriek Show label, is still pretty twisted.

The strawberry preserves! Aunt Eula's gonna cream ya.
Joe(Carmine Capobianco) is a sociopath who slings shots at a neighborhood boobie bar when he's not rending unexpected nekkid chicks limb from limb, while Kate(Debi Thibeault) is a murderous manicurist compelled to off men she's stalked with the instruments of her trade.Both share an innate hatred of grapes.Grapes? Grapes? They hate grapes.They loathe grapes, all kinds of grapes.They hate purple grapes, they hate green grapes, they hate grapes with seeds, they hate grapes without seeds, they hate them peeled and non peeled. They hate them in bunches, one at a time, or in small groups of twos and threes. They fucking hate grapes(though Joe mentions an affinity for running nude through a field of mayonnaise, whatever the fuck that means)!!!It's inevitable then, that when they meet one night at his bar, they fall hopelessly in love with one another, almost like two psychos in love, huh.After a particularly satisfying date together, Joe finds himself drawn to snuff Kate's candle like so many dames before her as we saw in an early date montage(strangled in a toilet, strangled in the woods, stabbed up in bed, shanked in the shower), but confesses his groove on homicide to her, instead."Really?!!? So am I!" she responds, wide-eyed.And thus begins a romantic killing spree for the ages, with enough sauna-poisonings and chainsawed dudes for ev'rybuddy.During one particularly brutal/phony-looking murder of an unfortunate bastard where blood impossibly flows into every shot, Kate bumps her head on a nearby boom mic as the camera pulls out to reveal the FX team obliviously pumping stage blood into the scene."Come on, guys, knock it off already!", she scolds, as they sheepishly stop pumping.That's some funny shit right there.

Hand-burgers for dinner again? But Maaaaaaa...
Halfway through the homicidal hijinks, we meet Herman(Frank Stewart), a plumber and would you believe, serial killer number three?After Herman unclogs people's drains, he dispatches them, dismembers them, then gormandizes them, attaching plungers to his nipples in a state of sexual arousal afterwards, explaining: “I admit it’s hard to get a good ‘word-of-mouth’ business that way, but, oh well.”.The cannibalistic plumber urges the kill-weary couple to continue to feed their habit, and in turn, his stomach.But, these star-crossed psychos have more than mere love going for them, there's also a maddening 80's synth n' drum machine title track with some serious grape hatred in the lyrics that they croon together like a shot-on-video-Sonny-and-Cher-if-they-looked-like-Jon-Lovitz-and-Molly-Ringwald that just might overcome the tedium they've been experiencing when they're a-throat slashin' and stabbing weathermen in the eye with manicure tools.The burning question remains:Can Joe and Kate's love survive the inevitable end of their killing spree(they all reach a climax, sadly, don't they?)?Will Joe ever attain a less-embarrassing level of flexibility?Does the freckle-faced pixie, Kate, own nothing but suggestive lingerie(let's hope so) in her wardrobe?Doesn't anybody just fuck anymore?All these questions and more will be answered for you when you screen this one for yourselves.

We'll return to Jon Lovitz in "Jeu Wave Hookers" right after these messages...
Bechard followed this one up with Galactic Gigolo(1987) and Cemetery High(1989) for Empire Pictures, directing You Are Alone(2005) and Friends(With Benefits)(2009) more recently.Capobianco appeared in both of Bechard's Empire efforts, the direct-to-video Bikini Bloodbath(2006) and Bikini Bloodbath Car Wash(2008), and I Spill Your Guts(2012) most recently.Thibeault can be seen in Galactic Gigolo, Cemetery High, Assault of the Killer Bimbos(1988), and Death Collector(1988).Psychos, shot over a few weekends on leftover film stock with Bechard's apartment the main location, was obviously a labour of love for everyone involved, and it actually translates pretty well to the screen despite it's glaring deficiencies.Whether you're into romantic comedies, serial killers, or all three, you won't be able to help yourself from chuckling at the antics, a worthy predecessor to the Scary Movie franchise, and just as blockheaded in serving up its cheap arterial spurt-astic entertainment.Give it a look, you'll probably appreciate it more than the technical score on the scale that it merits, would lead you to believe, which, for the record, is:

You just got yer punk ass Savini-ed*, bitch.




*(suh*veen*ē) v To rub a bladed weapon with a section missing back and forth over a body part to give the illusion of sawing into it on film, as popularized by FX wizard Tom Savini in the late seventies/early eighties.

"Cannibal Campout"(1988)d/Jon McBride, Tom Fisher

Ah, the good old days of shot-on-video slasher movies.You could shoot the genre equivalent of America's Funniest Home Videos (except Tom Bergeron would be fifteen to twenty gallons of stage blood, and the larfs are mostly unintentional) with a cast of non-actors(translation: buddies) and a budget that entails one vhs camcorder and little else, and still find your completed work on a horror shelf next to J.G. Patterson's Dr. Gore and Don Dohler's Nightbeast in some out-of-the-way Mom and Pop video rental store way back when.Whenever things like Boardinghouse(1982) or The Ripper(1985) found their way into my antediluvian top loader, I knew better than to boost my expectancies beyond cheap laughs and nudity, phony gore, and maybe a quotably smelly line of dialogue or two if I was lucky.More often than not, these z-grade cheapies were an insult to viewer intelligence and a shameful embarrassment to every person involved in the production, especially anyone in front of the camera, since not only are you visible to any sorry sprig-frigger who watches the movie, you're mostly likely doing it dressed like an extra on fucking Silver Spoons to boot.
Independent film director Jon McBride, who helmed tonight's review, was just such a visionary cat of sorts.He had four hundred bucks, he had a camcorder, he had wooded Connecticut locations he could guerilla some lame-yet-passable scenes in, and he had friends willing enough to help him out in seeing his project come to fruition.After six months of production, the spoiled fruit of his labours could be found on the shelf at Gateway Video, where I first stumbled upon it, in the days when chicks dressed like Wild Bill Hickok and styled their hair like they'd just been electrocuted.That very night, my glassies were assaulted by electron beams that told a story that went like this...

fragstache(frah*g*stash)n. a moustache of little acclaim.Usually detrimental to the wearer's grill.See:above screencap.
After a witty-ish disclaimer, a Guidette flashdancer(Nancy Sciarra)with a New Yawk accent that's thicker than Kirstey Alley post-feeding frenzy at a Krispy Kreme goes for a jog where she's suddenly brained by an axe-wielding oaf in a pilot's helmet.Jon(McBride himself), Ray(Ray Angelic)(a fat zits/braces kid in a bleached jean jacket with Cro Mags back patch!), and Carrie(Carrie Lindell) discuss the upcoming camping trip to Redston, where a family has recently vanished, leaving an empty blood-splashed station wagon in their stead.With Chris(Chris Granger) and Amy(Amy Chludzinski...all the characters are named after the actors, I get it, I get it) on board, the quartet sings along to some country tune and blow the dust off of a stale 'dead baby' joke as they drive vertiginously towards isolation.Jon finds the narrow dirt road blocked by a pimp era Lincoln Continental, occupied by two noncompliant hayseeds who noise up the campers and pull a knife, signalling a brief skirmish in the woods.Together with their silent sibling, Joe(Joseph Salheb, who also handled the makeup), who wears a pilot helmet, they comprise a family of backwoods cannibals whose food supply has run dangerously low.Rich(Richard Marcus), the gimpy pigeon-toed loudmouth, is only worried about pussy.They harken back to a great hunting experience of yesteryear when they eighty-sixed some hairpig bimbo with a machete as the goober in farmer overalls makes a Krueger-esque wisecrack while he licks the blade.At the campsite, the boys need to leave the girls behind and make a wood run, despite being four feet from a dilapidated cabin.The girls prove there's more than enough wood in both of their performances.Meanwhile, Ray and John plan an epic scare for their friends that night, involving a dimestore hockey mask, while resting back-to-back against the same tree(weirdos).Joe shows up with machete in tow and cleaves John's face with it.Cue: dated synthesizer stab.

How long before we finally see this kid signin' 8" x 10"s at Chiller? Kidding.
Jon and Carrie share a pensive moment alone while, elsewhere, Ray meets his maker in one of the abandoned cabins at the hands of Overalls, and Amy tells Chris she's expecting.At the cannibal abode, Rich spills his guts to a girl's severed head("that retahd gets tuh fuck all the girls...wit his undahweah on!").Carrie wanders off to smoke a butt in one of the cabins only to get machete-diced by Overalls, who ends the scene with another stilted wisecrack as the stage blood spurts everywhere.The three remaining campers split up to find the missing girl when Amy is scooped up by a continuity-free Overalls who's clean as a whistle in the same clothes he bloodied in the previous scene.With the imminent threat of Amy at knifepoint quelling any thoughts of revenge or escape, Jon and Chris are tied up by the other flesheaters.Jon is forced to square off in a continuity-free battle(his hands are tied behind his back, then they aren't, then they are...reminds me of that ol' Donovan tune) of axe v. sledgehammer with the grotesque pilot and after losing, gets pull-gutsed by the other two carnivores.Rich gives Chris a Columbian necktie and plants an axe in his grill, with a wisecrack to follow.Amy manages to break loose, wounding Rich, before running off into the forest with Joe chasing after.She de-gas masks him, revealing a deformed facepiece(saw that coming.)underneath, but his bros end her uprising, pull-gutsing her, too, for good measure.We see our cannibal killers again as colorful fall leaves blow off the surrounding trees, and Rich complains about hunger pains and their mother's disdain for fast food("The preservatives and additives'll kill you!"), with their hunt bringing them too far from their smokehouse to return for a meal.Overalls has a sudden epiphany and turns towards Rich while drawing his knife.Rich probably shoulda kept his big mouth shut.

In the yap, not on the grill, Cap'n Shloppy.
McBride has starred in a commercial for Fanta orange drink(!), and directed himself eleven direct-to-video titles to date, starting with the notoriously bad-good Woodchipper Massacre(1988),and culminating in everything from Gorilla Warfare:Battle of the Apes(2002) to Black Mass(2005), in between, and though I can't claim to have seen all of his movies, it's a pretty safe bet he's no James Cameron waiting for that tremendous cinematic break that sets him for life, though I honestly doubt that was very high on his list of goals in the first place.He's reached an international market during a highly romanticized era in genre films, and probably gets recognized for it from a small group of obscure film buffs not entirely unlike your humble N over here, and cheap cheeziness aside, that probably does him just fine in the end.On the scale, Campout merits an obvious one wop and is worth a look for nostalgic horror fans wanting to reminisce about the videotape era.Afterall, as Rich would say, it's a small, small, smaaaaaall, small, small, SMALL, smaaaaalll world....

Rich plays a friendly game of "Where's Waldo's epiglottis?" with Chris(Chris Granger).

"555"(1988)d/Wally Koz

Simply eighties-tastic.Thankfully,they don't make 'em like this anymore.
While working for a now-defunct corporate music chain in the local mall in 1988,the thumbnail for this release in a catalogue of newly released video titles caught my eye,and in a righteous moment of insubordination,I ordered it and several others for the store without proper clearance from the supervisor.I ended up scoring my copy from Barry Kaufman at Video Mania a few months later,after I was permanently relieved of my duties one summer day,walking home several miles in the sweltering heat with a fucking tie and nametag on.I was relieved I would never have to endure eight hours of "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" again(that's right,eff you,Janet),but bummed that I got the chop before I could hoard my box of new movies.When I finally sat down to view this shot-on-video splatter opus,filmed entirely in Chicago's Ukranian Village,I chuckled to myself at the thought of my ex-employers picking up the tab for a boxload of crap like this.Score one for the bad guys.

Blood and boobs,the stuff a thirteen year old's dreams are made of.
What if you filmed "Blood Feast"(1963) twenty-five years later,on video,with a more assinine storyline,less acting,poorer effects,and an equally dismal soundtrack,in and around the Ukranian district in Shit-cago?Well,sadly enough for you,you wouldn't be H.G. Lewis,the Godfather of Gore,and pioneer of the "splatter film",you'd just be Wally Koz,producer/director of the SOV cheapie,"555".Hot pink box aside,there's really not a lot to enjoy here.The movie feels like a mid-80's porn flick with all the porn removed.I'm not being kind to mid-80's porn at all.At least the adult film industry had Ginger Lynn,Hyapatia Lee,underaged Traci Lords,Seka,and Taija Rae to keep the viewer glued to the screen back then."555" has Mara-Lynn Bastian,whose acting is only underpassed by her saggy body and forties-esque jowls.I'm embarrassed that not only was she asked to get her bozos out on camera,but that she willingly did.Poor woman.

What's worse,the prosthetic neck or the graffiti in the background?You decide.
Every five years,within five days,unsuspecting couples are brutally murdered by a psychopathic hippie killer in a floral print shirt.Nice touch.Local scruffy,balding detectives(the aptly named Greg Kerouac)with unibrows who wear powder blue blazers that are too short in the arms,are clueless.Fellow detectives(Greg Neilson) resemble adult film star Peter North.The police sit around a sparsely decorated room with a desk and verbally spar with an over-the-hill newswoman(Mara-Lynn Bastian) and Captain Luca(the voice of Wally Koz himself)over the speakerphone.Their only suspect is an elderly gent named Colonel Wayne(Charles Fuller)who spaces out and flubs his lines a lot under direct questioning.Meanwhile,the misogynist Mansonesque maniac murders many.

Effects budget:One latex rubber head.
Our killer has a propensity to interrupt young couples as they lie around topless and kiss uninspiredly on awful sets.After doing in the males,he ties the females down and stabs them repeatedly with Home Shopping Network serpentine knives that a mulleted metal-teen would totally have on display in his room,next to his Tobaccomaster bong and poster of Phil Anselmo.Sometimes over the piped-in screams,you can hear the knives cutting into styrofoam wig heads.After the dastardly deeds are done,he mounts the dead girls' bodies and rides them to pleasure,rocking back and forth with his pants still fully buttoned and zipped.Before he can finish his unexplained "five" ritual with his fifth set of victims,the cops make the scene and shoot him dead.It wasn't the kindly old Vietnam vet afterall,it was the detective who looked like Peter North.You never can trust a guy who looks like a porn star,afterall.Chicago is safe(?) once again.

No,no,no!You're TERRIFIED,not laughing hysterically,you idiot!
This one disappeared into obscurity almost instantly after its release direct to video,thankfully sparing us all a sophomore effort from Mr. Koz,although it is said the one-time director haunts the internet searching for dvd bootleggers,who are trying to make a buck off of his awful movie,to threaten.Perhaps he's planning a two disc special edition twentieth anniversary release on Criterion...maybe he's justifiably embarrassed by the whole affair and wants to let it die an ignominious death already.With titles like "Woodchipper Massacre" and "Cannibal Campout" receiving special edition dvd treatment these days,I'd tell him to sell the rights to somebody and cash in while he can.Whatever the case may be,this movie is laughable garbage,that may or may not deserve one screening,depending on your tolerance level for stupidity.I just know that once brain cells die,they don't grow back.Keep that in mind.

You can relax now,Mr. Fuller,your eighty minute acting career is finally over.