"Impulse"(1974)d/William Grefe'

It's a sexy Thursday evening, folks, you can smell the pungent reek of primal lust in the air tonight.A woman's ample, heaving busom rhythymically quaking in a sparkly tube top stretched to the limits by the dinosaurian dimensions of her twin D's to a mid-70's disco bassline laid down by some cat with a caucasian natural 'fro, dressed in some outta sight polyester jumpsuit that'd make George Jetson piss Rosie the Robot into short circuitsville, culminating in a spirited twenty-five minute ham-slamming romp in the backseat of the Cougar behind the club.Solid, baby.Can you dig it?
Any movie directed by Grefe is usually an entertaining one, and when you've got The Shat on board as a sweaty-as-balls, sleazy-as-fuck murderous con artist-cum-gigolo decked out in only the most painful polyester fashions of 1974, well...you're in for a pants-pissing hootenanny, aren't ya.Adding to this Shatnerthon of epic hammy proportions, Grefe enlisted exploitation vets William Kerwin, formerly a H.G. Lewis splatter era leading man, and Harold Sakata, best remembered as the bowler-chucking James Bond Villain,"Odd Job" and a game cast of extras, not excluding Marcy Lafferty, who was later overwhelmed by hairy mygalamorphs in Shat vehicle Kingdom of the Spiders(1977), and oddly enough overwhelmed by Billy himself from 1973 to 1996 in what stands as his longest marriage to date.Tonight's entry suffers from countless gaping flaws in both logic and filmmaking, but Shatner alone is worth the admission price, delivering an unintentionally hilarious, classically hammy study on violent mental illness the likes the cinematic world may never see again, if it's lucky enough.Forward!

William Kerwin went from "long, hard ones"(cases)in Blood Feast, to "long, sharp ones"(Kitana swords) in Impulse.
Via inept black and white flashback,we get a miserable World War II era-slice of the childhood misery that shaped Matt(William Shatner)into the post-credits scuzbucket he grew up to be.Matt's mother,a drunkard in a nightie,serves up booze-soaked gash to the Sarge(William Kerwin),a hooch-hopped soldier who wants the boy's first birds and bees lesson to include his mom as the demonstration fuckdoll.The young Shat-to-be runs him through on a kitana blade for his troubles.Fast forward to present day Matt, a belly dancer-ogling, cigarillo-smoking hot shot, who's just burned his last bridge with Helen,an aging sugar mama who's been footing all of his bills, who he promptly chokes the fuck out of in her own car on the edge of a cliff in broad daylight("Big...tough...broad,aren'tcha!" he says beforehand).With her cadaver floating inside the car he dumps into the nearby drink, Matt wisely chooses to relocate in a hurry.We then meet Ann(Jennifer Bishop), single mother to pubescent clepto Tina(Kim Nicholas), who's soon to accept a ride from Matt wearing a checked blazer left over from the Love:American Style wardrobe rack where the professional chiseler wings a Doberman padding through suburbia with his car and drives off, sucking on his pinky like a pork-based precursor to Doctor Evil("Dogs...lick their wounds...they...clean 'em real good." he explains to the young passenger).When her mother meets him at her clothes boutique,where you can also buy cigarettes apparently(I never got to enjoy smoking during that era.I'm nearly finished completing my Bobby DeNiro Taxi Driver quick-draw sleeve gun that shoots packs of smokes, though.), the lonely young woman is no match for his corny bravado and deafeningly loud wardrobe.

"I ever...show you the...scar...I got from Spock's nerve pinch, baby?"
It's soon painfully evident that Tina is the only one impervious to Matt's over-the-top snake oil salesman bit, with a particularly easy hotel desk clerk(Mrs. Shat herself) and Ann's Maude-esque friend Julia friend quickly falling prey to his charlatanic charms.After Matt pyshcotically spazzes out on a woman who bumps into him with two arms full of balloons at the carnival("Fat... people like you oughta be ground up... and made into dog food!",he barks) ,Tina tearfully bears witness to the interloper running the pantsmeat to her mother in a hotel room,then dispatch his former associate,Karate Pete(!)(Harold Sakata)after what has to be the single slowest car chase through a working car wash ever filmed.When hanging him(!!) doesn't work, Matt simply gives him the Pasolini treatment(!!!), driving over him repeatedly with Tina hiding in the backseat.Matt corners the young eyewitness on her way to school,exclaiming that nobody'd believe a crazy little girl who talks to her father's tombstone in the graveyard.Then he threateningly points at her, pre-dating DeNiro by a few years, before driving off.In an insane headscratcher of a climax,Matt manages to jack ten large off Ann for phony investments, telling her he's flying off to Jamaica for a few days, which roughly translated from psycho means,"I'll be heisting all of your best friend's money and killing her too,so don't bother me."Tina watches Matt stab Julia in the labonza for recognizing the dark circle makeup he'd applied to his eyes, officially signalling his batshit craziness the rest of the way, then she's dramatically chased through a funeral home.While he's trying to drown her mother in the fishtank, she ironically skewers him on a sword, bringing him full cycle.Her mother shushes her ear-piercing shriek(you shanked him,what's he supposed to look like,kid?) as they walk past his lifeless body in fetal position on the floor,cuing an echo-heavy analogy Matt had made about being a puppy left out in the road.Explains everything, doesn't it.

You just don't see a good high-speed car chase moving slowly through a car wash anymore.
We covered Grefe's earlier cult classic,Stanley(1972),last month,so check that out if you haven't already, ferchrissakes.Though nothing that would crack your conventional Top 25 of the seventies(perhaps a Top 50 70's cult classics list,methinks),there's simply too much mint stuff occurring within tonight's frame to not snag yourself a copy of it immediately if not sooner, especially if you're a Shatnerphile of some degree, on top of your well-documented terminal genre addiction.I think we're gonna have to have a Top Lists week here at the Wop sometime in February, since I've always highly dug reading you guys' faves n' rappin' about 'em afterwards.Right now, we've just got too many damned movies to get through.On the scale,Impulse scores a solid double wop,and belongs in every self-respecting woprophile's movie collection, bar none.Seek the effer out, boys n' girls.

"Pinky swear you'll...never dime me out, Tina."

"The Devil's Rain"(1975)d/Robert Fuest

Okay,dig this scenario,boys:You've got Robert "Dr.Phibes" Fuest directing a satanic cult-based horror movie,which has Anton LaVey on board as a technical advisor,a cast that includes Ernest Borgnine,William Shatner,Ida Lupino,Eddie Albert,Tom Skerritt,and an eyeless Vinnie Barbarino,you've got Ellis Burman handling the makeup effects,and "Absolutely the most incredible ending of any motion picture" as a tagline.Couple all of that with delectable sneak-peak coverage in Famous Monsters way back when,and color me a kid who'd eat the green stuff on his dinner plate AND promise not to drill Aunt Eleanor in the floating ribs with a football as she walked up the hill carrying two armloads of brown bagged groceries just to see what promised to be a horror-shocker of epic proportions.Boy,I'm glad I ultimately never gave either of those in writing after finally seeing it.
Despite the fact that much of the civilized world despises the shit out of this movie,and having taken part in it probably delegated poor Fuest to Afternoon Special-Hell,directing tele-pictures for the remainder of his career,I can straight-facedly say that I do not hate it.Sure,it's a letdown when,by "most incredible ending" the film's producers simply meant "long",but it doesn't deserve Sea Monkey-letdown status,by any means.You know,you're six or seven years old reading your D.C. horror anthology comic books and you see the ad with the lure of adopting a little pink antennae-headed family of pals,and you get sent a packet of brine shrimp eggs.Unlike the "sea monkeys",which ate swirling,metallic kitchen drain-death,this film doesn't totally blow.Just mostly.

Mark Preston(The Shat-in-a-hat) demands a kosher ham-off with Corbis(Borgnine).
John Corbis(Ernest Borgnine) is a pot-bellied,gap-toothed satanic priest,at odds with the Preston family down through the ages for their betrayal and thievery of his unholy book o'signatures.You see,Corbis can capture people's immortal souls in this bulky,watermelon-shaped vessel with an ornate ram's head thrown on top for good measure,causing them to wander about in black hooded robes,eyeless pawns of evil,but without the book o'Hancocks,he's unable to deliver them down to the despicable duke of dirty-dealings himself.He captures the father of the family,then sends him back to them,demanding his stolen property and warning them of Corbis' pissoffedness, before the patriarch melts into a puddle of candlewaxy blech.Preston's son,Mark(William Shatner) is sent off to a dusty western movie backlot to confront the foul priest,armed with a gaudy crucifix pendant the size of a miniature horse,and a handgun.The two men square off in the desolate satanic church,but Preston's overdelivered Lord's Prayer is no match for the beerbellied parlour tricks of the Devil's disciple(and some cheap trick photography),who turns the crucifix into a relatively harmless constrictor,and introduces the man to his own eyeless mother,as one of the flock.Preston vainly flees,barrelling through robed retards like a Jewish Ken Foree on a Monroeville Mall shopping spree,cowboy hat in tow,but is eventually overtaken by Mephistopheles' moonies.

"Mistuh Kottuh!You ain' gon' belie' dis.Da othah Sweathogs stole mah eyes!"
Enter Mark's older brother,Tom(Tom Skerritt),who,along with his wife and Dr. Richards(Eddie Albert as a fucking psychic researcher,by God!!!),has been searching for his missing bro.After finding the church and jacking a nifty black robe,Tom slips in unnoticed among the foul flock to bear witness to the ceremony where Mark is transformed into an eyeless goon for the anti-good guys,and Corbis changes himself into,well,Corbis with a bit of latex,crepe wool,and some ram horns on top.The all-powerful priest finally discovers the intruder(you're probably more apt to have intruders when your following all wear bulky black robes),but Tom escapes.
Tom and Richards find the book Corbis has been looking for(just under the floorboards in the living room of the house Corbis had previously turned upside down,along with poor Woody "They had no eyesssss!" Chambliss,earlier in the picture...I would think if this book was so friggin' important to the Devil himself,his right hand man might have been,I dunno,a little more thorough in searching for it?),and while searching for the means to destroy Corbis in his empty church,they stumble upon the titular Devil's Rain soul-housing whatchamacallit,but leave the book unguarded,so that an eyeless sweathog(Travolta) can return it to Corbis.Just when it looks hopeless for the powers of righteous religious persecution in the name of Jesus Christ,eyeless Mark has a moment of humanity,and smashes the container.At this point,the roof of the church explodes,and a torrential rain covers all inside,causing everyone on the side of H-E-double hockey sticks to start melting.Thoroughly.About twenty drippy,gooey,bubbling minutes worth.Seriously,like,the edited television version inserted a commercial break somewhere in the middle of the melt,and after watching some anorexic coke whores walkin' cocky with Sassoon jeans on,you were back to Goat-nine's putrid,drippy,eye-hanging face melting into a puddle of tan liquid goo.But I digress.The church explodes,and Tom hugs his wife triumphantly afterwards,unaware that it's really Corbis in one of his tricky disguises,and his wife's soul is wailing away inside a new clear satanic watermelon.Duh duh DUH!The trick ending rears its ugly head once again.

Goat-nine sinisterly proclaims,"Apart from the Burman makeup effects herein,this movie is pretty baaaaaaaaaaad!"
...so yeah,there are enough quality cheese-factor elements in place here that might make for a marginally enjoyable experience for you,the cast honorably trudges through the candlewax,Shat and Borg,excellent as always,the effects are very good for the time period(the finale's eternal meltageddon included),and somewhere in here are a few creepy moments that keep the entire production from dipping(dripping?)into worthlessness.All-in-all,an average entry that should have earned a much,much higher Wopsploitation scale rating than it ended up scoring.I guess that'd be the letdown I was rambling about earlier.And,for the record,Aunt Eleanor,I apologize about your floating ribs,wherever you are.

A.....vessel....full of....souls,you say?


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"Visiting Hours"(1982)d/Jean-Claude Lord

If you made a slasher pic in the horror-saturated early eighties,chances are,you made out alright for yourself,both at the box office and with ketchup-crazed gore fans worldwide.Unless your name is Jean-Claude Lord,that is.This guy took a cast of cult favorites like William Shatner,Lee Grant,Linda Purl,and scarfaced up 'n comer Michael Ironside(I've always dug this perrenial bad guy with the Nicholson hairline and the creepy grimace),who was coming off of his Scanners(1981) success the year before,a sinister hospital locale,effective incidental soundtrack,and nearly blew it altogether.The movie gods knew I was jonesing to see it after the teaser trailer aired on television,with the movie poster cleverly playing the hospital lighting into a huge skull(skulls are very choice,btw).So when I did see it,I walked out kinda feeling like I missed something.Years later,I can relievedly say that I didn't miss anything.And if you miss this entry,you might not miss much yourselves.

The Shat takes full advantage of his sparse screen time and mananges to shat out on his squeeze,Lee Grant.
Lee Grant has a television talk show,and while crusading for the rights of a battered woman who has killed her husband in self defense,she draws the attention of a letter-crazy bigoted control freak-cum-serial killer(Michael Ironside)who just so happens to keep a shrine of black and white photographs of his victims taped to the wall in his closet.One night after leaving the set,and saying goodbye to her producer/lover,William Shatner(who some may say was criminally underused here,but the fact is,the guy just wasn't given the opportunity to ham it up like he usually does,so you barely notice him!),she is surprised at her apartment by Ironside,who wants to shut her up with his stiletto,but while naked and wearing all her costume jewelry to boot.Okay,blech.Grant manages to survive long enough to be rescued by another tenant in her building and is whisked away to the local hospital,where she is doted upon and guarded by Linda Purl(of "Bad Ronald" and "Happy Days" fame),a nurse so selfless,she works overtime shifts a the hospital,volunteers at the free clinic,all while raising her own kids and developing a cure for Bell's Palsy.Okay,I added that last part,but you get the idea.

Kodak moments like this deserve to be put in an album before they get ruined.
When Ironside sees that he's missed his target,he travels to the hospital to finish the job,after massaging his stroke-ridden father's shoulders at the old folks home and biting the ass of a hapless frizzy blonde-haired prostitute during an abusive trick.This guy is relentless.He dons the uniforms of every hospital worker imaginable,from surgeon,to orderly,to floor buffer,cutting the airlines of elderly patients and snapping photos as the life rushes out of them, while ducking out of sight of the ever-watchful Purl.But he mainly enjoys shanking people in the labonza.I don't think I've ever seen a movie that passes itself off as a "slasher flick" that has as many gutstabs as this one.At one point he stuffs a stress-relief ball into the mouth of none other than Harvey Atkin(Morty from "Meatballs"...Hi Mickey!)and dispatches him with...that's right,folks.Right in the labonza.He follows Linda Purl home that night and I bet you'll never guess what he gives her and where when he ducks out from under the couch.You guys are good.The ass-bitten trick bitch breaks into Ironside's place and trashes it in a wall-pooped evening of vengeance,stumbling upon Michael's closet wall of death,but when the authorities rush to bring him to justice,he's already loaded up on pain meds,smashed his arm into a broken beer bottle(the lone gore effect that's worth an eff!),and had himself rushed to the hospital to finish off Lee Grant once and for all.But she shanks him in the labonza.I shit you not.The end.

Colt Hawker(Michael Ironside) in a pensive-yet-sexy leather wifebeater moment.
Definitely not a top-tier slasher by anyone's standards,despite a genuinely disturbing performance by fan fave,Ironside,and game faces worn by the entire cast,even Shatner when he turns up now and again.Lord went on to direct Eddie and the Cruisers II:Eddie Lives! and a lot of television.Grant who you'll recognize in genre films like Damien:The Omen 2 and The Swarm,went on to work in Lynch's Mulholland Dr.A likeable bad guy like Ironside has historically played throughout his career,has allowed to him to find work in everything from cartoons to the latest Terminator sequel.A lot of you nerds know more about what Shatner's been up to than I would,so I'll leave it at that.Not unwatchable,but not satisfying,due to the lack of grue,and multiple script flaws,this hospital horror gets prescribed two wops on the scale,and LOTS of shelf rest in the near future.

One broken bottle of beer in my arm,one broken bottle of beer...

"Kingdom of the Spiders"(1977)d/John "Bud" Cardos

"Khhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaan!"
I've been an arachnophile since I was a wee wop in the mid-seventies,and have owned hundreds of tarantulas over the years,from all over the world,from Brachypelma Smithi,the famous Mexican Orange Knee,to Haplopelma Lividum,the Cobalt Blue,and every species in between.Needless to say when my eyes first caught sight of the trailer for John "Bud" Cardos' "Kingdom of the Spiders",I threw obligatory tantrums until my old man finally dragged me to the theater to allow me a solid hour and a half of mygalamorphal glory.Of course,pouring thousands of harmless terrestrial tarantulas all over Bill Shatner equates to B-movie gold,and this hairy classic has always been one of my favorites,albeit a guilty one,for reasons I'll elaborate upon later.First,the tale as it unfolds...

"You're telling me that calf...was...brought down by...spider....venom?"
Rack Hanson(Shatner)is your friendly neighborhood veterinary doctor horsing around with his dead brother's wife when he gets a voice message on his vcr-sized beeper that there's trouble afoot at the Coby ranch.Coby(Woody Strode),the friendly neighborhood African American rancher,has a sick calf that was brought down by a menacing spider's eye view steady cam as it slid through the grass,culminating in a terrifying freeze frame of the poor heifer's eye.Brrrr.Rack is puzzled by the calf's sickness,so he calls upon professional help for analysis of the cow's blood,before putting the suffering milk-giver down,much to the dismay of Coby,who blames the calf's death and possible ranch quarantine on...you guessed it,racism!Only in this case,intolerance has eight legs,two chelicerae tipped with venemous fangs,and spinnerets capable of webbing an entire town up in terror.The entomologyst(Tiffany Bolling) shows up on the scene,only to be sexually harrassed by Shatner in his cowboy hat,unaware she's the specialist sent to him to investigate the sudden aggressive tendencies being displayed by the local tarantula population.Meanwhile peaceful Verde Valley(immortalized by Dorsey Burnette in the theme song)is under attack,first livestock and local pets fall victim to the creepy crawlies,then they set their eyes upon human prey,as the Shat all but ignores Bolling's diagnosis,further trying to get into her panties instead.

"Shooting my own fingers off might quell the spiders' bloodlust momentarily!"
As the dust bowl town finally comes to the realization that they may want to destroy the huge spider hills(!) that have been popping up all over town,despite the hayseed mayor's insistance on going ahead with a town festival(Jaws anyone?),the Shat and his entourage,which by now includes a port-o-potty inventor and his wife,Rack's brother's little girl,and a bed and breakfast owner,make a run for safety as Verde Valley is besieged by thousands of tarantulas who fancy webbing the fleeing,screaming townspeople into large silken cocoons.In the frantic concluding battle between man and spider,the Shat gets doused in tarantulas while searching for the fuse box in the dark,crawling up the cellar steps with spiders on his back,arms,and face,and even a few unlucky little bastards holed up in his 70's toupee,before spinning dramatically and falling directly in front of the lens to show off the fx team's latex spider bites on his cheek.Although Captain Kirk survives his arachnid attack(where it only took four or five bites to bring down a bull earlier...you can't fuck with Bill Shatner.),the party awakens in the morning to the downer realization that peaceful Verde Valley has been replaced by an uber-cheezy matte painting of the town totally engulfed in spider webs...

"Shooting my own fingers off might quell the spiders' bloodlust momentarily!"
This pre-PETA pic had to have given thousands of tarantulas an early death,by stepping on,flinging to the ground,rolling over with car tires,blasting with fire extinguishers,etc. probably single-handedly leading to the unavailability of Mexican Orange Knees in pet shops for some twenty years before the species finally made a comeback and was taken off the endangered list.All in all,a quality piece of seventies exploitation that I throw in every now and again,if only to hear Coby scream "Ho dee do!" as he drives off a cliff with a rubber spider in his face.
Three out of four B.W.s