"Gorgasm" (1990) d/ Hugh Gallagher

I think that I shall never see a sight as lovely as stage blood splashed upon a cup, sized D. If boobs n' blood are your bag, Draculina editor Hugh Gallagher serves up plenty of both in his 1990 directorial debut, which I passed on the first time around, after seeing an advertisement for it in Film Threat Video Guide, despite the impressive pair of nineties-styled buh-hubbas on the cover art. I attribute my snub to P.V.S.S., or Porn Video Sleeve Syndrome, when the cover girl is perfection personified, nearly bringing a guy to half mast in the video store, then you take the tape home and the girls all look like they oughta be cackling over a big black cauldron, bubbling over with vaporous gunk over a fire in the blackness of a forest somewhere. That, and I'd pretty much outgrown the cheap softcore thrills of nudity on film once I'd seen my first Swedish Erotica (Oh, Vol. 6, how I adored you) waaay back in Junior High.


"No, wait, don't strip in front of me ! I don't particularly groove on the misogynist exploitation of women..."
After some all-too-familiar video tracking problems across the bottom of the screen, we see a cigarette-tuggin' rascal waxing philosophically about life and death, followed by a particularly awful metal song with female vocals over a title montage of the layout of a candid personal ad in a sleazy d.i.y. sex zine called Xciting, which is then printed up on a vintage sheet-fed press. Then it's a pedestrian white guy, bound and gagged in a kitchen chair, while the pillowy good Tara (Gabriela, who would later appear in things like Anal-Sperm Power and Willenlos Anal...obviously broad physical comedies, those.), a rather fetching brunette with Love Hewitt-esque bobblers, cuts her way out of a sheer negligee with a butcher knife to an even worse hair metal track, before lazily spinning around him in her knicks and cutting his throat, halfheartedly licking the bloody blade afterwards. Then it's our bad metal-loving detective from the intro and his "Sarge", a middle-aged woman who looks like she's just walked out of a Sears portrait, artificially fumbling through lines of dialog in front of some wood paneling. While laughing at the deviant sexual want ads in the zine he discovers at the crime scene, his eyes transfix upon one, in particular, that promises the "ultimate climax"...


"What's the big idea?? I wanted Black Flag bars!"
There's domestic violence in the form of comical kicks in the nuts that send another mook looking for a titular gorgasm, while our badged hero browses a depressingly barren porno shop to the sounds of another band that wasn't any good, before road-tripping to "Gore-ville, Ill." to grill Xciting's publisher about you know, how one goes about setting up a gorgasm. A dumpy blonde in bondage gear intrudes on Tara electric weed whacking her boyfriend's eye out in the sack, leading to a lazy catfight on the rug/extension cord asphyxiation. The publisher is a balding, nearsighted basement dweller in a Hawaiian shirt who wags his arms in the air every time he delivers a line, and sounds a lot like Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons with a hokey Brooklyn accent. There's a garage door opener-decapitation, and more bad metal, leading up to the inevitable showdown between topless machete-wielding Tara and the badge, which ends in severed hands and shot up vadges, green slime skeletons concealed in hanging dummies, forced maniacal laughter, and end titles that feature more clips of Gabriela with her hams out, and a title track that's probably worse than all the rest in the movie. Fittingly.


Topless at the sight of a Ted Bundy's body t-shirt. My kinda gal.
Gallagher would follow this one up, with not one, but two more, in the form of 1993's Gorotica and Gore Whore, the following year. As easy as Gabriela is on the eyes, her sputteringly lifeless delivery of lines had my ears prepared to geyser blood like a vein-strike. In her defense, the rest of the cast is equally bad,  and their bad is augmented, in turn, by a perfectly atrocious compliment of  odious soundtrack cuts by bands I never want to hear again. All of that bad combined very nearly translates to good, in some cases. But not this one, by a long shot. Still, besides the obviously choice sweater bombs of the lead, there's some interesting editing here, and a strong retro-'80s amateurish S.O.V. slasher vibe going on too, and for that, it earns a single nostalgic Wop.


His weeds she whacked, while bloody and stacked, then it all went black...

"The Pom Pom Girls"(1976)d/Joseph Ruben

 As summer approaches fast in the rearview mirror, we'll take a look at another seventies-tastic Crown International drive-in hit from Joseph Ruben, reminding us just how unforgettable those girls that turned us on really were, in another teen sex comedy starring a cast of familiar genre actors including Robert Carradine, Bill Adler, Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith, and Jennifer Ashley; centered around high school hijinks between rival football squads, and peppered with genre staples of the day like make out vans, dope-smoking, beer-chugging, littering, drive-in restaurant sex(never gets old, just wish they'd stop serving it up with ugly-looking fast food), tits n' asses, stolen fire engines, limp fistfights, games of 'Suicide Chicken', and a total disregard for all things education and authority in the country's bicentennial year, man.Probably the wrong flick to get into if you're looking for logic and cohesion, but a helluva good-often raunchy,  time capsule of reckless youth of the happening seventies.Let's get this started, now who's rollin' the hog's leg to pass around...

 Wood(would) times five.
 School is in for the senior class at Rosedale High, and for Johnnie(Robert Carradine), a loose wire that ain't afraid to take a piss out a classroom window,  with a cherry '55 Chevy and goofy overbite,  it's an opportunity to show off to Sally(Lisa Reeves), Duane(Bill Adler)'s sweet blonde arm decoration, and best his rival in the process in a series of chest-puffing feats of bravado and stupidity.Johnnie's pal, Jesse(Michael Mullins) has designs on getting this happening brunette named Laurie(Jennifer Ashley) onto the air mattress in the back of his love machine, but fellow promiscuous Pom Pommer, Roxanne(Rainbeaux Smith) and drive-in waitress Sue Ann(Susan Player) will do, if that frigid bitch won't put out.With "the big game" with rivals Hardin High approaching fast on the horizon, a prank war has commenced between the schools, and harmless mascot effigies hung burning from nooses and car vandalism soon escalate into sloppily choreographed Western saloon-level fistfights and hosing down rival players and pursuant officers of the law from a stolen fire truck Johnnie and Co. end up in(big deal, they didn't do it naked.).To these fun-loving young tearaways, quadratic equations are for squares.Did I just make a fucking mathematics joke?Where's that cyanide capsule...
 
 The one and only Rainbeaux I'd ever be interested in chasing, thankyouverymuch.
 Of course, we get to see lots of reckless driving, an obligatory gross cafeteria food fight, pop-top beer-chugging(Johnnie's shirt ends up drinking more beer than he does, if you're keeping score the way I was, the way grizzled veterans often do), beach frolicking, some amusing soul sistahs trying out for the cheer squad, Jesse slugging the cocky football coach in the mush, some spirited joint passing, Laurie obliviously failing to notice Jesse and Sue Ann backseat boogieing right in front of her classroom window, then giving him her own goodies under her sleeping parents' noses, followed by a chuckle-worthy breakfast table sequence in it's own right.The football game degenerates into a battle royale after a single play, and Duane channels Brando in challenging Johnnie to a dangerous game of suicide chicken near an oceanside cliff.Johnnie drives Duane's car off the edge, jumping out at the last possible moment to live and torture him about bagging his girl yet another day.All's well that ends well, I guess.
 
 Sheesh, he's outta position on the MLB blitz, and he's a jibber bogart.
 Though I was never much for cheerleaders growing up(they always seemed a bit too shallow and saccharine-flavored for my 'refined tastes', apart from one or two rare birds that really layed it on me), I could watch the drive-in movie variety all day long.Especially when one's Rainbeaux Smith, one of my all-time favorite chicks, at her sweet n' sensual peak here, despite being mostly overshadowed by her co-stars, the wholesome brunette, Jennifer Ashley, who you'll remember from stuff like Phantom of the Paradise(1974), Tintorera(1977), and Horror Planet, aka/Inseminoid(1981), and leggy blonde, Lisa Reeves, who you probably won't remember from You Light Up My Life(1977) and the 1977 San Pedro Beach Bums tv series.Robert Carradine has been in everything from the iconic cult classic, Massacre at Central High(1976) and Orca(1976), to Revenge of the Nerds(1985) and the Humanoids from the Deep made-for-tv remake(1996).Hell, he even played a skinhead in Carpenter's Escape from LA(1996).Adler, who we just saw in Van Nuys Blvd.(1976), also featured prominently in genre fare like The Van(1977), Blue Sunshine and Malibu Beach( both 1978).On the scale, Pom Pom scores an average two Wops for technical skill, which doesn't make itself very apparent here, though entertainment-wise, it would easily earn another, a cult classic, perfect for the impending hot weather and hot babes that go hand-in-hand with it.See it.
 

Stealing a fire engine for a joyride?Oh, you crazy high school kids.

Nightbeast(1982)d/Don Dohler

In essence,a remake of Baltimore byproduct Dohler's earlier(even cheaper!)film,The Alien Factor,Nightbeast packs an amateur punch like no other rubbery-alien-in-silver-disco-suit-with-prop-laser-pistol-rampages-through-backyards-in-Maryland production ever has or probably ever will.There's a little something for everyone here.Cheap gore slathered over fried egg eighties boobs with a side order of uncomfortably staged love scenes and piss-poor optical laser effects.What makes amateur filmmakers tackle ambitious sci-fi/horror projects,when they know their production values will hinder them from making anything close to what they were shooting for in the first place is beyond me.But I sincerely hope they NEVER stop trying,as laughs(even unintentional ones) are so hard to come by these days.

From the dark recesses of outer space it came,to play with your entrails.
A homicidal alien life form,decked out in silver lame' and bent on total destruction of mankind crashes his interplanetary vessel...in Maryland.Poor otherworldly bastard.Some local hunters see the ship plummetting out of the night sky,and converge on the site to investigate further,only to be dispatched by a small laser gun that envelops its target in red light before incinerating it into a pile of smouldering ashes.Once the local population has an idea of what it's up against,Sheriff Cinder is called on to defend the townspeople,with the help of Deputy Lisa,a girl who likes her men like she likes her omelettes:flabby,no acting ability,and a perm.The flabby,perm-coiffed sheriff woodenly deducts(I smell an uncomfortable,uninspired sex scene in the works) that their first course of action would logically be to call in a geryatric marksman to shoot the laser pistol out of the beast's hand(!).Though many good extras get vaporized in the battle,the old geezer manages to blast the bastard's blaster,forcing the alien to tear his victims apart with his bare hands now,instead.The residents of Perry Hill,MD are in the middle of a low tech nightmare,that they can't awaken from...

Consider yourself laserized...hardcore,you goofy motherfucker!
Cinder visits Bert,the mayor(!),in an effort to convince the politician to evacuate the town until the intergalactic fiend has been subdued.Bert isn't buying,since he's got a highly important pool party coming up that afternoon,and he wants to impress the governor.Cinder evacuates the town without Bert's authorization anyway,rendering the whole previous scene worthless unless you enjoy watching non-actors channelling scenes from Jaws.During a run-in with the Nightbeast,the sheriff injures his leg,and when he and Lisa escape to her place,she dresses and treats his wound,and strips to a towel in front of him.After she takes a shower,he awkwardly seduces her("Can I get this shirt off?""Yes.Can I get this towel off?")and a bizzarely disturbing love scene ensues.The beast kills more people,and the sheriff and his posse manage to electrocute it in a moment of DIY brilliance,but seeing the permed and pale lawman and his tanned deputy roll in the sheets proves to be the one horrifying moment that stays with me long after the end credits roll.Lisa,I'll be taking a shower if you're done in there.Can I get this shirt off,baby?

Galactic Baby Huey in a silver disco suit?Damned skippy.
This was one of my first rentals at General Radio in Wilkes-Barre,Pa,once I'd gotten a free membership card after buying my Sony Betamovie camcorder and betamax vcr there.Watching it now takes me right back to that summer where me and my buddies crowded around the big woodgrain floor model television in the parlour every night,a different pair of horror flicks to screen every time.Dohler immortalized himself in our eyes through efforts like this,every bit as entertaining as Plan 9 from Outer Space in the same unfortunate way.You won't regret giving this a look,but from a technical standpoint,anything more than one wop would be misleading,which I give it,proudly:

Makeshift MacGuyvers from Maryland take out the titular troublemaker with household ingenuity.

The Girl Can't Help It(1956)d/Frank Tashlin

"There's nothing funnier to me than big breasts."-director Frank Tashlin
I'm not all that into blondes,but if I had to pick a favorite,it'd be Jayne Mansfield,hands down.The broad was not only beautiful,but she knew how to party.She even hung out with Anton LaVey and his gaggle of satanic rascals towards the end there.Gotta respect that.This Tashlin vehicle exists to showcase the rock n' roll and r & b acts of the day in glorious colour,and Jayne's massive mammarian mcgillicutties.It succeeds on both levels.If you came here for an intricate storyline or Oscar-worthy performances,you're in the wrong gin joint,Jack.But if you want sweet Jayne at her finest,dressed in skintight outfits,showing off her outrageous 40-17-36 meausurements,exuding sex at every juncture,you've come to the right place.Let's make it,cats!

Fuck Marilyn.I'm a Jayne-iac myself.
Fatso Murdock(Edmond O'Brien) is a gangster in the midst of a steady downward slide in reputation.In desperation,he hires an alcoholic music agent(Tom Ewell) to transform his moll Jerri Jordan(Jayne) into a singing star in six short weeks,the catch, being Jerri herself.No man alive can resist her buxom charms,as she melts ice,cracks eye glasses,and causes milk to bubble over merely by strutting down the street.At first she feigns having a voice that resembles a tea kettle's shrieking whistle,but despite that,the agent falls in love with her.By the time Murdock realizes he's lost his girl to the agent,he has a chart topping gimmick single about prison rockpiles and enjoys his newfound teenybopper idol status,allowing Tom and Jerri to further pursue their love together.And there's some boob jokes,too.

Whatever I say here,it'll be obvious anyway,so I'll leave it out instead.
Performing live in the film,are Little Richard,doing the familiar title track and She's Got It,The Platters doing You'll Never Know,Julie London doing Cry Me A River,Fats Domino doing Blue Monday,Eddie Cochran doing Twenty Flight Rock,and a myriad of others that includes Eddie Fontaine,The Chuckles,Abbey Lincoln,Ray Anthony,The Treniers,and a spirited Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps doing their trademark hit,Be Bop A Lula,the top act showcased in this film, methinks.Jayne actually lends her pipes to the soundtrack,recording the siren screech for "Rock around the Rockpile",obviously a very silly little number in its own right.

Gene Vincent's Be Bop A Lula can't even make powder blue cabbie hats cool.
As airheaded as these gimmick music movies can be,I do enjoy one every once in awhile,especially when an actress of Mansfield's...ahem....stature is on the bill.The wedding dress she wears in the film was loaned to her for her real-life wedding to weightlifter Mickey("Bloody Pit of Horror") Hargitay in 1958.The film's producers wanted the King himself on loan for one tune for the film,but manager Tom Parker wanted too many samoleans for three minutes worth of gyrating pelvis and Billy Idol-lip.Give this one a shot,and you may be pleasantly surprised by what transpires on the small screen.For its energy and eye candy,I'm giving it...

Little Richard being himself on camera.