"Society" (1989) d/ Brian Yuzna

Despite the phenomenon of hipsters' hot mustachioed air romanticizing the eighties, it was a decade with just as much suck as any of the others in recent history. Despite being completed in 1989, Brian Yuzna's Society, his directorial debut and the subject of our focus tonight, was shelved until 1992. Despite having a place in the Top 100 lists of what looks like a significant amount of horror fans today, Society can also be considered a horribly dated, overly long,  mostly unfunny reminder of all the embarrassing clothes, hairstyles, synth-driven shit pop, and attitudes that those of us who endured all ten years of that inane decade in person have been trying to forget (for the most part) for thirty-plus years. One man's half-checkered Chess King sweatshirt is another man's pair of Stars n' Stripes bellbottom dungarees, I suppose...


In the eighties, I had little trouble achieving very similar trajectory with mine own fizz.
Bill (Billy Warlock) is discovering that he's unlike the other members of his immediate Beverly Hills family unit, choosing to come off like a down-to-earth poor man's Charlie Sheen rather than putting on airs of snobbish, affluent detachment. His high falootin' parents seem to favor his snooty sister, Jenny (Patrice Jennings) over him, often to uncomfortable-as-a-Penn-State-shower-with-Sandusky levels. His feelings of alienation lead him to the couch of resident head shrinker, Dr. Cleveland (Ben Slack), with whom he confides a feeling of having been adopted, relating a freaky contortionist vibe while stumbling in on his sister's shower, and later an audio cassette culled by her teen stalker ex, Blanchard,  from her "coming out party", which sounds more than a little like an incestual feeding frenzy initiated by his parents (!) that degenerates into a debutante dick down (Zingers like "First we dine, then we copulate!" can be heard by all).


The room was empty as I staggered from my bed, I couldn't bear the image racing through my head...
Meanwhile, Bill's been keeping his vapid blonde cheerleader/girlfriend, Shauna (Heidi Kozak), in the dark about a not-secret-in-the-least crush he's developed on the dark, mysteriously malleable Clarissa (Devin DeVasquez), who, by the looks of it, beats Shauna on Kama Sutra expansion points alone. Her weirdo mother seems to have developed a taste for human hair, for some reason. He's also bullied on the beach by a preppy crew of Biff's and Chad's, who dangle an invite to an upcoming exclusive party of theirs over his head like a savory doggie treat. At least, until Blanchard dies in a car accident, and an invitation to the very party he'd been desperately trying to get into, inexplicably arrives in the mail. It's right about here that the film speeds into a lengthy, noxiously disgusting climax that shouts, "This is not Ferris Bueller's Day Off!". Needless to say, it's something you're going to have to experience for yourselves at least once before you die. I'll say that much.


"Ahuhuhhuhhuh...shut up, Beavis...dumbass."
Yuzna, who produced the original 1985 cult classic, Re-Animator, also directed two Re-Animator sequels, two "The Dentist" movies, the fourth Silent Night, Deadly Night sequel, and the third Living Dead sequel, so he's obviously not opposed to hooking a hulking, fragrant cheese wheel to a film projector reel, in fact he's made quite a career out of it, to date. This one's just not one of my favorites. That said, I certainly appreciate the iconic, unsettling effects work of Screaming Mad George on display here. The level of queasiness he achieves with it on this film is impressive, indeed. Though it isn't a cup of tea I'd ever regularly sip at, I could see others easily having a greater fondness for it than I do. One Wop.


Four double dipped pre-orgy blotters might have been overdoing it, slightly.

"Long Weekend" (1978) d/ Colin Eggleston

Despite the blatant "Last House"-ishness of the release poster for tonight's review, there are no unhinged sexual psychos prowling the Australian outback for victims here, no gang of grimy fuck-starved thugs terrorizing helpless innocents, leading to excruciating torture or premature violent death. It's more of a "Nature wants you to cool it, baby" movie, an ambiguous entry in the seventies eco-horror genre warning mankind to halt its transgressions against the creatures of earth, or it'll be sorry, indeed. And despite all of these things, we've got a pretty cool little movie on our hands.


"I shot that tree all by myself. Let's get some of that bark on the barby."
Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets) are a couple going through a rough patch, when they decide to spend a weekend together camping out by a remote beach. Despite her protests, Peter stows away their mangy mutt in the back, and chain smokes and bickers throughout the all day and night drive to their destination, running over a kangaroo, in the process. Normally, that's ten points, but in this alternate universe, using a marsupial as a speed bump sets off all sorts of vague karmic implications upon the troubled duo. To further complicate matters, we find that Marcia's recently undergone an abortion, the botched result of Peter's attempted spicing up of things with another couple(it was the other fellow's baby), and she's yet to lie down again with her horny, frustrated mate. Eagle eggs, she's got no problem fiddling around with. Spraying invading ants with pesticide is another task she can accomplish with ease.


"Yer headlightin' norks have me wantin' a look at yer mappa Tassie."
Marcia's frigidity leads Peter to venture off with his dog, swimming and surfing the shore until his gal alerts him to a hulking dark shape behind him in the water. Once he's safely ashore, he fills the ominous shadow with lead from his rifle, only it's no shark, it's a dugong that he's just turned into a blubbery beach pizza. Things only get weirder from here, as he's attacked by a swooping eagle, then bitten by a possum, leading Marcia to strongly suggest that they vacate the premises, so strongly, in fact, that she pulverizes the eagle's egg she's been monkeying around with, to illustrate her point. Peter uses this incident as an opportunity to drop a sick burn about baby-killing on his partner, who now demands an immediate divorce. When Peter continues to drag his feet about leaving, wanting to investigate some people on the other end of the beach, Marcia splits on him, leaving him to face off against this recently ultra-aggressive fauna with only his mangy pooch by his side. What happens in the end? Get a copy and find out for yourselves.


You've got a hubcap diamond star halo...dead dugong, dead dugong, dugong's gone...
If you go into tonight's review with an open mind, without meditating too much about the karmic lesson the film's producers wanted to teach our two protagonists, you'll have a good time with it. Personally, I couldn't wrap my mind around the goofy concept of nature rising collectively against them, when their sins seemed mostly accidental, or at the least evitable, had they not been at such preoccupied odds with each other throughout the movie, and never cruel or sadistic in nature. It just doesn't work that way, unless you're a smelly, tree-hugging eco-hippie screenwriter with a laughable agenda, in which case, your hokey story will only seem plausible to other smelly, tree-hugging eco-hippies, which I am not, as anybody will tell you. Still, I liked this one a lot, probably due to the filmmakers' inability to purvey their message clearly. Three Wops, and a recommendation, for sure. See it.


Throat lozenge, perhaps?

"The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant" (1971) d/ Anthony M. Lanza

Back in 2011, I mentioned tonight's review in passing while covering the other 70's double domed horror flick of note, The Thing With Two Heads (1972). Though that particular interracial pair up of Rosey Grier and Ray Milland was certainly a fucking scream, by anybody's standards, tonight's is a polycephalic drive-in style punch up par excellence, with a cast headed up by cult fave Bruce Dern as Roger, the scientist with a Frankenstein complex-come-lately, and Pat Priest of The Munsters fame as his neglected wife. If that's not enough for you, how about the late, great Casey Kasem, dressed like he lost a bet, as Roger's smooth-voiced pal, Ken. Still not convinced?


"Look at these balls...where's those bananas you told me about...who the hell is this guy on my shoulder?"
Roger Girard (Dern) is a scientist that's been honing his head transplant skills in a private home laboratory with the assistance of  the wheelchair-bound Dr. Max (Berry Kroeger). He shows his progress to his pal and fellow doctor, Ken (Kasem), and by "progress", we of course mean two-headed rabbits, snakes, foxes, and monkeys. Roger fully expresses his intent and purpose to expand his addahedtomy("add-a-head-to-me") experiments to human subjects, and none of this flusters Ken one bit. He is alarmed when Roger's caretaker's son, Danny (John Bloom), a giant hillbilly simp with brute strength, nearly cleaves his head off on the porch. "This is an axe, Danny. It's used to chop wood and nothing else.", states Roger, matter-of-factly. Yeah, there are gonna be some problems down the road with this big lug, I can see it.


"....Giant two headed hillbilly strangling two people to death at once...You don't see that every day."
Cass (Albert Cole) is a bug-eyed, lip-licking, rapist/murderer on the loose, and when he finds himself terrorizing the folks at Dr. Girard's spot, killing Danny's father, and nearly adding Roger's wife to his growing list of victims, he's rewarded with fatal gunshots for his psychotic anarchy.With Danny in shock over his father's death, and the unhinged killer dying, Roger does what any man of science would do, in his stead: why, graft the disturbed dome onto the hulking hayseed's shoulder, of course! With Danny's retard strength at his command, Cass shows his gratitude for the new lease on life by rampaging through the countryside, smashing in biker's heads with rocks, strangling hormonal teens at makeout point, by the two's, that sort of thing. Such ludicrous goings on call for a suitably ridiculous and entertaining finale, and this one delivers.


Just five years later, and it looks like Marilyn Munster (Pat Priest) is out of her monster phase.
Director Lanza also helmed 1967's The Glory Stompers, while also having edited two Arch Hall, Jr. vehicles, Wild Guitar (1962) and Nasty Rabbit (1964). Give me some vintage exploitative Bruce Dern like Psych-Out or Hang 'Em High(both 1968), and you'll hear no complaints from me. Big John Bloom would go on to appear as "Gor" in Brain of Blood, Frankenstein's monster in Dracula vs. Frankenstein (both 1971), as well as the murderous alien-in-a-flannel-shirt in The Dark (1979). He also scored  genre credits in Al Adamson's Angel's Wild Women (1972), and The Hills Have Eyes Pt II (1984). A lot of people prefer Thing over Transplant, but I'm not one of them. This drive-in classic merits three exploitative Wops, and is recommended.


"Danny doan' wanna keyull nobodah! Danny wanna lookit Hee-Haw!"

"Calvaire" (2004) d/ Fabrice Du Welz

Thanks to Belgian filmmaker Fabrice Du Welz, you can pretty much cross the High Fens natural reserve in Liege off your bucket list of places to visit. When I think about tonight's review ...also known as The Ordeal (2004), and rightfully so, as Du Welz has concocted a bizarre mix of beautiful cinematography and gripping psychological terror, the madness of  love, and dreary, ominous isolation that makes for a pretty wild ride, while tapping into earlier films like Psycho (1960), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Deliverance (1972), and Misery (1990). If those titles don't paint a vivid enough picture of what kind of lunacy you're in for here, it's outta my hands, folks. I've done all I can...


"Dominique, nique, nique, s'en allait tout simplement...c'mon, ev'rybuddy!"
After cabaret singer Marc Stevens (Laurent Lucas) speeds away in his personalized van from his last successful gig belting out mundane love songs (in a personalized cape, mind you) to horny Belgian grannies (and smitten nurses who Polaroid him their boobs) in a backwater convalescent home, he breaks down during a sleet storm in the dark and desolate wilderness of Liege, bumping into a disheveled-looking chap named Boris (Jean-Luc Couchard) who's been searching for his dog, Bella, in the elements, and who points him towards the empty local inn, where an quirky little fellow named Paul Bartel (Ha! ...as played by Jackie Berroyer) sets him up with a bed and breakfast, on the odd promise that he does not go near the village. While out on a nature walk, he does just that, spying a horrific gaggle of crummy-looking mutant locals as they take turns making love to a pig in a nearby barn. Bartel promises that his van will be repaired by morning, and the men trade a joke for a song after dinner, amid melancholy vibes over Bartel's wife, Gloria, who apparently broke camp ages ago.


"Check your pay envelope, I put Polaroids of my boobs in there.", notes Mademoiselle Vicky (Brigitte Lahaie). 
The next morning, things have gone from disadvantageous to deplorable. Marc's van looks to have been broken into and rummaged through, the only phone has been disconnected, Bartel is nowhere to be found, and the small closet in his room is now filled with women's dresses. He then notices an angry Bartel outside smashing the fuck out of his vehicle with a sledgehammer, and runs down to try and reason with him, only to get brained with the detached battery. Bartel sets the van on fire and drags the unconscious lounge singer off. When he finally comes to, he's wearing a dress, tied to a chair, and getting his injured, bleeding head shaved by the innkeeper, who seems to have convinced himself that the man is his wife, returned to him. When Marc tries to escape, Boris returns him to Bartel's tractor (which is spotted by some of the locals on a trapping run), and later crucifies him (!) to some support beams in the barn. From here, the situation only turns more distressing by the sickening minute.


"If you don't pay attention to my footwork, you'll never be able to do the 'Tor Johnson' ...You've got it all wrong. Sway left, then right, then left, then right, then..."
Du Welz followed this effort up with Vinyan (2008), Alleluia (2014), and Colt 45 (2014), all of which are on my "to watch" list, for sure. Phillipe Nahon you'll probably remember from things like Haute Tension (2003), and Gaspar Noe's Irreversible (2002), as well as Seul contre tous/ I Stand Alone (1998). Brigitte Lahaie, as most of you should well know by now, was one of France's premier pornographic exports in the late seventies. I found this one as deliriously demented and rotten as any grindhouse flick from the seventies, though beautifully framed with a decidedly arthouse lens, lending a surreal feel to the unpleasant proceedings which might be a cultural curveball to mainstream genre fans. On the scale, Calvaire shuffles about to the tune of three Wops, a must-taste for discerning Euro-horror palates out there.


"Okay, well, since you put it that way...", shrugs Shotgun-face (Laurent Lucas).