"Humanoids from the Deep"(1980)d/Barbara Peters

A Roger Corman-produced eighties throwback to monster movies of the fifties,Humanoids boasts a solid B cast,effective Rob Bottin makeup and effects,and the horniest mutant salmon monsters you've ever seen.Plenty of gore,boobs,intolerance,and hokey science delivered by a dame abound in this low budget gem.A remake was made years later for Showtime sans the sex,nudity,and gore,but the question arises:Why fuck with Corman gold?

Doug McClure and Ann Turkel,both rocking the puffy vest.
Fishermen from the sleepy fishing burg of Noyo(where EVERYONE'S a fisherman,and everyone rocks puffy vests) have got a whale in their nets,only it's a pissed-off titular humanoid from the deep,who proceeds to make mincedmeat of the net,pulling one of the fishermen under the boat and treating him like human goldfish flakes.One of the other anglers tries firing a flare into the air for help,but in an instant jackass move(add water and stir),slips and fires it into the deck,causing the boat to explode,killing everyone aboard.Nice one,jackass,the humanoids weren't formidable enough to kill everyone off in the first place without you pulling a Jerry Lewis.
Peggy and Jerry are showing affection for each other in the ebbing surf when Jerry is pulled under the water.When he lifelessly pops up,his face looks like thinly-sliced pancetta.Peggy tries to outrun the amorous amphibian responsible for her boyfriend's death,but to no avail.The humanoid throws her into a pile of sludge in the sand,rips off her bikini,and treats her like a Bowery prostitute(insert porno wah wah pedal guitar).

"That's right!That's right!Who's yer effin' daddy,bitch!"
Amidst the fishy sex and gore,there's Jim(Doug McClure) and Hank(Vic Morrow).Jim is a two-fisted,beer drinking environmentally-conscious fisherman.Hank is a two-fisted,beer drinking company man who fishes and hates Indians.The company is Canco,which has been genetically altering salmon with a growth hormone, sending Dr. Susan Drake(Ann Turkel) along to make sure their experiments havent grown into seaweed dripping,sex-crazed homicidal monsters along the way.Too late,they have.Oops.
When the humanoids kill the town's dog population,naturally Hank blames the lone Indian,dynamiting his house,and setting the stage for a drunken punch-up outside the local dance.In Hank's defense,he does wear a puffy vest also.

Racial hatred also dons the puffy vest;Meet Hank(Vic Morrow).
In the meantime,a goofy ventriloquist is about to bed a local pretty young thing(with enough vaginal wool to knit your Aunt Beatrice a turtleneck sweater) in a tent on the beach.That doesn't happen.A humanoid shows up and cockblocks the voice-thrower,killing him and humping her.By the time Jim and Dr. Drake(who,by the way,shows her feelings for Jim by rocking a puffy vest,too)have caught on to the gist of the whole terrifying affair(The humanoids are mating with human females to further evolve.Brrrrrrr.),the fishy lotharios have set their sights on the local carnival,showing up in murderous schools of fishmen to murder the town's men,and rape the women,among them,this year's "Salmon Queen"(I wonder if anyone else sees the irony here...)who tries to escape,but the result is the same:bikini ripped off,fishman lovin'.Jim resourcefully uses gasoline to dispatch the humanoids,and all looks to have returned to normal the next morning,except Peggy,who was discovered half-alive in a bed of seaweed on the beach,delivers, to the dismay of the pediatrics doctors, a screaming bloody baby humanoid from the deep from her torn-open belly.Fishmen:1,Noyo:0.

Is that a tentacle in your pocket,or are you just glad to see me?
Always dug this movie when I was a kid,maybe it was the cool creatures and gore,probably all the boobs and bush shots,but either way,it still delivers the fishy goods after all these years.Roger Corman has always managed to entertain the audience,despite monetary or artistic shortcomings,and for that,he remains a personal favorite.Check it out!
Two out of four B.W.'s

"Psych Out"(1968)d/Richard Rush

This bizarre cult classic is the result of a script that Jack Nicholson wrote for director Richard Rush that Rush felt was too experimental for the mainstream.After being re-written as a San Francisco youth film dealing with "flower power" and drugs by other writers,Nicholson ended up in the lead male role,writing his own character's dialogue.The end product, which boasts of many big name actors in outrageous roles, was produced by Dick Clark(!).

Stoney(Jack Nicholson) plus spleefie plus clip-on ponytail equals cinematic gold!
Jenny(Susan Strasberg of "The Trip" fame),is a teenaged deaf runaway mute arriving in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco looking for her brother Steve(Bruce Dern in a hippie wig),or as he's known by his followers..."The Seeker".She soon realizes this task is harder than it sounds,having only a postcard that reads "Jess saes" and "God is alive and well in a sugar cube." and being in the middle of a community of kooks.At a coffeehouse she meets Stoney(Nicholson),Ben(Adam Roarke), and Elwood(Max Julien),members of a local psychedelic band called Mumblin' Jim,who help hide her from the fuzz(one of which being Gary Marshall) who are asking around about her.They take her back to their happening crash pad,where hippies keep baby alligators in the refrigerator,talk to their pet louse(he's named...Manny),stare at crystals and web the place up in strings of plastic beads when they aren't making out or smoking grass,maaaaan.Stoney digs playing music...or rather holding his guitar while Hendrix rip off studio bands like The Storybook and The Boenzee Cryque pipe in music.His fretboard doesn't see much work as his hands never move,but like,who's paying attention,maaaan?Dave(Dean Stockwell in a hippie wig and groovy headband) is also in Mumblin' Jim,but considers fame a big plastic hassle,so he sits in a cardboard box on a rooftop,staring at the lone beam of light that shines through the top...because that's all there is,maaaan.

Mumblin' Jim play Kalaideoscope...or maybe it's Red River Dream.
Now Stoney digs Jenny enough to help her look for her brother,even scrapping with a junkyard gang(when's the last time you saw a good junkyard gang?) when the hippies find The Seeker's burned out psychedelic Volkswagon in the local junkyard(Elwood,banged out on LSD sugarcubes,saves the day when he imagines himself a prince vanquishing a dragon after being a frog kissed by a princess...wow.),but Stoney's a real ladies man who likes his freedom,with no strings attached.Hell,chicks even pop up from under his bed looking to make it with him(remember,Nicholson wrote this).It's a real bad scene when Warren(director Henry Jaglom with paste on crepe wool mutton chop sideburns) the artist freaks out down at the gallery on an STP trip.When his usual hallucinogenic home remedy of snapping his fingers doesn't stop him from seeing a few things,he naturally tries to circular saw his own hand off.Jenny doesn't understand why people take powerful drugs,but obviously...like Nietzche says...just don't judge people,maaaan.

"Yeah, I'm...I'm fine. Now I've been seeing a couple things but.. I can come out of it anytime I want to. You know all...all...all I have to do is... is snap my fingers and I come out of it." Warren(Henry Jaglom),snap your fingers,man.
The hippies tackle Warren to the ground,saving him from his own twisted mind,when Jenny notices a statue of some tin foil flames that her brother made,taking her one step closer to finding The Seeker.Now in the meantime,Ben stages a mock hippie funeral in the park with garage rock legends,The Seeds, playing and a mock priest(?) with a crepe wool Amish beard giving last rites,culminating in some dame making it with him in his coffin.Stoney's pals know how to party,maaaaan.The inevitable happens,and Mumblin' Jim is booked to play the ballroom,on the bill with Strawberry Alarm Clock(who could forget their smash hit,"Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow"),so Stoney tries to coax Dave out of his rooftop box to play the gig with them,but Dave would rather groove with Jenny.At this point,Stoney catches The Seeker breaking into the gallery to steal back his tin foil flames statue which he needs....for meditation(huh?).Steve tells Stoney the sordid tale surrounding Jenny's dysfunctional childhood,causing her to spew black motor oil and worms out of her mouth(!),forever robbing her of her ability to hear(common medical condition,in those days).The Seeker promises to see her,but only after he's had a day to get his head straight.

Bruce Dern IS...The Seeker.
The band play the ballroom gig,in true "Archies" fashion,but when Steve shows up,so does the lovable junkyard gang to stomp some sense into his hippie wig.There's a chase,but Steve sets a building on fire and prefers to die in it,grooving off the flames.Outta sight,maaaaan.In the meanwhile,Dave,in true chivalrous fashion,gets Jenny to drink a whole glass of STP with him,causing her to wander off into traffic,trapping herself between two lanes of speeding cars in the night.Stoney and the boys rescue her,but not before Dave gets knocked around like a human pinball,being hit by multiple cars,exclaiming,"Reality is a deadly place...I hope this trip is a good one.",before calling it a permanent day.Heavy,man,heavy.

Julien,Nicholson,and Roarke,grooving.
I love throwing this one on every once in awhile for some good unintentional laughs.I doubt Jack Nicholson and Dick Clark were ever the finger on the pulse of the psychedelic hippie community,but their take on it,certainly makes for repeated bizarre viewings.MGM released this on dvd as a double-bill with equally far out Peter Fonda vehicle,"The Trip"(first acid trip,hmmm...I think I need Bruce Dern as a chaperone...yeah,bad idea.).Get out your favorite bubbler("medicinal" purposes only),some plastic beads,and a clip on ponytail,and return to those flowery days of sixties yesteryear with Dean Stockwell and his STP punch,You'll be glad you did.
Four out of four B.W.'s

"Blood Freak"(1972)d/Brad Grinter

There's probably no other movie like this one anywhere in the world.Not even the Turks,as laughingly inept as THEY are at committing films to celluloid(see:Dunyayl Kurtaran Adam,or "Turkish Star Wars"),could dream up anything this unintentionally hilarious.I'm only scratching the surface here.If Andy Milligan,Ed Wood,Uwe Boll,and Roberta Findlay had an Ex-Lax party in Hell and took a collective hot steamy poop on a sterling silver serving platter a la "Salo':120 Days of Sodom",while being filmed by Turks,the end result wouldn't smell this bad.This might in fact be the Holy Grail of bad/good horror movies,respect due to "Creeping Terror" and "Plan 9 From Outer Space".If this be error,and upon me prov'd,then I've never Wop'd,and no man ever lov'd.

Herschell(Steve Hawkes)tokes a poolside spleefie in the name of peer pressure,and is hopelessly hooked on dope thereafter.
Herschell,a muscular Elvis lookalike with an Eastern Bloc accent and horrible burn scars,hits the Florida highways on a chopper he's about a hundred pounds too big for when he comes upon Angel,a damsel in distress having car trouble.He gives her a lift to her house,where a groovy drug party is going down,hosted by her sister Ann,a seventies-tastic young thing with Sharpied-on eyebrows and a room full of fifty year old friends.Herschell soon learns that Angel is a bible-quoting do-goodnik, and her sister Ann,who seems to have invited country crooner/Chapstick snorter George Jones to her outta sight get-together,is a party girl.Though Herschell is more interested in the scripture-quoting christian(!),Ann sneakily wins his affections by conning him into toking a doobie by the pool.Only the joint in question turns Herschell into a simpering junkie in the span of ten minutes or so.Meanwhile the girls' father gets Herschell a job at a nearby turkey farm as a human guinea pig,where two turkey scientists feed our hero chemically-altered turkey meat.They even offer him some drugs as an added perk.Score.

Junkie dies from loss of blood,spurting from her groovy blouse.News at eleven.
After consuming an entire drug-laden turkey wrapped in tin foil(with no side dishes or drink to wash it all down),Herschell collapses in the grass,in a dope induced twitching spasm,and blacks out.When he comes to,he finds that some wise guy has replaced his normal head with an oversized papier mache' turkey head with fangs and ping pong ball eyes.Now a terrifying titular blood freak,he sets out to hang dope-loving hippies from a ladder,sloppily drinking their blood(which spurts from a hose under their shirt) in cupped hands as a stock terror shriek is played repeatedly,even when the hippie in question has her mouth closed.In a mire of despondency and gorged on drug-blood,Herschell lumbers back to Ann in hopes she can save him from his current low state.Despite his horrifying feathery appearance,Ann turns the lights off and fucks the turkey monster(..."Oooh,Herschell,oooh"..."gobblegobble")before gathering her long-haired buddies to collectively drum up a plan to save Herschell's life.

Oh Lord,please remove this assininely hokey plaster mask,and I'll swear off ganja for life,I promise!
The blood freak escapes to murder a drug dealer,circular sawing off the poor bastard's prosthetic leg,leaving him to drown in stage blood,clutching the plastic stump and screaming for a minute straight before finally joining the choir invisible.He then kills another junkie broad and an elderly onlooker before incurring the wrath of an enraged overweight redneck,who hops a fence and plunges an ice pick into one of the fiend's ping pong eyes.The goofy turkey head shows up on a dinner table next to a real cooked turkey,which is savaged bare-handedly by chattery off-camera poultry aficionados.The audience is then revisited by chain-smoking on-screen narrator,Brad Grinter,who rambles incoherently from a script on the table before nearly choking to death in delivering the film's apparently christian message.We cut back to Herschell at the turkey farm unconscious from his drug spaz,and find that the whole turkey nightmare was merely a badly filmed psychotic hallucination,spurred on from a reaction of the turkey drugs and marijuana.At the close,Herschell and Ann find a better life through Christ,our lord.Amen.Cue the groovy acid rock guitar score.

"So when you eat or take into your body any chemical... or drugs... you take a chance on reactions that are untested. Unpredictable."

"And yet there are far too [coughing] far too many of us, who go right on taking the good way of life for granted. Ignoring the warnings. So [cough] let's give a little thought to making our own story [cough] have a happy ending![uncontrollable hacking cough,smile,wave cigarette at camera,fade out]"
Do I really have to say any more about this movie?You owe yourself and your buddies repeated hilarious viewings(when I first saw this years ago at my friend Chris' place,we both laughed so hard we very nearly needed adult disposable diapers by the boffo finish),so if you don't own this in your collection,you had better get your hands on a copy pronto.Something Weird offers the definitive print on dvd,with a slew of extras,and even an easter egg.My god,buy it now.
Zero out of four B.W.'s