Alligator(1980)d/Lewis Teague

Frosty'd freeze his snowballs off tonight.The upside of a negative ten degree wind chill outside,is that I'll be pacing the floors inside tonight,and more importantly,serving up exploitation flicks just the way you like 'em!I'm even cutting my cigarette breaks on the stoop painfully short,as chafed,windblown Wop may be one of the least sexy things you can possibly envision.First up?In hopes that Damian over at "Nature Run Amok" picks up his blogging gauntlets again one day,we're going to examine Lewis Teague's higly enjoyable reptilian camp-stravaganza,Alligator.Boasting of a bounty of b-movie players(that includes Michael "Godfather" Gazzo,70s tv staple Bart Braverman,Jack Carter,Sydney "Cuckoo's Nest" Lassick,and Dean "Game of Death" Jagger!),a witty script by John "Howling" Sayles,effective monster effects,and surprisingly,an adequate dosage of the red red kroovy,oh my brothers,this entry is a tasty little one indeed.

Dead partners,bad combovers,and childish locker pranks.Detective Madison(Robert Forster)can't win for losing.
Little Marisa Kendall's parents,ever the thoughtful pair,buy their daughter a baby alligator instead of that pony little girls always seem to be crying for.Her father,tired of cleaning gator shit(!) up around their apartment,flushes little "Ramon" through the toilet pipes and into urban legend territory.Over the next twelve years the alligator,unseen in the sewers below and sustained by a steady diet of dead dogs(you know,like the ones Steve Miner's Lake Placid(1999) blew?)pumped full of experimental growth hormones by Slade Pharmaceuticals,headed by unscrupulous miser Mr. Slade(natch,Dean Jagger),grows to thirty-five feet long and begins to see humans as walking penne arrabiata,much to the dismay of city Det. Madison(Robert Forster),an unlucky guy who sat there with his teeth in his yap when his old partner was killed on the beat right before his own glassies.As if Chicago didn't suck enough in the first place.First,creepy pet pusher Mr. Gutchel(Sydney Lassick) who's been catching and supplying the mutts for the laboratories,before dumping the hormone-laden evidence,falls prey to the behemoth beast.When Madison and a random volunteer cop descend into the sewers to investigate the mounting list of disappearances,Ramon drags off the badge in his hulking maw.Way to let another partner eat snapping primordial death without lifting a finger,jackass.

Wendy O. Williams would think twice about wrasslin' this puppy.
After a nosey reporter(Bart Braverman)gets his ass chomped every which way but loose and inadvertantly snaps pictures of his own death,the mayor(Jack Carter)enlists a big game hunter,Col. Brock(Henry "Rat Pack" Silva)to dispatch the drain-dwelling death dealer but after failing to impress a female news reporter with ridiculous impersonations of alligator mating calls(!!),he fails to keep himself out of the monster's jaws,being eaten whole in front of a posse of horrified homeboys.When Madison's investigation into the Pharmaceutical company reveals the mayor as a corrupt cotmate,he loses his badge.Ramon explodes through a sidewalk after a failed army flush out drives the gator to the surface,causing the titular terror to traumatize the whole town,and drop in on Slade's wedding party,eating the mayor and squashing the elderly tycoon in his limosine with his massive tail.Madison finally enlists the services of a skeptical herpetologist Marisa Kendall(Ramon's childhood owner,all grown up-like!Oh sweet irony...)and together prove to be the only two people in the Windy City with enough saavy to sink the scaly rascal for keeps.Elsewhere someone else is bunging another baby crocodillian down the lavvy,and potentially,we all know what that could mean...

Col. Brock(Henry Silva),big game hunter and cocky cocksmith,says "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" to turn on a female reporter while tracking the goliath gator.His luck is bad.
The dark humor in Sayles' writing really catapults this one above the standard killer animal fare of its day,like Tentacoli,Up From the Depths,Orca the Killer Whale,etc.There are several inside jokes and references to other films throughout for the viewer to catch,like one of the alligator's aptly named victims,Ed Norton,after the sewer worker from The Honeymooners.It eventually inspired the cleverly titled sequel,Alligator 2:The Mutation(1991),which I'll dissect here at a later date.As I mentioned in the Rogue review,giant alligators and crocodiles have certainly become a cult horror cash crop in the last decade or so,but it all started here,and it certainly holds up over multiple viewings,as I've scrutinized it under in the almost thirty years since its release.Pop it in and dig it immensely.The scale says:

Ramon uses the mayor(Jack Carter) as a combination chew toy/battering ram with comic results.

Nightmare(1981)d/Romano Scavolini

In my pre-teen days of 1981,I moseyed on downtown on foot to catch this one at the legendary American Theater,scoring myself the notorious one sheet pictured above for a measly five extra clams.Black tape covered up the sections of the poster where the film's producers boasted of "Special Effects Director Tom Savini" and "From the man who terrified you with Dawn of the Dead and Friday the 13th" which Tommy successfully protested,though he did offer some help to the film's FX artist Ed French,as documented here but probably wasn't offered enough greenbacks for his expertise.They eventually removed the original one sheet altogether,opting instead for this one,which looks to depict a crazed sadistic Hillary Rodham Clinton(even more so than in real life,frighteningly)!Despite the half-assed posters and sassafras from Savini,Scavolini scored himself a memorable minor classic slice of the succulent sleazy slasher pie,cooling on the 80's windowsill,maintaining its shock value nearly thirty years later,pleasing discerning gornophiles worldwide.

Georgie Tatum took whacks with an axe at the heads and necks of his parents having sex,the FX were paraded,causing this one to be released unrated.
George Tatum wakes up to find he's sharing his bed with a decapitated head(I hate those mornings!), and then awakes again to discover it was only a horrible dream-within-a-dream.Damn you,Edgar Allen.He finds himself safe and sound,wrapped in a straitjacket,in an insane asylum.After pouring ample doses of experimental drugs down his gullet,which the doctors naturally assume have completely cured him of his ocean of mental problems,they logically unleash him on the unsuspecting populace. Tatum,a man after mine own bloodpump,wastes no time in his first order of business,naturally,hitting the nearest seedy 42nd street porno palace.Instead of drinking in the ample talents of the midtown hooker he's chosen,he instead opts to relive a double axe murder he committed as a child,causing his body to break into full uncontrollable spasm,shooting white froth from his twisted yap as he twitches on the ground.Hmmm,maybe those drugs weren't quite as effective as the doctors originally believed...
Elsewhere in the sane world,we're introduced to the Temper family,headed by Susan,a woman who totally ignores her three horrible children who fight over burgers(!), in favor of boat outings with her hairy boyfriend,who resembles the result of cellular fusion experiments between James Brolin and Tommy Chong.The two daughters,Kim and Tammy,barely scrape the surface of horrible compared to their brother C.J.,who maps out elaborate gory pranks on his family,and looks to have majored in sociopath with a minor in bananas in elementary school.We're already cheering on Tatum's inevitable gore-soaked rendezvous with the Tempers before it even happens.

This head has successfully been put to bed.
Sure enough,Georgie leaves a wake of mutilated corpses in his travels south towards the family Temper,which couldn't happen soon enough at this point. Amidst the mounting body count,Tatum's doctors decide they may have fumbled the ball with their former patient,and decide to help track him down.George is wracked with guilt and remorse for his despicable deeds,but has no control over himself as he presses on,undoubtedly fucking mentally crackers. He manages to serial whack the Temper's sexually active babysitter and her boyfriend,but is shot dead by mini-nutjob C.J. before he can get his murder on with any of the family members.We're then treated to George's childhood flashback in its entirety,as young Tatum walks in on his parents in the throes of a fine afternoon of sado-masochism and bondage/discipline,lopping their domepieces off before they can enjoy their perversion any further.We soon find out that the serial killer is in fact the patriarch of the Temper family himself,on a mission to speed the horrible brood to the damnation of Hell with his own hands.So close,and yet so far.C.J. winks knowingly at the camera as the credits begin to roll.

Once George rocked corny bow ties,now he's giving Columbian neckties.
Director Romano Scavolini allegedly led a dual career,D'Amato-style,having a hand in porno flicks,and the seedy atmosphere of a two-tissue stroke flick permeates this whole production,combining with the extreme gore to create an unsettling viewing experience for any who may be interested.Non-actors delivering outrageous lines in a deadpan fashion only add to the legend surrounding this video nasty.For me,it's another bloody chapter in the formative years of an avid horror buff,and will always hold special memories for me.You may need a piping hot shower after screening it,but I'm confident you'll appreciate it yourself anyway.On the grand scale,it merits an overall score of:

Scream all you want,Baird,you'll never work in this town again.

Didja miss me,kiddies?

As you might have noticed,I've been on another unexpected sabbatical but the prodigal son has once again returned.The area's boys in blue,always enthused by your humble N's presence,pinched ol' Wop the day after Christmas ten minutes after smoking a cigarette on the front porch on a five year old probation violation bench warrant!Oh sweet irony!Lucky fuckers you are,the teflon emperor deftly avoided a 1-2 year sentence and now has (drumroll) an OFFICIALLY COMPLETELY CLEAN RECORD and is back on the case,bringing you the mad,the bad,and the wicked in bed cinematically here at Wopsploitation.I'll be drudging the swamps later on this weekend for some new reviews of movies that may or may not leave a taste in your mouth similar to what is described as "moon meat" on the weekly menu at Lackawanna Prison.Give me a day or two to enjoy cigarettes that have filters and come in packs,showers that arent crawling with flesh-eating bacteria,meals that don't cost the state forty cents a piece,and most importantly,time outside the stripey hole!


Yours Cruelly,
Wop