"Fangs" (1974) d/ Arthur Names

Disregard the misleading sales pitch on the groovy one-sheet of tonight's movie, as it's instead packed with less bite than a fucking earthworm. If William Grefe's drive-in rattlesnake eco-opus Stanley (1972) was a bowl of Froot Loops, then Fangs, or Snakes, as it's alternately known, would be a see-thru generic bag of Silly Circles...if it were directed by the sound man from Ted Mikels' Corpse Grinders (1971), that is. My copy of the movie is the murkiest imaginable, from the old Video Gems vhs, as any clearer quality might only make it more obvious that there isn't a poisonous snake within miles of the camera, and not even Les Tremayne's estate would be pulling for a blu-ray release of it, at any point in time. It's like this...

 
"Here, let this one wriggle around in your pants a spell.", offers Snakey (Les Tremayne).
Snakey Bender (Les Tremayne) is the local grizzled, old, snake-gathering coot who buys his beans from the general store, as run by a barrel-shaped lesbian named Sis (Alice Nunn) and her semi-retarded brother Bud, on credit. He also encourages the local fourth grade boys to supply him with mice and lizards for his snakes, which perturbs the local alcoholic preacher, Brother Joy (Marvin Kaplan), and enjoys listening to marching band records with his pal, Burt (Richard Kennedy), every Wednesday night. Wednesday nights also see a number of visits to the fourth grade teacher's place, where Cynthia (Bebe Kelly) sexually grooves on one of Snakey's scaly pets named Lucifer. Weird as it may all sound, this delicately balanced routine keeps ol' Snakey from abruptly losing his mind, and going on a vengeful snake-based kill-crazy rampage. Wouldn't you know it, the preacher convinces the teacher to disallow the boys to further deliver prey items to the old man, and the shopkeep's brother eagerly smashes Snakey's favorite pet on orders from the frumpy fish eater. To make matters worse, Burt runs off and marries a stripper named Ivy (Janet Wood), and puts an end to the duo's music appreciation during the week on her suggestion. Ol' Snakey ain't a-gonna stand for this sorta thing, no siree.


"The Video Gems vhs print of "Fangs" is too shabby, we need a blu-ray remaster!" - Nobody
As it stands, they don't call Snakey "Snakey" for no good reason, and he's soon doling out fang-injected retribution on any no good feller what wronged 'im. First Burt eats a brick bludgeoning, and is dumped off a nearby cliff in his car, and Ivy is then taken prisoner, and forced to watch as Brother Joy is offed in his underwear by Snakey's serpents, his corpse-laden car also dumped off the same cliff. In fact, the cars pile up at the bottom of said cliff, and nobody seems to notice or care in these here parts. Bud fails to pop the heads off of incoming rattlers, and he joins the others at the base of the drop off. Sis flunks the "Is it a king snake or a coral snake at the bottom of the fifty-five gallon drum she's being lowered into via makeshift trapeze (they were all coral snakes, stupid!) and her pick up truck is soon added to the junkyard under the cliff. Snakey even schedules a reptile rendezvous with the herpetology-horny Cynthia, and while she's writhing orgiastically under the coils of several colubrids, ol' Snakey throws in a copperhead to the oblivious deviate. You can guess where her car is about to end up. What happens in the final reel, I leave for you to discover, though, in the odd chance you let your curiousity get the best of you, and snare a copy.


"As I die here on this dirty floor in my drawers, I'm leaving my car to you, Snakey...never push it off a cliff..."
For a murky mutt of a drive-in movie such as this one, the cast is interesting enough. Les Tremayne was a busy actor, right up to his death in 2003; appearing in everything from Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959) and North by Northwest (1959) to King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), and working on popular soap operas like General Hospital and One Life to Live along the way. His portrayal of Snakey Bender here probably wouldn't make his lifetime highlight reel. Janet Wood, who you'll no doubt remember as Sweet Li'l Alice in Russ Meyer's Up (1976), also appeared in Terror House (1972) and The Centerfold Girls (1974). Alice Nunn, well, she was only "Large Marge" in Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985), though she also scored genre credits in things like The Fury (1978), Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981), and Trick or Treat (1986). Richard Kennedy was a native Pennsylvanian who turned up in Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972), Delinquent School Girls (1975), Candy Tangerine Man (1975) and even Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975). On the scale, Fangs barely manages a bite with the potency of a single Wop. There are far better snake movies out there.


"You're a dead ringer when I sting you with my stinger, 'cuz ev'ry queen needs a kiiiiing!", sings Snakey.

"The Beast Must Die " (1974) d/ Paul Annett

Eleven years after British horror rival Hammer Studios produced their only werewolf movie, Curse of the Werewolf, Amicus Studios put out their own in tonight's review, though it's less a horror film than a groovily light seventies whodunit with a Castle-esque gimmick thrown in at the outset and three quarter mark for nostalgic effect. Utilizing Calvin Lockhart instead of originally slated  Robert "Count Yorga" Quarry in the lead role gives the film a dynamite blaxploitative flavor and elevates the production from the typical fear fodder it might have otherwise become. Along for the ride are Peter Cushing, Anton Diffring, Charles Gray, and Marlene Clark. Let's get into it.


"Beyonce start the halftime show without me?", wonders Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart).
After being informed of an impending "werewolf break" (I shouldn't have to tell you that's a warning I can get behind),  we meet independently wealthy big game hunter Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) as he's being chased over every inch of his extensive property by armed men, who are aided by electronic surveillance/security he's only recently had installed, as evidenced by the video cameras robotically panning from the trees and microphones jutting from the earth below. His progress is being tracked by a man named Pavel (Anton Diffring), who questions the necessity of such equipment in the first place, as do his eight house guests, which include the likes of Dr. Lundgren (Peter Cushing), a self-proclaimed expert on lycanthropy, a pompous ass named Pennington (Charles Gray), a pianist named Jarmokowski (Michael Gambon) and his current piece of army candy, Davina (Ciarron Madden), a libertine named Foote (Tom Chadbon) who's previously tasted human flesh on a whimsy, and let's not exclude Tom's own sultry wife, Caroline (Marlene Clark). Over dinner, he divulges the reasoning behind the equipment, and why he's gathered them there in the first place. You see, one of these cats is a werewolf, the one beast Tom hasn't had the pleasure of hunting down and killing,  as of yet.


"Like, groovy disguise, Scoob! Come down from there, and we can, like,  make some tasty sandwiches before that spooky pterodactyl ghost comes back."
 We're given the full moon's glorious arrival, signalling moving Radio Shack-esque blips on a dated grid map the likes of which I haven't seen since little boys in polyester checked slacks sunk each other's Battleships, and it's not long before Tom is running around in the day-for-night with a high powered rifle, looking for the optimum shot at the ferocious beast. And it's even sooner that he's got his guests all taking turns holding a solid silver candle holder, their inability to do so surely signifying werewolfery. Lundgren introduces some fake lycanthropic science involving wolf's bane pollen with a poker face, while Pavel gets himself chewed up and spit out by the titular beast, who doesn't forget to destroy all of Tom's high tech equipment, in the process. With no leg up from his groovy gadgetry, Newcliffe naturally points more than one accusatory finger at each of his guests, with all the zeal and twice the paranoia of the Twilight Zone's "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" episode. Discovery of the werewolf's secret identity is given to you, the viewer, and late in the final reel, the aforementioned "Werewolf Break" occurs, providing you with the opportunity to solve the murderous mystery before you. I won't do your detective work for you here, either, as you'll have to score a copy to handle it yourselves. You'll be glad you did.


Seinen hals ist verwundet und sein auge ist weg.
Despite the film's lo-fi werewolf being little more than a common German Shepard with some extra fur glued on, I applaud the film's producers for envisioning a four-legged beast a la/ Landis' An American Werewolf in London (1981), instead of the usual Wile E. Coyote two-legged standard we've come to expect. It's an appreciated change of pace, despite the obvious budgetary restrictions. It's that same change of pace that makes this one so refreshing and entertaining for just about anybody who'd give it a look, and thus, well worthy of the solid three Wops I've gotta bestow upon it here. Recommended, for sure.


This is just his Facebook profile pic, he's really a Jack Russell terrier.

"Sledgehammer" (1984) d/ David A. Prior

As somebody who experienced the eighties firsthand, let me state that tonight's review, a no budget shot-on-video slasher movie called Sledgehammer, is a beautifully inept example of everything that was right and wrong with that decade. The entire cast is comprised of meatheads with Chachi haircuts and zero acting ability or screen presence, who wouldn't look out of place in a Chams De Baron clothing commercial getting hugged on by some Brooke Shields-looking hooker. I'd be willing to wager that the director, one David A. Prior, likes slow motion a lot. He's also pretty fond of lingering on the exact same establishing shot of a house that he uses over and over again throughout this thing. This golden turd that must have been whipped up over a weekend full of bad decisions. Some people might have gotten pissed while choosing this one off the shelves at the local video store back then, but I wouldn't have been one of those cats by a long shot. Had it been born out of my own personal Sony Betamovie camcorder, I would have recorded over the takes with kung fu movies and porn, granted, but it's also exactly the movie that my friends and I would have had a blast tearing the shit out of and laughing our balls off at. So, let's finally have at it...


"Shirts are for fags.", says Chuck (Ted Prior).
A horny Puerto Rican in a silk nightie locks her hysterical son in a closet, so she can slink downstairs for some strange dick, only someone with a sledgehammer serves cock blocking, smashed skull death before it can progress past awkward shoulder rubbing and flubbed dialog. Fast forward to the present day, where a gaggle of Chachullets and their C grade steady big haired trim have decided to party down in the very house where the dome flattening occurred years ago. Names aren't important here, there's a blond muscle prep who goes for romantic shirtless slo-mo strolls with his squeeze, romantically balancing an open beer on the top of her head, along the way. There's also a guy who looks like the retarded steroid-blasted variant of Louis CK who stuffs food in his mouth and spits chewed food on the blonde dude's girlfriend's head. The blonde dude consoles his girlfriend by squirting mustard on her head. There's also a guy who looks like the result of Geraldo Rivera and Tony Orlando, sans Dawn, dumped into a giant blender. The mustard incident kicks off a gross food fight that lasts a long time, and a subsequent food fight clean up scene that's even longer. The blonde guy plays a melody on his acoustic guitar on the porch, to offset how abusive he is to his girlfriend the rest of the time, I guess.


"And then the Swamp Witch and the Zombie chased the kids around and Scooby and Shaggy put on disguises and made a giant sandwich..."
Once they're seemingly finished drinking cheap beer from the can and shouting stupid things at each other (and over each other), it's seance time, seance being a word that Muscle Louie comically cannot pronounce correctly. Ha ha. An unconvincing campfire story follows, along with a replay of the intro murders, and then more murders finally start happening, when a flannel-wearing goon in an expressionless clear mask materializes on the steps and skewers one of the lads through the neck, dragging him off. Geraldo, reluctant to bed his companion to this point, caves in and takes her upstairs for some awkwardly blatant non-sex. Sledge makes the scene and bashes them both in, leading Muscle Louie to issue a slo-mo beatdown to the killer. The bodies of Geraldo and his girl are laid out in an underfurnished white room (they pretty much all are) with a sloppy blood pentagram drawn on the corner of a wall. The killer pops up, courtesy of a video dissolve effect. He's the goon. He's the kid from the intro. He's the goon again. Louie takes a knife to the back. Blonde guy fights the goon, and his shirt disappears during the scrap. Mustard Head is forced to fend off the goon alone, and electrocutes him with a charged doorknob. Blonde guy reappears and clobbers him with a sledgehammer for good measure. As the couple is walking out of the house, the goon is watching from an upstairs window. Joke credits follow (I.C. Knun, Mike Hunt, Jac Meough, Nick Gnoes, etc.).


I had the same expression watching this.
I should probably mention that the director didn't stop here, going on to helm thirty-four movies, including gems like 1987's Killer Workout, Deadly Prey (1987), Future Force (1989), Future Zone (1990), and Invasion Force (1990). It's also worth mentioning that the lead actor here, Ted Prior, is his brother, and has appeared in things like Nudes in Limbo (1983), Surf Nazis Must Die (1987) and Karate Warrior 2 (1988). Needless to say, this one is a one Wopper all the way, but most definitely one of those legendarily rotten one Woppers that you're bound to get a massive kick out of, under the proper circumstances. If you revel in the rotten, this one's for you.


"You'll be tiptoeing through traction if you don't give me back my fucking ukelele!", demands Tiny Tim.