Shrooms

Today as I prayed to the gods to take my hangover away (it's a particularly violent one, the result of an impromptu dance party, a gay birthday bash, and the consumption of a shot called a Statutory Rape), I watched SHROOMS. Because sometimes you just want to watch something stupid that you don't have to think too hard about because thinking hurts. Thinking really hurts right now. Everything really hurts right now.

It's your standard attractive college kids going into the woods for a weekend of partying but some shit hits the fan and people start dying movie. This one features deadly, eat 'em and you'll see into the future and possibly become evil hallucinogenic mushrooms.

It is no secret that I party. Before you fall out of your chair from the shock of hearing that news, let me tell you, I have never taken mushrooms. I've never dropped acid, either. And I've never wanted to. Something about my brain would probably make me freak out, so I never understood the whole mentality about tripping. It just seems dumb to me. That being said....

This complete dumbasses in this movie have traveled all the way from happy American college life to the middle of fucking nowhere Ireland to pick these crazy mushrooms to brew into a tea so they'll start to see shit. They have a friend that's native to the region and he helps them pick the mushrooms and warns them off of the one's with a black nipple because if you eat those, you'll go fucking crazy as a loon and start fucking everyone's shit up. And you might also become psychic. He also regales them with tales about a nearby abandoned home for screwed up youth where some bad shit went down years before and some people got their asses killed.

Their guide has failed to mention this to Tara, our final girl in the tale, and she eats one of the bad ones - just plucks it right off the floor as if she's compulsed to eat it. She has a seizure and then starts to have prophetic dreams about her friends dying. She also says the best line in the movie, 'I just overdosed on the heroin of mushrooms!' Who says stuff like that? I love it - but that's about all I love here.

There's also two weirdos that live in the forest and some thing about sticking your dick in car windows while there are two people fucking inside to get a blow job. And there's a guy with a sack on his head and another ghostly presence that may or may not be killing everyone. And a twist ending.

Why did I watch this? The characters are horrible people - the jock is just such an asshole - you can't wait for him to die. But the actor that plays him doesn't have the panache to pull off even this stock of a character. His girlfriend's alright, but not particularly memorable, either. The other hippy-ish couple hate the jock and his GF, which is weird, because why you make an international trip with people that you hate? I know I like to go on vacation with people I can't stand. Tara's the good girl, but particularly annoying for no reason at all just because. The ending was abrupt and it's attempt at a twist felt forced.

I hate when there is just absolutely nothing to love in a movie (save for that one piece of aforementioned dialogue). Sometimes it helps if I picture something sucky as a seventies Italian version it makes it better, but even that wouldn't help this shit fest. My brain hurts now. I'm going to watch cartoons.

Boardinghouse

Last night I wasn't using my normal mental prowess (hehe) and decided after getting off work and not eating any dinner that staying out until last call drinking copious amounts of alcohol would be a good idea because the BFF got dumped by his woman. I was clearly exhibiting such behavior in the interest of being a good friend. Well, that's the last fucking time I'm being supportive and consoling because today I am paying for it with hunger, thirst, and a raging headache. Since I'm not fit to be seen in public, I shall regale you with the tale of BOARDINGHOUSE.

A simple premise really - a flamboyant psychic Lothario, Jim, inherits a haunted house from his uncle and places an ad in the paper for lovely ladies to come rent rooms. A harem of beauties show up and begin to romp topless around the pool, sex up Jim, and die all by the hand of a malevolent force that resides within in the house for some reason. I say for some reason because BOARDINGHOUSE is one of those movies that accounts for NOTHING within its plot. You would never guess by the above synopsis that this is one of the maddest, craziest, fucked up, HORRIBLE movies in the history of my movie watching career. It actually defies genre, spits in narrative's face, and yet still leaves me entertained. I'm holding my head and rocking back and forth, but I'm still entertained. I think if you spliced this thing together backwards it would still make the same amount of sense that it does in the order it was meant to be presented.

Let me try to recreate the experience, although it likely won't work. This is one where I should just stop now, tell you to go netflix this charming piece of garbage, and then you can get back to me. And likely your only comment will be Wow, and wow. Really, just wow. Here we go - don't stop me if you get confused. It will only lead to more confusion.

After some weirdness at an asylum - a doctor is forced to hang herself by an evil presence, phones ring for no reason off camera, and some other stuff - we are treated to our first image of Jim, aforementioned telepathic gigolo, in a speedo, sitting in lotus position on the desk in (his?) office. He makes the plants shake with his mind and then dips his socks in a crystal bowl of water before putting them back on and meets a roaring drunk that barges into the office for no real reason whatsoever. So you're thrown off by the weird beginning, then as you start to get the hang of it, sorta, here comes this drunk to mess it all up.

Back at Jim's haunted abode, the girls are arriving by the car-full. They all seem like your typical horror victim females and for the most part they are, but they arrive in such numbers and so quickly and appear so haphazardly, it's hard to keep track of who's who and what their relationships are to each other. Some appear to know one another, others are meeting for the first time. Are we supposed to care about these females? Likely not - it seems as if they're more friends of the director (the guy that plays Jim - John Wintergate) than actual actresses.

The first real dose of horror comes when one of the girls, when trying to light a cigarette on an electric stove gets an icepick through her hand. Everyone stands around and stares and Jim says, 'all her fingers work; I checked them.' Okay, Jim, whatever you say. They slap a couple bandaids on that serious flesh wound and call it a day.

Other weirdness occurs, such as the loping around of a weird gardener - think early 80's punk rocker/bum/war veteran - who likes to just stare at the girls, natch. One of the chicas tries to befriend him. 'Aren't you the gardener? I thought you only worked at night?' Wha? I don't know what the function of the gardener is really - to throw us off? I thought this was a movie about supernatural psychic stuff? Oh well. There's a black-gloved killer thrown into the mix as well.

Let's regroup. So far we have telekinesis, supernatural forces, a dash of giallo - all of which occur in such doses we forget about each as it vies for our attention. Convoluted? Sure. Boring? No way. There's dream sequences, skeleton hands, a demon that comes out when the girls vacuum, metaphysics, pizza, a pig gargoyle, chainsaws, a rock band at a pool party, and demonic possession. And would you believe there's more? I can't even recall everything in this - you just have to witness it for yourself. Whole scenes seem to ignore each other and someone says this gem of a line, 'I cut myself with the apple, I mean the knife.' Where else are you going to get that kind of wonderful dialogue?

It's shot on video and there are some major technical difficulties as well. You should see the demon! The gore gags are actually surprisingly well done and, as I mentioned, the dialogue completely off the wall. The whole thing is memorably quotable. It's all part of the fun though, and I think this was intended to be a spoof. It's really hard to tell though. It's a good thing that there aren't other movies like this otherwise we might start getting used to them. Just see it for yourself - trust me - you will feel madness enter your brain and you will LOVE it.

Hangover Continued

Damn, I thought I felt like shit yesterday after a thorough drunkening while watching What the Peeper Saw Saturday night. You would think of all day's, yesterday being my boyfriend Paul Naschy's birthday and all, I could have done something special. But no! I had to have too much to drink again last night and yap on the phone for hours about who knows what. I'm in dire need of a snuggling. And my girl is in town from San Francisco and I can't even will myself out of bed or pajamas to party it up with her. I promise a glowing review of Peeper, as soon as I make myself watch it again, because I know there's gold there - psychosexual gold, the best type! - and I want to be sober for it. For now, enjoy a picture of me in my natural state, sans makeup, not naked, you sleaze balls. This is what Moochie and I have been doing for two days straight:

La Residencia

My fellow perverts, have I got a cinematic treat for you. I have lots of treats up my sleeve, some of the celluloid variety, some not (IYKWIM, but those are better left for another time). For now, I will present you with La Residence a.k.a. The House that Screamed, a Gothic atmosphere laden, psychosexual girl's school nightmare drama that you will thank me for. By the end of this, you will be at my knees, praying for one more slice of late 60's Eurohorror that delivers in the most sadistic ways possible. Brace yourself for a lashing from the stinging sweet tips of my cat o'nine tails, because it don't get much better than this!

La Residencia opens with Mme. Forteau(a damn fine in her role Lilli Palmer, she has just the right combination of bitch, cold, and stern), the headmistress of said residencia, reciting dictation for her girls to take down. Pretty Catalina is insubordinate as hell, and refuses to take down said dictation. Well, it's off to the punishment room for her, all of what entails will soon be deliciously discovered, well deliciously if you're sadistic like I am.

But cut to new girl Theresa being brought to the school by a 'friend' of her momma's. Seems mommy can't take care of Theresa like she should be able to, so this gentleman friend of hers has seen to her care at Mrs. Forteau's hand. He pays tuition for two semesters in cash up front and cares not to hear anything else. Perhaps something has transpired between Theresa and said gentleman in the past? It's subtle alluded to. He's more than happy to relenquish his guardianship of Theresa to Forteau and get the eff outta dodge as fast as he can.

So Theresa's first night ain't all that bad, the girl's seem to want to get to know her and are downright friendly, if you count being friendly as going through all of her clothes, trying them on, and demanding to know how rich she is as friendly. But Theresa doesn't seem to mind and even gifts some of her racier outfits to her new-found friends.

Meanwhile, however, things aren't going so well for insubordinate Catalina, and she's pinned down in her punishment cell by three of her classmates, including hall monitor and headmistress favorite Irene (who not only hands out corporeal punishment but arranges trysts for her sex-starved classmates with firewood bringer, Enrique), and whipped mercilessly for said insubordination. Damn, this scene comes outta nowhere - at first I think I'm just watching a simple girl's school movie, and then I'm reminded, hey, you're watching a girl's school movie, and I'm shocked back into reality by the girls taking all sorts of glee in beating the shit outta Catalina. They even manage to get a lick or two in after the headmistress (I keep wanting to refer to her as 'warden') orders them to stop.

Meanwhile again, there's subplot developing involving Forteau's teenage son and the only male on campus, Luis, whose been known to peep on the girls during their daily activities. Luis has been apparently involved with a lovely named Isabelle and has been sneaking visits with her whenever the chance arises. Seems later on Isabelle goes missing (spoiler alert - she has her throat cut in the greenhouse after Luis sent her a note telling her to meet him there in the middle of the night with promise of escape) - and that brings up the point that several girls have gone missing in the previous few weeks, with no trace of their existence ever to be heard from again. But hey, these are 'difficult' girls, the Forteau informs of of this very early on, and so as they say at those meetings I should go to - they are to be considered to 'have gone back out.'

Okay, were are we? It's been a long day - I do NOT recommend drinking pino noir then calling your brother in the middle of the night and have him bring over jagermeister and watching Dawn of the Dead, expounding loudly for hours how AWESOME that movie is, believe me, we were FEELING it, and then having to go to work at 5 p.m. with a massive hangover that still has not really dissipated and it's like almost 2 a.m. Back to the movie. So it's now Tuesday and it's shower day, yippee! And the girls have to get all soapy and clean, but unfortunately they don't get nekkid, with the exception of Catalina, oh that Catalina!, they have to wear white nightgowns in the shower. Which is strangely sexy. Very much so. Luis seems to think so as well, as he peeps on them from the ceiling.

Shower day came at just the right time for Susana, as it is her turn the next day with Enrique. The girls take turns once a month with ol' Enrique and apparently he's got the moves, if you consider moves being thrown into a haystack and grunting. But hey, these chicks miss their boyfriends and I guess beggars can't be choosers. So that awkward sex session leads us to things getting really uncomfortable between Luis and Mamma Forteau

Seems Forteau heard it through the grapevine that Luis has been having some one of one time with some of her girls. She warns him that none of the young ladies at la residencia are good enough for him and that he should meet a woman JUST LIKE HER and fall in love and start a family. She's dangerously close up in his face while she tells him this and I'm all like, if they start making out, I'm done! DONE. But in fact, I really wanted this movie to go there, and it sorta kinda does, with Forteau kissing him on the full on the lips. And scene.

Well, if a mother/son kiss on the lips doesn't make you feel icky enough, Irene has decided she can't stand Theresa and she's going to make her life a living hell. She finds out Theresa's mom is a nightclub singer, which is apparently slang for prostitute, and then forces her to don a corset and sing for her after beating her. They've got to get back to class, but promise to have an encore performance the next day. And the day after that and the day after that.

Theresa's decided she's had it and appeals to Luis to help her break out. Apparently she and Luis are dating now (?) and he gives her some pocket money and encourages her to escape. Then she manages to get her throat cut. Wha, you say? I know! That's how this fucking thing is, one minute you're just watching the movie, hanging out, la-de-da, and then the next thing you know something just comes outta nowhere. It's Theresa's movie! She's the protagonist. She's supposed to survive this thing - maybe not completely unscathed, but damn. I was betting she'd get her throat cut after an hour and twenty.

So the ending is just about the most fantastic ending that I totally did not see coming - seems Luis has been Dr. Frankenstiening himself up a perfect woman, using parts and pieces from all his favorite girls around the house. Mamma Forteau finds his secret room in the attic and he introduces her to his lady love. Then he locks Forteau in the room with the corpse pieces and tells her to teach his GF how to really take good care of him! The kid playing Luis totally owns it - he's got this creepy vibe but he's kinda cute, in a Disney Channel star sort of way.

So, I might not have done it full justice given my current condition, but this is really sight to behold. The house is simply marvelous, brimming with that old dark house vibe. Think everybody walking around with candelabras wearing period garb. If it wasn't in Spanish, everyone would speak in a clipped English accent for sure. And the sexy stuff is so wrong and in a lot of places, so understated, it makes this pervert very happy. And it's good when perverts are happy.

Thanks, Scott ;)

Attack of the Sabre Tooth

Stop me if you've heard this before. Millionaire mogul guy starts prehistoric theme park on deserted island and invites other millionaire mogul types to preview the island before it opens. Shit goes horribly wrong and the prehistoric attractions end up stomping and eating everybody. Sounds exciting, right? It was pretty exciting when it was called Jurassic Park and featured scary T-Rexes and Raptors and loads of atmosphere. Attack of the Sabre tooth's, functions on the aforementioned prehistoric theme park gone awry premise, but features only three bulimic sabre tooth tigers attacking in broad daylight, one of which is deformed. Yes, they're bulimic. And one is deformed. You heard correctly. They eat people only to vomit them back up so they can eat more people for the sheer pleasure of it. And this is why I love movies like Attack of the Sabre tooth.

The following are more absurdities from the movie, which only elevates it to the upper echelons of SciFi Original territory, at least for this blogger:

1. Sabre tooth vision. It's like sasquatch vision or dinosaur vision or whatever giant creature is stalking stereotypical teens vision. Basically, sabre tooth pov shots which feature a neon orange filter over the lens and some blurring around the edges. This sort of vision is essential to the creation of suspense and fear in the viewer.

2. It features a goth girl pledging a sorority. On what planet would a goth chick EVER pledge a sorority? Maybe she was just being ironic? This being said, I can't stand goths in movies. They're too obviously fake. Not that a movie like AoftheS is known for its subtle nuances and depth of character, but still. (I pretty much only really enjoy the goths in The Convent. Ooh, I should do a review of The Convent - it's been far too long since I've watched that!)

3. Savannah, the young woman in charge of security on the island, has had every single one of her boyfriends die in some horrible manner. One was electrocuted, another beheaded, I don't know. So the guy she's currently effing is more than a little nervous, understandably. That still doesn't stop him from having sex with her, though. Of course not, we're talking sex here. For free!

4. The word sabre tooth is never mentioned. Niles, the English-accented millionaire asshole that's running the park, calls them cats, as well as genetic perfection, but never calls them sabre toofs. How can they be genetically perfect when they're bulimic as well as deformed? Oh, I guess you hadn't heard that genetic perfection encompasses eating disorders and malformed limbs. I wish I was genetically perfect!

5. It was refreshing to watch a SciFi Original that didn't feature a giant shark. I still love love love giant shark movies, but rarely do you see a movie that features a genetically perfect malformed bulimic prehistoric feline.

6. It has the scariest poster ever. Look at that thing. I can hardly stand how menacing that cat looks. The teef are glistening and it looks so enraged, like he's ready to rip off the cover and attack. I'm glad I got this through netflix, because I can't look at the cover art for very long, lest I pee in my pants from fright.

Okay, I'm suffering from a slight bout of ginfluenza this morning, as the per the Monday usual, although it's not too bad, I just feel kinda squirrely in the brains rather than full-on hungover. I was also drinking heavily whislt viewing Attack of the Sabre Toof over a week ago, so I'm gonna cut this off here. Partly because my wine addled brain can't read the chicken scratch I call notes I took in order to recall this movie. And I hit all the highlights above. You're welcome and have a great rest of the day.

The Curious Dr. Humpp

Why had I never seen this movie until now? Why? You would think sometimes between 1967 when it was made (although I wouldn't be born until almost eleven years later) and now, I, of all people that I know, would have seen The Curious Dr. Humpp, at least back a few years ago when I was crawling through the Something Weird catalog. And in my relentless pursuit (not really) to see all the movies Rob Zombie samples from (this one being the sample for Living Dead Girl - 'Use my body to keep you alive'). So, yeah, just now getting around to this one and I couldn't be more pleased! Also, I'm pretty hungover today after consuming drunkening spirits all day (damn you, Sunday for being my only day off!), so if this is less comprehensible than normal, I blame mimosas, peach schnapps, sangria, sauvignon blanc, and yuengling. I feel sick just typing everything I drank. I know you don't feel sorry for me. It's cool. I still love ya. Onward!

After a kissing couple is chloroformed and put in the back of a vehicle that looks like the Ghostbusters' ride, Ecto 1, only black, there's a cut to some lesbians undressing each other slowly in an ornately furnished room. Then this guy wearing a wooden mask comes in and everyone gasps. This mask is depicted above and also never explained. It is also the most fabulous wooden mask I have ever seen in a sexploitation movie. And if you were wondering if it had a blinking light in the middle of the forehead, you wondered correctly.

Then there's a quick cut (get ready - there are lots and lots of quick cuts) and an inebriated fellow gets his ass chloroformed. Another quick cut and a blond chica is masturbating to a wall full of pics of half-nekkid men. I'm almost getting a Findlay vibe off of this, at least in the first five minutes or so. Not as dirty, but still gritty. Another cut, and two couples are smoking dope and sexing each other - no one's shy here! - to some very unsexy music. And there's this overdubbed disembodied voice that keeps saying, 'that's it, yeah, that's it' cheering the orgy on. I feel like I'm sitting in the theatre with some weirdo sitting behind me breathing in my ear while he jerks it. I feel this way a lot. Sometimes when I'm not watching movies. I'm at the dentist, I'm in Target, and I feel this way. 

Cut again to a cabaret performance, and by this I mean a striptease. A couple of dancers do a sexy little dance to a jazz number while sweaty dudes look on and couples feel each other up. Masky, as he is affectionately known - to me, anyway - shows up and looks around disapprovingly, because that wooden mask is able to convey emotion, dontcha know. He winds up kidnapping Rachel the stripper, because Dr. Humpp, the elusive Dr. Humpp, and needs the stripper for his experiments in mad scienc-y sexology. Fact is, he needs lots of virile young ladies and gentlemen for his sexual aberrations, because he's simply seeking a way to improve our species via sex. Sounds like a capital idea! 

Essentially, what Dr. H does is kidnap strippers, drug users, and other degenerates, drug them up even further and force them to make the beast with two backs over and over and over again. For science! And to keep him alive because he makes some sort of sex serum extracted from the fornicators that he must take in order to live. The whole operation is two-fold. So with the help of Masky, some other lesser masked drones, as well as a pretty blond nurse who is totally in love with him but will later betray him (isn't that always the case?), he records the couples in the act, watches it from a monitor, becomes very sweaty and looks intense, and drinks a potion made in his fabulous lab-or-a-tory, and sweats more. 

So meanwhile, while Dr. H is conducting science for personal gain as well as for the good of the universe, there's a couple of detectives hard at work on why all the delinquents around town are disappearing. The bartender from the joint where the stripper was kidnapped goes to a sketch artist and they whip up the spittin' image of Masky. Baffled by the rendering, a police officer asks, Do you think it's a mask? Really? Do you think? I almost dropped my vodka and gingerale. 

Back at the ranch, Dr. H is busy busy with finding the key to sexual desires to turn humans into, his words, veritable screwing machines. The way you would go about doing this, should you feel the need, is to take your wooden masked henchman, lay him out on a gurney, and drill into his mask where his frontal lobe may or may not be, to find that nerve that controls the libido. Quite simple, really. Then when you're done with that, you send said wooden masked henchman to the pharmacist during normal business hours to fill a prescription for aphrodisiac compounds. Why this raises suspicion I have no idea - but the pharmacist feels a bit uneasy about filling such a large order for such a strange thing for a dude in a wooden mask and he reads the paper where the sketch he sees the pic of the police sketch of Masky, so he calls the coppers. Masky escapes to play a weird clear guitar with sex slaves roam the grounds of Dr. H's compound and Dr. H consults a brain in a jar with an eastern European accent (!) on what to do next. The brain instructs the good doctor to continue with his brilliant and wonderful plan but to stop consulting regular pharmacies for the necessary ingredients and to certainly stop sending weirdo henchmen. 

I almost feel a little bit sorry for Masky, especially when he presents a flower to a Rachel. He clearly wants a chance at a normal life, but if the Venture Brothers has taught us something, it's that the life a henchman is really tough. So, it's either working for Dr. H and assisting in crackpot sex experiments while wearing a ridiculous and likely uncomfortable blinking mask or nothin'. And I know Dr. H is evil and crazy, but I kinda want him to succeed. He's ahead of his time in a way. Check it...

His research has led him to design a sort of sex machine before sex machines were cool. Rather, it sex by electronics and imagination sorta kinda. I don't know how to describe it - it's basically a man and a woman hooked up to electrodes and put into a hypno-state that makes them imagine they're having sex with each other under Dr. Humpp's direction. He tells George, do her like only a man can. And George complies by shouting, I'm doing it! I can't stop screwing her! And then there's a sex montage. You know, as much as I like this stuff, after about an hour I actually got bored with watching all the sex. It's like damn, movie,  you almost have too much sex! But as, Dr. H tells us, sex dominates the world, which is why he wants to dominate the sex. Domination of the sex = domination of the world. a simplistic fail-safe equation. 

And for some more eloquently spoken dialogue, please turn to this enchanting exchange between George and Rachel, the stripper from the bar: 

Rachel: What are you worried about? 

George: They made you into a nymphomaniac.

Rachel: You shouldn't worry about that. That means you can get it whenever you want. 

George: It's horrible what they did to you!

Rachel: Don't say that, George. Many women are just like this.  

Well, she is a stripper by trade! There are more wonderful snippets like this throughout. Oh, and since Rachel and the other hotties in town have all been kidnapped, the bar has been forced to hire aging BBWs to take the stage. No chance of old fatty getting kidnapped, now, is there? 

Hardy har har. Actually, it's pretty offensive. Most of this movie is downright utterly sexist to an absurd degree. So absurd that you can't take it with an ounce of seriousness. The above conversation would probably never take place in conversation now or even thirty years ago. It's just that ridiculous in it's sexism.

For all the sex in the movie, Dr. H never gets down, despite advances from his nurse. She practically throws herself at him more than once, and he constantly puts her off. Hmm...weird, huh? What's really goin' on with Dr. H? Nursey so undersexed she has to go have sex with George, only to have George fall in love with Rachel. So not only do you have a bizarre masked henchman, a local pharmacy where you can pick up large quantities of a compound that can be used to dominate humankind, and a talking brain in a jar, you have a love triangle, which the movie would likely not be complete without. 

This movie needs t-shirts and an action figure line. And I need a tattoo of Masky.  And the freakin' Spanish title for this baby is La Venganza del Sexo. That is all. 

Between my vicious, violent hangover yesterday (seriously, I still feel it and it's like two days later-box wine and stella! do not mix!), figuring out why I still pay private mortgage insurance after owning my house for over five years (try wrapping a hungover brain around escrow and tax information), and the excitement of the inauguration, I nearly forgot to post this lovely, lovely still from Them!, 1954's wonderful atomic giant ant movie. I saw this still over at Boing Boing, immediately LOL'ed, and posted it to my own damn blog. Number 6 is of particular interest, especially the part about unnatural things alive or dead. I think had this been my own newsboard, unnatural living or dead things would take priority over the theft of sugar, sweets, or syrups. But that's just me. Which is more important? Flying saucers or migration of wild life? Perhaps this list isn't in order of importance. We all need to keep these things, and more, in mind when dealing with giant ants invading our human sphere. Just a reminder, I guess. I love it all the same.  If I had any photoshop skills at all, I would add tattooed, crazy cat ladies with a penchant for horror movies to the board.