|
When
we last left our hero, B-Fest had probed his mettle, looking for
weaknesses. Our hero was holding up nicely so far but B-Fest was
about to bring down the hammer.
May
the B-Movie gods have mercy on his soul.
-
- - -
| Naughty
Bits |
| and
I don't mean the Black Hole of Des Moines |
After
Plan 9
concluded, the emcee came back out on stage and warned everyone with
weak constitutions and high moral fiber that the next few movies
were definitely of an adult nature. (Evanston
has a curfew so everyone under 18 had to leave.)
He also warned that if you went outside the building you were
effectively locked out until the next morning.
Not
a problem, I’m not going anywhere. I’ve made it past the Plan
9 hump. It’ll be smooth sailing from
here on out. Little did I realize that two films away sat a
cinematic turd that would push my cinematic sensibilities way beyond
critical mass.
But
let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
We’ve
got Pam Grier on deck. (Rahnnrrrrrrr.)
| Coffy |
| No
cream but plenty of sugar baby! |
Wocka-chica-wocka-chica-wocka-chica...
Pam
Grier is Coffy; surgical nurse by day, avenging angel by night. It
seems some bad dudes got her little sister addicted to drugs,
crippled here cop friend so Coffy will stop at nothing to bring
those responsible down. Three minutes into the film and Coffy has
blown a pimp’s head off with a shotgun and forced a drug pusher to
overdose on his own junk.
Several
ass whuppins, cat fights and gratuitous boob shots later Coffy
discovers that Alan Arbus (Dr.
Sidney Friedman from M*A*S*H)
is the head bad guy. She manages to infiltrate and eliminate them
all with extreme prejudice. Total Body Count: Four pimps, three
pushers, two corrupt cops, six henchmen, one prostitute and one
turncoat congressman.
My
favorite part had to be when Pam hides razor blades in her afro
preparing for the cat fight that she knows is coming with several
other prostitutes.
Coffy
is typical Jack Hill and Blaxploitation at it’s most notorious.
I’d never seen it before and can say it is better then Black
Mama White Mama and Foxy
Brown. It went over well with the
audience and had them whipped into a B-Movie frenzy.
The
frenzy reached a fever pitch when the next feature spooled up and
told us that the following motion picture was rated X.
This
ought to be good.
-
- - -
| Can
Hieronymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True
Happiness |
| or
as I like to refer to it: |
| Would
Heinous Butt-Munch Stop Humping Everything that Moves and Quit
Singing for Chrissakes! |
You
want a plot description? You can't handle a plot description! You
weren't there, man. You just weren't there.
Some
clown tries to find fulfillment by screwing everything that moves.
I’m not kidding. This guy would screw a bush if he thought there
was a rabbit in it. Then he tells us all about it in song. This
movie is the biggest, most pretentious piece of cinematic crap and
over indulgence I’ve ever seen. Shame on you Anthony Newly.
My
knees were starting to give me some pains so I began to move around
the theater to stretch my legs but no matter where I stopped and
started watching again, the movie still sucked! I wasn’t alone in
my opinion. You could feel the hate for this movie oozing from the
audience like some demented plague. With visions of Woodstock 99 I
inched my way towards the exit.
One
guy, who I first mistook in the dark for Joe Bannerman, came to the
back and was trying to block the projector with his pillow. He
claimed he was with A&O and I offered to hoist him up to
properly block it but he respectfully declined. Luckily no one
started rioting or burning their seats but it was starting to get
ugly. Somebody better do something quick or the screen’s coming
down.
-
- - -
| Some
Really BIG Naughty Bits |
| Dude,
that thing is huge! |
A
funny thing happened on the way to the end of Merkin.
When the second to last reel ended the A&O film crew decided to
appease the masses and interjected "The Mystery Short"
before they were run out on a rail for subjecting everyone to the
prior piece of crap.
I
was cringing in the back waiting for the end of Merkin
when before my eyes appeared a crude animated short titled The
Further Adventures of Super Screw. It
was like an old Hustler cartoon come to life and gone horribly
wrong. To keep this site at it’s PG-13 level I can’t really go
into too much detail here but for those of us who were there all I
can say is, "BAD MONKEY!"
-
- - -
| Stick
a Fork in It - It's Done |
| Thank
you, lord! |
Super
Screw served it’s purpose, it
diffused the crowd long enough to finish the last reel of Merkin.
Hallelujah,
that movie is finally over. You don’t watch Merkin,
you survive it, and there should be some kind of medal for those who
do. I know I’ll be carrying some emotional scars and baggage
because of it for quite some time. I crack open my last bag of
M&Ms and await the next feature.
-
- - -
| The
Slime People |
| and
I'm still hungry! |
Ah,
back to the basics. (The
film opens on a beach and we spot a dead man with a spear sticking
out of his chest and we can only hope it’s Anthony Newly.)
Some ugly critters have surfaced in California and it sounds like
they’ve got Tojo’s Revenge too. (Gurgle
- gurgle - gurgle.)
They start terra-forming the surface world to their own biological
specifications with a fog machine so they can take over. Several
people are trapped inside their force dome and must find a way
outside before the Slime People
make mince meat out of them.
I
had just bought this thing on DVD and the M&M’s just weren’t
lasting so I decided I’d hit the vending machines again hoping it
would take my dollar bill this time. To my horror the vending
machine area was now fenced off, I assume, until morning. The trip
wasn’t a total bust. I grabbed a B-Fest poster off the wall as a
souvenir and snatched two more B-Fest cups.
I
stretched my legs for a while and returned to the theater just in
time to see the Slime People’s infernal fog machine destroyed and
the world saved.
Yay.
-
- - -
| The
Lonely Lady |
| Pia
Zadora in a role that will shock and amaze you! |
So
we finally get around to The Lonely
Lady, the film Bad
Movie Planet sponsored. (Sorry,
everybody.)
Someday I’m going to have to ask Chris and Scott exactly what is
the root cause of their Pia Zadora fixation. I believe this film is
Pia’s answer to her critics for her dubious Golden Globe win for Butterfly.
Pia
plays a talented writer who gets tab A (a
yellow garden hose) inserted
into slot B (her naughty bits)
and somehow this starts her down a road of sexual degradation that
helps her climb the Hollywood ladder. She eventually writes her
autobiography that’s turned into a movie and she’s up for an
Oscar for best screenplay. She wins but in a public display of soul
cleansing, confesses that she’s basically a slut and slept her way
to the top and declines the award.
Pia,
Pia, Pia. Alas The Lonely Lady
concludes the dirty portion of our film fest. (I
was curious as to why they stuck The
Slime People in the middle of
it?)
The lady with the cooler a couple of rows up is snoring loudly and,
I’ll admit it, I’m starting to get really tired.
-
- - -
| Half
Way There - And Still Awake |
| I
Think I Can - I Think I Can - I Think I Can! |
Time
to call up the strategic reserves.
Eleven
films down, ten to go.
C’mon,
pal. Buck up! You’re half way home.
-
- - -
| Test
Tube Babies |
| Science! |
Oh,
my. What we have here is a '50s exploitation film disguised,
rather clumsily, as an educational film. A young couple must have
children "to have a truly content marriage."
Unfortunately, no matter how hard they try, they can’t seem to
make the miracle happen.
So,
instead of settling down, they’re stuck partying with their wild
friends. One party gets out of control as one girl starts to strip
and eventually gets in to a hair-pulling cat fight with another
gal. A drunken sod strips down to his pants and passes out in a
chair. (And
this has what to do with Test-Tube Babies?)
That’s
the last straw so the couple turns to SCIENCE! to help them out.
They find out the husband’s shooting blanks so we get a nice
lecture on a new fangled technique called artificial insemination. The
doctor balks and he never does tell us who the donor is.
(This
might explain the doctor’s sly grin through most of the
proceedings.) Democracy
and the marriage are saved as SCIENCE! comes through.
The
two things I clearly remember about this movie was that one scene
from it was used during the voice over game on Who’s
Line is it Anyway and the guy who
played the doctor also narrated Glen or
Glenda.
Must
stay awake.
What’s
next.
Aaaaugh!
Ted V. Mikels!
-
- - -
| The
Corpse Grinders |
| aka
The Cat Patrol - In Color! |
The
Haxan Cat Food Company has a new secret ingredient in their cat
chow; Human flesh! The proprietors pay the local gravedigger top
dollar for fresh corpses. When there aren’t any, he goes out and
makes some. We are then entreated to several shots of dead bodies
riding a conveyor belt into some kind of Dr. Who-Wood Chipper
Machine where they're processed into some gloppy goop that plops
into a bucket at the other end.
The
local kitties eat the tainted cat food, go berserk and attack their
owners. This leads to the biggest laugh I had during the entire
filmfest. The snoring lady with the cooler had no reaction when a
cat killed its owner but got very upset when the dead woman’s
husband smashed the critter against the wall and got even more upset
during the cat autopsy. (Now
I like cats. Have one of my own that is very dear to me but this bit
of skewered priorities had me giggling. Maybe it was the lack of
sleep.)
The
local doctor and his snoopy nurse finally figure it all out. The
snoopy nurse gets to play Pearl White and takes a ride on the
conveyor before the bad guys are hoisted with their own patoot and
ground into cat food themselves. (Oh
the irony of it all.)
This
entire film looks like it was shot through one of my dirty socks.
Okay! Okay! I nodded off during this movie but I saw enough of it.
Unfortunately, during one of my catnaps (sorry),
I dreamt that our car got towed away.
Eep.
-
- - -
| Breakfast
Break |
| Food
and Freex! |
I
usually don’t put much stock in dreams but I really needed to
stretch my legs so Paul and I headed outside and, to my relief, the
car was still there. We returned to the Norris Center and were happy
to find out the bakery was open. We got in line and, lo and behold, Dr.
Freex was in line right in front of us.
Freex
got the last donut (Curses!)
so I settled on a couple of pieces of pumpkin bread and a cartoon of
milk. We found a table and he joined us. (I
don’t think he realized how excited I was to talk to him and I was
even happier that I didn’t make an idiot out of myself.)
We ate and talked about the riots during Message
from Space and Merkin.
The conversation led to the careers of Sonny Chiba, Vic Morrow,
Cheri Caffaro, the Hastings College advantage, one way streets of
New Orleans and bars to avoid on Bourbon Street.
After
finishing breakfast I made my way back into the theater and scouted
out the rest of the gang. Chris Magyar asked how many beer cans
I’d give Merkin
and I told him it was an 18th Amendment hands down.
Again, I don’t think (I
should say I hope) any of
them realized how excited I was to meet them (or
geeked up as I like to put it.) We
talked for a while and I decided to strategically withdraw back to
my seat before a spontaneously combusted all over them.
The
lights dimmed and I steeled myself for B-Fest's back stretch. Man,
I'm tired.
-
- - -
| Will
Our Hero Stay Awake? |
| Find
Out in Part
III! |
|
