MATCHING ESCORT (1982)

I've been in a martial arts movie mood lately, especially of the occasionally outrageous 1980's wuxia variety, and this particularly crazed Taiwanese flick managed to more than fill that need.

For those not in the know, wuxia is perhaps the most venerable of the martial sub-genres, bearing a rich history spanning centuries of literature and other arts, with its best-known examples for western audiences being the elaborate CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (2000) and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (2004). Modern wuxia films are genuine spectacles, replete with high-flying wire-work meant to symbolically embellish the heroes' already considerable skills, romance and lavish sets and costumes, but the earlier examples of the form were often cheaply made and hastily shot, rife with over-the-top melodrama and much chewing of the scenery. But, if you ask me, that's what makes the old school examples a million times more fun than their modern descendants, and MATCHING ESCORT is a balls-out riot of superheroics and unintentional (?) hilarity.

First of all, as near as I can determine, the title MATCHING ESCORT has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the film's plot, so that's a win right out of the gate. And unless you're a regular watcher of films of this sort it's rather easy to lose track of what's going on in the story, but I assure you that it does have a linear narrative, albeit one that contains many elements that make not one lick of sense. The basic plot is once again the tried and true revenge saga, this time involving a very girly young woman named Pearl Fan (played by Cheung Ling of WOLF DEVIL WOMAN infamy), who, as a child, is forced to constantly wear heavy shoes of metal with no explanation from her dad.

Child abuse or training device: the metal shoes are locked to our young heroine's feet.

As the years pass, Pearl Fan gets used to the metal shoes and can move about as nimbly as a monkey while wearing them, and when she takes them off her agility and speed become downright superhuman.

Then comes the day when a pack of the evil sword-wielding assholes requisite for this kind of story show up at her dad's house and proceed to kill seventy-three family members and house staff, except for Pearl Fan, who is entrusted with a precious family heirloom — the Jade Lovebird pendant — and unwillingly spirited away by a loyal retainer. The retainer is swiftly killed and our heroine soon finds herself framed for her family's murder, so now she's on the run from both the legitimate authorities and the clan of mysteriously-motivated killers. Disguising herself as a boy (rather unconvincingly, but you just have to let that go) — one of the major tropes of the genre in stories featuring female heroes — Pearl Fan is chased to and dumped over a sheer cliff by the killers, who leave her for dead. But what they don't know is that she has fallen into a deep cave that resembles and even-lower-budget version of H.R. Pufnstuf's Living Island, where resides an hilariously kvetchy old crippled hermit named Uncle Strange. No, seriously.

Uncle Strange: Yoda he ain't.

Initially quite irritated at Pearl Fan for her unplanned landing in a vat of vaguely mystical potion that he'd been preparing for twenty years, a potion that would have somehow enabled him to exact revenge upon the villain who crippled his feet and cast him into the cave, Uncle Strange is moved by our heroine's desire for revenge of her own and so agrees to take her on as his pupil. (It soon turns out that Pearl Fan's quest for vengeance neatly/conveniently dovetails with that of Uncle Strange.) As this is a wuxia martial arts film, it has less to do with hand-to-hand styles than swordsmanship and more "romantic" action playing up the hero's grace and moral purity, so Pearl's training, such as it is, involves little more than a tad of hand techniques that will later allow her to catch and break sword blades with just two fingers (her later-displayed utter badassery with a sword is not explained but is accepted as a given for the genre's requirements).

A clearly not amused Pearl Fan demonstrates the bitchin' two-fingered sword-catching move.

She is also subjected to a regimen of assorted potions, strange fungi (Awright!) and unguents that grant her the necessary skills of a typical genre hero (the aforementioned 20-years-in-the-making potion presumably being some kind of Asian super-soldier serum), and she's ready to get down to the serious business of killing when Uncle Strange dies after physically transferring his energy to her (and hilariously freezing in position with his arm outstretched and a wild look on his face when he croaks). Once back in the outside world, Pearl Fan displays all the attributes one expects from a wuxia superhero, and her skills with a sword would make even the most adept of Jedi turn chartreuse with envy.

The newly-badassed Pearl Fan hands out free passes to the netherworld on a lonely beach.

The rest of the film is a series of genre trope-laden, dizzying and unrealistically bloody swordfights against her enemies and it's a hell of a lot of leave-your-brain-at-the-door fun getting to the inevitable outcome. The wild and utterly impossible acrobatics and swordplay are piled on quite generously, making the film a definite precursor to the kind of thing we so enjoyed in XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS, only cartoonishly gorier.

Bad guy "Simon Cloud" meets his deservedly gory demise.

Our heroine, mowing down bad guys like weeds.

You've gotta love the heroine's moments of balletic poise in the brief moments between whirling arms and clashing steel.

There's also a disguised traveling prince — accompanied by the by-then-stock annoying comic relief servant whose basic character is meant to invoke Jackie Chan, only much more broadly — who's on hand to provide a love interest that literally goes nowhere and serves virtually no purpose to the story, so the less said of him the better.

The superfluous prince and his annoying servant.

(Oh, alright...Regarding the whole prince sub-plot, the story's Big Bad is revealed to have his eye on ruling the country and aims to kill the prince as part of his plans, but that sub-plot is given very short shrift and really doesn't add anything to Pearl Fan's narrative since you know going in that she's going to win in the end, so the governmental overthrow angle is totally superfluous.)

The film's ultra-flamboyant-looking Big Bad, who is quite appropriately named — and I'm not making this up — Lord Rouge.

If all of this sounds only slightly goofy and not like anything all that special, that's because I have thus far neglected to mention the overall "fairytale on mushrooms" feel and approach of the piece. There's not one single frame's-worth of realism in it and its look fuses low-budget cheapness with garish colors and occasionally weird-assed sets (Uncle Strange's cave being something straight out of a kiddie show's idea of "scary"). And of course all of the aforementioned physical impossibilities, and the ever-popular running-on-water move all add up to a heady cornucopia of wuxia junk food of the highest order.

Wire-work fun at its most endearingly cheesy.

Though nowhere near as brain-wrenchingly out of its mind as actor/director Cheung Ling's legendary WOLF DEVIL WOMAN (which I will definitely get around to reviewing one of these days), MATCHING ESCORT is a stone hoot and should be shared with friends and family as soon as possible. And although there is spewing arterial spray (translation: pressurized gallons of bright red paint) and some dismemberments here and there, the gore on hand is not scary at all and would only be disturbing to the youngest of viewers. I would not hesitate to show it to kids if seven and older, so use that caveat as a guide. Me? I plan to show this to my nephew, Nate, as soon as possible, and I also think my niece, Cleo, would totally dig it because it's about a "lady hero" (as she would have put it when she a tad younger) and it has violence. This film could easily have run on the late, lamented Channel 5 Saturday afternoon DRIVE-IN MOVIE weekly kung fu showcase of the early-through-mid-1980's with no editing for content, but that was then and this is now, so if run today the film's split-second decapitation and hand-lopping would likely be cut. If I had to rate this, I'd give it a PG, but the wussified MPAA would likely insist on a PG-13 or a wholly undeserved "mild R." RECOMMENDED.

The excellence that was Cheung Ling.

KUNG FU FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (1982)

I first heard of this one while watching the fight scene highlights videotape THIS IS KUNG FU with a bunch of equally-stoned friends back in 1989, and we simply could not fucking believe what we saw when the tape opened with the literally jaw-dropping trailer for this flick. Along with all manner of bizarro Chinese mythology-specific creatures and weirdness, the trailer featured tag lines that mangled the English language to an alarming degree (example:"Ghost seeking revenge evils are deadly scared!" and "Human heart annoying both spirits and human!), and my friends and I watched the trailer over and over in disbelief, vowing to someday find and watch this surefire classic of lysergic chopsocky madness.

Packaging art for the Ocean Shores VHS release from the '80's, a tape that took me four years to track down.

I finally found the movie about four years later in a cheesy hole-in-the-wall video store that was going out of business, a victim of the Disneyfication of Times Square and it cost me around ten bucks (about five bucks too much for a beat-up used copy), but I finally had the object of my relentless quest. The wait was worth it, because the martial arts were pretty good and the script is a ludicrous dialogue fan's wet dream.

Starring Indonesian martial arts cult figure Billy Chong — who starred in the rather similar, though way more coherent, KUNG FU ZOMBIE (also 1982) — the film chronicles the young hero's quest for vengeance against the rat bastard who murdered his father, a quest instigated by the pissed-off ghost of the hero's dad. The murderous rat bastard is played by none other than Lo Lieh, star of the film that kicked off the 1970's kung fu movie boom, the classic FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH (1971, released in the U.S. in 1972), but here he's playing one of his many, many outright villains and it's always a pleasure to see him be just plain unabashedly evil. Realizing that the son may come after him and hand him a well-earned ass-kicking, the bad guy hires an evil kung fu priest/sorcerer to handle things for him, and the evil sorcerer gets up to a shitload of black magic and suchlike over the course of the film, including one of the most memorable (to say nothing of ludicrous) moments in the entire history of cinema. The prize goes to a scene wherein the villainous sorcerer realizes he's about to get his ass kicked, so he throws some spells into the air and screams "Count Dracula! Come to my aid!" The second he says this, the sky turns to night, the full moon pops up, a wolf howls and then from out of nowhere fucking Count Dracula himself — the only white guy in the entire film — swoops from out of the sky screaming "I'M COMING!!! HAHAHAHAHAH!!!"

The justly infamous Count Dracula sequence.

And don't ask how the hero and the eerie aides he gathers finally defeat the sorcerer (hint: it involves the aid of a bunch of prostitutes who are experiencing "monthly women's concerns"). To say more would give away shit that you just won't believe, so I leave you to rent this and discover its ultra-bizarro wonders for yourself. Illegal smokables and alcoholic beverages are recommended for maximizing the fun, and it's a real crowd-pleaser/baffler when shown to a roomful of willing attendees. A unique cinematic experience, TRUST YER BUNCHE and snag this one as soon as possible.

Packaging art for the most recent DVD release. You'll note they got the title wrong.

EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977)

A portent of impending scares, or an invitation to yucks? You decide!

 

One of the universe's greatest truisms is that whenever anything is successful, a sequel is inevitable, so when William Friedkin's adaptation of William Peter Blatty's THE EXORCIST (1973) raked in the samoleons at the box office (over 66 mil in early-1970's dollars, and that ain't hay!) it was only a matter of time until a followup graced the screen. But any sequel to THE EXORCIST would have been a daunting task. How to follow an instant classic that shattered onscreen taboos regarding language, religious improprieties (Ouch! That crucifix!) and truly creative cussing while maintaining the high standard of quality set by the original would have proved daunting to any writer or director, and as per the nature of sequels one would assume that the general public would have been expecting more of the same, perhaps with the blasphemous ante being cranked up a notch or two. So what to do in order to meet the public's expectations and make an assload of box office at the same time? The answer to that question cannot be found in 1977's EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC, a literally unholy mess of a film whose reputation as possibly the single worst sequel in major motion picture history seems pretty much set in stone. 

Helmed by world-class oddball director John Boorman, the guy who gave us DELIVERANCE (1973) and the jaw-dropping Sean Connery vehicle ZARDOZ (1974), EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC unwisely chooses to focus on the possibility that Reagan McNeal (Linda Blair, reprising the role that made her famous) may still harbor memories of the excruciating details of her exorcism some three years prior to the events of this film. Sent by the Vatican to dig up all the necessary dirt while investigating the death of the priest who performed Reagan's excorcism — Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow, reprising his role as a much younger version of his character in the original film) — Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton, looking and acting like he's in the midst of a week-long bender) journeys to Manhattan where a high school-aged Reagan lives and volunteers at a bizarro clinic that helps the mentally ill/challenged. The place is run by Dr. Tuskin (Louise Fletcher, here pulling a total one-eighty from her Oscar-winning role as Nurse Ratched in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST), who breaks out this trippy-looking strobe light and bio-feedback headsets that looked like something you'd have found in a head shop at the time and uses it to hypnotize Reagan into remembering her forgotten experience of demonic possession. That turns out to be a bad idea because the second Reagan's fully under she starts sounding like Lucille Ball during her autumn years, her face gets all evil and fucked-up-looking, and the demon identifies itself as Pazuzu, a malevolent ancient Assyrian wind spirit and "one of the lords of the air." 

Whoa, dude! Trippy! But not scary.

  

As of that point the film nosedives into a nigh-incomprehensible mess of questioned faith, misguided attempts at psychedelia, bullshit psychobabble, flashbacks to Father Merrin's first exorcism, all manner of bizarre mystic visions and mumbo-jumbo, accented with Linda Blair performing in an utterly awful chorus line production of "Lullaby of Broadway," and the unforgettable sight of James Earl Jones as an African holy man in a ridiculous locust costume. It all culminates in a confusing fistfight between Father Lamont and Pazuzu in the form of Reagan's evil twin, a bout settled when the good Reagan arrives and fends off a swarm of demonically-controlled locusts by imitating the movements made by Jones' character during his youth as he used a bull-roarer to drive the evil bugs from his village, all while father Lamont literally tears out Pazuzu's heart.  

Now this is what the audience craved to see: Linda Blair battling locusts.

  

A lot more crazy shit happens, and if any of this sounds coherent, let me assure you that it isn't. 

When I first saw EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC during its network television premiere — the night after THE EXORCIST, so the edited-for-TV version of that was fresh in my mind — I watched it with my mom, and the two of us nearly laughed ourselves to death. To this day we can still crack each other up with random quotes from the film ("Pazuzu will help me find Kokumo!!!"), and while it is an unmitigated turd storm, I must confess to finding it entertaining as hell, and loaded to the gills with visuals that bring to mind Alejandro Jodorowsky in his more accessible moments. Boorman's visual imagination was given free reign, and the film is replete with beautiful and bizarre imagery and gorgeous cinematography. Too bad there wasn't a script good enough to properly complement Boorman's vision. Perhaps the saddest thing about EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC is that when it is carefully examined, there are the building blocks for what could have been a genuinely good and scary film that could have used the original flick as a starting point and really run with some of the story's themes. My two major points on this are as follows:

• The first thing they should have done was lose Reagan entirely; she was successfully rid of demonic influence at the end of the first story, and not much the worse for wear thanks to having psychologically blocked out the entire hellish experience. By bringing her back when her arc was clearly over and done with for audiences who demand more of the same — or at the behest of studio execs who can't think beyond the immediately familiar — , the film renders Father Merrin's heroic efforts and sacrifice, as well as Father Karras', without meaning or impact, pissing all over the power of Catholicism that supposedly saved Reagan's soul. And when we find out that demons like Pazuzu run around possessing folks like Reagan because they are so pure and good that they have what amounts to superpowers, it throws a cheesy X-Men kind of vibe over the proceedings.
• The film should have focused on Father Lamont's investigative efforts and his own crisis of faith in the face of the returned Pazuzu (who, by the way, was not identified in the original, but was implied to be the Devil himself; by having Pazuzu turn out to be pretty much just a badassed grasshopper, his terror level is considerably diminished). Lamont's tracing of Kokumo, the kid long ago exorcised by Merrin, could have gone down many fascinating and potentially terrifying avenues, all of which could have been well served by Boorman's imagination. The interaction between the Christian, specifically Catholic, powers that be and their opposite numbers has fueled horror stories from day one, and it wouldn't have taken too much effort to have come up with a great Campbellish "hero's journey" for Lamont that would have seen him lose his faith only to have it restored in the aftermath of the throwdown with Pazuzu. The long-running Vertigo comics series HELLBLAZER pulled off many such stories as a matter of course, so there's really no excuse, especially when tons of money are thrown into such a project (yes, I know HELLBLAZER was bastardized up the ass for the awful CONSTANTINE movie, so I won't even go there).

So, yes, EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC is a spectacular misfire, but there's too much good material to be found amidst this cinematic dog's breakfast to fully write it off as one of the worst films ever made. I've certainly seen far worse, both from low-budget schlockmeisters like Al Adamson and from the major studios, and unlike many other bad films, at least EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC entertained the crap out of me, something I cannot say about would-be blockbusters like SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, PEARL HARBOR, or LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. Give EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC a second chance, and this time while you're laughing take note of the cool shit it possesses (sorry) and grieve for what could have been a glorious entry in the horror genre.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE-UNRATED (2010)

When it was announced there would be a remake of the Mier Zarchi's infamous 1978 rape/revenge grindhouse classic — which, for better or worse, it definitely qualifies as — the first thing to come to my mind was "Why?!!?" There was little that could be done to top the original in terms of depicting the very personal horrors of a backwoods gang rape and the vengeance it spurs other than to shoot it with a decent budget, quality camerawork/cinematography, and better performances from the cast, so what was the point? I know that practically every film under the sun has been remade or is in the works for such treatment, but again I ask, why remake a film that's a veritable Chernobyl of negative energy? The only ready answer that I had before seeing it was that the filmmaker's sought to cash in on the name recognition of the original, but there's considerably more going on here than I initially assumed. I wrote on the original I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE a few years back and I ask you to go here to read it. And before we proceed any further, be advised: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.

Southern anti-hospitality at its very worst.

The basic story is the same as the original: Jennifer Hills (Sarah Butler), a writer from The Big City, rents a place in the backwoods — apparently Upstate New York in the original, Louisiana this time around — runs afoul of some incredibly vile lowlifes, gets agonizingly gang raped by said lowlifes, survives her ordeal and unleashes gruesome vengeance against her assailants. This time, however, the quality of the filmmaking is very far removed from the rather Paleolithic (though well-intentioned) results displayed in the 1978 version. The remake is quite obviously the work of real cinematic craftsmen and displays a level of polish and style totally absent in Zarchi’s dire classic, which makes the shattering events depicted in it more agreeable to sit through. (While any depiction of gang rape is going to be hard to sit through simply by default, the original’s bargain basement qualities imbued it with an unwashed and squalid look and tone that at times felt to me like some scabrous hobo was forcibly shoving his dirtiest, most callused finger straight down my throat.) The visual style is somehow lush in presenting the stark isolation of the story’s Louisiana backwoods setting, and the desolation helps to plant the viewer firmly into its lonely reality.

And speaking of reality, there were several elements in the original that would not have allowed for willing suspension of disbelief in the 2000’s, and they are addressed quite deftly. We currently live in an age of cheap and very conveniently portable mass communication technology, which simply did not exist back in 1978, so our heroine would be equipped with a cell phone that would allow her to call for help. Or rather that would be the case if she were not seen accidentally dropping her cell phone into her cottage’s toilet early in the film. Also, if a crime of the kind that Jennifer endures and survives after being pretty much presumed dead (despite the considerable efforts of her filthy assailants) occurred in this manner, today there would be any number of ways for law enforcement officers to bring Jennifer’s violators to justice (if justice could truly be provided by our justice system in the wake of the severity of the acts perpetrated), with DNA evidence matching immediately springing to mind. Thus it was necessary to add a fifth rapist to the scenario, namely the unspeakable Sheriff Storch (played with horrifically creepy gusto by Welsh actor Andrew Howard).

Andrew Howard as the vile Sheriff Storch.

Storch is the only police officer shown, and the area he allegedly polices is so remote that perhaps only one lawman is all it really requires. Too bad that despite him being seen to be a loving husband and father when not on duty, he’s worse than any criminal he’s likely to encounter because of his association with the pack of rapists, guys it’s made clear that he’s been friends with since they were kids, and his ability to inflict such grievous harm on an outsider reveals a sadistic sociopath who is allowed to wield lethal power by law. And by virtue of his training in the enforcement of said law, he knows all about how to cover up all trace of the crimes he and his pals commit, which makes him vital to them getting away with all of it.

And while we’re discussing rapist scum, it should be noted that the gang of redneck louts who plot the violation and (failed) murder of Jennifer includes a woman-hating Alpha male leader, a fairly nondescript follower, an overweight wielder of a video camera who fancies himself a budding cinematographer and voyeuristically captures the entire gang rape on tape, and a mentally handicapped repairman, whose virginal status is used by the Alpha male leader as an excuse to rape the city gal outsider. These guys are given a lot more in the way of developed personality than the louts found in the 1978 version, and that makes them that much more interesting and vile. The fiends in the original have little you can say about them as individuals other than that they are personification of the worst of male urges, in essence interchangeable ambulatory penises that utter dialogue. In the remake’s case we are afforded peeks into the quirks of the men as individuals and by allowing us to get to know what they’re like, an aspect that grants them an understandable (though totally evil and loathsome) humanity, it is that knowing of them as something other than largely undefined cardboard cutouts that makes us hate them all the more. Especially Sheriff Storch, whose vicious misogyny and behavior are fascinatingly contrasted against what we see of his home life. He’s a self-proclaimed god-fearing churchgoer with a loving wife who’s about eight months pregnant and looks for all the world like a fertility goddess transplanted to the early twenty-first century, and he’s also got a sweet daughter of maybe nine years old whom he clearly dotes upon. The man is a completely different person as a husband and father, and is presumably likewise as a citizen and lawman, but when in a position to commit a great evil in support of his friends and joining in on their animalistic “fun,” he’s revealed as a law-breaking predator who preys upon the weak and isolated. If Jennifer went missing in his podunk little town, it’s apparent that her disappearance would be noted by few, and the only locals who knew she was there are the sheriff, the gang of rapists, and the sweet old guy who rents her the cottage (the great Tracy Walter), so doing whatever the hell he and his buddies want to with Jennifer is as simple as pie to get away with, especially since disposing of her body would only require chucking her used and abused corpse into the alligator-infested river. Jennifer’s is the worst imaginable position to be in, and these filthy bastards know it and take full advantage of it, giving vent to their pent-up hatred of women and taking a joyous glee in doing so.

But, as was the case in the original, Jennifer does not take her assault like the whimpering victim the rapists anticipated, and when she throws herself off a bridge and into the aforementioned alligator-infested river rather than be outright blasted to kingdom come by the sheriff’s pump-action shotgun, she survives, holes up in a deserted shack for a month and lives on whatever she can catch (including rats) while she uses her writer’s imagination to plot appropriately poetic vengeance that would have done the writers of the classic E.C. horror comics proud. This time around the script wisely does away with the idea of a woman who was so brutally abused luring her attackers to their doom by fucking them. It's not just her body that's been raped by these scum; Jennifer's basic humanity has been utterly taken from her, and as a result she is reborn as what is for all intents and purposes a monster. It’s a tragic rebirth as a fury every bit as savage and implacable as the variety found in classical Greek mythology. Each and every one of the rapists gets his in a very big way and, according to the director and producer’s commentary, their just desserts were so nasty that some of the audiences were so outraged by the severity of the retribution that they stated they began to feel sorry for the rapists. That was not the case with me as a viewer because of my simple belief in the mantra of “If you abuse with the Johnson, you lose the Johnson,” or some other form or punishment involving some form of medieval justice, and I found what they received to be gruesomely satisfying in every way.

So the bottom line on what at first seemed an unnecessary remake of a cruel ‘70’s exploitationer teeming with ultra-sadistic and seemingly pointless misogyny is that the 2010 I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is one very nasty and visceral motherfucker that I’m extremely shocked to have enjoyed. Yes, I enjoyed it, but then again I’m a fan of what I call “the cinema of vengeance,” and there are few examples in the genre as strong as this in every aspect. It’s easily the best of the current remake/re-imagining wave, and I highly recommend it to any and all who have the stones to handle it. And whatever you do, make sure to watch it with the director’s commentary after seeing it for the first time. Very interesting stuff.

BAT PUSSY (1973)

 

 You know the scenario: You’ve had a shit-ass day at work. You’re flat broke. There’s no beer in the fridge. Your cable TV is suffering technical difficulties that only afford clear reception to a sixteen hour FARM REPORT marathon on Lifetime. Sarah Palin is allowed to speak in public forums. Your only hope of momentary happiness is to “relax the gentleman’s way.” “Shake hands with the unemployed.” “Have one off the wrist.” “Rub one out.”

I’m talking about the time-honored hobby of jackin’ off. Oh, yeah.

You drop trou, your manly gristle falling victim to gravity and dangling like obscene Christmas ornaments, and you peruse your stash of well-watched porno. What shall aid in the draining of the wank-tanks today? INSIDE VANESSA Del RIO? VAGINAPALOOZA? BIG WET SLOPPY HOLES Vol. 37? AMAZING PENETRATIONS WITH AMAZON WOMEN? The Bangkok backroom live eel excesses of IMPETUS FIRE 2?

No, none of those will do; it’s time to check out the DVD a friend gave you, a seventies-era tenderloin rarity. All you know is that it’s a parody of the old Adam West BATMAN show with some horny chick in the cape and cowl, so, aching Johnson in hand, you decide to let DNA fly fast and furious to images of a distaff Caped Crusader getting drilled and milking man-poles.

Well, just when you thought your day couldn’t get any worse, you realize you’ve discovered the colossal hard-off that is 1973’s BAT PUSSY, frequently cited on the Internet as “anti-porn,” and widely hailed as the worst porno film ever made. By the end of its running time your would-be boner is well and truly extinguished, but you sit there all by your lonesome, utterly gobsmacked by a carved-in-stone example of exactly how NOT to make a skin flick. But be that as it may, BAT PUSSY's Chernobyl-level porn awfulness has unexpectedly turned it into a must-see chunk of bad cinema that actually inspired the following letter to Something Weird Video, the company that resurrected this horror on VHS back in 1996:

To: Mike Vraney/Something Weird Video

As a vanguard in the preservation and continued promotion of exploitation films, Something Weird Video holds the fate of many key works in its hands. Many of the better regarded films from the Golden Age of Exploitation have been given "Special Edition" treatment by Something Weird. Movies such as Blood Feast, House on Bare Mountain, and The Godmonster of Indian Flats have been remastered and released on DVD in the past, boosting their profile among a wide range of film enthusiasts and providing fans an opportunity to own a copy of these films that they can view again and again. 

It is this treatment that we feel should be bestowed upon a little film that would benefit greatly from the exposure. This film is BAT PUSSY, arguably the world’s worst adult film. It is not often that one comes across a film that fails as miserably at attaining the goals implied by its genre status. BAT PUSSY is without a doubt the most unappealing XXX film in the history of adult cinema and has been referred to by some as “anti porn”. It is because of it’s uniqueness that we feel BAT PUSSY deserves to be given a full, “Special Edition” DVD treatment from the good folks at Something Weird Video.

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

What could possibly be so difficult about making a viable stroke movie? All you need are two “actors,” maybe some interesting props for possible closeup insertion into a chosen orifice, a script with a line like “Gosh, Mister pizza delivery guy! I have no money. How will I pay for this tasty, four-topping large pizza?” as a preamble to the action, a relatively comfortable location for the participants to fuck on, and a camera (video or film, it’s your call). That’s pretty much it. BAT PUSSY has all of these elements in place, so how does it earn its rep as “anti-porn?” Allow me to explain.

The Something Weird Video print of the movie opens abruptly with no titles, no credits, no music, no nothing, just a grainy closeup of a fat, freckled, ginger-beehived, drawling and naked example of the most HEE-HAWed-out trailer park slag imaginable, kind of like a trashy Kate Pierson from the B-52's, but far less appealing.

Trust me, this still is a lot more flattering than what we get in the actual movie.

Before we’re given more than a second or two to process that image the camera cuts to a nude, out-of-shape blonde redneck sitting at a table perusing the latest issue of SCREW magazine.

This gurk-gurk whoops and hollers over the things he sees in the tabloid, amazed and titillated, but allegedly reluctant to inflict such “degradations” as blowjobs and pussy-eating upon his corpulent concubine. But, since this is allegedly a skin flick, the Jerry Lee Lewis lookalike ends up in bed pawing his wife anyway in a display certain to make the viewer lose all interest in BAT PUSSY as a fuck movie and just stare open-mouthed at this rutting pair of hillbillies.

Their pork rind-flavored groping is staggering to behold, and at one point there’s even a tight shot Jerry Lee’s hand probing what at first appears to be the space between a pair of seat cushions but is soon revealed to be his partner’s lady-parts. The beehived behemoth then administers the first in a series of the sorriest B.J.’s I’ve ever seen, and her technique certainly isn’t helped by Jerry Lee’s complete and utter lack of anything resembling an erection for the entirety of the film.

Nope, that ain’t a Vienna sausage…

Jerry Lee reciprocates with some out-of-focus lapping at the gal’s flappy bits, along with some awkward fumbling about with her goat-like udders, all while the two of them drone on and on, trading amateurishly-delivered insults, unintentionally turning the whole mess into some sort of live sex show revival of Edward Albee’s WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINA WOOLFE?, only minus any trace of a script, artistic value, or talent.

This goes on for about twenty solid minutes (at least it felt like it did) and then we’re suddenly in the cinder block-walled headquarters of one “Dora Dildo,” aka stalwart crime fighter Bat Pussy.

We know this because of the crudely-drawn HQ sign and an embarrassed who narrator clues us in on it, as well as the vital fact that “her twat begins to twitch” at the first sign of trouble.

"Dora Dildo" in repose with a can of air freshener and a tall-boy of brewski.

Dora’s easily the hottest thing in the whole sordid work, but even as such she’s about on par with a skank you might find in a bar such as Jackie’s Fifth Amendment, an infamous Park Slope alky bar that caters to hardcore rummies and coffin-dodgers.

After muttering about how “There’s somebody gittin’ ready to make fuck movie in mah holy Gotham City, gaw-dammit!”, Dora dons her superhero gear and ventures forth as Bat Pussy to deal with the redneck humping that has so irked her.

Tremble at the awesome sight of... BAT PUSSY!!!

But there’s no Bat Pussymobile for our bargain basement heroine; instead she bounces along the interstate perched atop one of those inflatable “Hoppity Hop” balls that I so fondly remember from my early years.

I swear you can’t make this shit up.

When Bat Pussy finally arrives to confront the inbred lovers, she rips off her Bat-gear and dives into the fray. There’s no trace of actual sex, a hard-on, or even a gooey cooter, but B.P. and Jerry Lee gamely (and probably gamily) roll around, even up flopping off the bed once or twice, while the redheaded pork princess takes care of herself with a convenient, unworn strap-on. Bat Pussy then exits, and that’s it.

By this point your brain has been utterly roasted and your penis has retreated into your lower abdominal cavity, in effect becoming a “man-gina.” Even the most hard-up desperado on death row couldn’t “raise the flag” for BAT PUSSY, and I urge all of you reading this to witness this hilarious abomination for yourself. It’s even suitable for mixed audiences — a sure sign that it’s a failure as a garden-variety chicken-choker — and is one hell of a crowd pleaser at parties. The groans of horror and disbelief are worth the price of the DVD — I bought it the second it became available, replacing the VHS tape I'd had for the past twelve years — so TRUST YER BUNCHE and order yours today!

THREADS (1984)

In the fall of 1983, I and millions of Americans sat glued to the TV for the airing of THE DAY AFTER, a made-for-television film depicting the events leading up to a nuclear war and its aftermath as experienced by an assortment of ordinary people in Kansas and Missouri. For American television at the time, the film was harsh stuff and deeply affected many who saw it, average Joes who had never truly considered the horrors of surviving a thermonuclear exchange, and the discussion it inspired chilled many during those tense days near the end of what was known as the Cold War. Those like me, kids who grew up under the very real threat of a possible exchange between the good ol' Yew Ess of Ay and Russia and had absorbed numerous fictional scenarios of what possibly awaited those fortunate (?) enough to live through the atomic firestorm, were not necessarily as moved by THE DAY AFTER.

Anyone who has a real interest in science-fiction has likely contemplated the scenarios postulated in such stories — space travel, first contact with extra-terrestrial sentients, planets entirely populated with super-intelligent, gorgeous and horny females with three D-cup breasts with nipples perfect enough to make you cry — and may have done some research on how such things would turn out in real life. Having been exposed to post-nuke stories since as far back as I can remember (I think my first exposure to such was the classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode "Two"), I read a lot about scientific realities of what nuclear warfare could do to mankind and the world, so I knew about the effects of EMP's, radiation sickness, nuclear winter, all that stuff, so when I processed what I saw in THE DAY AFTER, I considered it to be a more dire descendant of the then-recently-defunct disaster movie genre. In other words, melodramatic bullshit that wrung pathos from a dire plot setup, and in this case it did such with the most dire subject imaginable, cheapening an outright nightmare to the level of a TV movie of the week (which THE DAY AFTER obviously was). Although not packed to the rafters with thespians familiar from endless doses of made-for-TV potboilers — folks like Linda Purl, Shaun Cassidy, and the ubiquitous Bert Convy — the film featured enough recognizable actors to completely take me out of the "now" of the narrative and make me see it as a fallout-tainted production of OUR TOWN.

The following year, England's BBC aired THREADS, a film that was from all accounts more or less the same basic scenario as THE DAY AFTER, only done more in the style of a "docudrama" and treated with a high degree of realism. Everything I'd read about it intrigued me, but I never had the opportunity to see it (I have no idea if it ever aired in the States). Then, over twenty-five years later, during one of my weekly hang & bullshit sessions with certain friends and former colleagues from the comics industry, the conversation turned to movies that seriously messed with our heads when we were young. Two of those in attendance grew up in the United Kingdom during the 1980's — one in England and the other in Belfast — and both of them practically fell over each other to declare THREADS as the movie that not only messed them up when they saw it as early-teens, but they both flat-out stated it will stay with them forever and that they never ever need to see it again. Anything that could so affect two such relatively hard men was something I had to experience for myself, so I ordered the DVD shortly before Christmas and waited to watch it until I was in the right frame of mind to endure it. Then yesterday afternoon rolled around and the bitter cold compelled me to stay indoors once I'd finished the day's errands. Having not much else to do other than make my way through a stack of around twenty-five DVDs that I had not yet watched, I gave it some thought and decided to finally see just what the big deal was about THREADS.

Now that I've seen it, I have to say that it's the single bleakest and most realistic "day after" film ever made. It's unrelentingly depressing almost from the opening frame, and its docudrama narrative takes place in the Northern English city of Sheffield, following the daily lives of two families connected by the "threads" of everyday life.

The film is less of a narrative than a tracking of the progression of what happens to a pair of young lovers when the female turns up pregnant and the two decide to get married and move in together. We get to know them and their families for about the first forty minutes or so as their lives go on while political tensions between the Russia and the United States (who are supported in their efforts by Britain) build to international nuclear strikes. The film's structure is a series of updates beginning some two weeks or so before the bombs fall, and after that it's a completely realistic, no-punches-pulled chronicle that skips ahead by days, then weeks, then a year, and eventually culminates some thirteen years after, by which point the greatly depopulated world is a struggling, virtually medieval agrarian wasteland and there's really very little point in humanity bothering to go on. The characters we get to know all are either killed outright during and just after the nuclear holocaust, or else they go on to survive in a world where the living absolutely envy the dead. The arc involving the pregnant woman is compelling and tragic, following her pregnancy (during which she receives zero prenatal care), the agonizing and unassisted birth of her daughter (who is miraculously born normal), and the skip-forward to ten years later and the mother's death, after which the daughter must fend for herself in a bombed-out landscape populated by immoral and opportunistic scavengers and looters. The narrative culminates three years later, when the girl is thirteen and falls in with a duo of scruffy teenage survivors, one of whom rapes her and impregnates her after becoming aroused as the two fight over a crust of bread (thankfully we only see enough of the preamble to the assault to get the idea of what's about happen, at which point the camera shifts to an exterior shot of the structure where it happens). The poor girl, alone again and in labor, eventually seeks shelter in what appears to be the remains of an abandoned hospital, populated by an older woman and a man who has apparently lost all touch with reality. Despite the older woman trying to shoo her away and advising her to "go home and use your common sense" to give birth, the girl gives birth to the next generation: a horribly deformed mutant that we barely catch a glimpse of, but that elicits a scream of abject revulsion from its young mother. The frame freezes on that image and the film comes to an abrupt end.

THREADS was definitely worth seeing and it's incredibly well done and believable, cast with actors whom I did not recognize, and that aspect helped keep me rooted in its reality (although I was briefly jarred when I recognized the voice of Ed Bishop, best known as Commander Straker from UFO and the voice of Captain Blue on CAPTAIN SCARLET AND THE MYSTERONS). That said, THREADS left me literally shaken, dazed and numb by the film's end, a feeling I've never experienced with any other movie, and I had to go for a walk outside in twenty-degree weather to clear my head. It was excellent, but I now join my U.K. pals in never wanting to sit through it again. It's all utterly hopeless and miserable, so I very strongly urge you not to watch it unless you're really in the right mood for this kind of thing. (NOTE: this film is not available on DVD in the U.S., so you'll need to get the British Region 2 disc and have an all-regions player in order to watch it.)

TRUE GRIT (2010)

I don't know what you thought of the 1969 TRUE GRIT, but I saw the remake yesterday and it was an odd experience because I saw the original for the first time since I was a kid a few months back and I thought it was merely so-so. The remake, though purportedly more true to the source novel, was virtually a beat-for-beat remake of the original and consequently it was also so-so. It does improve on the original in a few ways — chief among which are not having the incredibly annoying Kim Darby in the lead, and a better, less "Hollywood" ending — but for the life of me I can't understand why it's getting the universal critical acclaim it's racking up. My guess is that since westerns are pretty much a dead genre, audiences (and critics) are starved for "horse operas," so they go crazy when a competent one shows up in the current climate of lame rom-coms, cookie-cutter Judd Apatow films (almost all of which are overrated and not funny, at least not to me), superhero movies of wildly varying quality, Michael Bay cinematic abortions that display a shocking contempt for their audience, and the annual blockbuster season that turns the screen into a toxic waste dump. The new TRUE GRIT is not a "bad" movie by any means, but it simply is not "all that." Here's the breakdown:

• Like the original, it's too long by at least twenty minutes and it moves at a lugubrious pace. There is no suspense or thrills to be had in it and the film even manages to make Cogburn's famous horseback gunfight against four opponents devoid of excitement (which certainly cannot be said about the John Wayne version).
  
• Remember "Leaning On the Everlasting Arms," the tune sung by psycho Robert Mitchum in THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955)? Well, you sure as hell will after seeing the new TRUE GRIT, because an instrumental of it plays incessantly throughout the film.
• Jeff Bridges is excellent as Rooster Cogburn and does not in any way evoke John Wayne's version of the character. It's a totally new interpretation and much more believable than Wayne's Oscar-winning performance (which is only to be expected I guess, because Wayne brought his "god of the western" stature to every role he played, especially late in his career, even in films that were not westerns).
• Hailee Steinfeld is a perfect Mattie Ross because, unlike Kim Darby (who was Miri in the original series STAR TREK episode of the same name), she's the right age for the role (Darby was in her early twenties when playing Mattie) and is not so fucking annoying that you want to shoot her through the eyes. Like Bridges, she brings a total believability to the part and she is very good for a relative newbie.
• Matt Damon is both unrecognizable (due to makeup) and quite good as Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (pronounced "LeBeef") and makes one completely forget Glenn Campbell's utterly forgettable original version.
• The interaction between the characters is fun and at times chuckle-inducing, but the film's pacing renders the proceedings into an almost-dreamlike state. That can work in a Sergio Leone western, but this is not one of those.
• Like the original, we follow Mattie's quest to bring her father's killer to justice, but again we don't care all that much because it's a given that she will succeed and the villain (and his cronies) gets barely any screen time, so we have no character definition other than that which is automatically inferred by their narrative positioning as "black hats."
• Again we get the bit with Mattie ending up in the pit with the rattlesnakes, a sequence that was totally unnecessary to the narrative in the first place and adds nothing to the new version (other than a slightly different outcome to her up close and personal encounter with one of the poisonous reptiles).
  
• As previously mentioned, the film is an almost beat-for-beat remake, despite the Coen Brothers' claims that it's a "new version," and as a result the whole endeavor comes off (to me, anyway) as cinematically superfluous.

The one thing that I am glad of as a result of sitting through it is that it reminded me of MAD magazine's excellent 1970 parody of it (from MAD #133), drawn by the stellar Mort Drucker (one of the best cartoonists ever, whose work is often unfairly overlooked because it runs in a humor magazine). I looked for images from it online and while doing so I was surprised to find that several reviewers of both the new and old version of the film cited that they found the MAD version more memorable than the actual movie. Next to George Woodbridge, I think Drucker was the very best of MAD's artists from the moment they shifted from a comics format to a black & white magazine. Check out these panels to see what I mean:

(I love how the one gunman is riding a hog for no apparent reason.)

But I'm straying from the remake, so allow me to sum up by stating that the new TRUE GRIT is worth seeing, sort of, but I suggest waiting for cable or DVD rental. It ain't worth $13.00 (NYC ticket price).