Vampire Ecstacy

Luv me some sexay vampire movies, and this film is a fine, fine example from the early 70’s, when skinsploitation had crept into most genres. This one involves a group of 4 or 5 naïfs visiting a castle in the back hills of Germany. The castle is run by a satanic priestess or somesuch (Wanda) who is trying to pave the way for the return of a powerful Baroness vampire. This involves a lot of mind control. Much of this mind control is achieved through nekkid/body painted ritual dancing by Wanda and her coven in the basement to the tune of the devilbongos. There is a LOT of this. This is a good thing. This movie gets special recognition for the most suggestively shaped candles in a non-porn movie.

This movie had great atmosphere, the castle setting really delivered the goods (in more ways than one), even though the movie really held no scares or even much blood. Several of the darker shots in the movie are a little too dark, making some of those scenes an audio-only affair, such as the bat attack. The good news is the bat attack denuded the remaining clothed woman, thus earning the movie the much lauded Golden Treehorn. Speaking of nekkidity, the lead naïf, Marie Forsa, has her ample ‘talents’ on display for one reason or another throughout the film. She is the initial target of the coven, her virgin body to be used a vessel for the return of the Vampiress. Well they eventually have to find a new vessel, because……well don’t let me ruin it. I will just say it is worth a watch if you like horror movies with great ambiance and gobs of eye candy, the flavor that the 70’s brought us in many of the horror/exploitation films from that period.

3 Georges and a Golden Treehorn

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)

If you are having a horror moviethon with a group of fellow enthusiasts or just need to 'clear the decks' after watching a poor horror movie, then pop a Troma movie into your DVD player. It really serves as a great mental palate cleanser. Well, cleanse is not an appropriate word, as there is nothing 'clean' about this movie. Troma really has cornered the market on funny/gross/tastless/outlandish/sometimes horrifiying content in their movies and their latest feature really serves as another solid example of this in their canon.

It involves a fastfood chicken franchise built on sacred burial ground and the resultant wave of chicken/hominid zombies which wages a very messy assault on the employees therein. It comes packed to the gills with buckets of blood/fluid splatters, piles of dismembered limbs, reams of crude jokes and gags, and handfuls of bared breasts. It never terrifies, as Troma is never one to take themselves too seriously. Per their norm, they are too busy trying to get to the next sight gag, deluge of blood, or shot of gratuitous nudity - often some delightful combination thereof. The acting is amateur at best, budget is obviously low, and again these are known factors when sitting down to watch a Troma feature. The new aspect that Troma reveals with this movie is several musical numbers. Now I know what you might be saying, "Karl, Fuck that shit, I hate musicals!" or possibly just wretching uncontrollably at the mere mention of the word. Well, there are only a few songs, and they are suitably crude and funny, per Troma's gutter levels of taste. I actually enjoyed them.
I know! It seems like crazy talk, but I speak the truth.

So with all the given pros and cons that Troma brings to the table, this one rates a solid 3 Georges.

Poultrygeist (2006)

Lloyd Kaufman is nothing if not consistent. I wouldn't quite go so far to say that if you've seen one Troma movie blah, blah, blah. But you can count on either Awful or Awesome, depending on your personal proclivities.

Poultrygeist is, as to be expected, both. In their trademark Troma Independent "Reel Cinema" manner they've inflicted multiple stab wounds into all of the current pop culture illusions, foibles, and just plain fuck-ups. In short order, this fast-food flesh-filled feast of a flick will have you laughing in the mirror of:

• Fast Food Culture
• College
• Empty Causes
• Lipstick Lesbians
• Patriotism
• Muslims
• Vegan Whores
• Black Pride
• Crass Capitalism
• Marketing
• Fetisism
• Musicals
• Hollywood
• Obesity

and

• Terrorism

Along the while you're assaulted by the fully-automatic stream of Troma bad puns ("Sappho B. Anthony") and twisted movie quotes ("You had me from shit-covered mongoloid.") It's a steady stream of laughing, titillation, abject gore, and then the eventual orgy of all three together. This is the Troma formula and it has worked well for them for decades.

Is it horror? Does it scare you, gross you out, make you feel vulnerable or just plain creepy? Are there breasts and killers and things you generally wouldn't plan to view in front of your mother?

The answer to all of these is yes... but with a serious caveat. Troma cinema has always leaned closer to comedy and exploitation than the conventional trappings of the horror film. Each film has been more overt in its social commentary than the last one. There aren't moody scores or carefully lit sets to emphasize the mystery of the creature lurking in the dark. Nope, it's Tromaville. Welcome to fast-talking topless female lead characters and buckets of goo spewing from the mouths of roomfuls of extras and splattered across the walls of brightly lit sets with chicken people and Joe Fleishaker. It's horror, but somehow not horror.

In any event, George has just thrown up three gooey chicken eggs. Bock bock bock. This must mean:

Fun & Games

Since I'm stuck in Arizona (and not raising him), and I forgot to post these last week when I found them, I present to you the following Entertainment Weekly columns. This way you can exercise your brains instead of annoying Karl's wife.

The top 20 (according to them) horror movies of the last 20 years. I will say that I don't agree with all of them.

And an interactive quiz - admittedly, I didn't do so well. I won't post my score - I don't want Jeff to revoke my "Dudes" decoder ring.

Vampire Junction (2001)

From the onset, there is absolutely no doubt that the budget of this film is in an altitude limbo contest with the instincts of the director: which will sink lower? The tug of war between these two contestants painfully drags across the surreal cinematic landscape of this bizarre opus for seemingly four and a half hours. It's up for the viewer to decide who wins, and I'm here to tell ya that you should prepare for a photo finish.

In actuality, this film clocks in with a running time of 1:35 but since most of the scenes are presented at one third the normal speed you risk burning in your television screen with images of Eurpoean ass pimples. As the war between the questions of "what is the minimum effort we can get away with paying for this shot?" wages between "what can my strange, aged libido rationalize asking these young actresses to do?" there is another competition afoot. Which out of shape and unappealing actress will chalk up the most utterly (read udderly) unasked for nude scenes on film: Kathy Bates or Lina Romay? Who fucking cares? But Lina has definitely upped the ante here.

When all is said and done this film doesn't truly deserve much attention. I want to pan this thing into a stinking George pile, but there is a conflict raging within me, too. My horror senses weren't left entirely untingled while watching the intentional and unintentional perversities in this film exchange... err... licks. Vampire Junction is like Ed Wood directing a softcore porn flick while praying through time to David Lynch for inspiration. For this- and for the horrifying juxtaposition of gorgeous and gross specimens of femininity blearily basking in their own dreamy decadence for the benefit of Billy the Kidd in a store bought Bela Lugosi-era Dracula cape- I give this film a Silver(?) Treehorn and an arguably deserving two Georges... one for each side of the many conflicts battling against one another in this grand cinematic hypocrisy. Perhaps in ten years we can make the call whether or not Jess Franco's classic films won out over his later shames to prevent his total loss of genre credibility.

Vampire Junction (2001)

This movie is proof that a Golden Treehorn (100% of the females get nekkid) award is not indicative of quality. This vampire flick has something to do with a journalist in a wild west town in New Mexico and there are a pair of lesbian vampires and a cowboy vampire. Other than that, I can't tell what the fuck the story was. The movie consisted of a horrid music score of jagged synth, freeform jazz, and bizarre symphonic spurts; early 80's style music video editing and effects; and almost continuous softcore sex between 2-3 women. I must say, of all the movies I have seen with a female 3-way, this is the one that least held my interest. Jess Franco is still horny, but clearly he has gone senile.

1 George (for the attractive female vampire) and a reluctant Golden Treehorn

One Eyed Monster (2008)

Karl did me a solid and provided a guided "fast forward" presentation of this film. The "Karl's Notes" version, as it were. So I haven't seen every second of footage, but I trust my fellow Dude that nothing crucial was omitted during his tour. Too long to be a comment (which is where I began posting this) but too reliant on a previous Dude's effort to stand on it's own, I present my "Fast Track Addendum" to One Eyed Monster.

I have to say it's a damn shame the decision was made to seek an R-rating for this flick. I agree with Karl that Troma could have handled this film better with respect to nudity and gore, but Troma has never approached this level of quality in any of their productions. The writing was well done and acted out a hell of a lot better than you typically find in films with premises this absurd. Even the score was good. Sure, it's chock full of Aliens parallels but in a movie centered around Ron Jeremy's killer cock on the loose these stolen scenes come off (ha ha) as more of a homage than a rip-off.

This film is a comedy at heart which mixes fact and fiction to construct a soapbox for real-life porn stars to wax poetic over their golden years from. I have to admit that I thought it was intriguing and it elicited more than a few laughs out loud. But so did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind... doesn't mean ol' George wants anything to do with it here.

What this film needed was a lack of restraint. An injection of Troma's inhibition into this production could have created a non-rated masterpiece. This monster needed a some hot gory blood pumping into it's flaccid member. It needed full frontal nudity and scenes of graphic- not implied- penetration. A script with aged porn star characters bemoaning their faded glory status and yearning to recapture the thrill and sensationalism of their youth was well served by real-life ex-porn star actors in the very same predicament. Tragically, what made the One Eyed Monster limp was the failure of these actors to rise to the challenge of going balls-and-all in a horror movie context.

Flaccid Treehorn, indeed.