MICROBUDGET MASSACRE 10:
Hysteric Eric takes yet another
peek at NEW Indy Trash Cinema!

THE NAKED MONSTER is an engaging spoof of/camp homage to the B monster movies of the 50s. Made in the 1980s but not on DVD until now, it’s packed with a fantastic stable of genre veterans that are largely no longer with us; it’s like they did a casting call at a sci-fi convention. With John Agar, Gloria Talbot, Les Tremayne, Robert Clarke, Robert Shayne and Robert Corthwaite and even Forry Ackerman. Brinke Stevens is outstanding as a feminist executive on the way up, whose nude scene is really important to the plot. I laughed when she says something to the effect of, “I’m a graduate of blah blah that, blah blah Ph.d this, and a personal friend of Joe Bob Briggs.”
It starts with the writer/producer/co-director Ted Newsom addressing the audience, explaining a process called Monsterama, much like the gimmick for William Castle‘s “the Tingler.” The set-up tells of all the creatures that have attacked earth in the movies – it’s fun to see if you can name the film before the next clip comes on. We are explained that these creatures are all gone, but there is a new menace, a Dinosauras Erectus. “Wrecked us, it nearly killed us.” A most excellent Kenneth Tobey from the original version of The Thing must be rousted from the loony bin and pulled into saving the world, yet again.
The dialogue is snappy, campy, and self-referential, but there’s plenty of lowbrow humor in this effort. The cast is obviously having fun subverting the genre, kind of what you might do if you re-read or re-watched the things that impressed you as a child, and found a whole new subtext in them as an adult.
Funny on purpose, and you can tell there’s a great fondness for the genre. It’s very silly; a missing link between something like Airplane and Naked Gun and more modern genre camp takes like Lost Skeleton of Cadavra or Frankenstein vs. the Creature From Blood Cove. Although, lines like “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” “Here’s a will.” certainly could have been uttered from the mouths of Lloyd Bridges or Leslie Nielsen. And a CAT scan is a real cat being held and moved around by a lab tech. There’s a huge thermometer joke for the monster (not in the mouth.) OK, maybe it is like Airplane meets (insert your favorite cheesy 50s monster movie here.)
Obvious miniatures: toy tanks and such. Gratuitous boobage from Linnea Quigley in an amusing opening scene as a deaf couple are attacked necking (and signing) in the car. Big set-ups for dumb puns (and sight gags.) The fabulous use of clips is crucial to the puff up the low budget, and is creative and well executed. I laughed out loud several times. There’s a running background dialogue inserted over the old footage, resulting in some pretty funny but barely audible mutterings, like an old Popeye cartoon. Campy dialogue? 10- 4, baby.
One clever segment is when the veteran actors call the hotline and suggest ways to defeat the monster, methods that they themselves used in various b monster films. They all have great presence; it’s nice to see them at work again. Periodically accented by narration of George Fenneman, Groucho’s old TV sidekick from You Bet Your Life. Like the pro he is, he sells lines like “Crushing toys as if they were cars” with appropriate authority.
With deleted scenes, commentaries and all that stuff. Has an interview with Tobey about The Thing, Gremlins, Strange Invaders and other films in his career. Co-director’s dad directed The Monster of Piedras Blancas, for those still reading. Available from www.anthemdvd.com.

POLYMORPH is a Tempe movie directed by their head himself, J.R. Bookwalter, and I found it to be an enjoyably sci-fi exploitation film. It starts with a crash in the woods that unsettles a drug dealer who is holed up with some dope, who calls her gang in. The high Geiger counter readings make scientist Dr. Clark calls his interns to the scene.
The kids come to woods not knowing the professor and a guard have both already been killed and mobsters are on the way. They bring girls, so you know the body count will go higher. The girl gangster gets the green polymorph sucked into her leg wound and the alien that takes over her body. Kids in woods at first battle drug smugglers, then have an uneasy alliance as thugs and citizens bond over bloody wounds. The polymorph needs a host, and jumps from body to body, re-animating several dead bodies, turning their eyes green and able to shoot lightning blasts out of their hands. The Let’s-do-it guy has a long death scene.
Girl does lines off a Wall of Voodoo album cover, and the prof has a huge cell phone, placing this film at 1996. Economic green electricity effects and a few gunshot wounds take the entire budget, and the action takes place in the woods, saving on sets. Music is cheap (at times like a porno movie) - but works pretty well for the movie. The overacting wasn’t too bad, and the story moves along speedily without trying to explain too much of it, always a good thing in my book. It’s like they took stereotypes from different films and put them together, the gangster with the pink tie, the low-self-esteem guy who has to rise to the challenge, the strong female action lead.
Screenwriter-actor Edwards must have liked being able to put lines in his own mouth, like “This thing has all the believability of a mentos commercial.” The phrase is repeated as the name of the making-of doc in the extras, where Edwards explains how he slipped a few Tarantino references past Bookwalter, who wouldn’t have approved. Early DV camera, but film never looks like SOV crap. I like that the film has lots of character work, and that’s not usually a good thing with amateur actors, but Bookwalter manages to pull it off. And I like the comic book-ish segues.
Of course it’s available from www.tempevideo.com.

From Bloody Earth comes A FEAST OF FLESH, a 2007 lesbian vampire flick. A girl is saved from a rapist by a vampire (cool ripped-off face effect), who takes her back home to her coven, a brothel run by Amy Lynn Best, who is also the film’s producer. A Dude wins a pass to the trendy brothel in a poker game, and he and another couple go together, leaving their mopey friend back at the bar. The guy leaves when he sees that his friend’s old girlfriend is now working there. The vampires attack the couple, who I guess you could call “die-curious” now. Back at the bar, some guys overhear his story and let them in on a little secret: the town has allowed the vampires to operate unmolested as long as they only prey on out-of-towners. Since they took the newbie from the bus station, they assumed she was from out-of-town. Now the townies go back and have the reason to break the treaty with the vampires. They take back the guy’s ex-GF, but she isn’t so happy.
The film has a good concept for protective symbols to replace crosses for non-Christians. A Talisman could be anything you personally believe in- like a cross of David or even, in one guy’s case, a dollar bill that he uses to burn a vampire’s face at the touch. “It makes the world go round.” This concept could have even been used some more. Maybe be in Feast of Flesh 2. Anyhoo, a couple of decent gore sequences, but most under-reaching. Lots of blood-smeared lesbian vampires making out.
Lead townie is trying so hard with his Irish accent he eventually won me over. He’s played by writer/ director Mike Watt, who is married to producer Best, the lead vampire he’s trying to kill. Good concept, with a budget and some real actors (or real Irishmen), this would have been more believable, but heck, it’s a horror movie, are you really supposed to buy everything?
I mean, if you accept lesbian vampires running a brothel under agreement from the locals, I guess it’s not that big a leap to accept that there are an armed gang who claim to be a renegade IRA cell somewhere in the U.S., even though only one has an accent. And what arms! Watt even carries an ancient tommygun, like he’s James Cagney or something
The fight sequences are a little weak, especially the anti-climactic final scene, with its “medley” editing and overriding music. I did like the girlfight, though.
Obliquely feminist (the vampires are men, the men are all rapists and carry big guns with which to punish women) but never really goes much into that. But I was impressed that the character that you think is the star of the film gets killed half way in.
The writing is probably the strongest thing in it. The dialogue is sarcastic and the film itself plays with clichés. Watt’s enthusiastic energy and smirk eventually overcame the cheesy accent for me to enjoy his portrayal. Others, not as much. I didn’t find most of the girls all that appealing. We see male ass in the brothel just before we se any female parts, and in my humble opinion, that’s just plain wrong.
Debbie Rochon (or at least a close-up of her face) appears in a cameo as does April “Chainsaw Sally” Burril. With commentary track, a short film, and a making-of featurette. Check it out at: http://www.campmotionpictures.com/.

PLAYROOM is from www.TLArealeasing.com, and is kinda like the Deliverance version of Hostel. We are introduced to some college friends as they celebrate their victory over the rival Central High. The guys even steal the rival teams keg, which comes by to rumble. After our heroes, known as The Fucknut Five, kick the Central High guys asses, they go and ignite a fire on the field of their rivals.
Fast forward about ten years or so, and the guys are mostly settled down with wives and kids, but still take a yearly trip together to go drinking and picking up girls. There’s the jock, the loser, the pussy hound, the bald guy, and the sensitive guy.
They all go to Philly, do lots of lines of blow and go clubbing. Two hotties pick two of the guys up, but the sensitive guy turns ‘em down. The girls take the two studs to a dark and seedy leather bar, where the drink a VVC, Vodka, Viagra and Coke, and then get taken to a strange room with beds that have bars attached. Unsurprisingly for us, after a night of passion, they awake handcuffed to the beds and a creepy old crack-smoking queen lets them know that now it’s his turn to have fun with them. He’s going to put them in his “shock films”, and has them violated (thankfully not shown too graphically) with an electric shock dildo and by girls with strap-ons.
Meanwhile, the other guys are looking for their friends and making up stories for their wives. A cop calls them back, and tells them the that the guy always gets tipped off, gives them guns and tells them they’re going to have to help him invade the room.
The way the film keeps returning to the shot of the younger Fucknut Five walking away from the school field fire, it leads you to think that maybe this is revenge from an old Central High student. There is a big reveal in the last few minutes that I won’t give away here, but which you may be able to figure out if you actually think about while watching.
It shares another thing with Hostel, though, and that is taking half the movie to get to the scary part. But I did like the many twists of the story, which I can’t really discuss without giving it away, although the way they escape is a little convenient. The film did have vivid characters, and the acting was professional. High production values, excellent technical work, with plenty of location shots and crowds. Not too much gore until the end, but then some good squirting of blood.
I think I would have liked to see more resolution at the end. Maybe a shot of the girl that got away looking at their IDs in their wallets, or perhaps a scene of them explaining things to their wives. Playroom’s OK, but the movie’s not anything that memorable, outside of the manipulation of the genre. And certainly not for everybody, but it is worth a look to those who can handle it. From www.TLAreleasing.com.

-Hysteric Eric