Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and happy homes.
Today’s theme: Frankenstein
Drak (Jerald Cormier Jr.), Franky (Eric Weathersbee), Wolfie (Wilson Smith), Mummy (Richard Sumner) and Humper the horny hunchback (Keith Lack, who also did effects and stunts for Dream Stalker) have been sealed inside a mountain cave for a hundred years. How do they finally break free? Simple: Franky gets a terrible case of indigestion, blasts an ass-ripper of atomic proportions and blows a massive hole right through the rock face.
Armed with a dusty treasure map, our gang of discount monster royalty heads down the mountain into the tiny California gold rush town of French Gulch to dig up some lost gold. The catch? It’s Halloween! The locals think they’re wearing really bad costumes and immediately drag them into the festivities. Before long, the monsters judge bikini contests, hit up the local dance hall/motel/brothel, fall in love and just bide their time, basically. They kind of lose the plot, and I’m totally fine with that.
Shot on video in French Gulch, California (just west of Redding) and never sold outside its hometown for decades, the mastermind behind this masterpiece is Gerald Cormier (billed on screen as the “Direction Giver”). He was the co-writer, co-producer and uncredited evil father of Andrew Prine in the sleaze-horror cult classic Terror Circus (aka Nightmare Circus, aka Barn of the Naked Dead), as well as a string of 1970s adult flicks like 101 Acts of Love and Touch Me. Here, Cormier brings his veteran low-budget instincts to what feels like a hybrid of an Ernest Scared Stupid and a late-night cable sex comedy.
What’s that? You thought this was for kids? No, because before you know it, you get so many panty shots, people having simulated sex and even the Wolfman coming out after a failed encounter with a prostitute. The Mummy has no penis but for some reason has a lizard inside him that talks
It feels like real sex is going to happen at any point, and not fancy VCA sex, but the kind of sub-market cash-in on the VHS porn craze sex that feels dirty and gynecological, with just coupling shots zoomed in. If you know what I’m talking about, I will never shake your hand. You shouldn’t shake mine either.
Editor Denny Grayson also wrote Omega Cop, Karate Cop and Return Fire. Is this a Karate Cop reunion? Because Kelli Gianettoni, who was Dancing Dahlia in that, is in this as Blonde Bimbo.
The budget is non-existent, and it shows. The monster outfits look like they were pulled out of a Spirit dumpster, and the acting is deliciously awkward. Yet the whole thing has an irresistible charm. It’s got endless synth-driven dance sequences, terrible double entendres, absurd mad-scientist side plots (that’s Gerald Cormier as the scientist), and an overwhelming sense that everyone involved was just having the time of their lives. It straddles a weird line: it feels like a kids’ movie, but it’s packed with enough crude sex jokes and booze-soaked barroom antics that you realize it was made purely for rowdy late-night watch parties. Who is the audience, really? Me. Why did they make it? Who the fuck knows. Do I own it? Of course.
You can watch this on Tubi.
