“The last surviving 728,000 copies of Blind Cop 1 were censored by the U.S. government. Each individual one was burned and buried in the Syracuse salt mines.”
After saving the city in the last movie, Blind Cop (George Fearing) is mourning the loss of his partner Mac (Steven Vogel). He knows that all sorts of military weapons are ending up in the hands of street gangs, but he only knows how to do things his way. His way means killing everything in his path. Yes, despite being blind, Blind Cop has powers beyond what we can imagine. He can fight anything. He can drive a car. He can get blind drunk and still not see. Blind Cop is the hero of the city, even if the city doesn’t understand and kicks him off the force.
Schmidty (Isaac McKinnon) is one of the few people who believes in him. He rescues him from literally getting pissed on by some goons and nurses him back to health. This involves giving Blind Cop his car and a place to sleep it off.
Blind Cop may also be related to Manny Cobretti with dialogue like this:
“You can’t just go around killing people, Blind Cop.” says the police chief.
“They’re not people, Chief. They’re criminals.” snarls Blind Cop.
This film has Blind Cop dispensing brutal justice to perps like Max Froglips, Frank the Male Hooker, Titan, Ulrich Von Kunst and no small amount of nameless and soon to be deceased henchmen. You know how Revenge of the Ninja has Don Shanks as a Native American bad guy in the middle of a gang that has more diversity as the Village People? Yeah, this has that. It feels like when you’d play a Double Dragon clone like Bad Dudes and I mean that as the highest compliment that I can give. It’s hard to make a movie that’s like something Cannon would put out and have the parody not be so dumb or in the way of the action. Somehow, Blind Cop 2 pulls it off.
Director Alec Bonk wrote this along with McKinnon and Augustin Huffman. They must have watched as many movies that were left in the action section of their local video store on a Saturday night as I did. That Vietnam flashback feels earned, baby.
You can watch this and so many of the films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. I’ll be posting reviews and articles over the next few days, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watches.
There’s no way I would have ever seen this movie if it wasn’t for the Chattanooga Film Festival.
“My father says if people don’t come and see this movie, we’ll starve,” says Tate Sullivan, introducing his father’s The Beer Drinker’s Guide to Fitness and Filmmaking.
Fred G. Sullivan only made one other movie and that’s a shame. He made Cold River in 1982, which was a historical movie. This is more like a home movie, but you may not know when it’s real and when it’s f for fake. Fred directed, wrote, produced, edited and stars in this, along with his four kids, his wife Polly, his business partners, his neighbors and nearly everyone who ever knew him.
Fred wants to be a filmmaker and a star. He wants it so bad that he’ll let you watch his proctology exam. As for Polly, she grew up rich and fell for him and now they’re off in the country where he muses about movies and daydreams all day. And yet, you can understand how she felt that way.
Not all of us have our home movies released on VHS. Imagine how amazing it would be if that were true and then your VHS was rediscovered by some movie nerds, logged on Letterboxd and discussed on Discord. It would be weird and yet if Fred were still alive — he died playing basketball — I think he’d be elated.
You can watch this and so many of the films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. I’ll be posting reviews and articles over the next few days, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watches.
You can watch this on Vimeo. It was posted by one of Fred’s sons.
Uschi Digard week (June 23 – 29) Digard is best known for her work with Russ Meyer but she became an SWV fan favorite for two gargantuan reasons, her charm and her prolific career. The Swiss actress fled to America in 1968 and began a long career filling the silver screen from corner to corner with her overflowing positive energy. Show the lady some respect and watch one of her movies.
Stu Seagall created hyper-realistic training for military personnel and also directed Insatiable with Marilyn Chambers. How can you top that? He was the executive producer for Silk Stalkings, Renegade and the third Beastmaster movie. And more? He directed, wrote and produced Drive-In Massacre, which this was shot back-to-back with.
He also directed this movie, which was written by John Alderman, John F. Goff and Martin Gatsby. It’s about a couple named Dancer (John Alderman) and Scuzz (Jacqueline Giroux) who are the pimps for three women known as the C.B. Hustlers, who are played by Janus Blythe (Ruby from The Hills Have Eyes), Catherine Barkley and — most importantly — Uschi Digard, billed as Elke Vann. They always tell people in public that the girls are their daughters, but the truth is that they collect 40% of their $25 fee for each sex act, which they set up with C.B. radios.
In C.B. terms, they used to call the areas where sex workers would line up as pickle park, party row or the back row.
Sheriff Elrod P. Ramsey (Bruce Kimball) wants to bust the girls, so he brings on newspaper men Boots Clayborn (John F. Goff) and Mountain Dean (Richard Kennedy) to track them down. Of course, Boots falls for one of the girls and ends up helping them stay ahead of the fuzz. Or as C.B. users would say, bears driving bubble gum machines. Or a smokey. Or, if they’re women, Mama Bears.
It’s also a vansploitation movie! The Hot Box 1 and Hot Box 2 vans were made by Custom Touch of Van Nuys, California.
There’s one major reason — well, two — to watch this and that’s Uschi Digard, whose lovemaking scene is filmed as if you are under her. It’s worth sitting through all the bad country music, long walking scenes and the dumb plot, because I often wonder if God exists and upon rewatching this scene more than once, I can confirm that the answer is affirmative.
June 25: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Vigilantes! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
The Punisher used to be the kind of comic book character whose t-shirts you could wear but today, just like conspiracy theories, it’s all been ruined. He’s also never really had a fair shake at a movie, as The Punisher, The Punisherand Punisher: War Zone are all fine but missing a lot of what makes the character work when the right creative team is on it. Yes, I realize that the character is also on Daredevil and had two seasons of his own show. Jon Bernthal has the right look for Frank Castle and he has said that he used this short as inspiration for how he portrays the character.
Yet the best interpretation of the Punisher is this short, directed by Phil Joanou (Three O’Clock High, Rattle and Hum) and written by producer Adi Shankar, Chad St. John and star Thomas Jane, who had already played the role in The Punisher.
When he played this movie at San Diego Comic Con, Jane said, “I wanted to make a fan film for a character I’ve always loved and believed in — a love letter to Frank Castle & his fans. It was an incredible experience with everyone on the project throwing in their time just for the fun of it. It’s been a blast to be a part of from start to finish; we hope the friends of Frank enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.”
The story is simple. All Frank wants to do is wash his clothes, but the neighborhood he’s in won’t allow it. A pimp named Goldtooth (Sammi Rotibi) is abusing his girls and attacking a young boy named DeShawn (Karlin Walker). As he watches his clothing spin, he tries to get away by grabbing a Yoo-Hoo. A disabled veteran named Big Mike (Ron Perlman) reveals that he tried to stop them once and that’s how he ended up crippled. Frank buys a bottle of whiskey from him and proceeds to do what he does best, kill every single person in his way.
It’s exactly who the character is, someone you wouldn’t want to be around and a man who is only kept alive by a war that he fights alone.
It’s around ten minutes and definitely worth a watch.
June 25: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Vigilantes! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
I’m consumed by the idea that African American movies on Tubi flow from the same filone as American giallo or sex thrillers without their filmmakers ever having seen a traditional giallo. Heaven’s Revenge feels like the direct to video softcore murder movies of the 90s but infused with the viewpoint of a filmmaker who may have read about them but again, didn’t experience them.
This started as a 22-minute short before being expanded to a full length movie. It was directed, written and produced by LaNease Adams, who was the first African American women e to be a contestant on The Bachelor. She also stars as Heaven, who falls in love with professional wrestler Jackson Davis (Marcus Nel-Jamal Hamm).
She told Heart and Soul, “My new feature film Heaven’s Revenge was inspired by classic films such as Misery, Fatal Attraction, Unfaithful and A Thin Line Between Love and Hate. We wanted to make a film that was a thriller, but with strong passion, strong dialogue, and a film that leaves the audience with an opinion on what they’ve just seen. A lot of the feedback has been different from men, than women. Men tend to believe that Heaven Bailey, our leading character, was crazy. But women overwhelmingly see the issue with how Jackson Davis treated Heaven in the relationship, which made her act crazy.”
Both actors wrote the script with Miranda Bowden and it feels like a lot of this movie is ad libbed. It’s really strange because so much is them arguing and every time it feels like they’ve reached some kind of accord, a screaming match ensues. I mean, yes, Heaven did break into Jackson’s house and shoot him, then convince his family — if not the police — that she saved him and is nursing him back to health when she’s really throwing him in the shower and slapping him around while he makes crying noises like that burned up guy played by Jordan Peele in the crowd that cries as Keegan-Michael Key makes fun of him. She also lures his new girlfriend Sarah (Jeni Jones) to his house, gets her drunk and then flips out and murders her.
The democracy of Tubi movies is so pure to me. It seems like nearly anyone can tell the story that they want to tell and it can air there where just about anyone can find it. It’s the closest thing to the video store that today’s streaming world has.
Adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Fall of the House of Usher, this film marked the beginning of a series of eight Poe adaptations by Roger Corman, often in collaboration with writer Richard Matheson. Shot in a mere fifteen days, it was a bold departure for American-International Pictures, known for its black-and-white double features. This venture into color cinema with a substantial budget was a significant risk by AIP’s standards, adding a unique twist to the film’s production history.
Central to the narrative is the tragic fate of the Usher family, cursed to descend into madness. This ominous prophecy has not only engulfed their home but also the very ground it stands on, leading to its gradual decay and destruction.
Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon, Black Sabbath) traveled to the House of Usher to take his fiancee Madeline, who is opposed by her brother Roderick (Vincent Price), who is determined to see his family’s bloodline end with this generation. This leads to an argument so brutal that Madeline’s catalepsy is triggered, making her appear dead, and when she’s buried alive, she fully gives in to the madness within the Usher family, bringing the entire home down in flames all around everyone but our hero, who leaves with nothing.
Although Corman and Lou Rusoff are usually given credit for the AIP Poe cycle of films, Damon spoke up on a Black Sabbath commentary track, claiming he gave Corman the idea and was even allowed to direct The Pit and the Pendulum. This story hasn’t been confirmed, as there are several images of Corman directing that movie.
The success of House of Usher not only paved the way for more collaborations between Corman and Price but also set a precedent for reusing the same sets and special effects. The iconic Usher house set, which was actually a scheduled demolition, was set ablaze, and the footage used in multiple films, a testament to the enduring influence of this production.
You can watch this and so many of the films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. I’ll be posting reviews and articles over the next few days, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watches.
Before he became known for Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin wrote a 23,000-word novella titled “Nightflyers,” which was published by Analog Science Fiction and Fact. A few years later, encouraged by his editor James Frenkel, Martin turned it into a longer story which was published in a split book with Vernor Vinge’s True Names as part of their Dell’s Binary Star series.
You don’t need to know this, but this is in the same “Thousand Worlds” universe as other Martin stories such as Sandkings, A Song for Lya, The Way of the Cross and Dragon, With Morning Comes Mistfall, the short stories in Tuf Voyaging and Dying of the Light.
Director Robert Collector (Red Heat, the Linda Blair and Sylvia Kristel one) left shooting before the movie was finished and used the name T. C. Blake. Writer and producer Robert Jaffe (he wrote Demon Seed, Motel Hell and the deranged Scarab) took the short version as his inspiration.
First off, kind of like Fulci with Conquestand his fog, this entire movie is supposed to look this misty. It was a deliberate choice by the producers, director and cinematographer who wanted the movie to look like a dream. Seeing as how it’s never been released in any high definition media, the VHS look of this makes it appear even more phantasmagorical.
The Volkryn are ancient space gods kind of like Kirby’s the Celestials, as they go blindly through the galaxy creating stars in their wake. An unseen pilot named Royd Eris (Michael Praed, Prince Michael of Moldavia on Dynasty) has brought together a crew of scientists with Miranda Dorlac (Catherine Mary Stewart, who seriously rivals Jessica Harper for being in multiple cult movies that lunatics like me obsess over; as for her, she’s in movies I go wild over like The Last Starfighter, Night of the Comet and The Apple) as our heroine. There’s also Michael D’Brannin (John Standing), Audrey Zale (Lisa Blount, forever from Prince of Darkness), Keelor (Glenn Withrow), Eliza (Annabel Brooks, who replaced Bianca Jagger), Glenn Withrow (Michael Des Barres, yes, the guy from the band Detective who was on the remade WKRP In Cincinnati) and Darryl (James Avery, the voice of the Shredder and Uncle Phil).
Royd and Miranda are into one another, which has some issues, as he’s a clone of his mother Adara, who is also the computer that runs the ship and decides that this woman — in a power suit with mirrored shades — is going to take her son away from her, so she goes all HAL and kills everyone. This would fit in well with a lot of Alien clones, even if it’s not all the way on Alien. Maybe a late Galaxy of Terror? An early Event Horizon? It’s flawed, sure, but so is Lifeforce and both of these movies would go together well.
I mean, take a look at Stewart in that outfit. Murder computer mom is so correct.
This was also a SyFy series in 2018. It lasted for ten episodes.
You can watch this and so many of the films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. I’ll be posting reviews and articles over the next few days, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watches.
Are you looking to achieve higher states of consciousness using nothing but the raw ass power of cinema? Would your friends or family describe you as “the weird one?” We want you to know that we’re here for you. We’ve carefully constructed our WTF (Watch These Films?) and BRIDE OF WTF short film blocks with weirdos JUST LIKE YOU in mind. Our yearly salute to the stranger side of short cinema is in fine form this year, with a slate of shorts positively guaranteed to make mush of your mind, which feels REAL cool. WE KNOW. We’ve seen them. Also, we aren’t telling you to go out and hot box your car before you watch these films, but we also aren’t telling you to NOT hot box your car before you watch these films!
Krampuss (2023): Known as Þið kannist við… (You Know…) in its native Iceland, this Guðni Líndal Benediktsson directed (with a script co-written with Ævar Þór Benediktsson) has a holiday tradition I’ve never heard of before. The Yule Cat, which eats people who don’t get clothes as Christmas gifts.
I’m amazed because this is a real thing. Jólakötturinn is “a huge and vicious cat from Icelandic Christmas folklore that is said to lurk in the snowy countryside during the Christmas season and eat people who do not receive new clothing before Christmas Eve.”
The Yule Cat was often used by landowners as a threat to their field workers to finish collecting wool before autumn was over. Those who didn’t work hard enough were made to fear this holiday beast.
This short looks gorgeous and has a really great effect for the cat. When else will you see a horrifying Christmas kitten?
A.A. (2024): Directed by Auden Bui, this has a very simple idea: There’s more to A.A. than alcoholics anonymous. Bui has some great talent in this — Anna Akana, Malcolm Barrett, Ryan Decker, Sage Porter, Brandon Potter, Bobby Reed and Uttera Singh — who lean way hard into their roles. Can you imagine going out for an open casting call and getting the role of “Member of Asseaters Anonymous” much less have to say dialogue like, “There I am with four dingleberries in my face?” Acting is a rough business. That said, this is a short worth being proud of, a basic story told well and even a little twist at the end.
Disciple (2024): Made as a student film while director and writer Boston Enderle was at Western Kentucky University, this is a bold and well-made film about Isaac (Coltyn Parks), an abused preacher’s (Greg Brandenburg) son. When he doesn’t pay enough attention to his father’s teachings, he’s forced to pray while slicing stigmata — the wounds of Christ — into his hands. Then, he has a meeting with the Verdant God (Trinity Graves), an ancient being, and finds that he can finally escape the brutality that he and his family have lived with for their entire lives. A truly interesting idea that is treated with the care that it deserves, I’d love to see a longer and deeper take on this.
A Visual Poem (2024): Directed by Benjamin Walant with original music by William Walant, this short is described as “surreal environments take center stage in this visual odyssey.” Benjamin works as a digital matte painter and concept artist in the VFX industry. He says, “As a professional digital matte painter (DMP artist), I wanted to harness my extensive VFX experience to push what can be done with this age-old technique; transforming what is usually the backdrop to center stage.”
I would compare this to Koyaanisqatsi, which is meant as a big compliment. I really felt the energy in this and was soothed, challenged and inspired by it.
All Is Lost (2024): Todo está perdido is the tale of the Pérez family. They may seem normal, but so much of this short is about them fertilizing an egg that the laid of the house has just laid. Directed by Carla Pereira Docampo and Juan Fran Jacinto, who wrote the script with Paco Alcázar, this looks like nothing else, a puppet-style presentation with artwork that as much retro as it is unfamiliar. The colors are so gorgeous and vivid as well. I can’t even imagine how long this took to make, because it feels so meticulous. Yet it is open and airy, filled with a light comedy touch. This is something else.
Catacombs (2024): I love the slasher Prison. More horror movies should be set in correctional facilities and Catacombs is a strong entry in this unexplored genre. As a thunderstorm is just outside the walls, a guard has to go deep into the sections of the old jailhouse, confronting the horrors that wait within. Director and writer Chad Cunningham really needs to expand this into a feature, as I’d love to see what he can do with a bigger budget and more time. Mike (Kenneth Trujillo) is faced with more than he ever expected and — again — I’d love to see how this buried part of this correctional facility affects the rest of the prison.
Burn Out (2024): Director and writer Russell Goldman says of this short, “Burn Out is a gonzo, high-octane horror story inspired by my post-concussive syndrome and all-consuming bosses. This short is about how we push ourselves in breakneck work environments and make disastrous compromises with our bodies and minds. Nothing is scarier (or more absurd) than what we can do to ourselves.”
Again, as in all the best shorts, it’s a simple tale told well. Virgil (Everett Osborne), an assistant, will do anything to get his presentation in front of Gower (Tommie Earl Jenkins), the big boss. In fact, he’ll even set himself on fire.
Produced by Jamie Lee Curtis and Film Independent, this has incredible effects and captures the way that I felt in my years of working in advertising when I was allowed to approach a boss and genuflect before their brilliance as they would take a moment to give me their great secrets. I learned nothing. But this movie brought that all back.
Adding another layer to the corporate madness in this, it was shot in the abandoned Quibi offices.
Don’t You Dare Film Me Now (2023): Director and writer Cade Featherstone is a British filmmaker and award-winning designer who worked as a graphic artist for films such as The Favourite and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Now getting an MFA in narrative filmmaking at NYU, he’s made this short, which is advanced beyond his years.
A drone finds an elderly woman who is, at the start, angry that the machine is invading her privacy. By the end, they have strangely bonded, both close to the end of their charge, as it were. This made me sit back and take notice.
Fck’n Nuts (2023): Sandy (Maddie Nichols) may be 19, but she’s still a child. She still lives at home with her parents (William E. Harris and Michele Rossi) and every man she introduces them to leaves her. She’s in love with Dan Deakins (Vincent Stalba), who is kind and sweet and hey, he knows wine. He’s in love with her too, but that means that he has to meet the family. Things go as absolutely bad as they can, beyond embarrassment and into pus-oozing anaphylactic shock.
This movie has a look that lives up to its name. Director and writer Sam Fox has created something truly special here, a piece of art that takes what in lesser hands would be sophomoric and here aspires to masterpiece. Here I was worried meeting my far right wing in-laws for the first time. I had nothing to worry about. I mean, I’m still alive.
A must watch!
Hunky Dory (2024): The 4,320 drawings in the film were drawn by hand on index cards, colored with Copic markers and Prismacolor pencils. The entire short was made in two years of full time work and each drawing is unique with no computer animation.
The story “juxtaposes scenes of animal life with images of human existence, observing the quirky and unexpected ways in which we are similar.” The banjo music comes from Béla Fleck and his bandmates in My Bluegrass Heart. This has such a beautiful look and totally chilled me out. I’m going to save it to watch again for when things get edgy.
Ouchie (2024): Mona (La Daniella) has had a bad experience with a new lover named Grace (Sara Lynn). She can’t even feel better with the self help recordings that she uses to give herself confidence. As a side note, I use these as well and my wife always comes in to make fun of me while I’m just trying to get the ability to make it through the day.
Mona soon begins to see strange rashes on everyone, including herself. Are they real? Or is the problem inside her? Director Kyle Kuchta and writer Jeanette Wall are asking the roughest questions here, where we must try and realize that the scars that we carry aren’t as visible as the ones on display here with great FX. Instead, we all have them and must all come to understand ourselves. Such a great short!
Shadow (2024): Ahtna (Katy Wright-Mead) and her daughter Elise (Valentina Gordon as the younger child, Christy St. John as the grown up) are playing when things grow rough. The mother gives chase and her daughter slams her fingers inside a doorframe. Then, her shadow begins to chase Elise through the home, changing in shape, size and even appearance, looking like her mother sometimes and something frightening when you get closer.
There’s no dialogue to speak of, but there is a mother repeatedly banging her head into the kitchen floor, an everyday piece of fright mixed with the black and white starkness throughout. Director and writer Kamell Allaway is someone to watch.
The Crossing Over Express (2024): Hank (Luke Barnett, who directed and wrote this with Tanner Thomason) wants to speak with his mother one more time. This brings him to a white truck. In the back is Dr. Gale Gustberg (Dot-Marie Jones), who can help him get the closure he seeks.
If you were given this opportunity, what would you do? There are so many people I wish I could just have one more moment with, so I would probably find myself paying that money and wondering if I was being screwed over, just like this film’s hero. I know I say this quite often about shorts, but I’d love to see even more of this story and these characters.
Quiet! Mom’s Working! (2024): “What happens in mom’s basement, stays in mom’s basement.” Yes, why is Del (Shane Brady) strapped to a table? Why is mom (Ana Krista Johnson) threatening him with a phallic drill? Will the daughter (Jillian Shea Spaeder) stop fighting with her brother? And what will dad (Jim O’Heir) say when he gets home?
Patrick Hogan is known for his sound work (Fire Country, Cobra Kai) but this is a short that he directed and wrote. And it’s an absolute burst of fun, one filled with tough talk, angry mom faces and dildo nunchucks. You may see the ending coming, but when it’s done this well, does that matter?
You can watch so many of the films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. I’ll be be posting reviews and articles over the next few days, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watches.
Uschi Digard week (June 23 – 29) Digard is best known for her work with Russ Meyer but she became an SWV fan favorite for two gargantuan reasons, her charm and her prolific career. The Swiss actress fled to America in 1968 and began a long career filling the silver screen from corner to corner with her overflowing positive energy. Show the lady some respect and watch one of her movies.
Also known as Swinger’s Massacre and Super Swinging Playmates, this is the kind of scuzzy, ugly and dingy movie that doesn’t even try to make its sex sexy. Instead, it’s just an excuse for a man to lose control of his perfect life and gradually become a killer.
Charlie is an older suburbanite lawyer who has been married to his gorgeous wife Amy for about ten years. He feels like their love life has been stilted, despite her claiming that she’ll do anything he wants. And what he wants is to swing, because it’s 1974, and heads to a party thinking that once he’s there, his old man body will turn all the ladies on. Well, shockingly he gets one willing lover but can’t perform while his wife does more than enjoy herself. She soon becomes the one asking him to engage with other lovers.
Before you know it, anyone who has ever touched Amy must die.
Shot inside Filthy McNasty’s, a bar on the Sunset Strip where Evel Knievel, Phyllis Diller, Elvis Presley and Mick Jagger once were regulars and would one day become the Viper Room, many years after this movie was forgotten.
Directed by Ron Garcia and shot back-to-back with most of the same cast and crew as Don Jones’ Abduction, this movie somehow has Uschi Digard, Marsha Jordan and Rene Bond in its cast and still comes off as one of the unsexiest sexual films you’ll ever see. Garcia also made The Toy Box, which plays in a very similar space but is somehow even stranger. It’s like he wanted people to think that his movies were titilating and then, he’d club them over the head with weirdness or just plain brutal scenes of murder. No wonder he directed several episodes of Silk Stalkings.
Look, if you’re Charlie and you can’t rise to the occasion when you’re in bed with Jordan, who was in plenty of Harry Novak movies and Count Yorga, well I guess that your only choice is to start killing all your swinger friends. Good thing Viagra finally was created.
The thing is, Charlie is presented as sympathetic when he’s the one that wanted to be part of the free love scene, talking his wife into it and just because she’s enjoying pleasure and just because others are enjoying her, well, be careful what you ask for. Sure, it’s problematic, but if you’re looking for a great message in a 1974 exploitation movie that Something Weird release, maybe you should sit and spin.
June 24: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Cars! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.
Mirage is somewhere in the middle of these, as a black pick-up truck is seemingly driven by a young man who could also be a demon. And all he wants to do is kill everyone that comes to his desert to make out.
My wife lived in Vegas for a few years and when I went out to meet her family, we went and shot guns in the desert and had a picnic. She said no matter how many times she went to parties or events in the middle of said desert, she never saw anyone just take off their tops and get drunk in the middle of a place where you get dehydrated immediately.
Chris (Jennifer McAllister) and Greg (Kenneth Johnson) are introduced to us as they’re making love in the back of their truck with a toolbox on the accelerator as it just drives out in the infinite space of the desert, as if nothing could stop it or hurt them. Along with another couple who are just as into arguing as they are having make-up sex, Trip and Mary (Kevin McParland and Nicole Anton), and her ex Kyle (Todd Schaeffer) and his new girlfriend Bambi (Laura Albert), the desert seems as good a place as any — I recommend a furniture store like in Chopping Mall— to soft swing. Also: Kyle is Greg’s brother, which suggests that Chris is a horrible person.
Yes, after a day in the sun of being stalked by a black truck and having Greg and Kyle get in a punchup, the kids find a note written in blood that says, “You are all going to die!” This note is more than prophetic as the driver of the black truck even has grenades that he uses to blow these kids up real good. Thanks to Unsung Horrors, I learned that the bad guy — known only as Villain in the credits — is B.G. Steers, who may be Burr Steers, who was one of the radio voices in Reservoir Dogs and the “Flock of Seagulls” character in Pulp Fiction. His character — other than the out there Trip, who dies bleeding from the mouth and speaking of the astral plane.
Steers, if he is Burr Steers, also directed 17 Again, Igby Goes Down and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
This was directed by William Crain, who also made Midnight Fear, and co-wrote it with Chuck Hughes and Michael Crain. It’s interesting in that there are too few desert and daytime slashers, even if you can see Chekov’s bow and arrow appear from the very open of the film. Also: the best part is when one of the jocks utters a gay slur and promptly gets run over by a truck. Well, the best part other than the effects by R. Christopher Biggs, who went on to work on Demolition Man and the TV series Martin. One imagines he transformed Martin into Sheneneh.
Strangely, this movie has an SST Records soundtrack with bands like Sister Double Happiness, Minutemen, fIREHOSE and Dinosaur Jr. What, no Saint Vitus or Negativland?
My friends from Unsung Horrorsdid an episode about this, which you can listen to here:
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