Nelvana was a Canadian animation powerhouse in the 1980’s, producing the Boba Fett cartoon in the Star Wars Holiday Special, Droids, Ewoks and even the live action Whoopi Goldberg movie Burglar. Along the way, Nelvana’s franchises have been shown on over 360 television stations in more 180 countries, in approximately 50 languages. But their first major film was Rock and Rule.

Based heavily on their earlier animated film The Devil and Daniel Mouse, the film took five years to create and used up all of the studio’s resources thanks to its $8 million dollar budget. MGM never promoted the film and it quickly faded from the U.S. box office. If Nelvana hadn’t started working in kid-friendly TV, they would have gone out of business.

In 1983, a nuclear war destroys the human race and mutated street animals populate the Earth.Mok Swagger is a legendary rock musician (voiced by Don Francks, with Lou Reed and Iggy Pop singing his songs) who is hunting for a special voice that will allow him to release a demon. Why? Well, as he’s lost his fame, he just wants to set the world on fire.

Meanwhile, in a nightclub in Mok’s hometown, Ohmtown, Omar (Paul Le Mat voiced him with Robin Zander from Cheap Trick singing), Angel (Susan Roman voice, Debbie Harry singing), Dizzy and Stretch play a show in a small bar. Mok hears Angel sing and knows that he has finally found the voice that he’s been looking for.

Mok invites the band to his mansion outside of town, drugging the band and escaping with Angel. Taking her to Nuke York, he stages a magic ritual as a rock concert, we learn that only one voice, one heart and one song can stop the demon. Yet the evil rock star convinces Omar that Angel is willingly with him before capturing and torturing the band.

Will Omar get it together? Will Mok unleash a demon on the world? Will we get to hear songs by Cheap Trick, Earth Wind & Fire, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry? Yes. Maybe. Yes.

This isn’t a cartoon for kids. It’s packed with drugs, devil worship, some sex and swearing (there was more before MCA demanded cuts). They pretty much dumped the film with only a Night Flight mention and a Marvel tie-in comic. I remembered waiting for the film to come out and it never did.

The book is really gorgeous because instead of original art being created for the comic, it’s a fumetti style book that takes cel art and creates comic book layouts from it.

Taken from https://blogintomystery.com/2011/11/02/the-comic-that-sends-love-through-marvel-super-special-25-rock-rule/

Taken from http://asteriskpix.blogspot.com/2010/08/marvel-super-special-rock-rule.html

This film is like an 80’s rock and roll version of The Apple. There’s a musical couple that is torn apart by evil big business, but way less camel toe — ironic as many of the creatures in the film look like humanoid dromedaries.

The animation is pretty interesting as well, looking Bakshi-like (indeed, Ralph Bakshi is often credited as the director of this, but Clive A. Smith in the true person behind the film). Even though production started as early as 1978, it really reflects the MTV style of the 80’s. It compares favorably with a more well-known animated film from Canada, Heavy Metal.

Rock and Rule played on HBO and Showtime in the U.S., never showing in theaters. It wasn’t released officially on video until 2005 and a new blu-ray from Unearthed Films was released in 2010.

After 1990: The Bronx Warriors, director Enzo G. Castellari created this film, originally entitled The New Barbarians. The title change reflects the name New Line Cinema would use when they released the film in the United States. This movie checks off nearly every box when it comes to what it’ll take to get me to love a film: it’s Italian. It’s a ripoff of Mad Max. It has George Eastman in it. It has a big name (well, in Italy) American star, Fred “The Hammer” Williamson. It’s packed with enough weird quirks that would put off anyone else, but they made me fall in love with it. And oh yeah — Giovanni Frezza (Bob from House by the Cemetery) makes an appearance.

2019. No relation to 2019: After the Fall of New York. But after a nuclear war, a gang called the Templars take it upon themselves to purge the Earth of anyone left alive. The film starts by showing us just one of their attacks, as they take their modified cars and golf carts out for a spin, murdering a convoy of survivors. Normal humans might look ragtag and dirty, but the Templars wear all white battle armor and have punk rock hairdos. The gang is a real family affair, as Shadow (Ennio Girolami) is Castellari’s brother and Mako (Massimo Vanni) is their cousin. Their leader is George Eastman as One.

After murdering everyone they’ve found, One tears a Bible apart and proclaims, “Books. That’s what started the whole apocalypse!” and “The world is dead. It raped itself. But I’ll purify it with blood. No one is innocent. But only we, the Templars, are the ministers of revenge!” Needless to say, George Eastman is doing what he does best here: not only chewing the scenery but taking big bloody bites out of it.

Later, Scorpion (Giancarlo Prete, Escape from the Bronx, Black Belly of the Tarantula) finds the survivors of the attack and fends off some scavengers. He puts one man out of his misery and takes what’s left for himself. We follow him as he meets up with his mechanic — yep, little Bob — who lives in an armored ice cream van, ala the KLF. They have a little gun battle, as you do, just to show that they’re friends. Scorpion needs his gearshift fixed and the problem seems to be that there’s an ear stuck in it. Yep. You read that right.

The Templars are looking for The Signal, the radio station that shows where humanity is still alive. Any car they see, they destroy, including the modified UPS van that Alma is in. They impale the driver and drag him off while she’s saved by Scorpion after being caught and dragged by a net. Scorpion and Shadow have a war of words after our hero spares Mako.

You can’t tell me that Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard didn’t base the look of The Walking Dead character Princess on this film.

Anyways, Scorpion takes Alma to his base where he repairs her shoulder and makes sweet, sweet love to her. Against One’s commands, Mako leads a group of Templars against Scorpion, who is saved by Nadir (Williamson), an arrow wielding, well-dressed badass. No, seriously, let’s all drink in the magic that is Nadir.

While Scorpion uses a car to roll over Mako’s dead body, Nadir shoots one of his arrows directly into a Templar’s neck, blowing his body to bits. Our hero sends Mako’s body back to One as his answer to where he stands. Holy shit, when Nadir talks, saying stuff like, “I enjoyed…your little game…of war!” I lose my mind every single time.

One kills the rest of Mako’s men while studying the fallen man’s dead body. He yells, “We are the Templars. The warriors of vengeance. We are the Templars. The high priests of death. We have been chosen to make others pay for the crime of being alive. We guarantee that all humanity, accomplices and heirs of the nuclear holocaust, will be wiped out once and for all. That the seed of Man will be canceled forever from the face of the earth!” They honor Mako’s dead body, saying that they will take ten thousand lives for his and will now hate and exterminate. But only One will have vengeance on Scorpion.

Our three heroes then meet a caravan of religious people led by Moses who have found The Signal, the aforementioned radio signal which will lead its followers to the last civilization on Earth. Alma and Nadir decide to stay with the caravan. And why would Nadir leave after he finds such perfect companionship with Vinya, a girl with glittery eye makeup, a side ponytail, access to booze and who does the deep concentration service and biorhythmic concentration (but it’s been a while since she’s done it). Let me tell you — the entire scene where she and Nadir talk about the end of the world before he starts making out with her is ridiculous and nonsensical and so perfect.

However, Scorpion claims that “heaven is dead” and that “memories are worth nothing.” Man. He was emo before anyone knew what it meant. He walks in on Nadir, who has obviously just got done making love and says goodbye. The rest of the Templars find him in seconds and take him to One, who reinitiates Scorpion into the Templars by anally raping him. Yes, you read that right. All of the motorcycle helmet wearing dudes watch while hanging around on cars and bikes as One takes it to our hero. Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting that. He gets interrupted by a scout who tells them they’ve found the caravan and that they need to finish off Scorpion while he goes off and murders everyone else.

Luckily, Nadir gets to Scorpion just in time. Not as luckily, doing so means that the caravan gets easily overtaken. He then yells at our hero, “Here lies the great Scorpion, in pain, victim of the big, bad queers, the Templars! All you had to do was ask. Nadir, I need your help. You’re not so great now, Scorpion.” But don’t worry. One training montage later and the mechanic kid — let’s call him little Bob, as that’s what I always call Giovanni Frezza in any movie — and our heroes are back to save everyone.

One smokes some weed while listening to a tape that says, “If you could win the sky, if you could win the sky, I, this evening would have possessed the world. But I don’t want to stain my name with ridicule. Fighting against the world of endless sky. Yet, I feel that soon, I too shall breach the supreme barrier.” What? What the fuck is he listening to! The dude is just totally smoking up while everyone else is out there killing humanity!

This leads to One giving another amazing speech: “Idiots! Dreamers! Don’t you understand? The world is dead! We have all closed our eyes! Even the heavens are silent! You! And you! And you! You are walking dead! Walking corpses! There is nothing left! Nothing. Not even The Signal you think you hear. Nothing. There’s no more soul. There’s no more hope. There’s only one faith. One ecstasy. Death! And death you shall have, you last ugly dregs of humanity! You don’t deserve to live!” A car filled with dead bodies shows up and interrupts, but they realize too late…it’s a trap! Scorpion, Nadir and Bob are here to kill as many Templars as possible and save the day.

One and Scorpion have a stare down. It’s obvious that beyond the rape earlier that these guys were lovers at one point. They have to be for this much pent up hatred. One gets off the first shot, but Scorpion has on clear body armor under his cape. You have to see this shit to believe it!

Meanwhile, Shadow starts taking out people one by one, killing Moses and Wiz. But Scorpion blows him away as Nadir takes out the rest of the Templars. There’s even a scene where Bob saves Nadir, leading to a high five. Then, Scorpion tracks down One before he runs away and impales him in the ass with a drill before blowing his car up.

The survivors gather. Nadir’s woman lived. So did Alma. And one would imagine that they’ll look for The Signal, but that’s it. Scorpion and Bob hold hands as Claudio Simonetti’s synth score blares. All hail Warriors of the Wasteland! Or The New Barbarians!

I wish that Enzo G. Castellari had made ten of these movies. This is exactly why I watch movies — to be entertained, to yell at the screen, to jump up and down in glee. Exploding arrows, heads flying off, cars with domes and saw blades that hack off human heads — this one has it all! Throw in “The Hammer” as a bad ass who could pretty much carry his own movie — he’s honestly way more entertaining than the lead — and you have a winner.

Seriously — with the idea of a religious group versus an evil gay biker army, this movie seems like a Jack Chick tract come to life. Yes, after the fall of man and the rapture, only a radio signal will lead us all to heaven, that is, if you can avoid all the rapes and murder. It goes without saying that this movie has no interest in being politically correct. The fact that it has no real animals were murdered makes it as woke as Italian cinema gets.

You can watch this on Amazon Video. And you should do so right now. Seriously, fuck the rest of your day. This movie is more important than anything else you would be doing anyway.

UPDATE: Blue Underground has just re-released this movie as part of a box set of post-apocalyptic movies, along with 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Escape from the Bronx!

Feed Shark

At one point in this movie, Santa Claus gets shoved down by Billy, our hero, and he yells, “What the hell is wrong with that kid?” And I yelled in defense, “Santa raped his mom, you fucking asshole!”

Merry Christmas, everyone, it’s time to descend into the absolute nadir of scummy movies and watch something that parents were right to worry about their kids watching.

Christmas 1971. Billy Chapman and his family go to see his grandfather in a nursing home. The silent, senile old man just sits there, but when Billy’s parents walk away, he tells him that he should be afraid when Santa comes, because he knows that Billy hasn’t been a good boy. On the way back, Billy’s parents slow down so he can see Santa walk along the road. Billy is already freaked out, but then Santa shoots Billy’s dad before raping and killing his mother — all while Billy and his infant brother Ricky watch.

Christmas 1974. Billy and Ricky celebrate in an orphanage. Well, there’s not much to celebrate. There’s non-stop punishment from Mother Superior and only Sister Margaret and Ricky are there to help Billy. Every holiday, our hero goes insane, drawing pictures of Santa killing his family and punching people dressed like Santa.

Christmas 1984. Sister Margaret gets Billy a job at a toy store, where things seem to be looking up. Billy even gets a love interest, Pamela, who he has wet dreams about that are interrupted by visions of Santa killing his family. Alright, I lied. Nothing is looking up, because Billy’s boss has a new job for him: he has to be Santa for Christmas Eve.

There’s a scene where Billy tells a young girl on his lap that he’s going to punish her — while two moms look on approvingly — that is total insanity. Sister Margaret calls while this is happening to see how Billy is doing, only to learn that he’s doing the one job he never should be doing.

There’s a party in the store and Billy leaves on the Santa suit. The owner tells Billy to keep on drinking and he’ll think he really is Santa Claus. Pamela leaves with Andy, the employee that always gives Andy a hard time. As Billy follows, he sees them making out, but soon Andy starts to rape his love interest. Billy responds in the way that any rational human being would: he hangs Andy with Christmas lights and stabs Pamela while describing how punishment is good.

Billy has followed his boss’ advice: time to do what Santa does on Christmas Eve. Billy’s version of Santa? His job is to kill. Billy lives up to that job description by killing his boss with a hammer and the store manager with a bow and arrow. Seriously, this movie has gone off the rails. Even scenes where people sing carols take on menace and dread.

Billy can’t stop his rampage now. He kills a young couple just for having sex, impaling the girl on a deer’s antlers and throwing the guy out the window. Talk about reindeer games! He then wakes up a little girl in the house and keeps asking her if she was naughty or nice. When she answers nice, he gives her a knife!

Don’t be a bully harassing sled riders in Billy’s neighborhood either, because he’ll chop your head right off.

Sister Margaret turns to the police, who rush to the orphanage. One of the cops screws up on arrival and kills a cop dressed as Santa right in front of a kid. Santa lives matter! He pays for his naughtiness by getting axed by Billy, who makes his way into the building to  confront Mother Superior. She taunts Billy, telling him she doesn’t believe in Santa. Billy goes to kill her and is shot by a cop. Sister Margaret is sad that Billy is dead and tenderly touches his face. Yep, a nun is sad that a serial killing Santa Claus has been stopped from killing another nun. Such is this movie.

Billy dies, but not before telling the kids “You’re safe now, Santa Claus is gone.” Ricky, his brother, looks at Mother Superior and says one word: naughty.

Ricky would return in Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 and Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!  There were also two unconnected sequels, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation and Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker, as well as 2012 remake, Silent Night.

Originally, this film was released by Tri-Star Pictures. But people weren’t ready for it. Maybe they’re never ready for it. Parents groups demanded that the film be removed from theaters and the ad campaign, which ran during family-friendly shows, scared the seasonal shit out of plenty of kids.

People even protested the film, standing outside and singing Christmas carols. This movie was the Crispus Attucks in the War on Christmas!

Silent Night, Deadly Night was later re-released by Aquarius Films, who obviously gave zero fucks. They’re the folks who re-released Cannibal Ferox with the amazing title Make Them Die Slowly and transformed Zombie Holocaust into Doctor Butcher, M.D.

Critics were…unkind to say the least. Gene Siskel read the names of the crew on At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert to shame them and the LA Times claimed the film was one of the worst of all time. Leonard Maltin also gave the film zero stars. Oh yeah? Bah humbug!

Silent Night, Deadly Night came from Charles Sellier, who also was responsible for TV’s The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, which was based on a book he wrote. According to Wikipedia, “Sellier was born as a Cajun Catholic, later converting to Mormonism and then to evangelical Christianity.” What is a Cajun Catholic?!?

Maybe this is why — other than this film — Sellier was known for creating family-friendly movies and shows with Christian themes, like In Search of Noah’s Ark and In Search of Historic Jesus. To be fair, he also produced some ridiculous conspiracy stuff like Chariots of the Gods, Beyond and Back and 1980’s Hangar 18 (another TV commercial that gave me nightmares), as well as various apocalyptic, Da Vinci Code and far-right Christianity documentaries.

Sellier was a believer in market research and the master of four-walling, a practice where he rented out theaters and kept the profits for himself. This enabled him to, in the words of his IMDB bio, gain “the distinction of having more pictures in the Top 50 independent grossers than any other independent producer in the 1970s.” He also produced The Boogens! Man, I wish Charles Sellier was still alive so I could find out how he came to make a movie as blissfully batshit as this one!

Needless to say, I loved this movie. It’s a gutter crawling piece of pure garbage, perfect for my holiday season. I savored it by literally screaming my throat raw whilst dancing around my living room in pure holiday celebration!

Shout Factory has just re-released this film with plenty of seasonally perfect extras, including an exclusive, limited edition 8″ tall Billy/Killer Santa action figure by NECA. It’s really something to behold!

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I love Joe Dante’s films. They’re all unique and all somehow straddle the line between being mainstream pieces of cinema and anarchic bites against the very hand that feeds them.

Gremlins is a great example. On the surface, it’s a cute film for the kids, complete with a cute lead character (Gizmo the Mogwai), a Christmas setting and plenty of product placement. Bubbling beneath the artifice is a film brimming with darkness and doom, a world of slime-covered monsters, dead fathers in chimneys and a town packed with money woes and depression, a place where even the lead heroine claims that there are some folks who, when “everybody else opens up presents, they’re opening up their wrists.”

Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) is an inventor who has great ideas that work great the first time, then start to fail. “Fantastic ideas for a fantastic world. I make the illogical logical,” he claims, but the majority of his inventions seem like more trouble than they’re worth. Like the Bathroom Buddy, a Swiss Army knife for those that travel often. Or the sound system he’s made from an artichoke. Or the egg smasher, mega juicer and super blender that turn every meal into a mess.

While on one of his many trips to try and sell his products, he goes to Chinatown in the hopes of finding a gift for his son, Billy (Zach Galligan, Waxwork). In a strange store, he discovers a small, furry beast called a mogwai (which is Cantonese for monster, one of the many in-jokes in a film nearly overflowing with them). However, the owner of the store, Mr. Wing (Keye Luke, “Number One Son” in the Charlie Chan films) refuses to sell it to him. However, his grandson has no such qualms, selling it with three rules: no bright lights, never get it wet and never, ever feed it after midnight.

Returning to the idyllic Kingston Falls, the mogwai is given the name Gizmo and becomes best friends with Billy. Billy spends his days working at a bank where his dog Barney (Mushroom the dog, who also was in Pumpkinhead) constantly runs afoul of the evil Mrs. Deagle (Polly Holliday, Flo from TV’s Alice).

One night, while hanging out with his friend Pete (Corey Feldman, The Lost Boys), a glass of water spills on Gizmo, leading to five more mogwai being born — an incident which causes great pain to the cute little creature. Whereas Gizmo is a cute little beast who loves to sing and make people happy, these mogwai are already evil before they eat before midnight — which they accomplish by chewing the power cord to Billy’d alarm clock fooling him into thinking its earlier than it really is.

Once they transform into gremlins, they become even worse. They murder Billy’s high school teacher, Mr. Hanson. Then, they torture Gizmo and come after Billy and his mother.

Pure chaos ensues, with gremlins being blended and destroyed by other methods, as well as gremlins killing townsfolk left and right. Soon, only Stripe is left, but he dives into the pool at the YMCA and creates a whole new army in an awesome sequence filled with smoke, fury and colored light.

Billy and Gizmo rescue his girlfriend, Kate Beringer (1980’s sex symbol Phoebe Cates, she of the rising from the pool in Fast Times at Ridgemont High) from a gremlin attack on a bar, after which she reveals why she hates Christmas: a long speech about her father dying inside the chimney while trying to be Santa Claus. This burst of pure bleakness stands in marked contrast to the comic chaos that populates the film.

Meanwhile, all of the gremlins are in a movie theater. “They’re watching Snow White. And they love it!” Billy exclaims. This is a scene where Dante reveals the true joy of watching a film, as the gremlins begin screaming “Heigh Ho!” the song of the Seven Dwarves. The theater is blown up and only Stripe survives, making his way to a Montgomery Ward where he tries to spawn another army.

However, Gizmo arrives in a toy car and opens the skylights, melting the villain.

Mr. Wing makes his way to Kingston Falls, where he takes Gizmo back, scolding the family that they are too careless and not ready for magic yet. However, he is happy to given the gift of one of Randall’s smokeless ashtrays and hints that Gizmo may return another day.

Gremlins was a spec script by Christopher Columbus, who heard an army of mice every night in his apartment and wondered what they would look like. In its original form, Gremlins was even meaner and darker than it ended up being. Billy’s mother is killed and her head flung down the steps, Barney the dog gets eaten and Gizmo actually becomes the monster, an idea that producer Stephen Spielberg vetoed.

I am always amazed at how many more genre films were released in the 1980’s. Gremlins proves my point — it came out the same weekend as Ghostbusters, but still was able to be the #4 movie of 1984, behind that film, Beverly Hills Cop and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

The dark center of this film, as well as the gore in Temple of Doom, gave birth to the PG-13 rating, which was suggested by Spielberg as a way of dealing with the controversy of these two films. This is referenced in Gremlins 2 when a mother yells at Paul Bartel about the content of the film. During a screening of Gremlins, a mother really did scream at Joe Dante, walking out of the theater during the kitchen gore scene. The daughter ran away from the mother during the argument and hid in the theater for the rest of the film.

This is a film packed with references to other films, a hallmark of Dante:

In one scene where Randall calls home, we can see the Time Machine from the George Pal film disappear in the background while Robby the Robot says, “Sorry miss I was giving myself an oil job. This question is totally without meaning. Pardon me, sir, stuff? Thick and heavy? Would sixty gallons be sufficient? I rarely use it myself, sir. It promotes rust.” This dialogue always makes me laugh my ass off because it makes little to no sense and Robby says it with such gravitas.

The movie theater is showing A Boy’s Life and Watch the Skies, the original titles for E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Eddie Quist’s smiley face from The Howling shows up on the Peltzer’s refrigerator.

There are also cameos from Spielberg, composer Jerry Goldsmith and Looney Tunes creator Chuck Jones.

And man, I almost forgot that Dick Miller shows up in here, as he does in every Dante film!

Gremlins is packed with sheer joy, from its art direction to character design and devotion to showing just how messy the gremlins can get. Sure, it references It’s a Wonderful Life, but it also shows Invasion of the Body Snatchers as another film within the film. It’s a film worth watching any time of the year — in fact, it came out in the summertime despite its holiday setting.

A guy in a Santa suit has sex with a woman in a filthy alley before they’re both killed by a man in a grinning see-through mask. Another Santa has his head impaled by a spear while his daughter watches. And yet another has his face grilled while roasted chestnuts on an open fire.

Scotland Yard inspector Ian Harris (Edmund Purdom, who wrote and directed this film as well as appearing in 2019: After the Fall of New York and Pieces) and detective Powell are perplexed. Plus, Harris just got a gift that says “Don’t Open Till Christmas.” They question Kate, whose father was a killed Santa, and her boyfriend, Cliff.

The next day, Cliff tricks Kate into coming to a porn studio. She storms off and he takes photos of a model dressed as Santa. A pair of police officers spot them shooting nudes in public, so he runs and the killer finds her, but lets her go. Oh yeah — and there’s a reporter named Giles digging around, too.

Things get worse. A strip club attending Santa gets knifed. The police think Cliff is the killer and the paper Giles says he works for has no idea who he is. And another Santa runs into the London Dungeon (yes, the place The Misfits sang about) and gets killed.

Even after undercover officers go after the Santa killer, they can’t find him and are killed themselves. The killer has a stripper who was there on the night he killed the Santa in her club and says that she will be the supreme sacrifice to Christmas evil. And Caroline Munro (!) is on stage in a nightclub when a Santa is chased on stage and stabbed in the face with a machete. Another Santa is castrated soon after.

It turns out that inspector Harris has no birth certificate and has gone on leave, disappearing to a mental asylum where Kate follows.

It turns out that Giles is Harris’ insane brother. Kate finds out first, but she is strangled and stabbed while detective Powell listens. Then, Giles lures him to his doom, as he electrocutes him in a junkyard.

Sherry escapes and Giles chases after her. She knocks him over a railing and he has a flashback of when he went insane: he caught his father, dressed as Santa, having sex with another woman. When his mother found out, Santa shoved her over a railing. But it’s too late for Sherry, as Giles has survived.

Finally, Harris wakes from a bad dream and unwraps his gift, complete with a card from his loving brother. It explodes, killing him and ending the film.

What I have just done is written about this film in a way that will probably make you want to watch it. It’s a slasher that even references Halloween in its opening credits. But it’s no Halloween.

According to tvtropes.com, “this utter sleazefest of a film is quite a jumbled and confused mess, and for good reason. While production began in 1982, the film remained in Development Hell for two years, due to the title of director continually changing hands; first up was Edmund Purdom (who also portrayed Inspector Harris) who walked off the set, prompting at least three or four others to fill in for him, with one only holding Purdom’s former position for a mere two days before being fired.”

Whew. You got better things to do this Christmas. Trust me.

Lucio Fulci wanted to make a giallo. But then Flashdance happened and the producers knew Keith Emerson (yes, the Keith Emerson from Emerson Lake and Palmer) and the result was…Murder Rock! Or Murder-Rock: Dancing Death! Or Slashdance! Or The Demon Is Loose!

We start at the Arts for the Living Center in New York, where Candice (Olga Karlatos, the only actress to be in both Zombi 2 and Purple Rain)  watches Margie (Geretta Giancarlo from Demons) choreograph dancers for an upcoming talent agent visit. Only three girls will be selected, so they all need more perfection.

That night, Susan, one of the dancers, is murdered in the locker room. First, she is chloroformed. Then, as if Fulci has simply waited too long for something violent to happen, a giant hatpin is inserted into her breast. I imagine Lucio sitting in his director’s chair, saying “Why do I have to show all these pretty girls in leotards when everyone just wants to see me rip out one of their eyeballs?”

Lieutenant Borges (Cosimo Cinieri, The New York Ripper) and Professor Davis (Giuseppe Mannajuolo). show up to investigate, choosing Candice, the head of the academy Dick Gibson (Claudio Cassinelli, What Have They Done to Your Daughters?) and Susan’s boyfriend.

We find Candice at her apartment, where Dick shows up to tell her that he isn’t sleeping with any of the students. Anyone that tells you this is pretty much telling you that they totally sleeping with the students. The studio DJ also calls her to update her on the murder.

Back at the school and everyone is back to their routine, which upsets Dick, who tells the cops of the rivalries between the dancers. Later that night –after we see on stage by herself, showing off for the crowd — he shows up at her place, wanting to talk. She finds a photo of him with Susan, but when she turns to find him, he is gone. Worse, her bird is dead, stabbed by a hairpin. And soon, so is she, as a hairpin is thrust into her heart.

But what of Candice? Well, she’s having nightmares of the killer, who she sees chasing her with the long hairpin. She sees his photo on a billboard and tracks him down. The man is George Webb (Ray Lovelock, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue), who isn’t the handsome model in the ads any longer. He’s now a mess, so she runs from him, leaving her purse in his room.

What would a giallo — or a Fulci movie — be without a red herring? It comes in the form of Bart, a dancer who confesses to the murders because Susan was crazy and Janice was Hispanic (but in a much more racist way). Borges believes that he isn’t the killer, but when George comes to the Academy to return Candice’s purse, Dick tells the cop that that’s their man.

At lunch, Candice tells George about how her dancing career ended after a hit and run accident with a motorcyclist. Now, she can only be a teacher. And she’s not convinced that George is on the up and up, as she learns from a talent agent that George once had an affair with a younger girl who died.

Oh yeah — and Margie attacks Candice just like the killer, but Dick saves her.

The killing doesn’t stop, though. Jill is killed while Molly, a girl in a wheelchair, takes photos of her. Molly tries to take photos, but the killer escapes. Dick tries to run away, but he’s arrested. But again, the killing doesn’t stop. Gloria is murdered in the locker room with the trademark hairpin.

It all leads to Candice going back to George’s hotel room, where she finds the murder weapon. She runs away and George tries to find her, but she’s at the police station, telling the Lieutenant, who agrees to meet her at the Academy.

Ready for the big reveal? When she gets there, she sees a video of every dancer who has died, leaving her screaming their names. George appears with the murder weapon and asks why she set him up. She responds that she knew he was the hit and run driver who cost her so much and that she killed the girls because of her jealousy of them. They had the life she would never know and had to die…and he has to pay for all he has done to her. She grabs the murder weapon and kills herself with it, pushing the weapon into George’s hand. The police arrive, but they already knew she was the killer, thanks to the buttons on the killer’s jacket being on the left side and Candice knowing details about the murders that they never made public.

That’s the plot, but please imagine that there is a leotard-clad dance-off every ten minutes or so.

Murder Rock was part of a planned trilogy entitled “Trilogia della musica” and would have been followed by Killer Samba and Thrilling Blues, but Fulci became ill for two years and abandoned the project.

This film looks gorgeous! It has some stunning shots of the killer coming at the camera and while there is some blood, it isn’t at the expense of the story. I literally expected nothing and was rewarded with some great fun. Your ability to enjoy flashdancing and 80’s outfits may impact your enjoyment of this film, however!

I was in a meeting with some business friends early this year when we started to discuss the troubling nature of how films from the past seem horrifying when viewed through the prism of today’s more woke culture. In fact, that conversation is exactly when I decided to take our podcast and turn it into this blog.

The movie we were discussing? Revenge of the Nerds.

Best friends and nerds Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine, son of “skinny Dracula” John Carradine and brother of David Carradine) and Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards) are excited to attend Adams College, but are instantly kicked out of their dorm by the Alpha Betas, who have burned their house down. Sleeping on cots in the gym, they find other like-minded misfits and decide to create their own fraternity.

The film follows the 80’s comedy blueprint: a simple premise is stated, then hijinks ensue. Here, it is: “Nerds go to school and fight jocks, then hijinks ensue.”

Battling Alpha Betas Stan (Ted McGinley, he who has caused many a TV show to “Jump the Shark”), Burke (Matt Salinger, son of J.D. and star of 1990’s Captain America) and Ogre (Donald Gibb, Ray Jackson from Bloodsport), our Nerds overcome adversity and become a probationary Tri-Lamb fraternity. Ironically, Lambda Lambda Lambda has always been an all-black frat. And the boys only have one black member, the stereotypically gay Lamar.

That means that Tri-Lamb president U.N. Jefferson (Bernie Casey from Gargoyles!) has to come visit the boys. They throw a party that is boring until Booger’s (Curtis Armstrong) drugs get involved — welcome to the 80’s — and everyone loses their inhibitions. However, the jocks disrupt their party, leading to Jefferson coming around to the guys as he senses discrimination.

The Nerds take their titular revenge by conducting a panty raid and putting liquid heat into the jock straps of the football team, leading to Jefferson making them a real frat. However, the harassment can never stop while Stan is the President of the Greek Council. So the Nerds need to win the Greek Games during homecoming so that they get a vote — which they do so via a combination of their intelligence, more drugs and some questionable decisions (more on those in a bit). Oh yeah — and there’s also an 80’s synth music number.

The jocks trash the Nerds house, but Gilbert decides to speak up at a pep rally. The dean, U.N. Jefferson and a group of big black Tri-Lambs stand up for him and the Nerds ask all the disenfranchised in the audience to join them. The dean tells the jocks that they have to give up their house until the damage to the Tri-Lambs house is fixed, saying, “You’re jocks, go live in the gym.” Everyone celebrates. The end.

Except, well, there are some troubling moments.

What bonds the Nerds and brings them together? A panty raid, as the boys descend on the Pi Delta Pi sorority house, stealing panties, chasing women and placing video cameras, through which the boys watch the women while they go about their daily lives. In the 80’s, this was considered a prank. Today, we’d call it rape. But it gets worse. Much worse.

In the Greek Games, a pie-selling contest determines much of the final score. The Nerds win by using nude photos of Betty (Julia Montgomery, The Kindred) under the crust of their pies. Again, this is abhorrent behavior. But it gets worse.

There’s also a kissing booth, where Lewis attempts to make his move on Betty. She is replaced with a large, unattractive woman, showing that even the Nerds place an emphasis on physical versus internal beauty, no matter what hardships that very same prejudice has put them through. Then, Lewis steals Stan’s costume and tricks Betty into having sex with him. Yes, the hero of this movie knowingly ignores consent to have sex. This is pure and simple rape. This isn’t a snowflake looking back on a fun remnant of our pop culture past. This scene has bothered me since I first watching this film on VHS. Even worse, Betty falls instantly in love with her rapist, asking him if all Nerds are this good in bed.

I haven’t even gotten into the racism of the film, which posits all Japanese as horny photograph taking morons through the Takashi character. That said, Brian Tochi, the actor who played Takashi, is credited “for breaking the barriers and opening doors for East Asian people in entertainment in the U.S., and advancing the perception that Oriental actors have the ability to portray more mainstream roles.”  Those mainstream roles also include Cadet Tomoko “Elvis” Nogata in the Police Academy films, who acts just as ridiculous as Takashi (but doesn’t have his own corny Asian theme song). Or just how stereotypically gay Lamar is.

But to me, the worst sin of the film is that when the Nerds win, instead of treating their opponents with the care that they never received and teaching everyone an important lesson, they instead relegate the jocks back to the fate they had once suffered. No one learns anything. The cycle repeats and now the jocks become the Nerds who have become the jocks. This reminds me of how insular societies — wrestling fans, comic book lovers — can be more hate-filled and clique obsessed than their worst perceived enemies.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen the bottom fall out in Hollywood’s male-driven world. I wonder, how much influence did pop culture have? When someone who is put upon like the Nerds in this film, how life-affirming does it feel knowing that if you just get a hot girl to have sex with you — no matter how it happens — they’ll realize just how much worth you have and love you? For someone going through the pangs of teenage loneliness — the closing scene in Stranger Things 2 when Dustin realizes that he’s the only one who doesn’t have a partner at the dance reduced me to sobbing remembrances — this sexual reward seems like a panacea. But at what cost? It’s horrifying that this film presents this type of behavior as one worth rewarding. And frightening that generations of men have seen this film and silently acknowledged it. But hey — what can you expect from a DVD that is subtitled The Panty Raid Edition?

Note — Check back later today, as I’m happy to present a companion article “Revenge of the Nerds is a Rape Liturgy” by Ryan Ellington from Grindhouse Theology.

If you ever watch a movie with me in person, you can tell exactly how I feel about it. If I love it, I will cajole you with bon mots and trivia and exclamations like, “Did you see that shot?” If I hate it, I’ll probably just fall asleep (even if I like a movie, there’s a chance I’ll still fall asleep). And if I really, really love it, I’ll literally run around the house screaming, “I FUCKING LOVE THIS MOVIE!” and start looking up facts online and make myself a complete maniac, like some 1970s kid before they invented Ritalin.

Warriors of the Year 2072 is one of those movies. Directed by Lucio Fulci, it’s all about a future world where criminals battle one another on motorcycles for TV ratings. But really, it’s an excuse for Italian film fans to get another chapter of Mad Max and Escape from New York. From 1990: The Bronx Warriors to The New Barbarians, Exterminators of the Year 3000 and so many more, post-apocalyptic films (see our list on Letterboxd) replaced westerns, slashers and sword and sorcery films, so of course, Fulci would make one.

This one’s written by Dardano Sacchetti and Elisa Briganti, who also worked on all of Fulci’s classic films like The House by the Cemetery, The Beyond and City of the Living Dead. It was originally part of a two-picture deal, followed by Blastfighter (Lamberto Bava ended up taking over), but Fulci had issues with the producers and had to go to court. In fact, Fulci had issues with the producers from the start, as he envisioned a futuristic Rome covered by domes instead of the skyscrapers that ended up in the finished film. Really, this is a film beset by issues — it’s the last time Sacchetti would work with Fulci (look for a review of the film Conquest that really put the final nail in the coffin in the new issue of Drive-In Asylum, which will be reprinted on this site soon).

Let’s get into it. Let’s get into 2072. Let’s go to Rome, where Cortez, WBS TV’s chief of programming is pissed that he can’t compete with the rival American TV network’s show Killbike. That show has criminals fighting to the death on motorcycles — creative title, huh? The star of the show, Drake (Jared Martin from TV’s Dallas), was discovered by Cortez and has become a big star. All Cortez can answer with is a show called The Danger Game, where contestants are virtually tortured, which gives Fulci an opportunity to have a The Pit and the Pendulum style deathtrap tear a woman’s throat apart. Whew — this film was a minute or so in and one only imagines that he was chomped at the bit to insert some gore.

Turns out Drake’s wife was killed a few days ago and he murdered the three men responsible. That’s good news for Cortez, who takes the flying UFO-style WBS headquarters (which is controlled by a voice called Junior) and started to train new gladiators to fight in Rome’s Coliseum. Drake — thanks to the murder charge — is one of those warriors. They affix a detector strip to his wrist, Snake Plissken style, and draws the ire of Raven, the chief guard. Then, he meets his fellow combatants: African-American Muslim extremist Abdul (Fred “The Hammer” Williamson, so called because his San Francisco 49’ers coach asked him to stop hammering other players before he starred in numerous Italian and Blaxploitation movies) Japanese serial killer Akira (Haruiko Yamanouchi, who has starred in both a Fulci film and a Wes Anderson film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which feels like a trivia question in the making to me), German robber Kirk (Al Cliver from Zombi!) and Latin American terrorist Tango (Tony Sanders). An old co-worker, Monk, shows up to let Drake know he has his back.

To test Drake, they put him in a hate stimulator to see if he can murder people. Even after showing him a realistic hologram of his wife being killed and her killers taunting him, he won’t crack. This whole sequence gives Fulci the chance to create his cover version of A Clockwork Orange. The whole affair wins over Cortez’s assistant, Sarah. She does some research and learns that the murder was a set-up to get Drake away from the American TV network and back to Italy.

After showing up Raven, Drake leads a prison break that fails, getting the gladiators onto the news and building more ratings buzz. They even air Raven electrocuting the prisoners to build up the drama for the upcoming TV show.

Sarah tries to put it all together and goes to meet Professor Towman, the man who invented Junior. He’s given up computers and become a mystic, speaking about the soul of his machine. That said, he gives Sarah a chip to access the machine, at which point the professor is killed. Sarah chases the killer, learning that she is her fellow WBS worker, Sybil. Just before she can confront her, Sybil is shot and killed by an unseen assassin before Sarah is saved by Monk.

FUCK ALL THAT. It’s time for the WBS Gladiator Contest, which is basically Rollerball which Fulci’s penchant for blood, open flames and chrome helmeted cycle combatants. Sarah ends up riding into the games and informs everyone that they’ll be killed by their wrist bracelets 20 minutes after the end of the battle. The gladiators riot and kill all of the guards, but not before most of their number are murdered.

Drake, Sarah, Abdul and Kirk find out that Cortez was behind everything, as he wanted to replace Sam, the head of the network. But in the kind of twist that you only get an hour and change into an Italian post-apocalyptic rip-off, it turns out that Sam is really just a computer projection, broadcast live via satellite 200,000 miles above the Earth — and he knew the plan all along.

break into the main control room and discover that Cortez is found to have plotted the death of the survivors in order to discredit Sam and take over as station head. Cortez is killed by Abdul who shoots him. Then, a computer screen image of the company boss, Sam, appears and informs them that ‘Sam’ is really just a video projection of the computer, emanating from a space satellite orbiting 200,000 miles above the Earth. The computer knew of Cortez plan but decided to let the plan happen.

Kirk tries to take off his own bracelet and dies. The true traitor is revealed: Monk, who has a camera inside his eye and now looks like a mutant. Drake shoots him with a laser, but the team is running out of time. In two minutes, they’ll be disintegrated and Sam can use his signal to take over people’s minds. Somehow, Sarah uses a part of Monk’s eye to reprogram Sam in a MacGyver-like deus ex machina ending. Now that the battle is over, Drake and Sarah steal a hover vehicle and escape.

Made five years before The Running Man (but two years after the novel was written), Fulci takes his own spin on what comes after the end of the world. There are plenty of cool touches, like the strobe light training sequence where Williamson shows his martial arts prowess. It’s not The Beyond, but it’s not like you’ll be bored. I’d be interested to see what else Fulci could have done within the SF genre. This is filled with just enough weirdness that it kept my attention. It did more than that — it made me run around my house with pure glee, yelling, “NEW GLADIATORS! YAY!”

Also a quick shoutout — the site House of Freudstein is AMAZING. So much to read and such a great interview with Fred Williamson! There’s plenty to devour here!

PS – Troma got the rights to this and released it on DVD, which means that there’s a Lloyd Kaufman intro to the film. The fact that this hackneyed piece of shit (tell us how you really feel) gets to even be associated with Lucio Fulci makes my blood boil. It’s the same level of anger I get when I think about how Chasing Amy is in the fucking Criterion Collection! WHY? WHY? WHY?

You can get this from Severin who were awesome enough to quote us on the back cover!