Author: richardasplin

“…the most purely horrifying horror movie ever made…never less than totally committed to scaring you witless.”

EMPIRE magazine

“If you look at all of us who worked on the film, we probably got paid less for the time we spent than if we’d got a job at McDonalds”.

GUNNER HANSEN (Leatherface)

Who made it? Directed by Tobe Hooper | Written by Tobe Hooper & Kim Henkel | Director Of Photography Daniel Pearl | Special Effects by Dean W Miller | Make Up by WE Barnes & Dorothy J Pearl | Edited by Sallye Richardson & Larry Carroll | Music by Tobe Hooper & Wayne Bell

Who’s in it? Marilyn Burns | Paul A Partain | Edwin Neal | Jim Siedow | Gunnar Hansen

If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching…

Zardoz | Lenny | The Conversation | Earthquake | The Man With The Golden Gun

Production notes and whatnot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Texas_Chain_Saw_Massacre

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11755740/

What’s it all about?

We open on black. A gravelly voice-over narrates the rolling yellow text with an overdose of looming portent. And frankly, so he should:

“The film you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of 5 youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother Franklin. It is all the more tragic that they were young. But had they lived very very long lives, they would not have expected nor would they have wished to see, as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon became a nightmare. The events of the day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”

The screen morphs and fades and one of the most terrifying scores in motion pictures begins its grinding hellscape. Chimes. Metal whines. Scrapes. Echoes. Clanging. Flashbulbs reveal blinding snapshots of…what is that? Bodies? Figures. Dead and decaying. Teeth and skulls flash and fade. Digging sounds, splintering wood, the dull ugly crash of discordant cymbals.

Blimey. This is unsettling already. Now a crackly Southern radio-news voice. Plodding and methodical, unravels the gruesome headlines in bare facts. The town of Newt in Texas. A grave robbery. Bodies tangled in grizzly works of art, wired to a monument. A dozen empty crypts. Heads or extremities removed…

The screen clears to dazzling, bright sun. We see a grotesque rotting corpse strung up to a lonely gravestone in a grotesque tableau.

Holy moley. If your skin isn’t crawling already and you can avoid shutting off the VCR and opening all the curtains and going for a long healthy walk, then you’re staying for the credits. Red gore. That sickly yellow font. Abstract biomorphic shapes dance and spurt.

_{Leave now while you can…}

Corpuscles, oil, smears. Dancing sun-spots and flares in ugly petri-dish close up. The bad news from the tinny car radio continues. Of course it does. “Oil spillage, Cholera epidemic in San Francisco, Houston violence, Suicide, Collapsing buildings, Removed genitals murder, Daughter 18 months old, chained in attic…”

Christ on a horse. Let’s take a short break.

We are in true terror territory. I am breathless merely typing this out. I cannot even remember the last time a movie opening was so effective in unsettling the viewer. Strong stomachs are going to be needed ahead, the visuals seems to say. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Okay. Deep breath. Let’s keep going.

The sun is bright, Wicker Man bright. Scorching and dry. We are deep in Texas. Near the town of Newt, Muerto County. It’s cattle country. Hicksville. Hoboes and haystacks. Miles and miles of sticky two lane blacktop going nowhere, forever, in every direction. A place to get lost in. A place to die. On the dusty tarmac, an armadillo lies dead, baking on its back.

We meet our heroes. Everything tells us we won’t get to hang out with all of them for long. Their green panel van thrums at the roadside. Huge monstrous trucks duel on highway. White planks lead in a slope from the side door of the van. They are for Franklin (Paul A. Partain), him from the opening narration. Franklin is in a wheelchair. Simple and touched, childlike and naïve, Franklin struggles to pee awkwardly into a warm bottle.

_{Peeing in a bottle in a wheelchair. Not easy.}

In the van, his sister and their three chuckling doofus friends laugh and chat. We are in road-trip land. A van full of ageing teens, sunglasses, loud shirts and louder attitudes, out for the day on some long, roaming trek.

A passing truck thunders past (no doubt on the search for David Mann’s 1971 Plymouth Valiant)…

_{Speilberg’s Duel. By comparison, a particularly uninspired episode of “Brum.”}

and the whirling gust of air pressure causes the van to rock, and Franklin to tumble down the grassy bank, falling spasmodically from his chair. One of our heroes, a denim clad hunk named Kirk (William Vail) hero helps him up with a bored, idle concern.

So we’re back in the truck. Let’s meet our ill fated teens. They’re all groovy-talking jive ass white hippy types. All teasing and “hey maaaan!” laid back chit chat. We have young Sally (Marilyn Burns), bespectacled Jerry (Allen Danzinger) in his flowery shirt; the canoodling couple Pam (Teri McMinn) and Kirk; and of course, simple young wheelchair bound Franklin. It’s all chewing gum and hot pants and pointy nipples through tiny vests, halter-tops and shades. The girls are in sandals and long centre-parted bleachy hair. They talk star signs and drivel, lazy to get where they’re going on this long summer Texas afternoon.

Tobe Hooper captures the tedious whining and lazy naturalistic hippy drivel of the cast

And where are they going? Well of course, to the graveyard we heard about in the opening radio announcement. There are fears that Sally’s grandpa’s grave may have been one of the plots that were robbed and desecrated.

They pull up. Hicks and yokels lounge and drink in backs of pickups. All warm bottled beers and slouchy straw cowboy hats, they chuckle and dribble. Lolling in the baking Texas sun, laugh and tease the young arrivals. “Things happen here abouts, they don’t tell about…” Sally wanders off with a nearby cowboy to investigate her grandpa’s grave.  

Time passes. We’re back in the truck. Granddad’s plot was fine. They continue their lazy humming roll through the endless skies of Muerto County. One by one they all begin to sniff the air and gag, covering their mouths and grimacing. What is that smell?  They cough and scowl, rolling up the windows of the tin van. They are passing the stretching expanse of an old slaughterhouse. Cattle country indeed. Franklin, always chatty and over eager, much to the exhaustion we expect of his begrudging companions/babysitters, is keen to spin a tale. This is where our ole’ grandpa used to sell his cattle. The gang are less than interested but simple Franklin we see is not one for social cues. He continues a passioned, eager monologue about slaughterhouse techniques through the ages. Mallets, sledge hammers. “Now they use a bolt“. Clean, “in and out.” More efficient. Heifer whines and human cries as they pass the rusty baking sheds of dumb fly-specked cattle.

Sally and Pam whine and moan and are precious and both irritating and irritated. They must have put up with this a great deal – part friends, part carers, of simple Franklin. Talk moves lazily to the unbearable heat.

They spy on the scrappy roadside, among the pale cacti and dying reeds, a hitchhiker. There is chattering, nervous debate about picking him up. The van is already tight with people. Plus…a local? We sense a fear in the unknown. But the smell and heat are intolerable so their hearts go out to this poor drifter, all beat-up high-tops and torn shirt. They stop’neath the wide Texas skies and in he climbs. This is Nubbins (Edwin Neal). He’s “a-headin’ South.” Twitchy, red wine stained face, greasy, manic and leering. Its clear from the first few moments this was a mistake. He crouches on his haunches among the wide-eyed teens. “My family’s always been in meat,” he giggles.

_{Nubbins. Not likely to be in Carpool Karaoke any time soon.}

Both weird and wired, Nubbins has a violent and giggly energy. Wound up and smiling crookedly, he is the most cornball of local cornball hicks. The gang shy away, anxious to avoid upsetting him or leading him on, but young Franklin likes the company. They continue their talk of slaughterhouse techniques. “Hammer is best.” Giggling, the van continues across emptier and emptier scrubland, the country music on radio twanging banjos, jazzy vamps and some sickly “shoo-beee-doo-wahh.”

Nubbins, panting and eager, starts to peel out greasy photos from his jacket. Crumpled, bleached and bent, they are ugly home-Polaroids of dead cow trophies. The van are a little repulsed but, like us, oddly fascinated too? Nubbins begins to turn the stomachs of the gang as he recalls his old family recipe for “head cheese.” (Jerry Seinfeld fans will know all about this one. “Head cheese? Whooah! I don’t think so! I’ve always thought the words head and cheese should never be that close together…”)

Nuthin wasted, Nubbins yucks. The nasty photos are passed around trembling fingers. Franklin curious and keen of course, the girls whine and shy away. They don’t want the detail of the meat industry. Tragically, a detail they are about to become much closer to before the day is out

Idle and keen for entertainment, Nubbins takes Franklin’s little pocket knife. And then calmly, as if only to distract himself, the way you might toy with a bogie or pick at a toenail, he suddenly carves a line, deep, deep into his palm, dark blood pumping and throbbing down his arm.

_{I don’t care what part of the galaxy yur from…that’s gotta hurt.}

Shrieks from the van. “The hell?!” Nubbins has a wide eyed stoner look. Hey, to him, no weirder than doodling with a biro. The van is revolted and shocked. Jesus, who is this guy? Hand bandaged, Nubbins has more party tricks up his filthy cap-sleeves. He tugs out an old camera, a box brownie old accordion Polaroid type. Unasked, he boldly snaps a shot of the group’s stunned faces. “Take me to my house?” he asks, awaiting the instant picture to develop. “Dinner?” he offers. They have good head cheese.

_{The Scooby gang watch their disturbed hitchhiker and decide not to get another}

Well it’s all getting a bit much for the sweating teens. They try and decline politely with talk of schedules and “pushing on…” Nubbins is clearly hurt by the snub. He presents the now developed photograph, like an urchin trapping tourists. “Two dollars?” Rather than pay him off to avoid a scene, the loudmouth kids simply rebuff him. The picture ain’t even any good. They ain’t buyin’.

Well this is too much. No lift home? No 2 dollars? Well he won’t take this shit. Is this where Nubbins hatred begins? Is this the beginning of the fate of the teens? Might this have changed everything? A little kindness? It’s fair I think to say… no. These kids were doomed from the start. In righteous anger, Nubbins scrabbles with foil and gunpowder, burning the ugly photo in flash of bright fire. The kids scream in alarm at the craziness, the danger, the wild impetuousness.

But it doesn’t stop. Nubbins has been wronged. Suddenly he lunges, grabs Franklin and slashes the boy’s arm deep with his straight razor. Franklin screams and yelps, the van rolling to a halt. That’s it. Shouting, they throw Nubbins out onto the baking blacktop. They rev the van to make their panicked escape from this cornball crazy. As Nubbins stumbles he reaches out, smearing a bloody hand print on the hot green tin of the side of the van.

The kids pull away. Heavy breathing. Shocked. The idle fun of the day is gone. The van rolls onward, suddenly quiet. As it departs we see Nubbins blowing toddler raspberries at the disappearing vehicle.

“That’s the last goddamn hitchhiker I pick up,” Jerry says flatly.

Onward they drive into the Texas haze. They try to lighten the mood. The gals talk horoscopes. Many stars and planets are in retrograde it seems, and Saturn is…something. Predictions…

“A disturbing and unpredictable day.”

_{Crazy-ish Ralph. Oh just turn back. Turn back. Jesus…}

Later.

Of course. The obligatory GULF gas station. We are very used to this trope, but we are thrown a curve here. Far from the ‘baccy chewin’ scruffy red baseball cap ‘Ralph’ of past horrors, (see Deep River Savages, Invasion Of The Blood Farmers, Enter The Devil etc) we get a genuine helpful owner Drayton. (Jim Siedow) Oh he’s happy to assist these kids. Genuine and smiley and helpful. Twangy Lurleen Lumpkin cornball country music whines and drips from the radio.

The kids are fillin’ up, trying to pump gas. The rusty shack offers a decent BBQ if they’re hungry? We’ll get back to that soon.

“Fill her up?” Nope. They’re outta gas at the station. Gas won’t be here till late afternoon. Sigh. They ask the owner about the old Franklin place, where Sally and her brother grew up. Warnings uttered  from Drayton, but somehow genuine. “You boys don’t wanna go up messin’ around that house…some folks don’t like it.”

Drayton lazily swabs down the van windscreen with soapy water. Inside the baking tin vehicle, Franklin idly plays with his knife, jabbing and carving at the upholstery. He doesn’t know why. “I just start doin that…” The Scooby Gang grab some takeout BBQ lunch, brown baggin’ it as they say on Sesame Street and other Americana whatnot.

Good name for a band. “Americana Whatnot.” Fountains Of Wayne should definitely have been called “Americana Whatnot.”

Anyway. Drayton tells the kids, Newt is the best town for gas. They climb in to the old van and with a cough of oily exhaust, the van hits the road once again.

Simple Franklin, though, is nervous. He nurses his scar. Repeats his fear of hitchhiker. Might he follow us? The music, eeeever so slowly, turns darker. We sense howls. Horrors. Echoes and clangs. Clearly not listening to this music, the van by now is deep off road and into the shrubby dry trees. The road less travelled by. Anyone who has enjoyed An American Werewolf In London (dir J. Landis 1981) knows the warning. Stay on the road. But we guess they haven’t seen that movie as, to be fair, it doesn’t hit cinemas for another six years.

Ah well. Their loss. It’s a classic. Anyhoo, they are among the long grass, dust and trees of their destination – the old Franklin house. They pull up and pile out. We, of course, are SCREAMING for them not to. And not just because of the movie title. Becuase the genius of Tobe Hooper has now fastened us, unknowing, to the rack. We are in his hands.

The music grows. Clangs, chimes, scrapes… Lurleen is good and gone.

^{Well sump’in ain’t right…}

As they all clamber out into the baking dry sunshine they clock the smeary blood marks on the van. Franklin is not happy. But the teenage kids are looking for kicks, as Fergal Sharkey always told us they would be, so they leave timid Franklin in his chair and head into the old tumbledown clapboard house for nostalgic titting about.

Franklin remains, outside in the dying sun, alone. He begins to look for his knife. He can’t find his knife. Nobody cares. While we at home, of course, are screaming: FIND HIS KNIFE FOR CHRISSAKES!

We follow the Scooby gang on a tour of the old decaying family homestead. Fusty, dry, crumbling. Peeling, hot, rotten. They lark and goof about from room to echoey room, while we tingle at the crackles of a spider nest in the dry cornices. Giggling from old memories. The innocence, the naïve glee is painful to watch.  WE KNOW…THEY DON’T. Old memories come tumbling back in jokey remenicence. Torn curtains, mould and mustiness. Outside in the baking sun, Franklin is scared. Struggling and banging about in his chair, he is sad, helpless and not a little bit annoying and pathetic. Calling for his sister Sallyyyy… there is no answer. He’s in the way. He’s ALWAYS in the way, isn’t he? Our heart goes out to him. He moves around the porch, into the cool darkness and burning sunlight, baking heat and cold chilly shadows. Flies buzz and drone among grasses.

There are distant echoey laughs in empty wooden rooms. Pam and Kirk come a’stumblin out, high on their own goofyness. They fancy a dip in yonder “swimming hole.” Jesus, is this Mark Twain? Franklin begrudgingly tells the dumb horny pair to follow the trail between the two sheds yonder. See you in an hour or so.

Franklin wheels himself about, bored and ignored. On the dusty porch, he finds bones. Teeth. Jawbones and feathers, in an creepy warning nest. Bones hang and tinkle from the rafters.

We’re half an hour in, so… y’know, let’s take a minute.

How you feeling? Okay? Got the set up? We’ll talk more about this in the next “is it any good?” section of this piece. (Article? Essay? Review? Exhausting spoiler-filled plod?) But we are now very much in fear territory. Despite the minimal bloodshed of the palm-carving in the van, the movie has done its best to have us holding cushions over our faces, white knuckle grips, tumbling stomachs and whimpering “no…no…no…” A masterpiece of tension, we have seen nothing really. Nothing but an oddball hitchhiker, a dead armadillo and some dumb kids. Oh but we know. We KNOW. And we can only hold our breath and pray, PRAY it isn’t going to be…what we just know it’s going to be.

Nasties simply NEVER get better than this.

I know, I know we’re only 25 movies in. And we, I hope, together, will investigate over 140 more. But, as Toby Zeigler in The West Wing once said, “I’ll bet, all the money in my pockets, against all the money in your pockets…” we will never be subjected to this level of sustained terror again.

And you can quote me on that.

Okay. Deep breath. Let’s keep going.

Kirk and Pam trudge through the bushes, laughing and giggling in the sunshine to the distant swimming hole. They tumble, losing their footing into a dry dusty creek where a swimming hole used to be a generation ago. Panting, disappointed, they loll and LOL and sigh, puffing. But…what’s that? A distant rumble. Mechanical? A generator? Gasoline? At last, a way out! Kirk, all manly go-getting provider, decides to take a walk across the scrubby brushland to the source of the noise. In the distance, beyond the tree line…a distant white farm house.

Clanks of pots and bones in the breeze, macabre mobiles hanging tinkling and clacking in the dry wind. The ugly petrol generator growls and coughs. The pair approach the property through waist high sunflowers. Peeking through old farm netting, they spy a car lot. Covered in crackly tarpaulins, abandoned rusty 20 year old cars. In a blaze of lens flare, they make out a simple cottage garden.

Full of bravado, Kirk hollers. “Anybody here?”

The house is faded. Old. White clapboard, dry and warped from a hundred years of southern good ole boy sunshine. A whining child’s swing creaks and cracks. Bare wooden steps lead up, 1 2 3 to a scrubby porch. Silence. Clanks of rusty chains. Birds sing. Spindly dry trees cast blueish long-finger shadows.

^{The Franklins are looking for a forever home for their family while dad has a crash pad in the city}

As Kirk knocks and bangs on the pale door, peering in the grey glass for signs of life, a dead tooth falls from the roof, clattering to his feet. Slinging his jacket over the outside bannister, he frightens Pam with the tooth, causing her to feebly scream in a wet, pathetic manner and run off across the scorched garden to the swing. Pushing at the door, it swings open on weak hinges. Kirk steps in to investigate the cool shadowy interior, dark and musty behind the ratty screen door.

As Pam swings idly, bored, back and forth, young Kirk enters the house, calling out for help. Dark and silent, he knocks, trying to arouse the hosts. The house is the classic Psycho layout, long hallway and creaky wooden stairs on the right leading up to the landing.

Is that…is that pig noises? Kirk steps further into the cool darkness. Behind him, the screen door slams in the dry wind. There is a ramp leading at the end of the hall to the open doorway. Oddly functional. In the doorway he can make out pale boiled skulls and bones hammered to the walls where family photos would normally be. He steps up further, calling out. Up the ramp to the door.

And then, suddenly, from nowhere, making us leap from our seats and scream, a figure lurches into the doorway. A male figure, hulking and huge in a greasy butcher’s apron, face unclear but somehow from our viewpoint, distorted and torn with flappy dry skin. Thick arm aloft, a hard heavy hammer comes BANG down on Kirk’s skull. Kirk drops, heavy, limp, to the filthy ramp. Pigs squeal and scream. Kirk’s body shudders and spasms, legs thrashing and twitching from the blow. Another crashing BANG on the skull and Kirk goes limp.

The man leans down efficiently, like a slaughter house worker, lifting him and dragging him off screen into the house. Seconds later he returns, hauling a heavy steel door on runners SLAMMING shut with a deafening metal BANG.

Silence.

Oh and now it starts. We are in. The rack Tobe Hooper has quietly strapped us to is now apparent. We are locked in, tied down. The wheels begin to turn, the rack begins to creak and stretch. And we can only now pray for release.

The music ramps up. Drones. We are in shock. What the fuck just happened? Hard discordant noises mix with dark and sick sounds of scrapes and sickly chimes thunderous groans and moans.

With Kirk gone for a while, bored Pam decides to get off her tight ass and find out where the idiot has gone. Climbing off the swing she approaches the house, it growing slowly in the frame as we low track under the swing towards its ominous looming stature. “Kirk?”

^{Kirk? Kirk? C’mon…stop kiddin’ around…}

Nothing.

Pam wanders lazily in to the dark of the musty hallway. Scrapes and clangs echo on the soundtrack, making our stomachs tighten and twist. Ambling around the dusty ground floor, Pam stumbles, trips and tumbles, bang, into the lounge on all fours. The hell? Sudden clucking. Bones. Feathers everywhere. Old brittle turn of the century furniture. The rattle of the teeth and bones that lie everywhere, hang everywhere, wires idly turning.

_{Pam was unimpressed with what Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen had done to the guest room}

Skeletons. Skulls and spines, bleached and bare. Chickens trapped tight in cages, staring and twitching. Metal music growls from what sounds like a machine deep within a steel bin. Animal parts and piles, stacks of dusty dry bones. Human skulls. Saws and machines on wooden table tops. An amateur workshop feel. The noise now, the music, simply deafening and cacophonous. Screaming panic and horror envelopes the world.

Pam gags, coughing, retching. Tearful she screams, stumbling to her feet. She must run. RUN! We’re yelling at the screen. Run. RUN! But…no. HE is there.

Filthy slaughterhouse apron, face of loose skin. He lumbers in, determined, shrieking like a trapped hog. Hammer wielded, he flails. She gives a throat- tearing scream and stumbles, runs. A clattering chase through the house of horrors. Down the hall. Into dying sunlight, out onto the scrappy porch. Inches behind her, the monster lurches, grabs, lifts her like an empty golf bag, weightless, hauling her shrieking back into the muggy darkness of the house. Up the ramp, into the centre of the home of horror.

^{My, my, my, said the spider to the fly}

He hauls her, weightless and writhing, into the front room. Pam screams, hysterical screams. We see empty heavy meat hooks hanging, clanking. With terrifying power, Leatherface (Gunner Hansen, for ‘tis he) lifts her and with a…drop, plunges her onto the hook like a coat on a coat rack, leaving her spasming and swinging by her upper spine. Wide mouthed, paralysed with unspeakable terror, shock and pain, she twists breathlessly on the hook. But we have only just begun.

For on the beaten wooden workshop table we see the shape of Kirk’s limp body. With a growling scream and oily belch of smoke, Leatherface tugs the huge chainsaw roaring into life like a bellowing, angry dinosaur. Lifted high, he brandishes it and begins to carve, jab, slice and devour the off screen body like an ice sculptor or butcher. The deafening screams continue…

Back at the Franklin home. Quiet. Serene. Crickets chirp. A breeze ruffles the dry crops. There are three cast left. Jerry is teasing Franklin about the voodoo blood marks on the van. Franklin, paranoid and edgy, is still looking for the warm safety of his pocket knife. Some back-and-forth of harmless Brady Bunch bickering. Bored, Jerry decides to join the missing couple and head to the creek while they still have daylight. Franklin and Sally stay behind.

Like a maddening simpleton, Franklin is all  “you mad at me?” to his sister, in his chair-bound whiny twang., grating and tiresome. Sally trundles away. What a day this has been…

We join Jerry as he tramps through the scrub, looking for Kirk and Pam. Following the same trail, he hollers for his buddy. “Kiiiiiiiirk!” The sun is setting.

^{Maybe they’re in that innocent looking friendly house?}

In the baking, dying sun, Jerry searches. Through the blue shadows of magic hour, we hear the unsettling Gamelan clanging of dead wind-chimes. Finally, Jerry gets to a house, clapboard now sickly yellow in sunset. He knocks. “Anybody here?” Jerry spies Kirk’s discarded jacket on the bannister of the rotting stoop. “C’mon, quit goofing’ on me…” Flies buzz. Chains clank and clink in the wind.

Jerry moves slowly, cautiously inside. Up the slaughterhouse ramp. The kitchen. His eyes slide over the empty meat hooks. An empty butcher table. When suddenly, he is startled by a panicky banging and thudding from an old chest freezer against the far wall. Jerry, confused, fumbles it open in a panic.

Pam lurches up! Blue faced, gasping and freezing, from her ice cave.

But before Jerry can even comprehend, Leatherface appears behind him in the doorway. Screaming like a stuck pig, his heavy hammer brandished, there are bellows and shrieks and maniacal grunts as he pounds Jerry to the floor with huge sweeping hammer bangs. Then overwhelmed and panicked, Leatherface is at the window. Terrified like a lost toddler, panicky. He clucks and clangs. It’s too much. Too many people. What will grandpa say? Head in hands. Whining and weeping, something’s not right. For the first time we slowly see his face.

_{L’Oreal fights the seven signs of aging.}

Or the face he has chosen to hide behind. Who knows who it originally might have belonged to?

Jesus…

Dry, peeling, yellowing crispy, old-feet skin. Ugly black stitches. A face, perhaps, he can look at in the mirror? The soundtrack to this horror, a whining metal. Like rusty wolves.

Back at the Franklin place. Van lights are bright in the darkness. Punched and pushed the van horn wails. Desperate, Franklin and Sally are slowly going crazy. “Must be lost!” Sally wants to look for them. Hollering desperately for Jerry. For anyone. “Probably back in a minute or so…” Frightened and lonely, they realise there are no keys in the van. They’re stuck. Stuck, alone in the dark. Panic rises like a fast washing tide. The van horn wails and blares. Sally and Franklin descend quickly to infighting and family feuding. Tears splash, faces flashing in the headlamps. Sally desperate at Franklin’s well-meaning ideas: “I can’t push you down the hill!” She leaves to look for the missing friends. Terrified and toddler-like, Franklin clumsily follows, trundling his awkward heft and chair, feebly, like a lost pining puppy. Crackles and snaps of death-dry twigs as they enter the woods. A cloudy moon hangs above.

Dull whine of crickets. Ugly cries of “Jerrrrryyyyy!!” discordant as the pair yell out. An ugly sound of a chuggy oily generator. A light? A house!

Torch flashing and searching, they are pumped and exhausted with relief. “It’s a house!” Silent and blue-washed in the moonlight, they move towards its ghostly shape. Clanks and clicks in the soundtrack. Further into woods, crunching, crackling when…Jump scare! Leatherface!

^{Grade two on the sides, leave some length on the top}

Holy shit! The horror! A screaming chainsaw aloft, from the darkness he is suddenly there – apron, blank eyes, fat arms and his screaming machine. His frenzied attack is brutal. Insane. Carving and thrusting into helpless Franklin’s chair-locked chest, slicing and gouging. The coughing, petrol-saw roars and bellows, grinding and deafening. Over shrieks and screams Sally runs. Runs. For her very life.

Brambles, tired torn final-girl tears, the roar of the saw behind. We are on her. Leatherface slices through branches in lumbering pursuit. Flashes of moonlight through the dense woodland. More shrieks and screams. Tangles. He is close, swooping and thundering in the filthy butcher’s apron, a huge hulk of man. Blade tearing the air. Hoarse screams in throat-tearing terror.

Sally sees redemption. Safety. She sees, in the distance…a house. (Oh Jesus…)

Clambering, falling up the steps, Sally pounds at the outside doors for help. It swings open. Safety! In! Slam! The roaring saw inches behind her, it starts to grind and buzz through the flimsy wood, tearing it to spiky shards.

Sally bursts into the nearest room. For freedom. For help.

Silently, dumb and staring, preserved Psycho corpses watch from still rocking chairs. Overcome with terror, Sally starts thudding around hysterically on thin floorboards. Through the room, through the house. Desperate and wild, crazily and hysterical, she launches herself through a closed window, smashing the glass. Behind her, the saw belches and smokes oily clouds as it screams and whines. Desperate Sally is panting, back into the woods. Moonlight. Twigs snaps, branches crack and tear at her skin. She falls. Panting. Tiny inches behind, in a wild rage, Leatherface is on top of her. Round and around they go.

“HELP MEEEEE!!” Desperate screams. She runs, runs. Finally, breathless, we are back where it is safe. The GULF gas station. Sweat drenched hands slipping and slamming on all the doors, Sally collapses into the back room of the garage. A familiar face! Drayton! The kindly owner. He of the windscreen wiping and the BBQ. “Woah woah!!!” Sally is hysterical. Drayton clumsily sits her down.

_{A face you can trust}

“Take it easy!” The reassuring comfort of the local, the older man. He hears her panting story. “Ain’t nobody out there now!” What happened? Gulping panic. Nope, there’s no phone here. Need to get truck.

Meanwhile sickly country music twangs. The flimsy door is wide open to the countryside, but silence and darkness settle. A brief breathless respite. Calming crickets sing. Drayton heads out to get the van, get the help.

Sally pants, gasps. Regains her breath.

A slow zoom on the warming fireplace.

Bones crackle and roast over the flames. Human bones.

Oh Jesus no…

Over the crackly radio, our familiar broadcast voice recounts the grim daily updates. Dismemberment and cadavers, organ removal, crypts, mausoleums, dozens of coffins robbed…

As Sally’s terror and realisation grows, Drayton’s sinister van pulls up outside. The creaking tin doors open. Drayton cannot help it now, barely surpressing evil, sexual giggles. “Now now…no need to cry, cooperate and we’ll have no trouble…” Innocent crickets sing. The sizzling of the bones and meat on the fire. Drayton pulls out greasy thick rope from a canvass bundle of sacks.

No. NO! Terrified, Sally grabs up long butcher’s knife from his BBQ table, swiping and wielding and waving feebly exhausted. Drayton laughs. “NO need to do that…”

They go toe to toe. A fight. Sally whimpers and struggles, while Drayton pounds her to the floor with dusty broom, Mark Corrigan style.

Thwacks and bangs and bashes, Sally is beaten to the floor. With a broom, though. So, y’know. But anyhoo, beatings are beating. She screams as Drayton laughs, knocking her out, dazed and lifeless.

Methodically we watch as Drayton ties up Sally with thick rope. Twangy syrupy country music slides and twangs. A bloody rag is pummelled into her gaping, gasping mouth, a filthy gunny sack over her head, he heaves her squirming to the waiting van.

Okay, admission. I don’t know what a “gunny sack” is. I took the phrase from Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B.Goode.” Or, if you’re a racist or under 45, Marty McFly’s “Johnny B.Goode.” Either way, it sounds right. It’s a sack.

_{This is a blues riff in B, watch me for the changes and try and not to kill any teenagers on meat hooks.}

Blue in the moonlight, Drayton slams the van door with a rusty squeal and a crunch of old tin. Creaking iron and upholstery, the coughing van engine belches into life. Drayton locks up the gas station. With a  throaty rev of engine, Sally whines and whimpers in the sack like a beaten puppy and they disappear into the Texas night.

Pitch dark. They thrum along the highway. “Hope you’re not too uncomfortable…”

Sally’s muffled, dizzy screams mix with wolf howls and tears. Drayton’s pervert, crooked teeth grin dribble chuckles of hunger and drooling carnivore anticipation.

Oh and now what? Who is this flapping and wailing at the side of the dark road, illuminated in the van’s sickly lamp light? Yep. It’s old Polaroid face himself, Nubbins. With a head full of headcheese and pocker full of Polaroids, he’s whirling and wailing in the darkness on the dusty road. Drayton is quickly out of truck, beating him about the head. “Damned fool go ahead got caught! Told you to stay away from the graveyard!”

The van with its terrifying threesome is heading towards the dark house, lit by pale yellow windows. Drayton is putting up with Nubbins’ hysterical giggling, scolding and slapping him like bad child, “Don’t leave yurr brothers!”  Arriving in the dark, they drag Sally in, between them, onto the porch, into the darkness of the home.

The Sawyer family, for tis they, welcome the two men home. Plus their exciting surprise package. Floorboards banging and thudding, yelling and barking at Leatherface like he was the unloved family dog, there is Christmas lunch shouting and yelling in kitchen. Screams from everybody. Excitement and terror fill the echoing bone-filled rooms as Leatherface yelps, barks and squeals from behind his crispy dry mask.

Eagerly, panting and drooling, they tie Sally up. Shouts and echoes, creaks and squeaks. “Take it easy…” ole’ Drayton eases, the dad of the house.

There is the ugly crack of dry rope stretching and squeaking. Skeletal lamp lights illuminate the gloom. Bangs and crashes around the home as Drayton and Nubbins drag the final guest to the feast –  chair-bound grandpa. A brittle, cadaver-faced pale skeleton of a man, clamped to a wheel chair, barely human.

They clunk and bang his ageing chair down from his room to the macabre delights of their…evening meal.

^{Would anyone fancy garlic bread or doughballs to start?}

Adding to the hysteria the music grinds and clanks in deafening, iron-like thunder. Bones and boxes, feathers and brittle cadavers. “Lookie grandpa!”

_{Could do with some oregano…}

Now we are at the long dinner table, sitcom style. A cosy scene we’ve seen a thousand times. The Cosby Show, Blossom, Friends, The Good Life, Who’s The Boss… But never, never, quite like this. There is jostling to get the  best seats, as if they’re queuing for thanksgiving turkey. Grandpa is barely alive, crumbling, pale and drawn. A straight razor is held to screaming Sally’s neck.

_{Breast or thigh?}

Drayton grabs Sally’s pale hand and feeds her trembling fingers, suckling, into grandpa’s slack mouth. His supping maw sucks and sups. Sally’s eyes painfully wide, frozen in the inevitable horror of the next few macabre moments.

Outside? Silence. A large moon hovers and watches. Innocent. Only god is watching.

There is a clink and clatter of plates. Flies buzz. Sally screams for her life. The family Sawyer, in parrot mockery howls and scream back in giggling childlike delight. Laughter, like kids copy the ducks and cows in a passing road-tip field.

“We were just havin’ fun”

“MAKE THEM STOP!!!” Sally screams. Ugly giggles ripple about the table. They prod and poke like a bored 5 year old with a dead pigeon. A table lamp made of torn face flesh illuminates an ugly glow.

“PLEASE! MAKE IT STOP!!” Howls of “bitch hog” from the shrieking clan. Sally, in panting fearful desperation, starts to bargain. “I’ll do anything you want,” passing through her own stages of grief. The macabre mocking and copying at increases at an hysterical gleeful volume like fireworks at night. Our stomachs lurch at the hick chuckles and spitty giggles.

^{It needs more Taragon, goddammit…}

Sally’s eyes in full frame. Pupils, veins, wide and staring. Around her the dull family squabbles like a suburban Christmas dinner.

“Hey grandpa!” He’s the best, they boast. “Gonna let you have THIS ONE!”

“Never took more than one lick” the drooling family boast, like they were at a cattle auction. “Did 60 in 5 minutes once!”

To give Grandpaw freedom to work, they cut tearful Sally loose from thick ropes. Writhing and squirming, her tears are running. She pleads, knowing her fate. “No, no, no!” Banging of gongs and ugly saucepan lid cymbals echo about us, cacophonous. She kneels. The Sawyers grab at her hair.

They hand feeble Grandpa the heavy mallet. Limp and barely alive, he keeps dropping it in his feeble swings. There is no life to his pale frame. Like a stringless marionette. “Hit her! Hit that BITCH!” Sally’s head forced over a fetched battered tin pail. Screams and shrieks of pain.

_{She chose…poorly.}

But howls of laughter and encouragement roar around the echoing room in the Dantean cacophony of hellish noise. “I’ll kill her!” others Sawyers volunteer. “Let me kill her!”

But at last, in the freedom of the bickering chaos, Sally twists and breaks free from the mad family. NOOOOO!

She runs! A dark hallway, a smudgy window… SMASH through the wood and glass into the bare dry garden, drenched in sickly moonlight.

Hobbling, panting, gasping she smashes, exhausted, through the dry brush to the road, falling stumbling and crying. A ROAR of chain saw behind her. Leatherface’s petrol machine coughs into hateful spikey life again, eager to its purpose. In hysteria, he hurtles after her down the lane to the road.

Nubbins, hysterical with libidinous drooling joy, follows, shrieking. Inches away he lunges and grab at Sally as she hurls herself for her life through the crowing southern sunrise.

On the road. At last.

^{And we would’a got away with it of it weren’t for you pesky kids}

A huge red truck pulling a load, Burt Reynolds style, appears looming over the hill, horn honking with smoke. Nubbins flails, caught, pulled screaming under the 18 leathery wheels, crushed.

_{Always obey the Green Cross Code.}

The truck driver slows and stops his huge rig, clambering out to help. But sees Sally…and sees Leatherface with his saw aloft roaring and smoking. Sally and the truck driver run, terrified, back to the cab of the truck, the driver hauling Sally in and slamming the door. Crazed by hysterical toddler frustration, Leatherface begins to score and carve at the truck door with his roaring blades, grinding silver slashes and shrieking streaks on the metal. Out the other side, the couple jump and run. Leatherface, confused, dulled and furious, follows, no lost energy, pulled forward by his rage, chasing the helpless pair along the early dawn road. The driver turns and hurls a tool at him, hitting his head and knocking Leatherface down. The chainsaw loose, it falls, glancing against Leatherface’s thigh and tearing through the greasy trousers to his pink bare flesh. The monster bellows into the still air and clambers up, redoubled in his stunted fury.

Over the hill, a pick up appears. If it isn’t a Ford “Cavalry” then it should be. Dust and whines. It slows and a screaming, tearful Sally clambers into the back, sobbing. The truck hauls away in smoke as a crippled and injured Leatherface lunges towards it. The truck drives, drives, drives away, Sally hysterical with tears, screams and a sick, exhausted laughter as they escape, more and more road expanding between them.

^{Going home. The theme from Local Hero.}

Finally, in the searing sunrise of pinks and oranges, Leatherface – furious with frustration – whirls and winds alone on the road, shrieking, roaring chainsaw groaning and screaming in his hands, petrol fumes pumping and coughing, around and around and around in rage. Lens flare catches him in all his monstrous glory, bellowing at the one who got away.

_{round and round the garden, like a teddy bear…}

Cut to black.

We sit in exhausted, sweaty silence. Tobe Hooper’s choice of ugly music grinds and shrieks and clanks as the white on black credits begin their slow, funereal crawl…

Aaaaand, relax.

Is it any good?

Well we arrived. For many, if not most, when talk turns (as sadly, no matter how much I try and crowbar pub conversation, it rarely does) to the Video Nasty scare, there are two or three that spring revoltingly to mind for your average non-horror fan. They’re the movies that have, for their own reasons, left the grubby photo-statted list of the tired 1980s copper on the beat looking for newsagents and dodgy proprietors to raid, and leapt into popular culture. Yep, the ones everyone has heard of, for better or for worse. Maybe not seen, possibly never glimpsed. But are there in the consciousness of you, your mum and probably your Nan.

The films that, thanks to some nasty titles, lurid VHS art and tabloid frenzies, became the catch-all for everything unpleasant of the era. You know the tapes I mean. The Evil Dead – it’s dead people (urrgh) and they’re evil (booo!); Cannibal Holocaust (same story. Like being cannibals isn’t enough, they needed to have a holocaust? Or if you prefer, like holocausts aren’t awful enough, this one had to star cannibals?); I Spit On Your Grave (the icky coffin and phlegm combo, plus Demi Moore’s bum) and naturally Driller Killer (because…oh for heaven’s sake).

^{The undead, psychopaths, cannibals and Bruce Willis’s ex-wife’s butt-cheeks}

But I would go as far to say that, for its pure shocking title alone and distant tales of banning and court cases and Midwest stereotypes, “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” is simply the shorthand for “one of those films.” Exploitative, unnecessary, shocking, bloody, gruesome and horrific to some. Daft, silly, preposterous, juvenile and retrograde to others.

And far it be from me to argue its status.

Has it hung about popular culture forever purely because of the idea? Texas (hicks and cornballs and inbred yokels) plus Chainsaws (buzzing, bloody, relentless screaming death machines) and Massacres (dozens, maybe even hundreds of chopped up, ploughed up, carved up teenagers)?

Well probably yes. Nothing about it sounds wholesome, or interesting. It conjures up zero images of insight, humour, observation, realism or depth. It sounds like about $7 worth of direction and $100 of blood and 90 mins of screaming. I mean, what am I? 13 years old?

And I am well aware that to argue its merits makes me one of…well, y’know…those guys.

C’mon, you know exactly what I mean. One of those guys. Sigh.

Gingery hair, a scruffy neck beard. Pushing 16 stone. An obscure faded gamers t-shirt pulled over my scratchy belly. Tin of cider. Tickets to San Diego Comicon. A basement full of B-movie posters (originals) and plastic busts of Freddie and Pinhead next to my boxed Funko Pops. 7 gaming consoles, INCEL chat-groups in my darkweb favourites and a nasty, malicious giggly streak.

^{To sleep, perchance to dream. About Disney stopping putting black women in all their remakes…}

Well fine. It’s a type. It’s not even a lazy type as the world (or at least a large part of the online world) is full of these characters. Type who will loudly tell you that the worse a movie is, the better a movie is. Who will argue Howard The Duck over Howard Hawks. Who will argue Michael Caine over Citizen Kane. Who will think Scream is a horror movie for people who don’t really understand horror movies. Who will show their nephews The Human Centipede over The Very Hungry Caterpillar. People for whom The Toxic Avenger is the pinnacle of “amaaaaaazing.”

I went to art college. I know these people. At best John Waters. At worst? Harry Knowles. And hell, if this image helps, then go forth. Go nuts. Suit yourself.

_{Director John Waters (no taste) and Harry Knowles (no Hendersons)}

In my defence (and isn’t it just soooo people like me to be leaping to my defence before I’ve been attacked) this isn’t me. Yes, my top ten, desert island movies are picked from the nostalgic end of the spectrum. I do still have a warm crush on the 1980’s cinema I basked in during my teens. I don’t doubt that, on an empirical scale, my particular tastes would be fairly juvenile, popcorn and playful. I would take Ghostbusters and Back To The Future over most things on the art house circuit. I would consider It’s A Wonderful Life to have a bigger emotional kick than The Seventh Seal. For laughs, When Harry Met Sally… beats the crap out of Some Like It Hot or The Lavender Hill Mob. And Jaws is pretty much better than any of them.

^{What, right now, probably passes for the author’s top ten. Ish. Oh arse, I forgot Airplane}

But in the last few weeks I have decided that Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror The Texas Chain Saw Massacre deserves a place on my desert island. Not because it’s become my go-to feel-good Sunday afternoon favourite. Not because it gives more and more every time you watch it (the way critic Mark Kermode swears his favourite The Exorcist does, every time he puts it on – last count over 200 times).

But for the same reason that my DVD of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is still in its plastic wrapper.

It is simply so effective at what it sets out to do, it works so incredibly well at its goal and achieves so deliciously exactly what Tobe Hooper was aiming for, that it is both a masterpiece and probably something I’ll never watch again.

“Cinema,” as we’ve said before – quoting the late great Roger Ebert – “is a machine for creating empathy.”

_{Ebert! Hey Ernie!}

And so my argument goes, I have NEVER felt the shared blood-chilling terror and relentless screaming panic of a set of characters like I have this movie. Yes, when Tim Robbins finally redeemed himself at the end of Shawshank, yes when Brody and Hooper finally began to laugh, splashing and bobbing, at the end of Jaws. When Rocky Balboa hollers for Adrieeeene as he falls into the arms of Mickey.

Yes, even when Forrest realises Jenny is dead and begins his lonely run across America – I was with them. Tear in the eye, fist pumping, cheering their triumph. Great writers, directors, musicians and production crews can do this.

But in ‘Massacre, I haven’t had to pause a film so many times in its run-time to simply take a breath, look around the room, make tea and remind myself I was home and safe. To try and unknot my guts, wipe my freezing wet palms on my jeans, play with the cat, drink a pint of water and swallow hard. Repeating, it’s only a movie. It’s only a movie.

Oh call me a wuss if you like. I’m certain Neck-Beard McCider would call me a novice, a lightweight, a big girl (identity politics or lack of are oft part of their make-up) and tell me to man up. “Call that gruesome?! Call that scary? Ha! You should see…[insert revolting snuff rapey-offal-filled grizzle fest here].”

But we’re going to take a moment to talk about why UK’s Empire magazine went on record saying “the most purely horrifying horror movie ever made, never less than totally committed to scaring you witless,” – how it came to be and what to make of it nearly 50 years later.

Okay. So. Much has been written about the backstory, funding, creation, shooting, distribution and cultural impact of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Hooper and Kim Henkel co-wrote the screenplay in 1973, including the teasing and provocative opening crawl and scene-setting (albeit misleading) voice-over.

Hooper states that the pre-film crawl, suggesting the “true story…” set up (a device to unsettle, used famously by The Blair Witch team as well as, tragically, the Coen Brother’s Fargo) was a response to the feeling of being lied to wholesale by the US Government over the Vietnam war, Watergate and other similar high level scandals.

In fact Henkel and Hooper’s entire approach to the story and screenplay was a personal reflection of the times they were living in. However we can note here a stark contrast in the approaches of Hooper and his contemporary Wes Craven, who’s much more bloodthirsty “Last House On The Left” had premiered just 2 years earlier. Granted a 2 year period of American history that took us from the pilot of Happy Days, through the Patty Hearst kidnapping, Watergate, The Exorcist, The Hi-Fi Murders, Ted Bundy, Roe Vs Wade, the return of Vietnam PoWs, the Dog Day Afternoon robbery, American Grafitti, Skylab, Fritz The Cat, the digital watch and The Godfather. All while comedian George Carlin is being arrested in Milwaukee for explaining the seven words you can never say on television.

Worth digging in here a bit, since it’s a key part of the legacy.

We talked in the review of Last House… (Well, I talked, you played on your phone a bit I imagine) that Craven’s brutal cinematography had been a reaction, too, of the times he was living in. As we saw, Craven felt that violence on screen in the 60s and 70s was sanitised, cleaned up and cleansed for the family viewer. Reports of “shootings” or “rapes” had no detail, no lurid close-ups, no in-your-face guerrilla film-maker reportage. It was reported tidily, by the numbers, matter of fact, so as not to “upset the viewer.”

Craven reacted to what he felt was a cosy view of violence by presenting it in all its mundane horror. But now, just 2 years later, Hooper was moved to create Massacre based on the “lack of sentimentality and the brutality of things.” The polar opposite. It was the gruesomeness, not sanitation, of 1970’s post Vietnam news reportage that led him to feel that, in his own words, “man was the real monster here, just wearing a different face, so I put a literal mask on the monster in my film”.

_{Aaaand…terrorized inaction!}

Script in hand, designed as we will see later to have as little gore on screen as possible to secure a family-friendly certificate and therefore wider distribution, Henkel and Hooper went on the search for funding. They put on ties and polished shoes and presented themselves as a company called Vortex Inc. They were looking for an equivalent today of a million dollars. (For reference remember, young director George Romero had put another backwoods house of horrors on the screen 6 years prior for about the same figure. It could be done. And with skill behind the camera, long days and a compliant team willing to put in the gruelling hours, it could be done well. By contrast, Scream, in 1996, would cost 25 times that amount. Read here why that is). Hooper’s friend Bill Parsley formed a parent company named MAB and put up the equivalent today of about $340,000. The Parsley-sighted deal meant MAB had a 50% share of the movie and its future profits. News was spread to the cast and crew that their salaries would be based on securing the all important distribution package and sweetened this questionable deal with a promise of percentages of the profits. Regrettably of course, Henkel and Hooper failed to tell them (either through error or cunning) that of course, this was only after MAB would have taken its fat 50% off the bottom line. Thus cutting all salaries and earnings in half.

Shooting took place in a scorching Texas July on the roads and houses near Round Rock, Texas. Gruelling hours to save equipment rental time meant the cast were sweating and sobbing in 95 degree heat. The Sawyer farmhouse, was covered in animal blood and littered copiously with the remains of cattle and other animals, dead, rotting and maggoty.

_{Lawrence Llwellyn Bowen’s new episode of Changing Rooms is available on iPlayer}

Once in the can, it was then a matter of getting the movie picked up by a distributor. The funding of Massacre’s costly distribution, trivia hounds, is a story in itself. In a nice piece of symmetry, just as 1974 audiences were settling in with popcorn and milk duds to revel in the sweeping mafia mood of Coppolla’s epic Godfather Part 2, genuine mobsters were delivering briefcases full of cash to a young Tobe Hooper and making him, of course (what else) “an offer he couldn’t refuse…”

_{The Godfather. The movie that wished it was My Cousin Vinny}.

The lone distributin company willing to get involved in such a disturbing and grizzly movie was one Bryanston Films that stepped up with a deal to get the movie into theatres. What it is alleged Hooper and his accountants didn’t know was Bryanston had tied with the Colombo crime family in New York, a tough organisation run by Louis “Butchie” Peraino.

_{Louis “Butchie” Perain. Butchie to his friends. “Please take that shiv out of my gums” to his enemies.}

Mob accountants having a way with a ledger, as we learned from the squealing bookmaker in De Palma’s excellent glossy Armani-draped loveletter, The Untouchables, profits and percentages found their way into Peraino’s pockets, rather than the cast and crew.

An attempt to recover funds by suing Bryanston came to nought, as Peraino’s involvement in another 70s slice of exploitation “Deep Throat” got him in trouble and some prison time. Probably considered, therefore, likely to have been on the shadier end of the Massacre contract, Peraino lost the case. It was only in 1983, nearly a decade after production, the new owners New Line Cinema attempted to make amends and pay out what was owed to the cast and crew.

In pushing the movie to 1974 audiences, marketeers leaned very heavily on the opening of the movie and Hooper’s “based on a true story” claim. As we’ve said, in the sense that Massacre is a story of America tearing itself apart, it is “true” indeed – at least to his idealogy. However Hooper would elaborate with more concrete specifics, telling journalists it was inspired by the gruesome grave-robbings of Ed Gein, in 1950s Wisconsin. But given Ed Gein was not based in Texas, never used a chainsaw and did no real massacring at all to speak of (he was found guilty of the murder of one woman, a Mrs Worden – although allegedly it was the prohibitive cost that meant he faced no further murder trials), we can safely say there were never any teens, no vans, no farmhouse meat-hooks or forest chases. It was Gein’s macabre trophies that were the true inspiration for the set dressing and grave-robbing antics that are suggested in the movie (always suggested, remember. Never shown). Gein’s home havnig been discovered by the FBI littered and draped with hearts, noses, nipples, skulls and skin amongst other grotesque keepsakes.

_{Ed’s Diner. Trip Advisor: 1 star. “The chef’s special sauce has an odd aftertaste.”}

Sadly, upon its mob-funded, dirt-money release, The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rated it a disasterous R.

Complaints from some audiences about both its unrelenting attack on the senses (genuine) and its horrific gory blood-letting (largely imaginary) caused many theatres to bow to pressure and remove it from their scheduling.

Cuts were suggested to trim back some of the gore. But censors in the US and the UK were faced with the impossible position of having to choose which bits to cut. The blood? There is virtually none. The gore? There isn’t any. The saw cutting into flesh? Nope. The cutting up of bodies? Uh-uh. Grave robbing? Nope. The censors were faced with an un-trimmable film as there was no single scene, no gruesome set-piece that caused audiences to faint. Ban the whole thing or leave it the hell alone. You can’t trim “atmosphere,” you can’t edit “tension.”

All this controversy of course did wonders for the box office as folk queued to see what critics were labelling in turns “despicable,” in one breath and having a “plastic script,” in the next. “As violent and gruesome and blood-soaked as the title promises“, “one of the most sustained and believable acting achievements in movie history,” while Patrick Taggart of the Austin American-Statesman hailed it as the most important horror film since George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. When the 16.m million tickets were added up, it had generated over $150.8 million. A 15,000% profit.

Which brings us back to where we came in. Is it any good?

Well the story is simplicity itself. Ill-fated innocents head out to the woods and get carved up by a monster. We’ve seen this trope in our 25 movies journey already. In fact, if you’ll give me a moment to count…we’ve seen it close on a dozen times in one form or another. Be it Susan George and Dustin Hoffman attacked by Cornwall yokels or Duane Jones and Judith O’Dea overwhelmed by the living dead – there’s nothing innovative about the plot. Back of a fag-packet stuff. In fact in its bare-bones simplicity, it’s even more basic than those examples. It’s not about revenge, it’s not about masculinity, it’s not about radiation from a space probe that exploded in Earth’s atmosphere on the way back from Venus. The Sawyer family are grave robbing cannibals. They eat locals. They eat tourists. They eat anyone they can find. It wouldn’t be until one of the, count them, NINE spin-offs, 2006’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (got to love a colon, as my school organ teacher used to say) we got anywhere close to a clumsy backstory.

Ohhh but got to hate a clumsy backstory, right? There is something terrifying about a motiveless crime. My younger brother is convinced the home invasion terror The Strangers (2008) is one of the most terrifying movies ever made because of the total lack of any explanation or motive, save the chilling “because you were home.”

Plus, does anybody think The Silence Of The Lambs is more enjoyable because of Hannibal Rising’s tortured tale of Lithuanian sister-chomping peckishness?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCCFleJPTAU.

_{What do you mean we’re all out of Cheerios? Ah well, pass the relative…}

Tobe Hooper’s writing and direction cannot be overstated. There are good “teenagers cut up in a barn” stories (Friday The 13^th) and there are postmodern “teenagers cut up in the barn stories” (Cabin In The Woods) but there will never be as gruelling and relentless an experience as this. Dialogue is cheesy and throwaway. The “kids” are daft and out of larky kicks. Hooper keeps them from being hateful Abercrombie models that we want to see punished. These are ordinary folk. A little foolish, a little reckless. But harmless and simple and never deserving of their fates. The story is beautifully paced, never rushing or dragging, simply lolling along in the Texas afternoon sun. They’re in no hurry, Hooper’s in no hurry. Simply knowing from the wink and nod of the set up that whatever is going to happen is going to happen and we can only sit and wait. Sit and watch.

But Hooper’s masterstroke and I feel the reason, in a decade of stalk-and-slash teens in trouble identikit shockers, Massacre will always sit as top dog, is the breathtaking combination of suggestion and restraint.

Going in, with THAT title and THAT poster, we are braced for all sorts of latex spurts, gory grue, stomach-turning offal and splattery splashes that we sit, simply waiting for it to happen. And, like a true expert, masterfully controlling his audience, a magician performing misdirection and sleight of hand, he gives us suggestions. Hints of horrors to come.

In the van, Nubbins pulls out his blade. He thrusts and drags it into his hand. We wince, we pull away. It’s shocking, surprising, out of nowhere. The sudden cut, the nasty slash. And now we’re set. If this is how it starts? What can be to come? The suggestion of blood and horrors in the opening act just teases us of how much more bloody, how much more gory, how much more gruesome this is going to get. We know movies escalate. We know the action scene at the 30m mark won’t touch the action finale at the 90m mark. And Hooper brilliantly plays on our cinematic instincts and expectations. No WAY is the bloodiest part the van bit. No WAY. This is setting us up for some bloody gore and horror to come. Cover your eyes. Any minute now..

And of course, it doesn’t. It never comes. What sits with us, in a dazzling display of directorial confidence, is the idea of what we’ve seen. The expectation of what’s coming. The assumed inevitable.

So when we hear the roar of the saw, see the swinging of the hooks, jump at the figures in the doorway flinch at the brandished hammers? Our minds are already painting the pictures of what we’re going to see. And that brilliant fact that we never, ever do just makes the relentless suggestion only more exhausting.  

^{Okay. Let’s go again people. Gunner, sweetheart, can you be more… leathery?}

The cast are terrific. Its very easy, as we’ve said, to fill movies like this with hateful, blonde, hunky Chads and painful Staceys (as my bearded online confreres like to say). Bikinis, pecs, lip gloss, midriffs, chins and pouts. People you wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire. Somehow so perky, wide-eyed, cheeky and buff that their inevitable fate is somehow written in the stars. You can’t be going around with your high SAT scores, your sorority leadership, prom queen tiaras and football scholoarships without the general public wanting to witness your comeuppance. But p’raps that’s a more modern thing. In Massacre, Hooper has cast and directed a fun bunch. A harmless bunch. Each of them brings a little something to make them more than paper cut-outs and we wish no real harm on any of them.

_{Not Franklin! Anyone but Franklin!}

For me, and this is very personal, the addition of Paul A. Partain’s Franklin is the master stroke. Oh Franklin. I can’t be sure why the addition of this touched, special, troubled and fearful young brother makes the ensemble so, so much more painful. There is the innocence of course. The childlike wonder. But the casting and writing makes us all simply yearn and reach out to help. To save him. To shelter him. He is so simple, so naïve, with his talk of the old days, his trusty pen-knife, his timid fears of the boogeyman hitchhiker who might be out to get them. It is a painfully moving performance. He is the burden, the stone in the shoe, the killjoy that the group have taken to heart. We love the group more because they’re including him. We share their frustration and pain in having to, let’s face it, put up with his toddler whining and whimpers. But when he and Sally finally head into the woods to search for the missing Jerry, our hearts ache. No, Franklin. No! Anyone but Franklin. Patronising? Probably. But as I say, this is a personal response. And without Hooper’s brilliant addition of this lost puppy, this mewling kitten to tug at the maternal instincts, Massacre would not be the emotional powerhouse it remains.

But we must, if we are going to discuss the effectiveness of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – (you’ll note I smugly put Chain and Saw as two words. That’s how it is in the credits, that’s how it is here at Let’s Get The Banned Manically Pendantically Back Together) – talk sound and music. With all our talk of missing gore, lack of blood, restraint and suggestion, let us for a moment agree that it is the soundtrack of this 70s shocker that raises its game.

Firstly, the score. Or what we can call the score. There is no hummable theme tune. There is no catchy riff or “Best Of Horror themes vol III” melody to recollect. What we have is a searing, scorching grind of metal on flesh, flesh on metal, tangling chimes and deathly scrapes. Echoes, clangs and ugly death rattles do their effective best to get nerves jangling and hairs on end.

Let the genius Mark Corvern show you how it’s done.

The chain saw is of course that star of the soundtrack. Heaving, coughing, wheezing and screaming in lustful anger, the last half hour belongs to the titular machine. Combined with everything we’ve discussed and dissected, this movie belongs to the saw. Smoking, fearless, roaring and relentless. Swept through flesh, stabbed in chests and whirled in fury, it surely earns it’s place in the title.

A fucking nasty masterpiece.

Nasty?

Yep. Of course. Haven’t you been listening? But again, as the censors struggled with, you won’t find anything you wouldn’t see in a mild episode of ER. No blade touches fleshes. The horror and terror are screams, roars, leers, suggestions and relentless, heart-tearing unstoppable menace. The final 20 minutes are almost unwatchable. And its all, ALL in your own imagination. Whatever you think you see? You imagined it all. Purely joyful in its mechanism, monstrosity and manipulation. A joyful exercise in terror.

What does it remind me of?

Everything and nothing. Look, I know I appear to be overstating all this. And you may load it up on Amazon or Netflix or invest in a quality BluRay and come away cold, unmoved and merely mildly tittilated. But as regards resonance? We are in the relentless door-pounding terror of Night Of The Living Dead. It starts gracefully slowly, leads you up the path and then leaves you there, alone, to your own devices. It has the sustained relentlessness of Straw Dogs as we realise that no reasoning, no pleading, no rationalisation will stop what is coming. We can only grab what we can and pray for death or redemption. We have echoes of Last House On The Left with the killer family, murdering and torturing for mere amusement and kicks; The hicks and inbreds of Schoolgirls In Chains, without the clumsy backstory; the squealing animal brutality of Pigs; plus the mundanity of Axe. Everything you could ever want. And so much, so much more.

Were can I see it?

Oh everywhere. It’s om Youtube, although it might be a cut version. But what have they cut? DVDs and BluRays abound with all sorts of commentaries and extras. It’s probably on Amazon Prime and Netflix.

Watch it. Thank me later.

“a virtual torrent of bloodshed…makes the GODFATHER movies look like Sunday school picnic outings!”

LAS VEGAS SUN

Who made it? Directed by Duke Mitchell | Written by Duke Mitchell | Director Of Photography Ken Gibb| Edited by Tony Mora & Robert Flioro | Special Effects/make up Dick Brownfield & Harry Woolman | Music Duke Mitchell

Who’s in it? Duke Mitchell |Vic Caesar | Lorenzo Dodo | Peter Milo | Louis Zito | Cara Salerno | Jimmy Williams

If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching…

The Gathering Storm | Blood For Dracula | Murder On The Orient Express | Great Expectations | Earthquake | Brief Encounter | Take The Money And Run

Production notes and whatnot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_Mafia_Style

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077525/

What’s It All About?

Well we gotta assume somebody’s mad at someone. Or owes them money. Or they owe him money. Or they slept with his sister. Or refused to sleep with his sister. Or stole his Dolmio. Because we open in the most terrific bloody massacre (one assumes, Mafia style) of gunshots, head-shots, slaughters, pick-offs, screams, slow-mos and collapsing extras we’ve seen so far. I mean, I like an “In Media Res” opening, starting halfway through, leaving open questions and plenty of “huh?!” but this? Absolutely glorious.

We have no idea who any one is, where this office is, what they do or why they do it. But what we do know is two shady characters in big hair, shiny suits, snub-nosed revolvers and pinkie rings would like them to stop. Promptly.

Bang, bang, bang!

For after a lovely 70s “Grindhouse Releasing” set of ectochrome scratchy titles, setting this firmly in the cheaper-end of video releasing, two “heroes” (Mimi and Jolly) with vengeance on their mind and Hai Karate on their chests, bouffants and ‘taches a plenty, spend the opening five minutes going room to room, desk to desk, receptionist to receptionist plugging everyone they can find in mid-shot freeze-frame hokey set-ups. Bang! An extra falls over. Bang bang! Some ketchup quibs squirt out of a courdory jacket. Blam! Secretaries collapse over typewriters. Bang! Folk drop to toilet floors in velour business-casual with blood spurting.

These two greasy men finally find the chap they clearly really wanted – some wheelchair-stuck pencil pushing geek at his desk. All pocket protector and slip-ons. They grab him violently and haul his squirming ass to the john. Then its stripped electric cables around the ankles, feet in the urinal, splashed water and screams as the synth score drones and thuds.

Credits now begin to roll over some Italian-Palm-Springs-style crooning (My heart a-goes tikka tikka tay!) but more shoot-outs continue to mark the pair’s exit. Bangs. Squibs Squirts. Stills. Offices. Blood. There must be over two dozen killed at least, in this brisk, snub-nosed revolver profunctory fashion. The men make their escape in a lift. Only to be joined suddenly as the doors close by…a young black kid. Wide eyed! Terrified! Will they? Won’t they? Guns drawn. Timpanis boom…

Dawww…no, of course not. Like a couple of creepy uncles, they smile and pinch his cheeks and send him on his way. Coz dey gotta heart, right? Capisce?

Yep. Job done. They’re off. One is tempted to say, “let’s get a taco.”

And relax. We’re only 5 minutes in and we’ve lost well over a dozen of the cast.

Okay. Now we’re in the movie proper.

Voice over sets us up. Cut back 15 years. We watch a family christening – the proud husband (Mimi again), wife, baby and padre (or priest/vicar – depending on your persuasion) splash water in the font and bless Mimi’s new son. There is mock Italian talk of “family code” and whatnot over the baptism. The mix of classic Italian mob culture and the wide open opportunities of the USA. Or something.

(To be honest, its all so hokey and corny, it doesn’t really matter. We are in the straight to video world of honour, spaghetti, oaths, family, territory, blood and very cheap jewellery. And there’s lots of crappy fun to be had while we’re here).

Fast forward. Now we’re in old man pop’s garden. It’s about five years later (although the fashion for sideburns and pinkie-rings and chest hair doesn’t appear to have moved on). Location wise, it’s exactly the lush roses, orange groves and olives, mock roman Italian set-up we’ve seen before in these Cod-Corny-Corleone-esque capers. Grandad, or Papa, is all wiry ‘tache and cravat and Gabicci leisurewear. Hands aloft, he talks ponderously to his son Mimi. He must stay and bring up his boy in the good Italian tradition.

Ahh…but no. Mimi has other ideas. Ambition! Greed! Lust! A wardrobe full of pimpy shirts! Grandpa has to stay and look after the boy – Mimi must go to Los Angeles. Mimi is young, he has a future in America. (Note, actor Duke Mitchell was, at this point, forty eight. Perhaps a little old to be heading off to make his fortune. But hell, enough hair dye and chin-tucks, who’s counting?)

It’s decided. With the soft slapping of cheeks that men do in these pictures, double kisses and hugs, Papa will bring up the son, Mimi will head to the West Coast. He has a reputation to build, off the back of his father’s legend. Papa, we assume, was once “the big tamale” in organised crime before he retired to pick olives, wear neckerchiefs and kvetch about his haemorrhoids among the orange groves.

So cut to Mimi a few days later, he’s made the trip to the City Of Angels. Struttin’ Travolta style, jumpy shoulders, droopy fag and clicky Cuban heels, Mimi is heading to meet a pal from the old days. A guy called Jolly. Who to be fair, is indeed quite jolly. They meet at a run down Tratattoria (all plastic vines and candles in raffia Chianti bottles). And ding! Yep, we recognise him from the pre-credit shoot-out. So we know between now and the end of the picture, these two goons are gonna go postal in an office for some reason.

The men catch up, all cigarettes and greasy shrugging. Medallions glint, chest hair creeps like ambitious bath-spiders around the shirt buttons. Talk is of family. How is Jolly’s papa? Sad, he died in prison. He took a phoney wrap and bought it in the big house. Much sad shruggy nodding. Whaddyagoona do?

Mimi takes over the talking. He’s a charismatic storyteller type and spins the tale of his old papa. Back in the day. Back in the thirties. His dad arrived off the boat in New York. Fought his way up, took his territory, bullied and threatened until you couldn’t buy a fish on the East coast without Papa’s say so.

Yes. Fish. (Keep all “Cod-father” jokes to the end please. There will be time for questions).

There is much nodding and gesturing about the honesty, integrity and the simple times when you could just beat policemen to death and set up crime syndicates. Ahhh, again, whaddyagonna do? Pass the breadsticks.

Conversation moves on to the current state of the organised crime network in California. Who’s in charge now Mimi’s papa has retired to the old country? Well Jolly fills Mimi in. It’s a fat doofus named Chucky Tripoli. He’s the big guy now.

Well…that’s gotta change if Mimi’s going to become Capo Di Tutti I Capi. So Chucky’ll need “getting out of the way.”

Plan? Jolly and Mimi will kidnap Chucky Tripoli and with a bit of old fashioned wiseguy ransom, that’ll get them in the bigtime.

No sooner said than done. One sunny Sunday, outside a low, lush Californian church in the bright sunshine, a suited Jolly and Mimi march in, shove a revolver into old man Chucky’s porky ribs and march him out of the church, across the wide shady street into their waiting sedan. Simple.

How to get the message to the family? Well Mimi and Jolly are pretty old school and want to show they mean business. So we see Chucky’s young son Mario sat at home and taking delivery of a small box. Well smallish. About the size of an index finger and cotton wool. Mario opens the box and…much hysterical shrieking from son and Mrs Tripoli! They know that finger! They know that ugly ring! It’s Chucky’s!

Now we have to have the meeting. All the local Dons from all the warring families have to gather around a long table, nod sadly, shrug, drink tiny glasses of wine and decide how to handle this outrageous kidnapping and threat to their business.

Nicknames and wrap sheets are shared around the room so everyone knows exactly how important, violent and connected their dinner companions are. All men go to the same barber for moustache trimming and the same tailor for shiny skinny ties and fat cuff-links. The kidnappers want £250k or they send Chucky’s arm. In, presumably, a longer box. Much arguing around the table about what to do. A reluctant decision is made to pay the ransom and get beloved Chucky back asap, given his son Mario is about to be wed.

We see cars cruise. Suspicious figures dropping paper-bags of loot into dumpsters. Other cars prowl and shadowy folk pick up the cash. It’s not clear why Chucky’s gang don’t hang around by the dumpster and wait for the kidnappers. I guess there are “rules” in the Mafia about not being a dick and ruining people’s plans with logic, cunning or common sense.

Okay, well now Chucky is returned and Mimi/Jolly have their hands on his $250k. What now? They may be flush but they’re no closer to being in the Big Time with the local hoods. Well Mimi’s plan is a bit cleverer than just nabbing cash. Not a LOT cleverer, but enough. Daring. Ballsy. Incredibly stupid. But worth hanging around to see how it pans out

We’re at Mario’s wedding. We’re on a luxury yacht/cruise ship. Wide and fat, the deck is covered and families sit at tables, cabaret style. There is enough food to stun a Bison. Laughter, drinking, cheers, cake, handshakes and gifts. Eyy? Eyyyy! At the top table, Chucky sits with his right-hand goons watching proudly, a tear in his eye. Young Mario is a-gettin’ a-wed! Sniff sniff, dab dab.

Father and son enact a syrupy little traditional bread routine: Boy cuts a slice and gives it to his pop. Passing the crusty heritage. Father to son! Much cheering and applause. They munch down on the now sliced bread as a local crooner, all patent shoes and magician jacket, takes to the floor and sings one of those “hilarious” trad rumpty tumpty Italian songs about over-eating. “Rigatone, Mostacoioli and Spaget!” Old women singalong. You get the idea.

But who should arrive on the boat? It’s the last people Chucky expected. Waltzing in like they were captain and skipper, Mimi and Jolly shoulder their way through the dancing crowd up to the top table. Much gasps and shock. But rather than a gunfight or punch-up, the Don Chucky greets his kidnappers warily, his bandaged hand still throbbing from the missing finger. Mimi is all charm, best wishes, congratulations and kisses. Nervously around the top table, bridges are built by these two men who know “the old ways.” Which are presumably, you cut off my finger to prove you’re tough, then I give you a job coz I like a go getter. Which is precisely what happens. “Is it not better to lose a finger…” Mimi suggests, “but in doing so, to gain a right arm?” Much sagely nodding and wine glass clinking. Because of who Mimi’s papa was – respect, respect, nod, simper – Chucky will allow Mimi to join the family.

But hey, Mimi doesn’t want to shoe-horn into the whole racket. He’s not greedy. He just wants what he considers…a rightful and respectful slice of the Californian crime business. Say…control of all the black pimps and the bookmakers. Whaddya say?

As the Dons discuss slicing up the West Coast racket to give these slimy chancers a bit of the pie, Mimi wastes no time in hitting at one of the buxom women at the wedding top-table.

He flirts, laughs, insists, grabs. The type of chit-chat that leaves arm welts and bruises. But deal is done. Better to have a reckless crazy like Mimi on the inside where he can be controlled, than outside causing chaos.

So. He’s in. Just as he promised his ole Papa.

We get a montage now, of Mimi and his new beau. On the town, splashing the cash, playing Mr Bigshot, he drags her dancing and drinking to bar after restaurant after club after den, all to a croony sub-Dean Martin soundtrack. (When you’re bit by an eel with a bite you can feel…that’s a Moray) We see them laugh. We see them make out. And at one point we see them in bed together and we have to try and keep our lunch down. Her? All pale boobs, curves and mascara. Mimi, all wrinkly neck, gold necklaces, rings, mahogany tans and grey hair. Nice.

A few dates later, they’re in a Californian bar. Owned and frequented by, what Ben Kingsley in the highly underrated caper “Sneakers” (1994) referred to as, shall we say, “good family men.” Hookers lounge around, men smoke and drink and trade insults. When whose towering Candyman-style frame should break the reverie but a huge black pimp Mo Fo. Shouts. Arguments. Ownership. People called “honky.” It’s all kicking off. See, the girls in the bar are his. And he ain’t happy with how these old men are treatin’ the merchandise. But who steps in to lay down the law? Mimi. Shoving a snub nose revolver in Candyman’s chops, he waves him away, all threats and talks. People say “yeahhh gedoudda here!” and Candyman leaves. Mimi back in charge. Drinks all round.

But hey, this pimp dude? Superspook? This is the action Mimi feels should be his by rights. That’s what he told Chucky Tripoli.  Pimp and Bookmakers should be his. This guy has 40 girls in his employ. Each one bringing in $500 a day. $20k? That’s the action Mimi wants. And what Mimi wants, Mimi is gonna get. We’ll pick up this business plan a l’il later…

But. We haven’t had a massacre, Mafia style, for about 20 minutes so let’s have a montage of slaughter. Bookmakers all over town are shot, killed, plugged, murdered, wiped-out as newspapers report “13 Bookmakers slain!” Bags squibs, blood, spurts, ketchup. A real bit of mob carnage. But hey, that’s the business.

Back in Sicily. Mimi is home to check on his now older son and his old Papa. How’s it going in LA? They sit around a pool, shirts open, wine flowing, wiseguys and hoods chuckling and eating. Mimi, Chucky, Jolly and Jolly’s stupid dog. They puff cigars and talk about family. Mimi’s son is doing well at school in Milan. But, to business. There’s a guy they need to take out if they’re gonna muscle in to the drug smuggling business. A guy called “The Greek.” (We’re not told where he’s from).

Cut to another dinner and the chat continues. It’s a Ragu/Dolmio advert. Mimi holds court with one of his sincere speeches. Tradition. Family. He points to the grey haired Mama, all spaghetti sauce and bunned-hair. A message, if there is one. Kids these days. No idea.

Heritage, tradition, family, honour, regrets. The old days. The old country. The bread tradition repeats, Mimi slicing and handing to his father. The torch passed from one generation to another. Old school. But this time…the bread loaf is full of dollar bills. This is a contract. The Greek has gotta be hit.

Back in LA. Mimi and Jolly arrive unannounced at the Greeks little office.

Lots of panelled wood, bad art, ugly paintings and more pinky rings. The Greek, an older fellah not used to being bossed around, is surprisingly relaxed for a man balls deep in the West Coast dope business. I guess you’d have to be crazy to threaten someone as connected as the Greek. But crazy is Mimi’s watchword.  “We’re here to kill you.” The Greek laughs, he’s havin’ none of it. He doesn’t care who Mimi’s Papa is. “Your fadda donna calla da shotsa with me!” With a click of the fingers, the Greek’s hulking bodyguard lumbers in to knock Mimi and Jolly about and send them back to daddy.

But Mimi is prepped. Was it not, after all, Verbal Kint who once said: “To be in power, you didn’t need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn’t.” (The Usual Suspects, C. McQuarrie 1995). Cue Mimi shooting the goon full of lead and then pumping a dozen bullets into The Greek. Yep, that’ll do it.

Cut back to Sicily. The fuck?! What’s Mimi doing? This ain’t the way to do business! Mimi ain’t no hitman! This can’t go on! No more killings! I say, NO MORE KILLINGS! Papa knows a thing or two and his son’s reckless disregard for the value of bullets and their lasse faire distribution. This way will lead to war.

Back in LA? Well Mimi has his pimp business and his bookmaking business and his dope business. But you know this young entrepreneurs. You’ve seen The Apprentice. Always giving 110%.

Next up, a cable TV show. A swarthy gent is being interviewed. He represents The SOSDL: The Sons Of Sicily Defence League. Italians in America have an image problem. They are NOT all hoodlums. They are NOT all Mafia types. They are NOT all greasy violent crooks. Their honest organisation, the hard working and trustworthy chaps at the SOSODL are out there trying to clean up the image of Italians in America.

A plea not helped when the poor chap is shot, live on television.

Bosses all over Italy and the USA in unison: THAT DAMNED MIMIIIIIIIII!

So the reckless Mimi is called in by the big bosses. This HAS to stop. He can’t just be shooting EVERYONE who gets in his way. (These folk clearly not aware of the title of the movie they’re starring in. It’s not called “Peaceful Reasonable Negotiation Mafia Style”, after all.) Mimi gets a slap. A punch. A beating.

Stop fucking with the business! They will give Mimi $50,000. To set up a legitimate business. To go straight. To get clean. To stop messing with the family. To just calm the fuck down.

Well…fair enough, Mimi thinks. But what’s he gonna do with $50k? A man like him? He’s already got the pimps. He’s already got the hookers. He’s already moustache deep in the dope and bookmaking business?
Well, he does what men will do when they’ve got time and money on their hands.

Yep!

Porn.

Sigh.

Cut to a boat. Life is good. Jolly and Mimi sip cocktails and enjoy the beaming sun of the highlife bestowed on Porn Magnates the world over. Around them girls in bikinis splash and water-ski and play and ready themselves for another scene of lubed-up fingery softcore petting. Jolly and Mimi squabble about the easy money in the porn-video business. Big money to be made. Hey, they could get the 40 hookers off SuperSpook like they discussed? They got a location, they got a film director? Why not sit back and watch rental fees roll in? On cue, the director of their skin-flick swims up. Do the guys wanna come down to the cabin and watch the shoot? Sure.

Down in the cabin of the yacht, the director yells angry irritated instructions as two women in swimsuits begin half-hearted petting on the bed, draped with 70s Orange velvet. Lenses and angles as he shoots the feeble scuffling and moaning. Bored and tipsy, Mimi and Jolly have had enough. Half watching, half disinterested, there’s nothing for them here. Not for two trigger-happy guys who like a shoot-out and a bit of murder. Easy money, sure. But there must be more to life than this?

Yep. Jolly and Mimi are restless. They enjoy a dinner, Jolly’s dog yapping and lapping around the table. They blew their $50k. Broke again. Apparently the rentals on grubby Californian VHS soft-core rubbing is not what they hoped. This ain’t workin’. So they decide to step up the plan and get the SuperSpook pimp around to “talk business.” Keep it simple. Steal the guy’s gals.

So we’re at another Italian bistro style Pizza Hut (all gingham table cloth and crimson leather booths). At the table? Mimi, Jolly and our big pimpy SuperSpook. All fur coat and shades. The mob make ‘Spooky a deal. Ownership. We want your stable of gals. You better play ball, etc. Work with us… or get out of town. Jolly adds some aggressive bullying, Families threatened. Listen up, bub and so on.

So…will SuperSpook join in? Will he help them out? Can they agree shared terms? Some sort of joint ownership to keep the gunplay at bay?

Well…whaddya you think?

“Haaaaaaaaa-llelujah!” At the Hollywood Bowl a choir of gospel singers cry out in joyous Christian jubilation! Big smiles, big voices, it’s only missing a tumbling Jake and Elwood Blues. It is Easter Sunday! And what better way to celebrate the re-birth of our Lord and Saviour than a sing-song, some tambourines, some Fredrick Handel and…SuperSpook, nailed to a cross up in the Hollywood hills.

There he hangs, nailed to the sculpture, hanging dead from his hammered wrists. Mimi and Jolly scuttle away into the dry scrubby grass around the hills. Well that took care of that.

But what, you wonder, of Mimi’s long suffering girlfriend he picked up (well, beat up) at Mario’s wedding all those weeks ago? Well we catch up with the couple once again. SuperSpook dead, The Greek’s dope business now in his control, papa at home screaming blue murder about his son’s crazy shooting sprees, the Californian Mob all pulling their toupes out with frustration at this violent psycho wildcard messin’ up the rackets and bringin’ down all the heat.

In bed. 1970s pale-dad skinny, ropey council estate arms, sunbed tan. Vest. Cigarette. Jewellery. Beside him, she wants a better relationship. Doesn’t wanted to be treated like a run of the mill hooker. Not enough, she wants to be included. Mimi’s not interested. Gals are not part of the business. But she knows more than she should. Falling more and more for Mimi’s greasy charms, she lets slip what she’s heard.

There’s gonna be a set up. Chucky Tripoli is going have Mimi whacked. Killed. Taken off the scene for good.

Which is where, as the saying goes, we came in. A re-run of our glorious opening credits. A massacre, mafia style! Squirts, squibs, falls, blood, shots and  the whole office of Chucky Tripoli’s “business office” is wiped out in one bloody spree of revolver carnage and bang bang bang assassination. Tikka tikka tay.

“We killed every last son of a bitch.”

Next up, they gotta start wiping out ALL of Chucky’s gang. Panel vans pull up with squeals outside Chucky’s butchers’ plant. In Mimi and Jolly go, fists and Smith & Wessons a-go-go. Butchers and staff get beatings, strangles. Butcher’s knives are flayed and flashed. A goon hung on a meat hook and left swinging in the chilly freezer breeze, the spike puncturing the eye of the poor fellah.

But it’s not stopping there. Office staff slaughtered, butchers butchered, next they drive up and grab poor Marco, Chucky’s newly wed son. They kill him and dump his body outside Chucky’s house.

Yep. Mimi and Jolly mean business.

Well. I mean. What’s a mob to do? There has truly been a massacre, Mafia style. Sure, you don’t threaten psychos like Jolly or Mimi without expecting this payback. He feels he’s defending his Papa’s honour his heritage, his tradition. Putting things back the way they should be.

But Chucky ain’t going to go quietly. He can’t stand for this. Jolly must be wiped out, and then Mimi in turn. But, yknow…nicely? Respectfully? Discreetly?

Uhm…no, not so much.

Cut to Jolly in restaurant. Another in a long line of spaghetti houses. Waiters are ushered away, rooms are locked. Chucky’s goons don waistcoats and slacks to play the parts of staff. They bring Jolly his main course. A silver cloche on a tray. The lid is lifted. But no dough balls or sloppy Guissepie for Jolly. There, on a bed of parsley is Jolly’s dead dog. Nooooo! Bang bang bang. Jolly, all napkins and lobster finger bowls, is blown away.

Mimi returns home. On his bed? The butchered and shot-up body of Jolly. Distraught, he calls out for his girlfriend. She is nowhere to be found. Hastening to the bathroom, he finds her. Hanged, dead, lifeless, swinging from the shower rail, dead eyes glazed.

Well now we got a show down. Chucky’s goons are after Mimi. Mimi ain;t gonna go without a fight.

But before that? We must pay respects to Chucky’s son Mario.

Solemn. Quiet. The mobsters are all gathered in Chucky’s garden. To one side, a rich and luxurious white oak coffin, holding the cold body of Mario. All the family and the family’s family are there to pay respects. Veils and mourners and widows and black and more garment renting than Moss Bros on prom night. A clock (which might as well have ACME written on it) ticks away among the garlands and roses. It marks the minutes and hours since Mario was killed.

They gather and pray. Heads bowed.

But of course the clock is no clock. Not if crazy Mimi is involved. It ticks down three…two…one…and BOOM! The coffin, loaded with Mimi’s cunningly planted explosives, goes up in a huge fireball, sending mourners reeling, dying, crying and screaming to the floor. Fire smoulders. Bodies lay about

Yep. Mimi got the last laugh on these wiseguys.

And now? Mimi is going home. Job done. Chucky’s mob is wiped out. Mimi and his aging Papa are back at the top in California. Back in Papa’s orange and olive groves, the men slap faces and shrug shoulders and toast. Violins and guitars pluck and sing.  Mimi’s son is there, all growed up. Men smoke cigarettes, women slice hams, wine is poured. Mandolins fiddle. Fiddles mandolin. Kisses on cheeks. Mimi is back!

But it’s the end. So it’s “author’s message” time.

Mimi sits, opens his heart, passions run high. He gives his final big speech: He’s been “on the mattresses” for 4 years. Blacks have taken over the mobs. They are fanatics. Not like the honour of the old days. He pleads, begs his dad to get out. He has a grandson now. Honest, pure, clean. They can put all this violence and madness behind them. The boy is clean and pure in his eyes. He has no blood on his hands. It stops now.

Mimi’s son is the suave and genteel young Travolta type. A white suit, big collars. The family sing Ballads. Lush Montovani strings fill the Sicilian air as they sit for their meal. Everyone’s shirt is open to the navel, wine glasses clinking. Talking of New York and Harvard for his boy. A fresh start.

Mimi sits at the top table. Dad at right hand.

And once again? The timeless Sicilian bread ritual. Knives cut the warm loaf. A slice for grandpa. The son reaches into the bread and…BOOM!

Gun muzzled and muffled by the loaf, Mimi is shot. He falls, blood spraying the table, chest exploding. In slow motion, a destroyed Mimi collapses. All his talk of clean starts? New Beginnings? His son is back. Its destiny. They will rule crime. Now and always.

Wink! Duke Mitchell at his playful best

Is it any good?

Well what do we call this? A curio? An exploitation classic? A cult midnight movie? A pizza-slice of down and dirty guerrilla movie making? A hurried, rambling piece of Italiano-crapoli? Well there’s lots to chew over, so pass the Bolognese dip, gimme a glass of cheap red wine and lets-a getta stuck in.

Duke Mitchell has his fan club, there’s no doubt about that. In fact should you sit through the Arrow Films download of this movie, (subscribe here https://www.arrowfilms.com/accountCreate.account) you will be treated to an odd little vignette: a short intro documentary talk about Duke Mitchell and his cult following, presented in under-lit mock-grandeur by film-maker Evrim Ursoy. He sports a handsome droopy moustache, pours a little sweet sherry and props himself up at the mantle like Peter Bowles and sets the movie affably in context for us with love and affection.

So what do we discover? Well the man behind Massacre Mafia Style is one Duke Mitchell, born Dominic Salvatore Miceli in 1926. One time actor, comedian, director, nightclub act and crooner, he dubbed himself The King Of Palm Springs, with all the phoney insincere pinky-rings, bad wigs, white shoes and humble crowd-pleasing chintz you might imagine.

Here’s how I always see these acts.

Mitchell saw the success of the dashing Dean Martin and the goofy Jerry Lewis in their knockabout buddy comedies and some might say was inspired to create (others say “rip off”) the act with comic Sammy Petrillo. This moved Jerry Lewis to take legal action but the case was dropped. A fast talking producer spotted the pair and shoved them in a silly “Abbot & Costello” style picture to take advantage of their skills, and the resulting 1952 film was Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. Yep, just imagine it. Done? That’s what it’s like.

See?

Mitchell continued to be something of the sixth Beatle, the extra Rat in an already full Pack. Not so much a hanger-on on, but one of the big guys on the periphery. He worked the medium sized clubs rather than then big sell-out joints, opened for friend Lenny Bruce, provided the singing voice of Fred Flintstone for a couple of the Hanna Barbera cartoons, produced and hosted shows with Liza Minnelli,  Cary Grant and ole Blue Eyes himself.

But it was his movie production work, according to the friendly Evrim Ursoy introduction, that took him to cult status. Seeing the success of Ford Coppola’s The Godfather in 1972 and its Grammys, Golden Globes and 9 Oscar nods, Mitchell was allegedly unhappy with the portrayal of Italian families on the big screen.

He felt The Godfather was inauthentic, phoney and did not correctly represent the life of Italian Americans and Organised crime as he had lived it. So to the typewriter and financiers he went, and drummed up “Massacre Mafia Style,” choosing to write it, produce it, direct it, perform the soundtrack, star and of course find a place in the cast for friends and family.

And what an attempt it is.

There is no evidence in either Mitchell’s education, back story or upbringing to suggest he had any skills behind the camera. This was merely a man with influence and Los Angeles friendships who’d seen enough mafia movies to know what he liked, what he didn’t want, what was real to him and what was Hollywood baloney.

So it’s fair to say, given Mitchell’s hands-on, auteur approach, we do have what Ursu labelled “an authenticity and singularity of vision.” There is no doubt that what is on the screen is exactly the story Mitchell wanted to tell.

Whether this is a story anyone else could give a crap about, follow, appreciate or even enjoy is very much open to taste.

First thing to say is that it’s a cheap movie. No Panavision Big Studio epic sweep here. I would be very surprised if it wasn’t shot entirely on location, borrowing friends’ apartments, clubs, restaurants and offices during quiet periods. It has a hand-held, slightly wobbly home-made feel.

Similarly the wardrobe would be “models own”, as they say, as all the silk shirts, Brylcreem, pinkie-rings, pointy shoes, wide-collars and wife-beater vests one imagines came from Mitchell and Co’s home cupboards.

Script wise, it feels both stagey and improvised at the same time. Some scenes have snappy, back-and-forth practised lines that have been learned rote by the amateurish cast or being read from cue-cards. Stilted and rehearsed. However as is the tendency of the auteur writer-director with no-one to reign him in, Mitchell’s scenes feel heavy on the winding and wandering improv’. Almost as if he didn’t trust anyone else to do a good job, but was confident he could be left to “wing it” on the day. His scenes tend to drag, especially when he’s catching up with Jolly in the early Trattoria scenes.

For a movie that was made as a deliberate counter to the all the phoney Hollywood clichés Coppola and Co had been feeding the public since 1972, we have a somewhat surprising amount of well-worn familiar clichés that seem to pop up in all these movies.

Baptisms of the new generation? Check. Big weddings? Check. Endless dinners? Check. Red wine and gingham? Check. Goons and heavies in dark glasses? Check. Old folk in cravats in olive groves? Check. Long speeches about honour and family? Check. Bloodshed at funerals? Check. Contracts and oaths? Check. Lounge singers? Check. Competitor on a spike? Yep, it’s all here.

If what Mitchell is doing is setting the record straight about real happenings in the Cosa Nostra on American Turf, then the honest message seems to be: It’s exactly like the movies and TV shows. But everyone’s a bit nastier, a bit uglier, grottier and it costs less.

Nasty?

Well relentlessly violent, yes. The gun play is gratuitous, snubby, sharp, loud and close up. Guns are fired from the hip with little hesitation or morality bothering. Gangs are, to quote the poster, either in…or in the way. And the same goes for the public.

Blood squibs are bright and spurty and holes burst and pop in courdory jackets, silky blouses and loud cabana-wear shirts. The massacre itself is an odd, jarring, almost laughable mix of slo-mo falling, close-up groaning and fast-cut stills of corpses in a clumsy editing-room scissor-fest. Somehow both abrupt, overlapping, sudden and over-long.

The gore of dead dogs is pretty tame. The murderous spikes of butcher-hooks are lovely and gruey and heavy on the latex and ketchup. Punch-ups are no worse than an episode of The Sweeney.

So no. A lot of loud bang-bang death and splattery collapsing. But not enough to satisfy the gore-hungry by any means.

What does it remind me of?

Well here’s where it gets fun. Because as we’ve said, Mitchell has strolled the buffet of 60s-70s popular culture and stacked his paper-plate very high and wobbly with every scene you’ve ever seen in your life. And its huge fun just to point and nod and say “ooooh, this is a bit like that bit in…” (insert most movies here).

The meeting of the bosses when Chucky’s finger is being passed around has voice over straight out of Woody Allen’s “Take The Money And Run” (released the same week). It’s as close as you’re going to get to hearing the glorious, “wanted for robbery, attempted murder, and illegal possession of a wart,” or “bank robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, murder, and getting naked in front of his in-laws“; “dancing with a mailman” and of course “arson, robbery, assault with intent to kill, and marrying a horse.”

The long table is straight out of all those 1940s crime movies that gather the hoodlums, but it screams 1990’s “Dick Tracy.”

The cruise ship lounge singer we’ve seen a hundred times before and since. Either in the classic Italiano food-based singalong captured and pastiched again deliciously by Woody Allen in his marvellous “Broadway Danny Rose”

Or closer to home, that same “friend of the family” party-piece from 1990s The Krays

We are drowning in Sicilians of course, as this appears to be either accurate to the time or just a short-hand movie way of saying “cold blooded killers who love their mommas, good food, a fine tailor and a sing-song.” I’ll let the greats Christopher Walkens and Dennis Hopper explain it better than I can in Tony Scott’s “True Romance” (written by a credited Quentin Tarantino and an uncredited Roger Avary)…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsh4SvPdfl8

Dinners are pure TV ads for Ragu and Dolmio and make the Italiano-type puppets look like an exercise in cultural restraint.

The sex has exactly the look and feel of my first discovery of it, via the seedy and musty dog-eared paperbacks of Mickey Spillane. Curves, crackling polyester, full-make-up and gold St Chrisopher medals on a candlewick bedspread after too much Blue Nun. The odd boob and some soft core petting.

And the ending with the wiping out of the family might get bells ringing if you were one of the 4 people in 1993 who decided to give Jurassic Park a miss and see Schwarzenegger’s Last Action Hero instead…

Or for those who love a bit of racist military anti-European hogwash, this classic final scene from Dynasty in May of 1985 has a similar chaotic feel…

You’ve seen all of this done before, done better, done slicker and done with more taste and less Blue Stratos and garlic bread. But to Give Duke Mitchell his due, you wont have seen it done with as much self-belief, sure-footedness, confidence and singularity of purpose, promise or passion. Earnest, but Cosa-Nonsense of the highest order.

Where Can I Find it?

You’ll get a decent enough print of this on YouTube currently. I can’t post a link as it’s an age restricted movie – so you’ll need to prove your age before you type it in the search.

Arrow Films subscription will show it to you. And there appears to be a nice Blu Ray available too if that stirs your tortelloni.

“…something of a mess. Hill’s screenplay has peculiar narrative gaps that are not concealed by heaps on ‘right on, brother’ dialog, while his direction is frenzied without being exciting…” VARIETY

Who made it? Directed by Jack Hill | Written by Jack Hill| Director Of Photography Brick Marquard | Special Effects/make up Bruce Adams| Music Willie Hutch

Who’s in it? Pam Grier | Antonio Fargas | Peter Brown | Terry Carter | Kathry Loder | Harry Holcolmbe | Sid Haig | Juanita Brown

If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching…

Golden Voyage Of Sinbad | The Spikes Gang | The Conversation | Sugarland Express

Production notes and whatnot

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071517/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxy_Brown_(film)#Reception

What’s it all about?

Well it’s straight in! Bright colours, super sexy silhouettes, wiggling dancers, gun play and painfully hip jive stylings. Much like the template set by Bond movies, Foxy Brown opens with a sultry dancey bang. As fast paced strings and wah-wah guitars give at all the “wocka-waka-wocka-waka” seventies funk, technicolour silhouettes of our heroine dance and kick and punch and groove their booties. But no anonymous models are these – this is Pam Grier herself showing us all she got. Pam in a trouser suit! Kick! Pam in an evening dress! Pow! Pam in her underwear! Sock! All the while the soundtrack tells us just how “Superbad” this foxy lady is. “Don’t make Foxy mad!” Well why would you? She seems charming. Nobody is going to watch the opening credits and not wriggle with glee at the super retro funktastic Blaxploitation groove of the whole damned thing. She’s one bad mutha and we’re going to find out over the next 90 minutes why you don’t mess with Foxy Brown. Although, as I say, I don’t know why you would. On the surface at least, she seems delightful. Ho-hum.

It’s night. We assume downtown LA or West Hollywood, but it could be any dirty seedy part of a 70s American city. Neon. Liquor stores. Streetwalkers. Sirens. And who do we have here, but Lincoln “Link” Brown. If you had to look up “pimpy looking mofo” in the Collins Illustrated Dictionary, it’d be this flared collared, satin-shirted, finger-clickin’ heeled-boot jive-ass staring back from the page and no mistake. (I’m going to end up talking in this manner for most the review. I can’t help it. I feel like Huggy Bear).

He’s struttin’ and lopin’ and dodgin’ in and out of the shadows, because he’s being followed. A couple of goons direct from central casting are after him. You know the types. Tight suits, wide ties, pocket-squares, slip-ons, obligatory plain sedan town-car. Basically every nondescript bad guy you ever saw holding an attaché case full of money and a snub-nosed revolver who said “right boss,” in a carpeted office building as Mr. Big sloshed a decanter of bourbon.

Link is on the run, so grabs some cover at a Taco stand to avoid trouble, like he was Mr White and Mr Orange discussing diamond heist etiquette. Two slouchy cops appear on a break and sit next to him, grabbing much needed coffee and he has a moment’s respite. But Goon 1 & 2 (who we will learn are Eddie and Bunyon – it doesn’t matter which is which) are happy to play for time so for a few mins, Link, the goons and the cops all sit sipping coffee waiting for the other to leave. Link grabs his chance and jives his way nervously to a phone booth, checking behind him all the while. Ring ring…

And who should be awoken but our gallant heroine. In her plush apartment, all velvet and velour and purples and reds, satiny headboard and wicker chairs, it’s Foxy Brown. Big afro still in place, draped in an opaque baby-doll nightie, she fumbles for the phone. Yep, it’s Link. Her no good brother, in trouble again. Can she come and get him? Man, she’s furious. But family is family. So grabbing up her little hand-gun, and peeling out of her night-dress, she’s off to the rescue. This is clearly not the first time she’s had to help out her loser brother from some scrape with the law or the mob.

And what a rescue! As the cops depart for their rounds and the goons grab their chance, with a flash of headlights and squeal of tires, Foxy’s red car comes screeching in. Link jumps headfirst into the sun roof, legs flailing and Foxy chases down the goons. One is sent spinning to the sidewalk, the other clings to the hood of the car. Fast driving, left and right, Foxy heads to the obligatory docks and, slamming on the brakes, sends the goon hurtling from the hood, smashing through balsa fences and crashing, splashing into the water. A squeal, a skid and they’re outta there. Blimey.

We meet Foxy and Link a few minutes later, back at her apartment. Link has some weasily explaining to do. Link is grateful – “You saved my beautiful black ass!” And such. – but Foxy has had enough. They snipe back and forth as anyone who has a brother or sister will recognise. What’s Link got himself into now?

Well, gambling. Link’s got in with a dodgy crowd. Two big shots we’ll meet later, known as Miss Katheryn Wall and Mr Stevie Elias. And a couple of bad dudes they are. Link is a cool 20k in the hole with Kath and Stevie after his gambling racket went boobs up. They won’t give him the three days he needs to get square so they’re hunting him down. Foxy, as sisters will, gives him the usual ticking off, but Link is quick to snap back. It’s okay for her! She’s dating Dalton Ford! He’s a paid informer for the cops! Link was cool when he was dealing coke but Foxy made him quit that! We get a long passionate speech about Link and his failed ambition. There are no chances for black men like him! What’s a cat to do, man? Link sees no way to make it in the world outside of crime. Big sis’ Foxy ain’t buyin’ it though. Sure, he can stay with her for a while. But he’s gotta get out of the rackets. Link says he’ll try, but his destiny couldn’t be more signposted if he was a troubled padowan Jedi.

So who are this mob Link has got tied up in? Well let’s head over to their luxury office complex, all velvet and dark wood, heavy ashtrays and drinks trolleys and meet them. Behind her desk. Miss Katheryn is an odd type. Silky dresses, dark make-up, heavy hair, she’s a moll from the old school. Her beau, Stevie is the classic gruff hunk boss type. Roll necks, corduroy, jewellery, medallions and pinkie rings. The pair yell at the hopeless goons Eddie and Bunyon. How did they let this Link guy getaway? Some dame?! Don’t they realise what’ll happen to their business if they lose fear and respect! They’re gonna have to fix this Link guy and for good.

So what of Foxy and her boyfriend? The paid informer? Well next morning she’s off to visit him in all places, the hospital. He is in recovery, bandaged up like David McCallum in The Invisible Man. Foxy by name, Foxy by nature, she decides to wake him gently with a relaxing blow-job. Of course she does. Much raunchy bed talk and smiles as the couple are reunited. Dalton is recovering from plastic surgery – a way to disguise himself after his 2 years undercover drug work. He’s now going to re-enter the world as one “Michael Anderson”.

Well if that doesn’t deserve a good fuck, nothing does. However Foxy’s lusty intentions are cut short by the obligatory sassy black nurse who shooes her away and give Dalton/Michael’s cock a good hard thwacking to calm him down. Ouch.

The cops come and hand “Michael” his new passport and paperwork for his new identity. But the mood is less than triumphant as Dalton/Michael never got the convictions he was working on. Some “fixers” got to the judge and the jury. Fixers, we will soon discover, by the names of…yep, Miss Kathryn and Stevie…

Out of the hospital, we don’t have to wait long for more action as Foxy and Dalton come across a street fight. As a pimpy fellow jives down the street, a “cripple” jumps into action and takes him down. Black figures jump from cars, all fists and kicks. Fast flutes and hi-hats and piccolos accompany the violent street-fightin’ punch up, hard and fast on the corner street. As the bad guy makes a run for it, good ole’ Foxy trips him and allows his attackers to finish him off with a punch over a news vendor cart and with some karate chops and kicks, the poor fellow is bundled into a plain car and driven away.

Turns out the accosters are Foxy’s pals. A few streetwise Black Panther beret and arm-band types calling themselves the “Neighbourhood Anti-Slavery Committee.” They’re out there doin’ what the cops won’t – protecting the streets from dope peddlers. Unlike the judges and the lawmen, they can’t be bought. “You dig?” “Right on brother…” (There’s a lot of that stuff). Dalton is not sure he approves of this rough handed vigilantism. But hell, Foxy tells him “vigilantes are as American as apple pie.”

Meanwhile? Well idiot Link is about as trusty-worthy as he appears. (Not trustworthy at all). He’s on the phone trying to get back into business. On the other end? A dumb looking gum chewing blonde broad in pyjamas. Interrupted as Foxy and Dalton come home, Dalton introduces himself innocently in his new persona. “Mike Anderson. A friend.” Eager to score and get back to work, Link is outta there, tugging down his slouchy baker’s boy cap. With the place to themselves, and no sassy black nurse to be twonging his pecker, Foxy and Dalton have funky slow sex: Lots of boobs and neck action. But fairly chaste, considering the genre.

After sex, they’re both gonna get outta here. A few chores and then kick the dust off this town.

Later, Link is back and watches Foxy pack her bag. In his fingers, he fondles the newspaper cutting that talks of “informant Dalton being missing presumed dead.” Foxy ain’t talking. But hell, whoever grassed up this Dalton and got him whacked must have made a big payday, right? Folk would pay top dollar for that information. “That’d be worth $20k to someone if they knew where he was.” Without realising what Link has in mind, Foxy leaves. Link thinks…and takes a pencil to the photo of missing Dalton. A scribble here? A shadow there? Hell…that’s Mike Anderson! Ker-ching! Or words to that effect.

Back in their plush offices, Mr Elias is having some Mexican heroin tested by one of his chemists. Yep, a lick and a sniff? Quality is good. There are lots of chunky handshakes and rattly identity bracelets as they agree to a buy. $10k now and the rest on delivery. Then, a phone call to Elias. Good news! Someone has squealed. The guy with the $20k who escaped? He’s got Dalton’s whereabouts!

Hoo-boy! The goons meet. (Kathryn and Stevie, barking at dumb goons Eddie and Bunyon). Miss Katheryn wants Dalton dead. Or as she more delicately puts it, “I want that damned nigger cop fink burned.”

Charming. So the goons have their orders. From their car, they watch Foxy and Dalton innocently prepping for their trip away, without a care in the world. Dalton heads to a drug store, Foxy heads home. Link is gone…but what’s this? The newspaper cutting with the scribbled face and features? “Oh Link!” Sudden gunfire! Dalton comes crashing in screaming as goons drive by the apartment and shoot him dead. Foxy holds her lover, sobbing and crying for his senseless death. Link. That goddamn Link! The man she loved!

Well, after his $20k payoff for the info, old Linky is back in business! He and the dumb gum-chewin’ blonde are at her place, measuring coke with scales and baggies and spoons like they were TS Eliot. Back in the big time! An interrupting knock on the door? They hide the blow and open up. Oopsie. It’s one angry Foxy with a Smith & Wesson revolver. All bare midriff, silky top and headscarf, she comes I guns blazing. Bang! She takes a notch from Link’s ear and down he goes screaming. Dammit, Foxy wants the name of who he told about Dalton! Link, ever the frightened weasel, gives it up – Kathryn Wall. She’s the protection, she’s the fixer – she makes sure the bad guys get away with what they’re doing. Jurys, judges, cops… She’s behind it all. Her front? A model agency running call-girls to the top men in town. That’s all Foxy needs. Before she leaves, however, Foxy smashes the apartment up. Someone’s not getting their deposit back. Foxy demands Link get out of town. If he was smart, he’d listen. But hell, whaddya you think?

So how can young Foxy get to this Kathryn woman and her model agency/bribery fixing scheme? Well, exactly the way you’d imagine. We next see Foxy as she sashays in to Miss Kathryn’s, dressed for work as a model. Yellow wrap around dress, busty bust, bare shoulders and a straight-hair wig. She meets Miss Kathryn. Talks sass. None of this acting modelling bull, stop wasting time. She knows its whores. “She’ll do the hell out of whoever.” Kathryn, ever the business woman, is impressed by this black fox. “Be back here ready at 4pm.”

Oh, we’re about halfway through now. Got the set up? Foxy wants revenge on Kathryn and her goons for killing Dalton. That’s about it. Oh there are drug deals and Link being a bastard. But we’re pretty much set up for 40mins of pure Blaxploitation revenge. Excellent. Let’s crack on

Next day? 4pm? As arranged, Kathryn has her new hooker. In a red plungey dress, Foxy is a knockout and sure to please Kathryn’s demanding clientele of corrupt judges and jurors.

But running a fixer joint plus model agency plus brothel is clearly a stressful gig as we meet Kathryn barking angry instructions to her girls. Too fat! Too tired! Sipping scotch, relaxing in his smoking jacket, Mr Elias hangs out like a Mandate cologne model, all chiselled chin and furry chest. Hell, he likes the look of this new Foxy and is caught eyeing her up as she is pimped and dressed by Kathryn’s assistants. Sexy saxophone and piano tinkles as Foxy reappears in clingy blue dress. Lots of cleavage and a long wavy wig. Good to go.

Being new to the game Kathryn teams Foxy up with one of her more reliable gals, Claudia. Skinny, doped up, strung out and wretched, Claudia is nobody’s idea of a good time. But has enough slutty devil-may-care don’t-give-a-shitness to be able to put out for a bunch of portly corrupt legal types.

Foxy and Claudia’s job is outlined – Kathryn and Stevie have 2 dope peddlars up in front of the judge tomorrow. F and C’s job is to make sure the judge gets “what he wants” from the gals and is persuaded to let the dealers off. Simple, right? Just as they’re getting into the car to head to a hotel room full of corrupt judges, Claudia’s distraught son and husband arrive. They plead with her to leave the business. However Claudia is in too deep. She can’t leave. At which point Stevie and the goons turns up and daddy gets a good ole beating before he’s dragged away. Don’t mess with the business.

In the limo on the way to the judges’ party, Claudia greedily pops pills like they were tic tacs and talks about how to cope with it all. But Foxy has a better idea than just playing along with Kathryn’s demands. Why not play together with the Judge? Sounds like more fun?

Well not for the judge, as we’re about to discover. A hotel room. The judge and cronies are having a weird party. Porn plays on the Super 8mm projector and topless women sit about, bored, on men’s laps. F and C arrive and take the Judge to his room for fun. They tease the judge, talking about the dealers he has to release tomorrow.

They strip him down and tease him about his tiny penis, which he is oddly happy to play along with. I mean it’d put me right off, but hey, that’s me. Foxy peels off down to her blue underwear and, as these taunt and flirt and tease…they shove the judge into the public hallway. Oopsie! As he lays, flailing in the carpeted hallways, what appears to be Mary Whitehouse and the cast of Songs Of Praise appear and – shock! – catch judge without his trousers and give him an old fashioned hand-bagging. Nice.

The woman laugh, hysterical about their misbehaviour. But laughter turns to panic when Claudia realises how she’ll be punished by Miss Kathryn. She’ll never see her kids. But don’t worry! Ole’ Foxy has a plan to get her out and get her free.

Next day. Ohhh fuck.  The Judge? Dammit. Yep, he’s jailed the dope peddlers. Sent the pair down the river. Hardly surprising, after the way he was treated by the gals. Kathryn, natch, is furious. If they can’t be relied on to fix the judges, they’re out of business. Man oh man, those girls are gonna get it! Especially that sassy new one!

That morning, Foxy comes home hoping to find Claudia. But no. She’s gone. To her fellah? Back to Kathryn? To Centre Parcs? Nope, to drown her sorrows in a local saw-dusty lesbian bar. Well, it’s where I’d go.

It’s a plain kind’a place. Bare wood, a jukebox, dull plain faces of local lesbians sit about, bored, glugging bottles of cheap beer trying to come to terms with a life. Funk plays but nobody’s dancing. Claudia stumbles in, looking for company, looking for distraction. “Keep her here,” barmaid tells the clientele. She’s had word from Kathryn. Apparently, Kathryn has her fingers everywhere. Hmm. Fishy. So to speak.

Foxy arrives. How she knew to look here, is not made clear. Maybe it’s the nearest watering hole. Trying to drag Claudia away we get a great old school western bar fight. Screams, punches, kicks, bottles, rolling around, smashed juke box, hair pulls, smashed card tables, cheap wood and fake glass bottles, gun fire, Foxy drags Claudia away.

Only to find – doh – Stevie and his goons waiting for them. Ohhhh bollocks. A chase. Fast funk. Bongos and wacka-wocka wah-wah. Alley ways, bins, fences, chain-link. Broken bottles. Climbing gates. Foxy hits a goon with bin. Bloody mouths. “Bitch!” Just as Foxy is about to be carved up, Stevie arrives. He has plans for her.

Well they’ve got her now. Kidnapped, Foxy is being assaulted and man-handled by the goons. Stevie turns up, all Hai Karate and medallions. He’s had Foxy I.D.’ed. She is Dalton’s girlfriend! Plus? The sister of the dope dealer who turned him in! “These people don’t believe in family loyalty.”  They will take her to the ranch and fill her full of heroin. Ranch? Once she has the habit she’ll fetch a good price when sent to the island…

Island? Blimey. Things aren’t looking good.

So now we are at this ranch. Somewhere in the desert. A jaws harp twangs. A ratty bed and filthy mattress. Mosquitoes. Hot. Sweaty. Torn clothes. Pulp Fiction style, we have a couple of good ole’ boys, leering and dribbling, stinking of liquor and sweat. Among broken bottles, burnt tyres and oil barrels, in their greasy dungarees, they’re gonna keep Foxy here. Get her hooked on junk. Sell her on. Tee-hee etc.

But no! Our Foxy is foxier than that and ain’t gonna take this lying down. Or, indeed, pumped full of heroin. Groggy but up and at ‘em, she tries to escape… but is caught. A whip around her neck brings her flailing to the dusty ground. Cackling, the hicks are slapping her, tying her up. There’s a fair bit of “This big jugged jigaboo,” which is frankly unnecessary. A needle of dope forced into her arm, the hicks are feeling horny and tear off her clothes, climbing on board for a bit of, what Alex and his Droogs would call, the old in-out in-out. Christ…

Foxy awakes after the gruelling ordeal. Ever vigilant and never beaten, she leans over and tongues a used razor blade into her mouth from the heroin table next to her bed. Stealthily, she manages to cut her ropes and escape from the iron bed. She gathers 3 coat hangers from a wardrobe and, with a bend, fashions a  Freddie-clawed weapon. Outside in the dust, her rapist sings tunelessly like Quint in Jaws, a rough song about Linda Lou. I forget the lyrics. “There once was a girl called Linda Lou, er…give her a buck and she’ll suck your dick.” Or something like that.

Desperate to escape, Foxy sucks oil from barrel into a bowl with syphoning suck of a filthy tube. But a hick is upon her! Foxy slashes at him with the hangers! Blood and screams stripe his face. The other kick stumbles in. Foxy tosses gasoline on him and throws a lit flame. An inferno of denim, screams and casual racism as they holler and writher. The hut collapses as she flees, leaving the men burning.

There’s 20mins left, if you’re counting.

Well naturally we’re back with Kathryn and Stevie and the goons. Foxy has fucked everything up godddamit. The shipment at the ranch has been destroyed by the fire. They have to tell their dealers they’ll have to wait a week for the new shipment from Mexico. But Kathryn and Stevie KNOW it was Foxy who caused it. Find her and kill her, dammit. “We’re going to kill ourselves a couple of niggers.” And hey, they know how to find them. Link? Of course. Who else?

Coked up and high as a Blue Peter presenter, Link is having frisky sex with his dumb blonde girlfriend. Between thrusts, there’s plenty of powdery snorty sniffs. Topless, she’s all about the coke and the fun. What could go wrong? Well, once again? Doorbell. Who is this?

Of course. It’s Eddie with Stevie Elias. “Where is she?!” Shouts and screams as they search for Foxy. Waving about a sawn-off shotgun, Stevie lets rip and blows Link to pieces. Whoops. With only the dumb blonde as a witness…yep, they’d better cut her throat and leave her for dead. Which they do, with ketchupy gooey nastiness.

Foxy, as we know, has escaped the ranch. Somehow she has made her way back to her friends, the “Neighbourhood Committee against Slavery” we met earlier. Yep, those guys. Sitting in their den (lair? Cabin? Hideout? Shack? Tree house?) there are angry posters and right-on art on the walls. The black men have all gone to the head-bands and leather combat waistcoat school of fashion and design and sit on folding chairs righteously and pouting around a bare war-room table as Foxy makes her case.

Oh and what a case it is! This is how you get a bunch of vigilantes riles up:  “Man, she needs their help! Good men are dying out there! It could be any of us! Our brothers! Our sisters! We gotta stand up!” and so on. Manly quiet nodding as Afros bounce and brows are furrowed. You said it sister. The leader is troubled buy all this. Sounds a little like she wants them to take care of her personal business? “Sounds like revenge?” “You take care of the justice,” Foxy tells them, anger and fury in her eyes, “I’ll handle the revenge.” Blimey it’s exciting. We are heading for a big finish and someone’s getting comeuppance.

We are at a local airfield. A funky jive talking guy in the Red Hat Of Patferrick is holding court at the table with pals. At the bar? Well who’s this foxy madam in a lot of camel suede, boots and a sass-filled hat o’er one eye? The pilot is charmed and Foxy gives it all the coy flirting she can. She twirls her hair. “Never been on a plane before…” This bozo can’t believe his luck. He’s got a flight down to Mexico real soon. Foxy is in!

Meanwhile, the deal is being prepped. Ole Stevie is trying to leave his apartment for the south of the border drug deal but Kathryn is being clingier than her silky frock. While she paws and smooches her hunk, keeping him distracted, Stevie is distracted, still giving it lashes of scotch, medallions, jewellery, flat-fronted trews and a few pints of bouffanty Hai Karate. He’ll hurry back. She’ll wait. Presumably lounging around in a flouncy bit of sheer acrylic crackly enough to power Cuba.

So we’re in the plane. Or the cockpit at least, which with a wobble and a bit of dry ice out the window, may or may not be actually flying. (It isn’t). The pilot and Foxy are making flirty chit chat on their way across the border for the cocaine drop off.

In Mexico, goons Eddie and Bunyon plus boss Stevie arrive at a quiet airfield. Corrupt cops take a handful of bank notes to keep the place clear for a while. IN a dusty shack, goons meet more goons (It’s a Goon Show, as it were) and money is counted and samples tested. Lots of staring at each other trying to make their polo neck and medallion look more menacing than another’s pinkie-ring and kipper-tie combo.

The plane drones in and lands. Foxy keeps low and the pilot clambers out with his sports holdall full of, we assume, coke. Dodgy dealings ensue. At the entry to the airfield, a plan van drives up. The cops try and wave them away but…aww fuck. It’s the Black Panthers. Half a dozen black guys with automatic weapons spread out, disarm the cops and take over the perimeter.

Meanwhile Foxy is up and at ‘em! Into the cockpit, full throttle, Foxy powers the Cessna back along the airfield to attack the goons. Panic! Flee! The money goes one way, the drugs go another and Foxy chases goons left and right in the plane. Goon #1 tries to play chicken with the aircraft…which ends in a glorious rubbery juicy splatter of blood, bone, hair and cheap suit as she ploughs him down. Gunfire! Car chase! Black Panthers! Goons! A firey shoot-out on the hot tarmac.

Stevie knows the jig is up so makes a run for it, jumping into his sedan and flooring it. HE squeals dustily to the perimeter for the cops to let him go but…yep! There are no cops anymore. Just the “Neighbourhood Anti-Slavery Committee,” armed to the teeth. Dragging him out, they splay him across the hood of his car. Foxy arrives. There is some nodding and agreement and then a wave of a fuckin’ big hunting knife. Stevie’s trousers are unbuckled and pulled to his knees. The knife is waggled in the sunlight. Are they..? Surely they won’t..? Stevie panics! No! But yes. Camera pulls into his gurning screaming face as blade meets balls…

Which only leaves one strand of the tale to clean up. Back at their low-slung apartment, among fur rugs and Danish modern furniture, Kathryn awaits her lover’s return. But nope, it ain’t Stevie. It’s that damned Foxy Brown. She has the holdall. The remaining goons pat her down, but she’s unarmed.  “I got a present from your faggot boyfriend.”

And she produces…a cloudy pickle-jar. Tossing it over to Kathryn, it’s peered and at examined. Kathryn realises the contents are fleshy and familiar…

The jar drops, smashes. Much yelling! But ever prepared, Foxy reaches into her tremendous afro and tugs out her little sliver automatic. Blam! Blam! The goons go down.

Now Foxy faces Kathryn. Kathryn, her world collapsing around her, begs for death. But that wouldn’t be revenge. Death would be too good for her.

With a loud BANG, Foxy shoots Kathryn in the arm, and the woman drops screaming to the floor. Katheryn, now injured, will have to live a long lonely life with her crippled lover. She will suffer, just as Foxy has suffered.

Triumphantly, Foxy strides out with more sass than John Travolta at Jack Rabbit Slims. Into her car, her Black Panther pal sits revving at the wheel. With a squeal, they pull away. We zoom in to Foxy’s face.

Freeze frame.

Is it any good?

Wow. It’s terrific. Fast, punchy, slappy and violent, you’ll come for the fist-fights and funk, but stay for the hairstyles, clothes and pure hip energy of the whole thing.

We’re in new territory though, dear reader. I think it’s fair to say – looking back on our project so far, we are dealing with a new first. If Hershell Lewis’s “Blood Feast” was the first splatter, “Love Camp 7” was the first “porno,” (of sorts), we can call “Mark Of The Devil” the first “thriller” (that is to say, no supernatural aspects), and “Headless Eyes” our first “psycho-on-the-loose.” But with 1974’s Foxy Brown we have our first Blaxploitation piece.

Not a term we’ve come across and certainly I think watching this yesterday was a first for me. Maybe I might have watched a bit of “Shaft” with my father if that was on telly? Don’t really remember. Although nobody can forget Isaac Hayes’s theme tune. No matter who’s singing it…

So let’s dig and find out what this genre is all about, where it came from and whether this is a good place to start.

Story is it was one Junius Griffin, the then President of the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) who came up with this word in 1972, specifically to identify a new breed of motion picture. The NAACP was formed in 1909, to date 300k members-strong across the US to – in their own words – “…ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.” Which in 1909 was a major cause for concern. It’d be nice to say they disbanded having achieved their aims a few years later. But, y’know. Read a book.

So, Junius Griffin. His term was a catch-all way if identifying a new breed of action cinema which began to emerge in the early 1970s. One can argue about the “first” of the type, but as ever – these sorts of affairs don’t arrive fully fledged and formed out of nowhere. Trends grow and develop and scenes and themes and styles catch-on and one day – tah-dahhh – there’s a genre with a dozen of examples jockeying for chart attention. A brief bit of research suggests suspects for “very first” might be “They Call Me Mr Tibbs” and “Cotton Comes To Harlem” from 1970, plus the legendary “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” from 1971.

But what are we talking about? Griffin was recognising a new breed of motion picture with new styles, new ethics, a new message, a new look and – most importantly – new heroes. How does one spot a Blaxploitation movie?

Well it’s more than a black leading man or an African American setting. Porgy & Bess or Take A Giant Step (1959) for example aren’t troubling any retrospectives where Sheba Baby or Dolomite are playing.

What you gotta have is a what Vincent Canby of The New York Times called, “…super-charged, bad-talking, highly romanticized melodramas about Harlem superstuds, the pimps, the private eyes and the pushers who more or less singlehandedly make whitey’s corrupt world safe for black pimping, black private-eyeing and black pushing.”

By and large it’s the North East or West Coast of the U.S. for location and its poor urban neighbourhoods. You won’t go long without a shoot-out or a punch-up. Women are likely to be full of sass and confidence as well as busty and curvy as all get out. Plots revolve around drug deals, sex, trafficking, gangs, dealers, prostitution and aren’t likely to hold back on shocking scenes, violent outbursts and provocative language. If the white folks are known as “The Man”, or “Cracker McHonky” and empowered black protagonists overcome prejudice and subjugation by society, then you’re in the right territory.

Add to these fast pace dramas, a decent car-chase or two, some killer fashions, great hair and the obligatory funk soundtracks with heavy bass, wah-wah guitars and whirling flutes and strings? You gotchaself a Blaxploitation pic.

The question that Griffin’s catch-all term raises is…this a good thing or not? I mean…the “blax” is one thing, but the “…ploitation?” Sure, representation in an art form where one is used to being the sidekick, the bystander, the villain or the victim is of course a welcome relief and a long time coming. In 1972, the question remained, is a run of thrillers, shoot-em ups and punch-ups depicting African American culture as a messy immoral illegal world of drugs, crime and violence really the representation a culture needs to move forward? Is it more of just a base appeal to an audience’s most prurient interests?

Well while many joined Griffin in decrying this trend in African American film, there were of course others who believed they were all to the good. Strong black male and female leads, their own code and morals, living in the real world of prejudice and corruption. A group side-lined by “the man” and, as Link famously puts it, “unless you can sing or dance or play basketball? What other choice does America give a poor black dude?” (I’m paraphrasing, but it’s a powerful scene and we genuinely believe that Link – and the men he represents that education and opportunity left behind – have been pushed into these lifestyle with little choice)

Plus of course these movies showed locations, people, society and culture that the black 1970s audience could understand and relate to. What else were they going to watch? A bunch of Burt Reynolds good-ole boys taking Transams across the US with denim hot-panted blondes in the bucket seat beside them?

Denim hot-panted, I don’t believe is an expression. Forgive me.

Yvonne D. Sims in her book Women of Blaxploitation, criticized Foxy Brown. Grier’s depiction of black womanhood was considered “disturbing,” in a time when African Americans were making progress politically, socially, and culturally. Sims felt Foxy Brown’s heroine contradicted the image they were creating for themselves in society and wasn’t doing progress any favours. But as ever in these debates, the flip-side speaks up just as loudly and the fearless power and agency of Grier’s characters has been embraced by many feminists. So y’know – ya buys ya ticket, ya makes ya choice.

But all of this academic conjecture only gets us so far. Is it, as I asked about an hour ago, any good? Foxy Brown is, after all the lectures and theories a 1974 blaxploitation romp much loved by Tarantino and other nerdy cine-buffs as a classic of its time. Not the first, not the last, not the best. But boy oh boy, if someone wanted an idea of what these movies are all about, there are much worse places to start.

On a personal note – which frankly is what this project is all about – for a middle aged Honkey Cracker like me, I loved it. I mean, I’m not about to go out and drop a grand on a Blue Ray collection of classics. But hell, for the duration of Foxy Brown, I was jiggling about in my seat with a big Taco-eatin’ grin on my face.

The director Jack Hill has a terrific sense of pace. There’s not a lingering establishing shot, a slow pan or a ponderous set-up in any frame. The whole tale thunders along with a great sense of speed and efficiency like film-stock was oil and he was Mad Max. The cast and characters – while largely stereotypes to be fair (especially the bad guys) – are slickly painted and we get motivation and purpose in the first 10 secs of their screen time. There’s hoods, there’s corrupt judges, there’s sassy dames and hipster jive-talking bad folk. Hill trusts us to know our genre and not a second is wasted with back-story or long ponderous explanations of fathers or families or why’s and how’s. Everyone is supercharged and has something they gotta do and its terrific fun sitting back and watching it all play out.

And play out to an amazing score. This kind of fast jazz-funk may not be everyone’s cup of java, but as a backdrop to the kind of cars, fashions and action, Willie Hutch’s guitars and drums, plus fast flutes and those whirling strings get the action leaping off the screen. One is high fiving and fist punching all the way as cars squeal and skid, high-kicks hit chins and goons go sprawling across baked LA sidewalks.

Not being old enough, or American enough, or indeed black enough to know the factual basis of most of this stuff, I assume costumer has huge fun exaggerating (or depicting) the looks of the time. Collars are huge, flares are flapping, colours pop, hair shines and every outfit Pam Grier sashays on with is a stunning bit of polyester. The blokes – so oft’ short changed in this sort of caper – get the standard grey suits and slip ons of course. But the main villains Miss Kathryn and Stevie simply reek of the 1970s with all the satins and sheer silks you could possibly want.

What to say about the plot? Well it’s a classic bit of revenge thriller nonsense. Good gal Foxy gets wronged by the mob, she takes revenge. Simple. But part of the appeal of the genre is the agency the black cast have in the whole caper. At no point do they phone the white cops, rely on the white judges, call on white lawyers or “the man” to get them out of scrapes. And for an audience at the time, this kind of empowerment was crowd-cheering stuff. One is reminded of Samuel L Jackson’s character in Die Hard With A Vengeance. “And who do we not want to help us? White people.” There’s a strong chance Jackson has a poster of Pam Grier up in his shop backroom.

The action, which we’ll get to in a minute, is terrific. Hard and fast, it pulls no punches (so to speak) and is tough and sharp and nasty. Punches connect, blades cut, kicks crack and the violence is all about adrenaline and heart-rate. Terrific stuff, edge of your seat the whole way.

Not much more to say. Pam Grier is a bottled lightening force of sex and rage and we are with her the whole way. Her brother Link – who many folk will know as “Huggy Bear” in Starksy & Hutch, over-playing his pimpy jive-ass brother act for the softer Saturday Night TV crowd – is sleazy and funny and snakey and perfect as Link. Someone you’d trust forever, but still count your silverware when he left. Huge fun. Goons are goons and they do their goon thing valiantly.

Nasty?

Well…I mean…sort of. As I said, it’s got plenty of violence. Punches, kicks, slaps, beatings, bottles, smashed chairs, flashing blades. And of course that terrific “goon in a propeller” bit of gore in the final act. The drugs are front and centre, if they bother you, and the language isn’t something you’d hear on television. Spooks and niggers and jigaboos and all the nasty cursey slurs you’d expect of the time. A blade to the blonde’s neck is gruesome. The punch-ups are snappy and nasty. The gun play loud and brutal with popping blood squibs and plenty of claret, as they say. But honestly? Not much worse than you would have got in an episode of The Sweeney.

What does it remind me of?

Well here it gets interesting. For me anyway. As I’ve gotta come clean on this one. For all its big screen bravado and Blaxploitation bombastic balls, all the way through my honkey cracker mind kept spinning back to more familiar territory. That is, the American 1970/80 Saturday evening cop show. It has that “wrap it all up in 28m” feel. Tone down the language and violence, and we are in the world of The A-Team, with panel vans and suited goons and Mr Big and airfield fisticuffs. I mean, this is the nature of the format and has much to do with the setting.

Let’s talk about that, because I’d hate to be seen as dismissive of a great piece of black banned action cinema. But it occurred to me, and it’s my site, so whaddya gonna do?

Hollywood. Oh bless its little heart. The few thousand square feet of California where so much of my childhood was born. Being a boy who grew up glued to the television…

And I mean this. I recall having a conversation with a school chum, Edward Gormley, when I was about 14. I explained our family life and he rocked back in his Clark’s brogues in a mixture of astonishment and thinly disguised disgust. Life was TV. Telly. Children’s TV got clicked on at 4.30 when we got home and the “idiot box” stayed burbling away in the corner all night, until it was clicked off at bedtime. Kids TV, news, soaps, dramas, comedies, game-shows, more news, documentaries, films… My entire childhood was spent shovelling cold meat and salad into my face, and then as the evening drew on, mug-fulls of tea, as flickering entertainment filled the living room. Dinners on laps, dinners on trays, hunched around the telly. Edward, being a little posher and well-to-do than us Asplins, found all of this alarming. Where was the dining room? The drawing room? The family card game? Charades? Bridge? Hah. As Mr Pink once said: “Yeahhhh, fuck all that.”

My entire youth had the soundtrack of Mike Post and Pete Carpenter and the production values of Stephen J Cannell. Knight Rider, The A-Team, Airwolf, Blue Thunder, Manimal, Street Hawk, BJ & The Bear, Vegas, Blossom,  Doogie Howser, M.D.,  Hardcastle and McCormick, Magnum P.I.,  Quantum Leap… That’s what grown up life was like and I confidently expected the adult world I would one day enter to have a lot more punch-ups, saloons, panel-vans, attache cases, Colt 45s, M-16 machine guns, glamourous dames, sheriffs and hay bales. Oh the disappointment.

Anyhoo, why am I telling you this? To give you a sense of the aesthetic of Foxy Brown. It has the pace, thrills, stunts, goons and balsa-wood bar-stools of the 70s/80s adventure TV of my childhood. The cars, the streets, the cops – it’s all straight out of Knight Rider. With the “wrap it all up in 28mins” fast edits and plotting to go with it. Harder, darker, swearier, sexier and bloodier of course. But that’s the feel and I felt very much at home in Foxy’s world, as you will if you’ve shared my TV habits.

Where can I see it?

Well if you subscribe to Arrow, the grotty little on-demand movie channel for the best in rare sleaze and cheapie thrills (my slogan, not theirs) then Foxy Brown is there.

The handy site justwatch.com will fill you in on availability online

https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/foxy-brown

 And for collectors and such, there’s a nice Blu Ray available.

“The killings are more sleazy than stylish, but fits the film’s overall grindhouse-like texture, and as a giallo, its multi-leveled with the right amount of suspense and enough quirky characters to keep most Euro trash fans smirking.” DVDDRIVE-IN.COM

Who made it? Directed by Carlos Aured | Written by Paul Naschy (as Jacinot Molina)| Director Of Photography Francisco Sanchez | Special Effects Manuel Gomez | Music Juan Carlos Calderon

Who’s in it? Paul Naschy | Diana Lorys | Maria Perschy | Eva Leon | Eduardo Calvo

If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching: The Longest Yard | Appassionata | The Godfather Part II | The Exorcist | Herbie Rides Again

Production notes and whatnot

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069041/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Eyes_of_the_Broken_Doll

What’s it all about?

We are driving through the desert-y French scrubland. Cloudy purple mountains in the distance. The sky is huge and wide. Funky flute and jazz plays as we come across a lone hitch-hiker. Heavy set, dark brooding eyes, chunky leather blouson jacket and clompy heeled boots, he trudges along the empty road thumbing for a lift.

A kindly old farmer stops his tractor and lets our drifter climb on. He explains in dubbed over French, that the man is unlikely to find work around here. Now the harvest is over, there is no farmhands required. But our figure isn’t too discouraged and is dropped off near a small town. Shoving hands in his jacket pockets, De Niro Taxi Driver poster style, he hefts up his small bag (which frankly can’t contain more than some pants, a vest and a small gun), he wanders in long, long, long shots through alley ways and streets like he were Lawrence Of Arabia taking ages to arrive on a camel.

Finally he comes across what appears to be the only shop in the village: A dusty and ratty old café/shop/market/bar sort of place – all dried out sandwiches, Schweppes ads and faded magazine racks. The proprietor of Café Caroline (we assume Caroline) isn’t so happy to have this grumpy drifter clogging up her tables. She is all thick, black, Amy-Winehouse hair, heavy make-up and long cigarette holder dangling over the cheese toasties and in a pair of clacky mules, (as Kath & Kim used to delightfully say).

Our drifter asks about work, as drifters tend to do in these sorts of capers. Caroline dismisses him, so he trudges out with a cheesy baguette and employment on his mind. An old man and a moustachioed Gendarme pass comment as he leaves: Why did Caroline not tell him about the 3 sisters up the hill? The women who are need of farm help and shopping and woodcutting and all sorts of manly assistance? Well, coz Caroline’s a bitch frankly and couldn’t be arsed with that. Nice girl. But the suspicious Gendarme wonders if he’s seen this swarthy chap before? If so, it’s probably in a mail order catalogue advertising vest and pants sets. He’s that sort of chunky chap.

But then who should our drifter come across outside, but one of these three sisters, driving past the café in the obligatory creaky old Citroen. Let’s meet her.

This is Claude. Which is a man’s name, so we’ll assume Claudette. But you need to remember that or it’ll get confusing. Perhaps I’ll call her Claudette for the remainder of this, for fear you will forget and this story will come across a fuck lot more homoerotic than it is. Yes, let’s do that.

Claudette is a glamourous older woman. I say “older woman” – she probably in her 40s. But these movies are so usually packed tight with teenagers, it’s nice to see a grown up. She’s a grown up woman.

Well-kept and with a touch of steely glamour. Not quite your MILF, but certainly getting there. Although, in a key point, she is ashamed and embarrassed by her arm which we see – before she hurriedly covers it – is burnt and withered and she has a clumsy plastic prosthetic hand). More of that later. But not much more.

She is one of three sisters who live up at the “old house”. (There’s always people up at the “old house”). She offers work to our drifter hero – who introduces himself as Gilles. Just household and farm-work, she explains. They had a helper called Jean a while ago but he has since left them. She will pay him well. Gilles likes the look of the dame and hell, a bit of farm work is what he’s looking for (as Caroline doesn’t seem to need kitchen help with the Gauloise or slicing cold quiche) so is happy to oblige. Claudette explains her sisters also need the help: Two women – Nicole and Yvette. Yep, he’s up for all that. Lead the way.   

On the winding way to the house as they drive in the dark, there is a thump. Investigating, they find a crippled pigeon who either flew into the radiator grille and is now fucked, or they ran over in the old Citroen, but it being such a tinny and flimsy suspension, it’s given the bird little more than a headache. Weird flashbacks and/or foreshadowing and/or something as Claudette breaks the pigeon’s little neck. This act sends Gilles swooning and we are suddenly in a woozy dream sequence. He is standing in a blank space, hands tight around a blonde woman’s neck.

She screams and writhes. He over-powers her… And then BANG, we’re back on the side of the road. Oh this isn’t good at all. Clearly a chap haunted by a violent past.

But let’s get to the house to meet the other sisters. And what a fine pair they are.

Firstly, it’s Nicole. (Papa? Nicole? Papa! Etc). Nicole is, according to Wikipedia, a Nymphomaniac. Which seems a bit harsh. But boy oh boy, is she a horny sexpot. All knee high boots and tight red sweater and tumbling fair hair, curvy bum and pouty pouts. Blimey. Gilles likes the look of this set up.

Inside we meet sister number three of our sketch – a more sombre and demur woman – Yvette. She is upstairs, creaking about on the landing in a wheelchair, crippled from the waist down. Her, not the wheelchair. Obviously.

There is natural suspicion about Claudette popping out for groceries and coming back with this swarthy gruff loner. So they shall be on their guard. But hell, since Jean fucked off, they’ve been needing someone to milk cows and chop wood and feebly rake leaves. So gift horses and mouths and whatnot. Let’s see how he gets on.

Gilles is shown to the large functional kitchen. Big and plain. Starts getting nosey about the whole set up. Sisters? Wheelchairs? Illness? Hand? But Claudette won’t discuss it. It clearly upsets and disgusts her and she is very unhappy, and not going to discuss it with some “fucking wood-chopping guy” (copyright Peters Friends, 19942 All Rights Reserved).

Claudette feels “repugnant and hideous”. So Gilles is shown to the standard sparce room – sheets and blankets, jug of water on night stand, ironwork bed, thick curtains – just like every loner in this sort of movie gets (See “Pigs” and all the other “troubled loner looking for work” movies). And yes, we were right. Gilles tucks his pants and vest set in a drawer and hides a small handgun under the chest of drawers. A small looking gun, but – in case you’re wondering – one of those handy movie guns that can fire about 140 shots without reloading. As we’ll find out later.

Next day we assume, Claudette has Gilles at work earning his meagre keep. Still in his smart slacks, cotton dress shirt, leather jacket and boots, he’s hunched over milking a cow. And then, not for the last time by any means, young Nicole appears for some red-shirted, big boobied sultry seduction.

Hoo boy. She coyly follows him about, clearly up for some naughty drifter-nookie. But Gilles is smart. Horny, yes. But not an idiot. He doesn’t want to blow the gig on the first day. So he avoids her clutches like Kenneth Williams being pawed by a lusty busty Hattie Jacques. If you know what I mean.

So – let’s meet the doctor who will be reappearing regularly. He’s a classic bluff older chap, all flat hair, trimmed goatee and portly frame in a tight three piece. Leather bag, kindly manner. He’s Yvette’s doctor and clearly spends a lot of time tending to the crippled woman with soothing noises and painkillers.

He leaves a distressed Yvette and makes chit chat with Claudette over a favourite liqueur. Doctor Phillipe, for tis his name, explains he’s working on new treatment for Yvette. Psychotherapy? Hypnotism? He believes the paralysis may all be in her mind. Plus, there is a good new nurse coming to town who can help. A young Nurse Margot De Frayne. (Oh, remember that name…“Frayne! She’s going to live forever!” She’s not, btw. But it’s going to come up again).

But back to Nicole’s pestering harassment of Gilles as he’s now out chopping wood, barrel chested and sweaty. She’s all up in his grille again with the cleavage and the eyelashes and the pouting. “How strong you are!” and running manicured hands through his matted chest. Gilles clearly doesn’t mind the attention and perhaps has some seduction on his mind for later, once the wood is chopped and the milking’s done.

As Dr Phillipe is leaving, a new young woman appears at the driveway. Is this the expected Nurse Margot De Frayne? No, it seems not. This is Margot’s unexpected replacement. Margot won’t be coming. There is some fussing with medical letters and references. But it seems this new nurse – Michelle – a pointy faced lip-glossed popsy with her medical bag and starchy ways, will suffice. Some doctorly harumping about this not being expected. But ah well…

Hmn…

That night, in his bed, Gilles is haunted by murderous dreams again. This time a bright red sound-stage where he is strangling the blonde woman once more. Woozy camera work and lots of twirly whirly focussing. He awakes, sweaty, big fat muscly arms in his navy vest (told you). Then who should appear all glamourous and panting in the doorway but good ole Nicole once more. Her sheer purple nightdress crackling with that 70s polyester and acrylic static as she wafts in, skimpy underwear visible beneath the fabric. She has insomnia.

Yeah, sure. She climbs onto Gilles’s bed and they have very oddly filmed sex. Lots of faces and kissing, camera spinning clockwise and back again. Hands on boobs. Gasps and swirls again. Then finally, lying next to each other like Harry and Sally the morning after. Neither of them seem into it. Perhaps it’s the vest.

Now we’re with the suspicious new nurse Michelle. She is tending to a complaining Yvette giving her a milky looking concoction that she tries to get Yvette to down in one. Yvette, sat up in bed, sheets and blankets, is not having it. “You’ll sleep well after this…” Nurse Michelle reassures her in a fucking suspicious manner. A spying Claudette watches her leave the room and hurry to the phone to make a whispered call. Hmmn. What can this be?

Meanwhile, in his bed, post swirly shag, Gilles and Nicole talk about the sisters. They are all weird freaks and neurotic failures, unwanted, miserable types. Nothing to nobody. All wheelchairs and withered hands. Christ these gals could do with 12 weeks of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Or at least a Paul McKenna confidence building audio tape.

Jump cut to violent chopping of a chicken with a cleaver. Loud hacking and banging as irritated Claudette takes it out on a poor bird at the kitchen table. Gilles, bringing in the wood he has chopped, asks about her mood. Jealousy? Well pretty much, as he was told NOT to go messing around with Nicole. But Gilles claims she started it. Which, to be fair to the chap, she did. But he didn’t put up much of a fight. He took off his own vest, for fuck’s sake.

Next day Gilles is back at work. Cows are milked, wood is chopped, so he’s now busy – still in his snappy slacks and shirt – raking up some dusty leaves half-heartedly. Nicole is back, once again in the slutty red sweater and pointy boobs, watching him and cooing with obvious intentions. Once was clearly not enough.

When… at last! Some actual action! Or plot! Or something! Who is this coming over the hill, is it a monster? Nope, it’s another almost identical middle aged man from the same swarthy acting agency they got Gilles from. Floppier hair, fair, moustache, dark black blouson this time, he grabs at an unsuspecting Gilles and a violent fist fight commences! Slap! Punch! Oof! Thwack! Swinging the rake and punching hard, they rough and tumble, gruff and dusty and scratchy in the dirt. A knife appears! A struggle. A frightened Nicole watches aghast from the window! The moustachioed man is stabbed in the stomach, deep by the knife and makes a stumbling run for it. Gilles is cut badly in his torso, and the woman gather him in to tend and wash his wounds.

Our cop – he of the Chez Café Caroline – is on the scene to investigate this attack. Yep, it appears it was Jean, the old gardener/helper they fired after he messed around with Nicole. Seems he has a jealous grudge. But the cop is more distracted by another killing. A young nurse. Margot De Frayne, (told you!) who was strangled on the highway a few nights ago. But… Margot De Frayn was the nurse who was expected! Mysterious! Sort of! Curiouser and curiouser…

Meanwhile, as she’s been enough trouble frankly, Nicole is locked away in her room to tend to her red jumper, darn her purple night gown and drink alone. Claudette likes her kept away for everyone’s safety. Or rather, so she can perhaps claim Gilles for herself? Let’s find out.

Yep. Claudette comes to visit Gilles in his room. Explains about Jean the gardener. She perches on the end of Gilles’s bed, and Gilles begins to hit on her, loosening her hair and slipping off her clothes. Claudette – clearly with a self-image “a notch below Kafka’s” (copyright W. Allen, Manhattan, 1979 All Rights Reserved) complains, not able to understand why any man would want her and her deformed arm and hand.

She is very unhappy. But Gilles is taken with her and they get it on. Some nice boopy electric Bontempi piano sounds and home-organ trills as the smooching begins in gusto.

Oh, we’re halfway through by the way. 40mins ish. And yep. Lots of set up. Lots of weirdos. Lots of potential. But not much in the way of plot. And certainly no sign of any broken dolls or blue eyes. Hmm, the screenwriter needs to get a move on. Let’s cross our fingers for a more action-packed second half. Here we go.

So. Next day. Lots of exposition and backstory as Doctor Phillipe and the new Nurse Michelle stroll and talk in the grounds of the house. Yep, the sisters are all neurotics. There was an accident. Their mother went insane. Their father committed suicide. The sisters refuse to talk about what happened or when or how. And to top all that, Yvette’s future beloved husband Francois went off with her best friend. Oh they’re all pretty much screwed up, and all the Doctor can do is sooth and assist. Helpless cases these three.

As Doc Phillipe heads off again, back to his office, Gilles asks Nurse Michelle to help him with “something”. Off to the barn, where an angry and rapacious Gilles forces himself on her. Shock, gasps among the mooing cows and dry straw as she fights his violent advances. Michelle reaches for a hay-bailer, a handy sharp hooked thing…but before she can strike him Gilles is struck suddenly by yet another  flashback of his past actions: Woozy, swoony, stranglatory, badly lit… Disgusted, he steps away, angry, collapsing against the wall while Michelle makes a run for it. Boy oh boy, this guy needs help.

At his charming bright office, Doc Phillipe is working away. Only who should arrives for an unexpected “examination” but old lusty Nicole, this time complaining feebly of shoulder and back pain. Doc has seen this all before but before he can object like an awkward uncle, she has slid out of her tight tank top and it’s all bare boobs all up in his grille. He laughs her off like a child. Pouty, she accuses Doc of liking a more mousy type of woman? Nicole motions to the picture on his desk. Ashen faced, Doc admits this is his late daughter. A tragedy. She died during an operation. There was some mal-practise. A bad day for everybody. Nicole would show sympathy if she wasn’t such a randy nut-job.

Hey, you know what we haven’t had yet? A traditional courting couple who can be interrupted in a copse or shrub land or doorway and one of them get murdered for no reason we can think of. So let’s put that right! Snogging and canoodling under the bridge at night, church bells ring, signalling it’s time for the nameless woman to leave. She will keep the ghosts away from her cemetery walk by singing to herself, the schoolroom tune of Frère Jacques. You know it. “Frère Jacques, Dormez vous? Soggy Semolina, ding dang dong.” Etc. Past dark crypts and stones and plaques and flowers, the soon to be murdered woman walks hurriedly. The tune is picked up by the soundtrack and the Frère Jacques gets spooky and childlike, so they might as well be singing “One two Freddy’s coming for you.” In French. “Un, deux, Freeedy est arrive por vous, trois quatre….etc.”

And yep just as the trope insists, she’s followed by a shadowy figure. An attack! Hit! Screams! Falls! Dead.

Next day, we are back in Caroline’s café – still peddling Schweppes and magazines. The cop and doc Phillipe are discussing last night’s attack. They have the autopsy of the young girl murdered in the cemetery: The killer CUT OUT HER EYES! Is this murder linked to the nurse Margot De Frayn who was murdered on the street? Maybe?

But meanwhile, as the professional men chat about theories, three nubile teens arrive. They’re all pervy hot pants and sleeveless tops and coy slurping at coca-colas through nymphetty Lolita straws and they laugh and flirt and giggle and twirl. The timid French locals are discombobulated by all this raw sexiness, girls not seen so distractingly sexy/victim-prone since the Hostel series.

But Doc and Cop have their sleuthing interrupted as Gilles bursts in. Something is wrong up at the old house! (yeah, no kidding). It is Yvette! She is very ill! Which we know, of course. But he means even more ill than usual. The trio scuttle out busily, leaving proprietor Caroline sucking on her cigarette holder, face weighed down by mascara and hairspray. She doesn’t trust this Gilles fellow. Things haven’t been right since he arrived in town. And she’s got a point, who are we kidding, let’s face it.

Back at the sisters’ house, Yvette is on the bed, writhing and convulsing like she’s being egged on by William Friedkin. The 2 sisters surround her. Doc doesn’t want a fuss so tells the girls to leave, to make the place quieter. He and the nurse Michelle tend feebly to the whimpering Yvette. Which involves saying “shush” and “there there” and “calm down, woman,” over and over. But that’s privatised healthcare for you.

Hell, now we’ve got the murder plot started (about time), we’d better have another victim to keep the body count mounting, so let’s cut to a farm nearby. Gruff farmhands bring a struggling, squealing live pig into the barn and, with a bowl under its neck, slash open the pig and let pints of blood wash and splash out all over the place in a scene that looks pretty convincing, albeit gratuitous. I will check to see if this was a real pig, as movies of this era are pretty renowned for bunging in animal cruelty to upset the censors and add some gore to the video box. As the pig dies, a young blue eyed broken doll…I-I mean, blue eyed young woman carries the warm blood in a bowl to the kitchen…but is attacked by the dark gate. A blade to her neck, pig-mirroring style and a slash. Lots of gore and down she goes. And we see the gloved shadowy hands of the killer carry two dead eyes across a white room and drop them like pickled onions – plop – into a petri dish. Nice.

Doc is getting cosy with the sisters, all very familial and caring when Nurse Michelle takes yet another in a line of suspicious whispery phone-calls and, what a shock, the cop turns up again. Christ they should start charging him rent. Guess what Doc? There has been this new murder at the pig-farm. And again with all the eye-gouging business.  Doc and Cop are suspicious. All of this started when this Gilles turned up in town. But then what of Jean the ex-gardener? Suspects, suspects…

But onwards with the action. Claudette is tidying up the spare room and is “casually” fussing with Gilles coat. She finds some papers and naturally for this sort of caper, has a bit of a nosy about. Shock! The cuttings reveal the truth! No! Say it can’t be?! She confronts Gilles! “Is this true?! Attempted rape and murder? Strangulation?!” Well Gilles is contrite and it comes spilling out. Yes. His lawyer got him off. But he has been on the run and on the move ever since. Cue another studio flashback. Crazy red lighting as flutes and guitars get funky. A blonde woman is teasing him, laughing at him. It is all too much and he dives in to strangle her. He snaps back again. Man what a life.

Claudette admits she loves Gilles. Which is a bit of a surprise, to be honest. Especially with this new revelation about past hobbies. Although to be fair, he is the only man who has not been disgusted by her and shown her affection. And her sister affection, of course. And the nurse. Oh for fuck’s sake, let’s keep going.

Claudette and Nicole argue about Gilles. She doesn’t want Nicole to take him away, in the manner we presume she usually does. Flashing her ample boobs and falling on-top of them in purple acrylic. She pleads with Nicole to allow them to be in love. But being a nymphet nut-job with a screw loose, Nicole is bored of Gilles anyway. Because reasons.

Now the murder mystery kicks more into gear and we get our first glimpse at a hunch, a clue or somekind of action that isn’t cops drinking wine with Caroline and staring at teenage thighs. Doc Phillipe asks Caroline if she still keeps old news-papers? She does, she says. For the last 2 years or so. Hmn..?

Another quick killing as we haven’t had one for a while. Similar trope. Young blonde blue eyed woman in a wine cellar, fussing and fetching. We are back with Frère Jacques on the soundtrack. Not a good sign. A man in black approaches…Grabs a short hand-held rake thing. Claws and stabs and scrapes at the screaming woman who collapses, smothered and streaked with scarlet blood.

And we get a repeat of the gloves and eyes and petri dish scene. Possibly the same footage actually.

But now we lose a suspect (doh!) as the cop is led to a corn field where the remains of a bled-out Jean is lying. Clearly the fight with Gilles killed him and he has run, collapsed and bled to death.

Cross him off the suspect list. Which pretty much leaves just Gilles as Suspect Number One for the murderey eye kills.

Nurse Michelle makes a tearful admission to Yvette. She must go! Her son is sick! Having an operation! She is ashamed of her single mom status and tried to hide it. Hence the secret phone calls. Yvette understands and lets Michelle leave to be with her sick boy.

Then a discovery! Horny Nicole, bored out of her mind, is creeping around the house. Or a house. It’s not clear. Behind a heavy wall-hanging, she finds a hidden door. As jazz flutes and bongos create a creepy mood, she wanders through plaster walls, staircases and arches. All painted white. The tell-tale Frère Jacques is back on the soundtrack. She wanders into a room. Painted white, airy and bright. She sees something we don’t see. “I knew it!” she cries! And we watch the killer’s POV as he approaches her.

She screams for help! A blade again! The throat is opened with a slash! Blood gushes and blubs out of her pale neck and down she goes, landing on the white stone floor.

A storm grows outside. Wind and thunder. Yvette is wheeling herself around the spooky house, around the landing, near the stairs. Something is up? Someone in the house? She nearly falls down the stairs. Nosferatu shadows creep and glide up the staircase towards her. Terrified, Yvette attempts to climb out of her chair, but she has no ability to walk. Puffing, frightened she falls to the floor. And the light shows us the figure of…Gilles!

Doorbell! Claudette is at the door. Gilles lets her in, explaining his presence scared Yvette and she has fallen from her chair. Innocent?

Cop and Doc are in discussion of the case at the GP office. Now Nicole is missing. But hell, she’s a tramp so she’ll be off with some suitor. Hardly worth worrying about. She’ll be back. But then! As Doc peers and paws through the papers…a face! It’s Gilles! Alert! He’s a wanted killer! OMG! A call to the sisters’ house to warn them!

But they underestimate Claudette’s love for this mysterious traveller and she runs to tell him. They’re coming for him! He grabs her wrist and his gun from beneath the dresser (her wrist isn’t beneath the dresser) and they flee as wanted lovers!

An elaborate chase through the snowy, slushy mountains. Sunset. On foot as funky jazz keeps a beat. Running awkwardly but cautiously, hands out like Nicholas Hammond used to do as Spider-Man in the 1970s. Funky and stealthy. Over streams, across rivers, splashing and running through dense forest and mountain passes. Bumbling Keystone cops in Gendarme hats follow a pace, guns drawn, rifles blasting. Melting snow and splashes of greenery. Very long sequence as they run.

She tires and falls as she is destined to do in these moments. He must go alone! He can travel faster. She wants to keep up so he punches her hard in the face and down she goes. That’ll do it. She lies in the snow as he escapes across the frozen river.

Cops find her body. An absurd gunfight with short range handguns and preposterous distance as he runs and runs, 500 meters away at least. They stop and hunker down like Rebels on Hoth, banging away with smoking rifles. Gilles fights back, blasting his never-emptying revolver until…BLAM! Right in the back! Boom, a blood squib and then in odd, soft focus, echoey vapour-trail echoes, Gilles falls in a Sci-Fi Top Of The Pops wash of camera effects about six times. And then down he goes. A sobbing Claudette and the tired cops survey the body and we pull out to reveal the full scene. Well we’ve only got 16mins to go and we’ve lost all our suspects. So this is going to take some hurried cleaning up…

We’re back with Nurse Michelle, walking home to see her sick son, with single-mom troubles on her nursey mind. Early evening, owls and sunlight. Her bright red “Don’t Look Now” Shiny waterproof mac makes her visible through the trees with red flashes. Oh, but now it’s Frère Jacques again so something’s going to happen. She pushes through ferns and forest, but we know she is being followed. Ahh! The man in black again! He grabs her and strangles her. But Michelle has some life in her and fights back, grabbing a spike of discarded fence post from the floor, plunging it in to the killer’s leg! Scarlet blood spurts from the leg wound!

Back at the house. Nurse Michelle makes it back, desperate and panicky. It’s dark, the storm has killed the power. She sees Yvette’s wheelchair…but over-turned. No Yvette? Has the killer got her too? There is blood on the stairway and she follows the trail upstairs. The killer stands in the shadows, all black gloves and balaclava. Slowly, the killer unmasks themselves to reveal…Yvette! Holy shit! The fuck?

Standing tall, no chair needed, angry wild and powerful. She leaps on Michelle and tries to kill her, screaming!! “You took my Francois!” She lunges at her eyes! Her Hair! A stair-based fight, struggling, screaming. “I’ll kill you! Again! Again! And Again! A thousand times I will kill you!” In a final fight, she presses young Michelle’s neck under the wheelchair wheel frame, killing her.

And then, in what has to pass as something of another twisty shocker, another black gloved hand stabs Yvette in the back! Down she goes. The gloved hand places the bloody knife in Nurse Michelle’s dead hand, leaving them both bloodied and twisted in a violent tableau. Stabbed and crushed at the base of the stairs.

Doc and cop arrive with Claudette to see the shocking scene! They murdered each other! My God! But in French! La God! Or something. What has happened here?!

Then for no reason but to tie up loose ends, anther second courting couple of the movie are lying about on rocks, fully clothed and cuddling half-heartedly, when the loose rocks fall away and a frozen face is revealed, buried in the rocks! It’s Nicole! Much screaming!

Back at the house, Doc is trying to manage the chaos. He tells Claudette she must go, leave, find a new home and try and get over all this unspeakably unlikely horror and trauma. She agrees, stressed and tearful. But our gallant Gendarme arrives, all twirling moustache and Sherlock theories. Hmmm. Just one more thing! He is not happy with the evidence. There is no way Michelle could have stabbed Yvette, not from the angle of the knife. There had to be a second killer? Plus the autopsy found wooden spike splinters in Yvette’s leg…from the fence some distance away! What? But Yvette cannot walk? Much confusion, obviously.

But Doctor Phillipe of course has an explanation. As he feared, Yvette’s paralysis was in her mind. Psychosomatic? She could walk! Always! But only in a trance like state. Her parents’ trauma had convinced her she was paralysed. Could Yvette have been the eye-gouging killer all along? Where is her motive?

Well…her lost fiancé left her for her best friend…who had blonde hair and blue eyes! She must have been overcome with jealousy and driven insane.

Case all wrapped up. Credits? No! It wouldn’t be the movie it is if there wasn’t another exhausting final twist! The Gendarme speaks up. He has been investigating the murder of Nurse Margot De Frayne. She was involved in a scandal. Medical malpractice. Many years ago. She killed a girl during poor medical care after…an eye operation! Who was this girl? The Doctor’s daughter!

Noooo! As Darth Vadar likes to say. Doc NEVER forgave Margot for her negligence! He had to keep his dead daughter alive! Bring her back! Give her life! Give her…eyes! Doctor Phillipe had slowly hypnotized Yvette to commit murders for him every time she heard Frère Jacques played on the tinkly clock. A reflex! She has been killing for him all the time. Blonde women! With blue eyes! Like his daughter!
And bringing him…their eyes!

At this bizarre revelation, there is the final chase through the house, behind the wall hanging to the white painted cellar beneath. Where they find…a child’s room. Kept perfectly preserved. A dead young woman frozen in a child’s bed, surrounded by dolls and toys. The Doctor collapses with grief. More Frère Jacques. He pleads to the corpse of his dead daughter. She will never die! He will keep her alive by giving her fresh eyes! We see the empty dull sockets where the killer has been placing victims’ eyes to keep the illusion of life. Sobbing, we pan out to see the doctor stand in the centre of the room, watched by the cop and Claudette.

He is alone. She is gone He is caught. All is lost. Head in hands, we END.

See? It WAS about blue eyes. And his dead daughter was sort of, y’know, a broken…doll. Thing. Right?

Is it any good?

Hahahahaha. It’s a lot of things. Some are fun. Some are expected. Some are standards. Some are daft. Some are funny. Some are ridiculous. Many are all six at once. Let’s get into it.

You’ll remember we discussed the Italian Giallo genre at length in our review of Mario Bava’s 1971 slasher “Bay Of Blood.” A lurid set of movies based on the yellow-coloured paperbacks of Italian pulp literature. To recap, you can spot a Giallo movie from its key tropes, all of which are gloriously on show in Blue Eyes Of The Broken Doll: A murder mystery, lots of creepy footsteps, black gloves, a slashy murder or three, some topless romping, dozens of second-guesses and red-herrings, sultry femme fetales, psychological trauma, odd behaviour, storms and lightening, nonsensical twists and all that glorious over the top drama.

BEOTBD, as we’ll call this for short, is a 1973 Spanish entry into the genre, unusually for its type never released to its target Italian market who definitely would have eaten this shit up by the reel-full.

Opening in Spain in ’73 under the original title we have here, Los Ojos Azules de la Muñeca Rota, it saw a number of re-titles and re-edits in its short life.

In the US you could have picked it up from the video rental store in 1976 under the more obvious “The House Of Psychotic Women” – which you’d be hard pushed to argue didn’t tell you exactly what you were getting. In Belgium you would have had to hunt for “Mystery of the Blue Eyes”. And finally it was chopped of most of its T&A and blood for American TV release under the dull moniker “House Of Doom.”

BEOTBD is a fine vehicle for our lead star Paul Naschy who not only puts in a dark, broody and tormented performance as misunderstood murderous drifter on the run, Gilles, but also wrote the script. Naschy is better known in Spain, due to his build and demeanour, as the man who played a Werewolf 12 times in movies across his career. And he certainly had the scowly eyebrows and full barrel-chested figure to pull it off.

Director Carlos Aured is doing his best with Maschy’s script which, as we’ve said, has been jigsawed together from every Italian Giallo script he could get his hands on. His script disobeys almost all of screenwriter William Goldman’s script-writing rules. That is to say, all the scenes are about exactly what the scene is about. No subtext, no hints, no allusions or imagery, dialogue just spits out, explains what’s going on in Soap-Opera efficiency and gets on with it. All required tropes are here and ticked off one by one and Aured does his best to tell the story straight, with minimal artsy flourishes.

Which frankly is to be admired as the plotting of these sorts of capers is so obscure, convoluted and nonsensical, the last thing you need is a director adding bewildering casting and disjointed imagery. No, Aured pretty much tells the story from beginning to end and doesn’t do too much to make it more confusing than it is.

That said, this appears to run to asking the cast to simply “say the words quickly and get off.” The performances are largely flat and perfunctory, with only the odd burst of amateur dramatic eye-rolling, gasping and feminine swooning to slow down the steady plod of the silly plot.

Whether Aured was padding for time or just fancied himself as the Spanish John Ford, he certainly likes to linger and shots of Gilles walking, tractors chugging or cars passing take a mind-bending age to get where they’re going. Edgar Wright, this guy is not.

When Aured gets fancy, he does it with restraint. Gilles’s haunted flashbacks are swoopy and swirly, bathed in thick red light, and he overworks the panning and zooming and push-ins and pull-outs to give us a woozy hallucination feel. In fact every time Aured has something to shoot that isn’t dialogue (murders, sex etc) he allows Director Of Photography Francisco Sanchez to pull out his film-school box of tricks and the camera swoops and twists and swirls to headache inducing effect.

The suspense is minimal, despite the usual effects. No real sense of tension or danger. A couple of nice jump cuts (the chicken chopping scene is a nice shock). Plus good looming shadows and use of darkness to keep you guessing. The gore is nicely handled in close-up for the slasher crowd and blades go in, and blood spurts out juicily for some “woooragh!” moments of murder. Nicole’s boobs are thrust into the camera because the genre suggests it, rather than in any sexy way and this is not a movie to get you going in the pants department if that’s what you’re after.

As I say, the cast are being told to “get on with it,” and they all do a job and earn their standard minimum wage. The sisters in the house play it fairly low key and avoid too much “Baby Jane” shrieking or hamming, given the mad neuroses they’ve been asked to portray.

Maschy is a great turn, which may be more due to the age of the movie than his hulking performance. But I don’t know about you, it’s great to see what I call a “proper bloke” on the screen. The high blocky heels, the Jeremy Clarkson jacket, the tight dress slacks, he’s the type of man we don’t see much anymore. A man’s man. No pecs or abs, just a chunky broad shoulder and some heft. He probably smokes Embassy, he smells a bit of Denim and engine oil. He watches reruns of Minder on UK Gold. For the look, actually, if you can remember our grizzly beast from Night Of The Bloody Apes? Yep, he’s that.

Doc Phillipe is another great 70s man’s man. Rotund, portly, squeezed into a three piece suit. Slip-on shoes and an attaché case, he’s a type normally seen bellowing at goons in bouncy town cars as they squeal around corners in LA Cop shows. Nice work.

But let’s talk music because here…well, I don’t know what Aured was thinking when Juan Carlos Calderon played him his ideas on a flute. It could be the ironic and disjointed juxtaposition that Wes Craven played with in Last House On The Left: deliberately odd and jarring, comic when it should be sinister? But it appears, in all honesty, that Aured approached Calderon with the following brief: “Have you seen British sitcoms? Man About The House? Robin’s Nest? Terry & June? Or have you seen the Confessions movies with Robin Asquith? Can you do that? With a touch of airport travelogue. Y’know lots of jolly sing-a-long flute and bouncy bongos. A little trill on the hi-hat?”  I mean, it’s a good theme. I found myself humming it long after the movie had run its course. But it’s never going to put Jerry Goldsmith’s Omen or Herrman’s Psycho at any risk. If the name Ronnie Hazelhurst means ANYTHING to you, then it’s that.

Man, THAT guy could write a theme tune.

Production design places the movie firmly in the 1976 era. Boy oh boy, you can smell the woodchip and Pledge. Everything in the house is over lit, over painted, heavy and either bright orange pine or purple velour. It’s the cinematic equivalent of wearing a too-tight itchy polo-neck for 127 mins.

Nasty?

Well that’s why you’re here right? Well it’s the reason the British Board Of Film Classification came a’ calling during the Video Nasty scare and was seized from stores and distributors under the Obscene Publications Act. But let’s face it, it was for the lurid VHS box art, nothing to do with the contents.

Manuel Gomez’s gore is regular and steady and there are some bland if bloody kills. As I say, knives thankfully go into flesh and the blood is bright and spurty. The scrape and slash of the short rake is particularly nasty and there are cuts and slashes galore as the victim hits the ground in a screaming mess.

Plus of course we have the gratuitous pig-culling scene as the poor porker appears to have a real knife sliced into its real throat and it bleeds messily to death in the arms of the struggling farm hands. A scene cut from the US version.

The eyes in the petri dish are floaty, like poached eggs. Ugly rather than horrible. And straight out of…

What does it remind me of?

Well it’s “Headless Eyes.” Absolutely Kent Bateman’s 1971 “Headless Eyes.” A guy murders young women and steals their eyes. It’s that. Fascinating of course to see the same trope handled so differently as style wise, BEOTBD and HE could not be more different. We are also very much in Marc Lawrence’s 1973 “Pigs” aka “Daddy’s Deadly Darling” territory. The murderer on the run? Finding menial work in a small run down town. Fingers of suspicion? Terrified visions? Hell even the pigs. So there’s plenty of over-lap there if you enjoyed Marc Lawrence’s picture. Naschy’s wood-chopping manly manual labour has a touch of Joe Dallesandro’s Mario from Blood For Dracula (1974). Although without the brooding homoeroticism or heavy-handed politics. We have the “following the trail of spilt blood” scene from Lawrence’s 1974 “AXE.” Plus Wes Craven twice: the disjointed musical comedy score and the eerie children’s singing of his later epic “A Nightmare On Elm Street.” It’s a greatest hits of all this stuff, with somehow both more and also less. A daft Giallo-y treat.

Where can I see it?

Well it took some hunting down this one. YouTube which is normally good for this sort of stuff was no help. There’s a “watchalong” here if you fancy having other people talk all the way through it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jsJZhI3nkY

But I had to follow this tedious link and hit refresh and “block” and “no porn thanks” a hundred times before it would let me play it:
https://www.film1k.com/blue-eyes-of-the-broken-doll-1974.html

Enjoy.

“Pretty funny, especially Roman Polanski’s cameo, though not nearly as wild as Flesh for Frankenstein — but then again, few movies are.”

Rob Gonsalves – LETTERBOXD

Who made it? Directed by Paul Morrissey | Written by Paul Morrissey based on characters and concepts from Bram Stoker | Director Of Photography Luiig Kuveiller | Special Effects/make up Carlo Rambaldi| Music Claudio Gizzi

Who’s in it? Udo Kier |  Joe Dallesandro | Arno Juerging | Vittorio de Sica | Maxime McKendry | Milena Vukotic | Dominique Darel | Stefania Casini | Silvia Dionisio | Roman Polański (uncredited) as man in tavern

If you weren’t watching this the month it came out, you might have been watching…

The Great Gatsby | Dark Star | Mame | Conrack | Catch My Soul | Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla | Herbie Rides Again | The Three Musketeers

Production notes and whatnot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_for_Dracula

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071233/

What’s it all about?

It’s 1930. Ish. As the saddest of mournful pianos tinkles on the soundtrack, we watch an interesting and little seen part of the Dracula myth: the fact that our 502 year old Vampire might need to rigorously apply foundation, a touch of concealer and a bucket of Just For Men if he’s not to scare the bejeezus out of everybody. We watch Dracula slowly apply make-up to his gaunt face: colour, toner, the full contour effect. As he reddens his lips we see some tell- tale fangs peeking from his gums. A thick black paste is slapped onto his white hair, bringing him slowly to some resemblance of a person born this century.

The music tinkles and the greasepaint is dabbed and the camera slowly circles to reveal a dressing table with brushes and powders.

We see the large mirror in front of which the count sits. No reflection peers back at him.

Yep. It’s vampire time.

But Drac wouldn’t be Drac without a sinister limping Egor-like assistant, so let’s meet him too as he plays a big part in our flick. As Drac sits in his gloomy room of stuffed birds, heavy furniture and dark swaggy furnishings, his fussy assistant Anton brings in Drac’s sister. Oh, she doesn’t look well. Because she isn’t.

Anton is demanding of his quincentennial boss: they MUST leave Transylvania, otherwise Dracula will perish! It’s been weeks since Drac has had a life-giving throatful of virgin’s blood and the withdrawal is killing him dead. Or deader, if you prefer. His murderous reputation has meant they can’t get a decent dinner guest for love nor garlic in the local borough, so it’s “up-sticks or bust”.

Anton suggests Italy for their next stay. The double-plus good of both: a. A country impressed by Aristocratic titles; and b.A strict Roman Catholic atmos means he’ll be invited to all the parties and be fang deep in God-fearing religious virgin wenches before the jet-lag has worn off.

But what of his bed/coffin, Drac pleads? Where will he sleep in Italy? Anton’s recommendation is strapping the coffin to the roof of the 1934 Lancia and passing it off as a dead relative returning home for burial. Ah well, looks like that’s the plan.

Anton and Drac (or Ant and Drec, as I’m going to call them) heave the sister down to the crypt – all candles and sawdust – to put her to bed among the creaking teak of his ancestors’ coffins before they pack up and head West for all the Olive oil, oranges and Type O Positive they can get their gums on.

Next morning, in the sort of dazzling bright sunlight we don’t see in vampire movies too often, the dynamic duo clamber into the car and chug off, over the bridge through the Transylvanian countryside. Next stop, Italy. The chair, bike and coffin on the roof rack shouldn’t bother border customs too much they hope.

So nary ten minutes in, we and the plot are up and running. Jolly oompah music with a touch of European accordion follow the car and passengers o’er hill and dale, Drac pulling his hat brim over his eyes from time to time to stop himself crumbling into screaming dust, we assume. Anton fiddles with the radio and tries to find Magick FM.

Meanwhile, Italy awaits. In a faded mansion, crumbling like old stilton, live the DiFiore family, the girls of whom are about to put the “pants” into “unwilling partici-pants” of our story. While dad DiFiore potters about like a fusty old patriarch, let’s meet the three youngest sisters of the DiFiore family who are in the grounds of the house gardening badly:

Perla is about 14 (or meant to be). She has a pointy nose and a naïve way about her. The middle two sisters are Saphiria (Saffy) and Rubinia (Ruby) – the lustier and bustier 2 of the family. As they ineffectually prod the dry turf with hoes, they are watched from the balcony by the other 2 women of the family: Eldest sister Esmerelda, (Essie) and the doting mother Marches Di Fiore.

Essie and Mom chat about the family’s bygone days, old times, the glory days. It’s a wonder Bruce Springsteen doesn’t turn up in a truck. Across the field they spy the 2 middle girls – Saffy and Ruby – who have decided to go topless and booby in the sweaty sun as they work. Young Perla is mightily embarrassed. Mum yells for them to “Put them away, for Chrissakes!” or words to that effect.

We are soon to learn that, as far as Saffy and Ruby go, this is par for the course. While Perla may be the young innocent and Essie the wise elder? Saf and Rubes are a right couple of tarty old ye strumpets and have been getting nightly seeing-tos (seeings-to? Ed) from the local farm-hand, Mario.

Cue, Mario the local farm hand, played with the all the genuine Italian cadence of a Coney Island End of the pier skittle hustler, by Joe Dellasandro (see Flesh For Frankenstein).

With his firm jawline, squinty demeanour, floppy hair he’s borrowed from EastEnders’s Jaime Mitchell, he flashes his pecks and arranges to meet Saffy and Ruby for some casual fucking a bit later. Cue a mixture of coy girlish giggles and aristocratic boredom. There’s a lot of that coming up.

Ant and Drec arrive in the sunny, Godfather-like Orangey groves of Italy. Again, the beating sunshine seems not to bother the Count who merely holds his hat up a bit. In his swept back hair, long coat he is straight out of Stephen Fry’s roaring snob in this early sketch. “Rotting hulk?!” Actually, the topic of the sketch is rather appropriate. But we’ll get to that in good time.

Entering a Trattoria (which it’s impossible for anyone to do with a straight face since Mickey Blue Eyes. If you know, you know)…Anton has questions.

Is there a room they can use? Is there food that is “virgin meat”? Are there local families with virgin daughters who might want to marry into Aristocracy and move to Transylvania? The chuckly stereotype owners answer yes, maybe and hoo-boy, are you in luck! Ahh, the local family! The DiFiores! They have 4 lovely daughters! Perla, Saffy, Ruby and Essie. Anton is interested in their purity. “I’m sure they are religious!” the Trattoriaistas cry, in camp awkwardly dubbed dialogue. “They have a very nice house!” I cannot be certain if this is satire. But then there are many topics in this movie I can’t figure out. Onwards.

Ant and Drec find their rooms. In hammy sitcom loud explanatory posturing, crucifixes are put away, shutters are drawn and with Allo Allo V’s and W’s, Drac complains.

The sunlight! The lack of coffin to sleep in! The lack of virgin meat! (It’s not clear what Virgin meat means? Lamb that hasn’t fucked? Uncooked? I don’t know). The Count collapses on the bed from blood withdrawal – much writhing, gurgling, coughing and am’ dram’ spasming – so Ant heads out to get the skinny on these 4 maidens from their daft parents.

In sumptuous but fading surroundings (think Blackadder The Third and the Prince’s pale walls…

…high ceilings and schmancy portraiture), a posh English mum (and she really is preposterously posh. She calls her girls “Gells!” You get the idea) talks to her old Italian husband.

Clearly, he spoils his daughters rotten, while frail mum tuts and sighs and cleans up after their whims and fancies. But fact is, they are poor. But poor in that idiot way rich people talk about. “Down to their last Gainsborough” poor. “Only three butlers” poor. “Same dress to two balls” poor.

Like this brilliance from the late great Victoria Wood.

Marrying a rich count from Transylvania might be just the thing to save the family home, the family name and family fortune. So they agree to let Anton come to the library and makes his proposal – that the Count may meet the 4 daughters. The dad is flushed and thrilled about the opportunity, rolling Dracula’s name around his mouth like red wine. Mum too is up for the arrangement – the girls are of marriageable age…
Anton promises to return with the Count. And puts in the Count’s lunch order for veggie salad. As you do.

On the way home, Drec being awful boring writhy junkie company, Ant rightly decides to stop off for a pint. He enters a tavern of the most stock tavern-nature: Oompah horns; men in Peeky blinder fashions of beards, hair, hats, moustaches plus waistcoats and boots; Women prep food at a big dark table; The air is full of fairground carousel pipes and organs, the men gamble and drink.

Ant chats with the locals in that awkward “stranger in town” manner, to find out more about his DiFiore family. He waves big papery bank notes around, trying to get info. A table of burly halfwits get him to buy the drinks and con him out of his money in a daft gambling game, much to Ant’s fury. He won’t be taken for the gullible out of towner! Plus he needs that cash for spare coffin lids, vegetable smoothies, neck plasters and blood remover! A struggle! A fight! All interrupted when a local “washer-woman” type bursts in to scream about an accident on the road! A young girl! A Horse! A Cart! Everyone departs as if it was the start of a Black Friday Amazon sale, but quick thinking Ant grabs a crusty loaf as he leaves. Surely he isn’t going to..? I mean..? He won’t..? Surely..? Oh ffs…

Back at La Trattoria, Ant brings the blood soaked loaf to a pale and sickly Drec. He has soaked the injured child’s blood into the bread. And in a gross scene of sucking, gurgling, dripping and pouty hissing, Drac drinks up the soggy bread and the warm blood of the girl. Somehow…this revives him. But we know it won’t keep him long. He’s going to have to get to those DiFiore girls quick sharp.

Back at the DiFiore’s, dad is thrilled. Pacing the faded glory of his old mansion, he spouts poetry about the new good fortune fate has brought them. Dracula! Marriage! Riches! The girls however are less than thrilled about having their lives decided for them. Later in their bedroom, draped in sheer yellowy gowns hinting at pale flesh beneath, they tease and laugh about this “Count” and his proposals.

Neither Saffy nor Ruby seemed so bothered by this marriagey lark, as they have been getting their oats from Mario for the last few summers. In fact they are both frightfully modern about the whole thing. It’s just sex.

Talking of which, to the swaggery sounds of a roller pub piano, the promised attentions of Mario appear as he barrels in from the veranda for some late night action. Ruby and Saffy happily lead him to their room where one at a time, there is writhy pale-bummed passionless sex. Each takes a turn to have Mario kiss and grind and sweat, while the other smokes fags or eats grapes.

They seem bored (in every sense) by the whole thing. Mario is all flexy jaw muscles, rippling contours and homo-erotic poses.

Post fucking, it all gets heated as we get one of our themes of the movie – class war, Marxism and revolution. Mario, despite being a drippy air-head hunk-in-trunks, good for one thing (well two things, if you add wood-chopping), he is a passionate Socialist and angrily spits his revolutionary manifesto at the tired girls. Them and their kind are on the way out! No more us-and-them! Down with the Aristocracy! It will be just like glorious Russia!

Like most women who have to listen to passionate young men bang on about Marx, they couldn’t be less interested in the posturing and hypocrisy. So Mario tires of the girls. He will move on to young Perla. Perhaps she is more interested? Or at least less exhaustingly coy and drippy. So as we leave them, Saffy and Ruby lezz up and Mario tends to his preposterously lank droopy model hairdo.

We’re 42 minutes in, in case you’re wondering.

But hey up! Hold that revolution, as who should appear in their big old black Sturmbannführer–Arnold- Ernst-Toht-mobile, but Ant and Drec. Mario lets them in and in an awkward doorstep meet n greet, the family DoFiori meet the legendary Count Dracula.

Daddy Dolmio is smiling in a greedy creepy way, Mum fusses and the Count casts his hungry blood-starved eyes over Esmerelda, Saphiria, Rubinia and young Perla. Questions about the girls being raised – (ahem) – in the “manner of the church?” And we all know what that means. The parents assure the Count of the girls’ purity and somewhere perhaps, Mario puts down his Penguin edition of Das Kapital and laughs himself stupid.

The count enters to go to his rooms while Ruby and Saffy idly chat about the new cock on the block. How old is he? Twenty? Forty? It’s that Just For Men, I tell you. Works wonders.

But we haven’t had much crow-barred in class-conflict for a few minutes so we get Ant and Mario arguing about who should bring the coffin from the car to their room? Mario the servant? Mario, still angry for revolution and the day his type can lord it over the Antons and DiFiore’s of this world, begrudgingly shoves the suspiciously empty coffin into the crypt.

Let’s stick with Mario a while, as he’s the only one with anything interesting to say. He’s back in his barn, being hunky and butch with hunks of bread and wine in those wicker holders you only ever see in Greek restaurants. As he chews and chomps and broods and stomps, Saffy turns up for some “slap n tickle.” But she’s caught mid rant with Mario being so bolshie and lefty, he might as well flog her a copy of Socialist worker while joining Mark Kermode singing the Internationale in a donkey jacket.

Revolution will come! Mario pounces and has hate-fucking rough sex with Saff who screams and struggles and complains…but then, as is par of the course, gives in, slumps and then kisses him, professing her love. Mario throws her out. Bitch. She leaves and dresses in the field, rightly narked as this shit.

But Mummy DiFiori isn’t going to the poor-house without putting up a fight! Or at least, putting up a daughter. She encourages Saffy to have a bit of give and take, bring Drac his dinner, play nice and think of the inheritance and status. His cash-flow could do wonders for her and the family.

However, upstairs, in his creaking wheelchair, Drac is panting and sweating and writhing painfully from withdrawal symptoms. He is desperate for the blood of a “Wirgin!” to sustain him. Knock knock, and Saffy brings him a tray of vegetables. “Vairggry sortful,” Drac says. (Trans: “Very thoughtful”)

Unable to hold back, Drac proposes to Saffy. He must have her! She assures him and reassures him over and over that she is pure, a virgin, untouched, hymen intacto. He taunts and teases and quizzes her about her virginity, like he was buying a second hand gearbox. As it were.

The music ramps and excites. Drac gets wide-eyed, drooly and horny for what is to come! Unable to hold back…he lunges! He bites! Gasps! Pushes Saffy back onto the bed. Drinks, but really drinks, from her neck. Slurps and gulps and splashes like at a water cooler.

Chewing and sucking, eyes wide. Standing, panting, quenched and dripping, he suddenly turns a sickly green (or the lighting does) and Drac runs, spasming, writhing, vomiting blood into the white bathtub in waves, splashes and hurls. Loud wretching, overdoing it with the panting and hurling, clawing at the bath, Drac is sweaty and drunk against the cold white tiles.

Nope. That’s not quite the vintage he was after.

We’re an hour in.

Mario has moved onto young Rubinia. They perch in her boudoir among powder puffs and mirrors and whatnot. Ruby is naked, natch. Mario stripped to the waist.

The scene is an excuse for more nudey licks, laps, kisses and nipple sucks but is flat, dull and by the book. But not a good sexy book. And of course any scene with Mario getting horny is another chance for him to take breaks during the pale lifeless rutting to hold forth, back on his soapbox, about manifestos, class divides, politics and the revolution,. Like that tedious student you once got stuck with at Uni.

However we the audience can be nicely distracted from the polemic, rhetoric-filled drum banging with some shots of Ruby on top, grinding away with very neat pubes. Nice.

More politics are on the menu when Mario is tasked with wheeling a poorly Drac and his ratty wheelchair up to his room. Drac is full of questions about the remaining girls, keen not to get another throatful of second-hand strumpet that’ll make him wretch and writhe painfully again. But no, Mario is more keen on ranting floppily but poutily on class-war and glorious revolution. Drac, of course – who remember, has been watching the global aristocracy rise and fall and rise again since the 1500s – is irritated by this farmhand and his politics. As they argue about who gets to carry the old wheelchair up the stairs, Drac’s next victim prances past. It is young Robby. She flirts and teases a little, all talk of her latest read – Three Weeks, by Elinor Glyn. Maybe she’ll lend the Count her copy. Pissed off, and rightly so at all of this Aristo’ nonsense, Mario dismisses them. He doesn’t read fiction. He is busy awaiting a new order. A glorious day. All this righteously spat from behind jutty chin pose acting and droopy gay hair.

The writer director clearly feels we STILL haven’t got the point so we linger on Mario in his quarters. In case you were in any doubt and the lack of subtlety hadn’t beaten you around the face and neck, Mario has a HUGE hammer and sickle daubed on his wall like an earnest 15 year old Billy Bragg trying to impress Alexi Sayle who’s come over to revise for his O Level Sociology.

Under the sickle, Mario snogs with a stocking-topped Robbie. “He’s got nerve, looking for a virgin,” Mario says, slapping and roughing Robbie about a bit. And then, to prove his point that the Aristocracy can pretty much suck his dick, he forces Robbie to pretty much suck his dick. Lovely.

Later, the girls are getting soapy and nude in the bathroom in order to provide raunchy stills for the VHS box. Robbie gives young Perla some wholesome sisterly advice on matters of love and romance. Pretty much, her message goes, it’s okay to cheat on husbands and boyfriends, as long as you wash your bits and smell fresh between lovers. It’s a new age now, she says. “Don’t you read magazines?” It’s not clear to what magazines she refers. One assumes, not TV Quick.

Upstairs, Drac paces anxiously in a browny beige marble hotel-style bathroom. Black hair, blood red lips, he is in a black shiny robe with red piping.

He has lost patience with these young dames. Virgins? Ha. He watches and listens to idiot Robby and her airy-privileged chatter about her future Transylvanian life ahead. Parties? Shopping? It’s like TOWIE with corsets.

But Drac’s fancy is taken. Maybe due to her busty sexiness, but more likely because without a half pint of fresh Virgin claret, he’s not likely to see the end of the week.

“Are YOU a virgin?!” (or “Wirgin?!” if we know our phonics). Oh we see where this is going. Get a bib and put some paper down. But before it can be discussed any further, Drac makes the mistake of standing by a mirror. Robby notices with alarm the lack of “reversed count” in the looking glass and screams her tits off.

Drac pulls her to the floor and we get a rerun of the previous suckage as some gentle sort-of-Satie piano continues.

But nope. He’s picked a wrong-un again. Drac stands, gargling blood, gagging again. How many times is he going to have to do this? Italy was meant to be chock-full of Virgins? Eyes wide, he collapses, writhing over toilet bowel, sweatily sick and wretching. Ffs.

Later, but we’re not sure how much later, Dolmio dad and posh mum talk at an open carriage. Robby watches from a high window, pale and wan and clutching her neck. Clearly her and Saffy are not coping well with the post-suckage as they are now feint and fey and covering puncture wounds with flouncy scarves to hide their zombie-transformation from the oldies. Daddy Dolmio is off to London to sort his finances, clearly seeing a future ISA in the making if Drac makes good on his promise. He leaves with a clatter of hooves (the horses, not him), as mom stays behind to try and secure at least ONE wedding from all this thirsty nonsense.

But…they’ve blown it. As Mom and Perla crochet quietly, Anton arrives in a hurry. They are leaving. There are none of the virgins promised by Trip Advisor. He and the count have made a mistake. They must go. But as he makes good to depart, his eye is drawn to young Perla. Yes, she is a mere 14 years of age. But SURELY she can provide the virgin blood Drac so longs for?

Meanwhile, Mario chops wood in a righteous lefty way, if you can picture that. Every swing of his chopper seems to have an Aristocrats neck in its sights.

Young Perla appears at his side and asks him to help pack Anton’s car for their departure. Pah! They are too weird! Plus, this coffin of his relative? Suspiciously lightweight. Oh, and as Mario doesn’t appear to have had rapey angry leftwing sex in about 20 mins, he hits on the 14 year old. Perla is having none of it and pulls away. Yeah, like that’s going to stop him…

A woozy and vertigo-washed Count wheels himself about the mansion and discovers the eldest sister (remember her?) Essie. There is sad talk of fading fortunes. The furniture is old, the wallpaper peeling. They have no servants, aside from old Mario Marx down in the woodshed. See, Father Dolmio gambled it all back in London when life was rich. When mum and dad go, it will be the end of all these ways.

We can see Drac, while not sympathetic to this posturing, feels a resonance. Because what is his line, if not a fading one. 500 years of Vampiric tradition is about to end in a smouldering heap of ashes. What’s that coming over the hill, is it a monster? No, it’s the end of the family line.

In a last desperate gasp, like a 45 year old single-dad sweeping up the fat girls at a night club as the lights come on, he makes a play for Essie. Any chance SHE’s a virgin? But sadly, she’s out for the count (as it were). As she has been engaged. Arse, one seem to sense him saying to himself.

But there’ not much more to go of this tale. We sense a dramatic finale on the cards. One by one, the final pieces begin to slot into place.

In dumb trances, the two zombified girls make their way to the Count’s chambers. Downstairs, a very curious Mario goes a-sneakin’ to find out why this dead-relative Ant and Drec have been carting all about Eastern Europe is so light? With a handy crowbar, he prises the lid and – OMG – it’s not a dead relative at all. It’s a comfy bedroom set, of pillow and duvet. He scratches his chin, Scooby Doo Clue style. But this must mean…?

Saffy and Robbie, all fainty and punctured, arrive in Perla’s room. The twin bite marks have Parla a might panicky, but there’s no time for that! The girls MUST know if they can give Perla to their beloved Count?!

Is she a virgin? Well there’s always the chance she’s fibbing, so in a move even outlawed by Jeremy Kyle, they shove a hand up Perla’s nightdress. They let their fingers do the investigation.

It would seem, like East Berliners in the 1980s, there is very much a wall in place. Good good!

But Perla has the energy of youth! She breaks free, terrified of these circumstances. And boom! Straight into the brave Mario. He will protect her! In a slightly left-wing socialist way, we assume. What does he have planned? Leafleting? A meeting above a pub? No! He will keep her safe from the Count who is a vampire! He’s put it all together! The coffin, the look, the blood, the pallor, the obviously-being-a-vampire-ness! Like a Socialist Angela Lansbury, he’s cracked the case and will now do all he can to bring this madness to an end!

However – sigh – he’s still a wanker, so suggests to Perla “You should lose that virginity of yours, before he gets to you.” A winning line. This sort of yuck is not making Marxists look so great, to be honest. Mario forces poor Perla her against the wall against her will, tuggng up her flouncy frock. There are fights and thumps and tears, squeals and writhing complaints. Which, as we now expect, slowly dissolve into passionate kisses and slow pumping. Blimey, that Mario.

Mum arrives! Whoops. Horrified at this woodcutter’s behaviour, she pulls Perla away and they run.

Following this action around the mansion, is of course the Count himself. Very much on his last legs as his blood consumption is now critically low, he arrives to see Perla’s virgin blood spilled on the floor, dripping and wet from her Mario puncturing. Well, better than nothing, and like Zammo with a load of heroin, he falls to floor and starts lapping it up desperately.

When in walks Essie. Their eyes fix. The count presumably thinking, ‘hello! Here’s one I haven’t had a go on yet.’ And Essie thinking it’s a cat who’s found a lot of old Elmlea on the lino.

Dan dan daaaa! Big old proper Hammer Organ chords, straight out of Lon Chaney! Knowing there is nothing now to keep them in Italy, Ant and Drec find the coffin and begin to carry it out to the ’34 Lancia. But Mario is having none of it and he appears, wielding Chekov’s axe, crashing down on the coffin and splintering its proppy balsa-wood shell.

And now it’s the final chase! Violins whirr and scurry as Ant and Drec are chased through the house. They split up! Mum confronts Anton with her revolver! A scuffle, a stab! A neat billet hole in Anton’s forehead and down he goes, mum left to bleed to death on the stairs.

Mario meets Drac on the stairwell and we get the big showpiece: He hacks off Drac’s arm, huge red gushing wet spurts of bright blood splashing over them both, coating the wall with grue.

But no! The count keeps running! Another arm is lopped off in a similar fashion, more jetting claret all over the linen. Now, running absurdly with no arms, like a refugee from Riverdance.

Outside in the darkness, in the grounds of the mansion, Drac and Mario are shoving and pushing (well Mario is, Drac has no arms. He’s sort of gesturing like a man in a straightjacket). Mario swings! He cracks Drac below the knee and off flies his leg. Down Drac goes, still screaming and writhing.

Just one more limb to go, and Mario slams down the axe, severing the final leg, which he then kicks away, watching it roll off like a dropped picnic frankfurter

The axe snaps in a half, the shaft now a useful stake. He raises it high over Drac’s chest…

But no! Wait! Esmerelda! She has become devoted to the count! Screaming and hysterical, she appears, fanged and wailing. Shrieks! Screams! “We will die together!”

But Mario knows his role in this sketch and bangs the stake in to Drac’s wasitcoat. Screams and splashes of gushing red. Desperate to be with her eternal love, Ezzy falls forward and – whoopsie – onto the stake,  sliding slimly down to it, like so much lamb kebab.

Silence. We take a moment to review the macabre mess of stumpy vamps in the driveway.

Quietly, solemnly, Mario takes Perla’s hand and leads her back to the house where, we assume, he can now thoroughly get over his hatred of the Aristocracy to take his place as head of the house hold. Which of course is what all lefty student Marxists wanted the whole time, let’s face it.

Credits.

Is it any good?

Well…yes. Given we are over 20 movies in to our Banned project, it’s a great relief to sit back and get a lively, well written, creatively shot, bombasticly operatic Grand Guignol no-holes-barred gothic horror performed with gusto and verve. We can count on one hand the movies so far that might stand up to a 2^nd or 3^rd viewing and aren’t a ghastly tacky waste of celluloid: Night Of The Living Dead, Straw Dogs, Last House On The Left. Hell, even Mark Of The Devil has the production values that stand up to a rewatch. And I’m happy, having sat through it three times, to put Paul Morrissey’s “Blood For Dracula” right up there, for fun, bombast, camp and a crew and troupe giving it their all.

Written and directed by Paul Morrissey, the movie was marketed in many territories as Andy Warhol’s Dracula, leaning heavily on the cache of the pop-art wunderkind’s reputation. When pushed, Warhol allegedly responded that “I go to the parties,” following up that “All of us at The Factory contribute ideas.”

The movie came about when no less than Roman Polanski stated that Morrissey would somehow be a “natural” to make a lurid Frankenstein picture. Discussions with the then producers Andrew Braunsberg and Carlo Ponti saw Morrissey convince them to allow him the time, film stock and budget to knock out two horror movies back to back. So just 24hrs after principle photography had wrapped on 1973’s Flesh For Frankenstien, Keir (Dracula), Dallesandro (Mario) and Juerging (Anton) were hurried to the barber’s chair for the necessary trims and crops needed for their new roles.

Much controversy, about which you won’t care, peppered the production credits of the movie as all sorts of folk argued and contested in and out of Italian courts over their so-called contributions to the picture: Italian director Antonio Margheriti is credited in Italian prints of the film despite not directing it. This misattribution led both producer Carlo Ponti and Margheriti to be put on trial for “continued and aggravated fraud against the state” by attempting to gain benefits by law for Italian films. Italian credits of the film give different credits, including stating Tonino Guerra wrote the screenplay and story, and Franca Silvi edited the film. Antonio Margheriti is credited as the director in the Italian prints, which he later claimed was not true, but that he did direct scenes with Dionisio and de Sica. Kier himself has stated that he never saw Margheriti on the set. Margheriti credit was due to Carlo Ponti having an Italian credited in order to obtain benefits by law for Italian films. Ponti and Margheriti were both put on trial later “continued and aggravated fraud against the state”. Well, according to Wikipedia anyway.

But enough of the legal wranglings that I’m confident you could give less of a fuck about. Let’s get stuck in to what you get for your 106minutes investment.

Well we have a set of performers committing fully to their roles. The legendary Udo Keir has huge fun in his part as the titular Count. (Sorry, 35 years of reading movie reviews requires me to type like this. Blame Empire magazine, Total Film, Kermode, Kim Newman and the rest for these lazy tropes). His stark, angular features, death-white pallor and piercing eyes absolutely tell of a 500 year old blood-sucker fearful of his bloodline’s demise. Keir’d bent Eastern European vowels and consonants provide all the V’s and W’s we relish (his demands for “Wergins!” a real delight).

Likewise “Vairggry sortful,” (Trans: “Very thoughtful”) gives us wriggling pleasure. Where Keir shows his chops however is in his wide-eyed rage, his spitting fury and some of the finest wretch vomiting seen outside Mister Creosote. When Keir has to act out the writhing withdrawal symptoms of the Vamp-sans-claret he doesn’t hold back. We feel his pain. Looks wise, he’s gone full Gary Numan Telekon 6 years before “Are Friends Electric” bothered the UK charts.

Juerging’s Anton is essentially a young and rather intense Harry Enfield.

Far from the limping, one-eyed humpbacked Egor we are used to from the Hammer era, Anton is an officious, prissy assistant who – were his job description not so macabre – would be a perfectly efficient department store manager, perhaps looking after the stock control of Selfridges menswear.

Marchie (Maxime de la Falaise) is more British than I am, and that’s saying something. Pompous upper-class pronunciation, she is terrifically camp as the posh Aristo’ mum who longs for better days and a life where her daughters would be swept up by Princes and Kings, rather than the tired and weary drabness of the faded mansion her dolt of a husband has left her with. And talking of husbands, – Vittorio De Sica (director, trivia fans, of The Bicycle Theives) is all tubby moustache, smoking jackets, silver hair and is an inch from shouting “Whens-a Your Dolmio Day?!”

Yep, he could convincingly pull off the King in Aladdin (now there’s an image).

What to say about Joe Dallesandro’s Mario? Well, as ever he has decided to play the farmhand role with all the genuine Italian cadence of a Coney Island End of the pier skittle hustler. Broad shouldered, smouldering eyes, floppy hair and thick Brooklyn accent, he’s having huge fun putting in – let’s face it – no effort whatsoever. There was a man cast for his glutes and how he looks in a vest. Rubbish.

Direction and production have their moments. Blood For Dracula is the early 1920s, according to Wikipedia entry. Which frankly means either: Wikipedia doesn’t know what it’s talking about (always possible) or the production crew couldn’t be bothered with true period detail, hence the snappy use of a handsome 1934 Lancia motor car. Honestly, the Count’s car looks like it’s two swastika flags away from having Indiana Jones hanging off its fenders.

The one bit of fancy cinematography occurs towards the end when the woozy and vertigo-washed Count wheels himself about the mansion, the view swooping and swirling in a fish eye lens, the camera fixed to his wheelchair. It’s nicely eerie and vey Kubrickian, to the point where one confidently expects Danny Torrance to hurry past on a tricycle.

The music works well, although is a mixed bag. Most of the score is what one might politely, if slightly pompously term, sub-Satie pop-Prokoviev.

Lonely Parisian piano and European pomp. Comedy fans will know Prokoviev from Woody Allen’s Love & Death. Classical music fans will know Prokoviev because they’re meant to. (That was a bit Alan Partridge, I know. Apologies, I’m currently wriggling with joy at Steve Coogan’s audio books and it tends to leak in). At one point, during the sexy bits, the score goes totally Morricone with what appears to be an early version of the lovely slow jazz bit from The Untouchables.

The rest of the time it’s that shellac out-take from The Shining over the gramophone. You’ll know it.

But what is the most interesting part of Blood For Dracula is the script’s themes. Yes, it’s a vampire movie and has all the fangs, coffins, crucifixi, stakes, blood, pale necks and virgins of the genre. However screenwriter Paul Morrissey has clearly decided to bang home a very different message than one might get from the standard Hammer Horror Cushing/Lee efforts.

The key message of the movie is one of change. Of revolution. Of old ways passing and the future – for better or worse – banging at the door.

Dallesandro’s Mario is the obvious megaphone for the politics, barking as he does at every given moment (chopping wood, brushing his lank locks, nailing a fey Aristo’) about the revolutionary change that’s going to come. We see the olde world fading and Mario’s righteous Marxist anger at the unfairness, double-standards, hypocrisy and cruelty of an us-and-them society. The movie spends more time angry at the wasteful, decadent lives of the inherited wealthy and the two-tier status of 1930s Europe than is does with fangs and flesh.

Dracula, of course, has been watching the global aristocracy rise and fall and rise again since the 1500’s and is a great device to illustrate the us-and-them tempestuousness of revolution. He has, after all, lived through it all and seen the rich and poor battle for leadership for centuries.

We cannot help but laugh at mum and dad’s attempt to cling to their power, knowing what is around the corner for Italy as the 1940s approach.

Modernism is at every turn. Even the sisters sense that the youngest of them are growing out of the traditions and clichés of their cloistered existence.

And what is Dracula, after all, than a metaphor for the end of one life and the beginning of another? Keir’s pleading about the end of his blood line is just more desperate clinging to the “old ways” that society and culture are only too keen to sweep into the Dyson of history.

Although. Mario’s violent gruff ways, forcing the Aristo’s to “suck his dick” as he does merely foreshadows the replacement of one ruling class with another – just as cruel, just as selfish, just as corrupt.

Nasty?

Blood For Dracula was included on a tertiary list of titles that could potentially be subject to seizure by police in England. It was therefore not submitted for video certification by the BBFC until 1995, which was granted, with approx. 4 minutes of cuts. An uncut version was not released in the UK until 2006). Louis Periano, who distributed the film in the United States, later tried to cash in the success of Mel Brooks’ film Young Frankenstein and re-released the film as a 94-minute R-rated Young Dracula in 1976 (as opposed to the original X-rated version).

The blood sucking is genuinely thirsty and gratuitous. When Keir leans over the girls there is no cutaway to hooting owls or flapping bats. He sucks and slurps and drinks and glugs like it was Ice Cold In Alex.

His vomiting reaction to tainted blood is pukey and floppy and splattery, especially as the blood runs in rivers down his pale chin. Deliciously nasty.

And the ending? Well it’s Monty Python. A year before John Cleese cried “it’s only a flesh wound” in Monty Python & The Holy Grail, the dismemberment and chopping, cropping and hacking of the limbs are pure comedy. Blood spurts like ketchup causing more guffaws than grimaces.

Yes, there’s plenty of gore, but all done with such bright, poster-paint camp that it might as well be an episode of Rainbow.

What does it remind me of?

We’re in proper vampire territory for the first time in 22 episodes so lots is new. My list tells me this is only Nasty with “Dracula” or even “Vampire” in the title so this may be the only time we get the full fangs, castles, coffins and stakes. Given this is another Paul Morrissey flick, it has heavy echoes of his earlier gothic adventure “Flesh For Frankenstein.” From the cast, to the colour, the tempo and the tunes. 1970’s Mark Of The Devil shares the glorious locations and period detail, detailed costume and whatnot. Plus it shares a wet gushy spurty limb-chopping colour palette of dismemberment so, while it doesn’t have the relentless tortures, it’s in the same ballpark.

Where do I find it?

Nice copy here you can enjoy for free on YouTube. Enjoy!

“I have a hard time coming to an opinion on a film like this. At one point, I certainly won’t say it’s horrible, as it does have enough good moments to raise it above being classified as a waste of time.”

Sean Leonard – HorrorNews.net 

Who made it? Directed by Marc Lawrence | Written by Marc Lawrence| Director Of Photography Glenn Roland | Special Effects/make up Bruce Adams| Music Charles Berstein

Who’s in it? Toni Lawrence | Jesse Vint | Catherine Ross | Paul Hickey | Iris Korn | Walter Barnes | Erik Holland

If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching…

Day Of The Jackal | Paper Moon | Soylent Green | Pat Garret & Billy The Kid

Production notes and whatnot

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070537/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigs_(1973_film)

What’s it all about?

Oooh! Well “Axe” opens promisingly for fans of the 1970s and all its garish kitsch, with some swirly-twirly technicolour studio credits, straight out of those lovely BBC ones they did for The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, if that means anything. And we can agree that nothing ages so badly as something that’s trying hard to look futuristic. But it promises fun ahead.

A lonely woodwind instrument that I can’t quite make out starts to whine and trill and Frederick Productions appears in a lush, almost romantic Hallmarky font. In the dawning sunrise behind us, we see emerging from a dusky silhouette, the kind of off-white clapboard farmhouse familiar to all horror-movie-goers. Not as grand as Forrest Gump’s gaff and a little less ominous than the Luntz’s Amityville Place. But rattly and weather-worn with a bit of chintzy olde worlde charm none the less.

Oh, note – clapboard is pronounced “clabbered” I think. This annoys me and I don’t know why.

The woodwind turns into the sad brass Krypton riff from Superman the Movie. This bit:

…and then a lonely piano joins in. One confidently expects Bill Bixby to wander past thumbing a lift.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzMSfaNXYZg&t=46s

They’re piling on the atmos. The titles go on. And on. And on. As does this movie, frankly. And we’ll talk about why later. But eventually it tells us it’s called “AXE” and some stripes of blood run down the screen.

That’s it. Got it? Farm-House. Axe.  Frederick Productions. Its taken 2.5mins already.

Oh by the way, I’m going to try and not labour the point during the plotting of AXE about its repetition, long scenes, endless shots, repetition, padding and repetition. But take it from me. If you read each coming sentence of this review two and half times, you’ll get the idea.

Anyhoo, percussion hits. A drum freak-out. Jazzy cymbals. Proper bongo craziness and we are into the movie proper.

Some shady figures are walking through a lobby of some sort. An apartment building. An old school lift indicator sweeps up to the tenth floor. And out of the lift come the key characters we’re going to be spending about an hour with. Hey, lets’ meet them.

First is Billy. A timid and naïve type who doesn’t really fit with the cigar-swagger of his gang-mates. We sense he’s here against his will. Looks wise, he’s essentially the painter Bob Ross.

Next up is Lomax, who everyone calls Max. Cigar chomping, roly-poly, sweaty and pervy (which is also the name of my divorce lawyers), he barrels along in an obnoxious, fuck you manner. Not someone to mess with. Or reason with. Or eat with, frankly.

These two are corralled and encouraged by the gang leader, Steele. A more wirey and sinister type, he’s got a touch of the David McCallum’s about him. Its suits and skinny ties and lank hair. All mid forties. Nasty bunch.

More bongos on the soundtrack as they get off on the 10^th floor and hide themselves away in a grotty apartment. Low furniture, cheap wood, crackly man-made fabrics, it’s got a definite 1973-ness. They’re waiting for someone. We don’t know who, but it isn’t for a birthday party. Bored and antsy, Max rummages around. He finds a blond wig, a pink dress. So they’re waiting for a cross-dresser, a drag act or Olivia Newton John.

Steele picks at his nails with a knife. Lomax burns holes in the dress. Billy is nervous. Some snakey tambourine joins the soundtrack to keep the bongos company.

A sound? Yep. It’s their victim. A chap called Aubrey (which is a name you don’t hear much anymore, forever ruined by the cartoon character. Like Garfield or Marmaduke).

Aubrey’s a camp one and he stumbles in, all flappy collars and corduroy, with his “male companion.” What Eddie Izzard might have called “a weirdo transvestite,” rather than the executive type.

The goons are waiting and its clear Aubrey isn’t happy to see them and knows what’s coming. His companion cowers as Steele and Max go to town, with sharp slaps, a bloodied cheek. Steele takes Max’s cigar and shoves it deep into Aubrey’s mouth, much to screams and squirms.

Then it’s a nasty minute of POV punching and beating, kicking and heavy handed pistol whipping. It’s not clear what old Aubs had done to deserve this. But he got it, either way. Aubrey lies still. Terrified and surprised, his companion makes a desperate run for it, throwing himself from the 10^th floor window with a long, fading Wilhelm-ish Scream.

Job done, hurrying to get the hell outta Dodge, the hoods depart, into their non-descript sedan and head out of town to escape the cops. Streets become country roads become farm-track as they drive. Southern corny Country and Western toons twang and slide on the radio. Young Billy is shaken. “I didn’t know we were gonna kill him!” Steele is as cool as his namesake. They need to disappear. Find some folks who’ll put them up for a while.

A very efficient first 11 minutes. We have our villains.

Now we’re at the old clabbered farm house from the credits. A plan and simple plain interior. Tile, formica, stone, wood. Somewhere a dog barks. Indoors, in a wheelchair, silent and staring sits a gentle, beardy wizened grandpa type. Mind somewhere else, eyes blink out into the middle distance. He is not conscious of his surroundings. Thankfully Gramps has his granddaughter, young Lisa. A young girl, perhaps 15 or 16 years old? She tends to him. Cooking on the stove and making house. Plain but cosy.

Meanwhile, night falls as it inevitably does and our gangsters are hungry for fruit, hi-jinx and rough-housing and gun-play. But mainly fruit, it would seem. Bowling into a ratty, aluminium framed general store, Max and Steele start fucking about and being genuinely unpleasant with the shop staff. They yell and curse at the terrified and timid assistant, her shaky in pale skin and flowery tabard. They smoke in an obnoxious manner, upset displays, yell about the quality and then start a little skeet shooting antics with the rotten fruit and their loud revolver. To be honest, and a cursory Google hasn’t helped much, I don’t know what skeet shooting is. I heard it in movies. I’m going to assume it’s a US version of clay-pigeon shooting, and move on. Anyhoo, they do that for a bit.

Billy meanwhile, during all this nastiness, remains in the car. I imagine he’s asked for an avocado wrap or hummus falafel and is happy to wait and draw smiley faces in the steamy windows.

“Nice melons” Steele says as they approach the assistant, and then it gets even nastier. Clothes torn off, the poor woman trembles in her bra, milky white skin on show, depressingly putting up no kind of fight in the face of a revolver and two nut-jobs. Steele and Max kill time tormenting her for a bit, with some olde William Tell action and an apple on her head with gruesome looking results.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. (How often can you honestly type that?) young Lisa is doing her mumsy farmhouse bit and tending to the chickens in the yard. If you want to picture Lisa, go with a young snubby nosed, fresh faced Linda Blair type with a bucket-load of Sissy Spacek feebleness thrown in. Wholesome and honest, but a stiff breeze might knock her over. She’s all lacy petticoats and milk n cookies.

Gathering eggs and doing her farm chores, Lisa grabs up a chicken and – in a nice bit of foreshadowing – takes a hefty axe to its neck. Off screen, but you get the idea. A nice heavy “clunk.” She’s done this before. Barefoot and humble, Lisa pads about the bare cold kitchen preparing a meal. A simple heavy fridge with milk and eggs, we watch as she fusses about. Upstairs, Gramps sits catatonic in front of a TV with no signal – just crackly voices and a blurry, fuzzy reception.

She feeds him eggs, spooning them to his mouth like an infant. The soundtrack of a US version of Mr & Mrs, an old 60s game show seems to be playing through the TV.  

All is serene, so the score goes a bit woodwind and piano. Actually it sounds like a piano playing the clarinet. Or an oboe being flung as a harpsichord. I can’t quite make it out. But ahhh, so calm. What could go wrong?

Well what a surprise. We’re about 18mins in and yep, it’s time for worlds to collide. Outside the farmhouse, Max and Steele and a freaked out Billy pull up. This humble farm looks like a place to lay low.

The soundtrack adds some castanets to accompany Max and Steele wondering around the clattery storm doors and cheap windows. Through the window they spy the messy kitchen, all eggs and spilt milk. A noise upstairs of breaking glass!

The two head in. An innocent Lisa confronts them from the top of the stairs. Max and Steele give it the old “Sick friend in the car,” routine. They need somewhere to stay. Is there room? Lisa explains it’s just her and old gramps who don’t move about too much.

Yep. This’ll do fine. The mood changes as Max and Steele start barking orders and elbowing around, taking charge. Even the arrival of a cop car causes no worry as they press the gun to Gramps’s head and tell Lisa to “take care of it, or the old man gets it” etc.

Forced to comply, Lisa dismisses the cops and cooks a chicken dinner for the 3 hoods. They chew and spit and lick fingers and generally make it clear they’d be rubbish on “Come Dine With Me.”

Finally at the end of his rope, torn with fear and regret, Billy uses the distraction of the poultry to make a run for it. It’s clear he doesn’t want any part of this murderous gang. Max and Steele head out to look for him irritably. That chicken will be cold by the time they get back, but might make a nice summer salad.

Upstairs, Lisa is oddly distant, spaced out. Dreamlike and silent, she wanders barefoot into the bathroom. A grimy, chipped white tile cold looking place, familiar to anyone who watched SAW and thought, “that looks nice.” We get the Krypton Superman music again. Lisa’s head swirls with visions: The mirror cracks, running thick with blood. In the bathtub, a snake writhes.

(We just say “bath” in the UK. We might say “tub.” We never say both). Lisa reaches forward to find the cut-throat razor that sits on the sink. (Or sink-bowl, as the Americans might say). Picking it up, aware of her fate, she trembles, holding the glinting blade to her pale wrists. Does she have the courage? We never know as suddenly Billy is at the door. He wants to talk. We sense, confide in her? We know he wants out and needs this girl’s help.

Steele and Max are back, now tormenting Gramps in the sitting room. As the TV burbles away, they find a picture of young gramps in his army gear. He was a colonel, it seems. Hence his interest in chicken perhaps? No, probably not.

They tease him, shoving a hat on his head, killing time while Steele cuts his toenails and Max smokes more cigars and Billy scuttles away, ashamed of the whole set up. Have he and Lisa cooked up a plot?

A while later, Max is bored and horny, which is a horrible combination. Probably. Lying on a thin mattress, filling ashtray on his bulging gut, he’s restless and fancies he might get some of that Lisa action. He gets up and prowls the home, past chintzy knick-knacks and china whatnots. Tambourines give a bit of rattle-snake atmos. Max finds young Lisa asleep on her bed. Clambering on, he hauls his bulk on-top of her, clear he’s going to take her (“even if it’s burglary,” in Uncle Monty’s infamous phrase).

Bit Lisa is too quick and, well prepared, reaches for the cut-throat razor, slashing and sawing at Max’s fat neck. He screams and gurgles and gasps and writhes but Lisa, silent and determined, hacks away methodically, letting crimson blood seep into Max’s collars, soaking the shirt and mattress and dripping on Lisa’s face.

Silently once more, with a sense of dreamy purpose, Lisa returns back to the bathroom. Bloodied smeared cheeks greet her in the cracked mirror. She turns the hand-towel into a maxi-pad in the style of Jules and Vincent, before fetching a huge old-style heavy chest.

Lisa retrieves the dead body of Max and drags his fat ass into the bathroom, heaving him into the “tub.” Then its “chicken time” again as she hacks, hacks, hacks Max’s corpse into bits, with huge heavy swings of her blade, using all her terrified strength. We hear it. We don’t see it.

She cleans up the blood, like a pernickety Norman Bates, mopping and wiping. We fade as church bells signal morning.

So, rise and shine! Billy, being the helpful sort, is up with the lark and keen to help young Lisa who appears to be struggling to move a huge fuck-off old trunk up into the loft. Being the kind sort, and Lisa being the feeble sort and not so quick on the missing Max+heavy trunk=mighty suspicious, he gladly steps in and hauls this heavy trunk up, up, up the stairs to the loft. We see the trail of shining bright blood that it leaves behind in spits and spots on the stairwell…

Trunk hefted up to the darkness, Billy catches the blood on his hands. Wrenching open the trunk, he is aghast at its gruesome contents. Lisa pleads that it was Steele that did it! She has been sworn not to tell!

Meanwhile, as Billy gets to grips with the gang falling apart in the loft (literally, in poor Max’s case), Steele wanders the farmhouse looking for his compadres. To escape the madness, Billy has grabbed Lisa and the pair are fleeing into the woods. We see Lisa armed again with the cut-throat razor. Can she off another hood? They stumble past the bloody axe, now buried in a tree stump. But Billy pleads for Lisa’s help. He just wants to escape! He sees the razor and takes it, mistaking Lisa’s intentions.

We begin to clamber to the climax as Billy hides out in the woods and Lisa returns to the house. Steele asks for her company, in a manner more seedy than the bread she gives him to tear at. He makes advances but Lisa is avoiding him. Finally, Steele decides he will take Lisa for himself and he drags her upstairs to Grandpa. As Gramps dumbly watches TV, Steele roughly grabs, tears, pulls and grinds with a terrified Lisa. On TV, Gramps listens to a horse race, equine gallopy tension mounting!

But Steele is overcome with lust and rage so is not watching for Lisa’s hands, which grab at the spare axe in a woodpile and bring it crashing down on him. Gramps and his TV and splashed with hot blood.

A while later, the house is calm. Billy returns from the forest to see what has happened, only to find a calm Lisa spooning tomato soup to her silent Gramps. “Where’s Steele?” Lisa says nothing. Billy goes looking. But no Steele to be found? Lisa feeds Billy some cold, unappetising looking soup.

Billy drinks and slurps…but is distracted by a noise. Tap tap tap? Drip drip drip?

Blood is dripping in the fireplace. Stunned, realising what may have happened, he barely notices the wedding ring floating in his soup…

And with a dull thud, a very carved up and very bloody and extremely dead Steele falls down the chimney, staring dead eyed from the grate.

Police sirens! Billy panics and runs! A cop car pulls up! Stop! Gun fire! Ross runs from the house! Gunfire blasts! Freeze Frame, Butch and Sundance style!

Meanwhile, in serene quiet upstairs, Gramps continues to drink his soup, Lisa quietly spooning it into his trembling mouth.

Freeze frame.

The longest 4 minutes of titles ever, considering it’s a cast of about 5 people.

End.

Relax.

Is it any good?

Well. Considering the brief running time, the low budget and the am-dram hand-made, “shot over a weekend” feel this picture has, there’s much been penned on the subject of its creation.

Writer-director Frederick R. Friedel had seen Citizen Kane, made by a 25 year old Orsen Welles and decided he too would have a crack at the movie game while he was that age. Gathering his cast, crew and script in a rented North Carolina farmhouse, he pulled together scraps and short ends of 35mm Kodak film stock (stored in producer Pat Patterson’s fridge) he could get cheap and spent $25,000 (about £140,000 today) filming on and around the house.

With the sparce script and flat performances, it was unlikely Friedel was going to get a full 90m picture from such a basic set up: Young girl kills three gangsters – so many attempts were made just to, let’s face it, pad the damned thing out. Hence the exhaustingly long and slow opening and closing credits, and many repeated shots of the cast idling and waiting. Steele must pick the same finger nails and Max must chew the same bit of dry chicken about eight times. The lift rises to the 10^th floor twice. We see soup and eggs being cooked in real time. And nothing is cut-to, if we can see the plodding meandering prep and faffing and approaching and driving there. It barely squeaks into it’s 60mins plus running time, and would certainly have made a snappier 30m TV episode.

We have, to further grow our understanding of how this made it from grotty typewriter to Kodak cast-offs with a short piece I tracked down, penned by Richard W. Helms who was credited as focus-puller but was on set as a general helper with gaffing, sound and some cut scenes of driving stunts. He has this to say on the making of AXE…

“While my memory of events might be tainted after forty years, it does seem that there was a great deal of plot left on the cutting-room floor, because of time constraints placed on Patterson by his distributor. AXE (aka LISA,LISA) was planned to play as part of a three-or-four film bill at local drive-ins, and the owners of those drive-ins didn’t want people hanging in their cars TOO long without making a trip to the concession counter… The target audience was the drive-in crowd who needed some background noise while they made out. For that reason, Patterson may have seen little need for such dramatic devices as back story and character development. In those days, people attending drive-in movies paid for darkness and privacy, not great cinema…”

Is it worth your time?

Well it’s a curio, certainly – but then that’s been true of almost all the banned, prosecuted and withdrawn movies we’ve sat through so far. It’s no Last House On The Left (although the influences are clear as day. Influences? Blatant rip offs? Rips-off? I’m being nice). It is pretty charmless, with remarkably thin characterisation as Helms notes above. Who has time for that? So what depth of backstory we get can be summed up by standard tropes. Cigar guy, beard guy, knife guy, wheelchair guy, apple woman, chicken girl etc.

We can talk about the casting. All the main troop are doing their best with the flat, grumpy lines they’ve been given. To save money on casting, Billy (our Bob Ross lookalike) is in fact director Friedel. Our store woman is probably the most realistic of the bunch, being cast specifically for her amateur, non-acty reactions and timid shy paleness.

There’s not much to say about our goons who are given so little to do that beyond sitting about and complaining, there’s little there to allow their dramatic chops to take flight.

Similarly poor Gramps is required to sit motionless throughout and show no response or reaction to the horrors and taunts. He does, to be fair, look sufficiently dopey in the hat and can slurp soup and eggs like a young Anne Ramsay, and was cast due to his “evocative” face. Or “face” as I would have put it.

Which brings us to our hero, young Lisa. Playing a timid teen, Leslie Lee was in fact a strapping 23 years old at time of shooting. Friedel put the casting of Lisa down to her “feeling” and he felt, walking into the audition room, “she really was Lisa…”

Certainly Lee has a captivating presence and is ultimately very watchable. With tiny, bird-like movements, we feel her anxiety and panic, but what is interesting and a nice choice is that fact that – learnt perhaps from Grandpa – there is no panic, no fight, no helpless final-girl screaming and wrestling. Lee is flat, dazed and brings a sense of exhausted inevitability to her role. All her fight has gone, possibly from the thankless taks of feeding and cleaning up after her granddad day after weary day. She knows a fight is useless. That pounding and screaming are only going to make things worse. So she seems to visibly slump and give in to her attackers demands…all the while, hidden inside, a razor sharp mind – dulled by domestic monotony – takes flight with her plans and plotting.

There;s no fight when thegang arrive, no breathless race for the phone, no trip wires or Laurie-Stroud bent coat-hangars. Just a weary submission to keep the men happy.

Even in the bathroom, as she toys with the straight razor and wonders nervously if it would be easier to just trake her own life, we are with her desperation. Not all heroes can be Descent-like warriors or Ripley-esque bitch-slappers. Some are simple young girls who, having being submitted to a life of servitude, might just see such a gruesome home-invasion as yet another weight on the yoke.

Lee’s blankness as she chops, slices and destroys her foes is not a Hannibal psycho numbness. There is no glint in the eye, no mischief, no glee or sadism. Lee despatches her assilants with the same dull plodding routine as she does in, what we will now call, Chekov’s chicken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun

In other notes I scribbled.

Big nods and well done’s to Friedel’s budget use. To have put the Grandpa infront of actuial TV footage would have been a fucker to edit, continuity wise, and cost a small fortune in TV rights. In a brilliant move, he has the TV show nothing but rights-free static and has the sounds of the TV acted out by performers from his own script. So we get realistic sounds of game shows and horse-races, for only the cursory cost of the $80-100 the crew were given as a one-off payment for the full 9 days shoot.

Axe was originally released under the title Lisa, Lisa, under which it screened in Greenville, South Carolina, beginning December 9, 1974. It was re-released four years later in January 1978 under the title Axe, premiering in Los Angeles. Friedel did not favour this blunt (or sharp) new title as he felt it lacked the subtlety, “surprise, and irony” of Lisa, Lisa. Which I suppose is true. A movie called Lisa, Lisa that has a teenage girl hack up a gangster and shove him up a chimney is a shock. A film called AXE can hardly say to surprise you with the same sketch.

Nasty?

Sadly, once again we are treated to the before and after of all the bloodshed. We see axes raised high! We see wide eyed responses! We see axes thud down to hit “something” off screen, just out of shot. We hear things. We see blood splash on TVs, on tiles, on clothes. But there is, if I recall (and I may be watching an edited cut), no blade on flesh action. It’s all threat and aftermath, much like the disappointment of Mad Doctor Of Blood Island (see earlier review #4).

The nastiest part of the movie, to be fair, is the opening scene in the hotel when poor Aubrey gets his corduroy in a muss during his beating, kicking, slapping and cigar-in-the-mouth torture. This sets up a level of violence that simply never pays off.

What does it remind me of?

Blimey, it ticks lots of boxes. We have Craven’s Last House On The Left/Krug & Co to thank for the set up. Yes, it lacks the horrors and bloodshed, or the smart Virgin Spring revenge motive. But we are still in gang-home-invasion territory. Lisa’s visions and toying with straight-razors in grotty bathrooms we saw done better in Pigs/Daddy’s Deadly Darling. The towels and blood, as said, are straight out of Pulp Fiction. The score has a touch of John Carpenter at his stabby synth best (see Halloween) and the bathtub (I know…) killing gives us enough Psycho to be going along with. Oddly, the black skinny tie in the red blood gave me Mr Orange flashbacks from Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

The chintzy household knick-nacks we last saw in Schoolgirls In Chains (see also Rob Reiner’s excellent King adaptation Misery) and And the freezeframe ending – while done for running time extension – will have you Western buffs recalling Butch and Sundance.

Oh and Billy is still Bob Ross.

Where can I see it?

Lisa Lisa (aka AXE) was released on DVD by Image Entertainment on September 25, 2001. In 2006, it was released by ILC Prime on March 27. It was later released by 4Digital Media on October 20, 2008. The film was released for the first time on Blu-ray by Severin on December 15, 2015 as a double-feature alongside Friedel’s Kidnapped Coed. The double-feature was also released on DVD that same day. But you can get the version I saw on YouTube if you sign-in and pass their age restrictions here. Enjoy!

“There are definitely rites sometimes, but their significance isn’t explained and they’re not especially erotic. No one in this movie is interested in sex; they just happen to be doing the things they’re doing bereft of clothing. No one’s particularly interested in horror, either. Any of that icky bloody stuff is obscured by fight choreography that could best be described as “booze-soaked stumble-fucking.”

Confluence Of Cult.com

Who made it? Directed by Jesus Franco | Written by Jesus Franco + Mary Shelley | Director Of Photography Raúl Artigot| Special Effects/make up Monique Adélaïde | Music Vladiir Cosma / Voncent Gemignani / Robert Hermel / Armando Sciascia / Daniel White

Who’s in it? Alberto Dalbes | Dennis Price | Howard Vernon | Beatriz Savon | Anne Libert | Fernando Bilbao | Carmen Yazalde

If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching…

Soylent Green | Fists Of Fury | Last Tango In Paris | Jeremy | High Plains Drifter

Production notes and whatnot

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068559/

What’s it all about?

An owl hoots. And not for the last time. The Erotic Hoots Of Franken-Owl (if that wasn’t too Tim Burtony) would do as an alternative title.

As us nasty fans would hope for, a nice handwritten painty font then splashes the legend “La Malediction De Frankenstein!” For it seems we are in the realm of the dubbed picture.

We are in the trad’ Frankenstein cinematic era, notable by waistcoats, carriages, beards, cuffs, busoms and townsfolk. We close-up on a plastic medical-school rag-week skeleton. A joke-shop human brain in a jar. We pull back to see the laboratory familiar to all who go in for this sort of hokum. Under a spotlight, in broad daylight, a classic leering, eye-rolling “Egor” trope fiddles with plastic and Bakelite knobs that wouldn’t be invented for another century. On a slab, there is – let’s face it – a chunky wrestler covered in patchy silver paint. He’s not a hunk. He’s a chunk. Think more Adam West than Hulk Hogan. He has gingery hair and the sort of stock Frankenstein make-up popularised and parodied by The Munsters and Hanna Barbera: eyebrow ridges, square skull, neck electrodes, stuck on scars.

The monster screams on a table as someone in fancy “Baron-ish” garb tends to his electrodes. This is of course his creator, going for the chubby land-owner/ Joss Ackland, look in his cravat and boots. It’s already clear we’re putting a firm slice of “ham” in to the “ham-mer horror tropes.” God this looks cheap, and it’s been running for less than a minute.

Let’s hope this hasn’t opened with its strongest material.

Next, we’re in the forest at moonlight. Carriages and horses clatter through unconvincing “day for night” footage.”

The driver helps out a trembling spooky witchy starey eyed woman (Melissa). She is thin and sinister and looks like Helen Bonham Carter’s crack-headed cousin. Or, these days, like Helena Bonham Carter. But who can she be?

To warn us of impending looniness, the score goes bonkers freeform jazz and among more owlly hoots, a double bass, tom-toms and vibraphone do a mondo freak out. Yep she’s a weirdo.

Back at the modern mock-olde-worlde house (velvet drapes appear to cover UPVC double glazing),

in walks a figure. They pass through the gothicy whitewashed corridors looking for someone. Or something.

Back in the lab, they are increasing the voltage and dosage on the silver beast. More animal screaming. “He has the ability to talk!” Baron Frankenstein cries. At which point our mysterious witchy woman attacks the lab! Banshee wailing and clawing, bloody mouthed with echoey shrieks, wide eyes roll to the heavens as ketchup smears.

On the score, synths go crazy. And of course, under the tirade of bloodthirsty feminine scratches and bites, our good Baron and his Egor hit the stonework floor and – with the woman having achieved her goal (murder? Theft? Hunger? Photosynthesis? Bob A Job week? It’s not clear) her carriage escapes into the clippy clopping night/day.

At a distant “castle,” – soon to be revealed as “the Castle of Baana!” flutes and cymbals signal…something. On the high balcony stands our villain. He is draped in suitably olde-world kingly wizardy garb/blue curtain. He watches the shore as below, in a cove, two village folk haul a coffin from a boat. This man is Cagliostro. But not to be confused with this Cagliostro, who appeared in Marvel Comics. (In case you’re much much more of a nerd than I took you for.)

He watches. Oddly, a cowbell “clonks” on the soundtrack, making us wonder if the coffin contains a side of beef, or perhaps Albert Bouchard, the drummer from Blue Oyster Cult. Long tedious shots of the clumsy men hauling the box up the castle steps in the manner of Laurel n Hardy. The mood is set by adding more percussion – an ominous timpani this time.

Sick of waiting for these two UPS doofuses, Cagliostro goes back to his castle rooms. On his bed, awaiting his attention, lie two women. All pale and nudey. Women, that is. Not girls. Not the Megan Fox type. Proper women, with hips and full bums and wobbly skin. They plead and writhe for Cagliostro’s love – or at least perhaps, his penis – but, in the manner of most rapey priest types, he dismisses their cries. “Bitches!” Some slapping. Some nudey dark quim action in neat triangles as they wrestle with a guard who throws them out. Tch. Dames

Back on the Baana balcony, the two twits are still trying to work out which way is up on their Amazon delivery. But Cagliostro meets Melissa, the witchy woman of our story! Ye’, ‘tis she of the carriage and the eye-rolling murder. “I can see you, master” she swoons. (There’s a lot of “my maaaster!” gasping to come). “As if my eyes had sight.” Ahhh! Melissa is blind. Hence the swooning and over-acting.

As a handheld camera swoops and sweeps about the balcony, Melissa – who makes up for her blindness with questionable visions and predictions – foresees death and blood! Oh no! And she foresees Frankenstein’s creature raping the most beautiful woman, utterly at your command. Oh yes!

This, it appears, is Cagliostro’s plan.

So we put two and two together and it turns out the body in the coffin is the silver monster. Melissa has murdered his creators and has shipped his warm-ish body off to her master. Cagliostro is now in a theme park dungeon, looking upon his prize. A fat man in silver paint and fake stick-on scars.

Cagliostro gives the silver Beast his instructions: Obey the master at all times, go out, find the loveliest lady you can and bring her back. As the string and wind-chime section of the orchestra earn their time and half, there is much “Jedi” like long exchanges of glances. Christ, you’d think they were about to be hurled into a Sarlacc.

Elsewhere in the castle dungeon, two women (possibly the two from the bedroom? I can’t be sure or be bothered to check) hang by their wrists from the wall, awaiting punishment or death or somesuch. Much like Michael Palin in Life Of Brian. “You lucky bastard.”

Melissa senses them. Or just hears their half-hearted clanking. It’s not clear. But she enters their enclosure…for what? Well at this point it could be anything. Sex? Lunch? Some saucy braille action?

We cut to morning. Very loud sound-library birdsong.

Another oddly, but not very, gothicky house. The local village doctor (Dr. Seward) is tending to the concussed Baron Frankenstein. It appears Melissa’s chomping and scratching was not fatal. The Baron admits his sinister work to Seward: breathing life into the tissue of a dead silver wrestler. He pleads for Seward to continue his work! Save the creature! In the name of science!

But knock-knock! Who’s this? Well it’s the local copper, an Inspector Tanner. He is asked to wait, so Seward can get the final bit of plot from the Baron’s last gasps. “There is something you have to know!” the Baron splutters in his last breath. “A vital fact!”…and then drops dead. Idiot. Tch.

But curiouser and curiouser.

Inspector Tanner arrives in Seward’s lab, tired of waiting. He sees the dead Baron. My notes don’t tell me how he reacts. I assume in no particular way, as I’m pretty good at recording the good stuff. They don’t murder each other, that I know.

And now to church. Baron Frankenstein must be buried in the proper churchy manner, and indeed a proper churchy manor. A coffin is brought out to the sunlight, altar boys and whatnot fuss about. Latin is chanted, bells clang. Inspector Tanner watches the service, clearly interested in the murder of the mysterious Baron. Choirs sing “et lux perpetua luceat eis” and other public school incantations. Crows crow. Organs pipe and puff. But who is this at the back of the congregation? A glamourous woman in a veil, watching the whole gig. She has one of those silly tiny cocktail hats.

The cheap coffin is laid on the stone work. Our lady in the daft hat tosses roses onto the lid. We presume, at this point, the coffin holds the dead body of Baron Frankenstein. Although to be fair it’s mighty skinny-fit, barely able to fit a pair of jeans belonging to a member of Green Day. But ho-hum, perhaps they squeezed him in or spooned him out for the fitting.

Doctor Seward approaches the dame. She, it appears, is Vera, the daughter of the deceased. Aka The young Ms Frankenstein. She is too tired to talk to the doc who is frankly creepily trying to get a date, as if she was an Austin film critic and he was Harry Knowles. But she gives him the big rebuff. She is not interested in discussing her treatise, medical degree or not.

But before they part, they ponder, mystically, how the Baron could have died in his lab…and yet have been found 2 miles way in a forest, ravaged by wolf like vultures. Or indeed, mountain lions?

Hmmmm. Vera excused herself. We imagine she knows more than she’d letting on. She’s keeping it, as it were, under her hat. Although it can’t be much gossip – it really is a very small hat.

Inspector Tanner arrives, just outside the nick of time. In the nick of time’s carpark if you will. He is very interested in this mysterious daughter. And her tiny hat.

Back with timpani solos and cheap night-time filters. Oh and a lot more owls. Figures enter the church. They make off with the Baron’s coffin! And, we presume, the Baron inside. It’s not made clear. Drums boom, Horses clatter. Owls owl. You get the idea

Now (keep up) we’re back in the lab where we started. Young Vera now has her dad on the slab, wires and machines and whatnot. A female Egor (Egette? Ed.) asks about success? Vera fusses with cables and wires and knobs. She is positive she can bring daddy back! Windy wah wah sound effects.

And in an unconvincing manner (and an even more unconvincing manor) the Baron awakes! As if, just from a nap. One half expects him to scratch his scrotum and ask them to pop the kettle on while he has a shit. “Get my creature back!” he pleads. “I gave my creature mind! They stole it from me!” Vera – dutiful daughter that she is, swears she will retrieve the monster. “They’ll pay for committing this crime!!”

In case you’re interested? We about 20mins in.

More owls hoot. Or it might be the same owls. Either way, some repetition of the hoots. It is later. A young woman lets Dr Seward in to see Vera. Her nurse is unhappy, but Vera is willing to have a natter. They talk science.

He explains the Baron tried to tell him something before he died. He wants to talk about it. Vera couldn’t be less interested and dismisses this snoopy medic. A little flirting we sense? Possibly, but they’re not very good at it. Piano chords tinkle as Seward leaves, suggesting a possible romantic dalliance. Or at least a han-job behind the cemetery.

ADR crickets tell us we are in a cheap sound studio. We cut to frankly the most beautiful woman in the world who primly is undressed, petticoats ahoy, by her maid in some draughty 4 poster room. We get a little bare bum and a boob or two, if that’s why you’re reading this. Oh grow up.

As she primly strips and they turn down the bed, outside the window crazy Melissa turns up. It occurs to me now, watching it for the third time, blind Melissa is not only blind but also sort of half woman, a quarter a slightly weirder woman, and about 2 fifths bird. She has feathery arms, a beaky nose and tends to – and there’s no other term for it – caw and squawk at her prey. Outside the window she sniffs the night air and senses the sexy boudoir lady getting her boobs out and climbing into a big old plumpy bed. Her fancy is taken! This must be the woman she and Cagliostro yearn for.

She hurries to the carriage where old Silver Face Monster waits in an oddly patient manner. She tells him to get the girl! Unaware, the lovely woman sits up in bed for some candle-light reading before shut-eye (a tome that appears to be G-K of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Ahhh, home schooling).

The monster appears at the window! Our lady screams unconvincingly! The monster attacks! And we get an odd zoom-in close up of his tight buns in lesuire slacks. Which reminds me of nothing more than that weird pervy close up of the Bat Nipples in Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin.

Now? Flutes and the castle Baana! Sigh. We’re back here again.

Our lovely lady, sporting a healthy 70s bush in the obligatory porny triangle, is now hanging naked, helpless and unconscious. Melissa – now even more birdy than we thought with stuck on blue feathers all over her torso, a la Batman & Robin again, this time Uma Thruman’s Poison Ivy – chants about a creation of a master race! The first sacrifice!

Beneath them, down red-lit polystyrene castle steps come “a coven.” Or something. Wierdos. Makeup, skulls, cowls, hoods, masks. Our naked beauty is thrown to the floor. Menacing Cagliostro commands: “I want her head!”

A goon steps in, an unconvincing neck slice! She gags, she collapses. A proper Heinz variety Ketchupy knife. “A clean severance, yours to command and ours to obey!” Cagliostro lifts the head. The oddballs in cloaks and masks and mum’s borrowed curtains watch the baffling ceremony. Frankly, we have no idea why he’s bothered to do this. I thought they were going to shag? Well why let something like a missing pulse and early onset rigamortis ruin the romance.

Ah well. Onwards.

Meanwhile, Vera is back looking drab in the lab with dad on the slab, as Roger McGough would probably have droned. Trying to bring him back, she pumps up the decibels up to eleven like she’s Nigel Tufnell with a Marshall amp.

There is much am dram groaning and synth sounds. She asks who his killer was! The Baron gasps and groans and plays it for all its worth. Who? Who? Who is he?! “He’s mad!” Baron croaks. “Avenge me! Cagliostro! He died centuries ago! His soul is constantly recreated! He wants to destroy humanity! Go to the castle of Baana!” There are gasps, over acting, an Oscar attempt…and farewell… We have one dead Baron.

Silence. That we assume is meant to be chilling. It isn’t.

Daughter Vera swears vengeance. “Revenge is our work! The world will recognise Dr Frankenstein!”

Yeah yeah yeah, and so on.

We’ve got about 43 minutes to go.

Flutes and castle Baana again. A POV Carpetner halloweeny camera patrols the castle gates. From a distance, two women (Vera and her maid? Oh I don’t know, they all look the same in this garb) spy our Silver monster casually climbing into a carriage. “We have to see where they’re going!”

Now a boudoir. More stuffed birds than Norman Bates’s workshop. A readers-wives type woman lays “comfortably” on a chaise, dressing gown pulled awkwardly open for full boobs.

It must be very drafty. At the other end of the preposterously long room, a man paints her. Badly. She complains of being tired of the portrait endeavours. The man (all puffy shirt and puffier moustache, cravat and a splash of Hair Karate) lets her go for the night. Frankly, from the state of his drawing, he doesn’t really need her there. Just boobs and a smiley face would about cover it. Owls hoot too much, crickets crick. The pair kiss. So assume they are more than just model and artist. She leaves, heading down a gloomy corridor. More jazz drums. Sinisterish shadows. Our monster appears! A close up-scream! Frankie attempts to carry her off, we assume back to the castle.

But! Who should appear but Vera! She stops him! Demands the creature obeys his NEW master! And take HER to Cagliostro! Look at me! Look at me! (It’s like Kath & Kim, if that reference means anything).

The Monster seems un-fussed by this swap of tasks, so dumps the portrait lady and picks up Vera instead. As drums and bass fretless bass twang, owls hoot and jazzy gamelan vibes go bonkers, the monster hefts Vera (no lightweight) into his arms and he’s off back to Baana with his alternative prize.

A carriage arrives at the castle. Vera’s assistant clambers out and begins to prowl through the castle grounds. But what does spot on the lawn!? Boy oh boy, it’s Melissa-Called-Birdy chomping down on a poor victim. Melissa’s bird calls get frantic and she lets out a squawk!
The carriage driver fucks off with a clippity clop, leaving Melissa to attack the lab-gal dame with sticks. Much cat fighting and feeble stick waving.

From the turrets of Baana, we see Cagliostro look up! He can sense Melissa’s cries! Or hear them! We have no idea!

He runs to the castle door where the carriage driver is waiting. “Yeahhh, left birdy in the forest pecking at some bloke. She’ll be all right…”

Twerp.

So Cagliostro and the carriage driver head down to the cell to see the booby artist model the monster has brought to them. But fuckity doo…look who it is. Vera Frankenstein. She’s done a swappa-dee-doo. Cagliostro is livid. So slaps her about and spits on her.

They are interrupted by feathery Melissa who has returned from the forest after her stick fight. She tells Cagliostro the driver abandoned her and she was attacked by a witch. Oh ffs. Cagliostro is clearly pissed off with his driver’s incompetence so he’s flung in a cell for future torture. “We shall devise an amusing sport for the pair of them!” he says snootily. Clearly the day isn’t going as planned and he’s cheesed off.

Clanging bells. We’re back at the manor. The lab-assistant goes full am-dram Bafta, writhing and wailing on a hospital bed. She is screaming about bird women! About claws! About blood! About exposition! Calmly of course, Dr Seward paces and construes she must have been attacked by some clawy birdy bloody creature. (I wish they’d given Seward a pipe. He’s very much of the Peirce Brosnan mode in Mars Attacks. God I wish I was watching that instead).

Seward and Tanner realise the game is afoot! Or something. Vera must also be in danger! (They don’t seem too troubled by the assistant and her screaming PTSD). The cops are on the trail!

But hooray! At least we get to the scene on the box! Drums and upright bass thunder and twang and we are back in the red-lit dungeon again. The crazy crew in the hoods and cowls and masks are back to watch the afternoon’s entertainment. Cagliostro and Melissa stand narrating and cackling and narrating a bit more, like boxing referees:

“Okay, let’s keep it clean. 12 rounds of 3 minutes. You stand back to back chained together, surrounded by a floor full of spikes. Monster? You whip them feebly. You two scream and writhe and the first person to fall on the poison spikes dies. All clear? Have a good fight. Back to your corners.”

The crowd stare in theatrical lighting and the set-piece begins. This is pretty much the reason you rented it, as the sight of fully-frontal nudey folk chained up on a bed of spikes being lashed by a silver wrestler is pretty much what the poster and marketing team went with.

And it begins. The driver and our four-poster beauty and flogged limply with a short whip. Red slashes and gashes appear on their body. The crowd watch. Melissa squawks! Caglisotro laughs. This, like most scenes, seems to go on for days. Boobs get bloody. A penis wobbles a bit. Hidden Ewoks appear to chant and play drums. The crowd are clearly all jerking off under their robes and loving every minute of this crappy “Crucible” look.

Finally…the carriage driver collapses! There is cheering! He is dead on poison spikes! Laughter at length. Now Cagliostro summons the bloody and beaten Vera. She will obey him! Presumably.

Then an odd scene as Melissa transmits Cagliostro’s wishes and demands to Vera, hypnotising her and bending Vera to her master’s will! Melissa – with less birdy squawks now, more like Alan Sugars assistant on The Apprentice, explains Vera’s task at length. Cagliostro sits and stares. An out-take of Johnny Marr from The Smiths’s How Soon Is Now appears to be on the wireless. The demonic plan is laid out in painful detail!

Vera must obey! She must use her father’s knowledge to create new creatures! Bring them to life for his Monster to…well, to fuck presumably. They must be the perfect mix of beauty and submission! (Like the women advertised on Croatian marriage websites). She agrees. Coz she’s frankly off her head on something.

Cagliostro sits quietly as Melissa goes into unnecessary detail about the whole sketch.

We have 29 minutes to see how this plays out. They are not going to fly by, trust me.

Back in the manor house, Tanner discusses progress with Seward. We have idea how much time has passed. The cop talks of further disappearances. Artist models! Village girls! The assistant awakes and asks to speak to the doctor. She feels so tired. As do we of course, but only one of us have gone through such appalling trauma. I mean we’re watching it, she’s acting in it. “I feel so tired doc…so weak, so weak…”

Seward wants to know what occurred. She cannot tell him, as she is over acting too much. It’s all a blank! I can’t! Doc pleads with her. Other lives depend on it! Seward starts world associating to prompt her messed up memory. “Spring? Rain. Forest? Flowers. Europe? Cagliastro! Cagliastro! Cagliastro! Vera? MONSTER! Castle! Death!” She becomes hysterical. Thankfully, like in that weird bit in Ghostbusters where Bill Murray goes to meet Sigourney Weaver and she freaks out and he doses her with the sodium penthathal he HAPPENED to have with him (#metoo), they knock her out with a hyperdermic. “We better go!”

Owls again. Back in the “castle” of day for night whitewashed crappy gothic doors and lattice and oak.

Tanner and Seward arrive. Sneaking around to the soft sound of a distant jazz trio rehearsing the best of Henry Mancini, a fuck load more owls add atmos. They find the Dead Baron under a sheet in the lab. Jabbing at a large wooden BBC Stereophonic Workshop Sound Effects machine, things begin to hum and whirr and buzz. The Baron stirs! He begins to shake and spasm and over-act and try and deliver coherent exposition! “Come closer doctor Seward! You know my secret! Have pity! Don’t interfere. She is at Baana Castle avenging me! Don’t interfere! Get out!” and so on. He gives a final theatrical spasm and collapses. I want to say “dead” but this is the third time they’ve woken him up so I imagine he’ll be back before the credits. He must be very grouchy.

The cop and the doc hunt for the Baron’s diary to search for clues. More jazzy Mancini as they rifle through desks and papers. But next door! As the string section get back from a 3 martini lunch and realise they’re paid by the note, the music goes psycho-whatnot and from under his deathly sheet…yep! The Baron awakes. Again! All stiff and Frankensteiny, scarred face and wide eyes,

He stumbles in to the study, creeps up on Seward and, with no upper body strength at all, tries to strange him. Frantic music as Seward collapses, gasping. The Baron blank faced as he tightens his grip. When who should appear with an – ahem –  handy bottle of sulphuric acid? Inspector Tanner! A hurled splash of acid on the Baron and he collapses, freeing Seward. But leaving his hands behind in grotty rubbery stumps. That’s some acid. The severed hands are tossed to the desk. Won’t be needing them.

We hurtle, sort of, towards a climax. Back at the castle in a room over-looking the bay, Cagliostro and Melissa command Vera to bring life to the beauty who survived the spikey-floored WrestleMania. She lies naked, remarkably neatly trimmed downstairs and proposterously perky upstairs as Melissa incants meaningless drivel about beauty and new races and past and future and whatnot to the gods and a dazed Vera flicks switches and twists knobs and gets the sound effects and flashing lights going. Suddenly on the slab, the dead woman screams and jiggles and thrusts and makes “coming painfully back to life” acting manoeuvres. Flashing lights. Very fake perty boobs fail to wobble much. She pouts and gasps and collapses.

As a “well done dear,” Caglistro gives Melissa the key to the dungeon and allows her to enjoy whatever prisoner she chooses. Much chirruping and squawking from old feathery flaps.

Vera prepares to reanimate our perky beauty.

Melissa finds a man chained in dungeon. We assume a missing villager. Drums and toms as she unchains him. He is striped with bloody whip marks from a previous “ice-breaker” when he arrived we assume. Melissa laughs and caws. Bites! Screams! Super hickeys! Screams of delight! Chains clank! She screams and laughs! She will devour him!

We’ve 15mins to go. We have to assume at this point the doc and the cop will turn up, there’ll be a big fight. Perhaps one might get killed. Perhaps they won’t? You can’t deny the crazy set up does create an unpredictable plot. But let’s brace ourselves and see what happens…

Outside the castle, the production team are getting the most from their Wind Machine Sound Effect before it has to go back to the rental place. Doc and Inspector skulk about, palms against the walls, prison break style. They overpower a guard to sound of scuffled footsteps and fretless bass. To a window! It’s not locked! They feign breaking in anyway to give some drama, but the fucking thing falls open like wet cardboard.

They stumble into the lab where Vera is reanimating the silver monster. The usual red lighting and flashing bulbs and sound effects as the creature cries out! “My head…my head…” over and over. A production assistant fades down the Dr Who SFX Vol 3 LP they’ve been playing, to give enough time for Doc Seward to approach the silver beast on the slab and explain to him that the Baron is dead!

Frankie is not thrilled. These people killed him! Frankie is even more furious! They flee, leaving the confused beast on the slab as footsteps approach. He has been following the wrong master!

Vera arrives. We must go to Cagliostro! The Monster stands, stiff. They leave, down the stairs to the red chanty room once more where spooky Latin is on the stereo and plastic skeletons, bad makeup, druidy masks and chanting are on the guest list. Cagliostro’s followers? His family? His book-club? It would appear these are the zombies Cagliostro has been playing with up until now. But now he’s cracked the potion of using “living ingredients.” A finale approaches!

Melissa joins in with her birdy chanting and we get the big speechy bit. “Half of me is a bird. I am blind. Not worthy! But I cannot prevent your bodies from rotting here!” The reanimated beauty on the slab will now…as it were…bump uglies with the silver Monster, creating a new master race!”

The Monster appears. In the shadows, Tanner and Seward begin to kill off the bystanders Indiana Jones style, to get close-up to the zombie snogging and a bit of the old reanimated in-out-in-out.

As Melissa bangs on and on in her chanty fey voice, all gasps and swoons, she continues to explain exactly what we all know. Old silver wrestler is going to have sex with the four-poster woman. She if course is naked and strapped to a slab. He is painted silver from the belt buckle up and still wearing trousers. Seward and Tanner watch wide-eyed as the creature half-heartedly eases his way down to the naked woman and sort of gets off with her a bit. Plastic joke shop skeletons in bedsheets stare…

As the Monster begins to go in for, what we can only assume is some reanimated foreplay (his mouth is going sensitively nipplewards), this proves too much for the onlookers and Doctor Seward screams to the creature! How can obey those who killed his master?! Well this is a piece of logic that has escapes our Silver brute until now so in a tremendously admirable show of loyalty, he pauses pre-shag and decides the hottie can wait – he should murder everyone first.

A hyperactive feline, off her tits on catnip, appears to jump onto a church keyboard for 5 mins as the music goes all stabby and the Monster murders Melissa. She squawks and collapses in a sea of feathers. The coven all leg it about a bit, the Monster goes total Lou Ferrigno and there us much chapelly chaos.

Jerky cameras, out of focus zooms, some wrestling moves and the Monster destroys the place. The doctor fires his trusty revolver a few times. Cagliostro can only stare. He’s been planning this for a thousand years so is pretty fucked off by the whole thing.

The Monster attacks Cagliostro…but he cannot bring himself to destroy his new master. Irritating. Cagliostro flees laughing like Skeletor at the end of a He-Man cartoon and the creature carries off Vera instead.

There’s lots of running upstairs and “Hurry Inspector!” drama as they chase through the castle. Gunshots! Trumpets! Organs! Close ups!

A final gunshot! The Monster is hit! He drops Vera and falls off screen. Someone finishes cleaning their trumpet mouthpiece in a squeaky fart.

Cut to the sea! Cliffs!  Cagliostro! Horse-driven carriage! Faster! Hahahahahahaha! His face is torn with mad laughter! Vera, Seward and Tanner rush to the castle roof to stare! It cuts back and forth to the sea. If this was a late 80s Stephen King straight to video, clumsy stop-motion animation would have his carriage grow wings! Burst into flames! Shoot into the reddening sky! Laughter echoing forever!

But it isn’t. We just show some waves.

“Can’t you hear him laughing Dr Seward? His laughter is a jubilant one showing he has not been vanquished.” And then seems to say, although the dubbing isn’t clear, he intends to be back! To begin again! In about 9 months, give or take. Which is pretty specific.

Close ups! Organ frenzy! Titles!

And relax.

Is it any good?

Well. I mean this depends very much on a number of things.

Firstly, your mood. As we’ve previously discussed, depending on how you’re feeling this could be enjoyed for the seventies Pan Euro cheapie campy Hammery Franksploitation nonsense it is. You could roar with laughter at the dialogue, you could squirm and giggle at the silly story, you could play a drinking game and down a shot of tequila every time the music goes full bongo-crazy or Pink-Panther rip-off or a half-woman/half-bird screeches and says “Cagliostro!” and flaps about, tweeting like a drunk Ricky Gervais at 2am. It’s just under 90 mins and has enough art-school self-conscious Jonathan Ross/Elvira “Late Night Movie Drive In” kitsch to keep you chuckling. The make-up, the hammy over-acting, the silly sets and cheap props. Plenty of charms in that regard.

So, y’know – if that’s what you’re after, there’s lots of 70s camp to enjoy here.

Alternatively, if you’re a cineaste interested in yet another retelling of Mary Shelley’s Modern Prometheus myth, and fancy settling in with a glass of port to see how European writers and directors have taken this eternal story of Man vs God and given it a supernatural gothic twist, incorporating European legend? Well then this is going to have you reaching for the “eject” button within about 15mins.

First thing to note of course is that we’ve been definitely sold a pup, gore and sex wise. From the first moments the splashy bloody words La Malediction vomit across the screen, we need to lower our expectations. Most of which will have been set by the porny whipping and knives and nudity on the box. (More of that let down later). Malediction has nothing whatsoever to do with eroticism. It means “curse.” So we’re 10 seconds in and we’re already disappointed by renting something we hope is a bit “eroticy” and it’s actually just “cursey.” Sigh.

Production wise, the crew have chosen to avoid the pitfalls, floorboards, rust and authenticity of genuine spooky old Transylvanian baroque locations by saving a few bob on outside generators and lighting by hiring a modern manor house or local presbytery for $17 plus tax for the weekend and a promise to chip in for a new conservatory for the creche. It’s not in the least bit scary or convincing, the dark wood, arches, polished floor are all fresh and new, reminding us more of the “HAMA HAUS” range at IKEA. Now there’s an idea. And a really good joke.

The church where the Baron is buried among Latiny chanting and whatnot actually resembles a converted Scientology weekend retreat in Provence. I swear, it’s a good thing the cameras held back as I’m certain just inside the porch would be a full colour 7 foot plastic banner advertising Wellness Centres and a discount on some Tony Robbins self-help tapes.

Equal savings have been made in the make-up department. Now here’s often where movies such as this get to show their wares and bring us the shocks and gross flesh-peeling delights we have hoped for. But we are yet again let down. The half-bird, half-woman Melissa is a mixture of eye-rolling gasps and avian post-production screeches with stick on blue feathers about her arms and torso, plus some false talony nails to give her feeble “murderous” scratches some edge.

Our titular Monster is a silver painted wrestler. All barrel chest and thick neck, it’s just face paints, glue, wigs and ketchup. If it turned up at your door, trick or treating, it wouldn’t earn a fun sized Snickers.

Which reminds me. Universal Pictures, the studio behind those great early horrors got the great Jack Pierce to design the iconic look we all now know as the monster. And they had to copyright it, to stop other studios taking the property and running with it. Which is why only Universal “Franks” have that classic bolt-neck square-head asphalt-layer-boots look. It appears however, by 1974, they had little energy to sue Jesus Franco on this half assed rip off attempt.

Casting is terrific however, I’ll give it that. If by “terrific” you mean “absolutely text-book clichés of the highest order.” Our Egor in the opening scene is a hunchy Bill Bailey lookalike, which is de rigeur for this kind of set up.

Our manly Dr Seward is played by a mix of Bill Hicks via John Larroquette with a dash of Kevin Spacey and a sprinkle of John Sessions. He thunders about the place demanding traumatised women get over themselves and tell him what he needs. He is a fearsomely driven doctor of the old stripe and wouldn’t look out of place hand-on-hips, one foot up on a chair, slapping his thighs and singing “Bless Ma Beautiful Hide!” while Howard Keel phoned his agent.

Our humble bumbling copper – and every movie like this has one – we have to hope isn’t undercover CID as he couldn’t be more Edwardian Policeman if he tried, all Sherlock Deerstalker and tweedy and cape and officious “god be damned man!” moustachy manner. He plays it straight with the material he’s got and his fussing and spluttering and “what ungodly work is this?!” puffing gives it a panto feel.

Casting the coven must have been a piece of piss. Director Jesus Franco would have thumbed through a copy of the French and Spanish editions of The Stage and asked for anyone over 40 who could gurn, scowl, stare and look blankly transfixed – ideally able to bring their own curtain to dress in. Gaps in the coven’s numbers were made up with joke-shop skeletons in bedsheets. It’s “Eyes Wide Shut” on a pound-land budget. Budget Half Cut, if you prefer. Or casting director half pissed. Whatever you like.

But a word to be said on Cagliostro himself. Well four words really. “Brian, out of Spaced.” It’s the UK Channel 4 sitcom I’m sure you’ve seen, wherein the comedy actor Mark Heap goes bonkers arty in his spare room while Simon Pegg and Natalie Haynes make pop-culture references and Edgar Wright practises getting his foley louder and his cuts shorter. Starey eyes, little fuzzy chin beard, gaunt look. Once you see it, you can’t un-see it.

The music is all over the place. Everything and a kite has been flung at the score to get the requiste spooky atomos. So, depending on what’s on screen, it might be stabbing strings, tinkly piano, wind-chimes, jazz beat bongos, double-bass noodlings or full-on Victor Hugo organ chords. Towards the end, as I said, everyone goes to lunch to leave just a drummer and bass player to knock out a supper-club spy-theme “best of The Pink Panther” during the castle chase which is delightful campy fun. Although it gets in the way of the owls. Of which there are either 400, or one very tired one in a radio mic and grounds for workman’s comp.

The main observation of The Erotic Rites Of Frankenstein however is that of the editing and pacing. If you have a friend who likes to spin a tales of Christmas Shopping and adds synonyms and retellings and voices and characters and mimes and examples upon examples to the point where you just want to grab them by their fleece and say “we GET IT! It was BUSY! Move ON!” then you’ll know this feeling. Director Franco is very much from the low budget “keep it running, keep it running,” school of cinema and if a scene can be 20 seconds, it must be six times better if it runs for two minutes.

Almost every scene has twice the dialogue, three times the exposition, four times the explanation and eight times the running time that it needs. People say things. And say them again differently. And then again, louder. And then in close up. And then repeat them. Creeping through forests are shot from 9 different angles and by the time you’ve thought “well, I guess from the trees and the music and the creeping, she’s approaching the castle,” you could go and make a spaghetti Bolognese from scratch, and eat it, and come back and Franco may still not be finished showing you all the creeping and bongos he’d shot. It sags. Let’s say that.

As does this paragraph, by way of a happy accident. Snappy, it isn’t, Edgar Wright could have made this a 3min short film.

So is it any good? There are much, much better movies about reanimated monsters, European villagey curses, supernatural rebirthings of master races and harried detectives and shouty doctors out there. Get drunk and giggle along if you want. But you’ll be fast-forwarding before the gin’s run out.

Nasty?

A flat nope. Unlike the gall-bladders on a stick of Flesh For Frankenstein, the Mark Of The Devil’s medieval torture or Mario Bava’s bloodied billhooks, Jesus Franco has not gone for the close-up nastiness. Shots that could have been gruesome flesh-tearing, knife point piercing or blade thrusting nastiness are all handled in the softest of softcore manner.

When Melissa starts to get “hungry” with her prey – in a field or in a dungeon – there’s a lot of ketchup and mock biting, but she just sort of presses teeth marks into chests and moves on, smearing fake blood all over the place with her cheeks like an art school project. Strangulations are feeble, no-pressure affairs that involve velvet gloved hands on the shoulders and lots of fake eye bulging.

Whipping is a short piece of wool sort of half wrist-flicked like a wet gym-room towel, with the red paint on its ends leaving spots and streaks on the clearly unharmed flesh.

Oh and the big set piece? The one on the box that got the film censors excited? The “spikes” on the floor are as sharp as old condoms and wobble and flap as the cast pad around them, and we virtually see the spongey “blades” fold as the cast lower themselves on.

As ever, the slapping and spitting and general nudey-torture scenes are unpleasant and shoved in for pervy titillation. Women have their boobs out more often than antne would think necessary in a medieval castle with no central heating. Some full frontal nudity has a flapping willy and a well trimmed bush.

But gore? For heaven’s sake, you’d be better off with an episode of E.R.

Ban worthy?

I might stop putting this bit in. Ban it for its hammy acting, ban it for its clumsy storytelling, ban it for its clichés and stereotypes, ban it for being a waste of some fine character actors. But apart for some splashes of ketchup and some nudity, it’s no more worrying that “Carry On Screaming.” Which, to be fair, is funnier and better made.

What does it remind me of?

As above, we’ve seen similar tropes before. If you fancy a gory Frankenstein retelling with plenty corn, laughs, camp and grue you’d be better off with “Warhol’s Flesh For Frankenstien.” It has all the gothicky crinoline and ruffs of Mark Of The Devil, with none of the cod-religious posturing. If you’re looking for classic Video Nastiness, then what you have here is a frightened Board of Public (nay Pubic) Prosecutions getting het up about the words “Erotic” and “Rites” and some tits on the cover. Nothing to see here.

Where can I find it?

If you’ve a YouTube subscription, this link will take you to the full dubbed widescreen version I watched.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36ld4mBCSs0

“Frankly, Pigs is more peculiar than pleasing. Had it been about psycho sausage fodder chewing through the countryside, scarffing down civilians with applesauce abandon, we’d have a decent reminder of the whole Food of the Gods genre of drive-in delights. Instead, Troma’s tease hides a disturbed, deranged example of psychological incongruity that uses its logic-defying fundamentals to create a kind of existential horror hemorrhage”

DVD TALK

Who made it? Directed by Marc Lawrence | Written by Marc Lawrence| Director Of Photography Glenn Roland | Special Effects/make up Bruce Adams| Music Charles Berstein

Who’s in it? Toni Lawrence | Jesse Vint | Catherine Ross | Paul Hickey | Iris Korn | Walter Barnes | Erik Holland

If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching…

Day Of The Jackal | Paper Moon | Soylent Green | Pat Garret & Billy The Kid

Production notes and whatnot

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070537/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigs_(1973_film)

What’s It All About?

Brace yourself. For despite the lurid, tusk-dripping snouty flesh-ripping you’ve been promised by the art director of the dusty VHS cover – I promise you – the cover is absolutely the best it’s going to get. Stare at the box. That’s it. Read the back. Stare at the box again. Done? Yep, me too. It’s downhill from here.

But to save you from the disappointment, may I present on my behalf (remember, I watch these so you don’t have to): “PIGS.” Sigh.

We start pretty well, with – for me – a decent scary soundtrack. Not thunderous Goldsmith Gregorian  

choirs or scraping metal, but one of those hippy-ish, Woodstock, dusty, Doorsy Manson-Family style southern rock numbers. Always freak me out. A twangy beatnik jews harp gives us some backwoods Tobe Hooper grunge. “Somebody’s waiting for you…somewhere down the road…”  Urgh. You can smell the draft-cards being burnt over the whiff of gingham.

Rather jarringly, we open then with an older lady climbing out of a car to head back to her little apartment in some dreary US suburb of gas stations and strip malls. As she does so, the night is pierced by some very low quality double glazing and the screams of a victim from a top window. Then we’re in the victims flat and its close ups and screams and teeth and tears as the young woman (Lynne – out hero) fights off a bed-based bouncy attack. From the street, the old woman tuts and sighs. This is clearly not the first midnight disruption she’s been subjected too by these violent neighbours. But then, in the far window, a booby silhouette! A woman, a knife, a stabbing plunging action. It appears Lynne has – at last – the upper hand.

What follows quickly is a rapid montage that makes a Rocky training sequence look like Lawrence Of Arabia. We get some quick cuts:

Cut to: A Dick Tracy style news van turns corner in 1940s “extra extra!” fashion, tossing a pile of the morning news to the pavement and we zoom on in – Rapist Father murdered by daughter.

Cut to: Some library footage straight out of William Dozier’s Batman TV show showing us office blocks and zooms and plaques – a psychiatric office. A doctor nods and smiles at the un-seen Lynne. She is clearly nuts, still asking for her father. Close up of the rubber stamp: COMMITTED, (which is a great deal more than the film makers are).

Cut to: flipped switches and turned dials and rubber plugs as Lynne has hundreds of volts shot through her in an institution. Yep, the old Cuckoo’s Nest technique. But, shockingly, this does not cure her of her murderous delusions.

Cut to: A flighty nurse – all starchy whites and flat shoes – is called from her post by a hunky doctor for some late-night snogging. Thus giving the quick hand of Lynne a chance to grab keys, hat and the discarded white uniform. Michael Myers style, Lynne is outta here.

So. It’s nut-job on the run territory. So far, no pigs. But hang on, we’ll get there.

Music wise, we shift tone (as we will continue to do, back and forth) to a Freddie-Kruegery “lah-lah-lah ghostly nursery rhyme, a standard trope when one is suggesting the twisted and misty-headed world of the lost-innocence. “Somebody tell me, what shall I dooooooo…”

Then back to the Mark Chapmany hippie rockin’ of “Somebody’s Waitin’ For You…”

With orangey flarey lenses, exposures on different days in different weather filmed across a number of months, Lynne is driving across country. The film jumps and jolts like it has whole frames missing, giving simultaneously an odd, hand-made found-footage feel, and also the aesthetic of a student film made at the weekend for $8. She drives and drives, arriving in a cactusy desert. The ole’ VW pulls up and Lynne hides the nurses outfit in a shrub. Hmmm. We will come back to this I’m sure…

At which point (and we’ll have fun later talking about why) the movie then sort of starts again. Yep. Titles in an odd “Western Saloon” Bonanza font introduce our players. And then it goes dark, as night falls. Which tends to happen. Although almost all of this movie seems to be shot at dusk. Which, while expensive if you’re Michael Chamino (see Heaven’s Gate for evidence of endless magic-hour twinkling) was probably, no offense to the crew, the time it was each day by the time they’d learned their lines and got the focus set up.

Among the obligatory chirping foley crickets somewhere in presumably southern California, an old battered Ford truck pulls up. An older man in green with a leather waistcoat heaves a hessian sack with clearly some kind of body in it, from the flat bed of the back and into the darkening woods. He approaches a barn. Is he on farmland? It’s not clear. But what is clear is the grunting and frantic squealing of pigs behind the flaky wooden clapboard door. He fusses with the lock, body thrown over his burly shoulders. Lamp light in the barn. Farm equipment silhouetted. Typical rusty psycho shed familiar to fans of Wolf Creek etc. We get a self muttered narration and explanation: “Always on a full moon the pigs get hungry. I gotta do it. The pigs got used to eatin’ human flesh.” The pale faced man (Zambrini) who has been around the block many times, craggy and weather worn, explains his actions to his now unwrapped corpse. Almost with sorrow, Zambrini strips the man. Pigs are whining and straining at the fence. Snuffling and thrusting their snouts against a flimsy wood pen. He apologises.

And, depending on the version you’re watching, we hit the titles! Again! Yep. Or we don’t! “The 13^th Pig!” Or not! Or perhaps, depending on the time and date of the version you’re watching: Pigs/Daddy’s Deadly Darling/ Daddy’s Girl/Blood Pen/ Horror Farm/ Roadside Torture Chamber/ The Killer/ The Killers/ Lynn Hart/ The Strange Love Exorcist/ The Strange Exorcism of Lynn Hart / The Secret of Lynn Hart. For Chrissakes fellahs, make your mind up. But hey, we’ll talk about this later.

Back to more “Somebody’s Waiting For you…” as Lynne’s car pulls up in the inky darkness. Pig noises echo about her, causing her no small amount of distress. This is where Lynne will find bed and board. What could possibly go wrong?

Lynne, we assume, has never seen a horror movie.

All this porkine ruckus and backfiring rusty Beetle action disturbs a couple of busy body old ladies nearby, a fluttering fussy pair straight out of Fawlty Towers or, if you prefer, the music-hall shrieking of Hinge & Bracket). Meet Miss Macy and Miss Annette. They’ll be back, acting as the viewer, popping up from time to time to complain to the local sherrif about “goings on at the Zambrini farm…”

Lynne creeps down to dark empty café, where she meets the spooky Zambrini (which sounds like a cheap white wine, but is actually the owner of the café/barn/pigs set up). Lynne wants work. Cautious, and clearly not for the first time, Zambrini asks lots of tricky lawyery guilty questions. “Anyone after you?” Agreeing to provide Lynne with employment, he shows Lynne to the bare, damp back room which – vase of flowers and institutional iron bed, will be here new home. “Somebody tell me what shall I dooooooo.”

Lynne settles in as best she can, disturbed by the snuffly violent angry pig noises outside the net curtains I the milky moonlight. Investigating the room, she finds the obligatory medicine cupboard over the rust-streaked sink. A cut-throat razor in the bathroom cabinet gets fingered meneacingly and curiously, in a frying-pan-to-the-face piece of huge piece of subtle Chekovian foreshadowing.

Meanwhile, on request of Miss Macy and Miss Annette, the hunky town Sherrif (Dan) patrols the clapboard house in the darkness, torch flashing and patrolling. “He feeds the pigs dead people!” the women have claimed. “Then eats the pigs!” But Dan can find nothing amiss.

We are now back in the poor bedroom. Zambrini skulks in, looming over the sleeping body of Lynne. Leering, wide-eyed, the score ramps – an odd mix of stock nature sounds and delay pedal osscilation – Zambrini slashes out at Lynne’s face with the straight razor. Red flashes, blood, screams, head turns, left, right on the pillow. Pigs scream. She screams…

And then… bolt upright, Lynne awakes from the nightmare to the empty cool chill of the room.

“Somebody tell me what shall I dooooooo.”

Clearly freaked the fuck out by this dream/premonition, young Lynne goes looking around the grounds of the farm/café. She sees pigs snuffling and squealing in the moonlight. Horrible, grunting piggy screams. Zambrini catches her, again with the questions. “Just looking? Looking for WHAT?! There’s nuthin’ here!” Crows caw and pigs snuffle.

At which point, and it’s not clear when, the café gets what is probably its first actual paying ustomer in 30 years. It’s Ben. A good ole boy from up the dirt track (presumably, “yonder”) who works the oil rigs with his yukky-chuckly goon mates. Ben , munching a thin sandwich, urges Lynne to leave. Girls don’t last around here. And he spins the tale of her landlord. Zambrini. Used to be a circus performer. Fell from a platform 500ft up. Died. Was taken to morgue, at which point he woke up. Spooky, no?

Zambrini of course, overhears the talk, bursts in with lots more questions and threats. Wholesome Dan arrives, to warn Zambrini of letting his animals loose, letting him know of the complaints from the elderly ladies. Can’t he control his animals? Or sell them? “Only when they’re good and fat,” he says ominously, as we are only to aware of how he’s fattening his stock. Dan asks about Lynne, Zambrini cooking up a quick cover-story. Old friend, sick daughter, asthma, country air.

 “Somebody’s waiting for you…”

Lynne arrives and Dan’s fancy is taken by this smouldering brunette who we know is mad as a box of Fox news anchors, but he is still charmed by. There is some talk of an out of date Tax Disc on the ole Beetle.

Oh, and a body is still missing from the morgue…

In the first of many calls, young Lynne is seen on the phone trying to contact her father. (Yep, she’s bonkers). We hear only one side of the conversation, and oddly she seems to be engaging with him, enough to actually argue about when she’s coming home.

“Crazy…toys in the attic, she’s crazy…” (Roger Waters, 1979)

Back to Ben – remember him, the sandwich chomping yokel – as he runs through the dusty fields after his trusty and loyal dog. The dog who comes across…a pile of nurse’s clothes. Hmn. Ben gathers it up and brings it to Lynne, suspecting there is more to this than nudie nurse crop action. As leverage, all knowing Ben uses this turn of events to secure a date. Well, to insist on a date. “Pick you up at 8,” he says. Lynne has little to say about this.

After the date (although details are left out) they are parked in his pickup. Ben is trying it on, she’s pushing him away. Lynne wants to be driven home. Ben gets a little rough. He can’t understand why she’d make it with Zambrini and not a young guy like him.

Thankfully tyheir struggles are interrupted by friendly Sheriff Dan (yay!) who drives up and shines his big ole cop torch into the front seat. He tells Ben off for “parking illegally” and Lynne escapes Ben’s rapey clutches to get a lift home with wholesome Dan, much to Ben’s fury.

Although, to be fair, it’s an element of “out of the frying pan, into a slightly cooler frying pan,” as Sheriff Dan tries on a li’l simple flirting on the drive home, all “mighty purty” and “ma’ams.” She seems to appreciate the honest attention. He drops her off, as in the night, the pigs are having a good old scream.

Next day, well Ben is being an utter, as we say in the UK, “wanker.” Laughing and rolling with his tales of his “date” with the new café hottie, he tells dumbass tales making his jock oil well chums guffaw and click beers together in a flagrant disregard for health, safety and not-being-a-cornball-dick-ness. Somewhow however, we are then at Ben’s second date?! Lynne has somehow, we assume, succumbed to Ben’s boorish denimy charms and now undresses for him ins sultry glimpse of stocking tops and heels, much to Ben’s panting, drooling “can’t believe my luck” horniness. He is more of a pig in this scene than any of the background swine cast. Perhaps this is the author’s message. I doubt it.

Lynne apologises for the previous night being cut-short and wanted to thank him for his kindness. Or something.

“Somebody tell me what shall I dooooooo.”

But with meaneacing predicatblility. As Ben strips off his stretchy polyester 70s t-shirt to reveal his hunky oil-worker torso, Lynne whimsically fetches the straight razor from the cabinet. Ooops.

A little bed-based soft canoodling resumes – Ben clearly not believing his luck – before crazy Lynne whipe out the blade and she’s at him – slashing and swiping away. Faces, arms, screams, blood, woozy POV shots. Ben is dead. I guess he reminded her of her father a little too much.

Lynne now, in an odd piece of meta cinema, starts to hum her theme tune. “Somebody tell me what shall I dooooooo.” Which is odd, kind of like Sean Connery mumbling “dun-daddle-ah dahh, dun dun, dun-daddle-ah dahhh,” as he drives his DB5 around a mountain. Hmn.

Anyhoo, Lynne leaves Ben bleeding out on the bed and drifts off into her dreamy world of whatnot.

Zambrini arrives of course, and with paternal love and care, uses wet towels to clean and bathe the idiot-staring Lynne. “I didn’t do anything,” she whimpers. Father-like, caring and tender, Zambrini washes her clean much like a parent or lover, tenderly, carefully, with warmth and soothing noises. “Daddy went away,” she whimpers. Shushes her. Cleans her up.

The production values then let us down a little, but we can assume in the gloom of bad lighting and cheap camera work, Zambrini cuts up Ben with a butcher’s knife, hacking and chopping with the heavy cleaver, tossing body parts to his starving squealing farm animals. They snort and squeal for the smell of meat and fresh flesh.

Fade to the odd, hand painted and credited Circus poster. The great Zambrini. Odd oils and knives and animals in cages. Gerry Cottle, this isn’t.

So Lynne awakes, all cleaned up. Haunted by memories and the screams of the pigs the VHS and poster promised you would actually feature in this porksploitation nonsense, Lynne heads out to the desert where – I presume accurately? – a phone box is clamped to a lonely telegraph pole Did this happen? I’m so devoted to my Samsung that it’s difficult to imagine. But let’s go with it. Pigs screams in her subconscious as she hurls herself pell mell through the dust and cacti of the desert.

She dials, calling home, to speak to her father. He’s not available (unsurprisingly to us, as we saw him knifed to death at her hand about 35 mins ago). But Lynne is not happy. She MUST speak with him!

“Somebody’s waiting for you…”

Lynne runs screaming from her inner visions and voices, back to the “safety” of the café and Zambrini’s paternal/creepy care.

Meanwhile of course, life goes on. At the oil rig, questions are askes about Ben’s disappearance. Nobody knows (aside from some well fed pigs) where Ben has suddenly gone. Miss Macy and Miss Annette tell Dan the cop they have heard his truck. Seen him about. They are convinced Zambrini has something to do with this occurrence.

Dan confronts Zambrini, natch, but he waves him off. Ben was drunk. He came. He left. Sadly this story collapses whe Ben’s dog is heard whimpering and barking at the fence. Would Ben have left without his faithful mutt? Hmn…

But reason, for a moment at least, resumes. A local GP doc type (they coudn’t afford Wilfred Brimley so they got the nearest the casting company could find for their $8 budget) reasuures Dan the cop that the ladies are hysterical. Just over active imaginations. Dan tells the ladies he’ll continue his investigations and catch Zambrini breaking the law if he can.

The an odd moment as talk turns to myth and legend. Pigs were once worshipped. It was believed that humans transformed into pigs after they died. This is why they were sacred and not eaten. Dan is naturally dubious, like a young Richard Dawkins, of such medieval fluff.

Dan catches up with Lynne. Has she heard anything? Missing men? Whimpering dogs? The illusive Zambrini perhaps? But Lynne, after all she’s gone through, is now pretty hopeless. Stoned, out of it, destracted, she can be little help to Dan’s investigation.

But not one to put major PTSD psychosis ahead of his loins, “nice guy” Dan suggests a date? TO “get away from it all, get out of town? Although if this is “town”, fuck knows what the countryside is? Daeth Valley? He’s planning a “grand weekend.” Lynne’s not interested. Lucky escape for Dan, we think. Her being, as we have now had confirmed a half dozen times, a total murdery weirdy head.

Now it’s night. Ben’s thick-headed gun-toting posse-like collagues and chums come a-huntin’ around the farm to see what they can find. They are convinced that crazy Zambrini and this new waitress must know something about their good ole’ boy’s disappearance. They confront Zambrini, taunting and teasing him.

A scuffle ensues. At which point, possiblty due to a personal issue with on-screen violence, the lighting crew of the movie go on strike so it’s very difficult to see what Zambrini gets up to on his land. But upshot is, Zambrini goes to his sink and washes himself and – lo and be-hound – Ben’s dog turns up dead with it’s mutt-throat sliced open with a straight razor.

Dan confronts the hoodlums and tells them to back off. This is a police matter now.

Cut to: a new chappie in our sketch. A medical official from “the big city” is sniffing about, looking for a missing patient. Lynne is her name. Petite, brunette. Any sign? He checks in with the locals, flashing a mugshot, noiry Arboghast style.

Unware of her hunter, Lynne continues to, as they say in psychological texts, “wig out, big time.” She dances and sways about the café to “Wanna be loved?” hippie toons on the jukebox-a-rolla. The music, once again for its time and place, a cod Monkees vs Manson twang fest.

From the doorway, unseen, the paternal figure of caring but twisted Zambrini watches. Dad? Brother? Lover? Carer? Doctor? He is all and none of these, but is clear he has odd affection – in some sort – for this lonely mad girl.

Check your watch. We have about 20mins left of this drivel.

Now our medical official arrives at the café. The locals have identified Lynne and sent him to where she is living.

Acting all friendly-like, the official explains frankly who he is. She has to come back to the hospital. She is not well. There are folk who care for her. She needs to return to safety. He plays nice, having a coffee and a “slice of that yellow pie.”

We don’t know what’s in the pie. “Yellow” is all we have. Let’s assume lemon or something. It’s not important. But for fuck’s sake, who orders dessert based on the colour?

“I’d like a brown and green meal, with a transparent drink please.” Nonsense.

For some reason, this softly-softly caring talk appears to get through to Lynne and she goes out back to pack. She’ll return to the safety of snogging nurses and electro-shock therapy. Mmm. Who wouldn’t.

Zambrini enquires. “What’s going on here?” At which point the medical man explains the truth. She’s crazy, killed her father, on the run etc.

But there is an odd bond now between Lynne and her landlord. Both oddballs, both unwanted, both killers? He wants her to stay. He can protect her? Care for her? Love her? Feed her to the pigs? We’re not sure – only that there is something there between them – more from Zambrinri than Lynne.

At the mirror, preparing to leave – we assume – Lynne takes her lipstick and begins to add odd tribal stripes and greasy red streaks on her cheeks and slathers what looks like cold cream/hand-crème on a long bladed knife. Ooopsie.

Meanwhile trusty Dan is at the oil well talking to the men. They are plotting something? Leave Zambrini alone! The dusty denimmed men argue they can’t kill someone who was already dead. They have, I suppose, a point.

Back at the café, as the medical official waits, Lynne fakes a phone-call to her home. He waits patiently as she talks to…someone. Lynne says they want to talk to him. He takes the phone but the line is dead…

A few dumb 40s clack-clacks on the phone cradle (did that ever work?) and hello hello operator?

When suddenly Lynne appears and stabs him violently in the back to some crazy zither toons. Down he goes.

Well that got rid of that problem.

Dan the cop arrives at the café, but Lynne bluffs that everything is fine. Dan wants to come in and check but she is all too aware of the body, back streaked with blood, on the carpet…

Thankfully, a bleepy Gerry Anderson/ “Calling Dick Tracy” beep from the radio in the jeep calls Dan away. Dan gets to the jeep, to be faced with the murderous posse who are all headed to the café to “deal” with their suspicions about Zambrini and his murderous killing of Ben and dogs and crazy pig nonsense. Dan does his best to talk them out of their vigilante vengeance and half baked suspicions.

Meanwhile, Zambrini finds the official’s body. What to do?

With his care and love for Lynne overriding sense, Zambrini drags the body to his whining, starving pigs and lets them munch through the evidence, just like theyhave all the corpses from the morgue he’s been supplying them with til now.

Back at the copshop, the hospital make a call, asking about the whereabouts of their official? Dan admits he hasn’t seen anyone. But talk moves to Lynne. The escaped killer. What does she look like..? OMG! In a flurry of panic and care, Dan phones Zambrini to warn him of the dangerous woman. Dan and tells him they’re on their way, and cops pile into the jeep for their race to the café.

But Zambrini’s paternal feelings override the law and he poignantly fights his urges to father and protect her, telling her to leave. To run. To hide. For her own safety. Zambrini urges her to pack and run as the cops are coming. He busily begins to pack her things.

Lynne is very confused. Conflicted. Troubled and scared. She screams out for her father, but Zambrini argues and yells and finally blurts out the unthinkable truth. “Your father is dead!”

Allof this is too much for Lynne and she collapses mentally, unable to deal with the truth. Desperate, she plunges a knife into Zambrini’s back, sending him collapsing and writhing to the floor.

Scared, tearful and desperate, Lynne makes her last crazed call to an empty payphone. We here the other end: “This is a recording…” crackles away as she pleads her love to her invisible father.

Somewhere pigs squeal and whine.

 “Somebody tell me what shall I dooooooo.”

In the barn, Lynne drags Zambrini’s body and takes a cleaver, hacking and striking his bloodied corpes into chunky bits of pig food. Wrists, red wet sumps, limbs, body parts, the cleaver hacks away to the snorts and squeals of the famished slobbering swine.

In a way to cover her tracks, Lynne strips off and puts her own shirt and jewellery in with the pigs.

Dusk, as ever, falls. Dan arrives. He surveys the bloody mess.

Back at the police station, we see a Jaws-like typing of the death notice, clack-clack-clacking the details of everyone’s demise.

Next morning it’s all about the clean up. A local farmer comes to take the pigs away. “Get all twelve?” “Yep.” And the famer hands the necklace over.

The end…

Or is it? As in the closing moments we see Lynn on the road again in her trusty, rusty  VW Beetle. She slows at the side of the highway. She picks up a hitchhiker. Older, a big fellah.

“You remind me of my daddy…” she says.

The car takes off up the highway.

END

Is it any good?

Well that’s a question. It very well maybe. By which I mean, there might be a terrific version of “Pigs” out there. But given the hatchet-like cutting, recutting, reshooting, extra-scenes, missing scenes and general Lego attitude to the whole endeavour, one is left with only thoughts on the version you saw.

Let’s find out why, shall we?

According to the terribly reliable folk at Wikipedia and IMBD, this movie has had something of a, shall we say, staggered release history.

In its original cut, which may or may be not lost to time, it was Detroit 1973 when “Pigs” hit the big screen, with attendees offered – in a slightly more questionable but just as queasily hokey promo as the previously discussed 1969 “Mad Doctor Of Blood Island’s” green enchanted foyer syrup – slices of bacon to “enjoy” during the flick. Hmn.

However, after a fairly non eventful release, it was felt that a more gratuitous “slasher-killer” feel might boost the box office in the wake of previous blood-splattered drive-in fodder (Blood Feast, Mark Of The Devil, Last House On The Left) so producer William Roland decided taking “pigs” out of the set-up and giving a more simple “victim” nomenclature would do it, so “The Secret Of Lynne Hart” hit the screens. This naturally, would allow the punters to imagine all sorts of “secrets,” and appeal to folk who didn’t like bacon with their murders. Rabbis, for example.

But it still didn’t grab the attention of the US audience (and, having watched it, I don’t think the title is the problem, frankly). So William Roland jumped on the band wagon (“Banned-wagon, shurely? Ed) and decided that what folk wanted was a sub-par Exorcist rip off, Blatty’s epic having stormed the box office later in the same year. So the director was shipped in and asked to film a “new opening scene” in which poor Lynne (like she hasn’t got enough worries) goes through an exorcism, giving literally, “the devil his due.”

Of course, it would have made sense then to add more “satanic demonic” scenes in the movie to add some logic to this opening act…however they either couldn’t be bothered or didn’t have the time or money. So no mention is made again of the satanic “Exorcist rip off” element from the opening. Producer Roland added a new title to draw in the Friedkin-hungry crowd “The Strange Love Exorcist.”

I mean for Chrissakes…

Then 4 years later, you may well have stumbled across “Pigs” under a different guise – “Daddy’s Girl” – when Donald Reynolds cut out all the exorcism nonsense and removed all the pig ideas and rereleased thr picture as a “woman gone nuts” slasher. Finally (we can only hope), “Daddy’s Deadly Darling” – the movie we have now, was back in cinemas in 1984.

All this nonsensical back and forth, hungry producers and distributors doing everything they could to try and get a fee-paying audience in to see their nasty little piece of backwoods crapola, is the explanation for something of the car crash of a movie we have looked at today.

That opening, for example, which has the title PIGS in big block red capitals, and starts with the incongruous rape-revenge images in the top window, has nothing whatsoever to do with the tale, and was added in one of many reiterations.

The counting of the pigs at the end, “Got all twelve?” only makes sense if the movie includes the scene where the farmer says, “nope! I got thirteen!” which suggests a supernatural “man-turns-into-pig” motif which many can’t be bothered with.

It’s a fucking mess is what it is.

To be honest, it’s difficult to view “Pigs” or whatever version you happen to accidentally stumble over, without taking into account its chequered distribution history. Scenes you expect aren’t there, scenes that don’t belong pepper the running time. What we have here is the proverbial “camel, a horse designed by a committee.”

The version I viewed has the 5 min opening of the rape revenge, the psychiatrist, the escape from the ward, the hidden nurses uniform that all belong in a completely different picture. When Lynne’s drive across the state starts throwing up the “western” title sequence, we already know we are leafing through a hasty, Pritt-sticked version of a movie cobbled out of whatever the current audience might find titillating.

Let’s look at the elements of this one.

Well the music is, as we said, a jumpy schizo-leap between the nasty (is it just me? I can’t hear this “Somebody’s coming for you…” stuff without picturing Manson murdering hippie dusty stabbings) and the floaty dreamy “nursery” chimes of children singing. It’s an effective pair of tunes, both of which are suitably unsettling in their own way. Often we don’t need the hypnotic synth pounding John Carpenter created for Hallowe’en or the chilling cathedral death of Goldsmith’s “Omen” to get us feeling uneasy. And both these tunes do a grand job in suggesting the evil and the uncanny.

The camera work is nothing but profunctory. Stock, tripod footage makes up most of the dialogue with shaky hand-held looking after the pig scenes. We get some “POV” work from Lynne’s world once in a while to break up the student-film monotony. But the camera-person is doing much more than capturing the performances.

And the performances? Well they’re solid. They are what you get when you’re on a budget. None of the work is going to bother the Academy Award committee, however everyone’s earning their SAG minimum. We in the world of the “actor/director” as Zambrini is performed by the capable TV stalwart Marc Lawrence. Modern-ish viewers might recognise Lawrence from Tarantino’s “Four Rooms” or “From Dusk Til Dawn,” but here’s a fellah that has done his time on stage and screen with hundreds of roles as bit part thugs and hoods. Blacklisted in the McCarthy era for Communist leanings, Lawrence only helmed 2 pictures as director: Nightmare In The Sun (1965) and this Piggsy effort.

Lawrence doesn’t break any moulds with his take on the “lonely backwoods kick nutter” but we must recognise his ability to convey a mix of paternal care, sexual interest, twisted mania and brotherly conflict in his portrayal of the broken Zambrini.

Lawrence has a challenge of course as his choice of lead role with Lynne Hart, he selected his own daughter Toni. As anyone who has tried to get their loved ones into a decent Christmas photo, we can relate to any struggles Lawrence Snr may have had trying to cagole his daughter into part victim, part murderess, part schizophrenic, part confused innocent. But Toni does a decent few weeks work, mixing her dreamy confusion with her rage and revenge-driven actions. One imagines the script may say little more than “Lynne is confused/surprised/upset/furious/tormented” but the young Lawrence bites off a hefty amount of scenery without chewing it unnecessarily.

The rest of the cat do their best – the elderly ladies fussing and flittering hysterically, the oil-well hicks chewin’ baccy and giving off leery redneck aggression.

The plot is daft as daft can be. Escaped killers, man-eating pigs (who despite lots of sound effects, never get to kill anyone at all, chomping dutifully as they do on pig feed wrapped in denim and dungaree cut-offs).

What we have really is a cheap, cobbled together tale of confused passions. A wirter director wanting one thing, a hungry producer wanting something else and a profit-starved distributor after something else entirely. A lonely and confused woman, driven to psychotic despair by years of abuse, faced with a lonesome farmer who sees within her a chance, perhaps, to do the right thing. Zambrini hates the life he has created – feeding corpses to ravenous swine – unloved and hated by his townfolk, who sees in Lynne perhaps a chance at redemption. All of which ending with drive-in slasher stabbings and a grim denouement.  

Nasty?

Hahahahaha. No.

We have here one of the great examples of a movie for which the box is the most gruesome element. Everything the title, the stills, the poster and artwork promise are simply absent. At no point does any pig kill any human. Simple as that. Oh the sound effects are terrific and create a squealing soundscape of terror and trotters. But if you’re looking for a gory man-vs-pig snuffle truffle fest of gorging tusks and bloody carnage, boy oh boy you’re in the wrong place.

What “nastiness” there is, would be the murders. Lynne’s killing of the medical investigator, of hapless Ben in her bed and of poor, poor troubled Zambrini. But these are virtallu bloodless killings you might get in a episode of Tales Of The Unexpected. Knives plunged into backs, torn faces of screams, blood splattered walls and clawing fingernails. Honestly, there is nothing nasty about any of it. I mean it’s grubby, in a cheap, 8mm, ketchup and cine-camera way. But go elsewhere if you’re looking for gore or grue.

Ban worthy?

 Well it’s on the much-coveted “Video Nasty” list, along with all sorts of more disreputable horrors we all know. But beyond a bloody VHS box and a nasty title, about as worth banning as…oh I dunno…Gremlins. Silly. Harmless. Grubby. Screamy. Dusty. Nothing you can’t get better elsewhere. There are hundreds of “animalsploitation” movies out there, of which this doesn’t get to even chomp at the same trough. Killer pigs? Try 1984’s Ozsploitation classic Razorback.

What does it remind me of?

Well nothing we’ve really seen so far, as these movies are getting more modern and better produced. But it’s a nasty piece of “raped woman gets revenge” plus “farming unpleasantness” plus “hicks” so I suppose you could try it on a triple bill with Last House On The Left and bung in Invasion Of The Blood Farmers.

Where can I see it?

Amazon Prime Video will show you the version I saw for about 3 quid.

“In a muddy way, the movie attempts to instruct us about the universal insensitivity, living-deadness and the inability to be turned on by anything short of the grotesque. However, this ‘Frankenstein’ drags as much as it camps; despite a few amusing moments, it fails as a spoof, and the result is only a coy binge in degradation.”

NEW YORK TIMES

Who made it? Directed by Paul Morrissey | Written by Paul Morrissey | Director Of Photography Luigi Kuveiller| Special Effects/make up Antonio Margheriti| Music Claudio Gizzi

Who’s in it? Joe Dallesandro | Monique van Vooren | Udo Kier

If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching…

Serpico | The Wicker Man | Digby The Biggest Dog In The World / Disney’s Robin Hood

Production notes and whatnot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesh_for_Frankenstein

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071508/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm

What’s it all about?

I once saw a meme with a laser-printed sign on a toilet door, marking it “out of order” or some such. Underneath someone had written “please do not use Comic Sans. We are a Fortune 500 Company, not a Lemonade Stand.”

A design decision that did not bother Andy Warhol, as this epic of 70’s gothic style, camp, ham, shrieking, blood-letting, incest, cliché and gall-bladders opens with just that sort of childish font.

We are watching Andy Warhol’s “Flesh For Frankenstein,” (although, beyond name recognition, there is doubt Warhol had much to do with this production beyond turning up on set for coffee once). And the amount of time choosing a scary typeface was exactly the same time spent asking the cast to “act naturally.” Much fun awaits. Let’s get stuck in!

We open as two of the spookiest kids since Disney’s 1974 Escape From Witch Mountain, peer and poke about a huge gothic castle laboratory.

They are be-garbed in olde Victoriana outfits, adding to their air of Midwichian eeriness.Moving about the slabs, tiles and tools of a very sinister and un-sterile looking workplace indeed (cages, bottles, limbs, brickwork) they come across a rag doll. Like father like kids, as we are about to discover, in a nice bit of looming foreshadowing, they pick scalpels and silently dissect the doll, removing fluff and stuffing, only to then place poor dolly into a handy desktop executive guillotine. Eyes gleam as the blade comes thundering down and off plops the doll’s head.

Yep. These children have clearly learned bodies are for playing with, toying with, dissecting and discarding. We are soon to discover from whom they have picked up these attitudes and horrifying habits.

Infact, without further ado, let’s meet mum!

Through dapply sunlight, in an Essex-wedding princess-white pony-drawn carriage, the children trot along with their mother. Mother is Katrin, a stuck-up, snooty, snobbish, sinister woman, all pale skin and peery nostrils, decked in her Sunday best, out with her kids. They are still in their “Damien at a birthday party” formal attire, she all corsets and hairclips. In the hazy distance looms Castle Frankenstein. We are somewhere in that odd Hammer period where all horror movies seem to take place. Electricity but horses, science but farming. Waistcoats and boots but penicillin and surgery. See “Carry On Screaming” for the campy aesthetic.

But before she can drop the kids home for more laboratory mischief, Katrin comes across some key players in our sketch. Lounging around in the hay with wenches and a frankly Millennial attitude to a decent days work, she find some hunky farmhands, slouching on hay-bales and canoodling with wenches. Katrin gives them a right royal ticking off. These, we will meet later, are Sacha (the shy one) and Nicholas (the randy one). The busty wench is nameless. Let’s call her “Busty McWench.”

Katrin’s husband is of course the Baron Frankenstein promised in the titles. And boy oh boy, what a chap he is. High collars, starchy waistcoats, high forehead and screamy teutonic manner, he has all the Vs, Zs and Ws of a sitcom German, wide eyed histrionic yelling being his sole form of communication. Like all decent Frankensti, he has in tow an Otto, a toadying and forelock-tugging assistant, all “yessss master!” and “of course massssterrr!” like he were trying to make you guess “Peter Lorre” in a game of Outburst.

Within his smoking jacket and from behind a crazed glare, he toils with Otto sweatily in the lab. It’s clear he’s nuttier than an almond crunch bar, ranting as he does about his beloved “creations!” The Baron (as we will now refer to him) is trying to create creatures. Zombies, really. But perfect specimens of, for some reason, the Serbian race. He seeks body parts! In particular, the “perfect nose!” to complete his male monster. “The finest features of the Serbian ideals!” We learn from his startchy arm-waving wailings that “Serbians come from the glory of the ancient Greeks!”

Basically, it’s the standard Frankenstein Mary Shelley plot. But mixed oddly with Hitlerian eugenics and a madman’s desire to create a master race from his two “perfect Serbian specimens,” hand built in his Klimt-inspired cavernous laboratory. The attempt to complete this task (to build these two perfect monsters from body parts, convince them to mate, and then sit back while they breed a master Serbian race), is loosely what you might describe as the “plot” of this flick. It takes about 90minutes for it all to fall apart, but there’s lots of fun to be had before the Comic Sans credits return.

So, where were we? Katrin drops off the kids after a bit of bickering with her busy-busy hubby. We meet Olga, the housekeeper/nanny type. As fusty, dusty and busty as the cliché requires of a mumsy help. As Katrin tucks her oddball kids into their heavy bed linen and pecks them a matronly goodnight, she explains they will not be returning to “that school.” It is full of rumours about her and her husband. The Frankensteins are clearly better than the locals, looking down on the village’s prollish prying. The kids are not to listen to rumours.

(These rumours presumably being “hey, those kids’ parents are weirdo snobby insane Serbian-worshipping, castle dwelling freak-jobs who might well be brother and sister as well as husband and wife.”)

But mum tells them to bare them no mind. Their family is above such things and seek only beauty. (Or beauty and randy big-cocked farmhands, as we’re about to discover. Sorry. Spoiler).

So let’s dig into the Baron’s work, as this takes up a huge amount of running time. And if you find laborious shots of corpses, wounds, stitches, scalpels, flesh and electrodes tedious, get out now while you still can. Back in the cavernous tiled lab (all Greek statues, dark wood, bubbling bottles and smoking test-tubes) the Baron and Otto remove a man’s body from a winched slab, cut out the kidney in glorious claret-spilling gore and toss his empty torso in a pile of discarded body-parts in the corner, clearly not having the right colour bin for bio-recycling. The parts are coming together, offal by offal. But the Baron still misses that vital “Serbian Nose!” (If this is beginning to remind you of Woody Allen’s Sleeper, you’re not alone.)

At dinner, the family sit at a preposterously long table. Husband and wife/brother and sister (yep!) at either end, the weirdo kids opposite. There are candles and flowers, statues and fruit, wine glasses and silver bowls. Olga serves soup as the “couple” argue about the children’s upbringing, their parents’ love and tedious posh picnic whatnot.

Meanwhile, let’s get back to our two lowly farmhands we met earlier. Sacha and Nicholas. They chew corn stalks and loll about in the grounds of the castle. Neither of them appear to do much to earn their keep. Nicholas berates Sacha, as Sacha is a gentle, virginal man of God who wishes to leave the castle-life and join a monastery. Nicholas, randy old goat that he is, wants Sacha to at least taste what he’s missing and invites him to visit a brothel with him that night. With almost no resistance, Sasha agrees. After all, he’s a monk, he’s not an idiot. And what harm could come to a simple chap with a (spoiler) beautiful Serbian nose..?

Anyhoo, sometime later (it’s not clear how long) the family Frankenstein (minus crazy dad, of course, who never leaves his lab, aside from silly long table dinners) are taking a picnic in the castle grounds. A bit of carelessness with the picnic rug and a basket of apples cause them to “lose their lunch” (much like the audience will, less symbolically, in an upcoming gall-bladder-themed lab scene. Brace y’self) and they go running after their tumbling pomme. Only to find, still fingers deep in Busty McWench, Nicholas and his farmhand pals shirking once more. But wait! Katrin likes the look of this Nicholas chap. Clearly her husband/brother is not satisfying her in the boudoir dept, and she invites him to come and, ahem, “work for her,” up at the Castle. Hmmn. He’s not going to need much farming equipment, we sense. But some serious “ploughing” might be on the cards, so to speak.

Back at the lab Otto and the Baron are busy dismembering and carving the two bodies (male and female) they have on the slabs. Arms are carved off, stumps glow wet red, sewn-up scars are pink and fleshy. The Baron decides they need a horny mo’fo (with a Serbian nose) to complete their monster, only then can it be guaranteed to have the lust and longing needed to breed an entire new race. Perhaps a bordello in town might provide such a hard-cocked panting chappie? Indeed.

Meanwhile, the ever present Midwich Weirdoes watch from the upper balconies. Honestly, where are Social Services? Or a distracting episode of Blue Peter?

Predictably, as a foggy dusk falls, Nicholas The Randy and Sacha The Monkish approach a local bordello/brothel/knocking-shop (as my dad used to say) or “discreet executive massage parlour.”

Tinkly roller piano clanks, women in frowsy frocks wash their boobs in the sink and generally lounge about the place. It’s cheap and nasty, much mascara and blusher in attendance. The men enter. “Why don’t we show him a good time?” one of the “ladies” suggests. But god-fearing Sacha is reluctant to get stuck in. He’d rather, in amusement park parlance, “hold the coats.”

Meanwhile the Baron and Otto wait outside to find the sort of man who would frequent such a place. Cutting to and fro between their waiting and soft core snogging, fondling, topless moaning and whatnot, lusty listless passion continues among the beads, sashes, petticoats and candlelight. But in a tragic twist, a slimy lizard should scuttle across the bed, causing the ladies to shriek and scream and run helter skelter from the building. Sacha follows. And therefore, in a key misunderstanding, the Baron and Otto mistake this poor chap for the kind of lust-filled cock machine that could  

1. Manage two women at once
2. Cause them to gasp and scream and flee the bedroom.

They have their man.

So as darkness descends, Otto and The Baron return to the brothel with all the complex equipment needed to remove Sacha’s head. That is to say, a massive fucking pair of scissors. In a gloriously gory snap of blade on flesh, Sasha’s head in wrenched from its neck and held aloft, perfect nose and all. “It’s magnificent!” At last the Baron has his final part. Nicholas, meanwhile, is merely clonked on the head by Otto to get him out of the picture.

We cut to the next morning, and Nicholas is naturally alarmed to wake up with

1. A headache
2. A close friend without a head.

Terrified, he buries Sacha’s decapitated body. But doesn’t forget, in all his “trauma” he has an appointment with Katrin at the Castle first thing, for some corporate sanctioned cock action. Or some tiling and wallpapering, whatever her coy look ultimately suggested. We’re not really sure which he’d prefer.

So while the Baron and Otto attempt to sew Sacha’s head to the bits of torso they have gathered together, Katrin greets her new, ahem, “servant” who has dutifully arrived for a day’s “work.” Katrin, all lacy lingerie and panting busom, waves away Nicholas’s talk of “headless friends buried in woods” and “offers him a position.” Okay. Well. We can leave that where it is, as she grasps and pulls at his lithe young body and he discovers he doesn’t have to do as much tiling as he thought.

And now we get the key scene for which this movie is most quoted and remembered. Ask Mark Kermode. He’ll tell ya. The Baron stands over his female zombie, stroking her puffy pink scars. “I go into her digestive parts!” he cries, snipping away at her pink stiches. Blood seeps and blobs and he daubs ineffectually with a cotton swab.

He opens her up, solemn, sincere, firm of jaw and task. Her eyes open softly, but she makes no movement. The crazed Baron smears her breasts with blood like he’s seasoning a chicken. In goes the hand with extra squelch, counting her innards. “Spleen, kidneys, gall bladder…” Breathless and horny as he delves around insider her, panting and sweating – “Liver!” it’s not really clear what he’s up to but boy oh boy his mounting excitement is apparent as he thrusts and gasps and thundering piano chords tell is he’s shot his load in his smock. Nice.

The splattery remains of the woman are wheeled upright. The Baron climbs on and the table is levelled by Otto’s winching. Thrusting his hand inside her body, he begins to dry hump, face to face, gasping and sweating. “Soon you will give me the right children, the children I want!” Fist deep in her bloodied torso, he thrusts and moans and gasps himself to satisfaction on top of her, hips writhing. Piano tinkles romantically. Otto helps him down when he has “finished. “To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life in the gall bladder!” Otto blinks. Good advice, I guess.

So we’re about halfway through, in case you’re keeping count.

Anyhoo, where now?

Katrin and the Baron squabble. She explains there is a new person “on staff.” A man?! Why not a girl! He’s just a farm hand. “I’ve seen him work and I’ll keep him very busy” Cut to them after sex again with plenty of swooning piano trills and chords, while we see the creepy kids observe from behind green tannined old mirrors. This is not an upbringing Miriam Stoppard would recommend.

But now the test! In the lab, electrodes are attached to the two bodies – male and female – and they twitch and spasm. The Baron and Otto force the two zombies to face each other, naked aside form modest covered bandages over their “whatnot”. He commands them to move their limbs, which they both do, slowly and creakily, cracking leathery sounds like an Exorcist neck. “I’m fulfilled! But not yet!” the Baron screams. He wants them to breed!

But not before dinner. So we get a very odd scene as both Katrin and The Baron introduce their new “arrivals” to the dinner table.

Gentle chamber music wafts with string quartet plucks as the monsters arrive for dinner – dumb, plodding, trussed up in back braces, arms in stirrups to keep their backs straight, ribs held together tightly with hard leather straps – and Nicholas moves around the table offering slices of what looks like pheasant or quail. The atmosphere is, shall we say, stilted. The kids, as always, say nothing. They’ve seen worse, we imagine.

Bit later in her boudoir, Nicholas is distraught! The man at the table! It was his friend Sacha! But…taller! He asks about the Baron’s work, his lab. He is intrigued! But lusty Katrin urges him to forget about it. He cannot go wandering the castle. He has “better things to do,” and he succumbs to a dull off screen blow job. Naturally.

Okay, so we’re about an hour in now. To recap: Sister/Wife Katrin has her farmboy lover. But he knows in the lab, something has happened to his friend Sacha. Whose head (and Serbian nose) has been planted on a body to create a monster breeding machine that will fuck another zombie and create – at Katrin’s husband’s wishes – a master Serbian race. Right. With me? Okay. Let’s go.

While the lab experiments continue, and the kids resume their ill-advised spying on dad’s “work”, Katrin and Nicholas continue their lusty workman-like by-the-hour lovemaking. However the Baron has spied on them and knows exactly what is going on with his sister/wife and her servant/lover. Blimey, lots of forward-slashes needed for this one.

But meanwhile, where is Olga? The trusty housemaid? Well she’s decided, presumably for the first time in 60 years, to sniff about the lab. And what sights she sees! Bodies! Limbs! Wounds! Hand to throat in shock and eyes wide, she tries to run. But who should be waiting with sex on his mind and 3D in his contract, but Otto. He catches her and, lapping and licking like a gecko, chases her about the tiles. She tries to escape among spider webs and clanking chains in the back room of dusty bottles and stone but Otto is too insistent. It seems he has waited a long time for this conquest! Otto bites and gnashes at Olga’s flesh, causing her to fall and her organs to swing and dangle above us, Olga lying prostrate on the grate, the viewer below, watching them swing red and shocking like a gory pendulum. Nice. Well worth the red and green specs, if you’ve bought 3D tickets (more of this later).

But back in lab, the Baron MUST make the two zombies mate! He lowers them in front of each other and barks, yells, commands them to kiss. KISS HIM! KISS HIM!

But sadly, as we the viewer knows, he has picked the wrong head if he wants sexy fuck-time, and the dull head of Sacha refuses to comply. The Baron, understandably, goes bat-shit mental at this turn of events. His beloved couple! AAARGH!!! And so on. “It can’t be true! Somebody disturbed our work!” But no response. They glance down at Sacha’s manhood under bandages, but nary an adolescent twitch.

The Baron paces the ground screaming about his mistakes. That perfect nose! He is convinced someone is meddling with his experiments. He bellows and rails at the world. He pleads with his son for information about who may be messing in his work. The boy is maddeningly non comital with “I don’t know” idiot shrugs. The Baron must discover who is stymying his work!

And now we reach the climax. And at 73 mins, it’s about bloody time.

Nicholas of course, finds his way to the lab. He wanders about the bodies. Orchestral strings go swirly and woozy. He tries to awake Sacha. Meanwhile the Baron rails at his sister. “I did everyzing for you!” He wants information about who has been meddling with his “verk!” Katrin toys with him, demanding that the Sasha monster is brought to her boudoir to, ahem, “fill in” where Nicholas couldn’t. Indeed.

As Nicholas pleads, the half Sasha/half monster explains he is happier dead. He doesn’t want his body back. “Breathing is better than not breathing!” Nicholas urges! But “No.” Sacha is resigned to his fate. He doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. “I want to be dead.” Nicholas grabs the male and female by the elbows and tried to march them out of the lab to freedom and safety, only to be frozen in the doorway by Otto and the Baron for, of course, the big showdown. “We’re leaving and you’re not stopping us.” Baron commands his Sacha-Monster to grab Nicholas. Nicholas runs, swings derring-do style on a chandelier Errol Flynn style with another bit of gratuitous “Look Ma! Its in 3D!” action, kicking Sacha in the gums.

There is much dramatic yelling and struggling atop the lab steps, Nicholas falling to Gerry Anderson music tumbles. The Baron must steal Nicholas’s randy brain and replace it with Sacha’s “less willing” noggin. Suddenly Katrin arrives, sweeping about in her night-time frock. She appears glad Nicholas has gone, tired of him as she is. And now she is ready for his replacement. “So soon?” Yes! She fancies a bit of Sacha The Monster! Baron offers him up. “I’ll bring him back in 2hrs,” she says. “I won’t say untouched…but intact.”

As the Baron goes to fetch chemicals and tools to put Nicholas’s brain into the monster, Otto, frustrated with his serf position, eyes up the female monster, Homer Simpson style. “Mmmmm, female! Urrghhhh…” etc.

Meanwhile (and so sorry for all the meanwhile) upstairs, Katrin gets to grips with the scarred, bandaged torso of Sasha, seemingly untroubled by the snakes and ladders of the stiches and wounds across his body. She orders him into bed. She guides him, lower, gentle, lower, more…until he’s robotically making love to her. “Squeeze me tight…tighter…” She begins to scream, gasp, he grips and tightens his huge arms, the orchestra going mental with squeaking strings. She is crushed. Oops!

Otto, meanwhile, has the terrified Nicholas strung up by his arms. Otto is getting power hungry, feeling he never had his chance, the Baron having treated him so badly. He will try and emulate the Baron’s work! With the dangling Nicolas as an audience, he unties the woman and tries to play-act at the Baron’s sexy stylings. He begins to lick at the wounds as The Baron did. He peels back her paper bandage panties, eyes wide. And then, as his master did, he plunges his hands into her wound.

But he’s clearly missing some expert technique, as she screams, gasps and falls to the floor in a mess of bloody and innards. Otto is aghast! Where has his lust and temptation brought him? What will the furious Baron say?

Well, we are about to discover, as the Baron marches in to the lab, to find Otto bent over the bloody mess, Nicholas dangling by his wrists.

“It can’t be true! What are you doing to me! Bastard!” Screaming with fury, the Baron strangles Otto with rage for ruining his work. He must find a new female! He must! And as if prayers answered, Sascha returns from the boudoir carrying a limp body of Katrin. Baron sobs and rages. He commands the monster to kill Nicholas. Screaming and bellowing. “KILL HIM! LISTEN TO MY COMMAND!” Oh, but Sacha – aware of who has created such distress – thunders towards the Baron instead.

The Baron runs, pursued by the stomping monster. Escape is no use as, through an iron gate, his arm is trapped and his hand is wrenched off in a splurge and squirt of pillar-box red blood.

Bleeding out, the Baron stumbles with his bloodied stump, back to the lab, holding his dismembered hand, thrusting it against his bloodied wrist pathetically. “It’s all your fault!” He yells at Nicholas. Running to the suspended Nicholas he brandishes a scalpel to kill him, only to find behind him, approaching silently with a long window pole/hook is Sacha. And with a 3D inspired thrust, he pierces The Baron, who has his innards thrust out and waggled at the camera on the end of the pole.

He gasps. Reaching for it, as if to put it back in. “My verk will live on! I vill not die in wain!” He gives his triumphant speech. “He lives! He vill show ze world my genius.” And the Baron collapses silently, gasping his confession and triumph.

As he dies, Nicholas – dressed like a panto Han Solo – commands Sacha to take him down. But Sacha wants to stay, he cannot live like this. He has changed too much. He must be dead. He strips off his shirt,  Pulling at his stiches, eyes rolling, we see a mess of groo come flopping and lolloping out of his stomach, in glorious 3D colours.

Nicholas winces. Sascha The Monster collapses to the stone floor, among the corpses of the others.

Finally, as the camera pans away leaving the horrid tableau, the children arrive. Observing the bloody carnage and sorrow and loss, an oboe piles on the sadness. They glance around the floor. They are strung-up Nicholas’s only pleading chance of being saved.

But they spot the lungs and heart puffing and panting away. With eerie looks and nightmarish intent they are inspired to continue dads work and approach the helpless Nicholas with scalpels… An ending of destiny…but hope. Of something. Of…oh for heaven’s sake, don’t do a sequel…

Is it any good?

Well I sat through this one twice. Once, to get the full uninterrupted effect, the next time jotting down notes on plot and thoughts and reactions and such and such.

And I still can’t make up my mind. Because it’s silly. Loud, campy, over-blown, self-referential, knowing, wink-to-audience, lavish and plain daft end-of-the-pier nonsense. The writer/director, Paul Morrissey, has not set out to make a dark, brooding po-faced version of the Frankenstein legend. This is not Peter Cushing being all reptilian and sinister, this is not Kenneth Branagh being all bare-chested and grandiose. There is nothing slow, spooky, cobwebby or tense about this telling. Everything is turned up to, in Mark Kermode’s lovely phrase “eleventy-stupid,” and clear instructions to the crew, the production designer, the composer and – most importantly, the terrific cast – were “More! Louder! Again! Sillier! Shout!”

Morrissey himself, according to a little research, was not the icky, Franksploitation mondo kitch-in-sync type the movie suggests. The colour and camp would suggest a helmer from the Roger Corman, John Waters pulp vein. However Morrissey’s memoir (Factory Days) explains more that his style was the result of 16mm news cameras, able to take much, much longer shots (33mins uncut), which allowed him to get his cast to improvise, repeat, try new things and generally throw everything they had at the camera, without the worry of reel-changes and cuts. Perhaps it was this that allowed Morrissey to simply ask his splendid cast to go again, again, again, trying all sorts of excessive expressions. Or maybe it was Warhol’s hand, steering the scenes into the pop-culture tackiness that made him famous. Whatever it was, Morrissey has chosen the maddest, eyes-wide, flamboyant and laughable takes of every scene.

But let’s talk about camp, for a moment. What, for some is a glorious celebration of life, colour, excitement, sexuality and expression is clearly, for many, just “mucking about” and “not doing it properly.” Picture London’s Prince Charles Cinema off Leicester Square. (This is a bit Londonist, but bear with me). A small rep cinema off the main drag of the West-End’s neon, popcorn-peddling multiplex machines, the Prince Charles has been showing late-night, singalongs, shoutalongs, triple bills and all-night-o-ramas since about 1991. The place for horror fans, sci-fi fans, obsessives, dress-ups, indie fans and movie geeks, it’s one of the country’s leading Independent Cinemas.

On a personal note, I discovered its charms in the mid nineties when I fell in with a movie-obsessive crowd and we discovered, for the sum of £3.50, we could catch mid-morning and midnight re-runs of old classics long since departed from the Odeons and Cineworlds. Always a “student” art-school, off –beat hipster crowd, this is where faded prints of 2001-A Space Odyssey, Duel, Butch & Sundance, Pink Flamingos and The Evil Dead were re-run for whooping and cheering fan-boys and girls long into the night. It also showed movies that had been banned on VHS, so we could get (in my fading memory) weekly showings of Reservoir Dogs, The Exorcist and Natural Born Killers, while the BBFC fannied about with home certification decisions.

A key night out at The Prince Charles – and why I’m banging on about it – was their hugely popular “dress up and quote-along” Rocky Horror Picture Show nights. Swathes of fans in fishnets, corsets, mascara and wigs, clutching bags of rice and other key ephemera, would arrive on a late Friday to shriek, sing, yell, argue and quote-along with Richard O’Brien’s schlocky vampy tale, shouting “slut!” at the screen on cue, Timewarping in the aisles and generally having silly fun their parents wouldn’t have thought “quite right” for a public cinema.

To the majority of course, the loud and arm-waving over-the-top performances, to-camera-winks, screeching and am-dram cheapiness of movies such of this are a massive turn off. Why is it so stupid? Why is the dialogue so clunky? Why are they over-acting? Why aren’t they – for heaven’s sake – doing this “properly?”

And I suppose, if you have to ask, then you don’t “get it.” If all the over-lit, over-dressed, over-acted, over-bearing over-the-topness makes you wince and cover your ears – like Norman Tebbit at a Pride march – and just wish everyone would “calm down” and “stop showing off,” then something like The Rocky Horror Picture Show – or, to come back to our theme, Flesh For Frankenstein – is not going to do anything but irritate you.

Camp is a taste thing. Much like kitsch. For many, a 99p plastic neon “glow in the dark” Virgin Mary bottle opener is the most tasteless and garish and foul thing in the world. Why would you want such a thing, when you can go to Habitat or Boden and buy a lovely, subtle, ergonomic brushed-chrome device for £40? Indeed. But then, the reverse is true. Why have something smooth and functional and professional and sleek when something delightfully daft and cringingly naff could raise a smile everytime you reached for the Merlot?

A lot of folk grow out of “campy kitsch” of course. It’s something for their student bedrooms, along with fairy lights and inflatable armchairs and flying ducks and 70s pineapple ice-buckets. Collectable, knowing, cringey but fun and – without getting poncy – a celebration of life in all its meaninglessness. By the time ithey’re 30, all that plastic crap has been car-booted or binned and it’s IKEA picture frames and “nice rugs” from there on in. For others – and Ebay will attest – age just brings more of an income and bobble-heads, tiki bar-accessories, leopard-skin and polyester are the prizes at the end of a long weekend in Brighton, at a car-boot or on some over-priced collector’s site.

Anyhoo, enough. I’ve got carried away on this one, because…well, that’s pretty much where Andy Warhol’s Flesh For Frankenstien sits. Overblown, garish, in-your-face panto over-acting, whooping stereotypes, pearl-clutching reactions, wooden dialogue, spoof-like sets and Hallowe-en costume party clobber.

The cast are giving it their all, no doubt about it. The Baron – a fierce and glaring Udo Keir – whom we saw in 1970’s Mark Of The Devil – relishes his dialogue and a chance to spit and flail and give it proper madman intensity, screaming like Mussolini about his “creations!” and his “master race!” An extraordinary set of eyes on a beautifully chiselled face, Keir has rollicking fun shrieking at Otto and blasting his creations, while wrist deep in “zere gall bladder!” ranting and sweating and chewing the scenery.

His sister – the delicious Monique van Vooren (American Belgian born) – plays it as a mix of Vampira and Marlene Deitrich, swooning and panting over the lithe bodies of her farmhands. Nicholas – Joe Dallesandro – has come to Serbia via, if his dialect is anything to go by, The Bronx. Making no attempt at all to “Europenize” his accent (although to be fair, Vooren and Keir are vowel-chewing enough for the whole cast) the beautiful Dallesandro thunks and plods his way through his few lines, it clearly being sufficient to Morrissey that he merely looks incredible sexy with no shirt on and doesn’t – ahem – “feel the cold” during a draughty full-frontal moment.

Production values are just the right side of lovely. The laboratory is a huge proscenium of tile, statues, dark wood, bubbling phials and buzzing electrodes from the Hammer “spooky prop” dept. A huge stage where most of the wild action plays out, it gives a theatrical setting – not dissimilar to Rocky Horror – for the players to go full am-dram shrieky.

The movie has a small 3D history, being filmed in the Space Vision 3D process, requiring the standard cheapy red and green cardboard glasses. This version was shown on only limited screens in London, Stockholm and Australia, but is the primary explanation of why, whenever possible – gore and grue and innards are thrust and waved and waggled at the camera.

Critics, much like myself, are clearly divided. As – depending on your taste for the silliness and over-blown ham – this will make you laugh: “To know death, Otto, you must fuck life in ze gall-bladder!” “I am fulfilled!….But not yet!” and repeated screams about the importance of “a Serbian nose!” and you’ll have giggly silly fun, as you might with Mars Attacks, Pink Flamingos, Grease or the work of Ed Wood. For many of course, ten minutes in and you’ll be rolling eyes and sighing and getting all het up and cross that nobody’s “doing it properly,” and everyone is “tired and showing off.”

Nasty?

Oh yes yes yes yes yes. And therein lies a lot of the fun. For all its shouty nonsense (and honestly, it somehow mixes passionate, wide-eyed, hearfelt pleading performances with Carry On Screaming whooping swanee-whistle cartoonishness) Morrissey has got some beautifully textural, rotting, sticky, gloopy offal-flapping innards from Carlo Rambaldi.

If that name rings any bells, and for the cineasts and splatter-fans, it may well, 3 time Oscar winner Rambaldi is something of a star in the world of make-up and effects. More of his amazing latex/flesh work can be seen in more “upmarket” fare later in his career. In fact if you marvelled at ET or hid behind the cushion during Alien, then it was Rambaldi’s KY Jelly and polystyrene you have to thank.

No cutaways, no pull-backs and no hesitation has been considered in showing as much “Flesh” as the title of the movie promises. It isn’t, after all, called “Suspense For Frankenstein” or indeed “Plot For Frankenstein.” The whole movie is a glorious celebration of stomach-churning gruesome close-ups. Scissory decapitations (complete with waxy heads held aloft), unpicking pink-fresh stiches, plunging fists into lungs and kidneys and hearts, spurting limbs, missing hands, dangling intestines and torn open torsos are all lovingly shot in glorious technicolour close-up with “don’t spare the sheep’s blood” clearly written on Rambaldi’s call-sheet. I’m not going to call it “realistic” as I am no surgeon, and it’s all rather “cinematic” rather than “traumatic.” But for 90mins, you certinaly aren’t spared the innards and it’s howling, “uuuurgh!” fun for all you gore fans.

Ban worthy?

Well it was prosecuted during the VHS frenzy of the 80s. Originally passed with cuts for cinema, it had some material reinstated (about a minutes-worth) in 1996, not finally released for home viewing uncut until 2006. And for fleshy close-up gore, innards, blood-letting and splattery death, it’s right up there on the “blimey” list. Interestingly of course, aside from the grue, it’s a wholesome tale. In a sense. That is to say, we are not faced with the gritty, unpalatable, misogynistic, rapey nastiness of many a “Nasty.” No 17 year old virgins are stalked, no-one is beaten up, mugged, violated or attacked in the manner of, say, “Last House On The Left” or “Love Camp Seven.” The horrors are all “fantastical” in that gothic Hammery/Universal way – unlikely to encourage copy-cat violence as it’s all done with a sort of cartoony innocence. (The period costumes and lavish sets somehow soften the blood-letting, just as the silly comedy of movies like “The New Adventures Of Snow White” lessen the obvious pornography. So no. Don’t ban it. But don’t put it on after Christmas dinner either.

What does it remind me of?

Seriously? It’s got all the campy fun of “Carry On Screaming,” all the horrors and fleshy punctures of “Mark Of The Devil” (but none of the heavy-handed religious theme) and the theatrical glory of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” this very much isn’t. Nor does it give Boris Karloff’s agent anything to worry about, copyright wise.

Where can I see it?

There’s a really nice, widescreen clear HD version on YouTube, hiding under the name Filme Carne Para Frankenstein (Flesh For Frankenstein/1973) [HD 1080p] – Legendado #TrashMovie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6z-mBNHpYo