The long-running blog of American poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg: poetry, horror and cult movies, Rockford history, cryptids, art, humor, gaming, and cultural commentary.
Showing posts with label exploitation movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exploitation movies. Show all posts
I don't understand the 1974 movie The Thirsty Dead. Who's dead, exactly, and although almost everyone gets thirsty sometimes the dead don't and the dead in this movie show no evidence of being thirsty.
I've sat through it a few times, or I've done the dishes or vacuumed while it was on. So, that alone probably means I know a lot more about this movie than you do. Here's what I think happens in this movie.
A bunch of blond chicks just happen to be doing a lounge act in The Philippines. They get kidnapped and decide they want to look down each other's shirts. Then this death cult led by a white dude attempts to transform them into...
Old Philippino hags for no damn good reason. Nobody drinks any blood here. The only thirsty person represented in this movie is at the lounge in the first scene. Nonetheless. If you happen to be doing the dishes, I recommend The Thirsty Dead.
February 21, 2013 update: The Thirsty Dead is still pretty stupid. But I think you can still get it on Drive In classics so go ahead and watch it.
In the early seventies nowhere was safe. Don't Go In the Woods, Don't Go In the House, Don't Answer the Phone. In the 1973 schlock-fest The Forgotten, they're saying not only should you NOT go in the basement, Don't Even Look In the Basement. Don't even think about the basement. The basement is not for you.
However, if you would like to detach your enormous head from your body and "stand" at the top of the stairs looking down and yelling out of your cavernous mouth that would be just fine. Here's sort of what might have happened in this movie.
One of these people is about to have his ridiculously misguided anger therapy used against him.
The building is filled with loonies. This one appears to be dead.
This one is named Sam. I'm going to ruin the rest of your life by telling you as the credits roll he's eating a popsicle and mumbling something about white folk.
Didn't I tell you not to look in the basement?
February 21, 2013 update: You did tell me not to go in the basement, but I thought my raquetball raquet was down there. Now I got this hatchet in my head.
The Demoniacs, also titled Curse of the Living Dead (along with every movie made from roughly 1966-1986), is a film by French horror master Jean Rollin, who brought you the classics The Raisins of Death, Revenge of the Living Dead Girls, and Zombie Lake. The Demoniacs can be summed up in four words and four pictures.
French
Pirates
Demons
Boobs
Thank you Jean Rollin for never making us have to think too hard and always making what would otherwise be considered sexist trash into lowbrow poetry of a sort.
In the 1970's the unwritten rule was it was permisable to make an intentionally schlocky, exploitation movie full of nudity, violence, and drug use because if it was only to be shown at night outdoors as part of a double or triple bill where everyone knew the rules. If the only thing I ever told you about the drive-in classic Revenge of the Cheerleaders was that
David Hasselhoff plays a character named Boner wouldn't that be enough to send you out to the corner gas station to rent the Betamax copy? Oh, there's more. Lots more.
They have sex, they take drugs, they do whatever they want, including...
Robbing their fellow students at fire extinguisher point for their drugs, then dump them in the spaghetti sauce leading to a naked food fight that requires an orgy shower scene, sounds like these chicks got their turf under pretty tight control, so who they need to take revenge upon?
The Lincoln High cheerleaders, of course, because they refuse to do sex and drugs and want to plow Aloha High under to make a shopping mall out of it. These chicks are so uptight when they say cock they actually mean rooster.
A new principal is brought in to save Aloha from the evil developer who wants to turn the school into a mall, but instead decides the cheerleaders are actually the source of the problem and replaces them with the good goody cock squad.
Bummed out, the girls team up with the Go-Gos, take a field trip to the woods, knock over a liquor store, then seduce a Boy Scout just for fun.
Their sin batteries recharged, the cheerleaders decide instead of giving up they'll kick some goody two show ass and regain their turf. However, when they return, things have really gone to Hell at Aloha High
When they return to school, the basketball team is losing the match to Lincoln High because the cheerleading is so uninspiring. So they whupp some ass and stuff them in lockers, but then the evil Nurse Beam chloroforms Boner, who instantly goes limp. But one of the cheerleaders knows that if there's one thing Boner loves, it's the smell of (cinnamon rolls), so she whips off her penties, and two sniffs later Boner is rock hard again and ready to lead the Aloha team to a rousing defeat of Lincoln.But this is where things start to get a little weird.
Nurse Beam, secretly working for the evil land developer,Hartlander, blows the school up overnight and the cheerleaders learn the principal has been kidnapped by Nurse Beam and a giant brontasaurus the gang hops in their convertible and goes to the rescue.
The chase in on through a series of winding caves leading to this elevator that appears out of nowhere and leads to
.
A shopping mall, where the girls chase Nurse Beam until they all end up on a golf course where Beam sinks into quicksand.
The sanctity of sex, drugs, and rock n roll is restored. Not particularly in that order. Credits roll, party out. I actually didn't watch this movie and now I feel bad for the review because it's not my style but I saw the picture after I reviewed Revenge of the Dead and it looked like fun. Now it just looks like exploitation garbage.
The best thing about the movie Zombie Lake is that it is directed by one of the greatest zombie directors of all time, Jean Rollin, under pseudonym J.A. Lazer. If you have not seen Rollin's classic zombie movies The Living Dead Girl and The Grapes of Death (yes the French title looks like it says Raisins of Death) please remedy that situation immediately. The worst thing about the DVD of Zombie Lake is that some dimwit included an option where the viewer can watch the movie without the nudity. Which would be a mistake of epic proportions, because...
Every one of these French chicks is going to show you their crazy-go-nuts magnificent 1970's style boobies, but you don't want to see them, be my guest. I don't know what sadistic son-of-a-bitch even came up with such a DVD option, but may that person burn in a Hell and receive no dinner.
Boooooooo. We want boobs, we want boobs.
So, standard set up here: WWII Nazis ambushed by French resistance and thrown into this lake, which twenty-five years later every chick with big tits in a three country area suddenly wants to jump in for a refreshing afternoon swim with no one else around except...
Booby grabber Nazis. These are nice underwater shots. But like all Nazis, they aren't satisfied with underwater booby grabs, they want to come ashore and invade Poland again, and that shit ain't gonna fly, not on my watch. USA, USA...
There's actually a nice subplot done rather well with this character. But in the end...
Surf Nazis Must Die. Wait a minute, wrong movie, I meant...
Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies must die. Shit, wrong again. What I meant was...
All Nazis everywhere, all the time, living, dead, undead, fictional, or otherwise must die.
Zombie Lake. Let me know how the no boobs version is workin' out for ya'.
Zombie Lake is a movie that should make almost everyone's top five list of Nazi Zombie Movies, along with Hard Rock Zombies, Oasis of the Zombies, Shock Waves, and Dead Snow.
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