Bloodsucking Freaks(1976): This is it! One of the most bizarre, repulsive, degrading, sickest films you could ever want to see. That is, if ya take it literally or seriously. If you're a Drive-in Freak, it's one of the classics. Something that will never be shown on the big screen or TV late-night again (gotta love those 70's Drive-In's) Ahhh, I get this warm-all-over feeling, seeing this again. The film opens up in a van with what looks like two creeps from the Manson Family tooling around the mean streets of New York City. They're laughing and smiling and they stop at a theater and drop off a box. A midget (Ralphus) brings the box in and fools around with some chain and then the chain tightens and something is being lifted in the air. A minute later, amid crazy music, we find out it's a chick being suspended and welcomed to the Theater of the Macabre. Master Sardu is on stage explaining his "art" to an audience. His art consists of torture, dismemberment, acts of debasement and death. A chick is fitted (by Ralphus) with an iron tourniquet, squeezed until blood drips. Then her arm is stuck in a vise and hacked off. Ralphus then plucks out her eyeball and eats it. The audience claps as they think they are seeing an act of illusion. Come to find out, it's really happening!!! Sardu also runs a white-slavery trade and the "actresses" on stage are the ones he can't sell. A New York Times critic says he will never review such trash and Sardu is pissed. He wants to be known for his art and maybe move his off-off Broadway show uptown. Anyway, the classic "Don't you dare ruin my dinner!!" scene comes next and then the critic is kidnapped and held prisoner until he agrees to do a good review. He won't. Sardu then states that he will get the famous Natasha DeNatellie to dance in a new ballet he his composing. We are introduced to Natasha and her boyfriend (a pro football player-yeah right, he looks like he has the physique of a butter stick-this is a football player?) Anyway, Natasha is kidnapped from Lincoln Center and brought back to Sardu Meanwhile, Sardu is trying to impress the critic by sending 500 volts of electricity through this chicks nipples. It doesn't work. Natasha doesn't work either. She won't dance. The boyfriend, finding out Natasha is missing, calls up 911 and gets: "This is the New York City Police Dept's emergency number 911. There is no one in at the moment, you are listening to a recording. At the sound of the beep leave your name, telephone number, a short description of the crime and the perpetrators." typical, huh looks like 911's "been a joke" since it started. Natasha is suspended, and tortured via crashing cymbals (Ralphus is to leave no marks on her body). After a day or two, she finally overcomes and Sardu and Ralphus call a doctor in. The doctor comes in, Natasha will be fine and Sardu says "how much do I owe you?" doc says, "how about letting me take it out on trade?" "An operation?" So Sardu gives him a blonde and the doctor proceed to pull out her teeth, "so she won't bite". She's passed out, so he shaves her head while humming some operatic theme and then says "how about a little elective neurosurgery?" He power drills her head (for almost two full minutes) and then wiggles a straw into the hole. Well, take the title and put two-and-two together….Sardu and Ralphus are even grossed out by this. They get rid of the doctor by throwing him into a cage of starving, naked, caged up women in the basement. The women rip out his heart and then rub the blood and meat all over their bodies!!! Jeezus, they even fight over an ear! Sardu and Ralphus play darts using the backside of another dame. Too many scenes to go into, you got to see it for yourself…backgammon using fingers as cash, guillotine and Catholic Schoolgirl, Ralphus gets head from a head. another ballerina's feet gets cut off, prompting Natasha to dance. Her ballet is known as "Death of a Critic". A sleazy cop on the take. Death by sledgehammer, fried eyeballs, and finally, you'll never eat hot dogs again. Every five minutes gratuitous breast shot, making this the worlds champion at 76 boobs!!! Oh my God, I wonder if this Drive-In has shower facilities. The shocked look on the other patrons tells me there's a line for the bathrooms.
(1981): The credits cry out One Moment of Ultra-Violence Once Seen Is Never Forgotten. How true, how true. This moment has got to be the most "real" murder in splatter film history. It is said that the maestro himself, Tom Savini, worked on this film. I dunno, I believe he was "special effects advisor" for this as he has said. He showed the FX guys how to do the stunt. Has a film really ever scared you? I mean, truly scared you so ya can't sleep? NIGHTMARE will. I'm pretty jaded when it comes to splatter flicks, but this has me squirming in my seat. It just oozes sleazy and repulsive. A certain nastiness that just seemed to take a big dump on the MPAA and polite sensibilities of this fine nation. I find it hard to believe this film (like BLOODSUCKING FREAKS or MANIAC) was ever released. Perhaps that is why it is so hard to find nowadays. Pure sleaze. I found this in an out of the way video store under a different title: BLOOD SPLASH. Hmmmm. New title - same movie. Gotta read the backs of the boxes, boys and girls. Plot synopsis for this film. Well, we have many things going on here. For being a real cheap thriller, we got multi-layers going on. George Tatum is very disturbed. George is in the asylum. George has terrifying reoccurring dreams. One in particular. Dad, whore, S & M, an axe, gallons of fuckin' blood everywhere, a flying head, eyes opening, intense music, slow motion. The stuff dreams are made of. George takes experimental drugs to help. The doctors say he's cured. He's not. Second plot: Single mom in Florida. Single mom has three kids. Single mom has a babysitter. Single mom likes to hump this guy that likes to think he's Jimmy Buffet. Single mom is hardly around. Kids are latchkey. Single mom has boy named C.J. He's a real "dose of reality". A reason condoms were made. Single mom (and babysitter) constantly have the shit scared out of them as a stabbing is faked, prowlers are on the roof, etc. So back to plot one, George is released from the institution. He prowls around Times Square. A perfect setting of whores, strip clubs, dopers, bottom-feeding society at it's worst. George goes to nudie club and watches through a quarter window (two minutes max) as some skank prances around. This is really depressing, folks. Sleaze. George then goes to a phone booth setup and as the girls is vibrating herself, George falls in the corner all foaming out the mouth and shit. The doctors think he's cured? Damn! More flashback action as the nightmare dream sequence happens again. George takes off to Florida. George has target in mind and that target is the single mom's house. George has some killing things going down on the way to Florida. He gets in this car and follows this chick home who proceeds to be stabbed in her own house. This is no ordinary splatter kill, either. George rips her throat open and then proceeds to stab her in the stomach several times. George really seems to get off on this. I told ya this was repulsive. How demented. George makes it to Florida where he finds C.J. and shows himself. Nobody believes him as he's cried wolf one to many times. A chick and a kid are murdered in a seaside abandoned house and George makes his way to the single mom's house. In the finale, the babysitter gets it in the back with the wrong side of a claw hammer. The camera holding lovingly on the gaping wound. It's almost like watching Fulci's NEW YORK RIPPER. Jeezus!!! George has a reason for going to this house (as I've told ya) but I won't spoil it. In the breathtaking last moments, we get to see George's nightmare in full. This is the moment of ultra-violence that will never be forgotten. This moments makes up for the rest of the film. George is a kid who happens to find his dad playing S & M games with a whore and he doesn't like this. The whore has tied up Dad and is slapping him so hard his nose is bleeding. George goes to the shed and grabs an axe and heads for the room upstairs. George whacks off the whore's head and it fly's across the room. The rest of her body reacts by squirting blood everywhere. I can see where people think this is Savini work, looks a lot like Mrs. Voorhees's beheading in FRIDAY THE 13TH. Or the preppie-chainsaw-on-the-bridge beheading in TCM II. anyway, the body falls off the bed and George continues to whack at it with the axe. Dad is squirming and screaming and sweating. George then stands above his dad and places the axe on his forehead, mumbles something, and raises the axe. He sinks it into his dad's forehead in explicit detail. Seriously - it looks totally and repulsively real. George fades away and then in the last line of the film we find out why George went to Florida to that particular house. Don't be surprised. If you're really into splatter like ya say you are, get this, watch this and proceed to puke up huge doses of celluloid as this is no "second or third wave of splatter film." This is the reason the MPAA has strict codes on what can and can't be seen.
Buried Alive (1979): After that last feature, shit man, anything goes. I wasn't ready for this wonderful little tale about a boy and his corpse. Frank is a taxidermist who lives on an estate left to him by his dead parents. His girlfriend is sick with an incurable disease and she dies with him watching. Frank really, really loves her and decides to dig up her body and bring it back to the house. He then embalms her (in every gory detail you can imagine) and keeps her stuffed body on a bed in an isolated corner of the house, visiting and talking to her. Frank and his guardian/housekeeper keep this little secret from whoever may come near. There is some weird little perversion going on between these two, I think she wants him all to herself, and the sight of a grown man suckling on a breast like a baby, Jeezus! There's also a nice little scene where Frank picks up this chunky hitchhiker and he takes her back and kills her. Not in the quick old-fashioned way mind you. He pulls out her fingernails with pliers, does an autopsy on the body, dismembers it and then with the help of the freak maid, throws the pieces into a bathtub full of acid. Then there's a coupla more killings (but ya gotta see it yourself). Franks dead-stuffed-girlfriends body's sister shows up looking to console. The finale with the darkened room and the housekeeper and even more death was really kinda hard to see, but, without giving away the ending the title is the twist. Get it? It almost had me upchucking and believe me, I'm pretty jaded. I have a hard time recommending this, make sure ya have a strong stomach. If ya think I'm kidding, remember these immortal words as your losing your popcorn at the concession stand, "I TOLD YA SO!!!" So, see ya next SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE STARLITE.
Bloodsucking Freaks(1976): This is it! One of the most bizarre, repulsive, degrading, sickest films you could ever want to see. That is, if ya take it literally or seriously. If you're a Drive-in Freak, it's one of the classics. Something that will never be shown on the big screen or TV late-night again (gotta love those 70's Drive-In's) Ahhh, I get this warm-all-over feeling, seeing this again. The film opens up in a van with what looks like two creeps from the Manson Family tooling around the mean streets of New York City. They're laughing and smiling and they stop at a theater and drop off a box. A midget (Ralphus) brings the box in and fools around with some chain and then the chain tightens and something is being lifted in the air. A minute later, amid crazy music, we find out it's a chick being suspended and welcomed to the Theater of the Macabre. Master Sardu is on stage explaining his "art" to an audience. His art consists of torture, dismemberment, acts of debasement and death. A chick is fitted (by Ralphus) with an iron tourniquet, squeezed until blood drips. Then her arm is stuck in a vise and hacked off. Ralphus then plucks out her eyeball and eats it. The audience claps as they think they are seeing an act of illusion. Come to find out, it's really happening!!! Sardu also runs a white-slavery trade and the "actresses" on stage are the ones he can't sell. A New York Times critic says he will never review such trash and Sardu is pissed. He wants to be known for his art and maybe move his off-off Broadway show uptown. Anyway, the classic "Don't you dare ruin my dinner!!" scene comes next and then the critic is kidnapped and held prisoner until he agrees to do a good review. He won't. Sardu then states that he will get the famous Natasha DeNatellie to dance in a new ballet he his composing. We are introduced to Natasha and her boyfriend (a pro football player-yeah right, he looks like he has the physique of a butter stick-this is a football player?) Anyway, Natasha is kidnapped from Lincoln Center and brought back to Sardu Meanwhile, Sardu is trying to impress the critic by sending 500 volts of electricity through this chicks nipples. It doesn't work. Natasha doesn't work either. She won't dance. The boyfriend, finding out Natasha is missing, calls up 911 and gets: "This is the New York City Police Dept's emergency number 911. There is no one in at the moment, you are listening to a recording. At the sound of the beep leave your name, telephone number, a short description of the crime and the perpetrators." typical, huh looks like 911's "been a joke" since it started. Natasha is suspended, and tortured via crashing cymbals (Ralphus is to leave no marks on her body). After a day or two, she finally overcomes and Sardu and Ralphus call a doctor in. The doctor comes in, Natasha will be fine and Sardu says "how much do I owe you?" doc says, "how about letting me take it out on trade?" "An operation?" So Sardu gives him a blonde and the doctor proceed to pull out her teeth, "so she won't bite". She's passed out, so he shaves her head while humming some operatic theme and then says "how about a little elective neurosurgery?" He power drills her head (for almost two full minutes) and then wiggles a straw into the hole. Well, take the title and put two-and-two together….Sardu and Ralphus are even grossed out by this. They get rid of the doctor by throwing him into a cage of starving, naked, caged up women in the basement. The women rip out his heart and then rub the blood and meat all over their bodies!!! Jeezus, they even fight over an ear! Sardu and Ralphus play darts using the backside of another dame. Too many scenes to go into, you got to see it for yourself…backgammon using fingers as cash, guillotine and Catholic Schoolgirl, Ralphus gets head from a head. another ballerina's feet gets cut off, prompting Natasha to dance. Her ballet is known as "Death of a Critic". A sleazy cop on the take. Death by sledgehammer, fried eyeballs, and finally, you'll never eat hot dogs again. Every five minutes gratuitous breast shot, making this the worlds champion at 76 boobs!!! Oh my God, I wonder if this Drive-In has shower facilities. The shocked look on the other patrons tells me there's a line for the bathrooms.
Buried Alive (1979): After that last feature, shit man, anything goes. I wasn't ready for this wonderful little tale about a boy and his corpse. Frank is a taxidermist who lives on an estate left to him by his dead parents. His girlfriend is sick with an incurable disease and she dies with him watching. Frank really, really loves her and decides to dig up her body and bring it back to the house. He then embalms her (in every gory detail you can imagine) and keeps her stuffed body on a bed in an isolated corner of the house, visiting and talking to her. Frank and his guardian/housekeeper keep this little secret from whoever may come near. There is some weird little perversion going on between these two, I think she wants him all to herself, and the sight of a grown man suckling on a breast like a baby, Jeezus! There's also a nice little scene where Frank picks up this chunky hitchhiker and he takes her back and kills her. Not in the quick old-fashioned way mind you. He pulls out her fingernails with pliers, does an autopsy on the body, dismembers it and then with the help of the freak maid, throws the pieces into a bathtub full of acid. Then there's a coupla more killings (but ya gotta see it yourself). Franks dead-stuffed-girlfriends body's sister shows up looking to console. The finale with the darkened room and the housekeeper and even more death was really kinda hard to see, but, without giving away the ending the title is the twist. Get it? It almost had me upchucking and believe me, I'm pretty jaded. I have a hard time recommending this, make sure ya have a strong stomach. If ya think I'm kidding, remember these immortal words as your losing your popcorn at the concession stand, "I TOLD YA SO!!!" So, see ya next SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE STARLITE.