Satan Drives A Trans Am With A Chain Link Steering Wheel
by Dan Greene

So it’s all about the 70’s this week then, back when was a kid, cutting my teeth on ghost stories and vampire comics. What’s weird is that I remember a lot of stuff from when I was a little kid, especially stuff on TV. Like ads for movies I figured I’d never get to see because they were about grown up stuff. Movies about Satan and walking corpses and mass murderers and high school. Every now and then, I’d overhear a conversation about a movie that I was too young for, so I’d file that movie title away for years. And that memory served me fairly well when I got a little older and managed to watch those movies. The Seventies weren’t as bad as the Eighties when it came to horror. The 70’s had its share of shitty movies to be sure, but come on. We all know that the 80’s is the peak of shitty horror production.

cwo.jpgA Clockwork Orange – 71

Is this even a horror movie? Depends on your constitution, I guess. I’ve seen this in all kinds of sections at different video stores – horror, drama, even comedy. For that matter, I’d call it a comedy before a drama. As sickening as it is, there’s some funny shit going on there.

If you haven’t seen this then you should check it out. It makes your life better. You understand more jokes on The Simpsons.

This movie’s set in the near future (as Stanley Kubrick or Anthony Burgess saw it) and follows Alex, a fucking depraved psychopath of a teenager. Which is, honestly, to say that he’s much like the rest of us except for the fact that he put more of his thoughts into action. He stole, he raped, he killed, but not before he got good and fucked up on milk with knives in it. Alex eventually gets caught having his fun (after he kills a woman with a huge ceramic dick) and gets thrown into prison, where he makes a concerted effort to pretend to reform. He doesn’t give a shit about reforming though, he just wants out…. One of the funniest and sickest scenes shows Alex reading the Bible and describing how inspirational and uplifting he found it, how he could almost picture himself back in biblical times; then you see Alex imagining himself dressed as a Roman soldier, smiling and whipping a thorn-crowned and bloody Jesus, dragging his cross to his own crucifixion. That’s sick but it’s also funny, and that’s why people like Kubrick.

Anyway, Alex undergoes the Ludovico Technique, a violent form of classical conditioning where he’s shot full of dru…. holy shit, this is boring like a book report. So the doctors fixed him too good and he got completely passive. Then his crimes and past victims came back to bite his ass when he was in no condition to protect said ass. He eventually ends up no better off than he was at the beginning, but with a lot more experience. At the end of the movie he knows who the fuck he is.

And that thing with the eyelids is legendary. My wife watches as many horror movies as I do, but she just can’t watch Alex’s eyelids peeled back like that. Me, I just don’t want to be killed by a dick. And I don’t want to live in a wheelchair and be tended to by some macho gay dude in revealing gym attire.

But I would like one of them little cars that go really fast down country roads. And a bowler hat.

And a cane with a knife in the handle.

And drugs that come from boobs.

The Exorcist – 73

Now this, unlike the last one, is without question a horror movie. Talk to someone who was young when this came out and they’ll tell you. bsf.jpg By today’s standards it’s still a pretty creepy movie, and if you’re traditionally religious, like pious, then this will scare the shit out of you. You shouldn’t watch it. I first saw it when I was about twelve, and yeah, it was fucking creepy. The scariest thing for me at the time was the thought that my parents might find out that I’d seen it. Statements like Let Jesus Fuck You and Your Mother Sucks Cocks In Hell, they didn’t go over too good at my house. I’m glad for that guidance though, because it makes the bad things seem worse and that is more fun. And this movie is fun. Pissing in public and priests kissing concrete. Get the poor girl a jackhammer Jesus…. No, take the crucifix away, she’s not even old enough to be doing that.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – 74

I’ve been over this one in detail. One of my favourites. Fucked up from beginning to end and with hardly a second’s break in the increasing violence and insanity. This is another one that freaked people out at the time, but it doesn’t deserve the slasher reputation it has because there’s hardly any blood in it. It’s all atmosphere, baby.

Bloodsucking Freaks – 76

I haven’t mentioned this one before and I’m not going into a lot of detail now. It needs a lot of space, and I’ve been meaning to watch it again for a while….. but watching this movie isn’t quite as enjoyable as watching a lot of others so I keep putting it off.

It’s a Troma movie. Aside from low budgets and bad acting, Troma is known for making movies that other people wouldn’t do – usually because they wouldn’t bother. But with Bloodsucking Freaks, I don’t think anyone else would touch it. It’s about a guy who likes to torture and kill girls in front of other people. In order to have his fun he starts to operate a performance art show, so that he can act like he’s pretending to hurt and kill people – when in fact he’s actually doing it – and he gets the applause of the audience in return. Sounds interesting, hey? It is, but not to state the obvious, there’s a lot of torture in it. Degradation with nudity. Kind of like softcore porn for the really fucking maladjusted. Not for everyone. But maybe, just maybe, it’s the thing for you.

I Spit On Your Grave – 78

Like the last one, I’ve been meaning to watch it again but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Some people hated this movie because they thought it was misogynistic, and others hated this movie because they thought it was full of that newfangled women’s lib garbage. I Spit On Your Grave couldn’t win with a lot of people. It’s what you call a revenge movie. It gets grouped with a lot of exploitation movies but it’s much better than that. Which makes it more disturbing.

It’s about a girl who wants to get away from the city, so she rents a cottage in the countryside. A few local hicks spot her and notice she’s alone, and they eventually assault and rape her. Repeatedly.

I seem to recall that at one point, they had their way and let her go. So she ran and ran through the woods, naked, bloody, crying, terrified. And in her panic she ran right into the guys again. So they grabbed her and raped her again, over a dead log in the woods.

In any case, the poor kid gets away long enough to devise her own plan…. And she gets those guys back in understandable, graphic and disturbing ways. You won’t forget watching it.

Dan is maladjusted and likes softcore porn, but that doesn't mean he thinks Bloodsucking Freaks is high art. Or does it?

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I saw Bloodsucking Freaks in the movie theater. This place had a special going...76 cents for admission, to celebrate the bicentennial.

What better way to celebrate the birth of your country than to see a Troma movie?

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