Horrible Horror, Part 2

Well, here it is, the first installment of the not-so-eagerly awaited Celluloid Sleaze, hosted by your hostâÂ?¦ me. This column is unabashedly dedicated to those brave men and women who have given us some of the worst exploitation, horror, cult and truly crappy movies to ever grace the screen (small or large). Hopefully, you will find some of your favorites, some of your least favorites, learn something about the films we showcase and have a damn good time, laughing and flogging your three-year-old nephew with a marzipan coffee cake. If there is any movie you would like profiled here, just drop a line to cujo_60625@yahoo.com. Me, and my staff of crack videohounds, will be more than happy to take a swing, errâÂ?¦ take a look at whatever turdburger you want us to. So strap in, this is going to be a wild one. Our first movie ever profiled will beâÂ?¦ Herschell Gordon Lewis’ shlockfest, COLOR ME BLOOD RED (creepy, hunh?).

This is one of the famed “Blood Trilogy” by Herschell Gordon Lewis. The other films in the trilogy (Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs) are a littler gorier and a little better done than this entry. Color details the artist-y and neurotic-y life of one Mr. Adam Sorg, played by the ugliest man in Hollywood, Don Joseph, who is chastised by a local art critic, Gregorovich, for not having a sense of color. Now, this art critic is obviously worldly and intelligent, due to the prominent beret and long cigarette holder. The gallery that Sorg shows his paintings in is obviously austere and culture-defining because they use mismatched folding chairs to seat their patrons. To boil it down, Sorg is quite upset by his lack of acceptance and runs home to his HIDDEN HOME ON THE BEACH (sorry, but I am possessed by the Gods to capitalize plot devices) and his caustic live-in girlfriend. Blah, blah, blah Sorg cuts his finger and realizes that the color that he needed to be set apart and accepted in the art world is blood. Pay no mention to the fact that blood dries a maroon like color and Lewis blood dries a bright, brothel red. After Sorg drains himself of enough blood to paint an entire picture (and enough to kill a horse) his painting is accepted as genius by the worldly critic and the incredibly trendy gallery. But after that, what to do? The only sensible thing is to kill your wise-mouthed girlfriend (and after sex with Don Joseph, she probably asked for it) and paint another picture. Well, Mr. Sorg is off and running, but his materials are running low. What now? Of course, there are always teenagers making out on your HIDDEN PRIVATE BEACH, so the answer presents itself handily. He paints some more, he gets caught and he is killed. A copy of the film is sent to the Academy for Oscar consideration and the world is a better place.

The first thing that I want to know is why would anyone steal the plotline from Roger Corman’s Bucket of Blood? The second thing I want to know is, why does Lewis continue to hire Don Joseph? He looks like a Cabbage Patch Kid with severe acne. And finally, why did anyone make this film? The tagline is appropriate. The posters that Lewis printed for the “theatrical release” (all four days of it) say, “Fiendish is the word for it!” and I wholeheartedly agree. This movie is fiendish! In a bright spot, Iris Marshall plays a wonderful piece of cardboard interested in Sorg’s paintings. Her characterization rings true, I actually believed her to be corrugated. Snubbed once again by the People’s Choice awards, Lewis went on to hire Don Joseph again. Luckily for the world, Don Joseph’s romantic ingÃ?©nue days ended by 1970. Ironically, his sex appeal came to a halt when free love was in full swing.

DEADLY WEAPONS (1973)

Please, help me. This is not for the squeamish, or the easily offended. Or for those of us who need dwarf-porn to be sickened, for that matter. This film stars the incomparable Chesty Morgan. That name, and that image, is burned into my mind forever. You see, Ms. Morgan’s breasts are freakish fleshbags. She tops out at a 73 EEE, although the rest of her body is “normal.” Normal meaning: very skinny legs, a lazy eye and bad dental work. As you might have surmised, being the bright, literate readers that you are, Chesty’s boobs are the title characters.

Before I relate to you the “story” of this “movie,” lets look at Chesty. Imagine the cold, windswept hills of Poland. It is around 1943 and Hitler had devastated your community. But look, thereâÂ?¦ a child is born. A child of light and goodness that will abolish the evil and bring joy and happiness to lives that are stuck in interminable grayness. That child is Lillian Wilczkowsky (what theâÂ?¦ ?)! Everything is fine, happiness will come to Poland, until the Cosmic Committee intervenes and decided that saviors can only have a first name, no surnames, although “the” is an appropriate middle name spanning the first name and location and/or title (Section 42-B, Cosmic Code of Saviors and Mortal Children of Deities). Lillian promptly changes her name to Zsa Zsa, grows breasts the size of Gary Coleman, and works burlesque houses eventually winding her way to Israel. She is discovered in America by soft-core porn/bad movie director Doris Wishman. The only natural product of these two bastions of creative energy is: Deadly Weapons.

Chesty plays poor Crystal, a highly successful advertising professional that just happens to be in love with a mobster. This mobster, in-between bouts of fondling Crystal’s abnormally large skin pods, has upset the mob boss and is killed. Well, that angers Crystal to no end, but you can’t really tell. Chesty has two looks: bored and asleep. Crystal vows revenge and tracks the evil guys that did it to Las Vegas and Miami (including the feature film debut of porn star Harry Reems). She becomes a stripper to get their attention and then she does stuff thatâÂ?¦ OK, suffice it to say that she finds them, takes off her shirt and smothers them with thoseâÂ?¦ those things.

Luckily for us, Chesty’s Polish accent is too thick. We might have had to hear her speak but the lines were dubbed-in by a talking Elmo doll, I think. Chesty and Doris collaborated for the next film, Double Agent 73 (1974). Don’t you get it? Her boobsâÂ?¦ they’re the same size as her agent number and since there are two of them, she’s a double agent! COMEDY! Good God.

Here in the office, we had a “Kill a Mobster Like Chesty” Contest. You see, in the film Chesty would drug her victims then take a few paces back. She would roll her eyes back in her head, raise her arms and slowly descend on the incapacitated bad guy. Smothering the life from his dirty soul with her dirty pillows. Well, Ken Gorman, copy editor par excellence had the best “Kill a Mobster Like Chesty” imitation. He won two potato sacks staple-gunned to his chest and got to go home for the rest of the day. By some quirky twist of fate, if you would like a copy of Chesty’s command performances, they are available from Something Weird Video at somethingweird.com (on VHS and DVD no less).

ROBOT NINJA (1989)

Ok. Now, the staff over here at Celluloid Sleaze have seen some real crapfests in our collective times. The nuances of Mr. Ed Wood, the jiggly soft-core porn from the Stephen Apostolof factory and the crap regularly churned out by Fred Olen Ray among numerous others. Nothing in the world can prepare you for the horror known as J. R. Bookwalter: producer, writer, director and actor without peers, or friends. Before we go into that, let’s look and see what the movie was about. Presenting… the “plotline” for Robot Ninja.

Michael Todd plays a comic book artist (whom nobody here can remember the name of) that draws a popular character called Robot Ninja who is a…ummm, well a robot ninja. This Robot Ninja dispatches bad guys with abnormally long talons and a bevy of weapons like black clothes, slippers and a facemask. The artist is upset at the treatment of his character in a new, hit TV show that is accused of being really campy. The comic book artist wants the show to take on the more violent overtones, grim bloody deaths and general lack of story that is popularized in the comic. The artist promptly complains to his publisher, Burt Ward, who… wait. Burt Ward? Do you mean TV’s Boy Wonder, foil to Adam West and all-around 60s hearthrob? Yes, gentle reader, the same Burt Ward who played Robin on television. As usual here at the offices, not a single one of them believed me until they saw it for their own eyes. Moving on. Blah, blah, blah the artist sees a violent rape and has his friend, Dr. Goodknight, makes a Robot Ninja suit that shows off Michael Todd’s complete and total lack of superhero muscles or any kind of physique whatsoever. Robot Ninja kills a few people for “justice” gets labeled unfairly as a vigilante by the police and finally blows his own brains out. I cheered.

This sounds bad, right? It gets worse. It looked like it was shot in Bookwalter’s backyard. It felt like his friends came over to help him move and he suckered Bob, Ted and Jim from the S-Mart into being in his crappy movie. And to top it all off, he tried to make it really, really gory. In another “guest appearance” Linnea Quigley shows up as Burt Ward’s assistant and they both hopelessly over and under act respectively. Good Lord, they must have really needed the money. Since the story spun around the tale of a comic book artist the opening credits and sporadic dramatic moments throughout the film have comic book panels of Robot Ninja in action. The story of the film has the artist as a true talent and very popular comic book guru. The drawings shown remind me of the comics that Tony Pominenti would draw in 8th grade. His Mom worked for the school so he could use the Xerox machine as much as he wanted and we were all treated to the adventures of “Penis Man.” Robot Ninja made me wish for Tony to show up at my door with a copy of Penis Man: The Movie just so I could turn off Bookwalter’s opus. Good God, the things that people think are a good idea that actually get out of the “maybe we shouldn’t” stage are astounding.

I’d now like to relate to you a few moments of the movie that standout, in my humble opinion: Robot Ninja (the totally unathletic Michael Todd) had his arm cut open. He fixes the gash and reattaches his veins with plastic tubing and a metal plate. The Robot Ninja, dressed in costume and covered in blood, stumbles out to his car and takes off. The cop that was following him promptly goes in a different direction to stop himâÂ?¦ or something. Dr. Goodknight’s 1983 Aptiva suddenly switches to a News Broadcast. There was an hour and a half of this crap.
See what I mean? Thankfully, Robot Ninja is out of print.

EL INTOXICO (1998)

Hello, gentle readers! Sorry for the late arrival but we’ve been quite busy over here at the famed “Celluloid Sleaze” offices! Many tapes need to be riffed so keep sending them in. This week we have a soon-to-be cult classic on our hands, the incomparableâÂ?¦ EL INTOXICO.

If some of you have had a chance to view the great Mexican wrestling epics starring Santo (or Samson), Blue Demon, Mil Mascaras or many others then you know that when you have masked wrestling do-gooders there is always international intrigue, super spies, monsters and poor production values. Well there is no need to fret, this little gem from Bowlegged Man Media stands as a brilliant homage, a funny parody and a beautiful look at New Jersey (if that is possible) in the 70s. Of course, the 70s look a lot like the 90s, but that just makes it more charming. Read on and learn! The following might just scare you.

New Jersey, 1974. A plague of sinister satanic cri
minals is upon the land, spreading drug addiction and mayhem throughout Monmouth County. Mankind’s only hope lies in the sauced brainpan of the Mexican Avatar of Brutality: EL INTOXICO. Summoned to New Jersey by the heavily moustached police commissioner Murray O’Groy, El Intoxico fights the good fight. Repeatedly. Endlessly. Broken bones! Torn ligaments! Maggots! Penis slicing! Hallucinations! Vicious kung fu! Sadistic mobsters! Apemen! A two-fisted French Canadian NAM vet that spouts baffling slang! ALL TRAPPED IN A WORLD OF ENDLESS TORTURE!

Pay no attention to the crappy actors, the dingy sets or the� well anything else. You, viewer, are here for action, action and more action. The romantic death of Johnny Apeman, the endless fight sequences the tragic death of a bevy of underworld hoodlums. Now that is worth the price of admission.

What happens? Who lives? Will the world ever be safe again? I don’t care. All I know is that this film is a testament to what one extremely bored man with a vision can do. Written, directed, produced and shot by Andre Perkowksi, El Intoxico is a great deal of fun in a little VHS sized package. In speaking with the infamous director, we learned that a “sequel” of sorts titled Cerebro de Hitler is currently in production. After defeating drug-crazed New Jersey ninja-like characters, El Intoxico and his erstwhile sidekick Blue Bastard, must stop the evil Dr. Franquestien from reviving Hitler’s brain. Yeesh. Later.

If you liked this piece, Check out Dan’s first piece of this series,” Horrible Horror Films.”