Seeing the chintzy, but charming,
cardboard city skyline accompanied by the words “A Troma Team Release” is
something that can send paroxysms of anxiety through even the stoutest film
lover’s heart. Troma built their brand
from the ground up, and they did it through the most blatant of hustling. Lloyd Kaufman is a man who knows the value of
getting something for nothing. If Roger
Corman is lauded for stretching every dollar he ever spent on his films, then
Kaufman can pinch a penny into a piece of copper wire for his, and should be
equally applauded. I admire Kaufman’s
particular brand of hucksterism. He
sells every film he puts out like it was “The Citizen Kane Of” whichever genre.
I’m quite certain he has no illusions about the level of quality in the
movies he produces. They are what they
are, they are made (usually) with some heart, and they are typically
exploitative as all hell. Yes, the humor
is normally not above the level of a twelve-year-old trying to light a
fart. Yes, the effects would make Ed
Wood wince. Yes, the acting lacks the
subtlety of, well, it lacks subtlety entirely.
These are the things that attract their fans.
Troma has also released films
they had no role in producing, and this is where the nervousness about seeing
their logo at the start of a movie arises.
For example, they were involved in the re-release of Dario Argento’s The Stendhal Syndrome as well as the
distribution of Joel M Reed’s Bloodsucking
Freaks. While one could argue the
merits of either of these films, one would have to agree that they are almost
nothing like the stuff that Troma actually produces and distributes (although Bloodsucking Freaks comes close). In other words, when you see the Troma logo,
you know you’re in for a crap shoot.
This brings us to Sean P Donahue’s They
Call Me Macho Woman (aka Savage
Instinct), a movie Troma co-produced.
If the lack of resemblance between the woman on the box cover art and
the film’s star (Debra Sweaney) doesn’t tell you you’ve entered Tromaville,
nothing will (and maybe they’re both Sweaney, but I’ll be damned if they don’t
look worlds apart to my eye). And like
the majority of Troma’s output, your mileage will most definitely vary in terms
of enjoyment, depending on your threshold for uncut schlock.
Widow Susan Morris (Sweaney) and
her realtor Cecil (Lory-Michael Ringuette) are en route to see an
out-of-the-way property for Susan to purchase.
A chance auto mishap puts Susan in the crosshairs of Mongo (Brian
Oldfield) and his kookie gang of drug dealers.
Now, she’ll have to man up if she wants to survive.
They Call Me Macho Woman (by the way, no one in the film ever calls
Susan “Macho Woman”) falls into the category of movies that tell us, quite
clearly, that, no matter where you go, trouble will find you. Susan wants to get out of the city and
fulfill the dream she and her husband had of moving to some place quiet and
peaceful before a drunk driving accident took his life. Solitude, however, is an impossibility. The menace of city life expands to the
countryside. If it isn’t rapey,
drug-addled thugs in the urban jungle, it’s rapey, moonshine-addled/inbred
hicks in the woods (or, alternately, rapey, shitkicker cops). In exploitation cinema, true peace is
elusive, but it can be earned through violence.
The protagonist is broken down only to be built back up (by their own
ingenuity) into a figure more frightening than those who threaten him/her. To be at the top of the heap, to win the
right to live as they want, they must sink to the level of savagery with which
they are opposed. And then top it. Susan is handy from the start. When their car gets a flat tire, Cecil proves
worthless. It’s Susan who has the
know-how to change it, having been schooled by her brothers. Eventually, she kits herself out with all
manner of makeshift weaponry (while also taking the time to polish her
mini-axes to a mirrorlike sheen; fashion and function). Every situation in which Susan finds herself,
she has to dig deeper and deeper into her primal core. She has a cat fight with a predatory lesbian
that ends with Susan tackling her opponent off a hay loft. She seduces one of her attackers (I mean, he was going to rape her anyway, but still…)
and impales his head on a nail. She
stabs a gang member in the ear with a stick (leading to a rather funny running
joke for the rest of the film). By the
end of the movie, Susan can not only kill another human being, but she can do
so brutally. The question becomes, has
Susan gained her freedom or lost her humanity?
Are the two the same?
Every person in this film is a
shithead. Mongo (who looks like a larger
version of Nick Cassavetes) growls at everyone, and he isn’t above allowing his
gang members to die in order to keep more of their illicit gains for
himself. He also kills people with a
spiked bit of fetish headgear instead of, oh, say, shooting them. With the exceptions of Mongo, Cecil, and Mr.
Wilson (J. Brown), there is not a man or woman who doesn’t attempt to sexually
assault Susan. This even stretches to a
trio of guys who could have been her saviors.
She flags down a car and is picked up by Geno (Paul Roder) and his
mates. They quickly pull off to the side
to get some, cackling, drinking beer, and basically being assholes. Things don’t go well for them. Hand in hand with this omnipresent
shitheadedness is the fact that every character says whatever is on their mind
every moment of the film (typically consisting of calling their associates
“idiots,” etcetera). None of them has
either ever heard the mantra that silence is golden, or they simply never paid
it any mind (but mostly, let’s just blame Donahue, who is also the
screenwriter). This might not have been
quite so bad if they didn’t all speak and relate on the level of eighth graders
(one could imagine them trading spitballs with ease). This is illustrated and/or compounded by the
constant use of the term “bitch.” In
fact, its usage is so prevalent, you could easily make a drinking game out of
it. And that’s the territory in which They Call Me Macho Woman exists. It is tiresome in its drudging repetitiveness. It is not well-written, shot, or acted. It is not even especially satisfying in its
resolution. Nonetheless, it is a
singular cinematic experience that distinguishes itself by its insistence on
trying to be as generic as possible. A
sort of failing upward, I suppose.
MVT: The premise is solid
enough. That’s why it’s so well-worn.
Make or Break: The fate of
Geno and his crew is nicely executed.
Score: 6.5/10
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