Shredder Orpheus (1990)

Skateboarding and punk rock and mythological tales should go together like spaghetti and meatballs.  Skating personifies the idea of the journey (even though there may be no destination; the path itself and what the skateboarder does during it [read: tricks] are enough), something to which every Greek myth adheres.  Punk (or even music in general) celebrates freedom of expression and (ideally) individuality, another trait shared by some myths.  While myths tend to rely on a certain rigid framework of parables to get their point across, skating and music, on their surfaces, go in the opposite direction.  They follow in the belief that there are no limits, anything goes.  Yet, there are basics that have to be followed in order for either enterprise to succeed.  Music, even and especially punk, uses verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure in most cases.  For skating, one must know the rudiments of the functionality of the board; how to set your feet, push, transfer weight, and so forth.  In both, however, it’s the style of the performer that counts most.  Musicians know the basic chords.  It’s the attitude and coarseness that distinguishes, say, The Ramones from The Germs.  Likewise, a skateboarder like Rodney Mullen does totally different things on his deck than does someone like Tony Hawk, but the rudiments remain the same.  To combine music and skateboarding and myths is an intriguing aspect, but there has to be a line drawn between servicing the fans of the former two with honoring the narrative of the latter.  Otherwise, you get something like Robert McGinley’s Shredder Orpheus, which gives us all three but doesn’t know how to combine its component into a coherent whole.

After the Big War, the poor have been shuffled into the Grey Zone, a housing project consisting of shipping containers.  There, Orpheus (McGinley) and his band, The Shredders, are the most popular act (I’m guessing because they’re the only one).  Hades (Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi), the owner of the villainous Euthanasia Broadcast Network, wants Orpheus’ stage dancer/girlfriend/wife Eurydice (Megan Murphy) for his show, so he has her killed and absconds with her soul.  Orpheus decides to go after his love, armed with a lyre-guitar prototype, supposedly designed by Jimi Hendrix.

The EBN starts off as a sinister device that pulls the souls from people.  On air, Hades and Persephone (Vera McCaughan) drone on about praising the Cathode Ray.  The idea is that this thing is killing people slowly, without their knowledge, from the inside out.  Immediately, this brings to mind memories of Videodrome and Halloween 3 (and even They Live).  In those movies, television is bad (ain’t it always?).  It draws its victims to it, like junkies to a dealer, then it takes them over and/or kills them.  What you see is not what you get.  The complacent act of watching, of being narcotized by the banality on the boob tube, is like the lame gazelle at the watering hole.  The New Flesh of Videodrome is a cancer that causes hallucinations and likely warps reality.  The signal sent by Silver Shamrock to the wearers of their masks draws forth a supernaturally apocalyptic scenario in Halloween 3.  But the power of television to enthrall and enslave is the primary point.  In Shredder Orpheus, the programming on the EBN is as soulless as it can be.  For example, Hades does a muzak version of “Up a Lazy River.”  Eurydice dances for the network, but she’s a shadow of her former self.  On stage with Orpheus, the music unlocked her inner spirit, and she gave herself over to it, because that’s who she is at her core.  Hades and Persephone stare blankly out at the viewer, hypnotizing the audience with the siren call of the television screen.  Television becomes God.  Outside of this basic premise associated with the EBN and its application as a modern device for worship, it doesn’t mean much of anything in the overall narrative of this film.  It’s simply a way to show the corporatization of pantheon figures and provide the bad guys with a lair.  Its signal doesn’t present a threat throughout the film, because we only see one example of its deleterious effect.  It never comes up again.

In visual media, specifically film and video, skateboarding falls into one of two categories (you can argue the same about any sport, from volleyball to broom ball to chess).  Either it’s a gimmick (think: Gleaming the Cube or Thrashin’) or it’s a spectacle (think: Public Domain or any of the scads of skateboarding promo videos from the Eighties on).  Its focus is meant to draw in viewers inherently predisposed to skateboarding and those who find it appealing enough as a curiosity but still want what they expect from any other movie.  To integrate it into a film is difficult, because it’s not a sport with sides that an audience can root for (though it almost works in this regard with the jousting and racing scenes in Thrashin’).  Any scene in which it is featured prominently is bound to be a showcase, stopping the pacing dead, like the superfluous race sequence in The Phantom Menace.  McGinley attempts to make skateboarding relevant here.  Everyone in The Grey Zone is a skater, so everywhere they go, they can do a couple of simple moves along the way.  Orpheus and his pals “shred” the EBN parking garage, a structure which terminates in an elevator to Hell.  Thus, we get an extensive sequence of the skaters rolling down the entirety of the spiral ramp.  The story halts.  A smoking skateboard shows up to valet Orpheus back to EBN/Hell.  I don’t know how a filmmaker could make something like this and not have the skateboarding hook feel like a contrivance.  I do know that McGinley fails at this intermingling, though not as egregiously as Gleaming the Cube does.

Shredder Orpheus is a valiant effort, but it’s also proof that you can’t simply “adapt” a story.  It gets the large picture mostly right, and it supplies enough details to be recognizable as the legend of Orpheus.  But it also tries to serve two masters, and it doesn’t devote enough attention to either for their fusion to be satisfactory.  Further, and perhaps worst of all, McGinley managed to rob this myth of any momentum and/or urgency.  It relies on angst over tension (the dream scenes with McGinley in a loincloth are just…c’mon), yet even this doesn’t solve the main problem of doing something like this in the first place.  Myths are traditionally told in general, sweeping motions.  We know who the heroes and villains are, because they are the heroes and villains.  Films need to flesh out the characters, to breathe some life into their interpretations, and to give these people something to do when they’re not out Questing.  McGinley doesn’t outside of skating, which tells us nothing about these guys other than that they skate.  His characters meander around, or play music, or talk a lot while saying nothing.  There is no invigoration or development of the archetypes.  Like skateboarding, Shredder Orpheus’ characters are on screen only for show.

MVT:  The underlying idea behind the project is noteworthy.

Make or Break:  Orpheus’ first story-cancelling song is enough to let you know that the filmmakers didn’t quite know what to do with what they had but still had to get it to feature length.

Score:  5/10

They Call Me Macho Woman (1991)

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

Psychopathia Sexualis (2006)

Directed by: Bret Wood
Run Time: 98 minutes

I found this movie after a co-worker was telling me about a screwed up movie they had seen but could not remember the name. After a few hours of searching I couldn't find the movie they had seen but this is nearly as screwed up. Psychopathia Sexualis was a book written by Richard von Krafft-Ebing and was a study of various sexual mental illnesses. Some examples are homosexuality, sexual fetishes, vampirism, sadism, masochism, bestiality, necrophilia, and deviation from gender stereotypes. Without an essay about the book and it's contributions to psychology, this book opened the way for the study sexuality and psychology but makes a lot of assumptions that have been disproved.

The film itself is a series of vignettes based on selected case studies found in the book. The vignettes are held together with narration from the book and providing a counter point to what is being shown in the vignette. The result of this is a tone that comes off as a giant middle finger to the author of the title book. An example of this is the vignette that deals with sanitariums and treatment. The narration talks about how great the facilities are, professionalism of the staff, and the benefit of the treatments available at the time of the book's first printing. The vignette shows deplorable facilities, corrupt and unethical staff, and the brutal reality of some psychological treatment at the time.

This is the major flaw of the film. It's so busy pointing out how wrong von Krafft-Ebing conclusions were that it sacrifices the flow of the narrative. Also other vignettes don't fit into the narrative that is already established. So a lot of the time I found myself being jarred out of the film because the narrative was trying to cram in as much weirdness as possible. At other times I thought this was well edited Scientologist anti-psychologist movie rather than a history exploitation film.

It's not all doom and failure with this film. The orchestral score is a prefect fit for the movie and the time period. The sets, locations, and costumes are so close to the eighteen hundreds that only hardcore history buffs would be able to point out what out of place. Finally, the director of photography did a great job of shooting the film.

I don't know who or how to recommend this movie. It's subject matter would be better suited to a documentary, it's on the extreme shallow end of the exploitation pool, and it's so limited in scope that only a small amount would care about the subject presented. It's not bad enough to mock, it's not good enough to be disappointed at, and it's book and subject that only appeal to a limited audience. I have to go with avoid unless you are passionate about this topic.

MVT: The film uses Iris wipes to great effect and gives the feel that the film sort of belongs in the silent era.

Make or Break: There are a lot of film breakers in this one. The tone of the film and how the subject matter is presented are the two things that kicked me out of the movie.

Score: 3.5 out of 10

Shocking Dark (1989)

I’ve often said that, if I was ever rich enough, I would move to Venice, Italy to live out the remainder of my days (it’s usually either this or buying my own island/small country).  I’ve done no research into the place, unless movie viewing counts.  It just looks like the kind of city that would appeal to me.  There are no cars to run you over or blare their shitty music at all hours of the day and night (maybe they do that by gondola?).  It has a quiet, rustic quality to it while also being just modern enough for my taste.  This is why it works so well as a horror film setting (witness: Don’t Look Now).  Its silence, its narrow, mazelike streets, and its floating, sea-worn characteristics are both peaceful and unsettling.  I tend to think, based on its location, that there is likely a large rat issue, so that wouldn’t be fun, and I’m sure that the salty, ocean air plays hell with the architecture and metal plumbing (thank God for PEX).  Still, I imagine that the positives would vastly outweigh the negatives, so all I have to do now is become a multi-millionaire.  Not even a toxic cloud over Venice, like in Bruno Mattei’s Shocking Dark (aka Terminator 2, aka Aliens 2, aka Alienators), could deplete my desire to live there.  The genetic mutations might be a sticking point, though.

An S.O.S. is received from some underground scientific/military bunker.  Operation Delta Venice is activated, and the Mega Force (Hal Needham should sue) of Space Marines are called in to investigate and retrieve the head scientist’s diary (automatically assuming that everyone is dead or about to die).  Joining the cosmic grunts are Sam Fuller (yes, really; played by Christopher Ahrens) and Sara Drumbull (Haven Tyler), a fellow scientist.  And then the rest of the plot of Aliens plays out with a smattering of The Terminator.

There is an earnestness present in the best of trash cinema.  Even at its most mercenary, even when you can almost hear the conversations behind the scenes about blatantly ripping off popular films for the sake of quick box office (possibly the progenitor of the current pass/fail attitude towards opening weekend sales?  Maybe), junk movies often still contain an openness that appeals in part because they are taken or given in “as-is” condition.  They are the runts of the litter, the dog or cat with an overemphasized underbite or other physical imperfection that plays to our sympathies and fondness for things that may need a little more love than others.  This is part of the reason why it has become so fashionable to like “Bad Movies” (and something which most intentionally “bad” or throwback films don’t seem to grasp), the line between intent and result.  Most filmmakers don’t set out to make bad movies.  Yet, when the reach of a film exceeds its grasp, it becomes fodder for mockery (right or wrong).

In films like Shocking Dark, no one bats an eye at the inanely wrongheaded actions of the characters or the dialogue that wouldn’t even make it into a comic book (and this is coming from a longtime devotee of the comic book form).  To wit: Two of the Marines enter a room, walk a couple of steps, and stop.  Koster (Geretta Geretta) turns to Kowalsky (Paul Norman Allen), and pulls a photo of how Venice used to look out of her pocket.  They both pine for a moment, and then Koster gives Kowalsky the picture, stating that she has a lot more.  Hopefully, in her other pockets.  In generic terms, this scene is meant to flesh out the characters a bit, to spark in the audience a desire for these people to make it to the film’s end.  Instead, it plays like an awkwardly inserted scene that kills a bit more time so the film can reach feature length.  There are a couple of video presentations that are just like any other dull, corporate video presentations except these ones are for evil exposition (because if you’re going to do something highly illegal and unethical and immoral, you should keep some evidence of it on video).  And sample some of this dialogue.  “Let’s get out the KY so we can shaft him real good.”  “What bastards.  They’ve done it.”  “We’re the computer.”  And so forth.  This is all done with the straightest of faces, and you just know that Mattei and screenwriter Claudio Fragasso (he of the infamous Troll 2) felt genuinely proud of their accomplishments.  Too bad that what accomplishments this film does achieve were done so three years earlier by James Cameron and have nothing whatsoever to do with this film’s writing and/or direction.

To say that this film is derivative is like saying that the Big Bang was a historical event of note.  Shocking Dark doesn’t just follow in the footsteps of Aliens.  It stomps in them.  The Space Marines are the same ballbreaking hardasses.  Koster is Jenette Goldstein’s Vasquez character with the exception that she LOVES taking potshots at her mates’ ethnicities (there are many references to Italians and grease; Again, you can almost hear Fragasso and Mattei grinning).  Fuller is a representative of the Tubular Corporation (I can’t imagine this world being bereft of other corporations with names like Radical, Gnarly, and Totally), and his reason for being there is sneaky and underhanded.  There is an android who nobody can guess is an android, even though he acts like an android from the very start.  There is a young girl, Samantha (Dominica Coulson), who has managed to stay alive on her own, and she connects with Sara in a maternal way.  The monsters wrap their victims in cocoons for later feasting.  There are some deviations from Cameron’s template, but they’re so blatantly and haphazardly tossed off, they trigger nothing so much as incredulity.

I guess I could get over this film’s swindling of its audience if it were competent.  After all, how many art forgeries are there that we still enjoy based on the assumption that they are the originals due to their technical quality?  But no, Shocking Dark is painful in its lack of originality.  It doesn’t try to do anything more interesting than evince thoughts of better films.  This is a copy of a film done with tracing paper, getting the shapes and placement right (mostly), but completely fucking up the details.  There are endless scenes of people walking through factory corridors.  When they do stop for some action, it’s shot and edited in the exact same way every time, with the exact same result, and presaging more endless walking through factory corridors.  My Dinner with Andre had more shot variety than this film.  The thing which completely flattens any chance of a good time, however, is that the characters all seem extremely depressed.  Not so much because of the situation their world is in, but because of the situation that the actors are in.  Namely, Shocking Dark.       

MVT:  James Cameron’s script by way of Claudio Fragasso, such as it is.

Make or Break:  The break really depends on how long you can stand watching Aliens filtered through store bought marinara sauce.  Personally, I’d prefer a homemade pesto, but whatever.

Score:  2/10