We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
ALL-AMERICAN MURDER (1991)
After his 221 episode run of playing Potsie on the classic TV show Happy Days came to an end, actor Anson Williams got into directing (while also continuing his acting career). He has primarily worked in television, directing multiple episodes of several different shows as well as TV movies – but he has also made some movies that weren’t TV movies, including the oddball 1991 thriller All-American Murder.
This is a weird one. A mildly irritating Charlie Schlatter stars as Artie Logan, who has a history of pyromania. After he gets kicked out of another school for another fiery situation, his wealthy father sends him off to a college called Fairfield, which is actually Oklahoma State University. That’s why Joe Bob Briggs says this is the best movie ever filmed in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Artie hasn’t been at Fairfield very long when he goes to bed with the dean’s wife, played by Joanna Cassidy. That fling doesn’t mean much; she says she sleeps with multiple students every month. It’s when Artie catches the attention of beautiful sorority girl Tally Fuller (Josie Bissett) that he truly feels that he has a shot at love – and we know this because a cheesy love song kicks in on the soundtrack as soon as he gets a look at her. He stalks her around campus for a while before asking her on a date. After they connect, tragedy strikes. When Artie goes to the sorority house to take Tally on another date, he arrives just in time to see her stumbling away from the building, engulfed in flames.
It’s a murder by fire and Artie is the prime suspect. Luckily, local detective P.J. Decker (Christopher Walken) believes the kid could be innocent, so he sets him free and gives him twenty-four hours to find out who really killed Tally. While Artie carries out his own investigation, more people fall prey to the killer stalking to the campus. This isn’t exactly a slasher movie, but we do get a drill to the skull, a stabbing, death by snake, and even someone getting blown in half with a grenade.
I honestly didn’t find All-American Murder to be a wholly satisfying viewing experience, but I did see the potential it had beneath the surface. One thing that held it back was Williams’ direction. He occasionally made attempts at surrealism that are off-putting, and some attempts at humor are cheesy as queso flameado. Screenwriter Barry Sandler went heavy on the humor in his script, especially in the dialogue. Artie is written like he was envisioned as a blend of Groucho Marx, Chevy Chase, and early ‘90s teen angst, but Charlie Schlatter didn’t manage to make the character as charming or amusing as he could have been.
In the end, the movie comes off as being weird and annoying... but you can see that it could have been pretty good.
MARIE (1985)
The 1985 biographical drama Marie (which is also listed as Marie: A True Story at times) may have a bland title, but that’s really no excuse for it to have been forgotten the way it has. Star Sissy Spacek was in another movie where her character’s name was the title, and Carrie is one of the most popular horror movies ever made. I will concede that Marie may not be as interesting or as effective as it could have / should have been, but it’s still a pretty good movie with a pedigree.
Directed by Roger Donaldson, who has some hits and respected films on his résumé, from a screenplay by John Briley that was based on the Peter Maas book Marie: A True Story, the film sees Spacek taking on the role of Marie Ragghianti. After leaving her alcoholic, abusive husband with her three kids in tow, Marie makes a home in Tennessee and goes to Vanderbilt Universe, a double major in English and Psychology. When she’s done with school, former classmate Eddie Sisk (Jeff Daniels) gets her a job as an extradition officer for the Tennessee Department of Correction, and then she gets herself on the Tennessee Board of Pardons and Paroles, where a character played by Morgan Freeman also serves.
Eddie quickly regrets getting Marie into this world, as she objects to and eventually exposes Governor Ray Blanton's "clemency for cash" set-up.
Maybe Donaldson and Briley could have told the story in a more engaging way, but it’s still interesting, and Spacek turns in a terrific performance. Freeman isn’t given much to do, but Daniels does stand out as a seemingly nice guy who really isn’t a very nice guy.
Around the whole "clemency for cash" deal, the film takes a great interest in Marie’s home life, with a son’s respiratory issues caused by a choked-on pistachio shell taking up a good amount of time.
When Marie goes to court to defend herself from a smear campaign being run by the Governor’s lackeys and expose what they’re up to, she hires attorney Fred Thompson – and the real-life Fred Thompson, who represented the real-life Marie Ragghianti in her courst case, plays himself in this movie, a decision that launched a solid acting career.
Marie isn’t the great, award-worthy movie it was probably intended to be, but it’s worth a watch.
CHOPPING MALL (1986) – hosted by Joe Bob Briggs on The Last Drive-in
Legendary drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs sits outside at a drive-in, speaking directly to the camera to give genre fans a bit of advice: always ask people (especially Joe Bob) what their favorite horror movie is, not what the best horror movie is. Answering “the best” puts people in a dangerous situation, opening things up to intense debate that could descend into physical violence. Any answer to “favorite” is acceptable, even if the answer is Bloodsucking Freaks.
So begins the second full season of the Shudder series The Last Drive-in, which brought Joe Bob back to the airwaves after a way-too-long absence. The reference to Bloodsucking Freaks opens the door to the second half of the season’s first double feature – but before we get there, we have the classic sci-fi horror movie Chopping Mall to enjoy. A movie that Joe Bob jokingly describes as having gravity and seriousness, plumbing down to the bone marrow of the culture and speaking to us from the moral high ground to humble us with its cinematic complexity and romantic grandeur.
But before Joe Bob can really talk about Chopping Mall, he spends several minutes discussing the technological advancements of sex robots. This actually isn’t as far off topic as his comedic rants and bits often are because, while Chopping Mall doesn’t involve sex robots, it is a movie about robots, and it was directed by Jim Wynorski, who has made many sex-themed movies over the course of his career. So the sex robot discussion does kind of fit in here. As is the suggestion that the vicious women who work in stores’ perfume departments of could make for interesting horror villains.
Joe Bob gives Chopping Mall 2.5 stars out of a possible 4, which is at least a half-star too low for a movie this awesome. The story crafted by Wynorski and Steve Mitchell begins the Park Plaza Mall decides to put three robots on duty as non-lethal security guards. They’re meant to zoom around the mall floors on their tank treads, neutralizing any trespassers with sleep darts and tasers. They’re capable of grabbing things with their pincer arms and of cutting through obstructions, if necessary, with lazers. And when their computer system is struck by lightning one night, these robots become “killbots” and set out to brutally murder everyone they come across. And, of course, on this particular night, a group of eight young people have decided that the closed mall is the perfect venue for a night of partying, dancing, drinking, and having sex in the furniture store.
With a running time of just over 76 minutes (achieved after 19 minutes were removed from the first cut), Chopping Mall is a masterpiece of economical storytelling. The Protector bots, their abilities, and the mall's security doors are all established with a presentation that takes up the first 5 minutes of the movie. The film is then propelled forward by a rock synth score by Chuck Cirino as characters are introduced and the after hours party set up. Just over eight and a half minutes in, lightning strikes the mall, and by the 10 minute mark the robots are killing people. As of minute 30, the killbots have begun their mission to pick off the group of partiers one-by-one, starting a struggle for survival that lasts the entire rest of the movie.
Wynorski pitted against his homicidal machines a cool cast that includes Kelli Maroney, Barbara Crampton, Russell Todd, and John Terlesky, with cameos by Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov, Dick Miller, Gerrit Graham, Rodney Eastman, and Angus Scrimm.
During his hosting segments, Joe Bob looks into Wynorski’s career, digs that Cirino score, points out some of the cameos in the movie, questions why characters worry about paying the mall back for damages when they should be planning to sue the place, discusses an unfilmed scene that would have involved Bartel and Woronov, and reveals that the movie came about because producer Julie Corman had a meeting with Vestron Video, and the company asked her for a horror movie that was set in a mall. Wynorski landed the job and, since he didn’t want to make a straightforward slasher movie, decided to make his movie about killer robots, drawing inspiration from the 1954 film Gog. It has also been said that the 1973 TV movie Trapped may have been a source of inspiration, but Wynorski has denied that one. Discussing some of the gratuitous nudity and bikini girls that show up early in the movie gives Joe Bob the opportunity to go on a tangent about his time writing articles for Playboy.
Along the way, Joe Bob is joined by special guest Kelli Maroney for a conversation about her career (which was really popping in the ‘80s, thanks to roles in the likes of Ryan’s Hope, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Night of the Comet) and her time working on Chopping Mall, which means having to deny rumors that she and Wynorski hooked up. She talks about her co-stars, complains that nobody working on the movie warned her that she had a “severe camel toe” throughout production, and confirms that Dana Kimmell from Friday the 13th Part III was originally set to play her character but dropped out because she didn’t want to swear.
Chopping Mall has been a favorite of mine since I saw it on cable again and again when I was a little kid. I usually watch it at least once a year, so it’s great to have a version of it that’s hosted by Joe Bob and includes an interview with Maroney.
After the movie, Darcy the Mail Girl, in cosplay as Maroney’s character, comes in to announce that a Silver Bolo Award is going to be sent out to veteran horror host Count Gore de Vol, and to set up the fact that wrestler/musician Chris Jericho is going to be the special guest during the second movie of the night.
BLOOD SUCKING FREAKS (1976) – hosted by Joe Bob Briggs on The Last Drive-in
Before wrestler Chris Jericho comes in as the special guest during the second half of the night’s double feature to talk about a movie that he specifically requested be shown on The Last Drive-in, Joe Bob reminds us that he has a long history of hanging out with wrestlers (most notably interviewing Roddy Piper on his show MonsterVision) and mentions that Jericho wrestles in both the U.S. and Japan, requiring him to take a lot of long flights. This inspires Joe Bob to talk about new twenty-hour flight from New York to Sydney, Australia, the longest flight in aeronautical history. He’s not a fan of long flights, so if he were to need to get from New York to Sydney, he would catch a flight to Los Angeles, spend some days there, then hop over to Maui and spend a few days there before moving on to Fiji and Bora Bora. A slow amble over to Australia. But for those who will take long flights, Joe Bob has advice: don’t watch movies, read long books and drink wine.
After a lengthy travel discussion and book recommendation segment, Joe Bob introduces Blood Sucking Freaks, which was originally released under the title The Incredible Torture Show. A re-release changed the name to The House of the Screaming Virgins, then Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman acquired the film for distribution in the early ‘80s and gave it the title it’s best known by. Joe Bob gives the movie 3 1/2 stars for originality, and for going to the absolute limit of bad taste.
As for what the movie is about... well, Joe Bob gives a perfect description before it starts playing: “Speaking of stuff that hurts, it's time for torture, mutilation, large breasts, dwarf rape, bondage, mad doctors, and non-stop death in this low-rent classic that played at drive-ins and grindhouses for more than a decade, and will shortly be revealed to be the favorite movie of AEW wrestling champion Chris Jericho. Starring Seamus O'Brien, who is sort of the B-movie version of Vincent Price, playing Master Sardu, who amuses his audience at the Theatre of the Macabre by having a dwarf named Ralphus take a woman's blouse off, strap her in a chair, and tighten an iron tourniquet around her head until blood drips down her face. When he sticks a naked girl's hand in a vise and hacks it off, Ralphus follows it up by ripping her eye out and eating it. Sardu gets P.O.d when the New York Times shows up to review the show, so he orders Ralphus to kidnap the Times critic by shooting him with a blow dart at an art gallery opening after a bimbo pops open a raincoat and flashes her groceries. Sardu amuses himself by being bull-whipped by leather bunnies, and every once in a while, he sends Ralphus down into a dungeon to feed some raw meat to the moaning naked pork chops in a cage. He keeps them there until he can ship them to the Middle East, where Arabs pay big bucks for Off-Off-Broadway actress meat. To impress the kidnapped Times critic, Sardu tells Ralphus to electrocute a bimbo by pouring 500 volts through her breasts, and it doesn't work, so Sardu goes back to work, ordering Ralphus to blow-dart a blonde ballerina named Natasha. He wants to brainwash her so she can kick the critic's brains out in the next show. Ralphus hides out in her locker in Lincoln Center, knocks out her lights, drags her back to the theater, puts chains around her neck, hangs her up by her wrists, and starts playing the cymbals until she agrees to dance on opening night, but the evil doctor is called to preserve her life until the show, and Sardu pays the bill by letting him do a little experimental brain surgery. First he pulls out all her teeth so she can't bite him, then he power-drills her head while humming ‘Marriage of Figaro.’ And then once he gets in there pretty deep, he wiggles it around, sticks in a straw, and realizes the promise of the title... Blood Sucking Freaks. Sardu is grossed out, though, so he orders Ralphus to feed the doctor to the naked women in the dungeon, leading to the amazing scene where they rip out his heart and rub it over their flesh while Sardu and Ralphus stay upstairs playing darts on a slave girl's bewtocks. Yes, we've seen it before, but have we seen it with a naked blonde stretched on the rack, a guillotine demonstration with a girl holding the rope in her mouth, Ralphus making love to a head, Sardu and Ralphus using human fingers as backgammon chips, a ballerina who gets her feet cut off, and a pretty good fried eyeball scene? I think not.”
If you can’t derive entertainment from scene after scene of people being tortured, degraded, and murdered by a theatrical Brit and his dwarf assistant in a movie with all the production value of a 1970s porno, you won’t get much out of this one. The saving grace of Blood Sucking Freaks is the fact that it takes a lighthearted approach to all of its nastiness. There’s a comedic edge to the interactions between Sardu and Ralphus, so even when they’re doing something terrible (which is all the time) and dropping lines like, “Her mouth will make an interesting urinal,” at least the movie isn’t dour and depressing like other “torture porn” movies out there. Still, I went about twenty years without watching Blood Sucking Freaks (having watched it for the first time in the early 2000s, at the recommendation of Eli Roth) and never felt the need to revisit it until Joe Bob showed it on Shudder. There aren’t many viewings of the movie in my future, either... and when I do watch it, it will be this Joe Bob episode.
Here’s a handy Wikipedia list of some of the violent acts: “The use of thumb screws, a skull crushed by a vise, amputation at the wrist by a bone saw, the amputation of fingers by a meat cleaver, electroshock, suspension, the extraction of teeth, the portrayal of an electric drill through a skull with the brains sucked through a straw, the amputation of feet by a chainsaw, stretching on St. Andrew's Cross, caning and subsequent decapitation by guillotine, as well as brainwashing, whipping, darts, and quartering.”
Jericho joins Joe Bob to tell his Blood Sucking Freaks origin story: in his younger days, he and his friends had a “Cheap-Ass Horror” club where they would go to the local convenience store and rent horror movies, aiming to watch the cheapest and the worst ones available. This endeavor led him to the glory of Blood Sucking Freaks. He and Joe Bob banter about the movie (and Jericho’s wrestling and musical careers) throughout, while Joe Bob also provides the deep cuts trivia he’s know for, digging into the theatre and/or porn backgrounds most of the cast had, as did director Joel M. Reed.
Sadly, multiple cast members died young, a couple of them in violent ways. A year after working on the movie, Seamus O'Brien was stabbed to death by a burglar in his apartment. Viju Krem, who plays ballerina Natasha Di Natalie, was shot by her husband on a hunting trip. Ralphus actor Luis De Jesus (fans of vintage porn might know him as Mr. Short Stud) went on to work on mainstream projects like Under the Rainbow and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (he was an Ewok), but died of a heart attack in 1988 at the age of 36.
Jericho is such a big fan of Blood Sucking Freaks that he paid tribute to the movie during his wrestling career, giving his wrestling character an unusual personal security guard named Ralphus. This is why Darcy the Mail Girl is wearing cosplay that combines “Jericho’s Personal Security” with a ballerina outfit, in reference to both Jericho and Natasha Di Natalie.
Joe Bob reveals that Reed first approached Hervé Villechaize about playing Ralphus, and word is that Villechaize wanted some of his compensation to be delivered in the form of prostitutes. He was a bit too costly for Reed’s taste, though, so he went with Luis De Jesus. Fans like Jericho have been celebrating Ralphus ever since.
Before heading into the movie’s climactic sequence, Jericho teams with music supervisor to perform a song that serves as a tribute to “Blood Sucking Freaks.” Then, it all comes to a merciful end.
After the movie, Darcy the Mail Girl comes in to deliver a letter from a female viewer whose husband is a big fan of Joe Bob, so she watches the show with him and Joe Bob is growing on her. She asks for a romantic horror recommendation, so Joe Bob throws around some titles like Natural Born Killers, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Twilight, and Kiss of the Damned. Darcy suggests Scream, “the best movie ever made.” And Joe Bob ends the night with a groan-inducing joke.
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