12/2: The Ramrodder (1969)
- Drink whenever Tuwana gets naked (only Tuwana or else you won't be able to get home)
- Drink whenever you see a member of the Manson family (the Chief's daughter and the bad guy)
- Drink when a scene that goes on waaaaay too long and the only way to make it bearable is to drink
There is nothing normal about THE RAMRODDER. Firstly, it's called THE RAMRODDER. We've learned that this is an older term for a guy who herds cows but, well, it's called THE RAMRODDER. Secondly, it's got:
- Two members of the Manson family.
- The "Dance of the Virgins"
- "Native Americans" wearing jeans
- People humping each other's legs
- A whip dipped in ketchup
- A topless catfight
- A girl loosing her maidenhood to a stick
- The. Worst. Dialogue. Ever.
Guylder apparently was cool with casting anyone willing to take their clothes off, so two members of the family--Catherine Share and Bobby Beausoleil--ended up in the film. Here's the freaky part: Beausoleil, who would later be convicted of murder, is the bad guy! Did Guylder just see something in his eyes that screamed "evil"?
Anyway, the plot: the title character who so often rams his rod is a cowboy named Rick. He's engaged to an airhead named Lucy who seems to take 20 minutes to say a single sentence but looks amazing with her clothes off. Rick is out ramrodding some cows when he's attacked and left for dead by Beausoleil's character and then found and nursed back to health by a white-girl-playing-a-Native-American named Tuwana. Shortly thereafter, the chief's daughter (played by Share) is raped by the bad guy (is it weird that one Manson family member pretended to rape another? Yes, it's weird) and Rick gets the blame. The tribe of white guys then decides to murder all white guys (sorry, the "Native Americans" decide to murder all white guys). And, yeah, nothing makes much sense from there forward, but it makes for a really terrible, strange and utterly hilarious movie. Also, it has muscular guy and hot girls wearing nothing or next to nothing, so much so that you'll forget to get excited by it all about halfway through. Come make fun of it with us this Thursday!
12/3: Firecracker (1981)
Also released as NAKED FIST The Drinking Game:
- Drink every time there's a fight (twice if it's topless)
- For your safety, there are no other rules.
The Movie:
Few people did as much to popularize the Blaxploitation, Vietnam War and Femme Fatale genres as a little known but extremely prolific Filipino director named Cirio Santiago. He directed TNT JACKSON--one of the most popular films we've ever shown at DST3K--and he also directed its 80s soul sister: FIRECRACKER. We're doubly excited about this screening, though, because up until know we've been watching a dark, soupy version transferred from VHS, and now we've got a copy of the crystal-clear remastering made from a direct scan of the negative!
In many ways, Santiago was just recycling TNT JACKSON when he made FIRECRACKER: both were about a woman going to South East Asia to find a missing sibling, both involve the female lead meeting and having sex with a martial arts expert connected to organized crime (and later killing him), and both feature topless fight scenes. Since this is the 80s, though, Santiago traded afros for sweet 'staches, bell bottoms for track suits and disco for synthesizers. He also swapped Jeanie Bell for Jillian Kesner, and the movie is the better for it. Although Bell--a Playboy model--looked gorgeous throughout TNT JACKSON, she was terrible in the fight scenes and all her stunts were noticeably performed by a man. Kesner is just as terrible an actress as Bell, but she was a bona fide karate champion and when she kicks the shit out of the bad guys every other scene, she at least does it with real skill.
Santiago also gets credit for creativity: although FIRECRACKER is formulaic to a fault and terrible in almost every area save cinematography, he at least found ways to make the formula more interesting. For example, we don't just get a fight scene between Kesner and some hit men; we where Kenser has her clothes progressively torn off until she's fighting in only a pair of panties. We don't just get a sex scene between Kesner and the main bad guy; we get a sex scene where foreplay is accomplished by the two cutting each other's clothes off with knives. And at the end, Kesner doesn't just kill the bad guy; she stabs his eyes out with bamboo poles. Yeah, it's THAT kind of movie.
So come make fun of it this Thursday! It's going to be a (ahem) blast!
12/9: The Creeping Terror (1964)
Also released as THE CRAWLING MONSTER and DANGEROUS CHARTERThe Drinking Game
- Drink whenever teenagers dance or make out
- Drink whenever someone is eaten by the carpet monster
- Drink whenever you actually hear someone speak in the film
The Movie
This week, DST3K gets back to its B&W sci-fi roots with THE CREEPING TERROR! If you haven't heard of it, don't worry; most people haven't. But while it doesn't get nearly the attention of, say, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE or ROBOT MONSTER, trust us that it is definitely a contender for "Worst Movie of All Time".
Its hilarious ineptness is due, in large part, to the fact that its director had little desire to make a movie and much desire to rob people blind. Arthur White was an exceedingly violent con man with a predilection for teenage girls who decided to capitalize on the drive-in sci-fi craze by telling people he was a big time producer and director and convincing them to invest money in his next film (this included not only the wealthy, but also plumbers and housewives who paid cash to have a shot at stardom). He spent a few days shooting footage before disappearing with the cash.
William Thourlby, the main financier, found the footage in White's abandoned apartment and finished principal photography with the help of cameraman Randy Starr. In a strange bit of overlap, THE CREEPING TERROR--like THE RAMRODDER--was shot at Spahn Ranch (where Manson family members were living as caretakers) and Starr gave Charles Manson the gun that he later used in the Tate Murders.
His shoddily made film in the can, Thourlby now had to figure out how to handle his sound problem. White hadn't recorded any on set, saying that dialogue would be dubbed in later, but with no money to record and sync a full soundtrack, Thourlby was forced to pay a local DJ record to record narration that TELLS you what people are saying, all while you watch their mouths move. For whatever reason, the narrator is fond of describing to you exactly what you're seeing ("The investigated the spacecraft" while you are quite clearly watching them look around the spacecraft) and at other times he disappears while people are silently talking to each other and you have no idea what the hell is going on. There are brief moments of dialogue, but the lip syncing is so Godzilla-movie bad that you're happy when the narrator kicks back in.
At this point, we might as well tell you what the movie is about: White (under the pseudonym Vic Savage) plays Martin, a newlywed man who--along with his bride--discovers a spaceship off a dirt road. Out comes an alien that is quite clearly a couple guys covered in carpets with some bits stuck on top, except that when it rears up you see a mouth that looks a lot like a vagina. Like, a lot a lot. Through this vagina the carpet eats (reverse births?), well, everyone: a teenagers, old folks, soldiers, the sheriff, an entire high school prom. Although this terror moves pretty slowly (you know, it creeps), people always seem powerless to get away. Bullets don't seem to stop it and, well... We won't ruin it for you.
Come make fun of it this Thursday!
8/29: The Guy From Harlem (1977)
The Drinking Game:
- Drink whenver someone says the word "Harlem"
- Drink whenever someone flubs their line or talks over another actor
- Drink whenever Big Daddy speaks at full volume
The Movie:
"Uh! The guy from Harlem! (Watch out!) That cat's a bad dude! (Get on down!) Watch the moves! (The guy from Harlem!) He's a mean, clean, fightin' machine! Uh!"
And with those lyrics to a boogie-down soundtrack, we meet Al Conners, who, according to his theme music, isn't nice, is a robot who specializes in physical altercations and who takes numerous showers. Of course, the film doesn't start with that intro. It starts with a girl on a couch getting hit on by a guy who's apparently kidnapped her. Only don't worry about them because they won't be mentioned for half the film. And then it cuts to:
"Uh! The guy from..."
There is much to love about THE GUY FROM HARLEM: the wide array of leisure suits (including one that's pink and another that's plaid), the constant mistakes that the director probably left in because, well, film is expensive and they could only afford one take, the 70s decor that makes it look like a shag carpet suicide bombed the set, and the fact that the film just changes halfway through because, well, they ran out of plot. But the greatest reason to watch THE GUY FROM HARLEM--the reason you absolutely have to come on Thursday--is the fight scenes. No film in the history of cinema--and we're including those shot by bored 8 year-olds with cell phones--has fight scenes as hilariously inept as the ones in this movie.
Anyway, Al Conners (played by Loye Hawkins in his first and only film role), is a detective living in Miami who is given a job guarding an African princess. The princess--Ashanti--must have gone to one hell of a finishing school because she speaks English with a perfect American accent. In any case, Conners decides that the best way to hide her is to pose as man and wife at a hotel. Once there, Ashanti complains about being sore from the flight and that she needs a massage. If this were a porn and what followed was a sex scene, we'd be fine with this, but instead we are treated to a topless Ashanti getting massaged by a white woman while Conners watches "for security reasons". This goes on for a painfully long time. And then, wait! The masseuse has signaled some thugs out the window! Conners sees this, but says nothing, and after the masseuse leaves he begins to put the moves on Ashanti--which she's totally into. They get interrupted by room service, but as a woman in a dress and heels wheels in a cart, Conners leaps over the table and decks her, because, wait, it's a man, baby! And then a fight breaks out with more thugs joining in. It may be the greatest thing you've scene in your life.
More ridiculousness follows for the next hour, except that at some point Ashanti simply goes back to Africa and Conners spends the rest of the film trying to rescue that kidnapped girl from beginning of the movie, interspersed with a couple of fight scenes that, when witnessed, will complete the thing you were put on Earth to do.
Seriously, though, we've shown a lot of bad movies at DST3K, but THE GUY FROM HARLEM definitely ranks up with PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE as one of the worst. There is nothing redeemable about this movie, but somehow it forces its way out the other side of bad to become sublimely and hilariously awesome.
Come make fun of it this Thursday!