Pets

Pets  Directed By Raphael Nussbaum, Starring Candice Rialson (1974).

Candice Rialson has that certain alluring quality in a trashy blonde that I find irresistible, (I've got the same crush on Lynda Haynes too). She's not afraid to stand-out in the realm of sleaze and radiates a natural charm that shines through the usual schlock (Hollywood Boulevard was the first time I became aware of this talented,funny, sultry blonde). Rialson quit acting cold turkey in the 70's (perhaps she pushed the panic button, when roles didn't pile in later for her career and she eventually died of liver disease). She worked for Roger Corman alot and started in one of the dumbest premises for a film outside of a hardcore porn; Chatterbox, which is about a singing vagina and it even had Rip Taylor (Yuck-yuck-yuck)! 

   Pets has been notoriously championed in the pages of Sleazoid Express (that's where I first saw Candy in a dog collar on all fours and had been on the edge of my seat to watch it ever since)! Let's see if it has more depth then the softcore centerfold lurid cover (which I now realize sounds like I'm describing the cover for Spinal Tap's Smell The Glove)! 

These green lines are giving me a migraine

   Just like the hardcore traumatic "porn nightmare inducing flick", Invitation to ruin, Pets is also streaming with razor lashes on the film stock (My eyeballs will read between the irritating lines, since this is the only print available of this rare film, to me at least). Eventually the green lines disappear, but the record needle scratched on the soundtrack linger, this time the gruesome sex has been replaced by tame sexploitation.

   Candy gets dropped off by her mutton chopped, women beating brother to grab a quick bite (an Orange Julius and some grease-pit burgers ), or a quick way to get instant diarrhea. 

   A car full of slick black dudes who yell "Motherfucker" over and over again, get pissed off and confront Mr. Chops (or "Dragstrip Charlie"), Candice's brother. The lead pimp, the one who screams Motherfucker is actually named Mother, I mean what kind of scriptwriter do you expect from someone writing PETS in a rat-infested bathroom on crank, Kierkegaard??

   Candy plays Bonnie, a good natured runaway in a super high miniskirt wandering alone among the unwashed streets of anytown U.S.A.

  She runs smack into Pat (Teri Guzman), a street wise beach hussy who's aim is to turn her out. They carjack some poor dope in a flashy car with an adorable dog, Pat is so mean, she even throws the dog off a cliff! Pets establishes characters in the first act that never show up later, perhaps they all fell into the same hellish snake-pit that befell the characters from that British Tales From The Crypt? 

Here's your next adventure Benji, to the grave

    Pat runs errands to pretend she's the new dog's owner, while Bonnie does a slow striptease to distract the guy (who they affectionately call lap-dog). Bonnie gets turned on by the hostage crisis and humps the old coot!

   As she runs away (or does the old hump and dump), that theme song follows her around, which sounds like a B-rate Janis Ian.

An attractive female artist helps her out by letting her stay and hiring her as a nude figure model. At first they have a platonic lesbian partnership, then it of course becomes sexual.

 This encounter brings her into the lurid world of art dealing and it may be a catalyst for dangers to come.

Try again Georgia O Keefe

They arrive in the form of Vince Stackman (Ed Bishop), a mod in a bowl haircut and turtle neck, who starts sniffing around, looking to score with Bonnie. The print jumps toward the end and cuts off sentences (just like in the Tarantino Grindhouse flick, but not intentionally). 

   Geraldine the lesbian painter becomes obsessed with her new gal pal and is mentally unstable, all of the people that surround Bonnie force her to wander around (while that stupid folk song follows her again)! 

So how did your Three's Company audition go?

Eventually she falls into the clutches of Vince Stackman, who at first shows her off and wines and dines her, but he's a freak that collects human pets in his creepy mansion.

The ending is a real show stopper and worth sticking around for. 
Slightly Recommended not as deranged as I thought, but still a good time!
   

The porn parody version of Riff Randell

Carol Channing was a mod before you were a mod

The shroud of Daryl Hannah from Splash

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