Human Experiments

 Human Experiments Directed By Greg Goodell, Starring Linda Haynes (1979).

This film is not directed by Deep Red scribe and occasional TOG writer Greg Goodsell (all you have to do is add an S). Goodell was a TV director who started off with this (subtext and technically) dark women in prison film It's only available on VHS (even though Code Red, the most deceptive company in the horror business) claims there's a DVD which may or may not exist! Then Scorpion Releasing was supposed to put it out and dropped the ball, so now it's in limbo which is a shame.

Linda in Rolling Thunder when she had more guts

   Linda Haynes played a doormat or a lost puppy of a girlfriend to William Devane in the all time classic "Rolling Thunder". In that flick, she fired a shotgun, baited Mexicans, threw drinks down while quitting her job as a waitress, so she could follow her guy down to Mexico and execute bandits.

   She had balls man, but in this film they get torn off and her self respect followed along with it. I’m convinced that after watching Linda Haynes in Human Experiments that she fired her agent and left acting for good. (I didn’t bother to Google this info, cause the fantasy is usually better then the reality). I picture her agent looking like Chuck Mitchell drooling and saying “push the damn meat into the mold, Lane Meyer!” (translation Linda get full blown bush naked and roll around in bug shit and scorpion dung).

   So poor Linda gets stuck in some hillbilly dead end playing her awful country music (her singing voice is dubbed by someone else). Right in the beginning from the shitty Atari graphics, sandpaper scratchy film stock to the bad music you know you are in for an exploitive treat. 

   Here she plays Rachel Foster an unlucky girl with aspirations to become a country singer! Mr. Tibbs, (Aldo Ray) a crooked scuzzy hotel and hillbilly promoter fucks her over and she speeds out of town. Trouble starts tailing her car in the form of Jackie "Uncle Fester" Coogan as the stubby arm of the law. Good thing he didn't administer the light bulb anal intruder on Rachel!

   In this one they get weird lickity-split, as Rachel careens off the road after a near hit and run and ends up getting sent to one of the strangest prisons which later on, seems to me, to have influenced the one in Hell Hole with Mary Woronov. The explanation of why she's gets thrown in jail makes no sense to me, this time you can't even blame Southern justice. Foster barges in on a kid in the process of butchering his family and takes him out after he pulls a shotgun on her. It doesn't matter really how she gets to that freaky prison, just as long as she gets there, right?   

   All the actors in this mess make Linda seem like a stellar theater actress. All of them are ghastly in appearance and force you to see her as if she’s a pretty Barbie doll stuck in a heap of vomit and snot. She gets naked a lot in this one (while being deloused by an ugly nurse) and has a masturbation scene!

these pesticides should keep away those nipple flies

   Even though this run down video is hard on the eyeballs Human Experiments is fun and needs an official DVD release (Shout Factory I'm looking at you)! They already bought Hell Hole, this should be on their list.

Excuse me I forgot I left a Taco Bell crunch wrap on my dashboard a few days ago!

   Geoffrey Lewis (10 to Midnight, Little House on the Prairie) plays the warden/amateur psychiatrist who later pulls a brainwash style Manchurian Candidate move on Rachel. He's using the inmates as guinea pigs and turning some of them into drooling babies or assassination machines. The bug-eyed quack has jars of scorpions and butterflies on the wall, is he also an amateur entomologist? His insane theory is that if he wipes their brains clean, he can re-educate them into giant children! There's some demented logic going on here! 

   Rachel gets help from a scrappy girl with a bowl hair-cut played by John Travolta's sister as they plot their escape, an awful prog-funk band randomly plays in a nightclub! They must've needed a bad music quota because their appearance makes no sense to me!

What?? We have to do 30 more takes of the slow masturbation scene?

    Some how she gets tricked into slugging through a scummy vent full of "Temple of Doom" style creatures (crunchy bugs and centipedes), could Spielberg have stolen from Greg Goodell? Definitely not!! After that gruesome spectacle she briefly loses her mind and shoots all the jars full of bugs.
 

Mrs. Haynes slathered in bugs

   It all turns out OK in the end though as Rachel’s shrill country bumpkin mumblings play over the credits. The shitty music was written by Jerry Jeff Walker (who most likely left this off his resume).
According to an interview with Shock Cinema, Haynes said that the director used garbage cans full of real live bugs and put cotton balls on their tiny pinchers so she wouldn't get bitten. They had buckets full of the critters that they dumped on her and she said "NO COCKROACHES" because being a Floridian, she despised them. As far as the nudity goes Linda just chalks it up to "Hey it's not the end of the world and it was the 70's!" Gotta love that spunky attitude of hers!

OK, good there's the lyrics on my palm

   Lately on YouTube I’ve had good success with horrible looking dirty videotapes. Code Red apparently put this movie out at some point (good luck finding it)! That company is a total tease, anytime I search for something they own it's usually either out of print or not available, what a joke!
According to Linda's interview in Shock Cinema she mentioned recording the commentary moderated by Vincent Gallo where basically that loser did all the talking and didn't let her get a word in! Even she wondered if the DVD would ever come out!
 This film ended up on the Video Nasty list and this time I was more curious about Haynes then the incidental reason it was on there. Lately there have some real turds in that hypocritical toilet (like Frozen Scream to be reviewed later on)! I recently discovered that John Martin (the only original Deep Red writer who's missing in action) wrote a book called Seduction of the Gullible about the Video Nasty age, which is a great title because half of these titles don't deserve the scrutiny. Even though it's very clumsy, the illogical-ness, gratuitous nudity and TV movie style grindhouse quality works enough for me to give it a higher rating than most would.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR WOMEN IN PRISON COMPLETISTS