MICROWAVE MASSACRE

Microwave Massacre

Directed by W. Berwick. Starring Jackie Vernon, Claire Ginsgerg, Loren Schein, Al Troupe. (1983).

Reviewed by Michael Hauss

I consider myself to be a major verbal extremist, I drop more F-Bombs per day than some small third world countries or the latest Gangster rap CD release. So, political correctness is something that I don’t subscribe to. I am sensitive to other people’s feelings, but I have been known to open mouth and insert foot on a regular basis. I work with a bunch of people who find inventive ways to use the F word in every sentence and being around a bunch of likeminded verbal extremist, just fuels my F-Bomb creativity. Now, you’re probably asking yourself, what the Fuck is this idiot babbling on about and what does it have to do with the film in question Microwave Massacre? Plenty my fucking friend, plenty.

This film is from the 1970’s (Filmed in 1979, released in 1983) and it’s all about the political incorrectness in this joyous stab at cannibalistic sexual perversion among the deviants. Microwave Massacre is about a poor deadpanning slob who just wants to have a bologna and cheese sandwich when he gets home from his job as a construction worker. Donald (Jackie Vernon) never gets that bologna and cheese sandwich, he gets some Haute Cuisine that his flighty wife May (Claire Ginsberg) cooks up for him in her industrial sized microwave. All around Donald people are living, eating desirable food and having sexual relations. The problem with Donald is two-fold, while there is an issue with the food there is also deep problems concerning his sexual relationship with May or lack of sexual relations that is, that part of the relationship has been nonexistent for the last fifteen years and in their battle of putdowns and continual verbal sparring,  Donald snipes about May’s desirability, and May shoots some zingers back at Donald including the soul crushing line, that he’s a “Walking contraceptive.”

One night after getting drunk at his favorite local bar, Donald returns home late and May has created another gastric disturbance. Donald after being denied that bologna and cheese again, becomes drunkenly enraged and after urinating on May’s couch in her plastic home reality universe, he attacks his wife in her beloved kitchen while that industrial sized Major Electric microwave looks on in gleaming, chrome consumerism. Donald bludgeons May to death with a salt shaker (Vernon's character has enough sense to throw some salt over his shoulder to try and negate that old bad luck). The next morning Donald awakens late with a massive hangover, and while looking about for his lunch, checks out the microwave and finds that, “Ma-Ma-Ma- May is in the microwave.” The deadpanning Donald turns to the camera and says, that’s the way May “Would have wanted to go…. slow broil.”

Wait for the ding before serving!

The star of this film is the world renown comedian Jackie Vernon, who had a sparse number of movie and television series credits, but did appear on a host of variety shows, with many funny appearances on the old Dean Martin show. For those who have never seen Microwave Massacre, I implore you to close your eyes and wait for the first lines uttered by Vernon in the role of Donald and let your brain quickly scramble to figure out why that voice sounds so familiar!

It is odd hearing the voice of the beloved Frosty the Snowman saying some outrageously raunchy politically incorrect things! Donald after his killing of May, cuts her body up and places the parts into the fridge in the garage to cover his dastardly crime, but keeps his wife's head displayed in the fridge. That very night Donald stumbles out of bed for a midnight snack and bites into a piece of meat that he had taken from the fridge to make room for May and unbeknownst to him, he bites into a piece of his dead wife and finds that he enjoys the taste of flesh.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I'm gonna carve the roast beast, wait wrong fucking TV special?!

Donald meets a prostitute at the bar and being the naïve non-sexual being, does not realize that the woman whose name is Dee Dee Dee is indeed a lady of the night. On the way to Donald’s house Dee Dee Dee tells the dour-pussed Donald, that she was named Dee Dee Dee because her mother stuttered. At the house, Donald, can’t seem to get over his sexual impotency but then something snaps and after a quick two minutes, Donald smothers poor Dee Dee Dee and afterwards he carries her dead body into the kitchen and proclaims to no one in particular, “I’m so hungry I could eat a whore!” Now think about that for a minute, ole’ Frosty the Snowman is ready to cut into a dead prostitute and devour her in a cannibalistic frenzy, and old fucking Frosty the Fucking Snowman just said, “I’m so hungry I could eat a whore!” Let that stew in your brain for a minute, a beloved figure even if only in voice is a whore devouring, deadpanning cannibal. I was equally shocked and amused with the visual fantasy scenario that played out in my head as old frosty went about killing women on the snowy terrain of that Christmas classic, a decidedly more perverse cartoon than Rankin/Bass had ever envisioned for that fat mass of frozen water who has become a holiday tradition.

Holy Shit! Karen you slut, this is Frosty shaming you for that gynecological spread you did for Swank.

Donald takes a bit of old May with him to work and after his fellow co-workers Roosevelt (Loren Schein) and Phillip (Al Troupe) get a taste of the meat, unbeknownst to them they develop a bad case of cannibalism. The film moves from scene to scene as the robust Donald with his deadpanning naivety procures attractive female after attractive female and after sexual relations, eats them. The eating of a woman part is expanded a bit when Donald visits a psychiatrist with a heavy soul and the doctor snoozes through their session only to awaken at the end to hear Donald speaking of eating women in a non-sexual sense, which the doctor does not interpret correctly and tells him if it feels good do it. Of course, Donald is speaking in both terms of the phrase, but is thankfully never shown doing the sexual one, only showing the clothed Donald with his unwitting topless female victims. The ending I will not spoil, but a visit to his family medical doctor helps understand the ending, and ultimately May will have her revenge, with a little help from her beloved Microwave!

I'll never look at Frosty in the same way again!

Microwave Massacre is played strictly for laughs and does what very few comedy-horror films do, it keeps the emphasis on the comedy and never overplays its hand, reveling in its stupidity and never going into anything overly graphic in terms of blood or gore. It relies more on its ability to jab at our sensibilities with its political incorrectness and its total lack of scruples to amaze and titillate the viewers. I, for one love the film and think that it is an unique viewing experience, and needs to be discovered and rediscovered so it can take its place amongst other classic exploitation films of its ilk. The film does what it sets out to do and that is to never take itself seriously and to present a male who has a proclivity for human flesh and that inclination helps release his dormant libido. So next time your hungry for a bite to eat for your politically incorrect soul, bite into this fleshy presentation from the great team at Arrow Video. 

Frosty, tell us one more time about your cannibalistic urges, the urges that finally motivated your pole North!.

Now on to the release by Arrow. The film is presented in the aspect ratio of 1:85:1. The Blu-Ray/DVD release of the film is loaded with special edition contents including; Brand new 2K restoration from the original camera negative. High definition Blu-ray (1080p) and standard definition DVD presentations. Original Mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray). Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing. Brand new audio commentary with writer-producer Craig Muckler, moderated by Mike Tristano. Brand new making of featurette including interviews with Mucker, director Wayne Berwick and actor Loren Schein. Trailer. Original treatment and 8-page synopsis (BD/DVD-ROM content). And an informative and outstanding booklet on the film by the film historian Stephen Thrower.

Check out this big box phone cover for Microwave Massacre that's guaranteed to melt you brain. 

*Please look for my upcoming interview with Microwave Massacre producer and actor Craig Muckler in Wengs Chop # 10. If that’s not enough look for an upcoming review of the film for Exploitation Retrospect #53.*

Diabolical Inheritance

Diabolical Inheritance Directed By Alfredo Salazar, Starring Margarito (1994).

Man I gotta watch more Telenovelas or at least ones as demented as this shit! I was raiding the mondo exploito.com archives and came across what looked like a midget in Ronald Mcdonald greasepaint mugging at the camera with a toothy smile, based on that alone, I was sold! I knew I had to put in the call to my number one dealer in hard to find off the beaten path wackiness, Mr. Skunkape. Of course he never lets me down and is the reason this site has stayed afloat for all these years. I do the finger clickity clackin', he does the movie trappin' or something like that. I mean I can’t find everything on Fandor or back alley Salvation Army dumpsters.

The production values are low as fuck, we're talking Fisher Price camcorder style. There's a hideous sex scene that's heavy with shadows layered upon more darkness and confusion, but stick around no matter how tedious the storyline gets because there’s a Grimace cookie waiting for you in a pile of fetid fly covered $ menu cheeseburgers.

I got the dia-beet-tus

It takes place in Mexico, which is oddly topical now considering there’s an authentic Oompa Loomp clown now residing in the white house and all the intolerance toward Latinos. Don’t worry I refuse to go on a political tirade, there’s years of that bullshit everywhere else online. It's even more relevant with the rise of scary clowns making an appearance in different areas and frightening the shit outta people lately. And there's the endless debate whether Guy Fieri, the singer of Smash Mouth and ICP are all the same person, but that's another story. Anyway on with the review.

Clown lives matter Yo!

After Tony’s Aunt croaks, he inherits a creepy old mansion, a pretty typical set up for a haunted house movie but this one really delivers in the unintentionally funny department. There’s lots of slow-mo falls over buildings, down stairs and Margarito Esparza Nevares, the elderly little person who plays the doll is terrifying. He carries the entire production and does a genius job, sadly Margarito just died a few months ago.

used to be available for parties and school events

Tony (Roberto Guinar) scoffs at his girlfriend fretting over the attic, which is filled with demon masks and Satanic bibles. Red flags are waving all over the place, but nobody heeded the warning of course until it’s too late. The two women in Tony’s life are pretty attractive, one of them gets naked but you can hardly see her body, it’s encased in a squiggle fog of video haze. Later on after his girlfriend gets into a horrible accident he moves on real fast and ends up with his hot blonde secretary. They don’t have as much as a split second memorial, just some flowers are quickly placed on her tomb and then it’s off with his new lady friend—that’s cold blooded!

There’s one insane part where Roy, Tony's chubby cheeked Campbell kid looking son and his blonde sitter played by Lorena Herrera visit an insane park. This place is off the chain, there's nursery rhyme statues, actual monkeys swinging around next to ducks above a pond and a giant King Kong statue that moves and blinks it’s eyes—I almost did a spit take on my computer and fried the hard drive.

you know what would go well with my clown midget burrito, some plantains.

It almost gets into Black Devil Doll from Hell rape territory during a dream sequence, but that doesn’t pan out. The most skeeved out I reacted was when a a sleeping hobo gets gouged by a jagged bottle in the head by the short clown, I mean it was just fucked up, nobody deserves that kind of punishment!

While you're up can you grab me a fruit roll-up?

The nightmare fuel rapidly increases into a crescendo of cackles and video tracking shakes. At 1:20 minutes there’s just so much to enjoy, thanks again to Mondo Exploito for turning me onto this warped little flick! I haven't looked it up, but this seems like a prime Video Vortex pick, I'm guessing it will eventually show up on the roster and is just as demented and tedious as you'd expect but I dug every frame of it!

IF YOU CAN FIND IT, GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO GET A COPY, MORE FUN THAN A HORDE OF CLOWNS FEASTING ON BEEF AND COCAINE!

AND,

Since we don't clown around, we're proud to present this

Trailer That Smells!

Movie Review: Evils of the Night (1985)

Evils of the Night Directed by Mardi Rustam, starring Tina Louise (1985).

"Space aliens enlist the aid of garage mechanics to procure local beach bunnies for blood transfusions and life extension experiments". 

While the above comes off like a droll TV Guide-styled parody of a grade-Z science fiction film, such a movie exists: Mardi Rustam's notorious Evils of the Night! Bad lighting, bad editing, inane plot, bottom-of-the-barrel costumes and humiliated movie and TV stars are dropped into the stew for a feature that has to be seen to be disbelieved.

After a twirling disco light lands at a nearby lake, said space aliens (Carradine, Louise and Newmar) abetted by some outer space lesbians, who hold hands and look knowingly into each other’s eyes -- commandeer a nearby hospital and begin to thin out the area's local youths. Paying two local grease monkeys (Brand and Ray) in gold coins to abduct the area's bimbos and stud muffins for unwilling test subjects, Carradine, Louise and Carradine begin a series of vampiric blood transfusions. The majority Evils of the Night literally takes place in a garage, adding yet another level of threadbare production value.

yeah but it's not just any garage, it's the cheapest in town!

Evils of the Night enjoyed a limited theatrical release in the waning days of the Drive-In and grindhouse. Its cult reputation would arrive once released to VHS, where drunken frat boys would chug beers, roll their eyes to exclaim, “Look, its Catwoman and Ginger from 'Gilligan's Island!' What the hell happened?” While he's listed low on the credits, disgraced actor Aldo Ray has a lot of screen time. A onetime matinee idol, Ray's name alone on a VHS box at that would serve as fair warning to keep on walkin', back in the day.

I need some more of that medical shit to endure this movie Bob! 

Where to begin? Aforementioned pros such as Carradine, Brand and company are inter-cut with adult video stars Amber Lynn, Shone Taylor, Crystal Breeze and Jerry Butler in some scene of nudity and soft-core grouping in the service of a slasher missing chase scenes. The gory climax is set in the aforementioned claustrophobic garage as the terrified teens mete out justice on their tormentors with electrical power tools. The end ….

can I get some of that poofy 80's hair cream rinse, I'm addicted!

Director Mardi Rustam, the producer of Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive, reunited with that film's madman, Brand, to make something … memorable. Vinegar Syndrome's combo Blu-ray/DVD package is a vast improvement in audio and visual quality over the title's previous incarnations on VHS and DVD, but can't deter from the movie's countless indifferently framed and overly lit scenes.
Among the Vinegar Syndrome disc's many extras is the nine-minute mini-documentary “Alien Blood Transfusion.” Aged director Rustam, in a halting tone shares stories behind the making of the film. Rustam claims that one of the main inspirations behind Evils of the Night is The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), a distinction it shares with that other woebegone alien invasion epic, Plan Nine from Outer Space (1959)! Shot on location in Agoura Hills and Malibu, this tidbit doesn't explain – with so many abundant beach locations nearby, why Evils of the Night takes place around a very stagnant lake surrounded by ugly, overgrown shrubbery. Rustam ends his chat by saying that he's going to sit down and rewatch the film for the first time in many years.

Other extras include optional English subtitles for the hard of hearing, as well as an isolated audio track featuring the soundtrack music and “new wave” songs of composer Robert O. Ragland. Even more substantial is a 93-minute version intended for television markets that appears a bit too racy to show before 11 p.m. on independent TV stations. There are also 24 minutes of outtakes, a TV spot and an incomplete, rough-cut theatrical trailer to round out the package. 

Whether approaching the title with bemused nostalgia or with fresh, astonished eyes, Evils of the Night is sure to leave many experiencing A Good Time with a Bad Film. 

BUY HERE

GUTS FIELD REPORT: NASHVILLE MIDNIGHT MOVIE at The Belcourt: THIS IS AMERICA PART 2

NASHVILLE FIELD REPORT BELCOURT THEATER: THIS IS AMERICA PART 2. Directed By Romano Vanderbes, starring Ron Jeremy (1980).

Here I am back at the only place in Trashville to see weird movies for sickos only.

I always arrive early enough to check out the pre-show which has stuff related to the film they're about to play. As I got in slightly late, I saw a part of the Dead Kennedys Target video (that I still own from high school) which had a segment from the local San Francisco news about Jello's run for mayor, followed by Drug Me. One part that cracked me up showed Richard Pryor walking into a gun store where all the weapons had their own voices and personalities (one of them was Robin Williams, R.I.P.), it was taken from Pryor's short lived TV series. I also saw a trailer for Human Highway, the Devo/ Neil Young movie which has been a total bitch to find until now. I first read about that one in Psychotronic and it's finally being re-released.

This gun is the tits, it's loaded with cocaine bullets!

Back in the days when video stores still existed, there were shit tons of repulsive dreck in the mondo section like Africa Blood & Guts, Mondo Magic, Shocking Asia and the most famous Faces of Death. I’ve always despised this genre as cheap Fox News style propaganda mixed with genuinely horrific nightmarish accident footage or staged attacks and executions. Fodder for death metal videos and stoners with a taste for twisted violence, not for me at all. So why did I venture out on the highway to check this flick out? First and foremost, I fucking love this theater and want to support them. Awhile ago after seeing the very depressing and grim Killing Of America by Leonard Schrader (Paul “Taxi Driver, Hardcore” Schrader’s) doc, I discovered Jabberwalk (aka This is America part 2) and thought I should revisit it. There is a part one, but it's pretty forgettable. What's really strange to me is how both of these films combined are not as gut wrenching, at least to me, as something like Fahrenheit 911 or Bowling for Columbine (I'm sure Moore was heavily influenced by the Schrader film)

Skunkape found this sequel for me at least 10 years ago, I switched it on for probably a few mins, saw Jello Biafra riding BART with his campaign posters and shut it off. Thought to myself “Next” and then watched something with more guts. Then in the present year 2016 A.D., I figured I'd give this very cheesy, non-prophetic and out dated “mondo” movie that relies too heavily on sex and buffoonery and goofiness a second chance. There’s not much here to shock any drooling slack jawed geek show veteran who's seen Faces of Death a trillion times or preteens of now, who have every depraved sex act known to humanity at the click of a mouse, so who is this movie for, I don’t really know!

I enjoyed it regardless but really wish I could say, “Sheesh, I’m glad society isn’t as fucked up as that movie painted it out to be!” Just think of the lyrics to California Uber Alles (which fears the threatening grip of a, shudder to think, Jerry Brown presidency)! Holy fucking shit, I wish that’s the way the tide turned, but no, current society is a billion times worse than this mondo flick paints it out to be! At this point in time, Idiocracy, one of the most accurate futuristic depictions of a society ruled by the completely moronic and sub intelligent might have to catch up with how retarded everyone is right now. Check to see if Mike Judge’s brain matter hasn’t ejected all over the inside of his office out of sheer disbelief.

Ahhh that's better, if only this really happened.

So what goes down in Romano Vanderbes’ movie celebrating the eccentricities of the wackiest people he could gather for this event? Well, I noticed Ron Jeremy is featured during a lot of segments, in the passenger side of a naked carwash. One lady looked like she had a 4 boobs in two, over the shoulder boulders indeed. During a topless boxing match at the end, we get Vanessa Del Rio and Veronica Hart punching each other’s lights out (they were billed as just drunk girls who wondered into the ring). Jeremy shows up later at a repulsive hot top orgy at Plato’s Retreat, I recommend reading the incredibly sleazy book Tales From Times Square by Josh Alan Friedman for further debauchery on this subject.

valet parking and buffet? Oh boy!

At one point, the film attempts to get dark and shows a community of homeless underground dwellers (a pre CHUD reference) feasting on rats, one bum looks suspiciously like Brian Johnson from AC/DC. Another disgusting moment (which we’ve seen worse on mainstream shows like Fear Factor has an entire family scarfing down worms (and making juice out of the wrigglers), read The Worm Eaters review for more Zimmern style shenanigans, BARF)!

Shake & bake that rat baybayby all fucking night looonnnngg

After a while my patience wore thin, adding to the fact that there was possibly 5 other people in the theater, no one was laughing accept me and some fat dude in front of me kept checking the time on his cellphone (I almost narced on him, but I don't dime). The staff at the Belcourt mentioned that I was possibly the only person who walked in, not employed by the movie theater who had any interest in watching this flick, I guess I’m a "for real" weirdo.

There was a phoned in little segment showing Manson, people with hideous wounds, random protesting and scuffles, Edmund Kemper (who really ate up the film stock in Killing of America) and an inmate who was fried a couple of times in the electric chair (sans eye socket duct tape by the way). I mean the footage in Faces of Death looked more realistic.

Whew, at last my sinuses feel great!

2 more segments that I enjoyed overall were the footage of Bo Diddley partying with Hells Angels (which was shot for a concert in an already finished short called Hells Angels Forever and reinserted here). The zaniest of all, was an all handicapped band miming to The Village People’s “Macho Man” led by a fictional rich mentally challenged mastermind of a weirdo cult from Berkeley (they showcase the college campus, which I’ve been to numerous times, my wife and I would go to Top Dog across the street and lounge on the lawn). No actual guy exists as far as I can tell, I think I would’ve heard something by now. One last thing I’ll mention is a disco where a dude shoots whip cream out of a keytar at naked girls wading in red jello—I ain’t no foodie so I was definitely not turned on by this segment. I highly recommend checking this place out if you ever visit Nashville and can't wait to return!