Beach House

Beach House (Down the Shore) Directed By John A. Gallagher, starring Kate McNeil (1982).

Paul Sharky Vandervoort alerted my attention to this schlock-ter-piece and he knows good trashy teen movies! So I bartered with him and he finally agreed to peddle a copy in an unknown location sold for a high ransom among other paraphernalia out of his Studebaker beater so that I could dish out the dirt here for your enjoyment, hope you appreciate it. 

You've seen King Frat and Ghost House, now get ready for what I can only describe as "Mook House" as in an all Italian American frat party! The "Beloosh" of this Animal House is the tubby bleach blonded slob Baby (played by Paul Anderson)! He wears sunglasses at all times and calls everybody else baby, hence the nickname.

The music is really lethargic power pop or sometimes fake Freddy Cannon. There's all sort of famed prefab punk stars involved in the music like one of the Paley Brothers and Adam Roth. Roth who plays Googie was very close with Dennis Leary and played guitar on his hit song "Asshole" and was in The Del Fuegos. He also had his own catchy song check it out here. According to this movie, it's all happening not at the Joisey Shore, but at Ocean City!

BOO! DISCO SUCKS!

Down at "Phil's Rock Room and Disco Inferno (see ya get best of both music genres) they all pogo to "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand! Cecile (Ileana Seidel), a frizzy haired chick jaunts over to the hotel of Baby and his cohorts and lets everybody slobber on her after her snaggletoothed afro-ed boyfriend can't get it up. She is just asking for trouble and all the girls at the party hate her! Sometimes the lighting guy nods off and forgets to turn them on (during the night scenes you can't see shit) that's one of my main complaints about this flick, which is otherwise jam packed with entertainment value.Usually I'd save this one for USA UP ALL NIGHT WEEK but I twisted Sharky's arm off and forced him at knifepoint to upload his video tape to Youtube.

Marty (Al Wheatley), a total creepy perv wanders in while girls are bending over or minding their own business, he gives off a serial killer vibe.

People say I look like Greg Lowery

In Beach House there's this strange "turkey and tequila" party or a TNT! Maybe it's a Philly thing, which is where this film takes place, not sure. There's one birther type guy who keeps bringing up George Washington and trying to embarrass his girlfriend in front of the portrait. I gotta consult my Destroy All Movies book to see if this one is in there (actually I confirmed that the co-editor did review it). It's got waay more punk looking people and music than even Surf 2! One girl wears a shirt for a Boston power pop band called The Marshalls. Marty the perv turns out to be an aggressive stalker/ rapist and almost attacks Cindy (Kate McNeil)! That actress must have a great agent and is still consistently working, she was in Monkey Shines and a bunch of popular tv shows like Madmen and X-Files.

Last Supper?

During the last few minutes all these incidental characters we don't really care about all bone while the band (which doesn't seem to have a name) plays "When You Find Out" by The Nerves!

Don't worry it's all gluten free

It's pretty frustrating how the last half takes place during the night because there's not even a street light and I think they might've forgotten what type of movie this is because it shifts gears into slasher territory. The music even gets more Casio sounding ala Don't Answer The Phone as Marty chases Cindy on a merry-go-round! My head hurts, I'm very confused and I didn't eat one of those magic brownies again by accident! Stick it out if you can because this is one weird underground punk infused beach party train wreck.

SHIT, I'm so wasted on Tryptophan!

If you live in the Bay Area make sure you go see The Teutonics who are amazing and do a cover of the song they play at the end! Thanks again to my best pal Sharky for hooking me up! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

A Zed & Two Noughts

A Zed & Two Noughts Directed By Peter Greenaway, starring Frances Barber (1985).

Reviewed By Kris Gilpin

After Peter Greenaway's first major film (The Draughtsman's Contract, shot on 16mm), his second feature was 1985's 35mm A Zed & Two Noughts (aka ZOO), a fittingly morbid rumination on death and decay.

It begins with the deaths of two women in a car crash, wives of zoologists (though I never saw any guests visiting the zoo throughout the film) who then become obsessed with the deaths and death in general ("I can't stand the thought of her rotting away!" "The wives of two zoologists die in a car driven by a woman named Buick, after being attacked by a swan on Swan's Way?!"). They later shoot time-lapse films of dead fish, dogs, crocodiles, swans (a swan caused the deadly car crash), etc. rotting away, while also watching old documentary footage on the origins of life.

OK, Now according to Little Black Sambo, if you run fast enough, I should have some delicious butter for my pancakes

This film features Greenaway's frank use of full male and female nudity (as with his The Baby of Macon, Prospero's Books, etc. Over 30 years later, Hollytrite still doesn't have the maturity to make films like this!), including the sexy Frances Barber as Venus de Milo, who's kind of like the zoo's resident hooker (?). There are also running references to symmetry: the brothers are twins named Deuce, played by real-life twin actors, the two late wives, pairs of amputated legs, twin newborns.

Alright now just poop toward the middle so I can tie them in a knot

Using very few close-ups, Greenaway's beauty photography (his D.P. is Sacha [Greenaway's 8 1/2 Women, The Pillow Book, and Drowning by Numbers] Vierny) utilizes lots of colorful tracking shots. And P.G.'s straight ahead focal point, head-on shots and busy frames always reminded me of Kubrick's camera-image style, though Peter G. offers long takes of smart, humorous, "exaggeratedly realistic" dialogue here, too.

And the lighting in ZOO (a Zed & 2 Naughts--get it? ;-) they based on the painting style of Vermeer. Together they came up with 26 different ways of lighting their scenes, using moonlight, candles, flashing light bulbs, car headlights, starlight, etc.

The beauty music is by Greenaway regular Michael Nyman, whose catchy keyboard-based, repetitious, almost meditative musical themes remind me of my beloved early Philip Glass pieces. Nyman also worked with the director on other films, including the great Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. A separate song which also reoccurs in the film is the kid's classic, "The Teddy Bear's Picnic." (!)

ZOO was narrated by David Attenborough (ha), who would later go on to narrate tons of popular British TV series. It is a slow-paced but always fascinating, offbeat film and well worth seeing, as is all of Peter Greenaway's best work...

I beat off to that decomposing animal footage and then used it to clone dinosaurs!

GUTS FIELD REPORT: NASHVILLE MIDNIGHT MOVIE at The Belcourt: FRANKENHOOKER.

NASHVILLE FIELD REPORT BELCOURT THEATER: Frankenhooker

Directed by Frank Henenlotter (1990).

For this third fake journalist report deep in the heart of Trashville, I took my wife because this is one of her favorite movies and it’s a good one for couples. The first time I saw this was on Cinemax in high school. I remember being fascinated by the way James Lorinz's character drills into his neck to ease his mental state. This was another brilliant collaboration between Fangoria’s Uncle Bob Martin and Frank Henenlotter. I even had the book version of the Brain Damage script written by Martin, that I ordered from Fantaco way back when. This was during the time where I’d ravenously watch anything that showed up in Fango. One time I even went to see William Friedkin’s The Guardian (which was retarded)!

We got there really early for the pre-show this time and they showed things related like a trailer for She Freak, The Deadly Organ, an Argentinian film by the same director as The Curious Dr. Humpp. I remember wanting to order the tape from SWV when you actually had to pick up the phone and tell them what you’d like. I still have most of these tapes and at this point I feel like I might be buried with them like some kind of pop culture mummy horder.

you knew getting into this relationship that I was in the SWV bucky beaver retro-porn club.

They showed a Kids in the Hall sketch where Scott Thompson plays that reoccurring hooker character, but the bit is that she ends up marrying a john (Dave Foley) and charges him for 50 plus years of service, then hits the streets when he doesn't pay up. The clip they used was on an old video tape that had some irritating laugh tracks from the Comedy channel. That show is one of my main influences and they were very ahead of their time. There was a trailer for Basket Case 2 (which is available to stream everywhere for some reason and it’s a fun time)! I like how Duane Bradley gets a high top Gumby style afro for the sequel.

This high-top fade is outrageously funky fresh!

There was a clip of Norman Lear’s Mary Hartman Mary Hartman with Debralee Scott (who I'm attracted to but Skunkape thinks she looks like Carrot Top) and Louise Lasser (who plays the worn-out looking mom in this film). They played a vintage clip of Psychotronic Video’s Michael Weldon and he reminisces about the defunct 42^nd street theaters where he once saw Doris Wishman’s "Let Me Die A Woman". I’ve seen this clip repeatedly on YT and that magazine is one of my all-time favorites besides Deep Red of course.

This Trumpcare is making gender transition surgery a snap!

The last clip they showed was from The Body Shop (aka Dr. Gore) which is also a Deep Red pick that’s on the to be reviewed later list. My wife wondered how they got away with using The Sound of Music “My Favorite Things” song without Julie Andrews lawyers cracking down (maybe they did, I mean that director J.G. Patterson Jr. right after killed himself).

That piece of shit had to go!

I completely forgot how the music by Joe Renzetti sounds like a rap song is about to break out but it never starts! I love all the 90’s Time Square footage and subway scenes. As usual I’ll spare you the storyline details. There was a special drink, which I didn’t feel like taking a picture of for 10$. It sounded like a "Flaming Homer" and I think may have had cough syrup, if anyone who tried one reads this let me know if it was any good. I had a beer (a Yazoo sly rye) and Mrs. Crank had this coffee drink that’s pretty tasty.

I love how there’s a shit ton of pink lightning and purple goop or the adhesive he uses to stick on all the appendages of his dead girlfriend (Patty Mullen who was a Pethouse Pet in 1986), which also creates mutants in a tank. Joe Gonzalez (who never acted again sadly) is amazing as Zorro The Pimp, I love when he sees the little guy in the hooker hotel who says “Hey Zorro, What’s Up?” That’s one of those fun lines to repeat.

I got your fix for that Big Mac Crack attack Yo!

When Patty Mullen’s character starts picking up customers there’s one John played by David Lipman, who looks like the SWV caricature. I’ve only seen him in The Exterminator playing a scuzzy creep who burns a hooker with a curling iron dunked in a jar of Vaseline. According to the director's commentary, he was the "Miracle Whip" spokesman as well. If it wasn’t for IMDB, I would be inclined to believe that’s just what he does in his spare time, visit hookers and do scary shit to them.

The lead prostitute Honey played by Charlotte J. Helmkamp, a former Playmate has the most presence, I was surprised that she’s only appeared in a few other things including Repossessed. It always cracks me up how Skunkape rented that Linda Blair flick and made everyone in his family watch it, until he felt that the 2$ rental fee had received enough millage. Shirley Stoler from The Honeymoon Killers and Peewee's Playhouse is a tough arm wrestling bartender.


There was a dude in front of us who chuckled in an off way, it reminded me of Sloth from The Goonies. As much as I love going to these Midnight movie screenings, I kind of wish there was a featured host similar to The Castro’s Midnites For Maniacs who'd give out prizes. I actually won a couple during Maniac (the "Goin to a Showdown" disco band album) and a Latin CDR by Willie Colon, the guy who contributed a song to the soundtrack of Vigilante. I encourage anyone who lives in Nashville to support this theater and go to all the Midnight screenings and just like the inferior ghoul voiced by John Vernon from Creepshow 2, “I’ll save ya a seat!”  

I bid you tidings of painful hemorrhoids!