Strip Nude For Your Killer (1975)

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Tho most of my reviews do not, this review contains spoilers.  Read on if you wish…

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For the much ballyhooed ‘Women In Horror Month’, I wanted to review a movie in which a woman was the killer.There’s not that many that I can think of- MayFriday the 13th, Scream 2, American Mary, a few more (most of which have been covered extensively).  Then there’s this little scoop of Eurotrash sleaze, which I hadn’t seen in ages, but re-watched for this review.  For some reason, I remember it being much better than it actually is.
Nude Per L’assassino (aka Strip Nude For Your Killer) is a color by numbers Italian Giallo that has a story full of great potential, but ultimately is directed and acted in such a bland way that it’s pretty damn underwhelming.

It starts out with an abortion that goes wrong, causing the young lady to have a heart attack.  The doctor and another man cover up the incident, but before too long the doctor is murdered by a black leather outfit and motorcycle helmet wearing killer.
It turns out that the girl who died during the abortion worked as a model at a modeling agency, and the cyclist begins killing off all the other people who worked with her.

In classic Giallo fashion, the killer is not revealed until the end, and most of the victims are bloodily stabbed to death with a switchblade (tho this movie has way more nudity than gore).  There are many cheesy sex scenes and a lot of full frontal nudity, but overall it’s a pretty tepid affair.  The direction is lackluster and without much style or atmosphere (tho the director does like to film people in mirrors a lot).  There is an attempt at building suspense in places, but it seems like the director is just going through the motions (there’s even one scene where it’s supposed to be intense and suspenseful but they play the goofy Euro-softcore sex music (heard in many ’70s Italian sex movies) over a good portion of it, which kind of ruins the mood they were going for).
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The sad part is that the story is pretty decent, and it could have been a good movie.  Too bad it’s thrown together without much style, logic, or passion.  The dubbing is dubious at best, the dialogue is bad (sometimes humorously so), and there are way more men with giant mustaches lounging around in their underpants than I like to see in one setting.  Also, no one is made to strip nude for the killer.

Worst of all is the characterization- most of the male characters are beyond unlikable- repulsive would be a better word (the “hero” of the film is an overbearing, womanizing creep who likes to choke women for no reason.  He’s also the catalyst for the movie).  The female characters get off a little better, but they’re mostly there to show some skin and get stabbed.
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Director Andrea Bianchi went on to direct the slow moving but pretty awesome zombie film Burial Ground (aka Burial Ground- The Nights of Terror, 1981), which was much better (but like Strip Nude For Your Killer,  it was a lot better to my memory than it was when I watched it last).

If you’re interested in Giallos, there are many films that are much better (I’d start with Fulci’s New York Ripper (my fav), then move on to more challenging fare like some of Argento’s films) , but this one is like an abridged book on cd version of the genre.  It follows all the rules but leaves out the style, passion, and talent.  Too bad.  It does fit in with Women In Horror month tho, because not only does it have a female killer (who mutilates male sexual organs), it’s also one of the only Giallos to have about as many men killed in it as women (which makes it positively feminist, for such a misogynistic genre as Giallos are).  Take that patriarchy!

The sad death of the chairman of the Harry Reems mustache club

The sad death of the chairman of the Harry Reems mustache club

Brainwash ‘zine #1

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Brainwash was a ‘zine that featured interviews with more bands that I was into than most, and included a lot of bands who weren’t interviewed in every other ‘zine that came out back then.  The interviews were unfortunately very short (as were the reviews), but it was still a good read.

Here’s some pages from it to check out…
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The Sweet Movie (1974)

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Back sometime in the late ’80s, when I was just a kid who taped and traded horror/ gore/ exploitation video tapes through the mail with other weirdos in the country, I requested a copy of Jess Franco’s Faceless from someone.  When I received it, it had about two thirds of another movie on the tape after it.  It was called The Sweet Movie.  I had never heard of it and didn’t know what to expect, however what I viewed baffled, intrigued and revolted me.

Many years later I actually got to see a complete version of it, and after all of this time and all the weird movies I’ve watched, it’s still one of the weirdest.
Anyone who’s taken a college class on art films know that there are a lot of weird films out there, and most of them are crap.  Pretentious, thrown together supposedly disturbing images, fast cuts, offbeat narrative, out of focus shots, ridiculous symbolism – there are a lot of tricks that hacks use to try to make you think they are making something deep- “art”. But for every person who can actually come up with something talented and interesting (such as Alejandro Jodorowsky or even David Lynch) there are a ton of bullshit peddlers slinging wank.

While The Sweet Movie is definitely weird- an art film, it’s not untalented drivel.  It has some wank to it, some quite overbearing symbolism and weirdness for weirdness’ sake (and gratuitous ‘disturbing’ imagery), but it truly is artistic as well, and is very well put together.  The cinematography is very nice, the acting decent, production fairly lush.  It actually does make me think a little of something Jodorowsky  would do.  But it’s also batshit crazy.

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Unlike some art films, there is a story to it- two stories, actually.  It starts out at a sort of beauty pagent, where a gynecologist unicycles out and a creepy old woman extoles the virtues of virginity.  The beauty pagent is a contest to see who is the purest virgin in the world.  After examining Miss Canada’s crotch (which glows like the trunk in Repo Man and the briefcase in Pulp Fiction), the gynecologist proclaims her the winner, and she gets to marry a rich Texas businessman stereotype.  Their honeymoon does not go quite as well as she would have liked, and she ends up getting abducted by a massively built black man who takes her into a water tower shaped like a giant jug of milk, stuffs her into a suitcase, strips down, and starts jumping rope naked.
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Somewhere around this point, the second story is introduced, in which a woman named Captain Anna pilots a small steamer with a large bust of Karl Marx’s face on the masthead down a river.  She allows a man to come aboard and ride with her, but warns him that if he falls in love with her, she will kill him.
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The two storylines are told interspaced, tho they never connect, and involve everything from pissing, vomiting, murder, war atrocities, coprophagia, cults, infantilism, a woman stripping for a bunch of children, a flamboyant mariachi singer who gets his penis stuck in the above mentioned perfect virgin, communist propaganda, an orgy, and lots of nudity.  Oh yeah, and chocolate (masturbating in chocolate to be exact.  And sex in sugar.  Sex and murder in sugar.  With a mouse.  Is that enough for you?).  All wrapped up in a colorful, lighthearted, almost sketch comedy-esque format.
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I recognized very few actors in this- the dude who plays the Dean in Animal House (who also played the warden in Chained Heat) has a small part, and Miss Canada is played by one of the girls who went on to be in Naked Massacre.
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I’m pretty desensitized to weirdness and disturbing imagery, however at least one scene in this made me mildly uncomfortable.  The director, Dusan Makavejev, has made several disturbing movies in his time, and was actually exiled from his native country (Yugoslavia) for making disturbing films.  This is the only one I’ve seen of his.
Someone out there thinks it’s important, tho, because a Criterion Collection DVD was released in 2007, which means it’s right up there with 12 Angry Men, Rashomon, Bicycle Thieves, King of Kings, Spartacus, Pygmalion, The Last Picture Show, Rebecca, The Thief of Baghdad and other classic and groundbreaking films (plus Armageddon) in someone’s mind.
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If you’re looking for something weird and perverse, this is the movie for you.  It’s not produced with near the level of talent as Jodorowsky  or others on his level, but still interesting enough to impress your uptight friends with.

 

Subhuman ‘zine #15

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Subhuman was an awesome little ‘zine put out by an old Louisiana punker (he was in that band Toxin III) named Cecil Doyle.  It started out as a more horror-centric title, but quickly became filled with sleaze and exploitation and whatever other offbeat things captivated him and his contributors (tho it usually involved sleaze and exploitation).

Perfectly written in a humorous but informative manner, the only complaint I’d have is that each issue was just too damn short (and there weren’t many of them- about 19 I believe).  You could probably fit every page of every issue into one regular sized magazine, so every issue left you wanting more.

In his interview in the amazing new book Xerox Ferox, Cecil reveals that such people as Quentin Tarantino and Rob Zombie were on his subscription list (before either of them really did anything), and that Lux Interior called him up and asked him for all of his back issues (which he sent to him, including some he only had one copy of).

Read on for a good sized taste of issue #15…

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Cadavers, Fruit, and Government Forms ‘zine #2

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PMT focuses mainly on film and music ‘zines, but people used to make them about everything- politics, comics, art, fiction, video games,  or even just their feelings.  Whatever interested them.  Cadavers, Fruit, and Government Forms was an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ ‘zine that featured music and film reviews, comics (the editor, Jeff Dworak, also drew some cool comics), comic and book reviews, opinions, stories, and more.  This issue has less music than most of them did (the first issue had several full page demo and album reviews) but was thick and full of all kinds of content, from reprints of Hostess ads from old comics to a “Nintendo Buyer’s Guide” (which just said “Don’t buy this piece of shit machine!!”) and an interview with the weirdo trash band SOCKEYE.  Varied and never boring, here are some pages for your perusal:

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Big Ass Spider! (2013)

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This was quite an entertaining movie.  You don’t go into a movie called Big Ass Spider! expecting Citizen Kane Part 2, however this one was much better than I expected.  If you are expecting something like the Sci-Fi (errr… Sy Fy) Channel original movies (which this kind of resembles), this is far more entertaining, and much better in most every way.  It is quite campy (on purpose of course) but not really groan inducing, and the way it’s put together makes you want to go along on the fun ride.  Really more comedy than horror, it’s also a lot more clever than you’d expect it to be (this is where it really tops the brain dead Sy Fy movies).

The set up: a mutant spider accidently gets shipped to a hospital in L.A., and the military has to go in and try to stop it.  Meanwhile, down on his luck exterminator Alex (the likable Greg Grunberg- who played the psychic cop on Heroes) happens to get caught in the middle.
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Also starring Ray Wise as the leader of the military group and Clare Kramer (rogue goddess Glory from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as the love interest, Lloyd Kaufman shows up as a jogger, Lin Shaye as a kindly cat woman who Alex exterminates for, and Fangoria/ Starlog producer Terry O Quinn as a hospital patient.
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The only thing I’d change about it is make it R instead of PG-13, however that did not hurt it much- it’s still a lot of fun and very entertaining, racial stereotypes and predictable plot developments notwithstanding.
Just turn off your mind, make some popcorn, and settle in for some goofy creature feature fun.  bas6

Trash City ‘zine #5

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Trash City was an old British digest sized ‘zine that focused a lot on exploitation movies, but had an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ approach for the most part.  All kinds of film (this issue even included an article on Danger Mouse), letters , reviews, film festival reviews (this issue featured 2- the Black Sunday film festival and the Splatterfest ’90 film festival), opinions, travelogues, even stories and fiction.  It’s layout and design were kind of boring, but the writing was lively and informative.

Here are some pages from issue V (1990) for your perusal:

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