Category: Guilty Pleasures

Stewart

 

I know what you must be thinking.

You are thinking, “But this film hasn’t been released yet; how can anyone review it, much less give it a 100 percent rating?”  In answer to that, let me just mention two words:  Kristen Stewart.

Although it’s true that I have yet to see the film, I am told that Ms. Stewart gives a powerful performance.  Says one critic of the film, “We can almost forget the weight of Kristen Stewart dragging it down with every hair flip and tug.”

Reading between the lines of that review, it’s clear to me that this critic is referring to Stewart’s unique ability to create heavy, serious drama out of what might have been a lightweight movie.

Back in the third grade, when I was a tyke of nine years, I developed a crush on a girl named Patty Guggenheimer.  Patty was new to our school, and quite unpopular. One day, sitting in Mrs. Spolum’s class, I inadvertently filled my pants.

Most of my classmates noticed the noxious smell and, in their ignorance, began to whisper about poor Patty.  In my shame and cowardice, I allowed this false impression to continue.  Poor Patty, my schoolboy crush, took the blame, and I am heartsick about that to this day.

But I must admit, there was a pre-pubertal excitement in all of this, as I sat there at my wooden desk, my heart filled with pining for Patty and my pants filled with poop.

Over the years, I grew to miss that exciting sensation.  Then one day not long ago, as I watched a Kristen Stewart movie (you guessed it) – it happened again.

I initially became paranoid; was it just me who was thus affected by Kristen Stewart’s performance?  I checked around, conferring with friends here at rottentomatoes.  To my immense relief, I learned that both Hollywood and SB, whose opinions I value, experienced similar, stomach-tingling sensations whenever they viewed a Kristen Stewart performance.

And so, in conclusion, let me make a bold prediction.  Come the spring and Oscar time, the name Kristen Stewart will be announced as Best Actress in a motion picture, that picture being Welcome to the Rileys.  Kristen’s pert, cherry-tipped breasts will no doubt be awarded an honorary Oscar (she plays a stripper).  And when she climbs the stairs to the podium, every man, woman and child in the Hollywood auditorium will fill his or her pants in excitement.

There will not be a dry ass in the house.


Watch Trailers and Clips
 (click here) 
 

(Note: I originally posted this “review” at rottentomatoes.com in October 2010)

 

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Debisue

 

Just Another Boring Day in 1990  

You are a typical heterosexual male.  You’ve always liked James Bond movies – especially the “Bond girls.”  Playboy Bunnies are fantastic, as well; too bad you never meet any women like that in real life.  And then there are the starlets – those cute young things who routinely get their heads chopped off (or eyes gouged out) in lowbrow horror movies.  These eye-candy actresses never seem to go on to become Meryl Streep, so what the heck becomes of them?  They probably marry Texas oil millionaires.

So you drive to your mundane job in your cheap car, park the rattletrap, and then walk to the parking-lot elevator.   The year is 1990.  Another soul-killing Monday in your cubicle awaits.

But wait.  Who is that stunning creature sharing the elevator with you?   She looks like someone you know … you must be dreaming.  But no, you are not.  You are in this familiar, shoddy elevator with bubblegum stuck on the floor, and you can feel the band-aid on your chin where you cut yourself shaving … so you are definitely not still in bed.

But just look at this babe!  Didn’t you just see her in something?  Didn’t you just see her in something – naked?

 

*

(“The tone is crude, raunchy, and leering, with kill scenes combined with more nudity than usual; we’re even invited to check out a hot chick’s body after her face has been sliced in half by garden shears.” – Slant Magazine)

 

*

Why yes!  She was in Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning.  You just watched it the other day.  How the hell did she get in an elevator with you?

 

*

(“[Fans] were looking for sex, violence and creative kills.  This was delivered, including a pretty risqué and quite awesome sex-in-the-woods sequence, which was actually trimmed by the censors of the day.” 7M Pictures)

 

*

Maybe you should say something to her, find out if you are mistaken about all of this.  After all, what are the odds you are riding in the same elevator with a gorgeous actress from a famous horror movie – especially since you happen to be in Ft. Worth, Texas, not Hollywood, and on your way to your boring job?  The girl does not look at you.  She keeps her eyes on the floor.  Probably staring at that bubblegum.

 

*

(“Tina and Eddie sneak off to have sex in the woods.  The Act Itself is one of the steamier in the series, but the big number is after Eddie heads out to the river to wash up, and Debisue Voorhees rolls around and around to show off about 93% of her body, although she demurely crosses her legs to make sure that we don’t see something immoral.” – Antagony & Ecstasy)

 

*

You steel your nerves, clear your throat, and say hello to her.  Then you tell her that she looks familiar.  Has she acted in a TV commercial or something like that?

 

*

(“The worst Jason story, but the best nudity of the entire series!”About.com)

 

*

She smiles, giggles a bit nervously, and says no.  But by now you are convinced; you recognize that smile and that giggle.  You are in an elevator riding to your dead-end job with Debisue Voorhees, whom you later learn is also “Deborah Bradley,” erstwhile actress turned journalist working for the same company that you work for.

 

*

(“The spiciest entry in the series, it boasts the most T&A.”Slant Magazine)

 

*

The elevator reaches the ground, the doors open, and you watch as this woman a living, breathing symbol of sex in America strides down the sidewalk.  Did you just blow your only chance at dating an honest-to-goodness, genuine Hollywood starlet?

 

 

                                                     *****

October, 2010:

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning is on cable.  You watch it and you remember Debisue Voorhees.  You Google her.  You find her on Facebook.  You e-mail her.  Will she even know who you are?

A few days later, there comes a reply:

 

Reply

 

You are a typical heterosexual male, and you’ve always liked horror movies – and especially the starlets who appear in them. 

 

© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

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House1

 

Last House on the Left – groundbreaking movie, or a vile chunk of excrement?  Depends on who you ask.  Here are my random impressions after I watched the film and then the DVD commentary track featuring director Wes Craven and two of the film’s actors:

Oddly, Craven seems both proud and dismissive of his low-budget, career-defining movie.  He says he never revisits his first film, yet implies that its horrific violence was somehow a commentary on the Vietnam War.  Craven describes watching TV coverage of the war in 1972:  “American cinema did not show violence as I was seeing it in this [televised] footage.  It was ugly and it was sadistic, and there were sexual overtones … we were seeing, like, really shocking footage every night as we had our dinner.”  I wish he’d elaborated on the “sexual overtones” part of that statement.

Craven then claims that House’s “basic premise” was lifted from the Ingmar Bergman classic, The Virgin Spring, adding that his film’s over-the-top violence sprang from his own religious upbringing in a strict, Baptist household.  “It [making Last House] allowed me to be bad for the first time in my life … people would just be outraged and say, ‘Those naughty boys.’”

 

House2        House3

 

So, was Last House an anti-war statement, a rebellion against Craven’s puritanical parents … or simply a case of boys being “naughty”?  This quote from Craven might provide a clue:  “I think I wrote it more without thinking about it, than I did thinking about it.”

Porn actor-director Fred J. Lincoln, who plays the sadistic “Weasel” in the movie, isn’t nearly as ambiguous as Craven in his evaluation of the film’s legacy:  “Sometimes I wish I could forget I was there,” says Lincoln, “because as I watched them edit I thought, my God, this thing is disgusting.  No one is ever gonna look at this piece of shit … It sucks.”  Lincoln adds, “Actually, I wish it would have been banned in the United States, to be honest with you … probably about 80 girls got raped after that movie came out.  Not something to be proud of.”

 

House4        House5

 

And finally, there are the reminiscences of actor-musician David Hess, who is much happier with the film than Lincoln is, in particular a graphic rape scene featuring Hess and actress Sandra Peabody (Sandra Cassel):  “Sandra was your archetype, upper-middle-class Protestant – repressed Protestant … how do you deal with that?

 

House6  House7  House8

 

“I scared the living shit out of her, man.  She really thought I might – I started to pull her pants down and grabbed her tits and everything … and I looked up at Wes at one point and I said, ‘Can I?’ and then she freaked.”   Hess is clearly pleased as he recalls the infamous scene:  “Pulling her pants off, right?  And then drooling in her face, which I did intentionally.  It just so, it humiliated her.  There was all of a sudden this look.  It would have been easy to fuck her, right there on the set.  I mean, because she really gave in.  She gave up and you could see this look of fatality in her face.  That was real!”  Peabody, wherever she is, was not interviewed for the DVD.  

I’ll give Craven the final word:  “Either I’m a very sick bastard or I showed something that people don’t like to be shown, which I suspect is what the actual truth is.”

 

House9      House10

House11      House12

 

Director:  Wes Craven  Cast:  Sandra Cassel (Sandra Peabody), Lucy Grantham, David Hess, Fred J. Lincoln, Jeramie Rain, Marc Sheffler  Release:  1972

 

House13           Watch the Trailer  (click here)

 

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.      Demons1  Demons2

 

If ever there was a guilty pleasure that rewards the patient, it would be Night of the Demons (1988).  Viewers who manage to endure the excruciating first 45 minutes of this low-budget flick are rewarded by a story that – finally — delivers everything you expect from a campy haunted-house movie:  real scares, some wit and, oh yes, lots of gratuitous nudity.

But the trick is to make it to that halfway point.  Director Kevin S. Tenney apparently realized he had a script with a long opening act with very little action, so he employed a variety of offbeat shots, angles, and stage business to enliven things.  But there was no escaping a clichéd beginning:  Ten kids decide to party in spooky old Hull House.  They drink, tell jokes, play music, and make out.  Despite Tenney’s best efforts, this half of the movie is as familiar and mind-numbing as it sounds.  The acting is amateurish, the dialogue is lame, and the music is, well, 1980s.  But then ….

If you are still awake at halftime, you won’t have trouble keeping your eyes open the rest of the way.  Everything about Night of the Demons kicks into overdrive – the pace, the suspense, and the shocks.  The movie also becomes quite funny:  “I’m just warming my hands in the fire,” coos a smiling demon, raising her flaming fingers from the fireplace for a stunned onlooker’s appraisal.

Tenney wasn’t making Citizen Kane, but he did his best with a skimpy $1.2 million budget.  One of the producers explains the filmmakers’ attitude on the DVD’s commentary track:  “This is a crowd pleaser, it really is.  It’s a fun movie.  It doesn’t tax you too much … you just watch the pretty naked girls and the exploding heads and the cool shots and the funny cast and just party hearty.”  That you do – if you can make it past the midpoint.           Guilty Pleasure Grade:  B+

Gratuitous Screencaps:

 

Demons5     Linnea Quigley

Demons4     Amelia Kinkade

Demons6     Cathy Podewell

Demons3     Jill Terashita

 

Director:  Kevin S. Tenney  Cast:  Cathy Podewell, Alvin Alexis, William Gallo, Amelia Kinkade, Linnea Quigley, Jill Terashita  Release:  1988

Watch the Trailer  (click here)

 

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Click on title for review

 

Cheeky!

Cinderella (1977)

Cold Prey

Count Yorga, Vampire

The Demise of Gratuitous Nudity

Friday the 13th Part V

Girl House

Harry Potter and the Naked Ladies

H.O.T.S.

Howard Stern’s Butt Bongo Fiesta

Last House on the Left (1972)

Love Scenes

“Man Caves”

Night of the Demons (1988)

The Room

Screeners: Abduction 101

Screeners: Blood Paradise

Screeners: Hybristophilia

Screeners: Lection and Shed

Screeners: Rondo

Screeners: Terror 5

Screeners: The Coffee Table and Divertimento

Strip Search

Welcome to the Rileys

Who’s Your Daddy?

 

 

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