grindhouseland

Trailer Wars, Part II

Deacon Blues — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:27:53 +0000

Greetings filth hounds and schlock addicts! Your beloved Deacon Blues is back to show you what you missed at the epic trailer wars last month between the Alamo Drafthouse and Portland’s own Grindhouse Film Festival.

I apologize for the infrequency of my updates as well as belatedly getting you the news on local grindhouse events. Things have been hectic to say the least around the Casa de Deacon lately, and I’m still sort of pulling myself out of the rubble. More updates more of the time very very soon.

Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde

Devil Woman and Dragons Never Die

The Uncanny

Sweden: Heaven and Hell

That’s all for now, kids. Still got a boatload of trailers to go. I hope to back providing you with the same Grindhouseland coverage you’ve become accustomed to just as soon as I can pay off my late fees at the video store. Any donations?

The Big Doll House

Deacon Blues — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:51:28 +0000

In the 1970s many a young director got his bones by getting Pam Grier to don a skimpy wife beater and some panties, prance around all sweaty, and occasionally get into a brawl with some dykes at your standard issue women’s prison. Journeyman exploitioneer Jack Hill got in on the craze with The Big Doll House. Pam Grier goes to jail for killing her husband, meets all kinds of degenerate women, and breaks out in a hail of boobs and bullets. Come for the tits, stay for the violence.

3/5

Buy The Big Doll House on DVD at Amazon!

Trailer Wars, Part I

Deacon Blues — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:46:16 +0000

tIf you missed this month’s installment of Portland’s Grindhouse Film Fest series you didn’t just miss another month og kung fu fighting, dismembered bodies, and tales of bloody revenge. You missed the boys from the Alamo Drafthouse taking on local hero Dan Halstead in a battle of the trailers. If you weren’t there, fear not, Deacon Blues will be adding just as many as he can get his hot little hands on. When they’ve all been posted, I will show you the scores I gave each for their efforts. Without any further ado, I bring you, Trailer Wars, continuing all this weak and starting with Team Grindhouse Portland!

Disco Godfather

Truck Turner

TNT Jackson

Sister Street Fighter

Blood Sucking Freaks

Three On A Meathook

Bloody Pit Of Horror

More tomorrow, kiddies. For those interested, the following films have bee reviewed on Grindhouseland:

Blood Sucking Freaks

Sister Street Fighter

Truck Turner

The Exorcist 2: The Heretic

Deacon Blues — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:04:46 +0000

However bad you think The Exorcist 2: The Heretic might be, I can almost guarantee that you’re incorrect. The Exorcist 2, which brings in Oscar winning actors Louise Fletcher and Sir Richard Burton to flank the returning Linda Blair, is perhaps one of the worst sequels ever made. The degree to which the director staffs minor roles with Hollywood heavyweights (Max von Sydow, James Earl Jones, and the man who broke the unprotected gay sex barrier in Hollywood, Ned Beatty) is testament to the desperation he must have felt working with the world’s most boring horror script. Lots of heavy-handed dialogue between Burton (looking like Drunky McSweatsalot in every scene) representing faith and Fletcher (looking positvely Lincolnesque) representing science. Lots of lights being shined in Linda Blair’s face. Lots of Burton mumbling around the African desert. Not a lot of sense made.

“Don’t you ever want a woman, father?” “Yes.” Creepy.

2/5

Buy Exorcist II – The Heretic on DVD at Amazon!
Buy Exorcist II – The Heretic on VHS at Amazon!
Buy Exorcist II: The Heretic OST Soundtrack at Amazon!

Grindhouseland Salutes… Linda Blair

Deacon Blues — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:30:48 +0000

Deacon Blues is back with another salute to an artist that exploitation cinema fans adore and mainstream critics love to hate. This time, it’s the Undisputed Queen of the B’s, and Oregon resident, Miss Linda Blair.

Linda Blair grew up in Westport, CT and began modelling and acting at a very young age, mostly appearing in commercials (for things like Gulden’s Mustard) before her breakthrough role in The Exorcist. Miss Blair originally wanted to be a veternarian, but was lured by Hollywood by the promise of raising money to take classes in horsemanship.

For better or for worse, Linda Blair will always be known primarily for her role in the 1973 film adaptation of William Blatty’s supernatural horror novel The Exorcist. The film garnered Miss Blair a Golden Globe Award and a nomination for an Oscar. Her chances at the Oscar were memorably damaged by allegations that she did not do most of the acting on the voice track, and that she had a body double, something that both Blair and the director William Friedkin deny.

Linda Blair followed up her performance in The Exorcist with a string of bad girl roles in made-for-TV movies such as Born Innocent, where she is notoriously raped with a broom handle by a gang of feral teenage lesbians. Soon later she starred in The Exorcist II: The Heretic, a film which garnered Miss Blair a Saturn Award, was widely panned critically, and featured no heretics.

Then came arguably the second most defining event of Linda’s life after The Exorcist. In December of 1977 she was, in an event that would pre-figure the media’s infatuation with teenage stars gone bad, arrested for conspiracy to purchase cocaine and amphetamines. Her career never recovered, and the string of non-hits which followed is largely what her career has been remembered for, if anything, other than her Academy Award nominated turn in the original Exorcist film. Roller Boogie, Hell Night, and Chained Heat are three films which can be placed in what is arguably, for hardcore fans of Linda Blair such as Deacon Blues, her classic period. But audiences had lost interest in the chubby cheeked, sexually provocative girl next door. Savage Streets is perhaps one of the most overlooked genre gems and cultural artifacts of the 1980s. During this period she received three Golden Raspberry nominations (for Hell Night, Chained Heat, and Savage Streets, the last of which garnered her the coveted Razzie).

The latter half of the 1980s was even crueler to Linda than the first half. She was reduced to pure camp schlock such as Zapped Again! and the Leslie Nielso n spoof Reposessed. Even a recent resurgence of interest and the growth of her stock as a cult figure have not paid off in meatier film roles. Deacon Blues for one can’t understand why Quentin Tarantino hasn’t cast her in any of his films yet… except maybe because he’s a total fucking dick.

Deacon Blues highly recommends Savage Streets, Born Innocent, and Roller Boogie as three of Linda’s films that belong in any serious afficionado of b-movies, exploitation cinema, and the popular culture of the 1980s. Mark my words- Linda Blair will come back harder than Vanilla Ice. In fact, I’m quite surprised that she hasn’t already. Look for the upcoming Rick James (whom Linda dated for many years and wrote the song “Cold Blooded” about her) biopic to kickstart things for her.

Death Race 2000

Deacon Blues — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:07:10 +0000

The film that kicked off the dystopian sports epic, Death Race 2000, is also the film the broke the mold. Camp fascist aesthetic? Check. Overly smarmy media personality? Check. Human blood sport? Check. Gratuitous ass and titties? Check, except apparently Mary Woronov had it in her contract that she wasn’t showing her goodies. Directed by Paul Bartel, produced by Roger Corman, and starring David Carradine. Plot? Who gives a shit about the plot? What is this, the fucking Piano? See Carradine and Sly Stallone running pedestrians over for bonus points in the most deadly race on four wheels. Also, Kobra Kai dude. WATCH WATCH WATCH NOW.

Check out the bonus features on the DVD for Roger “Swell Picture” Corman saying old man stuff like “I never saw [Sly] as a leading man, I saw him as more of a big heavy.” Whatever, Rog… what the fuck ever.

4/5

Buy Death Race 2000 – Special Edition on DVD at Amazon!
Buy Death Race 2000 on VHS at Amazon!
Buy Death Race 2000 – Movie Poster – 11 x 17 at Amazon!
Buy Death Race 2000 Postcard at Amazon!

The Beyond

Deacon Blues — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:04:52 +0000

Lucio Fulci makes more stylish horror than perhaps anyone else in the history of cinema- and yes, I’m including Mario Bava. In The Beyond we see not only his trademark stylish camera work, but also a creeptacular tale of superstition and the supernatural in Louisiana that would rival anything out of the best of H.P. Lovecraft. Fulci wanted to explore the dead and the living bleeding over to one another in the surrealist tradition of his hero Antonin Artaud. A young artist is crucified by a mob who suspect him of witcraft. Sixty years later, at the Seven Doors Hotel, scene of the crucifixion, a young woman begins renovating her inheritance to re-open it for business. The renovation process opens the Seven Gates of Hell. Look for slick camera work, eerie metaphysical happenings, and an atheistic / pessimistic view of the afterlife in the Fulci masterwork, The Beyond.

4.5/5

Buy The Beyond on DVD at Amazon!

Reform School Girls

Deacon Blues — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:12:31 +0000

A simultaneous celebration of the women in prison idiom, as well as a lampoon on it, Reform School Girls with the incomparable Wendy O. Williams will rock your socks, provided that you are wearing any. Lots of group shower scenes and cat fights, as well as corrupt prison establishment. But more to the point, Wendy O. Williams walking around half naked being a total bitch for an hour and a half. What more do you really need to know other than that? Deacon Blues doesn’t really think much other knowledge is necessary.

4.5/5

Buy Reform School Girls on DVD at Amazon!
Buy Reform School Girls on VHS at Amazon!
Buy Reform School Girls ORIGINAL MOVIE POSTER at Amazon!
Buy Reform School Girls OST Soundtrack at Amazon!

Black Sunday

Deacon Blues — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:53:14 +0000

Mario Bava does what he does best in Black Sunday (originally called La Maschera del Demonio). Highly stylized camera work, shocking images of violence, and organic creepiness make this the most gothic thing on celluloid that wasn’t produced by Hammer or Universal. A vampire / witch is put to death for her dealings with Satan and comes back 200 years later to feast upon the blood of her own descendants. A gripping exploration of feminine sexual violence, and a masterpiece of cinematography, as well as a straight out, fun as all get out thrill ride.

4.5/5

Get Black Sunday on DVD at Amazon!
Buy Black Sunday on VHS at Amazon!

Bloodsport

Deacon Blues — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:34:54 +0000

A strangely hyper-late-1980’s martial arts film, Bloodsport (starring who else but Jean-Claude Van Damme) is notable for introducing the Muscles from Brussels to American audiences, as well as prefiguring the MMA craze of the 1990s. Based on the alleged true story of Frank Dux (PROTIP: he’s a liar and his story is bullshit) and his battle in an underground, multi-art, no holds bared Hong Kong fighting tournament called the kumite. You’ll see JCVD doing splits and super high kicks before he defeats a bevvy of Asiatics and takes the kumite title. Spoiler alert?

3/5

Buy Bloodsport on DVD at Amazon!

Buy Bloodsport on VHS at Amazon!

Buy Bloodsport in Spanish on VHS at Amazon!
Buy Bloodsport Original Soundtrack on CD at Amazon!