Category Archives: Film

The Curator of Schlock #295: Cat People

18 Friday Oct 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #295 by Jeff Shuster

Cat People

Cat People got no reason to live. 

My editor seems to think that Mad Love was first romance movie I covered on my blog. Not true. What about The Love Witch, Someone I Touched, Lola, Fist of the North Star, Day of the Dead: Bloodline, My Bloody Valentine, The Vengeance of She, The Boy Next Door, The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, Nude for Satan, Magic, Unsane, and all those Hallmark Christmas movies with the delightful Lacey Chabert? We love romance here at The Museum of Schlock!

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Speaking of romance, tonight’s motion picture is 1942’s Cat People from director Val Lewton. It’s about a man who falls in love with a woman who owns six cats! The horror! The horror! Run away, good sir! I’m just fooling. The movie starts out in a zoo in Central Park in New York City. A young, Serbian-American woman named Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) is sketching a black panther (the animal not the super hero) when she catches the eye of a man named Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). There’s some banter. Irena invites Oliver back to her place where she tells him a story about a great Serbian King who slaughtered a town full of Satan-worshipping witches and how cats are considered evil in the village she was born in.

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That’s a bit of an intense conversation for a first date, something that might be considered a red flag in the modern day, but Oliver is undeterred. He asks Irena out to dinner for the following evening. He buys Irena a kitten as a gift in lieu of a bouquet of flowers. That’s odd. Was that a courting custom back in the 1940s? The kitten reacts badly to Irena, hissing at her. They take the kitten back to the pet shop, hoping to exchange it for another pet, but the whole pet shop comes alive with howls and chirps. I guess Irena has a problem with animals. Maybe because she is one!

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Despite this weirdness and the fact that Irena refuses to kiss him, Oliver decides to marry her. I think there’s a legend in Irena’s birth village about the women being cursed to turn into cat people should they ever kiss a man. Worried for Irena’s state of mind (and their marriage not being consummated), Oliver has Irena see a psychiatrist, Dr. Judd (Tom Conway), to get to the bottom of her unsound mind. Oh, and Oliver’s co-worker, Alice Moore (Jane Randoph), confesses her love for Oliver.

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So there you have it. We’ve got a love triangle going on. Who says we’re not romantic here at The Museum of Schlock. I think Oliver gets tired of waiting for Irena to sort her shit out and wants a divorce so he can marry Alice.

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Since Oliver doesn’t want Irena anymore, Dr. Judd makes his move and kisses Irena causing Irena to turn into a black panther. What do you know? Irena was right to fear her village’s curse. Balls.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #292: Death Kiss

27 Friday Sep 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #292 by Jeff Shuster

Death Kiss 

Death Wish 6: The Kiss of Death

Sadly, we lost Charles Bronson back in 2004. Hopes of a Death Wish 6 went with him. Sure, we got the Death Wish remake with Bruce Willis and that was fine, but Bruce Willis isn’t Paul Kersey, he’s John McClane. Still, we’ve got a few billion people on this planet. There’s an old saying that there’s at least one other person in the world that looks exactly like you so surely there’s at least one person in the world who looks exactly like Charles Bronson. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Robert Kovacs.

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Now, I know what you’re thinking. You can’t just find some random guy who looks like Charles Bronson and just make an unofficial Death Wish sequel and just call it Death Kiss.

You can if you’re director Rene Perez!

Don’t be a Negative Nancy! Robert Kovacs plays “The Stanger,” but for the purposes of this review, we’re calling him Paul Kersey. So Paul Kersey goes to this house in a shady part of some unnamed city (Washington, D.C.) and asks the man standing out front for a cheese pizza. I’m more of a pepperoni and green peppers man myself. And this request is odd, as this dump does not resemble a pizza parlor.

Oh, cheese pizza is code for…uh…okay…not good.

Kersey hogties the pimp and goes inside to find a young girl tied up on the bed, pleading, “Please not again.” A degenerate who reminds me a little of Jared the Subway guy pops of the bathroom zipping up his pants. Kersey pulls out Wildey and shoots some slugs into the pedophile. Kersey then leaves and shoots the pimp in the back. Death Wish has returned for the 21st century!

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We get more scenes of Kersey taking out the bad guys. He shoots and kills a couple of gangbangers. At an airport, he kicks a guy repeatedly in the stomach. This man is smuggling drugs into the country by ingesting little bags of them. After the repeated kicking, the man ODs right there in the airport. Between these killings are scenes of a right wing radio talk show host, Dan Forthright (Daniel Baldwin), complaining about how the news media prioritizes reporting about racism instead of child sex trafficking or how the police treat spousal abuse more seriously than the drug gangs.

In the midst of all of this chaos, Kersey is sending envelopes of money to a single mom named Ana (Eva Hamilton) whose daughter is paralyzed and bound to a wheelchair. Turns out Ana was a junkie who got her daughter caught in a crossfire when she was going to get her fix from a drug lord named Tyrell (Richard Tyson). Kersey doesn’t know if it was his bullet or Tyrell’s that paralyzed Ana’s little girl. He keeps spying on Ana until she notices him and invites him over to lunch, the least she could do after Kersey sent her so much money.

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Tyrell is a nasty, sadistic drug lord. After Tyrell’s son gets sent to jail because one his new recruits didn’t have the stuff to murder a witness, he makes the recruit kill some guy wearing a burlap sack on his head. The gang hands the recruit a baseball bat and he bashes the guy until the sack goes red. Tyrell then removes the sack revealing the guy to be the recruit’s own father! Kersey eventually catches up with Tyrell and I don’t want to spoil things, but don’t be surprised if Tyrell ends up getting tied to a tree, covered in barbeque sauce, and beset by wolves.

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Death Kiss can best be described as a month in the life of Paul Kersey. Not a bad way to waste away your Friday night.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #291: 10 to Midnight

20 Friday Sep 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #291 by Jeff Shuster

10 to Midnight

After midnight, Warren gonna let it all hang down.

Week 3 of Charles Bronson Month is here. This week will be a return to form with his salt and pepper hair and boss mustache, none of that black mop nonsense we bore witness to last week. Who did he think he was? One of the Beatles? Unbelievable. Charles Bronson is supposed be the dad we never had, if the dad we never had was a man that killed other men indiscriminately.

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1983’s 10 to Midnight from director J. Lee Thompson is a depressing little film about a man named Warren Stacy (Gene Davis). We don’t like Warren in a similar fashion to how we don’t like Bad Ronald from Bad Ronald. Warren is a creepy dude who repairs electric typewriters for a living. He’s not too good with the ladies. They see him as a loser weirdo. No, he’s not almost forty seeking out sixteen-year-old girls. But Warren does decide to murder one of the office women who rejected him.

Yeah, this isn’t going to be a fun movie. Watching young women scream in terror as a naked psychopath stabs them to death is not my idea of a good time. Yes, Warren stabs his victims while naked so as not to get blood on his clothes. That’s rather clever, the sort of thing I can see a serial killer doing in real life. Maybe that’s why I find Warren so disgusting. He’s like a real life serial killer as opposed to a Hollywood serial killer.

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Enter Detective Leo Kessler (Charles Bronson), a tough as nails Los Angeles cop who’s seen it all, seen how the justice system lets the scum of the earth back on the streets to terrorize the rest of the citizenry. He’s joined by Detective Paul McAnn (Andrew Stevens), a wet-behind-the-ears kid who still thinks law is here to protect us. Paul still idolizes Leo for all the commendations he’s earned over the years.

Warren’s first victim, Betty (June Gilbert) was a childhood friend of Leo’s daughter, Laurie Kessler (Lisa Eilbacher). While at the victim’s funeral, Betty’s parents tell Leo that their daughter kept a diary of the men she dated and the creepers who stalked her. Also at the funeral is Warren Stacy, who overhears this tidbit. Warren goes to Betty’s apartment, tries to pry open her locked dresser drawer to get at the diary, stabs Betty’s roommate to death when she comes home, and continues to pry at the drawer until it opens. Warren finds a box with word Diary inscribed on it, but there’s no diary inside.

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When Warren gets back to his apartment, Detective Leo and Paul are waiting for him, Betty’s diary in Leo’s hand. Leo asks Warren about how he knew Betty, and why she wrote about how much of a creeper he is in her diary. Leo uses Warren’s bathroom and discovers a plethora of nudie magazines and sex toys. They’re about to question Warren further, but the detectives get a phone call informing them about Betty’s murdered roommate.

Leo is convinced Warren is the culprit. Meanwhile, Warren is developing an obsession with Laurie Kessler. He keeps calling her, saying obscene things to her over the phone. I don’t know. At some point, Warren gets arrested for something and lawyers up with a dirtbag lawyer. Leo plants some of Betty’s blood on Warren’s clothes hoping to put him away once and for all, but Paul doesn’t want to give false testimony during Warren’s trial. Leo admits he fabricated evidence, gets fired, and Warren goes free. Boo!

Well, you know how it goes. Warren is going to kill more women. Charles Bronson will put a slug in his forehead. That should make me happy, but the whole experience left me feeling empty inside.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #290: Lola

13 Friday Sep 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #290 by Jeff Shuster

Lola

I think you’re growing up too soon, girl. 

I don’t like it when box art lies. This goes back to the days of Mom & Pop video rental palaces, when you’d see some movie you’ve never heard of with an intriguing cover only to be disappointed when you popped it in the VCR when you got home. This brings us to tonight’s movie, 1969’s Lola from director Richard Donner (of Superman fame).

Look at this DVD cover.

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We have Charles Bronson in a coat brandishing a pistol. This brings to mind Paul Kersey, the vigilante from the Death Wish movies, but there’s one big problem. Charles Bronson doesn’t have a mustache, nor does he brandish a gun in this movie. The back of the case claims that the movie was directed by John Sturges, but it was, in fact, directed by Richard Donner. The backs reads, “Charles Bronson, Susan George, and Trevor Howard star in this gritty portrayal of a man struggling to keep his demons at bay.” Nope. Again, I’m not seeing it.

This is a goofy 60s comedy about a thirty-eight year-old man dating a sixteen-year-old girl.

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Susan George plays Lola (also known as Twinky in some versions), a sixteen-year-old English girl who just happens to be having intimate relations with Scott Wardman (Charles Bronson), a close to middle-aged writer of pornographic fiction who’s living in a London flat. Lola tells Scott that she spilled the beans to her parents, and her father is furious. Scott asks her what the age of consent is in England. She says it’s sixteen, but England can still deport Scott or send him to jail for other reasons. Lola consulted the family lawyer on this. Scott chases Lola out the apartment, but then chases after her. They decide to get married in Scotland, where a man can marry a sixteen-year-old girl. Problem solved!

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What am I watching here? The movie presents this situation as cute and zany. I wasn’t alive in ’69. I’m not that clear on what the social norms were, but I’m surprised that at no point in this movie do we find an angry mob surrounding Scott and beating him to death. Maybe if John Sturges had directed this movie.

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Lola’s father says their marriage won’t work out. Lola’s mother seems more sympathetic and wishes them the best. I can’t help, but notice how attractive Lola’s mother is. Then I realize she is none other than Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore from Goldfinger). There’s a theme song for Lola that’s sung by Jim Dale, the narrator of the Harry Potter books, that I mistook for a lost Dave Clark Five track.

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Scott and Lola move to New York City where Scott begins a career as a failed novelist. Scott is required to enroll Lola in high school, as it is the law.

I keep imagining there’s an alternative version of this movie where Lola falls in love with the captain of the football team and asks Scott to drive them to prom.

Anyway, Lola leaves Scott a Dear John letter after they get into a fight over her cat.

The end.

What does it all mean? This movie is messing with my head.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #288: Delirium

30 Friday Aug 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #288 by Jeff Shuster

Delirium

That will be the title of my memoir. 

Week Five of Giallo Month here at The Museum of Schlock. What do you want me to say? I’m all gialloed out this point.

But I will persevere.

It’s usually around this point that I tell myself I will never do another Giallo Month. Of course, this is a lie. All it will take is for The House With the Laughing Windows or The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh to show up on streaming or on Blu-ray and I’ll be putty in Edwige Fenech’s hands again.

In fact, if Severin Films give them the royal treatment like All the Colors of the Dark, I’ll be a very happy man. That one came with a soundtrack CD.

Yes, I listen to Giallo soundtracks. Don’t make fun.

Tonight’s movie, Delirium, features tracks by Simon Boswell. He used to work with The Sex Pistols and Echo and the Bunnymen. Maybe you’ve heard of those bands.

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1987’s Delirium from director Lamberto Bava is interesting to watch since I’m more used to watching Gialli from the 70s, but the Italian movie industry kept moving along until it fell on hard times in the early 90s. Anyway, the movie begins and we’re treated to a barrage of synth rock and photos of naked ladies. The movie stars Serena Grandi as Gloria, a fierce and beautiful young woman who happens to run a very popular men’s lifestyle and entertainment magazine called Pussycat. Gloria may have been a prostitute prior to marrying her late husband, the owner of the magazine. I’m assuming he was a Hugh Hefner type whose bum ticker finally tocked itself out.

Gloria would seem to have it all: a talented staff of photographers and models, a big fancy mansion, and a teenage paraplegic neighbor named Mark who makes obscene phone calls.

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But this wouldn’t be a Giallo without a little bit of murder. One night, one of Gloria’s models, Kim, gets stabbed in the stomach with a pitchfork and falls into Gloria’s swimming pool. However, the next morning, no body is found. Turns out the killer dumped Kim’s mutilated body into a dumpster, but not before taking photos of her corpse in front of a blown up photo of Gloria.

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In a later scene, the killer is dressed in a beekeeper’s suit. The killer seals off the doors and windows in this one model’s house, into which he releases a torrent of bees. Hundreds of bees sting the naked model as she’s drying herself off from a shower. To add insult to injury, the killer squirts honey into her hair.

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More murders happen. The killer is obsessed with Gloria. He stalks her in an empty department store, killing her brother and his girlfriend who were giving her an after hours tour. Gloria swears she heard a woman’s voice taunting her, but the police are zeroing in on a male suspect, Tony, the photographer. He gets run over by a car before police can question him, but they consider the case closed after that.

Or is it?

Here’s an interesting tidbit. Serena Grandi is known as the Dolly Parton of Italy. This is odd in that she never sang country music.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #287: Death Laid an Egg

23 Friday Aug 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #287 by Jeff Shuster

Death Laid an Egg

So did the director.

Week 4 of Giallo Month is here. Are you entertained? Did you know that over 400 gialli were made over there in Italy? Do you think I’m getting through all of them in this lifetime? I don’t think so. And you’d better believe that I’m going to try to watch as many of these through streaming services. But the trouble with services like Amazon Prime is that they giveth and taketh away. I planned to review Torso this month, but it’s no longer available. I planned on reviewing Eye in the Labyrinth this month, but every time I click on it to play, no dice. But never fear, I’ve found a replacement.

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Tonight’s movie is 1968’s Death Laid an Eggfrom director Giulio Questi. If you ever wanted to spend ninety minutes in an automated chicken farm, then this is the movie for you!

Oh, man. I’ve got about three hundred and fifty more words to go.

How did I get here?

I am not finding myself in my beautiful house with my beautiful wife. Instead, I find myself watching a late 60s Italian poultry fetish movie at two in the morning. I can get through this. I can do it.

Death Laid an Egg starts out with a man named Marco (Jean-Louis Trintignant) meeting up with a woman in a hotel room. The woman is a prostitute and Marco mustn’t like prostitutes since he starts slicing her up with a straight razor. Later, Marco goes into an office building to figure out the best way to advertise chickens. You see, Marco co-manages a chicken farm with his sexy wife, Anna (Gina Lollobrigida). The chicken farm was recently automated which resulted in the plant workers being let go from their jobs.

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Anna and Marco live an idyllic life on the chicken farm. They have a palatial estate, a fancy swimming pool, and separate beds to sleep in so they don’t hog each other’s covers at night. Anna also let her down-on-her luck cousin, Gabri (Ewa Aulin), stay with them. Gabri happens to be a young, pretty blonde woman and attracts the attention of Marco. The two begin having an affair. Marco wants to run away with her, start his life over with her, but Gabri refuses.

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Meanwhile, Anna is obsessed with breeding the perfect chicken. She has bioengineers working to achieve this. Eventually, chickens are hatched that have no heads or wings, but are full of meat with few bones. Marco considers them an abomination. Anna thinks they are the chicken of tomorrow and can’t wait to showcase them before the Poultry Commission, but Marco destroys them before she gets the chance. This puts Marco in hot water with the Poultry Commission. You could say his goose is cooked.

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What am I watching here? I want to see horrific murders being committed by a psychopath with black gloves, trench coat, and fedora. I don’t want a diatribe on the dehumanizing effects of automation.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have the hankering for some chicken salad.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #286: Weekend Murders

16 Friday Aug 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #286 by Jeff Shuster

Weekend Murders

What are you doing this weekend?

Anyone catch the latest season of Grantchester, the gem of Masterpiece Mystery on PBS? This season was a tsunami of mystery and heartache. Reverend Sidney Chambers fell in love with a woman of color visiting from the American South during the Civil Rights movement.  He moved to America to be with her. Leonard was struggling with his role of curate while trying to keep his homosexuality a secret. DI Geordie had to contend with his wife working as a sales associate at a fancy new department store in town. Oh, and Geordie’s wife ends up getting sexually harassed by a coworker resembling Orson Welles. And let’s not forget about new vicar of Grantchester, Will Davenport, a dashing young man with his own dark secrets. But I’m wasting my time, aren’t I? None of you want to hear me talk about fine British television. Such is my lot in life.

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This week’s Giallo is 1970’s The Weekend Murders from director Michele Lupo. Like Grantchester, The Weekend Murders takes its cues from the British cozy, the quaint mysteries that take place in the country as opposed to the big city. Sure, a murder or two may take place, but at least the surroundings are pleasant. The movie begins with an English bobby named Sgt. Aloisius Thorpe (Gastone Moschin) cycling through the English village of Somerleyton. He’s a rather goofy looking chap, complete with a bobby mustache and big teeth. He looks like the kind of bobby they make lamps out of.

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Anyway, Sgt. Thorpe rides through town on his bicycle. He rides up next to a milk truck, pops one of the bottles open, drinks his fill, and pays the driver. I’ve never seen that in a movie. He then travels to a golf course where some well-to-do members of the gentry are enjoying a game until one of them finds a hand sticking up out of the sand trap. Someone’s been murdered! The movie then sets us back a couple of days where we’re introduced to these well-to-do members of the gentry, showing up at a rich estate to find out about their inheritance. The old geezer bequeaths his prized flowers to Sgt. Thorpe, who openly weeps to the disgust of various playboys, snobs, and a prodigal daughter or two. Everyone else gets nothing with the exception of the old geezer’s niece, Barbara (Anna Moffo), who inherits the estate.

Of course, if Barbara were to die, the estate with be divided evenly among the remaining family members. Naturally, bodies start showing up. I think the first is the family butler, ruling him out as a murder suspect. I think someone points that out in the movie, so it’s not that funny.

Scotland Yard sends over their finest detective, Inspector Grey (Lance Percival), to solve the case. The rest of the movie shows off the sublime incompetence of Detective Grey counterbalanced with surprising ingenuity of Sgt. Thorpe. Together they’ll get to the bottom of the murders. This is an odd one, an Giallo movie rife with English stereotypes, but I enjoyed it … though not as much as Grantchester.

The Weekend Murders is streaming on Amazon Prime.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #285: Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye

09 Friday Aug 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #285 by Jeff Shuster

Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye

Orangutan at Dragonstone Castle

It’s week 2 of Giallo Month here at the Museum of Schlock. I spent a small fortune on some jars of bathwater taken from the bathtub scene from The Case of the Bloody Iris, the scene where that one model jumped up naked from the bubble bath. I did this purely for research purposes and not for some sick fetish I’m too ashamed to admit in public. I may put these jars on display, but I can’t promise anything. I’m so lonely.

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Tonight’s fine specimen of Italian cinema is 1973’s Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye from director Antonio Margheriti (whose glorious name is an easter egg in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds).

The flick starts out with a man being murdered. I think he’s getting cut up with a razor blade. A big fluffy cat looks on with bemusement. You could say the cat is eyeing the death. Six deaths to go!

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The movie takes place in this castle on an island off the coast of England, Scotland, or some British country. Oh, and the castle is full of rats too. They make short work out of the corpse mentioned above. If you ever wanted to see rats chewing off a dead guy’s face, this is the movie for you.

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Okay. The protagonist of our cinematic journey is Corringa (Jane Birkin), a beautiful young woman who was away at boarding school, but left abruptly after she upset the nuns.  As she’s getting dropped off at her family home, Dragonstone Castle, we see a deformed orangutan peeking out at her through one of the castle windows. Forget about the serial killer, there’s an orangutan loose in the castle! I’ll take my chances with the serial killer!

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We get a dinner scene with a bunch of potential suspects and victims. We’ve got Dr. Franz (Anton Differing), the family headshrinker who must be on call because these rich families always have a few screws loose due to inbreeding. There’s Padre Robertson (Venantino Venantini), the family’s Catholic Priest who must also be on call to hear a few confessions. Oh, and Corringa has a mad cousin named Lord James MacGrieff (Hiram Keller) whols a potential love interest for her when he isn’t being rude and drinking his dinner. Another guest is a French teacher named Suzanne (Doris Kuntsmann) who was hired as a potential mistress for mad Lord James, but she ended up having an affair with Dr. Franz who is also dating one of the older Ladies of the castle, Corringa’s mother or mad Lord James’s mother.

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Are you following all of this? Can you explain it to me?

Bodies start piling up. Who could the killer be?

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I know exactly what you’re thinking.

It’s the orangutan, but that’s too easy. Also, why would an orangutan go to the trouble of using a razor blade to kill someone? Unless, it’s a killer dressed up as an orangutan. What a brilliant idea. You could dress up as an orangutan, kill some people the way a human being would, and no one would ever suspect you. I think I just came up with the perfect crime. Do me a favor and don’t tell anyone.

Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye can be found on Amazon Prime streaming.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #284: The Case of the Bloody Iris

02 Friday Aug 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #284 by Jeff Shuster

The Case of the Bloody Iris

It’s a bloody good time. 

The Museum of Schlock is long overdue for an exhibit of Giallo, those wonderful Italian combinations of murder mystery and horror.

I’ve got my black gloves, trench coat, fedora, and black nylon facemask ready to go. Hey, just because a man dresses in such manner that doesn’t make him a serial killer. Don’t be so shallow.

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1972’s The Case of the Bloody Iris from director Giuliano Carnimeo is a tour de force of sex, murder, and madness. The radiant Edwige Fenech portrays Jennifer Osterman, a young model who used to belong to a New Age cult, and by New Age, I mean Satanic.

Okay. Maybe that’s too far. Who am I too judge?

What am I judging?

This one guy from the cult married Jennifer, but then insisted that she be shared with the other men of the cult. I guess the orgy lifestyle wasn’t for Jennifer so she left the cult for the glamorous career of a fashion model. Her husband didn’t like that so he stalks her.

Oh, and the movie begins with a murder in an elevator. One of the models in the upper level apartments gets her throat slit. Another model named Mizar Harrington (Carla Brait) sees the corpus delicti in the elevator, but can’t be bothered to call the police because she must get ready for a show. In this show, Mizar stands on a stage and demands that one of the hot and bothered men in the crowd try to catch her and dominate her. If they can do this, Mizar will be his slave, ready to do whatever her captor wants.

None of the men in the audience can subdue her, but later that night, a psychopath wearing a trench coat, leather gloves, fedora, and black nylon facemask ties her up and drowns her in own bathtub.

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The apartment gets rented to Jennifer and her friend Marilyn (Paola Quattrini). During a dinner party with a gentleman friend of Jennifer’s, Marilyn pretends to have drowned in the bathtub, only to spring up naked and laughing at the two of them. Pretty funny. I would be a little creeped out taking a bath in tub someone was drowned to death in, but Marilyn thinks it’s a lark. Jennifer’s gentleman friend is Andrea Antinori (George Hilton), a rich and handsome man who gets paralyzed by the sight of blood.

What else? We have a Police Commissioner Enci (Giampiero Albertini) who is busy trying to solve the murders when he’s not getting all liquored up. He sends his incompetent assistant Redi (Franco Agostini) to keep an eye on Jennifer. Redi witnesses Jennifer and Andrea eating at a fine restaurant while he’s stuck with a sad sandwich. While stuck in his sad stakeout car, Redi spies on Andrea’s fancy house as Andrea and Jennifer make mad, passionate love inside.  None of this is getting the police any closer to catching the murderer.

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Who is the murderer? Could it be Jennifer’s obsessive ex-husband who thinks that Jennifer belongs to him (and the other creep-o men in the cult)?

Could it be the demented son of the old lady who lives in the apartment next door to Jennifer, the guy who reads all of those disgusting horror comics?

Or could it be Andrea, the perfect man who seems to have a problem with the sight of blood due to him getting into a car accident with his dad when he was a child, the blood from his dad’s lifeless corpse dripping on his face? I could tell you, but I have to get ready for a show. The Case of the Bloody Iris is currently on Amazon Prime Streaming.

Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #283: Someone I Touched

26 Friday Jul 2019

Posted by in Film, Sexuality, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #283 by Jeff Shuster

Someone I Touched

Syphilis ain’t that bad. 

Week Four of ABC Movie of the Week is here, and boy did I make a mistake. You see the trouble with doing a theme month is that it sounds great, but then you need to find a movie each week that fills that theme and then you hunt around Amazon Prime to find ABC Movies of the Week, but you realize that not many of these movies survived. There was one ABC Movie of the Week that starred George Kennedy getting attacked by a feral skunk.

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I would have liked to see that movie, but instead I’m stuck this week with a cautionary tale on VD.

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1975’s Someone I Touched from director Lou Antonio is a cautionary tale on venereal disease (I said as much in the last paragraph–I was filled with so much hope back then). The movie begins with Andrew Robinson playing a guy named Frank Berlin and it appears that he’s stalking a teenage girl named Carrie (Glynnis O’Connor). I think this because Andrew Robinson played Scorpio in Dirty Harry and I associate his face with that of a violent psychopath, but it turns out that he’s one of the good guys in this movie. Really, that says everything about this specimen of schlock you need to know. Read on at your peril.

Frank Berlin works for County Health and he informs Carrie that she has stage 1 syphilis. Nothing to worry about since it’s treatable, but Frank will need a list of everyone she’s had sexual intercourse with in the last four months. Carrie’s response is, “Oh wow.”

Next we’re introduced to Laura Hyatt (Cloris Leachman), a career woman who works for a publisher of children’s books. She’s happily married to Sam Hyatt (James Olson) who works in an office building. Or maybe he builds office buildings. I think there was a scene with him at a construction site. Really this movie devoured most of my soul and much of my memory. Sam and Laura are expecting their first child, but unbeknownst to Sam, he has syphilis. He gets a visit from Frank Berlin after Carrie told him that he was one of the men she had a one-night stand with.

Frank tells Sam that if he has syphilis, he’ll have to inform Laura. Sam says something to the effect of Laura having a fragile mind and not being able to handle the stress of such information.

Uh huh.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering if Carrie was under the legal age of consent.

So Sam finds out he has syphilis. He tells Laura that she might have contracted syphilis. Laura gets tested and bingo, she has syphilis. And she’s pregnant!

What about the baby?

This is a bad scene!

But not as bad as the scene when Carrie tries getting some comfort from her mom by informing her that she has syphilis. Then Carrie’s mother keeps slapping her in the face. I know it was the 70s, but dear readers I can’t take the drama!

While Laura initially recoiled at the news that Sam gave her syphilis, it turns out that she’s the one who gave syphilis to Sam.

Turns out she had an affair with her boss.

Anyway, don’t worry. The baby is going to be fine.

Sigh.

Don’t let Someone I Touched ever touch you, take it from your Curator of Schlock.

Oh, look at that. It turns out Steven Spielberg’s Duel was an ABC Movie of the Week. I could have been watching Duel!

Duel

I’m going to cry now.

Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.