The Curator of Schlock #402: Don’t Open Till Christmas

30 Friday Dec 2022

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Christmas, Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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Caroline Munro, Don't Open Till Christmas

The Curator of Schlock #402 by Jeff Shuster

Don’t Open Till [sic] Christmas

Don’t Open Until Christmas

There I was, wading through crapwaters of the Orlando sewer system. The sewer water went up to my knees and then to my waist and then to my chest. I was on my way to the secret hideout of the Revenging Manta, the famous ninja vigilante. He led the way, waves of rancid water crashing against him as he made great strides toward our destination. Eventually, we came to a ladder that went straight up to a manhole.

“You first,” he said. — To be continued.

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This week’s movie is 1984’s Don’t Open Till Christmas from director Edmund Perdum. This entry in a long line of Christmas slasher movies has a twist: the victims are your run-of-the-mill department store Santas. Yeah, it would seem that some creeper has a vendetta against jolly St. Nick. Who wants to murder Kris Kringle? Honestly, all the guy does is give you free presents once a year and you don’t have to declare them come tax season. I guess the director was going for something different this time around, trading horny teenagers for middle-aged, sad-sack Santas.

The movie begins with a guy dressed as Santa getting hot and heavy with his girlfriend in the backseat of his car. Then, naturally, we get the point of view of a heavy-breather stalker. The guy and his girlfriend get stabbed to death by the killer. We’re then treated to a nasty credit sequence with a distorted take on Jingle Bells playing in the background as we watch a wax Santa Claus melt into goo. Was there an audience for this sort of thing? Were people fed up with Christmas back in 1984?

Our next scene takes place at a costume party where a Santa Claus is about to perform some gags for an adult audience. Unfortunately, he gets speared through the head by one of the guests dressed up like a shrunken head. His daughter, Kate Brisk (Belinda Mayne), cradles her dad’s body while her boyfriend, Cliff (Gerry Sundquist), goes after the killer only to find an abandoned costume. It’s up to the New Scotland Yard to solve the case.

What happened to the old Scotland Yard?

Naturally, this new Scotland Yard is just as baffled by these Christmas slayings as the old Scotland Yard would be. A Chief Inspector Harris (Edmund Purdom) is on the case. A couple of police officers go undercover as Santas at a local carnival in an effort to lure the killer out of hiding. It works a little too well as the killer emerges to slaughter them both. Too bad.

One of the sadder killings in this movie is when a sweet, middle-aged man visits a peep show booth. He’s shy and awkward and doesn’t know how to talk to the girl. He lives at home with his mother and a mall Santa job was the best he could do. And then he gets slayed by the Santa serial killer right in front of the stripper. Question: why murder a guy right in front of a witness and then leave the scene? You know she’s going straight to the cops.

What else? The glamorous Caroline Munro (of Starcrash fame) stars as herself in this movie and even sings. Makes me wonder if she had a music career and made top of the pops. You can catch Don’t Open Till Christmas streaming for free on Tubi.

Maybe don’t pay money for this one.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, and episode 549) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #401: Christmas Evil

23 Friday Dec 2022

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Christmas, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #401 by Jeff Shuster

Christmas Evil

Do you want to feel more depressed during the holidays?

The Revenging Manta, the ninja vigilante of downtown Orlando, and I drove to his secret hideout. And his secret hideout was in the sewer. This is not the first place I would pick for a secret hideout with the rats and the feces floating about down there, but he insisted that it was something special. He handed me a flashlight and down the manhole I went. — To be continued.

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Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas from your humble curator. This week’s movie is 1980’s Christmas Evil from director Lewis Jackson.

This movie also went under the title of Terror in Toyland and You Better Watch Out. Christmas Evil got caught up in the Video Nasty hysteria plaguing Great Britain in the 1980s. Now you can treat yourself to this yuletide horror for free on Tubi. Times change.

Our movie begins with a young boy named Harry having witnessed Santa Claus making sexual advances on his mother. He smashes a snow globe and slits his palm.

Fast forward thirty or so years and Harry (Brandon Maggart) is now a grown man who recently got an upper management position at a toy factory. Harry’s a schlub. The toys that the factory produces are cheap plastic crap. Everyone stands before an assembly line attaching riders to bikes, rifles to toy soldiers, etc. Harry was happier making toys on the floor than sitting in his fancy office.

Harry lives like a neighborhood spy, keeping tabs on all of the neighborhood children, seeing who’s naughty or nice. One boy takes out the trash on a regular basis so his name goes on the nice list. Another boy is obsessed with dirty magazines so he ends up on the naughty list. Harry doesn’t get along with his younger brother who thinks he’s a weirdo. We in the audience also think he’s a weirdo. After becoming mesmerized by Santa Claus at the Thanksgiving Day Parade, Harry becomes obsessed with becoming Santa Claus.

On Christmas Eve, Harry superglues a white beard to his face and dons a fur-lined red Santa suit. He drives around town in a white van with Santa’s reindeer painted on the side. He delivers presents to his brother Frank’s house and drops some more gifts off at a children’s hospital. And then he waits outside a church, waiting for the Midnight Mass to let out. A rich jerk saunters over to him. The rich jerk makes fun of Harry and his van so Harry gouges his eye out with the bayonet of a toy soldier and then proceeds to hatchet the rest of them with an axe. Then Harry speeds away in his van before the crowd of churchgoers can properly react.

It would seem that director John Waters does a commentary on the DVD as he’s a huge fan. He considers it the greatest Christmas movie ever made. I found the film depressing. What’s most depressing is how chintzy Christmas feels in this movie. It’s all cheap toys, tacky decorations, fake beards, and no Christmas cheer. No wonder Harry has a psychotic break.

People can be awful around the holidays.

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The Curator of Schlock #400: To All a Goodnight

16 Friday Dec 2022

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David Hess, To All a Goodnight

The Curator of Schlock #400 by Jeff Shuster

To All a Goodnight

David Hess returns to the Museum of Schlock.

The Revenging Manta (the ninja vigilante of downtown Orlando) was fishing around the corpse of Gary, the recently deceased corpse of a a fentanyl dealer disguised as a pizza delivery man. Manta found keys and we headed to Gary’s green Volvo.

“Are we off to your secret hideout?” I asked as I plucked one of Gary’s teeth out of my hair. “I could really use a shower.”

— To be continued.

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Happy Holidays from your humble Curator of Schlock. This week’s movie is the 1980 Christmas classic To All a Goodnight from director David Hess.

Wait.

What?

The David Hess? Star of such movies as The Last House on the Left and Hitch-Hike? Indeed. Plus, he must have directed this the same year he starred in The House on the Edge of the Park. Busy man.

Our movie begins with a fatal sorority prank. A bevy of college girls chase a frightened student of the Calvin Finishing School for Girls. Some are decked out as Santa Claus wielding axes. They chase the young student up to the balcony where she loses her footing. I wonder if a relative of the deceased girl will seek revenge in a couple of years. Wasn’t this the plot of Prom Night? Both came out in 1980. I suppose the screenwriters were plugged into the collective unconscious at the same time.

Did finishing schools still exist in 1980? I thought those went out in the 1960s, but maybe they still existed for the upper crust. After all, one of the main plot points of this movie revolves around a group of randy mean girls inviting some trust fund guys to a party at their sorority house. I think some of these young women are hoping to bag a millionaire. All except for Nancy (Jennifer Runyon), who’s pure and innocent.

Nancy will be the final girl, in case you couldn’t figure that out.

So the girls are stuck at the sorority house during Christmas break, but that’s okay. They’ve got housemother Mrs. Jensen there to cook them beef stew and cherry pie. But not all is well at this school. Seems that there’s a killer roaming the grounds dressed as Santa Claus, stalking his next victim. You get some creative kills here. One involves a guy getting strung up with a wire garrote. I don’t know. I’m barely feeling the Christmas theme here. Maybe he could have ornamented a Christmas tree with body parts from his victims.

Come to think of it, there aren’t a whole lot of Christmas decorations at this school. No festive lights, no wreaths. We finally see a Christmas tree about two thirds of the way through. I wonder if the producers decided to make this a Christmas themed slasher about halfway through the production.

It doesn’t help that this is taking place in a sunny climate. Hey, I live in Florida, but when I think of Christmas, I think northward. Only an idiot would set a Christmas movie in Florida.

And where is David Hess? He directed this movie, but didn’t star? Imagine this same premise, a bunch of spoiled brats living it up at Christmas time and David Hess shows up in Santa suit ready to party, but then turns violent when the rich pricks decide to ridicule him. Pain and humiliation gets heaped upon the sons and daughters of the wealthy. That movie writes itself.

To All a Goodnight is that kind of movie–one that makes you imagine better schlock that could have been.

You’ll yawn ’til dawn.

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The Curator of Schlock #399: The Warriors

02 Friday Dec 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #399 by Jeff Shuster

The Warriors

Skip the director’s cut.

There I was, stuck in a bowling alley in the dead of night next to a decapitated fentanyl dealer. Actually, the guy wasn’t decapitated. His head had exploded after the Revenging Manta, a ninja vigilante from the downtown Orlando area, threw a bowling ball directly at his cranium. I was picking bits of brain and skull out of my hair as the Revenging Manta gathered up the collection of multicolored pills and shoved them into a pink Hello Kitty bag. — To be continued.

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This week’s movie is 1979’s The Warriors from director Walter Hill. How have I not covered this movie on this blog? Maybe in all these years of pontificating about cinema I’ve not felt worthy enough to review this. I will do my best.

The movie starts out with Deno’s Wonder Wheel lit up against the night sky as moody electronic music from composer Barry De Vorzon plays in the background. We’re soon introduced to the Warriors, the resident gang of Coney Island, NY. They’ve been called to a meeting of all the gangs in New York City. And I mean all of the gangs of New York City: The Boppers, the Saracens, the Hi-Hats, the Moonrunners, the Panzers, the Jones Streets Boys, the Electric Eliminators, and the Van Cortlandt Rangers to name a few.

Nine delegates from a hundred gangs meet at a park in the Bronx where a man named Cyrus (Roger Hill), head of the Gramercy Riffs, ignites the crowd with promises of conquest. If all the gangs can keep up a truce and work together then no one in New York City could stop them. Not the police. Not the crime syndicates. He asks the crowd, “Can you dig it?” The crowd roars in triumph. Cyrus is a supervillain and like many supervillains, you in the audience are secretly admiring him. And just when Cyrus is on top of the world, a punk named Luther (David Patrick Kelly) shoots him dead.

Right after Cyrus falls to the ground, the lights in the park blaze on and dozens of cops storm the scene. Cleon (Dorsey Wright), the Warlord of the Warriors, goes to check on Cyrus. While he and the Gramercy Riffs examine his corpse, Luther points the finger at Cleon stating he’s the guy that shot Cyrus. He and the other Rogues attack Cleon and it’s not long before the Gramercy Riffs join in, beating him to death.

With their Warlord nowhere in sight, the rest of the Warriors escape the park and hide in a cemetery. Swan (Michael Beck) is the War Chief of the gang, the second in command that has to get them home to Coney Island. Joining him are seven other gang members like the hothead Ajax (James Remar) and graffiti artist Rembrandt (Marcelino Sánchez). The Gramercy Riffs want the Warriors alive if possible, wasted if necessary. They’ve put out a call to action to all the gangs between the Bronx and Coney Island to take care of The Warriors.

What follows is a struggle for survival as the Warriors escape the cops and well as the likes of the Turnbull Acs, the Punks, and the Baseball Furies. It’s a trial by fire and not all of the Warriors will survive the journey home. To say more would spoil this movie. The Warriors is a brilliant film, showing us the perspective of guys Paul Kersey would shoot without giving it a second thought. Never boring and well worth repeated viewing, you can catch The Warriors streaming on Paramount+.

The Curator of Schlock #398: Memory

18 Friday Nov 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #398 by Jeff Shuster

Memory

That’s your movie title? You’re not even trying!

Where was I? Oh, I was undercover at a bowling alley, trying to buy some fentanyl from a drug-pusher named Gary.

“Where’s the money? I don’t have all day.” Gary said as he lifted up a turquoise bowling ball. Suddenly, a look of terror spread across his face. Out of the shadows walked the Revenging Manta, the vigilante ninja of downtown Orlando.

“You!” Gary screamed before hurling the bowling ball at the masked avenger. The Revenging Manta caught the ball and threw it right back at Gary. The ball struck Gary’s head with tremendous force. His cranium exploded, bloody chunks of flesh flying everywhere. A crimson geyser sprayed from his neck as the headless body stumbled around for a bit. — To be continued.

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This week’s movie is 2022’s Memory from director Martin Campbell. And it stars Liam Neeson as a hardened assassin out for vengeance. In these turbulent times, my cinematic comfort food usually revolves around aging leading men such Gerard Butler, Denzel Washington or Liam Neeson playing a character with a “certain set of skills” that gets pushed too far and unleashes holy hell on the bad guys. He makes them suffer and the audience enjoys seeing them suffer. Everyone leaves the theater happy.

Or that would be the case if the trailer wasn’t a lie. When watching the trailer for Memory, we’re introduced to Liam Neeson who refers to himself as “the bad man.” He’s an unstoppable assassin, the best of the best. And then he gets an assignment that he will not do. He will not kill a child. And then you, the audience member, thinks, “Well, he may be a merciless assassin, but at least he doesn’t kill children.” Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all.

We then see him taking out the bad guys, tipping off the cops to what he’s doing. The main detective is played by Guy Pearce. Neeson’s assassin states that he can’t keep doing his job for him, that these traffickers have to pay for what they do to children. We learn that Neeson’s assassin has some memory issues and can’t always remember where he was the night before. Maybe he’s not who he thinks he is. The trailer promises a competent action thriller from the director of the James Bond films Goldeneye and Casino Royale. Okay. I’m sold.

And then I watch the actual movie and am sorely disappointed. For starters, Neeson feels more like a supporting character than the lead. I guess that honor goes to Guy Pearce who’s looking a bit beaten down by life if I have to be honest. Maybe they dressed him down for the role of Vincent Serra, head of an investigation into child sex trafficking in El Paso. We see him trying to catch a guy pimping out his own underage daughter, but ends up killing the father in a tussle. Vincent asks the girl to give testimony against the cartels. Otherwise, she’ll be kicked back to Mexico. Her situation makes me depressed.

Then we have Alex Lewis (Liam Neeson), a contract killer in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. Alex visits his brother in a senior center and his brother stares at him with vacant eyes, a grim reminder of Alex’s own fate. By the end of the movie, Alex is just a befuddled old man, barely able to string a sentence together as he bleeds from his wounds. This isn’t what I want to see. Where is Neeson kicking ass? A couple months ago I was watching Neeson throw a guy from a moving train into the path of an oncoming moving train.

It seems this movie is a remake of the Belgian movie, The Alzheimer Case. Apparently, that movie holds an 84% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes while this one remains at 28%. Maybe I should check out the original.

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The Curator of Schlock #397: Eight Legged Freaks

23 Friday Sep 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #397 by Jeff Shuster

Eight Legged Freaks

Giant spider movie.

“You want the pills, I need the dough,” the drug-pusher-disguised-as-a-pizza-delivery-guy said. I saw the name Gary engraved on his jacket.

“Okay, Gary. Just give me a few minutes,” I said, trying to stall for time until the crazed vigilante ninja, The Revenging Manta, came to my aid.

“My name’s not Gary,” the drug pusher said, setting the pizza box full of fentanyl on the shoe counter. “Goose Lord and his guys beat the pizza guy senseless for his tip money. I was there. Took his jacket as a souvenir. Great disguise, huh.” — To be continued.

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Tonight’s movie is 2002’s Eight Legged Freaks from director Ellory Elkayem. To think, this movie came out the same year as Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. The two movies are a lot alike as they both feature spiders.

Other than that, the two movies are totally different. Actually I am not sure why I brought that up.

The movie begins with a truck transporting chemicals. The driver swerves to avoid hitting a rabbit. One of the cans of toxic chemicals falls into the nearby river. Great. Thumper got saved, but now the town of Prosperity, Arizona is doomed!

Next, we get a scene with the town spider collector, Joshua Taft (Tom Noonan), showing off some exotic spiders he got from Brazil to young science nerd, Mike Parker. Joshua has been feeding them crickets he found by the toxic river. This has mutated the spiders. After Mike leaves, Joshua and his pet parrot are attacked by the mutated spiders and devoured. You know, if the pet parrot is fair game in a monster movie, all bets are off.

We get introduced to other characters. Mike’s mother is Samantha Parker (Kari Wuhrer), the town sheriff. Mike’s sister is Ashley Parker played by a young Scarlet Johnson. David Arquette plays Chris McCormick whose father owned the town’s abandoned mine. He’s at odds with the town mayor, Wade (Leon Rippy), who wants everyone in town to sell their property to the corporation that produced the toxic chemicals. You also get the town conspiracy nut, Harlan Griffiths (Doug E. Doug), a goofy deputy named Pete (Rick Overton), and Chris’s chain-smoking Aunt Gladys (Eileen Reilly). And there are a bunch more goofy townsfolk where those came from.

What’s the plot of the movie? Giant spiders attack an unsuspecting populace. If you’re a fan of cats and dogs, I’m sorry. There’s a scene where deputy Pete’s cat has a tussle with a spider inside the walls of his house and you can see imprints of the cat through the plaster. What else? You get to see some ostriches dragged through the ground. Oh, and we get to see Scarlet Johansson tase a guy in the groin causing him to pee his pants.

The movie culminates in the town barricading itself in a shopping mall against an army of disgusting giant spiders. The effects are done with computers. CGI from twenty years ago doesn’t hold up well, but I give the animators points for having these giant spiders move like actual spiders.

Eight Legged Freaks is streaming for free on Tubi. Check it out!

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Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, and episode 496) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #396: Moonfall

16 Friday Sep 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #396 by Jeff Shuster

Moonfall

This movie is a disaster. I mean this is a disaster movie.

I was waiting at a bowling alley after dark. I was disguised as the owner, waiting for a fentanyl delivery. I heard a knock at the back and opened it to see a pizza delivery man holding a large box.

“One extra large with fennel sausage,” he said, smirking as he opened up the box to reveal bags of colorful pill. I was told that pushers make the pills look like candy, easier to get the attention of children. — To be continued.

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Tonight’s movie is 2022’s Moonfall from director Roland Emmerich. According to Webster’s dictionary, the definition of schlock is “of low quality or value.” With a budget of around 140 million, Moonfall can’t be schlock, right? I mean the movie features the moon leaving and entering the Earth’s orbit because it’s not really a moon, but a “megastructure.” Inside this megastructure is a dwarf star that gives the moon power and all those craters on the outside are kind of like the thin candy shell hiding the chocolatey Dyson sphere within.

The movie begins with astronauts Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson) and Jocinda Fowler (Halle Barry) up in space repairing a satellite when they get attacked by a bunch of nano robots. Another astronaut gets killed and Harper gets the blame even though he managed to save Jocinda by landing a severely damaged space shuttle to Earth.

Ten years go by.

NASA has fired him because he keeps claiming he was attacked by an alien force. Brian’s wife and son have left him. And he can’t pay the rent.

We’re then introduced to Dr. K.C. Houseman (John Bradley), a man obsessed with the moon and discovers it moving away from the Earth’s orbit. He tries to convince Brian with his research, but after getting rebuffed, K.C. posts his findings on the Internet. Meanwhile, back at NASA, the bigwigs finally learn that the moon is leaving Earth’s orbit. NASA sends a crew of astronauts to investigate, but the swarm of nano-robots makes quick work of NASA’s finest.

Panic ensues.

The head of NASA throws in the towel. He turns complete control of the agency over to Jocinda.

Naturally, she recruits Brian and K.C. The tides are shifting and sea water is submerging all the coastal cities. We need the moon back! They get an old space shuttle out of a museum and the three of them launch into space with it. On the way to the moon, they have a tussle with the nano-robot cloud, but smashing their smartphones makes the cloud go away. It seems the cloud only attacks people if there’s electronics present.

They do a deep dive into a crater in the moon, narrowly escaping the nano-robot cloud. It’s here that Brian talks to a computer hologram of his son and learns that our ancestors come from outer space.

I lost some brain cells watching this movie.

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Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, and episode 496) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #395: Virtuosity

09 Friday Sep 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #395 by Jeff Shuster

Virtuosity

Never mind American Gangster–this is the Denzel Washington versus Russel Crowe movie you’ve been waiting for.

The Revenging Manta and I had a plan to disrupt a fentanyl delivery at a bowling alley called Tech 13 Lanes in downtown Orlando. I was to pose as the owner of the establishment who my ninja vigilante partner had subdued hours before. All I had to do was hand over a duffle bag filled with cash to some low level goons of the criminal organization known as the Iguana Consortium. I grabbed a slushy while I waited. Tech 13 Lanes were out of cherry. I had to settle for RC Cola flavored. — To be continued.

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This week’s movie is 1995’s Virtuosity from director Brett Leonard.

Original Cinema Quad Poster – Movie Film Posters

The movie stars Denzel Washington and I’m trying to remember the last Denzel Washington movie I covered on this blog. Was it Man On Fire? That was the movie where Denzel cut each and every finger off of a cartel member to get him to talk. After he talked, Denzel attached a bomb to his butt and lit the fuse.

Pure cinema.

I won’t say Virtuosity hits those heights, but it’s still a fun ride. The movie begins with a former police officer, Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington), hunting for a killer along with his partner, John Donovan (Costas Mandylor). And it becomes very obvious that the two of them are in some kind of virtual reality simulator. At first, I thought this was a Matrix ripoff, but then I realized Virtuosity predates The Matrix by four years.

The killer they are hunting is named SID 6.7 (Russel Crowe), an amalgamation of hundreds of serial killers, terrorists, and other nogoodniks. The program was created to train police officers by having them hunt down the worst killer imaginable. Barnes tracks SID 6.7 down to a virtual sushi restaurant, but the program is one step ahead. SID takes out Donovan and evades Barnes. When Barnes and Donovan are revived, Donovan is flatlining. SID overrode the safety protocols so if you die in the virtual world, you die in the real world. We also learn that Barnes is prisoner, having been incarcerated after hunting down the terrorist that murdered his family and killing him in cold blood.

Dr. Darryl Lindenmeyer (Stephen Spinella) is the creator of SID and wants to take him to the next level. He meets up with Clyde Reilly, a scientist that makes synthetic androids that look and behave just like the real thing. He shows off an artificial snake that can repair itself when hurt by absorbing glass. Dr. Lindenmeyer has a sexy computer program named Sheila 3.2 and he convinces Reilly to turn her into one of his androids. Reilly is a nerdlinger that thinks he’s going to get lucky, but the jokes on him as Lindenmeyer switched out the Sheila program for the SID program. SID now has a physical body to do much mayhem with in the real world.

With SID on loose murdering people left and right, the justice department pardons Barnes on the condition that he take SID down. He teams up with Dr. Madison Carter (Kelly Lynch), a criminal psychologist. She reveals to Barnes that the terrorist that murdered his family is part SID’s deranged personality. So we have the ultimate serial killer in a body that can repair itself with glass. It’s not like there isn’t glass everywhere! Theoretically, SID should be unstoppable, but it’s a Hollywood blockbuster from the 90s. Badassery will triumph over evil. Don’t you worry.

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Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, and episode 496) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #394: Puzzle

26 Friday Aug 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #394 by Jeff Shuster

Puzzle

Sausage festival.

I thanked the Orlando area vigilante known as the Revenging Manta for saving my life and wished him the best of luck in his battle with the criminal gang known as the Iguana Consortium. I figured I would track down the nearest Comfort Inn as my home, The Museum of Schlock, had been taken over by members of said gang. Then the hand of the Revenging Manta gripped my shoulder.

“You’re not leaving,” he said. “There’s a delivery of fentanyl happening at 3 AM. Together, we will stop it.” — To be continued.

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This week’s giallo movie is 1974’s Puzzle from director Duccio Tessari. This movie was known in Italy as L’uomo senza memoria which translates to The Man Without a Memory. And that’s a fairly apt description as a man named Ted Walden (Luc Merenda) has lost his memory after a bad car accident. He’s seeing a therapist, Dr. Archibald T. Wildgate (Tom Felleghy). Ted’s trying to uncover who he is when the therapist introduces Ted to Phillip (Manfred Freyberger), the best friend he can’t remember.

Ted invites Phillip back to his apartment to get some answers about his former life, but Phillip just proceeds to punch him, calling him a “double crosser” and asking him to give up the amnesia act. A sniper’s bullet hits Phillip in the back, killing him instantly. Ted then receives a telegram telling him to meet his wife, Sara, in Portofino, Italy. Ted then hides Phillip’s body in the Murphy bed in his apartment. That body is going to be ripe in a few days. I’d hate to be the landlord who discovers that surprise.

Next, we’re introduced to Sara (Senta Berger), Ted’s beautiful American wife. She is a swimming instructor for boys at a recreation center. She’s friends with the boys’ coach, Daniel (Umberto Orsino), who may have a thing for her. Daniel is just a little too nice if you know what I mean. There’s a young street urchin named Luca that Sara has befriended. He likes to take pictures and shove other boys under when he’s trying to win a match. Sara lives a full life and even has a pet dog named Whiskey. She also keeps a chainsaw in her apartment. Perhaps she makes ice sculptures in her spare time.

Ted meets Sara at the train station at the appointed time in the telegram. He walks right past his wife, but a mysterious stranger points her out to him. She’s furious that he didn’t recognize her. Ted explains that he doesn’t know who he is and she says he’s a dirty rotten bastard. Also, Sara didn’t send the telegram. Ted becomes worried that some bad men set up their meeting.

Whiskey, the dog, is found with his throat slit on Sara’s bed. Who kills a dog? Some real sicko. Turns out the mysterious stranger Ted ran into the train station wants a string of white sausages. Rest assured these aren’t sausages, but tubes filled with pure heroin. Turns out Ted set up a drug deal and now his former partners want his cooperation to finish it. Trouble is Ted doesn’t remember anything about the white sausages or does he. Be sure to watch to get to a rather violent conclusion. You didn’t think the director would introduce a chainsaw early on if he didn’t intend to use it.

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Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, and episode 496) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #393: The Girl in Room 2A

19 Friday Aug 2022

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The Curator of Schlock #393 by Jeff Shuster

The Girl in Room 2A

Beware of cults!

The Revenging Manta, the self-appointed defender of downtown Orlando, gave me the skinny on the horrific plans of the crime syndicate known as the Iguana Consortium. I can’t go fully into the details. Let’s just say it involved lollipops, fentanyl, a rubber dinosaur suit, and a ferris wheel. Evil was about to be unleashed on the unsuspecting citizens of Orlando. — To be continued.

This week’s movie is 1974’s The Girl in Room 2A from director William Rose. That name sounds suspect as the director of another fine Giallo from the land of Italy, but what do I know? Hmmmmm. The Italian name of this movie is La Casa della Paura. Let’s check the IMBD. What’s the name of the director? Carlo Campogalliani? I knew it! I knew It! Oh, wait. It looks like it’s just a movie with the same title that came out in 1921. William Rose it is!

What’s the plot of The Girl in Room 2A? A pretty young woman named Margaret Bradley (Daniela Giordano) is released from a woman’s prison or a rehab facility. I’m not sure which. Point is Margaret has a disturbing past. There’s a scene where she goes into why she was sent to prison in the first place, but I zoned out while she was talking. Maybe I was too distracted by the evil cult kidnapping young women and subjecting them to torture and death.

The movie begins with one such kidnapping. A young blonde woman is knocked unconscious and kidnapped only to later get stripped naked and bound. She does her best to escape the blades that keep trying to slice into her through the walls of the small room she’s tied up in. Eventually, a red caped figure donning a red ski mask unties the blonde woman and shoves her into one of the blades. The corpse of the young woman is then rolled off a cliff. I’m sure the police are quite baffled.

Turns out the young blonde woman stayed in the same room at the same halfway house that Margaret finds herself in. Upon entering her new apartment, Margaret lifts up a small rug to find blood seeping through the floorboards. Margaret finds a washcloth in her bathroom, mops up the blood, places the rug back, and goes about her business. I’m sorry, but if you see a giant swath of blood on the floor of your new residence, get the hell out of there!

In another scene, we get to know the cult a bit better. A Mr. Johnson (Frank Latimore) is doing research on the cult for a book he’s writing, but one of the cult leaders, a Mr. Dreese (Raf Vallone), ain’t having it. He tells Mr. Johnson he won’t allow his group to be exploited just to make Johnson a richer man. Dreese then locks him inside a room on one of the upper floors of the old manor house. Later, some cult members enter the room and force Mr. Johnson to burn his hands on a hot railing near a roaring fireplace.

The torture escalates from there. The guy in the red devil outfit starts stabbing Mr. Johnson with a poker. With nowhere to run, Mr. Johnson jumps out a window, falling to his death. The cult then sticks the corpse of Mr. Johnson in his car and sends it careening off a cliff. Funny enough, the car explodes before it hits the ground. It must have been a Ford Pinto. I can’t help, but think that getting forced to jump out a window by a sadomasochistic cult was just a typical Friday night in 1970s Italy. You can catch The Girl in Room 2A streaming for free on Tubi.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, and episode 496) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.