Trashy Triple Bill Mark 2
Ah spring is here, when a young man’s mind turns to love and even the most jaded of us can find solace in……oh bollocks, who am I kidding. Spring is crap; it’s too cold most of the time and too wet the other. People just get overly excited because they haven’t seen the sun for five months, scrambling into the high streets like recently unearthed mole people. I think it’s the fact that from the first moment of sunshine you will begin to observe idiots walking around in shorts and sunglasses, t-shirts and other such gaudy summer wear. It’s still cold and wet you idiots, just slightly sunnier. As I type this, I am beginning to realise that I’m about two steps from getting a cane and twatting people on the ankles with it as I make my way through town. This would suit me just fine, but my good lady forbade it. Still, the seemingly endless wet afternoons are proving great for actually getting some solid work done, whilst leaving sufficient time in the evening to squeeze a few movies in. This brings us to our latest Trashy Triple Bill. Easing us into the evening was a bit of pseudo feminist fluff from 1958’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. You will probably already know the artwork for this, as it was recently hijacked and put onto handbags and sold in overpriced 50’s style shops where girls can buy lots of crap with Audrey Hepburn on it having never actually watched any of her movies. The film itself, however, is a delightful little slice of B-Pie. Running at just over 60 minutes, it reinforces the idea that you can tell a good story in less than a three hour running time (something that has been causing me great despair at the cinemas for years now). Introduced by a news bulletin giving reports of a satellite being spotted in several parts of the world, we are thrown into a suburban town in the Californian desert. A young woman, renowned as an alcoholic about the town, remains one of the most influential and affluent figures within the small community and so she is generally accommodated in her eccentricities. Her husband is a sleazebag who is having a bit of ring a ding with a local tramp, holding her in a dingy hotel room where he conducts his affair. His wife is very much aware of his philanderer’s ways and turns a blind eye as best she can. Taking off after an argument, she drives into the desert where she meets a giant orb, containing a giant hairy man. In fits of delirious screaming she returns to the town and is swaddled up and sent off to bed, the blame being put squarely on the sauce. Short story shortened, she takes off to find this orb again, is radiated and turns into, well you can guess. It is the underlying examination of a relationship breakdown and the roles of each character that makes this a truly remarkable piece of filmmaking, it harkens a time when a piece of bubblegum cinema could address issues with a certain degree of dignity. Top marks, onto the next picture. From the beginning of no budget Australian flick Lost Things, I was sceptical, it starred and appeared to be written by teenagers. Two horrible blond twats go a weekend holiday with two incredibly unfortunate looking girls (One resembles the imagined offspring of Charlie Brooker and Winston Churchill, I kid you not.) in the hope of catching some surf, sun and STD’S. The first half is unbelievable drek, but stick with it for the second part offers some nicely written ideas (albeit horrendously executed). It has some unique concepts and plays them up nicely, the violence is awful but the suspense and genuine intrigue that arises in the latter half means that I will go out on a limb and say yes, give it a go. A warning though, there is topless scenes involving the Brooker/Churchill thing. This proved very enjoyable and we even built a new desk during the shit half, so if you want a film that will spurn the desire for late night drunken DIY then you could do a lot worse than Lost Things. The final instalment of our latest trash triple was Switchblade Sisters (1975). This was just pure unadulterated fun, a gang of vicious teenage girls (including one with an eye patch!) swagger their way around the town beating up nasty men types. The real fun starts when you meet the gang’s male counterparts and then the film goes into weird Grease style territory. It all becomes about high school, except with gangs that chain whip people. As an exploitation piece, it’s very tame, so would make a good starting point for those who wish to introduce themselves or others into the genre. It would be far more successful than closing the curtains on a sunny day and making new visitors to the house watch the uncut version of Cannibal Holocaust with the sound turned on full. It’s a camp, colourful take on it, with nice cutaway techniques when any of the unpleasant stuff starts to happen. Not the best exploitation movie I have seen in a long time, but definitely one with the potential to entice and evoke curiosity in a newcomer to the wonderful world of trash. I’m having a bit of a Troma week here in the hamster’s lair, so some truly horrendous celluloid discharge will be reviewed over the next few days. Now, as it’s sunny I’m going into town, with my stick to see if I can trip up some young idiot with a haircut. Bye for now.
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