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Reviews
Pink Angels (1971)
Fails to deliver on any level
If you've ever been curious about the idea of this film, do yourself a big favour and forget all about it. Just spend a few seconds thinking of possible scenarios for a quote, 'gay biker film', unquote, and if you came up with anything at all involving kinky sex and violence, ass-kickin' homo hells angels, or conflict of ANY kind whatsoever, you've already imagined more than this lame duck delivers in 80 painfully unfunny minutes. There are some obscure movies that really and truly deserve their obscurity, and I don't say that lightly - I love Andy Milligan's movies, OK? I've watched some tired excuses for cinema in my time but this is one to make you despair. If it was made by a gay or gay-friendly director I'd be shocked, so pathetic and wit-free is the result. And if it was made by some nitwit homophobe who thinks a guy in a dress is just the most hilarious thing ever, it's still not worth getting steamed up about - a lynching at the end of the pic might have been offensive if the film had the balls to make you feel anything, but anyway it's more likely some ultra-lame attempt to mimic the end of 'Easy Rider'. So to recap: biker fans, don't waste your time, there are no good fighting or screwing scenes, no 'stickin' it to authority figures' scenes, and no freaked out weird camera fish-eye lens 'trip' scenes.... and gay viewers, same as above plus there are no 'gay bikers kick the s*** out of rednecks/straights/squares' scenes, no laughs and no, repeat no 'sleazy bikers seduce drunken college jocks' scenes. End of public service announcement!
Epitaph (1987)
Implausible but fun - in a cheesy sort of way
The main problem with this film - which isn't as amateurishly made as some I've seen - is the writing. The crazy mother's actions are just too implausibly tolerated by her family. Her husband says he loves her but you'd be hard pressed to understand why, as she's just an aggressive, screwed up bitch most of the time. Her family stay loyal even as she becomes a threat to them all, but at least this means she gets to go further and further over the top, which is what the film really wants to do. If you hate movies where people doggedly refuse to act in their own best interests then this one will drive you up the wall. But casting aside these criticisms there's a lurid, cheesy quality to the film, thanks to the shameless over-acting of the mother, and the 'Mommy Dearest' aspects of her relationship with her daughter. Fans of the TV show 'Absolutely Fabulous' should see this as it's like a trash-horror variation, even down to the doddering grandmother and dowdy sensible daughter, whilst the mad mother plays like a mixture of Edeena and Patsy from that show! And it deserves mention as a film whose set piece is a stab at that classic rat, bucket and blowtorch trick so beloved of torturers with a history degree...
Memorial Valley Massacre (1988)
The death of stupid characters is relaxing to watch...
I saw this 80s slasher on British video as 'Valley of Death' and it's one of those flicks where everyone is so naff and stupid the reason to keep watching is to see how many of them die horribly. Unfortunately the violence is a bit too restrained, which is a problem because the stupidity rating of the characters is high - all the cliches are here, the obnoxious fat kid, a pair of poodle-haired teenage hoodlums and a gang of acting school rejects trying to be tough bikers. The girls are old-school, i.e. they don't tool up and try to be Sigourney Weaver as soon as there's a threat. The main problem is with the maniac who's stalking them - he's obviously like the cannibal killers in 'The Hills Have Eyes', but instead it looks more like Cindi Lauper designed him. Not very threatening! But if you need a dumb campsite murder flick to end the night with, it's bearable and you can enjoy the formula even if it could do with some nastier payoffs.
The Child (1977)
Zombies sneak up on unsuspecting viewers
We've all seen Night of the Living Dead and Dawn, and Day... most of us have seen Lucio Fulci's zombies, and some will have ventured into the Manchester Morgue... but if you like the zombie subgenre best check out The Child, a movie with a mid-seventies homemade feel, which springs some scary groping monsters on the camera in the last twenty minutes, and packs the rest of the running time with strange music, weird camera angles and warped acting as well. They really don't make them like this any more. The acting feels like the attempts of a schizo to pass for normal on a bad day. There's no attempt at realism because dry ice wafts around as soon as the heroine crashes her old-fashioned car at the start of the film. Old ladies who should just be side-line characters hog the script with eccentric non-actor habits. The camera tilts like a sick sailor. The music is Liberace vamping for Lon Chaney's stage show, alongside a deranged scorpion on a synthesizer keyboard. The story and characters are almost non-existent (although the lead female has 'problems'). It's like a fever dream before a scriptwriting session - better than a script, in other words. It refuses to become a normal movie and that makes it special. Watch it late at night but not too late...
Lisa, Lisa (1977)
Makes cinema worth the trouble
There are a few strange films out there - they don't play by the rules and oh dear perhaps they lack the forward motion most people expect from a story -... but so what -- if you catch them at the right time of night they can take you somewhere special, unlike ordinary films which take you no further than their accountant's ambition. Axe is a weird little drama, ambient nastiness with no real pay-off as such but it haunts you, from the nagging beautiful amateur synth theme tune to the nothing plot and the artistic vagueness that envelops the story. I wish these sorts of films were more celebrated because there's something different going on. It's not a narrative with anything to prove but it stays around, lingering, like a dream you almost forgot but not quite. Friedel made another oddball movie, Date with a Kidnapper, and it's another dreamy exercise in sideways storytelling. All hail an American original!
The Centerfold Girls (1974)
They don't make 'em like this anymore!
This is the sort of film that has you wishing you could time-travel back to the heyday of the drive-ins to catch it in its ideal environment. Scary, tight lipped Andrew Prine plays a murderous psychopath working his way through a bunch of pretty girls, whose only 'sin' is to have modelled for a sexy calendar. Well-shot, well-acted, but it's the doom-laden mood and oddball structure that makes Centerfold Girls stand out - three stories about three girls linked only through their encounters with the killer, sort of like Pulp Fiction without the self-congratulation. Should be sought after by anyone who likes the darker, stranger drive-in fare of the 70s.