CHERRY, HARRY AND RAQUEL! (1970) ***

Russ Meyer’s Cherry, Harry and Raquel! is the only movie I can think of that starts off with a written plea for the tolerance of free love and sex immediately followed up by a long narration condemning the use and trafficking of marijuana.  I guess Meyer’s work is filled with contradictions, shameless moralizing, and even more shameless nudity.  It’s certainly a lesser work for Meyer, but it still contains enough of his hallmarks to make it worthwhile for fans.  There’s all the rapid-fire editing, Dutch angles, and shots of busty women making love and/or frolicking in the nude against far-reaching vistas that you’ve come to expect from the man.  The results are uneven and spotty, but I’ll be damned if there aren’t some flashes of brilliance here.

Harry (Charles Napier) is a corrupt sheriff who runs reefer out of a pissant desert town.  He keeps two women on the side, a sexy blond hooker named Raquel (Larissa Ely) and a fiery redhead nurse named Cherry (Linda Ashton).  Harry is delayed in the desert when he gets entangled in a vicious gun battle, and his ladies past the time by smoking dope and getting it on with one another.

Cherry, Harry and Raquel! is rather inconsequential and lightweight.  The fragmented, unstructured narrative is frustrating at times, but the highlights are pure Meyer.  Ely goes down on a guy while her wine goblet covers his phallus.  Napier finds Ashton buried in the sand before uncovering her breasts and balling her on the dunes.  Then there’s the scene of Napier fixing a flat tire intercut with a gynecological exam.  It’s bizarre, brazen, and totally Meyer.

I’m not saying it all works.  The random insert shots of Uschi Digard running around naked, showering, and suggestively eating celery doesn’t add up to much of anything, other than to help pad out the running time.  Then again, if you want to pad out the running time, having Uschi Digard roaming through the desert nude for no good reason whatsoever is a good way to go about it.  The overly violent shootout in the desert also feels a bit out of place.  I guess if anything, Meyer was trying to show everyone he could pull off a bloody gun battle just as well as Sam Peckinpah.    

Meyer took his comic book penchant for sex, violence, and overall outrageousness to the nth degree with his next film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls later in the year.

AKA:  Megavixens.  AKA:  Three Ways to Love.

UNINVITED (1988) *** ½

Uninvited is the best mutant-cat-escapes-from-a-genetics-research-lab-and-stows-aboard-a-yacht-carrying-young-spring-breakers-and-old-character-actors-and-picks-them-off-one-by-one movie I’ve ever seen.  It’s longwinded, preposterous, uneven, and downright bizarre, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Believe me when I tell you there is some truly special shit in this flick.  

Remember in Alien when the alien opened its mouth and another mouth jumped out?  Well, when the cat in Uninvited opens its mouth ANOTHER CAT jumps out and mauls the humans.  Incredible.  

This was made by Greydon Clark, who is admittedly all over the map in terms of quality.  Once in a blue moon you get a Black Shampoo from Greydon.  Most times though, it’s something like Angels Revenge.  Thankfully, Uninvited in closer to the Black Shampoo end of the spectrum.  

Probably my favorite moment comes when a kindhearted gas station attendant takes pity on the cat and gives it a saucer of milk.  Minutes later, he is killed by a gunman during a robbery.  What does the cat do?  It stows away in the getaway vehicle and GETS REVENGE!  Holy Shit, is this movie awesome or what?

I haven’t even told you about the scene where it turns guys wearing Jiffy Pop colored hazmat suits into hamburger.  Or the part where Clu Gulager (who’s sporting a pair of hilarious fake teeth and some serious Coke bottle glasses) pisses it off and it tears him a new one.  Or the elongated aerobicizing scene.  (“I think you’re better than Jane Fonda!”)  Or the scene where Sheri Shattuck eats food tainted with radioactive cat blood and her throat erupts in bloody sores quicker than you can say Meow Mix.  

It’s PG-13, so the make-out scenes between the teens don’t feature any nudity.  That’s okay though because the scene of cat-us interruptus is classic.  It also contains one of the greatest white-teens-with-no-rhythm-trying-to-dance scenes of the ‘80s.

Sure, the third act is a mess, especially during the cat-less portions.  I won’t even bring up the fact that even though it was released in 1988, it looks like it was filmed in ’81.  Just do me a favor.  Before you sit down to watch Uninvited, ask yourself one question:  Am I the kind of person who wants to see George Kennedy’s Achilles torn out by a demon Muppet cat?  If the answer is a resounding “FUCK YEAH!”, then you’re sure to have a great time.

AKA:  Killer Cat.

THE GIRLS FROM THUNDER STRIP (1970) *

Director David L. Hewitt has made some movies that were so spectacularly bad that they became instant classics (like The Mighty Gorga).  He’s also made some that were just plain bad (like The Wizard of Mars).  The Girls from Thunder Strip falls into the latter category.

   

Three bikers get their kicks by raping and humiliating women.  The only thing they hate more than women is hillbilly gas station attendants.  A tussle with one such hillbilly ends in the accidental death of the gang’s biker mama.  The sheriff promptly shows up and throws them in jail. 

Meanwhile, Casey Kasem (!!!) is a government agent trying to bust a trio of sisters who bootleg moonshine.  The sisters wind up busting out the bikers to help them battle the cops.  Naturally, the try to have their way with the sisters, which leads to a biker vs. moonshiner war.

The Girls from Thunder Strip plays like a mash-up of the biker, redneck, and moonshine genres.  There are scenes of biker stomping, prison breaks, and Good Ol’ Boy-style car chases accompanied by banjo music.  In fact, there is a LOT of banjo music in this movie.  You’ll probably get a headache from the constant, merciless, unending banjo picking.

This often feels schizophrenic.  It tries to cover too many genres and never does any of them justice.  The plot starts off incoherently and only gets worse as it goes along.  The tone is all out of whack too.  This is the only movie I can think of that contains a vicious rape scene and then twenty minutes later, Casey Kasem falls victim to a Bugs Bunny-style explosion that leaves him comically standing around in a daze with scorched clothing.

The ending is the pits though.  After a long foot chase (cue the banjos!), our hillbilly hero corners the biker leader into a cave.  Then, there’s a closeup of a stuffed bobcat, followed by the sounds of screaming and growling.  I guess this was supposed to signify the biker being killed by the bobcat, but the editing is so piss-poor it’s hard to tell what the hell happened.  It’s pathetic.

Hewitt’s next attempt at the biker genre, The Tormentors, was a lot better.

MAJOR LEAGUE: BACK TO THE MINORS (1998) ***

I put off seeing Major League:  Back to the Minors for… oh… twenty years, mostly under the assumption that it would suck without the presence of both Charlie Sheen and Tom Berenger.  I mean, how are you going to make a Major League movie with only Corbin Bernsen, Dennis Haysbert, and the C squad of players from Major League 2?  The addition of primarily TV talent in major roles such as Scott Bakula and Ted McGinley didn’t help to combat the feeling that this was going to be nothing but a DTV sequel that somehow got released theatrically by mistake.

Then not too long ago while perusing IMDB, I saw that Walton Goggins, everyone’s favorite bad guy from Justified had an early role in it as a brash young ballplayer and it sparked my interest.  I don’t know if it was the twenty years of low expectations or what, but it only took about twenty minutes for me to get into the groove of Back to the Minors.  Sure, it doesn’t quite measure up to its predecessors, but it’s a solid sequel that showed the franchise wasn’t quite dead.

Bakula plays Gus, a washed-up pitcher who resorts to using frozen baseballs to get batters out.  Former Indian Roger Dorn (Bernsen) is now the owner of the Twins and signs him up to mentor a hotheaded ballplayer (Goggins) on their minor league squad.  The big leagues Twins manager (McGinley) constantly makes fun of Gus, which leads to a drunken bet as to whose team is the best.

This builds up to a minor league vs. big league playoff game, which is unique.  It’s hard to say how believable it would be (and if it did happen, it would probably occur during the pre-season and not when the teams are still in contention), but it does give this entry a different flavor than the other films in the series.  It’s here where it sort of becomes an underdog movie like Rocky (there’s even a big rematch) than your standard baseball flick, which is refreshing.

The performances really sell it.  I don’t know why I ever doubted Bakula.  He’s always been a solid performer who deserved to be a bigger star.  He’s immensely likeable as the down and out manager and he and Bernsen have a few funny scenes together.  It’s fun catching up with the various players from the other movies (not to mention Bob Uecker); even if some of their gimmicks are past their expiration date.  The new additions to the cast are fun though, and Goggins fares well as the hotheaded slugger in desperate need of guidance.  I also enjoyed seeing Friday the 13^th Part 8:  Jason Takes Manhattan’s Jensen Daggett as Bakula’s love interest.  

It’s Peter Mackenzie as “Doc” the pitcher with the slowest fastball on record who gets the best line of the movie when he goes to a greasy burger stand and tries to order a salad.  When he learns they only have three salad dressings, he tells the waiter, “You know, just bring me a gun so I can shoot myself.”

THE LEGEND OF WITCH HOLLOW (1969) ** ½

A young girl is killed, strung up, marked with weird symbols (in blood, of course), and drained of her blood in the swamp.  She’s just one of eight girls who’ve been killed over the past two years.  Anthony Eisley is a journalist who follows a team of psychics into the swamp to see if they can find the killer.  The culprit is Luther the Berserk (John Lodge), who is in league with a witch (Warrene Ott) who’s plotting to make herself young again.  They also want to control the body of the beautiful young “sensitive” psychic (Thordis Brandt) and force her to pledge allegiance to their dark lord.

The Legend of Witch Hollow is amusing in that it shows so much skin, but never quite pushes the envelope into out and out nudity.  I have never seen so many bare backs, cleavage, and legs, and no actual nipples, bushes, or butt cracks.  It even resorts to using some Austin Powers-type of tricks to cover the nudity, which is simultaneously funny and frustrating.  

Some parts might remind you of Jess Franco making an Al Adamson movie (or vice versa), but other parts have their own unique charm about them.  There’s some genuine atmosphere here, like when Luther calls upon the witch, the scene where the professor holds a seance, and the various midnight strolls by girls wearing flimsy lingerie as walk through the misty moonlit swamp.  I also like the unintentionally funny running gag of the professor being forced to bury the bodies of his dead students.  

It sits on its hands a bit too long in the middle section, but occasionally it springs to life.  The finale is particularly memorable.  It’s the only movie I can think of that ends with a raucous Satanist feast, whipping, blood drinking, a sorcerer shooting fireballs from his fingertips, a chase through a swamp, and a naked woman drowning in quicksand.  The thrills in the rest of the picture are much too fitful and intermittent to qualify this as “good”.  On the other hand, I’m certainly glad I saw it, even if it didn’t exactly cast a spell on me.  

Producers Alvy Moore and L.Q. Jones later made A Boy and His Dog together.

AKA:  The Witchmaker.  AKA:  The Naked Witch.  AKA:  Witchkill.

CHINA SALESMAN (2018) ½ *

Mike Tyson is slowly carving out quite a movie career for himself.  After his funny cameo as himself in The Hangover, he went on to have memorable roles in action flicks like Ip Man 3 and Kickboxer:  Retaliation.  His appearances were the highlights of both of those films, and based on those performances alone, I was genuinely curious to see when and where he’d pop up next.  When I heard he was going to fight Steven Seagal in China Salesman, I knew I had to see it.  I just wasn’t prepared for… this.

Admittedly, China Salesman has a great set-up.  Say what you will about it, it doesn’t make you wait long to see the fight between Seagal and Tyson.  Five minutes in, Seagal offers him a drink at his bar.  When Tyson refuses, he sends some muscle-bound dudes to force Iron Mike to drink a mug of piss.  After mopping the floor with them, he then fights Seagal.

I have seen some shitty fight scenes in a Steven Seagal movie in my time, but this might be the worst.  Okay, maybe not the WORST.  It’s certainly the biggest disappointment in terms of squandered potential.  

It looks from the ham-fisted editing that Seagal and Tyson weren’t even on set at the same time during filming of the fight scene.  The use of odd and obvious CGI in simple camera set-ups (it looks like there’s a blur in between them at times) is painfully apparent, as is the flagrant use of stunt doubles for both men.  The funniest moment is when Seagal gets punched and it looks like a CGI flinch has been added in post-production.  We do get one great bit where Tyson punches a barrel that explodes on contact, but that is the only legitimately cool moment.  

Anyway, Seagal is an arms dealer who owns a bar in Uganda.  If you’re wondering what Seagal showed up to the party, it’s Yellow-Tinted Sunglasses, Goatee, and Scarf Seagal.  Tyson is a Ugandan militant.  When he tries to do a Ugandan accent, the results offer one of the few laughs of the entire movie.  (“We must avenge them BLLLUUUUDD for BLLLUUUUDD!”)

If this was a Casablanca type of movie with Seagal as Bogey owning a café in a war-torn stretch of land with Tyson acting as his ersatz Claude Rains, it would’ve been okay.  However, the title of this movie is China Salesman and if you haven’t already guessed, neither of them are salesmen, nor are they Chinese.  

No, the main thrust of the story revolves around a Chinese salesman (Dong-xue Li) trying to establish a tech contract for 3G cellphone towers in Uganda.  Of course, there are other nations who don’t want the Chinese to win the contract and will stop at nothing to prevent the salesman from doing his job (even causing civil war).  The first half involves a lot of industrial espionage (including Tyson hiding in the shadows taking pictures), board meetings, and construction site management.  The second half, in which the salesman becomes the hero of the Uganda revolution is even worse.  

The moment when the movie resorts to LITERAL flag waving, I pretty much gave up on it.  The problem was, at that point, there was still an hour left to go.

Whenever Tyson and Seagal are on screen together, the movie at least has an irresistibly cheesy vibe.  Too bad they’re barely in it.  In fact, if you turn it off right after their opening brawl, you’ll be a lot better off.

AKA:  Chinese Salesman.  AKA:  Deadly Contract.  AKA:  Tribal Warfare.

PRIME EVIL: LAST HOUSE ON MASSACRE STREET (1973) *** ½

Barbara (Robin Strasser) is madly in love with David (Arthur Roberts).  Her rich father (John Beal) doesn’t want her to marry David, but she does so against his wishes.  On their wedding day, Barbara catches David in the arms of his ex-girlfriend (Iva Jean Saraceni).  She stabs him with a pair of scissors, destroys the wedding cake, and takes off.  Barbara’s father insists David not divorce her (you know, that whole “for better or for worse” thing), but after her disappearance he grows restless.  He shacks up with his old girlfriend and soon, the two begin receiving threatening phone calls and having weird dreams where the cackling bride endlessly torments them. 

The first twenty minutes of Last House on Massacre Street (which, let’s face it, is one of the coolest titles ever) would make a great contained short film.  It stands on its own as a nifty piece of exploitation filmmaking with a potent set-up and an even better punchline.  What’s surprising is that director Jean-Marie Pelisse (who unfortunately never made another movie) deftly maintains the same level of atmosphere throughout.  Most directors would run out of gas after the spectacular first act.  Pelisse is somehow able to keep the suspense brewing while the film spins off into wilder, weirder directions.

The third act contains a twist that veers into the realm of the supernatural.  Now, a lot of films wouldn’t have been able to survive this sort of sudden turn.  Incredibly enough, this one defies the odds and manages to get even better as it goes along.  Last House on Massacre Street is the rare flick that actually lives up to its junky exploitation title.  It’s an eerie and effective little chiller I won’t soon forget, and one that deserves to be better known. 

AKA:  The Bride.  AKA:  The House That Cried Murder.  AKA:  No Way Out.  AKA:  Scream.  

You can find Last House on Massacre Street streaming on Prime for free here:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C353T8K?ref_=imdbref_tt_wbr_piv&tag=imdbtag_tt_wbr_piv-20