THE INVITATION (1975) ** ½

Invitation to Ruin has one of the greatest trailers of all time.  It has appeared on several trailer compilations over the years, which is where I first heard of it.  Apparently, the original version is a lost film.  However, its memory lives on in this XXX version, which was prepared seven years later by actor Roger Gentry, who shot new scenes, added hardcore inserts, and re-released it as The Invitation.  Despite the awesome trailer, the movie itself leaves something to be desired (although it’s unfair to judge it properly in this form), but it’s so grimy and warped that it almost works as anti-porn.

A ladies’ man named Jerry (Roger Gentry) is hired by Pulaski (Moe Weise) to act as a “talent scout” for his white slavery operation.  (“They’re not hookers!  Hookers draw the line at some point.  Not my girls!”)  Jerry’s job is to woo these unsuspecting women and lure them with the promise of marriage before they are kidnapped and sold into slavery.  Naturally, it’s only a matter of time before Jerry falls for Pulaski’s daughter (Kathy Williams).  Incensed, Pulaski forces Jerry to confront the dirty side of the business, introducing him to Moma Lupo (Bertha Bigg), the ugly, scarred, tongueless warden who conditions the girls through sex, torture, and heroin. 

The Invitation is a sometimes-despicable roughie.  It’s cheap, exploitative, and would probably only be a turn-on for the most depraved viewer.  I mean that as a compliment, believe it or not.  It takes some doing to make me shake my head in disbelief, so bravo to Gentry and company for that.

However, in this version, the narrative is often choppy and sometimes confusing as it hops back and forth between narrators.  That’s mostly due to the blending of new and old footage.  It ultimately jumps around too much to flow smoothly and seamlessly.

This wouldn’t be an issue if the hardcore scenes were steamy.  There are some memorable moments along the way, but overall, they vary wildly in quality and length.  (Some appear randomly on a TV, which is supposed to represent security footage… or something.)  The ones that work best are the three-way sequences.  (Get a load of the “sheik” in the hot tub scene.)  Even then, they aren’t all that great.  The hateful dialogue is memorable though. 

The Invitation is rough in patches, especially early on, but things perk up once the character of Moma Lupo is introduced.  The torture sequence set to the library music from Night of the Living Dead, is rather shocking and effective.  Unfortunately, it takes a nosedive in quality shortly thereafter.  If it ended a good ten minutes sooner, it might’ve skated by with a *** rating.  However, after the plot feels like it’s wrapped itself up, it continues needlessly on for another reel or so.  In fact, the climax is so shoddily edited that it should be used in film schools to teach prospective filmmakers how NOT to end a movie.

I know the trailers are usually better than the movies themselves, but I can’t help but be a little disappointed in The Invitation after having such a great trailer and all.  It’s not all bad though.  It’s just that I can’t say it works as a whole.  What I can say is that’s just mean-spirited enough to stand out from the glut of grindhouse roughies of the era.  

AKA:  Invitation to Ruin. 

SUPERZAN AND THE SPACE BOY (1973) **

A young spaceman comes to Earth to share his knowledge with mankind.  Unfortunately, the first guy he runs into is a mad scientist who wants to pervert his gifts and use it to take over the world.  It’s then up to the Mexican luchador and crimefighter Superzan to help the Space Boy and stop the mad doctor’s evil scheme. 

I’m familiar with Superzan thanks to his supporting appearances in the Blue Demon films, The Triumph of the Champions of Justice and Mansion of the Seven Mummies.  This is a rare solo outing from the Mexican wrestler.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t wrestle in this one.  To add insult to injury, he doesn’t even show up until the movie is halfway over.  Unlike El Santo or Blue Demon, Superzan is a legit superhero (at least in this movie) and can actually FLY!  The flying scenes are pretty funny as it looks like Superzan just laid horizontally on a ladder while some production assistants ran hair dryers under his cape to make it flap in the wind.

It also didn’t help that the version I saw didn’t have subtitles.  Because of that, I couldn’t exactly tell what the bad guy’s machine did.  For all I know, if anyone stands underneath of it, it miraculously gives them the ability to wear a flashy pantsuit complete with snazzy cape.  The fight scenes alternate from under-rehearsed to sloppy to downright laughable.  It almost always looks like they used the first take.

Once Superzan finally shows up, the film picks up considerably.  There’s a scene where he gets ran over by the villain’s car, but he gets right back up no worse for wear.  He also uses a freeze gun at one point.  Too bad the movie grinds to a halt whenever he isn’t on screen. 

The golden-faced Space Boy is OK, I guess.  He speaks telepathically, which leads to lots of scenes of people standing around while echo-y voices are heard on the soundtrack.  This is initially good for a laugh, but it quickly grows tiresome as the flick lumbers on.

In short, Superzan and the Space Boy is far from what you would call “out of this world”.

THE VAMPIRE RAIDERS (1988) ***

The Vampire Raiders is an entertaining slice of Godfrey Ho and Tomas Tang lunacy.  As is par for the course with their films, it’s really two movies that have been edited together in slapdash fashion to make a “new" flick.  This practice usually yields uneven results, but this one just might be their weirdest one yet. 

This Eric Clapton lookalike wants to bring the hotel industry to its knees.  In order to do so, he must kidnap a hotel bigwig.  He knows that the Purple Ninja Clan are just itching to foil his plans, so he hires out for protection in the form of some hopping Chinese vampires. 

I have seen some shit and I have seen some shit.  The shit I seen in The Vampire Raiders just might take the cake.  In one scene, without warning, a giant pig is thrown off the roof of a building and lands on an elderly couple.  Then, the pig explodes, and a vampire emerges.  If you and I saw that in our everyday life, it would probably scar us till the end of our days, but the heroes in this movie just sort of shrug it off. 

I guess it takes a lot to shock a Ninja.

Someone who is unnerved by all of this is a trio of hotel switchboard operators who act as the heroines in the “second” movie.  One even says, “Pigs just don’t fall off the tops of buildings!”  You got that right, sister.

When people ask when will Godfrey Ho make a coherent movie, the answer usually is, “When pigs fly”.  Well… here we are. 

Admittedly, the rest of the movie isn’t quite as demented as that scene, but there are some definite highlights along the way.  We get a fun bit where a lady Ninja’s suntanning session is interrupted by a handsy vampire.  There’s also an attack by zombies who have Mr. Fantastic arms.  One of the idiots thinks the only thing that can stop a zombie is virgin piss (?!?), so he gets his buddy to pee in a jar.  Needless to say, it doesn’t go as planned.

The Vampire Raiders is far from what the AFI would call a “good” movie, but it’s a lot of fun.  I will say the Ninja stuff isn’t nearly as entertaining as the vampire scenes though.  Still, this is probably one of Ho’s best (and by best, I mean “jaw-droppingly weird”). 

AKA:  Vampire Raiders vs. Ninja Queen.  AKA:  Vampire Raiders:  Ninja Queen. 

THE JAR (1984) ** ½

Paul (Gary Wallace) gets into a car accident and brings the old man (Les Miller) he hit back home to his apartment.  Not only is the dude weird as shit, he’s also carrying a strange jar and won’t let it out of his sight.  When he disappears suddenly, he leaves the jar behind, which contains a little demon baby.  Paul naturally tries to get rid of the jar several times, but it ominously keeps coming back.  Pretty soon, he starts having bizarre visions, loses track of time, and has trouble distinguishing reality from illusion. 

The Jar is a weird fucking movie.  It’s very amateurish in some spots, but downright effective in other stretches.  It almost feels like David Lynch directed a Frank Henenlotter film.  There are also some moments that might have influenced Jacob’s Ladder too, which came out six years later.  (There’s a Vietnam flashback.)

He might not have any other credits on IMDb, but director Bruce Toscano gets a lot of mileage from just a handful of locations and is able to create some unsettling atmosphere with just a shoestring budget.  We also get a good performance by Wallace (who, like Toscano, has no other credits) in the lead.  In some of his scenes, he reminded me of Bruce Campbell in the first Evil Dead, as his character goes through Hell mentally and physically, but gamely keeps plugging along. 

There are many positive things I can say about The Jar that can’t be said for many low budget horror movies.  The problem is that after our hero is left alone with the jar, things become increasingly predictable and repetitive.  (The ending is a foregone conclusion.)  The thing in the jar is pretty cheap looking too.  (It resembles a pickled Ghoulie.)  However, the horror comes from the mental chaos it creates, and not the monster itself.  Ultimately, Toscano is unable to string that feeling along throughout a feature length running time. 

In fact, there are some scenes in the film that are in black and white for no good reason whatsoever.  This leads me to suspect it might’ve started life as a short and was later expanded.  If that was the case, it’s better than many similar movies of its kind.  That’s still not quite enough of a recommendation to make it a must-see, but it works most of the time.

CAULDRON OF BLOOD (1971) ** ½

This horror chiller starts with a great title sequence that features some Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein-inspired animation.  Halfway through the credits, there is a freeze frame on a skull for what feels like an eternity.  The music continues, but there are no titles flashing on the screen.  This went on so long I thought my Roku crapped out on me.  Just when I was about to get up to grab the remote, the skull’s head suddenly popped open, giving me a slight jolt.  Kudos to the credits people who designed that effective bit. 

A photographer (Jean-Pierre Aumont) comes to a small village to do a story on a reclusive blind sculptor named Franz (Boris Karloff).  Little does he know his wife (Viveca Lindfors) has been using the bones of her murder victims as the armatures in his sculptures.  Once Franz realizes his wife is a deranged murderess (and an adulterer too), he puts his foot down and tries to put a stop to her deadly game.

Cauldron of Blood kind of plays like a loose remake of A Bucket of Blood.  Only this time the sculptor uses bones under his clay instead of whole bodies.  (Who needs a bucket when you got a whole cauldron?)  The idea of a blind sculptor is pretty funny, but they wisely don’t play it for laughs. 

It’s not successful overall, but it’s quirky and watchable.  Whenever things threaten to get too dull, something weird will happen to give you the confidence to continue to plow through.  I think my favorite bit was the dream sequence that featured Nazi torture, kaleidoscopic effects, and a melting face.  The odd freeze frames and random cutaways to lightning striking during the other horrific scenes makes me think this might have been cut to get its PG rating.  Then again, there’s also a little bit of nudity in there too, so who knows?

This was one of Karloff’s final performances, as it was made shortly before the quartet of Mexican quickies that proved to be his swan song.  Lindfors does most of the heavy lifting as the feeble Boris mostly sits around wearing oversized sunglasses.  She’s pretty entertaining to watch though, so it’s a reasonable enough trade-off.

Sure, Cauldron of Blood drags, but then again so did every other fucking movie I watched this week.  Despite that, it’s got personality, an offbeat vibe, and a pretty gnarly climax.  There are worse Karloff quickies out there, that’s for sure.

AKA:  Blind Man’s Bluff.  AKA:  Children of Blood.  AKA:  Death Comes for the Dark.  AKA:  The Corpse Collectors.  AKA:  The Shrinking Corpse.

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: GRETEL AND HANSEL (2020) *

I guess you can tell by the title, Gretel and Hansel, that this is going to be one of those deals where they try to flip the script and elevate the female character’s role in an already well-established story.  That probably isn’t the worst idea in the world given that they cast It’s Sophia Lillis as Gretel.  They also made her significantly older than the brat playing Hansel, so she basically has to do all the heavy lifting.  In fact, I’m not even sure why they bothered putting Hansel’s name in the title to be honest.

Unfortunately, this is one of those movies that tried to ride the coattails of The VVitch.  Like that flick, it’s got a nice sense of time and setting, but it’s mostly a big bore.  Sure, the opening scene, which looks a little inspired by The Holy Mountain is cool, but it’s all downhill from there. 

That sequence also serves as an origin story for the witch, played by Alice Krige.  That is about as perfect casting as you can get.  Unfortunately, just like The VVitch, everyone talks in hushed tones and whispers, so it’s hard to hear what they’re all going on about half the time, so it makes it hard for her to build up a sense of menace. 

Also, there’s no candy house.  What the fuck?  That’s like making a Sleeping Beauty movie and beauty don’t go to sleep.  They don’t even fuck around with breadcrumbs either.  There is a scene where they get high AF on mushrooms though.  The witch even turns Gretel against Hansel at one point because… fuck the patriarchy?  I guess.  You know, you can only change so much stuff about Hansel and Gretel (or Gretel and Hansel) until at some point it stops being Hansel and Gretel.

Another dumb thing:  Gretel somehow has Jedi powers too.  I guess that’s the Force Awakens influence.  Or something.

The movie was directed by Osgood Perkins.  (More like OsBAD Perkins, am I right?)  He is none other than the son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins.  As for as directorial efforts from the Perkins bloodline go, this ain’t no Psycho 3 that’s for damned sure. 

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: SKIN: A HISTORY OF NUDITY IN THE MOVIES (2020) ****

I probably saw more documentaries in 2020 than I have in a long time.  That was mostly because cinematic pickings were kind of slim, thanks to the pandemic.  However, this year’s crop of docs just sort of spoke to me.  Dangerous theme parks?  Drugs?  The Bee Gees?  The Go-Go’s?  Sure, why not?  I’ll check out a movie about those subjects. 

Now, here comes a documentary that REALLY speaks to me.  Skin:  A History of Nudity in the Movies is exactly what you think it is.  It’s a lot of stars, historians, and film critics taking you on a nude romp down mammary (err… memory) lane and celebrating Hollywood’s infatuation with nudity.  We learn that nudity in movies practically began with the movies themselves.  They started off in small indie productions before slowly creeping into big budget studio films.  The Hays Code put a stop to all that in 1934, so Hollywood had to come up with clever ways to sneak risqué stuff past the censors.  Things lighten up a little bit thanks to the nudist camp pictures and nudie-cuties of the ‘60s.  Eventually once major stars like Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren star in movies topless, it paves the way for nudity in film as we know it today. 

There is a good variety of talking heads throughout.  We hear from everyone who made the movies (like Joe Dante) to the people who starred in them (like Sybil Danning) to the people who watched them (like David Del Valle).  We also hear from the authority on nudity himself, Mr. Skin.  If you think Mr. Skin is cool, wait till you see the guy they have on here named Professor Kuntz!  Although… I don’t think it’s a pseudonym like “Mr. Skin”.  I think it’s his real name.

Anyway, a lot of this will be an old hat if you know your film history, but it’s still fun to see it trotted out again.  What makes it so engaging is that it is scholarly to a point, but not so much so that it can’t embrace the wild side of cinema that you and I enjoy so well.  I mean any movie that shows clips from The Monster of Camp Sunshine, Kiss Me Quick, and Orgy of the Dead in rapid succession is just catering to my tastes. 

Editor Steven L. Austin deserves some kind of award for his ingenious cutting.  How can you not love a documentary that follows up the harrowing nude scenes of The Last Tango in Paris with scenes from the Women in Prison classic, The Big Doll House?  I think my favorite moment was when they go from the schlocky werewolf orgy in The Howling 2 to the tender lesbian lovemaking in Personal Best within a span of a single edit.  That is some Oscar-worthy editing right there.

Austin is also smart enough to include moments from some of the most iconic scenes in screen history.  And by that, I mean Betsy Russell’s topless horseback riding scene in Private School, Traci Lords’ nude scene in Not of This Earth, and Julianne Moore’s bush in Short Cuts.  If that alone isn’t enough to sell you on this movie, you probably don’t have a pulse.