NAKED CAME THE STRANGER (1975) ***

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DASHCAM (2022) ***

Dashcam is the best Shaky Cam Horror Movie ever made.  Even though there are several instances where the camera is way too damn shaky, it does contain one or two effective jump scares, which is more than I can say for all the films in the genre combined.  (The best one involves an airbag.)  Like most Shaky Cam flicks, it is slow to start.  However, what makes this one the pinnacle of the form is that once it gets going, the action never lets up.  (The “Hall of Mirrors” sequence in particular, is a real banger.)

Unlike We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, we are supposed to hate our heroine, Annie Hardy (herself).  In fact, it’s almost comical the way the movie stacks the deck against her.  Not only does she have her own livestream where she raps while driving, she’s also a MAGA lover who refuses to wear her mask during the pandemic.  You just can’t wait to see her get her just desserts.  

And boy, does she ever.  In the last two acts of the movie, she gets coated in blood, vomit, rain, mud, feces, and God knows what else.  Dare I say it’s reminiscent of Ash in The Evil Dead the way the movie puts her through the ringer.  It’s not nearly as good, mind you, but certainly reminiscent.  

The plot:  Influencer Annie goes to England to see an old friend and make stupid internet videos.  When she goes to pick up a food order, the sketchy employee asks her to give an old, infirmed woman a lift.  We soon learn the old lady is not what she seems.  

It's fitting I watched this right after We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and Old People.  Everything those movies managed to do wrong, Dashcam does so much better.  The best thing about it, is its breakneck pace.  If you can make it past the first twenty minutes of Annie being annoying, you will be treated to some truly impressive horrific shit.  Even as someone who detests the Shaky Cam genre, I have to tip my hat to the filmmakers for going all out in the crazy department.  Oh, and if you skip the end where Annie raps everyone’s name over the end credits, the movie’s only like an hour long.  You got to respect a Shaky Cam flick that knows when to pack it in before it overstays its welcome.  More films in the genre should take a cue from Dashcam’s lead.

OLD PEOPLE (2022) **

Here’s an irresistible idea for a movie.  Old people worldwide suddenly snap and start killing anyone belonging to the younger generations.  Think an ageist version of George Romero’s The Crazies.  Or maybe a mash-up of Romero’s Night of the Living Dad and The Amusement Park.

Things get off to a good start too as the opening in which an old dude goes nuts on his home healthcare nurse is a solid table setter.  Too bad it’s just a bait-and-switch as the movie then back peddles to when the outbreak first began.  For the next forty-five minutes or so we are stuck dealing with this family getting ready for a wedding.  The stuff with the bride renovating an old farmhouse for the reception feels like a goddamned Hallmark movie or something.  

While everyone is preparing for the nuptials, the family remembers poor old grandpa is at the nursing home and they go and pick him up.  Since no one had bothered to check on him in a while, the family is horrified to discover that gramps, along with all the other elderly people in the home, have turned into savage killers.  Naturally, the family hightails it out of there, but the oldies follow them home and crash the wedding.  

The premise is ripe for social commentary about elder abuse and neglect.  Sadly, the movie never takes it in that direction.  It would rather be yet another zombie movie variation.  This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the horror sequences crackled, but for the most part, Old People is slow moving and dull.  It doesn’t help that much of the action is dimly lit so it’s hard to tell what’s going on half the time.  

The good news is the last reel manages to rekindle some of the pep that the opening sequence had.  So, at least the first and last ten minutes are worthwhile.  It’s a shame that the eighty minutes in between are pretty weak.  

WE’RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD’S FAIR (2022) *

Casey (Anna Cobb) is a young girl who spends most of her time alone in her room making internet videos.  One day, the bored dolt does one of those dumb internet challenges, which I guess is supposed to be the latest variation on the Tide Pod Challenge.  If you ask me, any movie that asks us to sympathize with a character who is stupid enough to participate in a dumb internet challenge is already starting off on the wrong foot.

The challenge is kind of like a rip-off of “Bloody Mary” where you prick your finger, watch a weird internet video, and then say, “I’m going to the World’s Fair”.  Then, you’re supposed to “change”.  After Casey does the challenge, she hangs out in her room and passes the time by watching internet videos.  

NOTE TO FUTURE FILMMAKERS:  Don’t put a scene of your character mindlessly watching an online ASMR video in its entirety in the middle of your movie when your movie is already a snoozer to begin with.  Your audience is bored enough as it is.  They don’t need any more help falling asleep.

Then, we cut to some creepy ass dude (Michael J. Rogers) who watches Casey’s videos and may know more about the “World’s Fair” challenge than he lets on.  When they finally have a conversation on Skype, he disguises his voice so most of the dialogue is unintelligible.  It was here when I started to mentally check out of the movie.

It gets worse from there.  We see some of Casey’s internet videos, which are bad enough.  However, somehow, we get connected to Casey’s YouTube playlist, which plays an unending loop of lame internet videos.  I know it was asking too much for me to sympathize with a character who takes dumb internet challenges but asking me to sympathize with someone who leaves their YouTube on random is a bridge too far.  

Like most Shaky Cam movies, you have to sit through a LOT of bullshit before you finally find out where it’s all going.  I guess I don’t have to tell you that when we learn what the “World’s Fair” nonsense is all about, it’s disappointing as fuck.  The scariest part is the scene where the creepy internet dude takes a shit, and they show him on the can in an unbroken take that lasts an eternity.  You know you’re in trouble as a filmmaker when the only semi-effective scene you can pull off is showing some rando internet creep pinching a loaf.

TRAILERS #5: HORROR/SCI-FI EXPLOITATION OF THE ‘50S AND ‘60S (1992) *** ½

This is the kind of trailer compilation I would like to see more of.  It has a distinct theme running throughout (most of) the running time that thematically links the titles together.  It doesn’t even matter if many of these trailers appeared in previous Something Weird collections.  The fact that there’s an overreaching theme makes it more entertaining (to me, at least) than seeing just a random assortment of trailers tossed together.  

The theme for the first half of the compilation is monster/alien/maniacal women.  The trailers are linked by words in their titles, which makes it a lot of fun trying to guess which one is coming up next.  For example, Bride of Frankenstein, is followed by Bride of the Monster and The Brides of Fu Manchu.  Daughters are represented by Frankenstein’s Daughter, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (along with its co-feature, Billy the Kid vs. Dracula).  There’s Voodoo Woman, The Wasp Woman, The Leech Woman, and Night of the Cobra Woman.  (“Filmed in Slitherama!”)  The She-Creature, She Freak, and The Astounding She-Monster are also grouped together.

That’s a lot of lethal ladies!

There are also awesome taglines aplenty:  Queen of Blood (“She Turns the Milky Way into a Galaxy of GORE!”), Teenage Doll (“Hellcats in Tight Pants Running in Packs!”), Teenage Gang Debs (“The Go-Go Girls Who Go TOO FAR!”), Berserk (“I Get Stabbing Pains When I See a Victim Fall on Naked Bayonets!”) 

The girl power motif is dropped about halfway through, which is a tad disappointing.  While I wish they had kept the badass beauties theme, there’s still plenty of good shit here as we get a fun assortment of horror (Deadtime Stories, Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, and Midnight), Al Adamson movies (Nurse Sherri, Girls for Rent, and Horror of the Blood Monsters), Empire Pictures (From Beyond, Troll, and Ghoulies), Blaxploitation (Ebony, Ivory, and Jade, Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde, and Dolemite), and drive-in fare (Sweet Sugar, Terminal Island, and Truck Stop Women), with an occasional oddity like Macabro (a bizarre looking Mondo movie) tossed in there for good measure.  I think my favorite trailer was the double feature of Dracula, Prince of Darkness and Plague of the Zombies, which advertised a great giveaway:  “’Dracula Fangs’ for every boy and ‘Zombie Eyes’ for every girl!”

Even though the title suggests all the trailers will be from the ‘50s and ‘60s, there’s a lot from the ‘70s, a few from the ‘80s, and even one from the ‘30s.  (Girls on Probation… starring RONALD REAGAN!)  You won’t care because there’s a helluva lot of great stuff here.  In addition to trailers, there are also a bunch of clips from spook show previews, commercials, newsreels, and drive-in concession ads peppered throughout to remind you of how very different the times were when these films were released.

Here's the complete trailer rundown:  The Blood-A-Rama Show (featuring, Blood Bath, Queen of Blood, Blood of Dracula, and A Bucket of Blood), Bride of Frankenstein, Bride of the Monster, The Brides of Fu Manchu, The Brides of Dracula, Spook Show ad, Frankenstein's Daughter, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, “The Shock-O-Rama Show” (Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula), Cat Girl, Devil Girl from Mars, refrigerator giveaway ad, Voodoo Woman, The Wasp Woman, The Leech Woman, The Snake Woman, Night of the Cobra Woman, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Prehistoric Women, The Werewolf vs. The Vampire Woman, The Wild Women of Wongo, newsreel footage of women in the Air Force, The She-Creature, She Freak, The Astounding She-Monster, She Demons, Bon Bon commercial, Lady Frankenstein, Queen of Blood, Teenage Doll, Teenage Gang Debs, Girls on Probation, Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl, Female Jungle, Gypsy Wildcat, Blood of Dracula, an ad for a “Double Love Show”, Strait-Jacket, Berserk, “Screaming Mee-Mee Spook Show ad, Frankenstein Created Woman, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, a wig ad, Dinah East, Sinderella and the Golden Bra, Nurse Sherri, ‎Girls for Rent, Blood-O-Rama Shock Festival, ‎From Beyond, Horror of the Blood Monsters, a double feature of Mutiny in Outer Space and The Human Duplicators, Troll, Blazing Stewardesses, Deadtime Stories, Ghoulies, Blood of Ghastly Horror, Satan's Sadists, Dracula vs. Frankenstein, Macabro, Frankenstein's Bloody Terror, The Twilight People, Don't Open the Window (AKA:  Let Sleeping Corpses Lie), Vampyres, The Booby Hatch, Midnight, a double feature of Dracula: Prince Of Darkness and Plague Of The Zombies, a double feature of Blood Bath and Queen of Blood, Bloodeaters, a drive-in PSA about speakers, The Green Slime, House Of Psychotic Women, Ebony, Ivory & Jade, Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde, Dolemite, The Human Tornado, Disco Godfather, Sweet Sugar, Terminal Island, and Truck Stop Women.

DORIS DECEMBER: LOVE TOY (1971) ****

Doris Wishman’s fabulously tawdry Love Toy is kind of like a warped predecessor to Indecent Proposal.  Marcus (Larry Hunter) loses everything he owns to Alex (Bernard Marcel) in a game of gin rummy.  Since Alex is a total perv, he says he’ll forgive Marcus’s gambling debt if he can have one night with his beautiful and innocent daughter, Chris (Pat Happel).  When Marcus refuses, Alex and his equally scummy wife Mary (‘60s sexploitation staple Uta Erickson in her next to last role) tie him up and begin to have their way with the waifish Chris.  

First, Alex makes Chris act like his childhood pet, Samuel, and forces her to get down on all fours and lap up milk from a saucer like a good little kitten.  Then, he wants Chris to be his “Mommy” and makes her breastfeed him.  (This dude has a thing for milk apparently.)  After that, Alex wants her to roleplay as his “Wife” and then… his “Daughter”.  Other games include “Horsey” and “Mistress”.  Eventually, Mary gets in on the antics, and finally, Marcus is forced to participate as well.

Moral of the Story:  Don’t play gin rummy with sex maniacs.

Wonderfully deranged, Love Toy is probably the nastiest, dirtiest, roughest roughie of Doris’s career.  Unlike the majority of Wishman’s projects, the editing is often crisp and concise, which helps the sex scenes pack a punch.  The scenes of humiliation wouldn’t work so well if Wishman didn’t do such a good job at setting them up.  Alex’s monologues about his past, especially when he’s talking about Samuel (“He had sad eyes… like you…”) perfectly set the stage for the degradations to come.  It also helps that the scenes of domination and cruelty have a nasty streak a mile wide.  

All four leads are excellent, especially Happel and Marcel.  His psychotic babblings are often just as jaw-dropping as his sexual antics.  I will say that the stuff with Erickson torturing the tied-up Hunter isn’t quite as memorable or effective (although I did like the scene where she used a bottle of perfume as a marital aid), but it serves as a decent palate cleanser to get you to the next degradation scene.

Like the previous year’s The Amazing Transplant, Love Toy features an opening title sequence of black and white photographs with red lettering.  Wishman dropped this motif after this film, which I guess was her way of saying goodbye to the roughie genre.  It was also nice seeing the same apartment location that would later turn up in Keyholes are for Peeping and Double Agent 73.

Yes, it’s a Doris movie through and through.  There are scenes where the sound is obviously out of synch as lots of dialogue is spoken by actors who are conveniently off screen.  There are random instances of actresses staring at themselves nude in the mirror, impromptu dance numbers, and an out of left field flashback to pad out the running time.  And as with Bad Girls Go to Hell, we learn in the end (SPOILER) it was all a dream/premonition.

Fans may be disappointed that there is only one incongruous shot of feet in the movie, and that it is a part of older footage that was spliced in after the fact.  Because of that, Love Toy is probably her least foot-friendly movie since The Hot Month of August.  However, it just goes to show how good the editing was this time around.  Doris didn’t need throwaway shots of feet to cover herself in the editing room.  

Well, maybe the editing isn’t perfect.  Like Keyholes are for Peeping, there’s a scene in color where someone spies on a couple having sex in black and white.  Since it takes place within the context of a flashback/memory/fantasy scene, it sort of makes sense.  However, this odd digression doesn’t derail the proceedings.

Overall, Love Toy is probably Wishman’s most competent, coherent, and effective movie, in terms of titillation.  While it’s missing the anything-goes nuttiness of her best stuff (Deadly Weapons and Let Me Die a Woman), it is really a sight to behold.  It’s certainly my favorite new-to-me film on AGFA/Something Weird’s three-part box set.

It's also the final film in the set.  I was able to watch and review all twenty-two movies in less than seventy-two hours.  (Seventy hours and twenty-five minutes, to be exact.)  While that brings the reviews from the box set to a close, I will try to track down a few more other Doris films before the end of the month.  

DORIS DECEMBER RANKINGS:

1. Deadly Weapons 

2. Let Me Die a Woman

3. Love Toy

4. Bad Girls Go to Hell

5. Double Agent 73

6. The Immoral Three

7. Indecent Desires

8. My Brother’s Wife

9. The Hot Month of August

10. The Sex Perils of Paulette

11. Another Day, Another Man

12. A Taste of Flesh

13. Nude on the Moon

14. Diary of a Nudist

15. Too Much Too Often

16. Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls

17. Hideout in the Sun

18. Blaze Starr Goes Nudist

19. The Amazing Transplant

20. The Prince and the Nature Girl

21. Passion Fever

22. Keyholes are for Peeping or Is There Life After Marriage?

DORIS DECEMBER: KEYHOLES ARE FOR PEEPING OR IS THERE LIFE AFTER MARRIAGE? (1972) *

(Originally reviewed September 13th, 2019)

Sammy (Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla) Petrillo gets his marriage counselor diploma in the mail and sets off to make a name for himself in the profession.  Meanwhile, his own personal life is a wreck.  His girlfriend (Kristen Steen) won’t marry him because he always has to care for his dominating mother (also Petrillo, with his voice dubbed by the director, Doris Wishman).  As Petrillo meets with his patients, the superintendent (Phillip Stahl) in his apartment building spies on various tenants by looking through their keyholes.  

The naughty footage looks like it might’ve been taken from outer sources, perhaps old stag reels or even from Wishman’s other films for all I know.  Many of the sex scenes are tinted yellow for some damned reason.  Others are filmed through a negative filter which makes it impossible to tell what the hell is going on.  None of them are remotely sexy.  

Most Wishman movies are unintentionally hilarious.  If you’ve ever seen Let Me Die a Woman or Deadly Weapons you know what I’m talking about.  With this one she tries to be funny on purpose and the results are disastrous.  

Petrillo made his living imitating Jerry Lewis.  He unwisely dropped the act for this movie.  Sporting long hippie hair and doing random impressions (everyone from The Invisible Man to Porky Pig), and telling unfunny jokes, he never once elicits a single laugh from the audience.  You know they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when he shows up in drag.  The results are pretty dire, even for Wishman’s standards.  

The film falls into a predictable pattern early on.  It goes back and forth from the unfunny scenes of Petrillo (who also may be familiar to you from his bit part in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die) interviewing women to the voyeur peeping on lovemaking couples.  Neither plotline hits its intended marks, making Keyholes are For Peeping or is There Life After Marriage? a frustrating experience to say to least.  

Wishman’s made some bad movies in her time, but this one just might take the proverbial cake.  

AKA:  Keyholes are for Peeping.  

DORIS DECEMBER NOTES:  

1) When Doris Wishman added newly shot sex scenes to older movies in the past, the results were wildly uneven.  Here, she tosses in a bunch of old sex scenes (I spotted bits from The Hot Month of August and Passion Fever, but I’m sure there were others) with newly shot footage.  She doesn’t even attempt to make them match.  When the building’s super peeps through keyholes, he’s in color and the people fucking in the room are in black and white.  (I’ve seen lots of movies where it turns from night to day within the same scene, but very few that go from color to black and white and back.)  Sometimes they’re solarized so you can’t make heads or tails of it.  (Let Me Die a Woman also contained a random solarized sex scene.)  

2) I liked Sammy Petrillo in Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, but BOY, is he bad here.

3) Director Trademarks:  Random dance scene, shower scene (this time the score isn’t overly bombastic, just overly annoying), off-kilter narration, poor dubbing (when Petrillo is in drag), whiplash editing (the Hawaiian sequence is a fever dream of incompetence), shots of undergarments hitting the floor, and (what else?) feet.

4) Sigh.

5) You know that overused joke I make about Martin Scorsese calling a particular moment in a Doris Wishman movie “CINEMA”?  You won’t find that joke here.

6) To add insult to injury, the movie never answers the question in the title.  In fact, the film ends asking the audience, “So… is there life after marriage?”  You would at least think that after an hour and nine minutes of fast motion “comedy” scenes, incoherent editing, and lame “comic” sound effects, Wishman would’ve had the decency to answer that query.