MILLIGAN MARCH: VAPORS (1965) **

Vapors is Andy Milligan’s first film.  It’s a gay-themed short set in a New York bath house populated by men who are on the make.  A lonely man named Thomas (Gerald Jacuzzo) hangs out in one of the rooms where he meets the married Mr. Jaffee (Robert Dahdah).  Together, they sit and talk about their lives and occasionally are interrupted by the customers who are looking for a quick place to hook up.

Although the customers who roam the halls are portrayed rather broadly, the interactions between Thomas and Mr. Jaffee seem genuine and well-intentioned for the most part.  I’m sure this felt revelatory at the time just for because it showed gay men being gay men.  Despite there being a nice moment or two, the whole thing just never quite gels.  

The film was based on a play by Hope Stansbury (who also appeared in Milligan’s The Rats are Coming-The Werewolves are Here), and it feels very stage bound and talky at times.  What might’ve worked on stage for an act, just isn’t compelling as a short.  While Jacuzzo and Dahdah have chemistry together, Stansbury’s dialogue often lets them down.  Jacuzzo is strong, but Dahdah is merely adequate, and he doesn’t quite sell his longwinded story about the death of his son, which robs the ending of its potential impact.  The scene where they play “This Little Piggy” is rather awkward too.  I don’t know if Milligan was trying to make this scene flirtatious or what, but it just comes off as a cringey interaction.  Maybe that was the intention all along.  I’m not sure.  

Milligan does capture the atmosphere rather well.  The performers seemed game enough too.  Maybe if the material had been better fleshed out, it would’ve stuck the landing.  As it is, it remains an interesting, if only fitfully successful curiosity.   

Milligan Motifs:  Milligan would make movies with gay themes on and off for the entirety of his career.  

Milligan Stock Players:  Dahdah had a small role in The Body Beneath, Jacuzzo was in several Milligan productions (most notably Torture Dungeon), Hal Sherwood also turned up in The Ghastly Ones, and Hal Borske appeared in a bunch of Andy’s stuff.

MILLIGAN MARCH: SEEDS (1968) ** ½

The old, horrible, alcoholic, wheelchair bound matriarch (Maggie Rogers) of a family of no-good louts goes ballistic when she learns her scheming children (whom she calls “bad seeds”) will be visiting her for Christmas.  After a thoroughly unpleasant dinner, the children retire to their rooms where we see that their mother has good reason to be upset as they basically act like sex-mad degenerates.  Before long, family members wind up being bumped off by an unseen killer, adding to the familial strife.   

Seeds is essentially the prototypical Andy Milligan movie.  It has a lot of the themes that would permeate his work, namely domineering mothers, incest, and a family with a checkered history gathering under one roof, only to be stalked by a killer.  When Milligan worked through those themes later in his career, it was usually in films full of garish color, cheesy costumes, and cheap gore.  What makes this one work slightly better than his later stuff is that the gritty, handheld, black and white aesthetic of Seeds feels better suited to the themes Milligan is exploring.  Whereas his later pictures felt like amateurish home movies parading around as horror, this feels like underground cinema that was mis-marketed as sexploitation. 

For example, the scenes of Candy Hammond (Milligan’s wife) taking a bath, reading muscleman magazines in the nude, and seducing her own siblings is the sort of thing you would expect to see in a New York skin flick at the time.  However, the fringy touches Milligan lends to these sequences sometimes makes it feel closer to Andy Warhol than Michael Findlay.  The acting is better too (for the most part), even if most of the cast is prone to over-the-top histrionics.  

Seeds still suffers from many of the same flaws that mar many of Milligan’s pictures.  Namely, the pacing drags considerably thanks to the overly talky nature of the film.  While it might not be up to snuff with his sexploitation work like Nightbirds or Fleshpot on 42nd Street, it’s a little bit more offbeat, interesting, and better than his straight-up horror films like Torture Dungeon and The Ghastly Ones.  

Milligan Motifs:  As far as the story goes, we have a domineering mother figure, incest, a family gathering where a killer begins picking them off one by one, and servants who are secretly scheming against their employer.  On the technical side of things, it was yet another one of the films that Milligan made in Staten Island.  Also, his knack for using library music, allowing his actors to give overly theatrical performances, awkwardly adding in “hot” inserts into the lovemaking scenes, and odd camera placement (sometimes it feels like you’re looking directly up at the actors) crop up again.

Milligan Stock Company:  Hammond was also in Milligan’s Gutter Trash, The Promiscuous Sex, and Compass Rose.  Rogers was also in Tricks of the Trade, The Ghaslty Ones, and most memorably, Torture Dungeon.  Neil Flanagan appeared in a slew of his movies including Guru the Mad Monk, Torture Dungeon, and Fleshpot on 42nd Street.  

AKA:  Seeds of Sin.

TUBI CONTINUED… OUIJA NAZI (2014) ***

A group of sorority sisters throw a party at a supposedly cursed house belonging to their new pledge, Dawn (Kristen Casner).  Before long, the evil spirit of her Nazi ancestor possesses the town idiot and makes him run around hacking up people with a machete.  The sorority sisters fight back and kill him, but the spirit hops into Dawn and she transforms into a sexy psycho Nazi.  (The original title was actually Nazi Dawn… as in Dawn is a Nazi and not like, The Rise of the Nazis or something like that.)

Ouija Nazi is proof that in the world of low budget horror filmmaking, the spirit of Jim Wynorski, Fred Olen Ray, and Kevin S. Tenney is still alive and well.  This movie has just about everything you could want in a movie:  Sorority babes running around scantily clad, sorority babes running around topless, sorority babes being kept on leashes, sorority babes in Little Bo Peep costumes, and sorority babes looking and acting just plain hot.  

In addition to all that, it was quite refreshing to see the actresses being allowed to look and act nerdy.  I’m specifically talking about Veronica Ricci as the geeky gal, Agnes.  She has to be one of the hottest nerdy girls in screen history and her comedic timing is a joy to behold.  I haven’t crushed this hard on an actress in a long time.  I’ll have to check out more of her work in the near future.  Missy Martinez also makes a memorable impression as the bosomy Misty.

When it comes to the horror aspect of the film, things are more than a little uneven.  While Ouija Dawn does contain the best boob chopping scene since Head Cheerleader Dead Cheerleader, the bulk of the kills end abruptly and/or feel watered down.  In fact, the girls don’t even bring the Ouija board out until the last twenty minutes or so of the movie.  The scenes leading up to the finale in particular feel choppy and rushed.  So, if you tune in expecting to see what the title promises, you may feel a little shortchanged.  However, since 75% of the running time is devoted to sexy sorority sister shenanigans, it’s hard to get too upset.

AKA:  Nazi Dawn.

MILLIGAN MARCH: FLESHPOT ON 42ND STREET (1972) ***

Dusty (Laura Cannon) is growing restless from being shacked up with Tony (Last House on the Left), so she robs him blind (but not before balling him first) and splits.  She then hocks his valuables at a pawn shop and proceeds to rob the owner blind (but not before balling him first).  Dusty then bumps into her drag queen friend Candy (Neil Flanagan from Guru the Mad Monk) who lets her crash at her apartment where she turns tricks to help out with the rent.  Things seemingly change for the better when Dusty falls head over heels for a rich Wall Street lawyer named Bob (Harry Reems).  Predictably, her newfound happiness will not last very long.

I don’t know if bleak is the right word for this drama.  Maybe realistic is a better fit.  After seeing so many of writer/director Andy Milligan’s fanciful horror flicks, Fleshpot of 42nd Street is kind of a shock.  I mean that in a good way.  I think it’s funny that he spent so much time and money (OK, maybe not money) making those period horror movies when his real strength seems to be in the gritty sex film market.  As with Nightbirds, he shows he has a knack for capturing the squalor and despair of lost souls living on the fringes of society who use sex as a survival mechanism.  

Milligan’s period horror films are marked by overly theatrical performances and hammy dialogue.  Fleshpot on 42nd Street is proof that when he’s working with naturalistic actors who say dialogue that sounds like actual human conversation, the results can be truly worthwhile.  Make no mistake, this isn’t exactly a classic.  If anything, it’s a better than average sexploitation drama.  However, compared to the majority of Milligan’s other films, it’s some Turner Classic Movies type shit.   

The film also benefits from an interesting cast which is comprised of actors from Doris Wishman movies, porn stars, co-stars from Last House on the Left (which came out the same year), and porn stars that co-starred in Last House on the Left.  Cannon (who also appeared with Reems in Forced Entry) is great in the lead, but it's Flanagan who steals the movie as Cherry, the drag queen with a heart of gold.  As awful as he was in Guru the Mad Monk, he is terrific here as he lends a touch of dignity to what could’ve otherwise been a stereotypical character.  He also provides a gratuitous plug for Milligan’s previous films when he tells Cannon says they should take in a double feature of Torture Dungeon and Bloodthirsty Butchers.

Surprisingly enough, the sex scenes are probably the weakest part of the movie.  There are some hardcore inserts during a couple of the sex scenes, but the camerawork is awkward and the editing is jarring, which ruins the intended impact.  Whenever the characters are conversing in between the sex, Fleshpot of 42nd Street really comes alive.  

Milligan Motifs:  Not many, other than the use of stock library music and the fact it was partially shot on Staten Island.

Milligan Stock Company:  Neil Flanagan was the primary repeat offender.  

AKA:  Erotic Diary of a Happy Hooker.  AKA:  Flashpot on 42nd Street.  AKA:  The Girls of 42nd Street.  

TUBI CONTINUED… HUMANOIDS FROM ATLANTIS (1992) * ½

A fledgling filmmaker (James L. Edwards) gets his first paid gig making a documentary about a local lake.  While shooting scenes for the movie, he captures footage of a slimy monster lurking about the lake.  It turns out that this creature is the last refugee from Atlantis, and a mad scientist (Christine Morrison) wants to use it to help her take over the world.  

Humanoids from Atlantis isn’t nearly as polished (or as much fun) as writer/director J.R. Bookwalter’s other films like Robot Ninja and The Dead Next Door.  He might’ve realized this as well as he used his non de plume “Lance Randas” in the credits.  Speaking of credits, even though the movie runs a mere forty-seven minutes, it is still heavily padded with long opening and closing title sequences and a slow-moving opening crawl that sets up the plot.  

Although Bookwalter made entertaining and fun pictures in the past that transcended their no-budget roots, this one is more or less shot-on-video schlock in just about every regard.  The creature is really cheap too as you can easily spot the seams in the mask and gloves whenever he attacks someone.  The acting is bad as well, and to make matters worse, it's all bloodless and tame, so there’s no real reason to sit through it.  

Bookwalter thinks that by having characters say shit like, “This is like something out of a bad B-Movie!” every ten minutes or so, it lets him off the hook for making an intentionally bad B-Movie.  He even tries for the old “It’s only a movie” twist ending finale to assure the audience that all the acting, effects, and… well… everything was bad on purpose.  That doesn’t give him a pass.  It just makes it that much more annoying.  Oh, and there’s only one humanoid too.  I’m surprised the characters didn’t mention that fact as they are so adept at picking everything else out that’s wrong with the flick.

TUBI CONTINUED… 42ND STREET MEMORIES: THE RISE AND FALL OF AMERICA’S MOST NOTORIOUS STREET (2015) ***

Here’s a fun, breezy, if a bit lightweight documentary on everyone’s favorite movie sleaze pit, New York’s 42nd Street.  Director Calum Waddell takes us on a trip down memory lane as we learn the origins of the street and its early days as a legitimate theater center.  Slowly over time, it gives way to a movie lover’s paradise, cram-packed with theater after theater playing all kinds of goodness from action to exploitation to Kung Fu to sex flicks.  

Sure, it was disgusting.  Sure, it was a cesspool.  Sure, it was crime-ridden.  But let’s face it:  ALL of New York was a disgusting, crime-ridden cesspool at the time.

Many directors (Joe Dante, Frank Henenlotter, William Lustig, etc.), distributors (Samuel M. Sherman, Lloyd Kaufman, Terry Levene, etc.), and starlets (Veronica Hart, Debbie Rochon, Lynn Lowery, etc.) are interviewed.  They all give not only information about the history of the street, but also reminisce about the old theaters and the countless movies they played.  Levene has many of the best anecdotes, including how he hired out a flatbed truck full of actors dressed up as medical professionals to drum up publicity for Doctor Butcher, M.D.

Since so much archival footage of the street has been lost to time, what better way to show 42nd Street in all its glory than by using clips from the movies that were filmed on location there?  What makes it even better is the fact that many of these movies (Nightmare, The Exterminator, Massage Parlor Murders, etc.) were just as scuzzy as the street itself!  These clips are so good that you almost wish they delved more into the movies that played there as well.  

Eventually, Mayor Guliani and Disney came in and cleaned everything up, wiping away the grindhouses of the past and replacing them with a more tourist-friendly destination.  Luckily for movie fans, the grindhouse spirit still lives on through home video releases (which kind of was responsible for ushering in 42nd Street’s demise).  Nowadays, you can watch an exploitation flick in the comfort of your own home and not have to worry about bums peeing on you from the balcony, but it’s just not the same.  

TUBI CONTINUED… SKI WOLF (2008) **

Ski Wolf is writer/director Chris (Filthy McNasty) Seaver’s mash-up of Ski School and Teen Wolf.  It’s the sort of combination you might come up with late at night while you’re either high as a kite or drunk as a skunk.  Unfortunately, you might have to be a little of both to fully enjoy this one.  

Scott (Casey Bowker) goes to his uncle’s ski resort for one last vacation before it gets sold to a rich asshole preppie named Ralston Zabka (Troma vet Trent Haaga).  After Scott is bitten by a werewolf on the slopes, he transforms into the trash-talking Ski Wolf.  He gains newfound popularity on the mountain, but eventually decides to be himself when it comes time to race Ralston for ownership of the resort.  

Although the concept certainly had potential, it often feels like Seaver is holding back with this one.  His films are usually filled to the gills with offensive jokes and crude humor, but it all feels relatively subdued this time around.  (Either that or I’m just becoming increasingly numb to Seaver’s antics after watching four of his flicks in the past four days.)  While this slightly watered-down approach worked for Wet Heat, Ski Wolf could’ve used a bit more raunch to it, especially given the fact that it’s a send-up of ‘80s teen sex comedies and sports movies.   It doesn’t exactly help that Bowker plays Ski Wolf as a sort of half-assed version of Teen Ape.  

That said, the film still has its moments.  There is one funny group sex film that seems to be trying to one-up the orgy sequence from Zoolander.  It’s also fun seeing how Seaver turns the typical sports movie cliches on their ear in the finale.  Seaver’s work is usually hit and miss to begin with, but up until that scene, Ski Wolf was a lot more miss than hit.  At least the voluptuous porn star Alix Lakehurst steals every scene she’s in as a massively mammaried snow bunny named Fantasia Snow.