It’s become well known that Disney has an immense history with creating some of the most racist characters of pop culture. There’s their noted hatred toward the Jewish religion, and even the infamous lyric to “Arabian Nights” in “Aladdin” that reads: “Where they cut off your ears if they don’t like your face,” and that film came out in 1992. But many of them are considered rather irrelevant when you bring up the name Uncle Remus.
Hey did you see “The Vampire Journals” from Full Moon? Yes? Well, prepare to watch it again, but in a ten minute nutshell version. On par with much of Full Moon’s corner cutting productions, “Decadent Evil” is mostly just nothing but filler, with clips to the days of Full Moon Entertainment when they were actually trying. “Decadent Evil” is barely eighty minutes in length, and counting the opening clip show, and credits, it’s only about an hour of actual movie. All of which is contrived and based heavily around the hope that you’ve seen and remember “The Vampire Journals” fondly.
“My friend, you have seen this incident, based on sworn testimony. Can you prove that it didn’t happen?” And then with startling dramatic gleam, our babbling narrator Criswell declares, “Perhaps, on your way home, someone will pass you in the dark, and you will never know it… for they will be from outer space!” Only this sort of sheer nonsense could come from the one and only “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” one of the absolute best films ever made. It’s a film that is so bad you can barely look away throughout its run time. Films of this ilk like “Reefer Madness” and “Robot Monster” must be appreciated in the same vein.
In the sub-genre of killer children films, “Who Can Kill a Child?” is the best I’ve ever seen. Sure, many people will choose “Village of the Damned” but for my money, it doesn’t equal the grit and grim atmosphere of director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s horror film. Not by a long shot. “Who Can Kill a Child?” experienced a lot of censorship and banning upon its initial release, because it’s a film that doesn’t flinch from its premise.
Russ Meyer had an utter fetish for curvy women. Especially curvy women with a large often intimidating bust. Many of whom are looked down upon, and that’s a damn shame. Anne Margaret, one of the sexiest women who ever lived was curvy, and the three women featured in “Faster Pussycat!” are also curvy bomb shells. One in particular, who happens to be my favorite, is Tura Satana, the curvaceous and busty stripper named Varla. “Faster Pussycat!” was considered porn at the time, but Director Russ Meyer loved to think he was better than simple porn, and he’d be correct in his assertion. This is much better than porn, because you can become aroused without feeling obligated to. Meyer prefers to titillate rather than undress his performers and arouse viewers in a Pavlovian routine.
“Death Race 2000” is notable, not only for being one of the best cult action films ever made, but for the amazing foresight it showed in being one of the many fictional tales predicting the entertainment of the twenty first century. Sure, video game violence and reality television were established before the twenty first century, but it didn’t become prevalent and common until much later, when the extremes for entertainment were established as norms for amusement. “Death Race 2000” is a prophetic and darkly genius action thriller that pinpoints the very nature of human illness and how we view violence as nothing more than a mortal hurdle we can ignore in the face of rewards.
Roddy Piper always seemed like an unusual choice for the role of Nada in John Carpenter’s “The Live” to me. Especially considering the film itself is less an action thriller, and more of a science fiction film that slowly elevates its horror when you consider how much this world reflects our own. The aliens themselves aren’t so much extra terrestrials, but are just us. They’re unrecognizable because they’ve submitted themselves to the decadence and subliminal commands of their overlords. The people that have chosen to act with them are akin to the Jews who chose to ally themselves with the Nazis. They’re slimy, but they’re acting on survival. The aliens have found a way to destroy society from the inside out, and we don’t actually realize it until we break the status quo and put on sunglasses.