reviews of a dozen films that don't exist

I’m not in the mood to write anything particularly constructive yet I'm still stubbornly whackin' this dead horse we got here, so this will be idiocy. I wanted to go see the Persians tonight (the Persians effin' RULE okay) but this congestion has me feeling two-thirds-of-the-way sick and all-the-way antisocial, so a crowd’s probably not a good environment for me at the moment. Plus I’m bleedin’ pretty good from running into something some idiot left in the doorway of a dark room, and nobody really wants bleeding people hanging around… it‘s unseemly. I know I’m gonna miss out on a good show, though. But, hey, the world will get *this* as a result. Hoofuckingray and god damn us, every one.

So, just out of my nasty contemptuous mood, here’s a throwaway blog post filled with movie reviews… of movies that don’t actually exist! That’s right, don’t search for these in your Netflix, ‘cuz I made ‘em all up. Pulled ’em right out me arse, boy-o! I can do that! And they may amuse no one but me, but, that’s how life goes, iddnit? Punk rock. So onward with the useless falsehoods and untruths. Oi, oi, oi!

1. SHIT TWICE AND DIE (C, 1978). A script passed over by Charles Bronson, who at the time was worried about being typecast as a “Death Wish” style vigilante, this was instead turned into a vehicle for Buck Owens, who was trying to turn his Hee Haw stardom into a film career. After his brothers (one played by Roy Clark as a favor from Buck) are killed by a gang of biker dwarfs, Buck becomes a vengeance-crazed killer with a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun which he’s converted (using prowess earned as a weapons expert in Vietnam) into a belt-fed fully-automatic weapon. One of the film’s shortcomings is that Buck loses this weapon over a waterfall before it can even be fired; despite this disappointing fact, the film’s trailer is very preoccupied with the building of this gun. The climax, with Buck laughing triumphantly over the bodies of several dead biker dwarfs, is unintentionally hilarious and may be why the film was pulled from theaters too early. The band that did the soundtrack, a hard-rock outfit known as In God We Thrust, later re-formed as the emasculated Air Supply.

2. SHRINKY DINKS - THE MOVIE. (C, 1982) Cheap film made to cash in on the minor craft phenomenon, starred a cast of unknowns, the only one of whom had any kind of career was Dana Plato. Craft-making kids used “the power of imagination” to reduce themselves in size and foil a gang of dognappers. The film’s lack of success almost broke the company that made Shrinky Dinks, and is one of the most legendary failures of a company trying to cross over into movies and almost destroying themselves by trying to cross over into film production. Which brings us to our next film…

3. BOBBY BB-GUN (C, 1976) A wretched film made by the Daisy BB Gun company about a boy and his BB gun. All the other kids view him as some kind of hero because he has a BB gun, which he uses to foil a gang of (you guessed it) dognappers. Dognappers were a popular foe in 70’s kiddie films that weren’t successful. Because the Daisy company wanted to avoid lawsuits, they emphasized that BB guns should never be pointed at a person, so “BoBBy BB-Gun” always shot at conveniently-placed cans of paint, axel grease, or “BuBBle Gum Gas” (?!) to thwart the dognappers. Obnoxious, annoying, buck (and chipped)-toothed-and-freckle-faced “star” Chet Furd takes an almost insufferable joy in his own performance, shouting all his lines inarticulately. He was never to appear on screen again except for an episode of the short-lived Bert Convy cop drama, Toole. Daisy’s tried so hard to bury this embarrassment you can’t even find clips on YouTube.

4. PISSANT BROWN (C, 1977) An attempt to turn then-hot Jimmy “J.J.” Walker into a tough action star, this is left off of even the most extensive blaxploitation film lists, and Jimmy Walker denies its existence to this very day, even though Morgan Freeman, Antonio Fargas, and Yaphet Koto all have bit parts. Jimmy plays the brother of a pimp who, for some reason not made clear in the plot (which was rumored to be written by William Golding under another name!) tries to stop Italian mobsters from building a casino on the corner where his brother’s whores work. Despite a few rousing scenes (Walker using a backhoe to push a mob boss’s Lincoln Continental into a fountain, Walker escaping from a group of hit men by driving a golf cart through a fruit market), this film’s most indelible image remains Walker using a wrist-rocket slingshot to shoot a pocketknife at the machine-gun-toting mob boss (Norman Fell) to kill him. Oh, damn, now I’ve gone and spoiled it.

5. OH, HELL, IT’S THAT FISHMAN! (C, 1980) Superhero vehicle starring Christopher George as an oceanographer who gets an emergency blood transfusion from a trout and ends up gaining fish powers. The problem is that almost as soon as George gets his powers, he’s whisked off to Wyoming, with no water anywhere for miles! He tries to stop some timber pirates, but with no water around he’s just a guy in an awkward costume. John and Keith Carradine are both in it, and Rick Wakeman did the soundtrack but had his name pulled. It was rumored that the script was originally for an Aquaman movie, but DC Comics decided not to go through with it, so the producers made up a similar character and put him in Wyoming to show how lame Aquaman’s powers actually are. Christopher George once referred to this film as the most embarrassing thing he was ever involved with, and said it haunted his career “like an angry terrier pulling at my socks.” Despite the fact that it’s not a well-regarded film, M. Night Shylaman has expressed great interest in directing a remake. Idiot.

6. TRIUMPHS OF THE GOLDEN WEASEL (C, 1992) Comedic rip-off of the Indiana Jones series, starring Ed Asner doing a Pauly Shore imitation throughout. Pauly even produced the film, thinking that audience would crack up seeing a guy like Asner doing his “weasel” shtick, but by that time people were getting pretty sick of seeing Pauly do that act, much less Asner. Film is too by-the-numbers to be of much interest, and is funny only to those whose idea of high comedy is watching somebody fall off a ladder. A controversy sprang up involving the TV spot, because it included Asner’s line “Look out for my balls, there, buddy!” and a swimming pool fart joke.

7. BASTILLE DAY (C, 1984) Slasher films were running out of holidays to exploit, and their audiences weren’t quite sophisticated enough to understand the references in this one, but it does boast some good decapitations courtesy of FX artist Ed French (fucking clever, that. French, get it?). A maniac disguised as Robespierre terrorizes an annual French festival in Nebraska, dispatching most of his victims with a portable guillotine that looks something like a cigar trimmer. Fairly ordinary until the end, where the killer’s mask comes off and he’s revealed to be… Jon Voight! Voight was just beginning his pathetic descent into mental illness around this time.

8. GALLOPING TOWARDS SODOM (C, 1983) Weird attempt at an “art Western” from Oliver Stone (who disowned the film, which is why the film is credited to “Otis Placestinks” instead). Rod Steiger (who’s overacting even for Rod Steiger) plays a drifter who - in a twist on the traditional plot - sides with a cattle rancher against oppressive prairie farmers. In one memorable scene, he guns down a schoolmarm who he thinks is a “communist.” Then, somewhere around the middle of the movie, Steiger eats some peyote and rides into modern Manhattan, and the movie turns into a courtroom drama, where corporate logos such as Zip The Postman, Speedy the Alka-Seltzer kid, and the Frito Bandito are on trial! And all the judges and lawyers are young children! Steiger does the best he can, but when he’s given lines like “You think you’re a smarty-pants but really you’re a stupid-pants!” and “May you find midgets in your marriage bed!” there’s only so much that even he can do.

9. DEUTERONOMY: THE MUSICAL (C, 1995) Too-ambitious project funded by churches to do the story of Moses’ sermons in an all-singing, all-dancing format. They just didn’t have the money or talent to pull this off, and some musical numbers, such as the one about the edict against blemished animals being used in sacrifices, are downright embarrassing. The soundtrack, on the Amalekite label, can sometimes still be found at yard sales of houses where insane people live.

10. BUNNY HIDORA AGAINST SUPERCOPS! (C, 1993) Anime entry into the unpopular Bunny Hidora series, which also includes such films as Bunny Hidora Against Clown From Space!, Bunny Hidora Fighting Asparagus Master!, Bunny Hidora Make Big Score!, Bunny Hidora Against Funny Poot!, Bunny Hidora Vs. Frankenfascist!, Bunny Hidora Defeating Evil Judge! Bunny Hidora Take No Crap From Bitches! and Bunny Hidora Against Ass Society! Like most anime, it makes no sense but has lots of action, with a rabbit who has poorly-defined superpowers battling all kinds of enemies who I suppose are supposed to be bad guys. To keep translating costs down, most of the dialogue is limited to “HA!” and “POW-ZINGA!” This film causes seizures, and there’s not enough vodka in the world to make an adult sit through more than fifteen minutes of it. You can't even heroin this thing pretty.

11. HARD-ONS NEVER LIE (C, 1979) It’s been suppressed, but Mickey Spillane once wrote a porno film. Jamie Gillis plays Mike Hammer, who’s trying to find out who gave him the clap. Gillis actually makes a pretty good Hammer, and Seka isn’t bad as Velda, but the script was a phoned-in deal, with obvious “gun/penis” jokes being used far after they became tiresome. The “or are you just happy to see me” thing is used FOUR DAMN TIMES!

12. DIARY OF ANNE FRANKENSTEIN (C, 1979) Tasteless film made as a vehicle for the band Cheap Trick. Originally they wanted more of a “Wizard of Oz” type story (with Ozzy Osbourne guest starring as the Great Oz, and Alice Cooper playing the Wicked Witch of the West) but they couldn’t get the rights and had to rush into production using a script that had originally been written for Jerry Lewis, who was still gun-shy after that Day The Clown Cried fiasco. The film was, in fact, left unfinished, and later the missing scenes were acted out by hand puppets. Variety’s review read “Cheap Trick - Dead In Budo-Cannes!”



Remember, all of the preceding is bullshit, so don’t sue me, Chet Furd.