Posts Tagged ‘John Vernon’

Savage Streets (1984)

Posted: 26/07/2018 in Trash movies
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Bad hairdos, dire fashion sense and a pumping soundtrack from John Farnham, can only mean one thing; We are back to 80’s! (although WM crew never left 80’s). Time for some revenge – girl style (and I am not referring to any of “GF revenge” porn movies). We at Worsemovies are well aware of what our audience is aspiring for. So without further ado, in cooperation with Danny Steinmann (Friday the 13th: A New  Beginning), for all of you sickos out there who, for some reason, wanted to see Charles Bronson in a dress, we present you – Savage Streets.

 

Following her appearance in The Exorcist and its less than popular sequel, Linda Blair made a career out of exploitation flicks of which this is perhaps the most famously trashy. She plays Brenda, a typical LA girl who leads all-girl gang “The Satins”. Like any other ordinary girls they like to hang around the L.A streets while sipping fruity alcohol and gossiping. They have a run-in with a gang of thugs called “The Scars” who were hitting on them but unsuccessfully. Girls steal and trash their car, and that’s when entire problem begins.

Women driving a car! Run for your lives!

Gang swings by to school in order to get revenge on girls for stealing their car. They try to bully some guys but they end up kicked out of the school by Principal Underwood (played by John Vernon). So they have to lie in wait for another opportunity. It didn’t took too long. They waited for gym room to be emptied so they could drag Brenda’s deaf mute sister Heather (played by Linnea Quigley) to the shower room and gangbang her there. And since Heather can’t speak she couldn’t tell her sister who was behind that. Nor Brenda had any suspects despite the fact it was so obvious considering her recent activities. That evening she went to the bar to party and drink with her friends like nothing had happened. But the gang is there as well. Can you guess whats happening next? That’s right! A bar fight!

 

liAs if one fight wasn’t enough for her Brenda ran into another fight, this time with her slutty classmate over some guy. Nice chick fight, when we can see some nice tits. As a result of that Brenda gets  suspended from the school, after unsuccessfull Principal’s attempt to hit on her. This scholl knows no bounds, I can give them that.

 

Still, not everything is so black and sad. One of her friends Francine (played by Lisa Freeman; known for Back to the Future) is getting married soon. So, while Brenda and the rest of her girl gang are visiting Heather in the hospital, Francine and Maria (played by Luisa Leschin) are going to pick up Francine’s wedding dress. On her way home Francine gets intercepted by gang. They chase her with the car. I thought they just wanted to scare her. But for reasons only known to him, the leader of the gang Jake (played by Robert Dryer) threw Francine off a bridge with words “Here comes the bride”. In the middle of the day with full traffic going on behind him! And no one bothered to stop! Vince (played by Johnny Venocur) freaked out and ran away to the hospital, where he found Heather lying in deep sleep. He tries to apologize her, admitting everything. Right in that moment, Brenda came along and heard entire confession. Now she freaks out at Vince and he runs away. Brenda finally got some clue.

Later that evening she busts into Vince’s house with knife. There he tells her about Francine. Apparently, Brenda didn’t find out that her best friend is that for entire day! I guess she was too blinded by her anger and revenge even to check out how preparations for her friend’s wedding are going. Anyway, she spared Vince and starts preparing for taking revenge girl style (and no again, it is not what you think it is). Dressed like a commando and armed with a crossbow which she bought at the local store (just like that) she went to a warehouse where the gang is gathering and hunted down Fargo (played by Sal Landi) and Red (played by Scott Mayer). Meanwhile, Vince tries to flee town but Jake runs him down with his car. Wanting to celebrate another successful hit, Jake comes to a warehouse where he finds his dead buddies. Brenda was waiting there as well. After some fight she manages to kill Jake by setting him off on fire (or at least a doll that should represent a living man). Police arrives on the spot and not a single question was raised so Brenda is off the hook. Now she has enough time to attend her best friend’s funeral. She wasn’t interested that much in her wedding tho. And that’s how this movie ends

 

Conclusion: This is a perfect 80s exploitation film for all those who are cult film fans, it certainly won’t win any awards but good-golly this is a ham covered, rock n’ roll, crossbow firing good time. It tries to operate within just about every single exploitation subgenre that was active at the time simultaneously. And of course, there’s an amazing amount of tit shots in this one, even by the standards of the 80s. And apparently it’s a film that isn’t bothered about the fact that it’s set in a high school. “Savage Streets” isn’t even approaching a good film in any way and Blair’s performance could be one of the worst ever by a former Oscar nominee. But it is ridiculously entertaining at times and any film that features the line, “I wouldn’t fuck you if you had the last dick on Earth!” is one that I can’t help but defend.

Curtains (1983)

Posted: 19/01/2017 in Trash movies
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I understand the early eighties were marked by, I don’t know, 1,050 horror slashers, each with their own little twist on the horror genre, each wanting to take a piece of the pie. But only a handful and I do truly mean 5 of 1050 were effective. Curtains was NOT one of them.

curtains_poster_01

Actress Samantha Sherwood (played by Samantha Eggar) is a long time collaborator with director Jonathan Stryker (played by John Vernon). She gets the rights to his latest project Audra for him. Audra is imagined to be a mad woman. So they visit Dr. Pendleton (played by Calvin Butler) where she acts out as a charade in order to get into asylum for research (something like Daniel Day-Lewis who went living with Indian tribe for his role in “The Last of the Mohicans” if rumors are to be trusted). She is truly dedicated actor, I give her that. While being there she found out that Stryker is holding audition for her role in his mansion with 6 more other actresses ready to do everything to get the role. Even having sex and committing murder! And guess what? He left her in asylum without saying goodbye! Now she really can get mad! And she plans to get it back!

you-see-the-interesting-thing-about-asylum-isYou see, the interesting thing about asylums is….

One of the actresses, Amanda (played by Deborah Burgess) couldn’t make it to the audition. After unsuccessful sexual role-play with her boyfriend (her fetish is raping) and after dreaming about herself being killed by doll, she got actually stabbed in the dark by some mysterious person wearing an old lady mask. Well, I guess that ends her career. She might appear in commercials though, like many other dead celebrities. Anyway, all the other actresses had arrived on time, including Samantha who made an unexpected cameo. There all of the girls confirmed to us once again how big sluts they are and what they would do to get this role. Especially a comedian Petti O’Connor (played Lynne Griffin) who wants to be taken seriously and who is most probably the biggest slut of them all.  Washed up actress Brooke Parsons (played by Linda Thorson) even mentioned a murder. No such problems for Matthew (played by Michael Wincott) who already got the lead male role and now he can enjoy in casting couch (or jacuzzi in this case) with Tara Demillo (played by Sandra Warren).

real-hollywood-starsReal Hollywood stars

While rivalry between the actresses is building up naive-looking Christie Burns (played by Lesleh Donaldson) decides to take a chill out with ice-skating at nearby frozen pond. There she finds the doll in a snow and that was the cue for the masked killer to bust in with sickle in hand. The whole scene is put together in such a wonderfully campy way with the music and the slow motion. The seriousness of the acting adds to the campy feel of the movie. It’s like an Actors Studio discussion and killings happen every once in a while. Anyway, Christie used the doll as a shield and then as a weapon. She banged the killer in the head with it. Instead of unmasking the villain Christie loses her head and runs into forest where killer finds her and makes her lose her head once again, this time definitely.

 

The next morning, at rehearse, Stryker announces that he has found the note left for him by Christie in which she states that she is leaving mansion because this was too much to handle for her. If you think this was suspicious then what would you say for the next scene when Stryker throws that mask to Samantha, asking from her to seduce him? Does he know something? Or has the old director finally went insane in demanding perfection? I guess we are going to find out soon. As for Christie, Brook finds her head inside toilet seat. But as it is the usual case in such movies, head disappeared while she called for help. To calm herself down Brook had a sex with Stryker. Two birds with one stone. And Samantha saw them!

oh-someone-clogged-the-toilet-againOh someone clogged the toilet again

Meanwhile, killing spree continues. Laurian Summers (played by Anne Ditchburn) had danced her last dance that night. And I think we can rule out Stryker as a suspect since him and Brooke got shot while standing together and drinking. Matthew? Oh we won’t be seeing him again. He ended up the same way he lived – in a jacuzzi. Tara had put up a decent fight and almost managed to unmask the killer, but she also ended up like Christie. So we are down to Samantha and Patti. They are having conversation over glass of champagne during which Samantha confesses murder of Stryker and Brooke in pretty coldblooded manner. But the last say in this is Patti’s. To return the favor she confesses murders of other actresses while stabbing Samantha with large knife. And for all of her efforts she eventually got to play the role of Audra…in asylum! Hah poetical justice!

 

Conclusion: This movie is one of the slowest and most boring slasher movies I’ve seen in a long time. It takes a good third of the movie to get to what it’s all about: six actresses are auditioning for a role of a “lifetime” but they’re being picked off one-by-one by someone who would “kill” for the role. The mask worn by the killer is shown way too much and loses its creepy factor very early on. Though I must admit that such hideous and creepy mask deserves much better movie. There is no straight line here in Curtains; you have horrible dialogue, laughable acting and a hollow plot. The gore was nothing, the sex all-but non-exist and the less said about so called “twist” at the end – the better. Meh I could hardly have expected more from Canadians.