MY MOUTH LIES SCREAMING (2009)

My Mouth Lies Screaming opens as many classic giallo films have done. A person dressed entirely in black enters a home where an unsuspecting woman (Sandra Nogueira) is climbing into a nice, warm bubble bath. The person in black barges in, the woman screams and the killer goes for his weapon of choice...a bowtie?



Your first instinct is to laugh at such a , well, laughable weapon, but then the carnage begins as the killer slashes the poor woman to death. My Mouth Lies Screaming starts off with a bloodbath to do any giallo proud.



But, this is the world of film maker Michael Legge so, it's only going to get weirder than the use of a bowtie as a murder weapon.



The story revolves around Antonio(Robin Gabrielli) and Evilyn (Cherry Lynn Zinger, and, before anyone comments, yes it's her real name) who are very much in love. Unfortunately, they are married to different people. Antonio must bear the burden of his dizzy wife Dumbelina (Diane Mela) while Evilyn has the extremely wealthy Professor Kubiyan(Michael Legge) to contend with.



Sure, the Professor is sick being half blind, half deaf and half crippled (???) but with the help of the the genius of Dr. Benvenuti (Phil Hall,) Evilyn won't be collecting her widow's benefits anytime soon. And, to make it harder to off her husband there is balloon fetishist, Nurse Rotunda (Lorna Noguira) to deal with. No, nothing will be easy for these two selfish lovers who are trying to off their respective spouses so that they may live happily ever after.



But what if there is an accident? There is that madman, The Bowtie Killer lurking about. Maybe if...?



MY MOUTH LIES SCREAMING is the newest film from the fertile imagination of writer/director Michael Legge. Having spoofed everything from spy movies to classic sci-fi, Michael has set his sights on the giallo genre and scored another bullseye. This is exactly what you come to expect from Mr. Legge, but it's different. It seems that our film maker is maturing, albeit in a goofy, Sideshow Cinema kind of way.
The opening sequence of the bowtie murder actually works on a suspense/thriller level.



Sure, the bowtie seems a little silly when it first appears, but the slashing and bloodletting that occurs is really not all that silly and done better than a lot of slasher flicks with bigger budgets. Plus, this film seems more preoccupied with sex than most of his other movies. We have Antonio and Evilyn who are all over each other. There are two scantily clad females in bathtubs at one point or another through the film. Nurse Rotunda wearing nothing but some frilly undergarments while having relations with a balloon is actually quite erotic.
My Mouth Lies Screaming might be the most erotic screwball comedy I have ever seen.
I also like how this is such a small, insulated film. While it takes place in a small town, you see very little of the denizens of the town. You get the main characters, a couple peripheral people that are on and off camera in a wink and that's really it. It gives an unwordly, bizarre feel to the movie that actually helps it have more of an impact than your usual flick.
While all the people in this movie breathe such believable life into such unbelievable chracters, I thought that one deserved more of a mention. That would have to be Diane Mela as Dumbelina. Stuck with a name like that is sure to give the viewer some preconceived notions, but Ms. Mela manages to pull it off. Her character is literally a trainwreck that just blunders through life and Diane makes Dumbelina such a joy to watch as she goes about her day. Even when there is chaos and dlaughter all around her, she knows when it's time to just take a nap. Great job, Diane!
Here at Divine Exploitation we are all about the micro budget cinema. Michael Legge has taken that to a special degree in that he has financed his own film and is now selling it through an exciting program at Amazon. It's called Create Space and it enables film makers to have total control over their projects while utilizing the mega giant of the magical interweb, Amazon.
Click here to order this flick using this creative innovation.
So, if you're a big fan of the giallo genre and you've been waiting a long time to see it properly skewered, then My Mouth Lies Screaming is just the flick for you.
In a related matter I would like to mention Sideshow Cinema's Restoration Project. Director Legge has taken four of his earlier, unavailable films and put them on DVD. They come in double feature packs and you can get all four flicks for only 20 bucks postage paid. That's five bucks a movie for those of you that are good at math. The films are CURTAINS, POTENTIAL SINS, WORKING STIFFS and NIGHT BASEMENT. Four classics from Sideshow Cinema.



Get 'em HERE!

What Makes A Divine Exploitation Person?

Being the one responsible first for the zine and then this blog, I feel that I might be most qualified to respond to this question. Who asked it? Why I did of course!
So, there are people who use certain things as road marks in their travels through life. Some use pictures, sensations, smells, people they have met. The list could go on and on forever. For me it has always been movies and television.
Ask me about Night Of The Living Dead and I will remember watching it at my mother's house when I was twelve. I remember having to get up to go use the bathroom and when I was headed back to the living room one of my mother's friends thought it would be fun to scare me. I did a standing front jump of at least twelve feet. Not too bad for a twelve year old.
But, while this is a remembrance that I will likely carry with me for all of my days, it goes farther than that. It's when the fascination for the bizarre and weird of cinema and television overrides your natural sense of survival.
Let me give you the best example I have.
See we lived in Scotts, Michigan when I was a kid out on East TS Avenue. The only other house was our neighbors across the street, The Cooks'. Our living room was this huge, wood floored place with a giant picture window that faced out at a field with the railroad tracks behind it. There were cornfields next to use, behind us and three different sets of railroad tracks out in the middle of nowhere.
You want creeped out? Try living here while watching Shock Theater as an impressionable child. Nothing compares to the isolation of rural life like this.
Anyway, we were having one of many tornado warnings and it was close enough that Mom and Dad decided to move the four Waltz kids down into the basement. The basement wasn't all that creepy. It wasn't finished, but it was huge. So, here we are, down in the basement, no cell phones, no television, the radio didn't work all that well. No real communication just the howling of the wind outside.
My father decided that enough was enough. He was going to go up and see what the weather on the television would tell him. Me, being the oldest, decided to go along for the ride. We checked the normal stations and there was nothing.
Then my dad started fiddling with the UHF dial. That was when the ABC affiliate WUHQ out of nearby Battle Creek flared into life for the first time in the Waltz household. And what was on the channel? Land Of The Giants. I was fascinated by the program. I think my father was more impressed that he found a new channel on the television. Either way here we were the two oldest males of the Scotts Michigan contingent of The Waltz Clan and we were watching television while Old Testament/Wrath Of God weather roared in defiance outside. It took a while before my mother and the three other kids came up to see if we had been carried off. I'm pretty sure that my mother wanted to kill my father for that one.
So, even the threat of total obliteration by one of the most powerful forces on Earth couldn't dissuade me from watching this cool television program.
Of course now I would be in the basement with an emergency radio that powers up with a few turns of a crank and there would be no chance that I would venture from the safety of our basement.
Or I might just take the flee option that a lot of people have been spouting about. See, the good thing about tornadoes is that they follow a certain path. The idea is to put as many miles as possible between you and this things path. Maybe. I'm not sure.
So, while many people call themselves movie buffs and television experts, I wonder how many of them would brave a tornado just to catch the newest episode of (insert name of show here). Not many I would wager.
And that's what makes a Divine Exploitation Person.
Here's a little treat for those of you that plunged through my little tale;

COMPUTER BEACH PARTY (1987)

So, there I am watching Attack Of The Show the other day and they showed a YouTube trailer for a flick called Computer Beach Party. I am a big fan of the 80's teen genre so, I decided to track this little puppy down.
Man, am I glad I did!



It starts off with a horribly faked ship tossing and turning at sea. Seems this particular stretch of beach is where a ship loaded with treasure sank off the shore of Galveston.
That's right. Not California, not Florida, Galveston. Well this particular stretch of beach is where all the dudes like to race their sailing thingamabobs. except now the mayor is buying up the beach and trying to keep people away so that he can find the treasure.



Andy and Dennis our two erstwhile heroes will do anything to stop the mayor's evil plans and keep the beach pristine. And everyone knows that means...BEACH PARTY!! And no beach party of the decade would be complete without a hair metal band. In this case, a group called Panther which I found zero information on. They are not the group Panthers. Completely different.



And, since it is called COMPUTER Beach Party, these guys are computer nerds and their dinosaur computers are capable of waaaay more than they should be. Heck, some of the stuff they do on their computers you can't even do today.
Add to this a car that looks like a giant chicken, lots of gyrating bodies and an ample supply of boobies and you have a curious little flick that does what all teen comedies are supposed to do;



Fight the man, have some fun, drink some beer and see some titties.
Mission accomplished Computer Beach Party. Well done.
Oh and somehow they got a live performance by The Drifters doing Under The Boardwalk. Amazing, simply amazing.

Here's a clip;

Attack Of The Mini-Wolf!!!

SATAN'S BLADE (1984)

I have no idea why I watched this, but all I can say is that it is FANTASTIC! This falls into the slasher realm of the 80's, but it has the eerie, no budget feel of CLASS REUNION MASSACRE. It also shares with that film the odd little thing that no one in this flick ever did anything else! Weird, huh?
Let's get to the details shall we?



First we get a bloody bank robbery where two beautiful chicks are gunned down in cold blood. Then we discover that the bank robbers were women in disguise! One turns on the other and thinks she is just gonna dump the body and run with the loot. Then she gets stabbed in the back and left for dead with her ex friend on the stairs of the cabin with a weird bloody sign scrawled on the wall.



Yeah, that's just the beginning.



Soon, two groups of people arrive at the ski lodge. One is a pair of lawyers with their girlfriends/wives (It's never really made clear) sure, they have their arguments, but they are in love.



The other groups is a bevy of beautiful girls. The only problem is they didn't make reservations at a ski lodge in the winter! Yeah, not too bright.



Hey wait! Didn't those two bank robber chicks get murdered in one of the cabins? Yeah, and since the sheriff says it's alright and they scrubbed most of the bloody evidence from the wall there's no reason they can't stay in the cabin, right?



And, of course, there is a prerequisite legend Seems way back in the olden days there was this mountain man who lived on the mountain. Probably why they called him a mountain man. Anyway, society kept encroaching on the mountain man's turf, pushing him and his family farther and farther up the mountain until he couldn't take it anymore and snapped. A few dead people slaughtered with a knife and we have a bonafide legend on our hands.



Seems crazy mountain man has come back to finish what he started.
Soon, the body count starts to pile up. The breast count goes even higher until we get a weird ending and a bizarre second ending that wraps up the whole thing in a nice, bloody package.



This was an excellent slasher flick. We get the weird, supernatural aspect of it. A large amount of very pretty women, for 1984, that are willing to get naked at the drop of a hat, and a fiercely original storyline. It is a real shame that none of these people ever went on to do anymore, because this was freaking awesome!



This is pretty hard to find, but the more determined of you could 'cough' torrent 'cough' probably dig it up with little hassle. There has never been a DVD release of this little gem and it so needs one. As far as slasher flicks go I'm placing this one in my rewatch and excellent pile. Not too many get in that pile so, it's sort of an honor in a geek fanboy sense of the term.



And, let's not forget the trailer:

An Appeal From A Fellow Blogger

Apparently, there is a huge Eurocrime documentary in the works and they need to start licensing the film clips to bring it to fruition.

Here's the link:

http://spitonyourtaste.blogspot.com/2009/10/kickstart-eurocrime-documentary.html

If you're a fan of the Eurocrime genre then this might be a worthy cause for you.

Here's a clip of one of my favorite eurocrime flicks.

PALISADES TARTAN BRINGS IT'S A GAME THIS HALLOWEEN!

Sure, you could watch the same old, same old creepy horror classics you watch year after year this October, but here's a novel idea. How about something that will actually scare you? Or,at the very least, disturb the crap out of you.
I am, of course referring to the plethora of releases coming out of Palisades Tartan Video this month.
Let's start off with the coolest and probably weirdest of the bunch.
I am referring to PRINCESS. A Danish film directed by Anders Morgenthaler, this film is more than a little off center. It concerns a missionary by the name of August who comes home after years of work out of the country because his sister has died from drug abuse. But his sister was no ordinary junkie. She was the porn star referred to as The Princess. She left her five year old daughter Mia with a prostitute so, August claims his niece.
Burdened with guilt, sadness and an unspeakable rage, August takes it upon himself to avenge the death of his sister. The violence continues to escalate as August realizes that the world of drugs, pornography and prostitution is more than a single man can handle.
While this sounds like a pretty straightforward storyline, here's the kicker;
Most of the film is animated. Sure, there are flashbacks that are in grainy video, but this is a beautifully animated film.
I've heard people refer to it as THE LITTLE MERMAID meets TAXI DRIVER. I really don't see THE LITTLE MERMAID in this. More of a dark Hayao Miyazaki film. The animation is gorgeous and the storytelling is magnificent.
My favorite scene, which won't really ruin the storyline for anyone, is during a shoot out. Everytime August puts a bullet in someone it shows the results of the death. Whether it's a coffin going into the crematorium or a widening red stain on the bed of the person's lover, this is amazing stuff.



Next up is THE BUTCHER. Forget SAW. Forget HOSTEL. This movie is brutal with a capital B. There is no setup or explanation. The flick throws you into the center of a handful of people who have been selected to be in a snuff film. Shot entirely with two POV cameras, THE BUTCHER revels in it's ability to shock the Hell out of you. And really shock you. You will not believe what you are seeing in a film that was actually too gruesome to be released in its country of origin.
To be honest, it's not my cup of tea, but there are a lot of people who will probably like it. I did appreciate the fact that the film makers limited themselves to using POV cameras and still managed to pull off a cohesive narrative.



Then we have P.
Dau is a young orphan girl who is taught magic by her grandmother. When grandmother gets ill, Dau is forced to go to nearby Bangkok to find work so she can buy her grandmother medicine. She ends up working in a go-go bar where her innocence doesn't last too long. She decides to use her magic to give her an advantage over the other people who work in the bar. This gives her a few enemies and problems as the darker aspects of her magic start to reveal themselves.
P is a really good flick that does a nice slow build up of tension and horror as you realize what is happening. And, for the gore hounds out there. There's even something for you. An all around creepfest.



Finally, we have the crown of the group. Palisades Tartan has released three of it's horror flicks in what they are calling...
TERROR PACK Vol. 1
With three great films from around the globe.
First there is SHEITAN with Vincent Cassel. It's your warm, Christmas story, but not really as a group of youngsters realize that the creepy guy with the pregnant wife has made a pact with the devil and it's about to come to a head.
Then there is CARVED. A beautiful woman gets her face disfigured by her jealous husband and her spirit haunts the town where it happened. But it's been thirty years. She couldn't come back again, could she? Well, if she didn't then we wouldn't have a movie, would we?
Finally from the Dutch we have SLAUGHTER NIGHT. Seems that young Kristel is on a mission to a museum to retrieve the final manuscript from her departed dad. She takes along some friends. This can't go well at all, can it?

I, for one, am glad that Tartan is back in its new incarnation of Palisades Tartan. They are renowned for bringing us cinema from around the globe and this October they have become determined to scare the Hell out of us as well.
Bravo!