THE DAY THE SKY EXPLODED (1958)

So, this basically deals with a manned space flight to the moon. Unfortunately, the rocket experiences some difficulties and the pilot is forced to eject the manned capsule. He believes that the atomic engines were turned off by ground control. They thought he did it, but with the malfunction he was unable to make that happen. So, in effect, we sent a nuclear bomb hurtling into the void.
It makes contact with an asteroid belt and sends huge meteors right towards us dooming mankind for all time.
This was a pretty slow B&W sci fi pic. There is a ton of stock footage and when they do a animal stampedes it reminded me of that line in ED WOOD about the explosions upsetting all the buffalo. I thought the solution to the problem was both genius and a nod to anti war propaganda at the same time. If all the nuclear countries fired their missiles up into space at the same time they could take out all the meteors and save the day.
In the end it was a little long, a little dull and they spelled Mario Bava's name wrong. Mario Baja? Sounds like an Italian dune buggy.

DEATH RIDERS (1976)

For the Cult Cinema Drive in 200 Movie Box set I am currently working through I just pick a disc at random and go from there. Sure, it comes with a little booklet that gives a brief synopsis, but what would be the fun in that. I saw the title, DEATH RIDERS, and thought it would be pretty cool.
I was right, but not in the way I thought.
DEATH RIDERS is a documentary that chronicles the 1974 tour of The Death Riders Thrillseeking Motorcycle Show. You have a group of youngsters  no more than 20 going across the country from state to state doing what they do best.
Crazy ass stunts.
What makes a motorcycle jump or car crash even better?
Setting things on fire, that's what.
I would have been twelve when they came through Van Buren County. Yes, they show the fairgrounds sign in the movie. I probably saw something like this if not that show.
Very cool.
I did think it was funny that they manages to capture the true exploitative feel of the times with some nudity. How, you may ask? They did a show at a nudist colony. Sure, some of these people needed to put their clothes back on, but it was all in good fun.
Now, with stunts involving fire and motorcycles and cars you expect something tragic to occur.
Never happens.
The movie does open with a list of former members who lost their lives and in what stunt it was. That kind of makes you a little nervous when one of the new members does the stunt.
But, with all of this there is the one stunt that I can't believe they do at every show and there are a ton of volunteers for.
They do a motorcycle jump from a two foot ramp over people from the audience!
Sure, I know what you're thinking. That wouldn't be that bad. You can jump a few people pretty safely, right? But what if the ramp broke and you plowed right through those people on your bike? Plus, a few people would have been a comfort. The end of the film had one of the guys jump forty-five people.
Yeah, you read that right.
Forty-Five People.
Yeesh!
In the end you get a documentary that feels so honest and pure. It is a perfect time capsule of 1974 through the eyes of master camerman Vilmos Zsigmond. Yeah, you read that right, too. The guy that gave us things like Sugarland Express and Close Encounters of the Third Kind spent a summer following a group of kids doing crazy stuff and got some great shots of it all.
This is a sweet film of a time that is lost forever and it shows how much fun people were having being crazy way before something over polished like Nitro Circus ever even thought of it.
This is my favorite film in the box set so far.

HOUSECLEANING

So, been kind of busy. Yeah, I have sort of watched three more movies in the Drive in box set, let's do that first.



SEXTETTE (1978)

I realize the cultural significance of Mae West. I also realize that this was done at the very tail end of her career. when Timothy Dalton walks up to her and breaks into song I realized that I was in for a unique viewing experience. When Dom Deluise did a song AND dance number that confirmed it. This is one of those movies that must be experienced once. I would be surprised if you ever needed to return to it.

Nothing like this happens in the movie. Well, the car is there, but the ladies...nope.

BURN OUT (1979)

This is fifteen minutes of drama wrapped around a huge amount of funny car drag racing. I'm from Kalamazoo. We don;t do funny cars here. We like stock car racing and demolition derby. Nothing here for me and it was terrible.



BLUE MONEY (1972)

A look at the making of porno flicks. It's treated in an artsy kind of way which is cool. Some of the photography of the outside stuff is breathtaking. Also, anytime you get Gary Kent as a police detective in a super sweet white turtle neck putting the porno makers down, it is always a good time. This was good. It deserves more people to be aware of it.

So, getting through the box set is taking a bit longer than expected, but I will watch all of them, I just can't make them the only thing I watch. Thanks for reading these and more will follow.

HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Divine Exploitation is going back to print! With friends of mine returning to print and the convenience of Create Space I see no reason why I can't do the same. I'm looking at a 50 to 60 page quarterly to start and bumping that up depending on submissions.

So, you want to submit to Divine Exploitation? And who doesn't, right? Just contact me here or, if you're one of my Facebook buddies you can get me there. Also dwaltzwriter@yahoo.com is good.
What am I looking for?

Art
Reviews
Exploration of Exploitation films
Fiction (I have one rule about fiction. Short and sweet. Make it weird.

All of these submissions have one steadfast rule. Do your homework. Check for spelling, make sure you know what you're talking about. It will always be black and white so no color art. Got it? Good.

And now, I leave you with Ron Merchant art. Be amazed!

VALERIE (2002)

VALERIE (2002) 



83 Minutes/Widescreen 
Directed by Jay Lind

Editor's Note: This is not part of the box set that I am currently covering. Still, an excellent film.


Valerie (Maggi Horseman) has been the victim of a violent rape in her own home. To deal with this, Valerie has become submerged in a fantasy reality where she is a vampire. To reinforce this there are a number of people being murdered in the small town she lives in. The police are baffled and the body count rises. To complicate matters Valerie is slowly blossoming into womanhood and all the anguish that can bring. Her best friend Lori (Mellanie Love) is dealing with her own sexuality and adding to the confusion with her overtly sexual advances towards Valerie. Along comes Jack Sickert (Jay Lind) whom Valerie feels a true connection with regardless of the huge age difference. Unfortunately, the vampire fantasy is bleeding over into her reality more and more until it becomes impossible to tell which is which. The key to the problem is the identity of her attacker. Whatever happened Valerie has blocked the face of her attacker. The fantasy world has put the face of a malevolent vampire on the rapist. Valerie must go past the fantasy, force herself back into the situation which caused the trauma. She has to unveil her attacker and deal with it to resolve her conflict before the fantasy envelops reality completely. 
VALERIE is the newest film by underground sensation Jay Lind. A Jay Lind film is a personal thing. There are many themes that he explores over and over again in his cinema. Suicide, fantasy vs. reality, death, art. All of these things are what makes a Jay Lind film rise above the norm. VALERIE is no exception. A huge assistance in the telling of this tale is his newest discovery, Maggi Horseman. She manages to bring a mercurial quality to the lead. At one point she comes across as a sweet, innocent girl with a terrible burden. Then she shifts to temptress and then back again to innocence. She handles this effortlessly making the film an enjoyable experience. 
Director Lind brings a haunting quality to the look of his film. From stark reality footage to color washed scenes of fantasy. When the two worlds begin to collide you can see certain aspects of the film begin to shimmer uncontrollably. We are along for the ride when the lines between vampire and teenager begin to blur. 
The film even manages to rise above it's basic horror storyline. We get a pair of girls that are out of high school, but unsure of where to go next. Just yesterday they were little girls and now the world expects them to be women. Lori's sudden urges of lesbianism throw Valerie deeper into her vampire mode. Perhaps the most haunting images is at the dance studio they both frequent. One minute they are doing their stretches. The next they are in a deep blue world of undead dancers. It emphasis the fact that whatever secret Valerie has locked up in her subconscious is slowly driving her mad. 
As is common with any Jay Lind film he has filled it with gorgeous women, especially Ms. Horseman who is unclothed for a better part of the film. The music varies between a techno funk during bar sequences to a haunting melody reminiscent of the old Universal monster movies. As a whole the movie reminded me of George Romero's MARTIN which was probably a direct influence on VALERIE. This doesn't make it derivative of the older film. Just a different, very interesting take on a familiar theme. Director Lind once again gives us an engrossing, haunting, personal film that gives us a glimpse into his personal world. VALERIE is how a vampire movie should be. Character driven, fascinating and unforgettable. 

CLICK:THE CALENDAR GIRL KILLER (1990)

Directed by Ross Hagen & John Stewart
Written by David Chute, Ross Hagen, John Stewart, Hoke Howell, Carol Lynn & David Reskin
Starring Ross Hagen, Troy Donahue, Hoke Howell, Gregory Scott Cummins, Donna Spier, Keely Sims & Susan Jennifer Sullivan

Okay, we get to start off with a small boy being chastised by a huge nurse. She tells him his mommy is dead and now she is forced to take care of him.
Flash forward to the decade like no other, the 90s, and we have women posing for the manic camera work of one Jack (Ross Hagen) and his assistant, Alan (Troy Donahue). It's a wrap and the party starts soon after. Professional model Nancy (Donna Spier) shows up at the party, is unceremoniously dumped in the hot tub and goes from being a serious model to stripping down to nothing for Jack's camera.
But this is all just build up to the huge project Jack has planned at his ranch. He is doing a photo spread that  glorifies sex and violence. And he will get the expressions he wants...no matter what.
CLICK gives us what must have been a Ross Hagen moment. He helps write it, direct it and, no surprise I promise, is the killer dressed like a nurse. Yes, a female nurse, otherwise who would care?
The movie takes forever to get off the ground and my famous actress spotting skills revealed Susan Jennifer Sullivan who plays the blonde, bitchy girl in FRIDAY THE 13TH 7:THE NEW BLOOD. In this movie she plays, well the same thing. She looks the same, acts the same, leaves her clothes on the same. Pretty dull.
Donna Spier was nice enough to give us opening nudity and then another girl gets naked for the bathtub before being stabbed to death in it.
Hagen does his normal chewing up the scenery that is always expected from him and you have to wonder if it was just a slasher flick cash grab for him. Makes sense. If you watch the end credits it was actually made in 1989 so, the time frame is right.
I wonder how many people are looking for the Adam Sandler movie and get this instead. I also wonder if they finish watching it or make a quick exit. For slasher movies it is a little slow, but for complete madman acting skills, Hagen is the master of this flick. Just watching him makes the movie worthwhile.

I WONDER WHO’S KILLING HER NOW (1975)

Directed by Steven Hillard Stern

Written by Mickey Rose

Starring Bob Dishy, Joanna Barnes, Bill Dana, Harvey Jason, Severn Darden, Vito Scotti

I actually watched this one a while back, but have not bothered with a review. At first I think I was overwhelmed, but now I think I might have been underwhelmed.

Basic plot is that Jordan Oliver (Bob Dishy) has embezzled money from his father’s company. His wife Clarice (Joanna Barnes) is leaving him because he is worthless so he takes out an insurance policy and has a contract to have her killed.

Then he realizes he can’t go through with it and tracks down the hired gun. Unfortunately, the hitman hired another guy because he didn’t need all the money.

This happens several times and eventually, Jordan is on his way to Las Vegas with an entourage of bizarre and weird characters to stop the murder.

I don’t know. This should have been funny. The director has done good work like ROLLING VENGEANCE, a personal favorite, but this is just lifeless. The writer is a veteran of some pretty good television from the Golden Age and everything just falls flat. The whole thing has a poverty row version of IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and seems grimy and worthless.

It was fun to spot all the people I have seen in television and movies over the decades, I just wish it had been in a better movie.

THE VIRGIN QUEEN OF ST. FRANCIS HIGH (1987)

Directed by Francesco Lucente

Written by Francesco Lucente

Starring Joseph R. Straface, Stacy Christensen, J.T. Wotton, Anna Lisa Iapaolo, Lee Barringer

I saw the title of this and said, ‘Cool! I loves me some teen comedy.’ Yeah, I really do. Too bad there was none of that evident in this movie.

We start in some club where we determine that it is where teen agers hang out to socialize, dance and, apparently, drink. There is a lot of drinking here. I understand that it is shot in Canada. Is there a lot of underage drinking in Canada?

So, Mike (Joseph R. Straface) bets his buddy Randy (Lee Barringer) that he can bed beauty queen Diane (Stacy Christensen) before the summer is over. With the help of his buddy Charlie (J.T. Wotton), Mike is determined to win that bet.

He dreams about saving her as a spy fighting against Lee who is an evil spy. He lies to Diane’s mother about looking like the Elephant Man and eventually wears Diane down enough that she agrees to go to some place up in the woods where there are cabins and bears who try to kill them in the middle of the night.

They discover love, but Mike doesn’t want Diane to find out about the bet and Randy is just interested in trashing her virtuous reputation.

Oh no, what will happen?

I admit to having watched movies with less of a plot, but they have a lot more things that this movie does not. Funny dialogue, acting, nudity, fart jokes. Any of this would have been just fine. I mean the video box is trying to pass itself off as some FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH clone.

The end credits list that the movie had an original title that escapes me and I’m too lazy to go back and check. They do thank God first in the end credits which is always nice, but it sort of explains how the film is so chaste.

It makes me wonder if Crown International Pictures knew what they had before they bought it. Can you imagine being at the drive in for this thing back in the day. I’m pretty sure it would have pissed me off. As it is now it just bored me.

Lead actress Christiansen is very pretty to look at and lead actor Straface is probably the worst actor on the planet. If his dialogue was any more wooden you could have carved Pinocchio out of it.    

This makes WEEKEND PASS look good.