The Dark Side of Real Estate Sales

Blood Lake (1987)

The last vacation I took with "da boyz" was probably 5 years ago.  Just a handful of idiots getting drunk till the sun came up and the bonfire was reduced to a lump of smoldering remains. A little fishing, a few gallons of cheap beer and a chance to get away from the people and jobs driving us crazy. We didn't have a care in the world. We also didn't have a Lil' Tony. It was our loss.

After the poorly staged murder of a groundskeeper, Blood Lake begins it's assault on your idea of vacations. Opening credits roll to the hard rock sounds of Voyager. Bleeding Skull's Joseph A. Ziemba described the music of Voyager as "butt metal". In the history of music there has never been a more spot on genre label. A traveling montage and Voyager combine to completely turn you off to the notion of Blood Lake being an accomplished 80 minutes of film making. Luckily, we're not here for accomplished filmmaking. We're in shot on video (SOV) country, and I will tell you right now that this country is vast and full of wonder.

Grab your buds, bring your babes, and prep your boat. Some prime property for a bad ass vacation just became available. To quote our hero it's "a real party house". It's actually just his girlfriend's father's lake house but with enough beer, any house can be a real party house. Test it out. It's true. They have their beer and they have their place to drink it in but it still feels like I'm forgetting something. Lil' Tony! They have brought along Lil' Tony. He's our hero's younger brother and he's a mulleted piece of shit. But in the best way possible. Lil' Tony has a sex fixation and no filter. Lil' Tony is that person you knew in 7th grade who was always on the hunt for porn and talked endlessly about boobs. Sure he could be annoying but he also had some damn funny jokes. It was the perfect mix of wanting to slap the shit out of him and wanting him to be around because he was completely out of line. This is Lil' Tony and this is his movie.

                                                          Lil' Tony. Big Dreams

The characters have been introduced and we have had glimpses of the bearded, cowboy boot wearing murderer. The vacationers are doing exactly what they planned on doing. Drinking beer, making sexual innuendos, participating in frat boy humor and experiencing the excitement of unloading a boat.... in real time! If you're thinking this sounds boring; don't worry, you're about to be hit with a water skiing montage. And do you know what a water skiing montage means? MORE VOYAGER!!! The kids are feeling good to the sweet sounds of Voyager's "Feelin Fine". After that ends we are not allowed to catch our breaths as we get hit in the face with a game of quarters, also played in real time! Blood Lake don't give a shit. You are a part of this vacation whether you like it or not.

                                                Action? Yeah. We got that covered


Sadly, the party must always end. This party is no different. Two boys that befriended the group of vacationers and joined in on all the funfair and drinking are the first to fall. After water skiing they noticed a fat, bearded man checking out the "real party house". These two skinny weiners somehow managed to scare him off with shit talk. For this, they die first. Slightly inebriated and pumped up about their toughness, they make the mistake of stumbling home.  They never arrive. But they do leave us with this small piece of dialogue to remember them by:

Blonde weiner: "Man, next time we come down here we need to bring some chicks with us!"

Other weiner: "Yeeeeeaaaaah. That'd be great. Sure as hell wouldn't be out here fishing."

Blonde weiner "No shit! We'd be diving......MUFF DIVING!"

Godspeed, you angels. Your time on this earth was far too short.

Those first murders take place at almost fifty minutes into the running time. Sure, we saw the groundskeeper get his but it happened off screen and is pretty much forgotten by the time Lil' Tony shows up grinning like the smart ass he is. The core group is targeted next and the "real party house" is to blame. Apparently the bearded, cowboy boot wearing fat man is owed money for the sale of the place. Daddy never paid. It's another case of real estate debt leading to murder.

Becky (the girlfriend) and Lil' Tony end up hanging from a rope in the shed out back, held at knifepoint.  Luckily, our hero, comes to the rescue. The struggle that ensues is as exciting as you'd expect from a film where real estate debt is the motivation for murder. More importantly, we learn that Becky is an afterthought when it comes to the safety of Lil' Tony. I can't say I disagree. The supposedly dead killer vanishes and we cut to a scene of a cowboy hat wearing man surveying where the lake once was. Voyager plays as the man walks and as the camera shoots the dried up lake from various angles. Before the end credits roll this text appears on the screen:

AMEN

SOV films are to be enjoyed with a certain level of understanding. Some of us find the lack of scripting and "family vacation tape" quality charming. Some of you will not and will probably hit me many times if you tracked down Blood Lake because of this review. I apologize for nothing.

And Now a Message From Lil' Slugger

                                                    Lil' Slugger (before the incident)



"Howdy Folks!!! My pops has been pretty darn busy what with the workin and holiday drinkin. His g'night kisses smell like my coaches sleepy coffee. But I'm here to let ya know that he has been a watchin some great films and will be reviewing them but good! (My pops, not my coach. My coach has no time for movie watching. Divorces and coffee breaks take up most of his time). So check back real soon, have some laughs and hopefully learn a thing or two!"

Samurai & Orgasms... Wisconsin Style!

Blood Beat (1982)

Liam Gallagher once sang "Back beat. Word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out." If he had said "Blood Beat" I would still be writing he and his brother hate mail. Blood Beat's heart is burning with fire. The kind of fire brought about by a handle of cheap whiskey and a couple bumps of booger sugar.   As it is, Oasis never made my shit list and Blood Beat never became "that one movie the Gallagher brothers sang about." Is anybody better off? Does this opening paragraph make any sense? Welcome to the wonderful world of Blood Beat!

Christmas has come to Wisconsin. More importantly, orgasm inducing samurai-ghost murders have made the trip as well. Ted, his sister Dolly and his girlfriend Sarah have all made the journey home. His painter mother Cathy and her bearded boyfriend Gary are playing host. We first meet the epically bearded Gary as he bow hunts a deer. Sarah meets Gary as he guts the main ingredient of deer stew. Failed bloody handshakes and general holiday excitement take a back seat to mom's obvious disdain for Sarah. Something is going on and judging by the looks mom gives to Sarah its either psychic tension or severe constipation. Based on all the blue and orange optical effects that eventually manifest, it is the former. Although, I've never had severe constipation, so I may be wrong.

                                                 I Am All That is Man....I Am GARY

Things play out exactly as you would expect them to during a dreary Wisconsin winter. Ted tries, for what seems like an eternity, to bang Sarah when she's settling in to the guest room, Cathy goes super creepy and psychically watches her son try to bang Sarah, ma's hands become possessed, those orange and blue optical effects make an appearance and Ted shows off his rifle around the old Christmas tree. Just your usual winter in the Badger State.

The cracks begin to widen when Sarah finds a samurai helmet in her bedroom. Her curiosity turns to fear when it magically vanishes from the room. It turns out she is, much like mom, psychic. The fragile reality of this film slowly unravels. Up to this point Blood Beat has been slightly off. It drags a little as it moves along. You figure on it being a weird little film that gave it's best yet failed to entertain. Then a displaced Chicago Bears Superfan looking man shows up. Buckle your safety belt, all hell is about break loose.

                                                Hurricane Ditka got nothin' on Blood Beat

The appearance of the superfan is the catalyst to the awesomeness of Blood Beat. He shows up and so does the blue light radiating samurai-ghost. The phantom attacks him. He runs and jumps through a window in SLOW MOTION! His death causes Sarah to have multiple orgasms. How is she connected to the blue light spectre? Fuck if I know! All I know is we just witnessed the first ever masturbation triggered ghost samurai attack in Wisconsin history. Blood Beat deserves every accolade because of this fact.

After that little segment of Heaven passes you can just sit back and enjoy the brain meltingly confusing climax. More murders trigger more Sarah orgasms, the kitchen attacks Gary with food and a can of TAB, EVERYONE IS PSYCHIC,  good magic and evil magic clash, stock footage roles and fucking LASERS happen! When the credits finally hit, the best thing to do is scoop up your brains and get on with your life. Don't dwell on Blood Beat. Don't look for answers. That will only lead to nosebleeds. Just  let it be.

Gary said it best: "Even the good old boys get fed up." And if that is the one discernible lesson you can take from Blood Beat, then I think we'll be more appreciative people. It's also possible this movie broke my brain and I'm just a rambling idiot. Perhaps we're all better off.

Poopers, Bootlegs and False Advertising: A Foggy Recollection of a Massacre

Meatcleaver Massacre (1977)

YouTube is wonderful. And no, smartass, it’s not like I just discovered it. I did just discover that Meatcleaver Massacre was available on it. I assure you, this is a good thing. Let the joyous memories flow.

As older fans of horror can and probably will tell you (hundreds of times) before the internet was a globe encompassing beast, we had a rough time snatching up hard to find movies. Through video stores and usually the awesome weirdos that worked at these video stores we would sometimes get lucky. VHS tapes (giant black things that brought hours of joy before degrading in quality, ruining the very machine you needed to view them with and destroying your weekend plans of Fulci film marathons) were one’s passport to weird and extreme worlds. And those wonderful weirdos behind the counter of your local mom and pop video stores were the gatekeepers.

Before I became an employee, I was a faithful customer to my local video shop. Recognition and horror talk got me in close to the high school senior who worked behind the counter on Friday and Saturday nights. This led to his bootleg discoveries being passed on to me. Wonderful bootlegs of various (mostly awful) quality. I’m not complaining, it’s something I honestly love and miss about the pre-internet horror film experience. Now, the point of all this rambling. I watched a shitty copy of Meatcleaver Massacre on a bootleg VHS sometime before I graduated high school. I watched a (barely) less shitty copy of Meatcleaver Massacre on YouTube about a month ago. My recollections of this film are just as muddy and indecipherable as they have been for the last few years between viewings. It’s supposed to be this way. That’s how amazing this movie is.

I remember some things going into my YouTube viewing. There are no meat cleavers in this film. I remember that, at least I think I remember that. Scenes that may or may not be real flash into existence. I remember Sean and his odd hair, I remember interesting facial grooming on the detectives, Christopher Lee rambling and, of course, I remember Poopers. Lovable old Poopers.

The soothing voice of horror, Christopher Lee, welcomes us to the film. He talks of death, evil spirits and the afterlife. It all has something to do with, most likely, nothing. It doesn’t matter. Christopher Lee was there. I’m sure of it. He rambles and then the movie begins. Sir Christopher Lee does not participate in the actual film. He’s just another passenger caught up in the Meatcleaver Massacre road trip.

A professor talks about Morak. Morak is a demonic entity that can be called into reality for the sole purpose of vengeance.  Morak is also known as The Great Avenger. A wise student chimes in “Yeah. Like Batman” Instead of ignoring his idiotic student, who should have gone with Ghost Rider and not a crime hating vigilante, the professor replies “Like a super-Batman, if you wish.” Fuck. This movie has all the answers.  

Morak will come into play soon enough. One of the professor’s students, a punk by the name of Mason, really disagrees with the professor that Morak may exist. Mason, being the complete asshole that he is, decides he can’t let his professor’s belief go. He and his group of no-goodniks decide to take a trip out to the professor’s house. I can only assume it’s a typical night over at Mr. Professor’s home. The professor is quietly reading, his son is making a sandwich, his daughter is taking a shower and his wife is letting out the loyal family dog Poopers. Mason and his gang of ne’er-do-wells arrive and are about to cause some mischief. Probably freak out the family with some old fashioned pranks. Then they killed poopers and all bets were off.

The family soon joins Poopers in whatever heaven he went to. The son is strangled, the wife is, I think, murdered by the correct use of the Mandible Claw and the daughter is bludgeoned with… well something. The print is very dark and outside of the strangulation you’re kind of left guessing how the family was done in. Mr. Professor was also bludgeoned but lives. He’s in a coma and unresponsive but still able to summon Morak for some sweet vengeance.

At this point, your average horror film would follow the simple arch of comeuppance. This is not your average film. Something else is at play here. Sure, it follows the conventions but it also has them unfold with the logic of a lunatic. The gang of murderers meets up at a comedy show. A show involving Peter Falk impressions and hairdresser hatred. Someone is murdered by possessed cacti while hiking through the desert. A man attempts to commit suicide but upon seeing he’s late for work figures slitting his wrists can wait. Sex is also put off for work. People are massacred but no meat cleavers are used. The lunatic follows his own logic and the movie benefits from it.

I sink deeper into the haze of this film. False scares and dream sequences further bend my sanity. The audio plays tricks on me. It slips in and out; sometimes the music drowns the dialogue. Dialogue written by an alien race that sat in on the marijuana induced ramblings of two twenty year old philosophy majors. Moments in time disappear, lost forever to the shadowy world of Meatcleaver Massacre or were simply butter knifed out by an insane editor. The movie ends and Christopher Lee returns. He talks about a shaman convention. Shortly after, he uses the term "Abracadabracle" This film has cast a spell on me.

                                                       Wait....maybe it's.....uhm...nope

Meatcleaver Massacre is a dream. No. Meatcleaver Massacre is a memory viewed through a thick fog. The images dance and briefly take shape but then disappear into the ether. Am I giving this movie too much credit? Maybe, but I think Poopers would disagree.