Dolemite: The Total Experience. Part 3, Petey Wheatstraw The Devil's Son-In-Law

I bet you thought I wouldn't be back so soon.  Well you thought WRONG!  I am a man on a mission, and I'm here to give you the info you need on Petey Wheatstraw The Devil's Son-In-Law.  This movie is pretty strange compared to the original Dolemite film, but probably on par with The Human Tornado in both comedy and weird factor.  So let's not delay.

In the first scene Rudy informs us that this time around he is Petey Wheatstraw, and he was born during an infamous Miami Hurricane.  The Sheriff from The Human Tornado is a doctor who deliver the titular character during the storm in a dilapidated shack.  During birth the first thing that comes out is a watermelon.  Yep, a watermelon.  Then of course Petey is pulled out.  He is a young boy already, possibly 7 and starts beating up the doctor, and then his dad for waking him up every night.  I assume with romantic interludes with Petey's mamma.

We are then treated to a funky theme about Petey and we see teen-ish Petey being picked on and beaten up in the streets.  An old man named Bantu offers to teach him martial arts and we get a montage filled with things like Petey breaking bricks or slicing up a watermelon with a katana.  That's two watermelons in ten minutes.  Well it turns out that young Petey wants to save the world from misery with the power of stand up comedy so Bantu gives him his blessing.

Shortly after we see a very brief scene of adult Wheatstraw doing Rudy's regular comedy of being vulgar and insulting people.  Then two overweight comedians named Leroy and Skillet are borrowing money to open a swingin' club from a mafia guy named Mr. White who is a bad guy and threatens them even before they get the money.  But they should be fine as no events are scheduled around the time the club will open... or so they think.  It turns out that the infamous Petey Wheatstraw is doing a show in a place called Steve's Den on their opening night.

Petey travels to Steve's Den and hangs out with his business partners for a bit as well as the owner.  When he leaves, some guys are trying to steal parts of his car, so Petey Kung Fus them and forces them to put it all back together after a slapstick chase segment.  One of Petey's business associates, Sheila wants to bang him and he agrees after cautioning her about his moral issue of mixing business with pleasure.  Then the phone rings and it is Leroy who attempts to convince Petey to move the show's date.  Petey says no, so the logical step is for Leroy and Skillet to send cronies led by a dude called Scarface Willie to intimidate Petey's friend and business partner Ted.  Things go awry and they kill Ted's brother Larry which seems a bit over the top until you see what happens next.

So at Larry's funeral at a Baptist church Willie and the crew pull out a tommy gun and wipe out everyone there, including all of Larry's family and Petey Wheatstraw himself.  But suddenly a man named Lucifer wakes up Petey and offers to bring everyone (except Larry) back to life as well as Petey so he can get revenge and do his stand up.  In return the Devil wants Petey to marry his hideous daughter and give her a child.  Petey reluctantly agrees because he doesn't want to spend eternity in a red room for developing film but with a few couches and a mini bar in it.

Immediately after coming back, Petey tells this story to his friends including Ted who goes out to get revenge for his brother.  Petey follows and when Ted gets in over his head, Petey makes an appearance and scares the bad guys.  So Petey goes back to hang out with Sheila.  Before they can bang, the Devil calls and tells him he needs to go get Lucifer's cane from a graveyard where it resides hidden under a tire and some yard waste.  But first he needs to Kung Fu the bad guys that showed up to kill him.

With his new found powers, Petey goes to the club the next day.  The cane leads him to the restroom where he discovers a bomb has been planted.  After a short slapsticky game of hot potato during a bad audition at the club, Petey manages to take it outside and throw it in the back of a truck full of watermelons which explode all over the place.  Man I really want some watermelon now.

So Leroy and Skillet open their club and Petey sneaks in with the help of a flamboyant costume and a vague accent.  I guess Leroy and Skillet were successful at getting Petey to move the date.  Anyway Petey messes with the performance with the help of his newfound demonic powers and starts blowing up the place.  Ted chases after Willie Scarface who decides to stab himself during the scuffle to rob Ted of the satisfaction of revenge.

Then Petey abuses his powers of Satan to help the neighborhood by doing things like turning a cheating husband into a puppy at the request of his wife who was about to murder him, or saving a kid from an oncoming car.  Lucifer informs Petey that his wedding is tomorrow and he should give the cane back.  Well, Petey still needs to use it so he says he will later.  He also convinces Lucifer that he will be meditating just before the wedding so he won't be responsive.  This is so he can go out and kidnap a homeless drunk on the street, drug him up, and put a Petey Wheatstraw mask on him so they can't tell the difference until Petey has driven across the US to escape.  The mask looks good when it's on because of the power of cutting to footage of Rudy on the couch.

So the day of the wedding arrives and Lucifer comes a bit early to give his Son-In-Law a present.  He takes him to a hidden bachelor pad in a condemned building and summons a bunch of devil women for him to bang ON HIS WEDDING DAY!  After banging them to unconsciousness Petey does his switcheroo and shortly after the homeless guy gets in the car, he wakes up and is discovered for a fraud.

Lucifer and his daughter use their powers to create an earthquake which Petey fights back with the cane.  So Lucifer sends some devils after them, but Petey makes them go away again with the cane.  Maybe Lucifer should've taken that cane.  Petey and company attempt to make an escape but it comes down to a rooftop battle with Petey and the Devil.  Petey stops him with the cane, lights the Devil on fire, throws him off the building, and breaks the cane.  However Lucifer can't be killed so he forces Petey Wheatstraw to marry his daughter anyway.

Man this is a weird movie.  If you like The Human Tornado, you will probably like this.  It is essentially, comedy, Kung Fu, and clubs.  The Satan angle makes it unique and thank god because otherwise I would have been bored having just watched a Dolemite movie two days ago.  I would say, if the things I described sound great to you and you don't mind low budget black comedies, this is for you.  Otherwise it really wouldn't work well for you.  I like bad Kung Fu, funky tunes, and Satan so it works well for me.  I think I'll get myself a watermelon now.

Dolemite: The Total Experience. Part 2, The Human Tornado

That's right, I thought I'd get to this sooner, but I've been pretty busy lately.  That is not gonna stop me however from giving you the lowdown on these Rudy Ray Moore Classics.  Especially since you can go and pick up a Blu Ray of the original Dolemite and The Human Tornado now.  Anyway, The Human Tornado is a crowning achievement in cinema.  No other movie in the history of ever has been as bad ass or entertaining.  So let's talk about it real quick.

This film opens exactly the way it needs to, with Dolemite doing a Kung Fu demonstration during the opening credits while a theme song for The Human Tornado himself plays.  Then we are quickly transported to the world of stand up.  Dolemite does his normal thing, being as offensive as possible and making fun of his audience.  One joke in particular is very confusing during this.  I will have to paraphrase because in our modern SJW community, I would probably be considered racist for doing something as simple as quoting The Great Man that is Dolemite himself, but here is the joke. This guy interrupts him, and Rudy mentions this guy has to be the center of attention all the time.  Then he states that he is the kind of guy that farts in the bathtub, then turns around and bites the bubbles.  What does that mean exactly?  I mean what kind of person is that supposed to be indicative of?

Well that's not important, because the movie starts up now.  Dolemite is apparently pimping himself out now and a woman comes to him to get services during an event at Dolemite's Florida estate.  Dolemite is a good guy who gives to the community and is donating his place to make a boy's home of some sort that sadly didn't raise enough funds to be built.  Dolemite announces this and then goes back to give the woman some Tornado.

Some racist rednecks see the party and tell Sheriff Beatty who does a raid on Dolemite's place because he is also racist.  During the raid the Sheriff finds his wife sleeping with Dolemite and orders his friend to shoot them.  His friend starts with Beatty's wife and kills her with a shotgun.  Dolemite retaliates with a handgun and kills the guy, then jumps of a nearby cliff and down a hill.  The Bad Dolemite (bad meaning awesome) jumps naked too, and just to make sure you know he really did it, we get some instant replay action.  We then get a funky car chase with some of the Sheriff's men, and it ends with Dolemite blowing up both his and their cars with a shotgun.  Dolemite and his friends are left without transportation so they hijack a gay guy's car and take him with to California.  This gay guy is kind of offensive and annoying so I will assume he is also insane and that is why.  But Dolemite is pretty nice to him and not only takes him with but gives him money for his troubles and the dude really is excited to go to California too.

Dolemite is going there to meet up with his partner in the sex trafficking business Queen Bee.  A rival escort service owner named Joe Cavaletti is angry about losing business to Queenie so he kidnaps two of Dolemite's girls and forces Queen Bee to start working for him.  So Dolemite must get his empire back... again, but first he must bang his lady friend Hurricane Annie.  She tells Dolemite he is out of shape so they work out naked, but he gets bored and they get down to business.

Sheriff Beatty blames his wife's death on Dolemite so some other white cop dude hires Detective Pete Blakeley, the very best there is in Florida to take on the case.  He happens to be black and the Sheriff doesn't like that much but doesn't really have a choice.  This Detective wants to capture Cavaletti anyway so off they go.  Meanwhile Cavaletti is busy killing guys in the street for no reason and bossing Queenie around.

Dolemite gathers some intel about a torture den that Cavaletti has from some druggie guy, and finds out that Cavaletti has a woman who would know where it is and she lives in Cavaletti's house.  So Dolemite seduces her with some art of a white woman in a passionate embrace with a black man and she is transported to a dreamworld where a bunch of strong black men come out of a toy box to please her and go down a slide with her.  Yes this really happens.  Meanwhile in the real world Dolemite is "pumping" the info out of her.  We learn why he is called The Human Tornado.  He is so good at sex that he literally brings the room down around them.

What follows in the finale is Dolemite's men infiltrating a party Cavaletti is throwing with the help of Queenie's girls, and Dolemite sneaks into the torture den where he saves the girls with the power of his killer kung fu.  You would have to see it to understand why it's so hilarious so just look it up.  The fight scenes are sped up and Dolemite makes the most amazing kung fu noises ever recorded.  There is a little bit more, but I'll just say that evil is mostly punished and Dolemite lives on.

The Human Tornado succeeds at surpassing the original film in every possible way.  The acting, the music, and the action is all better.  It is also more focused and much more funny.  This movie is so ridiculously watchable.  It really is the best Rudy Ray Moore has to offer.  The only issue is that it makes a bit more sense if you've seen the original so you can't introduce people with this unless you brief them a little on the history of the character.  It also seems like some of the story was cut out but that is okay because the movie really seems like an appropriate length.  Seriously though, this is the movie that made Dolemite a legend for me.  Go see it, the movie has it all and Dolemite once again proves he is the baddest there ever was or ever will be.

Don't Look in the Basement

Don't Look in the Basement, or The Forgotten is a true classic of the Drive-In world.  Often when given a watch from a modern audience, they tend to find it boring and stupid.  In some ways they have a point.  This movie is the very definition of pinning all hopes on a strong premise, and it is strong.  The major problem with this movie is just how wacky psychology is in the movie.  But I'm generally a positive guy when I review stuff, so what did I think of the movie?

Well we start off in a sort of big house that is a mental institute run by a man named Dr. Stevens.  He doesn't believe in a doctor patient relationship and prefers to deal with the patients by letting them act out and treating them as family.  This seems strange when you realize that most of his patients are prone to bursts of violence, but apparently he has spent years gaining their trust.  That doesn't stop a patient named Judge Cameron from getting carried away while chopping wood and the honorable Judge gives Dr. Stevens the axe.

Another doctor named Masters takes over for him being the only qualified person on staff.  She has a patient named Sam help her with the clean up of Stevens.  I should mention the people who stay there.  Sam is a big black guy who has the mind of a child.  He also loves to play with toy boats.  He is pretty tame.  Allyson is a nymphomaniac with schizophrenia.  There is the previously mentioned Judge Cameron who may only think he is a Judge.  A guy they call Sargeant who has PTSD and killed members of his platoon.  There is an old woman named Callingham who speaks in ominous poems and really loves flowers.  Jennifer mostly cowers in corners and looks creepy.  Danny is a prank playing red head who is also childlike.  Then there is Harriet.

So Harriet has a baby doll that she thinks is real and is protecting her with violent tendencies.  She murders a nurse working there shortly after the death of Dr. Stevens.  This leaves them with a staff consisting of just Dr. Masters.  As it turns out a woman named Charlotte Beale applied for a job there with Stevens a week prior to his death.  After a week she comes there to claim the job only to discover that Stevens is dead and has told Dr. Masters nothing at all about the new employee, or even that there was to be one so Masters is reluctant to hire her.  Charlotte gave up her whole life to take this job and despite the news of violent patients, is determined to work there regardless.  So Masters hires her.

Not all is well here though.  It turns out the phone lines don't work and very shortly after Charlotte makes a bit of progress with the patients, Jennifer attacks Charlotte with a knife and Danny becomes infatuated with her, and is caught looming over her.  She wakes because Judge catches Danny looming.  Judge is also looming, but with an axe and makes mention of wanting to kill her... sort of.  Another occurrence is Allyson seducing the phone repairman with a rampant sex drive and threats of violence.

This all seems pretty fascinating and scary, but I assure you most of what happens is spread out between a lot of nothing or back loaded at the end of the movie.  Not that it's bad or anything.  In fact for my tastes if more happened I would think it was a bit of overload and start to wonder why Charlotte hadn't left earlier.  Much of this happens in the last half hour by the way except the phone guy banging Allyson.  There is something else that happens too, but I won't get into it.  Many people get killed in pretty brutal ways in this movie, and you see Allyson's upper assets a few times as well which is nice.  What really sells this is the ending.  Nearly every review you will ever read will talk about this awesome ending, and they will either spoil it, or tell you to watch it for yourself.  I choose to go with the second option because I think this movie has fallen into relative obscurity and it could be enjoyable for those that want to watch it to enjoy it for themselves.

Don't Look in the Basement is a prime example of Drive-In cinema in all it's glory and if you want to know what it was like to be a young teen in Texas watching sleazy gore and nudity in the comfort of your own car, I suggest this highly.  But get some snacks because you will want to munch and zone out partway through.  The good stuff actually makes this movie worth it I think and to be honest I like this movie a bit more than some other well know Drive-In fair such as Color Me Blood Red.  Normally I don't give movies ratings but with this one I will.  3 out of 5 I'd say.  This I feel is a good score.  Young folks nowadays think that average or slightly above means it sucks which is totally not true.

Heed these words well, a rating that is half of the full, like 5 out of 10, means that at the very least it is better than half the things you've seen in your life.  So a rating of 3 out of 5 should mean that it is better than average.  2 out of 5 means it's better than a fifth of what you've seen but nothing too great, and 4 out of 5 is pretty damn good.  this means 1 out of 5 is bad and 5 out of 5 is as good as it gets.  So now you know how to actually rate a movie, but does this mean I recommend Don't Look in the Basement?  Not really.  I would say if you are a casual movie watcher just don't bother, especially if you are young and have no attention span.  If you are a horror fan though then you better sit yourself down.  This is something you should see at least once.  Especially if you know what the hell I mean by Drive-In fair.  Remember folks, as Joe Bob Briggs said, "The Drive-In will never die."

Django... The Real One.

Around the age of 11 or so, I became aware of what spaghetti western was referring too.  Before this I had seen a handful of them, and even heard them referenced as that.  I had no idea what it meant.  When I was 6 and my dad mentioned it while I was watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly for the hundredth time and I assumed people used to eat spaghetti while watching them, though I couldn't imagine where.  Maybe at the Drive-In, because at the time I knew that's where people watched westerns, but I thought that was way too messy.  Give me a break, I was 6.  I could barely understand what was happening in the movie to begin with.  Shortly after I forgot about it completely and continued on with my life.  Then five years later I saw Django.

By this time I was aware that The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly was directed by an Italian person and that much of the extras were Italian as well.  I saw this name on the list of what was playing next on a movie channel and I couldn't figure out what it was about so I decided to watch it.  Boy was I happy that I did.  Finally I figured out what people meant by spaghetti western.  Not that I gave it much thought or anything.

Django is the story of a stranger travelling with a coffin in tow.  He comes across a woman named Maria being tortured by some guys who are whipping her on a bridge because she tried to escape them.  These bad hombres are then shot down by some guys in red bandannas.  The bandanna guys are going to burn her to death because she left with the Mexicans.  This woman cannot catch a break.  Then Django comes by and shoots them all down.  He helps the woman get back to town where he hangs out with his muddy boots and coffin inside a hotel/bar/brothel, when a guy named Jackson comes in.  Jackson is a leader of some kind of gang who is racist against Mexicans and kills them for fun.  Well Django for whatever reason hangs out to meet this guy, pisses him off, and shoots all his men down.  Then he tells Jackson that he should bring all his men next time so it would be fair. The amount of men Jackson has is 48 by the way.

How bad ass do you have to be to challenge 49 guys to a gunfight in the streets?  What we don't know is that Django has a personal vendetta against Jackson which should be obvious if you listened to the theme song, and that Django has a trick up his... coffin.  Yeah it is pretty easy to guess but hey the guy is still the most bad ass man ever.

Django is the kind of movie you don't really question the story during.  Django's motives change multiple times, and you wonder why he has any interest in helping people outside of being a random vigilante.  This doesn't matter though because this movie is straight up awesome.  Violence, drinking, hookers, its all there.  It's the kind of movie that's made just for it's audience.  But at least it is made well.  It looks great, and the music is fantastic as well.  I highly recommend this movie.

Ghost in the Shell

A this blog is mainly a hobby for me, sometimes it takes a back seat to real life.  It is no secret that I suffer a great deal from depression, but that's not relevant to this really.  I just wanted to note that I have been away for a while.

I grew up watching anime in the early 90's.  When I was young, it all seemed so cool to me.  Often times I would go to a comic shop, and get denied the ability to buy The Invisibles or some other more mature themed comic, but for whatever reason I could rent anime at rental stores.  Perhaps the people at the rental stores didn't know (or care) about the content in these cartoons.  So when I looked at the cool covers, I imagined all the things I was missing from picking up Bloodshot, or Spawn, would be in there somewhere, but also animated.  It was exciting and bad ass looking.  Plus there were adaptations of Fatal Fury or Street Fighter to be seen.  Sadly, my predictions were usually correct when it came the bad end of the spectrum.  For every Ghost in the Shell there were like 50 M.D. Geist's, just like for every Invisibles, there were 50 Heroes Reborn's, but being filled with teenage lust and angst, this was just fine.  I was willing to overlook the problems of these movies for the 5 minutes of awesome that was usually within.

You may have noticed that I mentioned the title I am about to review.  Yes, Ghost in the Shell is one of those pretty good anime titles.  Practically everyone who was into anime at the time had seen it, or owned it.  This was the gold standard for anime at the time and for good reason.

This movie is about a cyborg woman named Motoko Kusanagi, who works for Public Security Section 9.  This is of course a sort of government agency that employs a bunch of specialists to do insane things and protect the public from stuff like robots or whatever.  Anyway, she is a Major of some kind and loves to hang out on top of buildings at night, mostly naked in order to use her super camo thing to become invisible-ish and shoot up bad guys.  With her are other employees like Batou, and Togusa.  Batou is a white haired dude with cyber eyes that do... something, and Togusa is a mostly human guy who is seemingly employed for that reason.

A large portion of this movie is people musing over what it means to be human, and if it's any different or more special than being an AI.  There are a bunch of action scenes though and that it sweet.  I like the themes explored in the movie, but honestly there isn't enough time to really go through it all.

So a Robo-Chick body escapes a facility and gets run over.  Section 9 recovers it and discovers that it got up and left on it's own without any AI or Ghost inside.  It turns out that... Something is inside.  It awakens and goes on a bit of a rampage.  What is this something?  Well is it an AI, a soul?  These are the questions that attempt to get answered along the way as Kusanagi gets naked and blows stuff up.

Though the movie is not too long, it leaves a lot of weird questions, and usually one wants more.  I felt that way.  The only real option for a while however was a not so well translated, blown up, and flipped comic version of the manga.  This was pretty undesirable as it would cost way too much to really get much out of it.  Luckily Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex would come out later, and this is where people really became obsessed with the franchise.

The movie was meant to be sort of "Stand Alone" in it's own right and has an ending of sorts.  It can be viewed as a bit of an oddity of fandom and 90's nerd culture, but it is also a very good looking movie, and totally worth watching.  I recommend it very much.  It isn't all that fantastic in retrospect however.  Most of it's special nature is based around the time it was released so i could see how people could just watch it and not care too much.  It is a part of anime history, and is very important to America as a release that helped popularize anime as a media format to view though.  For this reason, fans of the whole anime thing should just watch it anyway, but it's better than most of the others of it's era.  Take that for what it's worth I guess.

Dolemite: The Total Experience. Part 1, Dolemite.

Hell yeah.  When I first saw this movie as a young lad, I was immediately obsessed.  This launched a very long legacy of occasionally making reference to Rudy Ray Moore things and sadly having it go over people's heads.  Well I am here to say that I finally picked up Dolemite The Total Experience box.  That is eight discs of Rudy Ray Moore.  Of course only three of them are Dolemite movies, and a couple are live stand up, But nonetheless, it is the best collection of Rudy you can get.  So I am going to review, not just the Dolemite films, but every damn disc in the box.  Here is the thing though,  Rudy's comedy is very NSFW.  So in order to preserve his legacy, I am not going to hold back as well.  So if you don't like swearing and such, you should just ignore this.

Rudy Ray Moore is well known as a comedian who recorded raunchy comedy albums, usually rhyming while cool jazz played in the background.  Dolemite is a character who Rudy steps into to make some of his best stuff happen.  Dolemite is a character who is a kung fu fighting, smooth talking pimp, is the greatest in bed and employs an array of martial arts hoes to do his bidding.  The New York Times calls this "The Citizen Kane of blaxploitation films!" and I for one am ready to revisit this movie.

The first film, simply titled Dolemite, sees our character starting out in prison.  Dolemite was wrongfully accused of dealing drugs during a set up.  Why didn't they just get Dolemite on the many other things he actually did, such as run a prostitution ring, or murdering people?  Well anyway the warden brings Dolemite to his office where he says that Dolemite can go free if he agrees to help clean up the streets of the big drug kings now in charge of the area.  The main guy Dolemite is worried about is Willie Green, a rival pimp who seems to have bought up excess stuff that has been sold off from Dolemite's seedy empire, including a club that Dolemite loves.  A madam that works for Dolemite named Queen Bee has been trying to keep things afloat and also enrolls his bitches in the Chuck Norris Martial Arts School.  If you've got an empire to protect, that is the way to do it mother fucker!

So Dolemite has some catching up to do.  Specifically he needs to bang lots of hoe's vaginas.  He immediately starts banging two of them in the back seat and some of Green's men start to chase him down.  Dolemite murders them with a rifle on the highway.  Then he goes out to see what happened to his neighborhood.  This leads to him finding out that Green owns the club and has a former hooker of Dolemite's in his employ.  Well then, it looks like it's time for Dolemite to... bang some bitches, drive around, get framed again, and bang more bitches.  This framing happens when he's getting info from an old contact that is now a drug addict, which leads to some martial arts and a gun fight.

One of Dolemite's plans is to have a party at his old club.  So he breaks in, grabs some money hidden in the floor I think, and pays off Willie Green's men what the Dolemite empire owes him.  After a brief interlude where Dolemite watches his bitches do kung fu, it's off to the club to do a stand up show.  Oh yeah, it's revealed that Green works with the Mayor.  It is well known that Dolemite is a serious mutha fucka when it comes to laying down sweet rhyming stories to the beat of music.  This of course impresses Willie Green who stops by and offers to go into business with Dolemite.  There is only one way to respond to such a thing though, and that is to kung fu Green and kill every single mother fucker in the goddamn mother fucking army of Willie Fucking Green with the help of his fine ass pussy peddling kung fu hookers.

In the fight with Willie, Dolemite is shot but he rips out Willie's stomach.  Some police guy comes out and shoots Willie to make sure they can't pin it on Dolemite.  So he goes to the hospital.  The cop guy chases down the Mayor after a failed attempt at assassination by one of the hookers makes the Mayor flee.  The Mayor is killed trying to get in a plane.  It is revealed to Dolemite that his cop friend is an FBI agent, and that there is a hit out on him.  This is quickly resolved in the hospital by the death of every last mother fucking guy who dares to accept the hit on Dolemite and their asses get murdered in the hospital that seemingly has the darkest damn hallways known to man.  Also there are some corrupt cops that are sort of in the movie and they get arrested fairly quickly.

I glossed over a few things, but this movie is downright awesome.  The budget is pretty low, but they make up for it with a hell of a lot of nudity.  The editing is not so great, but they make up for it with bad ass music.  The acting is usually sub par, but they make up for it with not so great kung fu, and Dolemite doing stand up.  So there's violence, nudity, drugs, pimps, hoes, kung fu, guns, car chases, and stand up comedy in this movie.  What the fuck else do you need?

Stay tuned for the next installment.  I will be updating frequently to get the entire box taken care of.  That way you will know all you need to about the film saga of Dolemite, and Rudy Ray Moore's greatest feats of acting and comedy.

Burial Ground: Nights of Terror

Here's the thing, I love zombie movies.  Since the first time I saw Night of the Living Dead (thanks basic cable) my life was changed.  I was around eight at the time and it would be fair to say that my obsession with horror started right then.  Being haunted by the fact that no one survived and Ben got shot in the head even though he was human, I began seeking out everything horror, and more specifically zombies.

Nowadays there are a million zombie movies though.  Ones based on classic books, but with zombies, ones where scouts fight zombies, it is a bit out of control.  Thanks Walking Dead/ Dawn of the Dead remake/ Resident Evil, you have ruined it for me.  The worst thing however is zombie comedy.  Don't get me wrong, I like Shaun of the Dead as much as the next guy but after the fiftieth zombie comedy, you tend to stop finding it funny.  Burial Ground keeps getting funnier every time I see it though.  You probably need explanation, so on to the review.

A bearded man who is a professor of something informs us that only he knows the secret to whatever it is that he knows while pouring over some book and a couple of papers.  Shortly after he gets eaten by what we can assume is zombies due to the lighting being poor.  Though this may be due to my VHS copy.

So a bunch of people arrive at a mansion for some reason in three cars.  One woman who I learn later is named Leslie, is wearing a kinky outfit and she says that she found in the room they are staying in. To which her husband/lover replies, "You look just like a little whore, but I like that." and then they bang.  A shadowy figure creeps up on them and in a surprise turn of events, the figure is actually creeping up on a different husband and wife.  They are his parents George, and Evelyn whose name I only discovered by writing down other people's names and then fact checking with the credits.  I don't recall her name being spoken.  That is just how this movie is so I will forgo the other explanations of this.  Anyway Evelyn's son is Michael and he is played by Peter Bart, a rather short adult.  Oddly he is dubbed by someone who passes for a kid even less when it comes to vocals.  From what I gather from the context, George is a step dad.  Peter Bart, looks like this

True face of horror right?  So then a blonde in her night clothes named Janet immediately says to her husband/boyfriend named Mark that something bad is going to happen, but he puts an end to her paranoid ramblings by making out with her.  Then zombies appear and shamble along to let you know that this is a zombie movie.

Everyone is arguing at the dinner table and it turns out they had all been invited to the Professor in the beginning who has been researching the undead.  I looks like they don't have to go far to find out more about it though.  After a brief discussion, most of them go outside.  Janet is out taking pictures with her husband and she is apparently clumsy.  The lights start acting strange at the house and begin to explode which scares the maid and butler.  Of course we are now treated to zombies coming out of seemingly everywhere to attack Janet and Mark as they are about to bang outside.  Then even more zombies come out to a cacophony of annoying electronic sounds.

Evelyn, George, and Michael are in some room with statues where the two adults are playing with firearms with their eyes closed.  Suddenly Michael gets really clingy with his mom.  Zombies attack them though and they try to shoot the things but it doesn't work.  It actually looks gross and kind of cool when they are shot in slow motion.  The zombies kill George and start tearing apart his stomach.  This also looks cool.  Michael escapes with mommy.

When you are a clumsy person you end up getting stuck in bear traps that are just laying around, just like Janet does.  As Janet and Mark struggle with the trap rather hilariously, zombies come for them.  So Mark grabs a pitchfork, but quickly loses it and waits for the zombie to wrap its hands around his neck.  Luckily James and Leslie arrive with rocks to smash some zombie heads, which looks pretty gruesome.

Zombies appear to be surrounding the cars, so they have to try and get back into the mansion.  After doing so, the zombies give up and they start to board up the place.  The maid goes off searching in the dark and looks out a window where her hand gets skewered by a zombie with excellent throwing skills.  Afterwards her head is sawed off by a scythe.  The zombies rip her apart and then equip themselves with sharp objects to hack through the door.  So James goes on a head exploding spree.

Janet seems to have only bruised her ankle from the bear trap.  While Leslie is looking around a zombie breaks through the window and tries to "Zombi 2" Leslie's eye, but the glass misses and gets her face.  Janet can't escape the zombies coming in, but Mark and James start bashing skulls for her.  Then Evelyn machetes some zombies to protect her son.  Michael returns the favor by trying to suckle on his mother's breast and fondling her.  Evelyn rejects her son's advances.

The group decides to let the zombies in and walk past them because zombies are slow, which seems stupid.  So Evelyn goes looking for Michael and follows a blood trail to where Leslie is munching down on her son.  Evelyn smashes her to death on a bathtub.

The zombies get in so the crew goes walking around.  Somehow, just the butler runs into the Professor who is now a zombie and gets killed.  Day comes and they make their escape to a monastery where the priests are all zombies.  James is killed in this fiasco so Mark, Janet and Evelyn escape to a workshop of some kind where they find zombie Michael.  Evelyn is so happy to see her son that she let's him suckle her, at which point he tears her nipple off with his teeth.  As she is being eaten, the zombies shove Mark's face into a table saw and surround Janet.  The End.

This movie is made up of chaos, very little plot, and some pretty offensive material.  There is a decent amount of naked ladies, a lot of violence, and one scene with both.  The movie is mostly remembered now for Peter Bart and his on screen mother's relationship, and justifiably so.  The first time I saw this I could not believe what was going on.  I have now watched the movie three times.  I recommend this to hardcore horror fans and those that are already used to Italian horror films.  This movie is pure chaotic enjoyment.  Sure the character's logic makes no sense and very little is explained, but who cares.  This movie is exactly what it needs to be, totally ridiculous and awesome.