MOVIE MOMENTS: BLOOD RAGE (1987)

"What's your favorite dinner scene in a movie?"

Blood Rage isn’t just a slasher favorite, but a yearly Thanksgiving tradition. Frankly, it’s as much a Thanksgiving movie as Die Hard is a Christmas movie, and I will fight to the death anyone who disagrees because that’s the kind of mood I’m in.

For those unaware, Blood Rage is about an amorous mother (Louise Lasser) who has a penchant for auditioning new fathers for her clingy twin sons, Todd and Terry, with the latter being a homicidal killer even at a very young age. In the film’s opening, which takes place at a drive-in theater, the two young boys fail at sleeping through their mother’s car sex and Terry loses it and carves up another theater-goer. However, the wrong son, Todd, is implicated and he spends a solid decade locked up in a mental hospital until he escapes and beelines right back to his family, who are sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. After mom receives a call from the hospital warning her about Todd’s escape, they…decide to go ahead with hosting Thanksgiving anyway, but she asks Terry not to say anything, to which he agrees. Moments later, as they all sit back down at the table, Terry very casually says to his mother’s fiancé and their numerous other dinner guests, “Looks like you’re gonna get the chance to meet the rest of the family—my psychotic brother just escaped.”

Cut to this face:

If Blood Rage weren’t a slasher movie, it would be a sitcom. The laugh track was created for this kind of cutting comedic timing. Still, the revelation of a homicidal maniac coming to dinner is probably less awkward than enduring that uncle of yours who can’t wait to start talking politics.

[Reprinted/excerpted from Daily Grindhouse.]

THAT'S NOT CRANBERRY SAUCE

BLOOD RAGE (1987): A GORE-NUCOPIA OF THANKSGIVING MAYHEM!

Don’t listen to that blowhard Eli Roth. Despite his self-aggrandizing fake trailer for Thanksgiving sandwiched in between the two mini features that comprised Grindhouse, which he purported to be the first to exploit the previously unexploited turkey day, Blood Rage (aka Nightmare at Shadow Woods) had beaten him to the punch by roughly twenty-five years. And what a twenty-five years it’s been. Long considered an obscure title, available only in compromised hack jobs found on VHS and DVD releases, the true, intended, and uncut version was finally unleashed last year by Arrow Video in all its “that’s not cranberry sauce!” glory. And it is a sight to behold.

Blood Rage offers everything the hardcore slasher fan could possibly want: a gimmicky but forgivable premise, a charismatic but quirky killer, tremendous violence, a nice helping of T&A, an array of flying limbs, and not a single unwelcome minute of stagnation. Blood Rage moves at a clip, only hanging around long enough to commit bodily mayhem against its cast before zipping to its “seriously, what is this?” ending, cutting to black, and rolling credits.

In the subgenre of the slasher film, it’s easy to love many titles strictly via irony. PIECES, for example, is an absolute favorite, as well as The Mutilator, but I could never in good conscious call either of them actual good films. But Blood Rage is different. So different. On the Blood Rage scale, I give it five out of five cut-off hands holding a beer can. Because, you see, one film is not less good simply because it’s striving toward a different goal. JAWS is not less of a good film because The Godfather exists. Mad Max does not pale in the majestic shadow of Mad Max: Fury Road. Blood Rage is as good at killing teenagers as Quint is at captivating a crew with his wartime stories, or Sonny Corleone is at personifying agonizing death, or the Doof Warrior is at rocking out on a flaming fucking guitar. In fact, Blood Rage is better at what it wants to do because it exists in an entirely uncategorizeable box – an entity unto itself, and only itself. 

And I love being able to say that.

Its plot, such as it is (or ain’t), is so sinfully simple and rife with logic errors that it transcends ineptness and becomes charming. A family receives word that their so-called psychotic family member has escaped an asylum and could be heading their way, but…no one cancels Thanksgiving dinner. 

No one cares. 

No one looks alarmed. 

Not a single person says, “Gosh, maybe we should drive our functioning cars to safety.” 

In the land of Blood Rage, it’s don’t worry, be happy. There are no cars that don’t start, there are no phone lines that are cut. People just…willfully choose to stay in the place where the murderer seems to be heading, without concern. And it’s glorious, because someone’s HEAD gets hacked in half and you can see his entire BRAIN. That’s Blood Rage, people.

That’s what you’re getting, and like a slice of pumpkin pie after a big turkey dinner, it’s delightful. 

What Blood Rage gets right, effortlessly, is its willingness to be fun. The premise alone lets the audience off the hook in the sense that they’re not left wondering for the entire film just who it is behind the mask that’s cutting of everyone’s knees and faces, inevitably leading to an underwhelming conclusion bound to satisfy only a fraction of the audience. At no point is Blood Rage‘s audience left to theorize about the mysterious identity of the killer responsible for all the carnage.

It’s Terry. The one in the striped shirt. He’s…right there. 

The acting’s about the caliber you might expect from a low-budget slasher film made in the early ’80s but not released until the late ’80s. It’s doable, passable, and certainly entertaining enough. Plus Ted Raimi appears as “Condom Salesman.” He has one line: “Condoms?” (I think. Memory’s hazy on this one; I think Blood Rage broke my brain.)

Maintaining the slasher film tradition of featuring one lead actor who makes you say, “Wow, he/she’s in this?”, Blood Rage features the unexpected appearance of Louise Lasser, who began her career in many of Woody Allen’s earlier films, and who most notably appeared in Requiem for a Dream as Ada, friend to Sara Goldfarb, who eventually breaks my heart as she sobs uncontrollably on a city bench. Her role hovers somewhere between normal and Mrs. Bates, suggesting that she’s mostly grounded, but also a bit too…attached to her sons. But she plays it well, and her crazy role is just one of many crazy things that make Blood Rage so crazy good. The scene in which she sits Indian style on the kitchen floor in front of her open refrigerator and begins eating Thanksgiving leftovers with a depressed look on her face because her crazy son has escaped a lunatic asylum and may be on his way to kill her and everyone else – so what else can she do? – is the stuff of cinemafantastique. 

Blood Rage is the movie that unaware slasher fans never knew they needed. Everything about it is pure and lovable – even the detestable violence and gore that our mothers would absolutely despise contains an intangible charm that’s become ingrained with this oft forgotten era of horror. For a film about a psychotic teen cutting down his friends and family with a machete in violent ways, it’s the most harmless slice of escapism yet that hails from the golden era of hack’em-up cinema. Its intentions are as innocent as the on-screen killer is murderous, but they both want the same thing: to cover everything in blood, and to make every minute of it as enjoyable as possible. And both succeed, so hard. 

If you consider yourself a fan of old-school slashers, have never seen this, and are still on the fence, then give me a break – YOU NEED THIS. Cut from the same mold as My Bloody Valentine, The Prowler, Intruder, and the entire Friday the 13th franchise, Blood Rage demands to be part of your yearly Thanksgivings or else you’re just a big turkey ha ha. 

Blood Rage is hereby awarded:

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Reprinted from the Daily Grindhouse.]

TURKEY EVE

It's coming...

CANNIBALLESSE

In 2011, Indonesian police arrested a 29-year-old cannibalistic woman who admitted to killing and eating up to 30 girls and then her husband. She kept the human meat in her refrigerator to eat when she pleased. The woman also confessed to cooking human meat for her friends and relatives at dinner parties held at her house. She blamed her inner desires for killing and eating the people and said she would do it again if she had the chance.

Story and image source. 

(In case you missed the joke...Happy Thanksgiving.)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING: SHITTY FLICKS: BLOOD FREAK

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant, camp-girl penis. 

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.

If you've ever wanted to see a film in which a man does drugs, eats diseased meat, and turns into a chicken, then, sorry, you're barking up the wrong tree here. Blood Freak is actually about a man who does drugs, eats diseased meat, and turns into a turkey. 

Sure, sure, some of you may argue "tomato tomato" (if you pronounce that second tomato differently), but there is a huge distinction. I mean, would the camera still shake a lot, and unintentionally? Would the acting still be so hideous as to be non-existent? Would the audio still drop out whenever it damn well pleases?

To all of the above, yes.

Then what's the distinction?

All that fucking gobbling, I'd say.

As for the film...

In the world of Blood Freak, drugs are bad, but pot is a-okay. 

"Please don't do any other drugs while you're here," some broad says to some dude at a party before he even takes off his jacket. SHE looks like Peggy Bundy, and HE looks like Elvis. Apart, they're just two people, but together, they are two people really really frightened of the hard stuff. And HE rocks an awesome pompadour. 

She (Angel) leaves and he (Herschell) is left alone with the siren of the party. She compliments him and calls him handsome. "Don't you have a boyfriend?" he retorts. Then he calls her a tramp, because this film is, like, super moral.

Later, Herschell hangs around outside with a bunch of girls who speak like they've just woken up from a coma-dream in which they were sorting periodicals. It's a wild scene, man. They also talk about the Bible a lot.

In fact, I think this whole movie is about the Bible. This movie called Blood Freak.

Pretty far out!

From time to time, The Most Interesting Man In The World, your narrator, shows up to wax philosophic about the events which have transpired so far. Or, you know, whatever he feels like. He has a magical power, which is to look like every father everyone has ever had. He also hearts leisure suits.

"Welcome to my Rec Room of Philosophy."

But then he vanishes into a wisp of haughty air and it's back to the movie. Try to guess what our characters are saying to each other - losers get to keep watching! (Winners go home and fuck the prom queen!)

Herschell mumbles his way into a job at Angel's father's poultry farm, but for the time being the pool is calling him! While there he is mercilessly hit on by Ann, who keeps a Band-Aid tin filled with drugs on her person.

Look out, Herschell! You're at a crossroads! 

"I can do without it, thank you," he says about her pot.

"How could such a big hunk of man be such a damned coward?" she inquires.

Peer pressure has never been so textbook. He accepts the marijuana and filters it through his circulatory system. They pass the joint back and forth several times without saying a fucking thing. And THAT'S when the laughter begins.

HA HA HA HA!

OH, HE HE HA HA!

HA HA HA!

(SNORT)

HAAAAAAAA--

Then sex happens. It's about as hot as you might expect, considering this was 1972 and Herschell looks like Johnny Cash face-pummeled by oil-covered hammers. But mm, boy, do we get to watch it...minute by minute.

"And then he's all like, 'I've got BINDERS full of women! '"

After their tryst, Herschell is back to his own curmudgeonly self. He hops on his motorcycle and metals on over to the poultry farm. All the cocks are gobbling and he likes to get right up in there, finger them, and gobble back. 

Inside, Herschell meets two scientists doing turkey experiments. One of them, a large and in charge fellow named Dr., I dunno, Huge, is clearly in love with Herschell from the start. They explain that Herschell is to do some odd jobs around the farm, and even make a little more money by eating experimental turkeys to "see if there are any side effects," which is something no one would ever ever agree to.

"Okay, it's a deal," says Herschell.

Shit-kicker music soon starts and Herschell finds himself right at home feeding the turkeys and randomly throwing them around. Soon after he's tuckered out and appears violently ill. Ann grows concerned and calls Guy, who is this huge drug guy who likes drugs and has drugs a lot. He brings drugs right over and Herschell goes nutty for them. He smokes and smokes and soon his sweats and shivers go away. But he grabs Guy and threatens to "break every bone in his miserable body" if he doesn't keep him supplied with drugs, since Guy's the one who got him hooked in the first place (even though it was actually Ann).

Ohhhh, I get it. Angel and Ann! Angel didn't want Herschell to do drugs, but Ann did! Ann as in Sat-an!

How subtle!

Later, Herschell eats experimental turkey meat RIGHT in front of the living turkeys because he is a fucking sadist.

Then the following happens:

Herschell falls into a bush.

Herschell has a seizure. 

Herschell temporarily stops having a seizure. 

The scientists discover Herschell suffering from the turkeyhigh and they "dump him" somewhere. Afterwards, they all have a meeting about what they're going to do. Watch as everyone flubs their lines but forges ahead, anyway.

Their plan is: do nothing. 

Time passes, night falls, and Herschell is still having that seizure. It just may be the longest in history. It also kinda looks like air guitar. 

Later that night, I guess, Herschell goes to Ann's house to knock shit off her tables. Then it's revealed that Herschell has a goddamn fucking huge turkey head now. Ann, not the least put-off by his new bird head, immediately begins describing the future they could no longer have, since Herschell is now Turkish. The longest one-sided conversation in history then occurs until it's implied that Herschell and Ann make turkey whoopy, and he gobbles as they touch beaks.

--"I know I asked for some Wild Turkey, but this is ridiculous!"
--"Shut the fuck up, Barry."

Ann calls an emergency meeting with the Allman Brothers to show them Herschell's new look. Herschell enters the scene, shocking music plays, and then I'm...not quite sure what happens, because it cuts immediately to him walking around outside in his big stupid turkey head.

Herschell ends up at some chick's house, so he grabs her from the car and carries her away as she frantically kicks her feet in fear...without making a fucking sound. It's...the most awkward thing I've ever seen. 

Back at the Herschell Intervention where Herschell isn't, Ann and the Allman brothers talk shit out. They bemoan the fact that it was Guy's drugs which made Herschell an addict and that basically this was all Guy's fault.

"The only thing Guy was ever good for was always having drugs," Duane Allman says, apparently completely missing the point of the conversation he's a part of.

"Smoke pot?"

"Well, all right."

"It's not just Herschell's physical appearance that worries me," explains Greg Allman. "It's his head."

"Maybe later, man, I've gotta run to the sto--"

 

Meanwhile, with Herschell, he hangs up the broad he kidnapped to stick her, bleed her out, and drink her drug-addled blood, which he is now addicted to. Another broad happens upon this and hilariously screams the exact same scream, over and over. Apparently the editor only had one scream on file, and so he used it nine fucking times in a row. 

He then discovers a couple in a car doing some unsubtle heroin. The dude giving the chick the injection never even pushes the plunger, but she gets hiiiiiiiiiigh anyway. She immediately becomes Herschell's next victim and we're treated to that same scream again two more times. And since this chick is wearing an American flag pattern blouse, now covered in blood, all I can think is, "Yeah, maaan. America is like...a dead drug addict being sucked off by a mutant turk-man...maaaaaan."

An old guy stumbles upon this scene of a dead American girl, strung upside down and covered in her own blood, and is clearly, openly, obviously smiling. He is soon killed by the giant turkey that is Herschell. 

THEN some overweight dude that must have loved that old man hardcore stumbles across his dead body, flips his shit, and then attacks Herschell, only after repeating some of his own screams. I guess Herschell survives this fight, because after a cut, we see him wandering around a field looking disoriented. 

Meanwhile, Guy must be super terrified of Herschell's threat of bodily harm, because he's meeting his dealer to score some drugs. Once Guy and his dealer meet to make the trade, Guy comes up short because he's a dead beat, so he tells the dealer her can just have Ann, since she's there. The dealer agrees and goes immediately for the tits, to which Ann objects. The dealer runs away in fear and runs afoul of a giant turkey named Herschell, much like we all will when our time is up. The dealer ends up on a table saw and Hershell cuts off one of his feet. As Herschell sits below the stump to be douched with the dealer's blood, and as the dealer screams the same scream over and over, I have to confess that this is probably the most amazing thing I've ever seen in film.

This guy loves the cock.

The film pre-ends with Herschell getting his head cut off by the Allman Brothers, which is substituted with an actual shot of a turkey being beheaded. Because, ya know, we needed that.

And then the film actually ends with the revelation that it was all a dream! And Herschell learns a valuable lesson: It was wrong of him to take recreational drugs in addition to the prescriptions he was receiving at the military hospital after his experiences in Vietnam. They must play Blood Freak at every Congressional hearing as a reminder of what could happen if marijuana were ever legalized nationwide. Better just limit our drugs to prescription only, which, as we all know, has never killed anyone.

At film's honest-to-gosh end, Angel tells Herschell to pray to God and ask Him to increase his faith. And he does. But does God answer?

Probably not, since there's no such thing. 

P.S. At the tail end of the Most Interesting Man In The World's final monologue, you can clearly hear the director call "cut."

That's a good idea!