Cult Labs - Blogs - Sam@Cult Labs

Dinner breaks

Sam@Cult Labs — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:09:58 GMT

Notes for your listening pleasure...

Turn down the bass around 37 minutes and back up around 40. I couldn't get rid of the fuzz without losing the ridiculous sense of space.

There are clipping errors and glitches all over the place, it's better that way.

It's mostly samples fed through cheap FX until everything floats about. Feel free to fall asleep halfway through. Some parts are designed to be trippy and somnambulant. I played a bit of keyboards but don't let that put you off.

Sounds stuck together with Sellotape and left too near the radiator...

Safety first

Sam@Cult Labs — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 23:06:27 GMT

Frisbee Peril

Escalator Danger

Kites Are Fun

Fridge Evil

Think Bike!

And Remember...

Peeping Tom, A Serbian Film and the movable nature of cinema taboos.

Sam@Cult Labs — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:57:02 GMT

PEEPING TOM WIKIPEDIA

PEEPING TOM IMDB

MICHAEL POWELL WIKIPEDIA

Right thinking film fans and home video collectors will doubtless by excited by the upcoming Blu-Ray edition of Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, one of the most beloved films ever to destroy a career and cause a moral panic.

Moral Panics of the kind that engulfed Powell and his notorious movie are an ongoing theme in the history of film. A 50s fear of imported US horror comics the 80s video nasty scare, and the new brutality in the 90s when Tarantino rose and Man Bites Dog was going to bring down society... Commercial art has had blame heaped on it many times. Movies, being such a subjective medium, are a soft target. Someone, somewhere will be offended if you produce anything other than bland and unconfrontational work.

Powell himself was guilty of annoying a lot of people during an illustrious career. Every film fan should watch his incredible movies such as The Red Shoes and The Black Narcissus as examples of how to create true, lasting art within a commercial studio system. However, in order to create such art, he needed to be single-minded and no one told him what to do. This irritated many over the years so the knives came out when his arrogance got the better of him and he produced something that was too far ahead of it's time.

Regardless of how Peeping Tom looks now, the cloying, claustrophobic tale of a psychotic murderer of women, portrayed in graphic and upsetting detail was too much for the times. That he saw fit to pursue an artistic vision that went to far for contemporary morals meant he was cast into the wilderness from that day forward, until he was lauded by a newer generation of filmmakers.

This makes me ask the question, how do we judge a work that pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable to us right now? Let's assume for a second, for arguments sake, that A Serbian Film was created primarily for artistic reasons. If we remove exploitation and making a quick buck from the equation, are we looking at a work that is simply too much for 2010 but may be seen in a few years time instead as something brave and uncompromising, a film that sought to ask questions of a jaded audience grown too comfortable with seeing inhuman acts played out on screen for simple entertainment?

Even for someone who's almost maniacally obsessed with free speech, finding the justification for some of the directorial choices in A Serbian Film when discussing the movie with someone who hasn't seen it is very hard. When a film comes so front loaded with controversy that everyone knows about 'that scene', standing up and saying that in context it had more value than simply shock can put you beyond the pale in the eyes of 'right thinking' people. After all, who'd even watch something so taboo if they knew about it in advance?

Throughout history, art has been suppressed because it has the ability to hold a mirror to the world and sometimes ugliness is in the reflection. It isn't anyones place to second guess the artist. In the case of Peeping Tom, who better to satirise the leering gaze of the cinema camera and ask the audience how far they wish their voyeurism to go than a master filmmaker? When your country has been torn to shread by genocidal hatred, how to do come to terms with that on celluloid?

CHECK OUT MY PLAYLIST OF CONTROVERSIAL TRAILERS ON YOUTUBE

Additional

I wrote this yesterday and put it on ice. Reading back, I just wanted to make it clear that I draw no parallels between the artistic visions of Powell and the producers of A Serbian Film. Perhaps Powell would be aghast at the way cinema has become increasingly explicit who knows? I'm drawing comparisons about social reactions to film rather than the films themselves.

Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide

Sam@Cult Labs — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:47:18 GMT

VIDEO NASTIES
THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE

At last, finally, about time...

TRAILER

PROLOGUE

I'm sure many Cult Labs members were first hipped to the world of Eurotrash Horror, sleazy US slashers and other underground movie weirdness when the Thatcher government of the 1980s decided that, in the absence of a better bogeyman to blame societies numerous ills upon, they'd attack the video industry.

As the fascinating documentary that accompanies Nucleus Films new trailer collection confirms, in a country ravaged by economic cuts and a rising, government approved, selfishness, tabloid hysterics, Festival of Light Tamborine bangers and self-appointed moral guardians everywhere saw uncensored, unfettered access to cinema as an easy target.

The early pioneers of the industry were generally small operators, picking up whatever was available to release into a market hungry for movies. With plenty of people spending redundancy payouts on video libraries and any shop with a few spare feet stocking titles, a revolution in the way people watched movies was underway. An unregulated, uncut and free revolution in which censors and other busybodies had no hand. This was soon to change as kneejerk legislation was brought into play in a perverse reaction to the tabloid frenzy of stories in which any dodgy crim could hang his guilt on a rented copy of Nightmares in a Damaged Brain.

THE DOCUMENTARY

UK horror director Jake West's new film forms the heart of this unique DVD collection as he rounds up a host of well informed film critics to pass comment on this weird era in UK history. West also gives those on the censorious side of the debate a free say.

This is an inspired move as he allows them enough rope to hang themselves, rather than making fun of their silly moral crusade. The MP who helped to push through the video recordings act that saw many great movies (and a lot of really awful ones which the law helped to promote) banned has a great deal of pride in his role in the affair but he isn't mocked or derided directly by the film. Bad memories of Michael Moore needling a clearly ailing Charlton Heston spring to mind, but thankfully the director chooses not to weaken his film by sending up those on the other team.

Using Contemporary footage from TV and news programmes of the era, the documentary builds a 360 degree picture of the clamour and hysteria that surrounded the issue as well as highlighting the confusion among the public, video industry and police alike. If I wasn't so anti-authoritarian I might almost feel sorry for hapless and film illiterate coppers having to raid legitimate businesses and make snap judgements on what may or not be offensive.

Ultimately, it reveals the philistine culture we have that makes some people wish to oppress and restrict the actions of others. We could have had a sensible debate but instead, as is often true today, it's easier, cheaper and grabs more headlines to ban and vilify than to address real underlying causes for our problems.

Anybody with even a passing interest in horror movies and our countries relationship with them needs to see this film. It builds on the good work done with the bonus features in Anchor Bay's Box of the Banned collections by taking a similar format and creating a definitive FILM about the subject instead of a nice looking DVD extra (albeit a superb one).

THE TRAILERS

Perfect for any party or social gathering, especially a maiden aunts birthday, Nucleus Films have brought us, finally and in one place, trailers for each picture that's made it to the DPP's 'Video Nasty' list. Divided over two discs and split between those that remained banned and those which were deemed not to be obscene on appeal, it's a brilliant watch for any lover of horror and exploitation.

Each trailer gets an introduction, generally by an expert in the horror field, with Kim Newman standing out for his dedication to re-watching some of the lamest films in the 70s/80s US horror cycle. Alan Jones gets it easy, with insightful intros to his beloved Argento movies, while poor Kim had to hack his way through Frozen Scream and their like. It's when you actually watch the promos for the real stinkers and low rent cash-ins that you begin to understand just how the list has become a shopping guide for film buffs.

While atrocity classics like Cannibal Holocaust or surreal Italio-horror masterpieces like Inferno stand up as great cinema, many of the lesser films owe their public profile to being banned or censored in this country. I certainly doubt if I'd be mentioning The Werewolf and the Yei had it not been deemed a threat to the mental wellbeing of the young generation.

CONCLUSION

Put simply, this is one of the best horror packages to come to UK DVD in a very long time. Superb value for money, a great party DVD and a godsend for video editing freaks and sample hounds. This set is a step up from previous trailerthon releases such as the excellent 42md Street Forever discs because there's real background and depth as opposed to just an entertaining trash mash-up.

AMAZON LINK

Halloween Trailer Marathon

Sam@Cult Labs — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:43:49 GMT

This Sunday in Buffalo Bar, Cardiff, Designer Violence are putting a trailer screenings session in the garden (heaters on please!).

For those in the four corners of the UK who can't make it, here's what we'll be showing on the night...

A Serbian Film - Pointless trash or pointed critique?

Sam@Cult Labs — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:13:01 GMT

WARNING: SPOILERS!

Don't read unless you've seen the film or aren't bothered about major plot reveals.

A SERBIAN FILM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0zPbwuKANU

IS IT ART?

DOES IT HAVE A POINT?

ARE WE DEFENDING IN INDEFENSIBLE?

When the Hollywood mainstream can turn the multiplexes into a mire of torture porn and Saw-style sadism and you can go and sit with an audience and see remakes of films that used to be beyond taste, such as Last House on the Left or I Spit on Your Grave, where does a filmmaker go to to make a movie that feels genuinely dangerous?

For the filmmakers behind A Serbian Film, the answer is to dive headlong into the very worst of human depravity with the clear intention of rubbing the audiences face in their grubby, secret habits.

The movie introduces us to a semi-retired porn star with an ambigious relationship to his past. Now a family man with a loving wife and a little boy to care for, he occasionally slips back into his former world when a bill needs paying and a small part of him still seeks the thrill of making porn, but. for the most of the time, he's happy to be domestic and burn the more odious memories away with Jack Daniels.

But when a trusted friend and fellow performer informs him of a job in an art-porn epic made by a secretive group, his greed gets the better of him and he signs up for a project in which he knows nothing in advance.

Of course, the evil film crews intention, through drugs, kidnap and cohersion, is too push him to the fatal limits of sexual excess. Doped to the eyeballs on Bull Viagra, he ****s and beheads chained victims and, in the climatic and more troubling scene, rapes his own son in a hallicinatory daze.

After a bloody revenge has been enatched on the sick minded camera crew who pushed him to such extreme acts, the family commit suicide in a downbeat ending that still finds time for one more twisted gag before the titles role.

So, why are film illiterate busy bodies so concerned about A Serbian Film?

Taken out of context, there are scenes in the movie that will test a viewers tolerance to the limits. One already infamous sequence features a brutish man delivering a baby in a dirty, derelict room with boarded up windows. After the child is born, he rapes it, creating a new, harrowing genre of filth called Newborn Porn. I was upset, you'll be upset... Bournemouth Council were very upset.

But will critics point out to readers that this sequence is a film within the film? Or that the protagonist is shown in cutaways reacting with horror and revulsion at the murderous act he is witnessing? I doubt it. The problem with pushing cinematic art to such worrying degrees is that the message can be lost.

Former Soviet countries are a hotbed for the worst kinds of exploitative pornography in an industry that is constantly trying to brutalize it's audience to keep jaded peckers up. Easy access to porn means that it has to reach new heights of shock or invent new styles of sex in order to fulfill a viewing public whose appetite and libido will wane without new thrills.

When we think of the first explosion of mainstream porn in the 70s, images of furry centrefolds, bad plotting and moderate kinkiness come to mind. Smut may been have exploitative, but it was also a liberating influence and helped the western world to free up their hang-ups about sex and sexuality. The same cannot be said for the kind of sadistic, misogynistic gonzo footage that's routinely available with a few mouse clicks.

Put it this way. If, after a few years of regular net porn consumption, you need to see women gagging with black eyeliner streaming down their cheeks or a person penetrated by three men at the same time, then maybe the porn industry has had an effect on your outlook. Maybe it's time to stop separating your pornotopia from real life. When people laugh about two girl, one cup, do they think about the two girls and why they agreed to eat shit on camera in the first place or do they just get off on showing their mates in a game of gross oneupmanship?

A Serbian Film asks you some tough questions and ultimately, it's a profoundly anti-porn statement, designed to make you feel uncomfortable not only about the images you're watching there and then, but also the other dark stuff you might have seen on some obscure website.

Porn offers the illusion of fulfilment without delivering the promised moneyshot. By keeping people in an amoral, seperate world of panting, ever hungry sluts with the superhuman ability to take sexual punishment, it slowly warps attitudes to sex and gender.

A Serbian Film isn't dangerous in and off itself, unless you are so hung up that while watching the film, you're blind to the subtext and real message of the work. Anyone who wishes to see it repressed or banned seeks only to stop intelligent people from asking questions of the society they live in. Is porn, both in it's taboo crushing extreme fringes and in it's general mainstream creep, having a harsh and brutalising effect on how we relate to others? A Serbian Film tests us on this.

The Censorious would seek to quash such debate but remember, this is a mixed up world of child size thongs, pole dancing lessons, tabloid fed paedo-paranoia, cable TV porn chat and furtive online sex disconnected from real intimacy and feelings. When a film holds a mirror to an overtly sexualized society, we have to contend with seeing the gross and upsetting in that reflection. How we go on to deal with what we've seen is another question...

SLY GEESE by The Grinning Cat

Sam@Cult Labs — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 19:40:36 GMT

SLY GEESE

By The Grinning Cat

Snow Leopards by The Grinning Cat

Sam@Cult Labs — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 17:46:49 GMT

SNOW LEOPARDS

by The Grinning Cat

Silver shamrock - vhs death

Sam@Cult Labs — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 11:27:19 GMT

As everyone's favourite evil holiday approaches, here's a new clip from Cardiff based Video-Rock Superstars VHS DEATH to get you in the mood....

YouTube - Silver ShamROCK ~ VHS DEATH

Mind tools 2: Mystic crystal revelations

Sam@Cult Labs — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 22:37:56 GMT

MOOD TOOLS 2

MYSTIC CRYSTAL REVELATIONS...

PRESS PLAY

Mind tools mixtape

Sam@Cult Labs — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 17:29:04 GMT

Mudfish and a Bear Called 'Hoss

Sam@Cult Labs — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:46:59 GMT

Year: 1970

AKA: Grizzly at the Wheel / Keep on Truckin' Grizzly Bear!

Mudfish McCollins - Good ol' boy, interstate arm wrestling champion, roadhouse Casanova - is a trucker with a difference. He's got 1200 lbs of North American Grizzly sitting in his cab. Meet 'Hoss ("Barnard" - Grizzly Makes a Bet / Grizzly Makes a Deal / Grizzly Saves Christmas) a bad tempered bear with a heart of gold.

Together they cruise the Southern states, entering arm wrestling contests, delivering the sometimes illegal goods and staying one step ahead of the law, particularly Sheriff Harrington, a small town law man with a big chip on his shoulder.

When a shipment of dolls turns out to contain illegal Cuban cigars, Mudfish and his furry companion find themselves in deep stew. They've got the State Troopers, the National Guard and that weasel Harrington burning rubber trying to catch them.

Their only hope is ride through the night and reach Piston County, a little patch of Kentucky where Truckers run the town and the law of the road rules supreme. The Mayor of Piston is Old Jake (Clem Caboose - The Poisoned Moustache / The Cranberry Plot / Tarzan of the Third Reich) and if Mudfish and 'Hoss can get to him in time, the law won't be able to touch them.

And so begins a rootin' tootin' hell ride across state lines, as Mudfish puts pedal to the metal, sending Motorcycle Police careening off cliffs, Helicopters into the sides of mountains (or more accurately and conviently, behind some trees, seconds before the explosion...) and Sheriff Harrington's cruiser crashing into a series of road side signage, chicken coops and fruit and veg stands.

Along the way, Mudfish and 'Hoss draw the ire of the Black Emeralds, a low down mob of dirty Biker scum who chase them across three states after 'Hoss sends their parked Hogs tumbling to the Asphalt like chrome Dominos.

Another highlight is the Arm Wrestling scene, in which 'Hoss accidentily tears a bartenders limb from it's socket, sending it through the front window. This triggers a bar brawl which has entered the Guiness Book of Records as the longest ever filmed. It's a drunken bust-up of such epic proportions that director Hal Manciano had to call in a favour from an old friend at the Texas State Penitentiary. So many prisoners escaped during the shoot that the real National Guard had to be called in.

Clem Caboose - Selected Filmography

1946 Stick 'Em Up... Your Majesty!

1946 Crawdaddy Cop

1947 Abbot & Costello Meet the Cretins

1948 Baloon Ride to Laramie

1949 Hollywood Regicide

1950 The Whispering Werewolf

1951 The Goodtime Gals Get Gotten

1953 Zorro Unfettered

1954 Hercules and the Leper

1955 Hercules and the Undead Concubines

1956 Hercules Goes Bananas

1957 Tarzan of the Third Reich

1958 Dead Men Can't Walk

1960 Ugly Jake and the Naked Indians

1961 Secrets of the Suburban Love Hotels

1962 Teenage Wigwam

1963 Two-Wheel Frankenstien

1965 Boy Slaves of Neptune

1967 Blood on the Paisley

1970 The Poisoned Moustache

1974 The Cranberry Plot

1978 My Boss, The Monkey

1985 Mudfish & a Bear Called 'Hoss

Fake Flick Grind-O-Rama: Capsule Reviews

Sam@Cult Labs — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:36:57 GMT

With so many Cult Labs Alternative Universe films out there in the wacky world of Made up movies, I've decided to share them with you in the form of mini capsule reviews

1980 Lost Voyage of the Disco Pirates

Director: Hodge Rental

When Chad, Frisky and Danny the Sleaze fall through a warp on the dancefloor of Studio 54, they find themselves a world away from the glitz, glamour and celebrity blow jobs of the New York Disco scene. After being knocked out by their trip through time and space, they awake on the deck of the Black Bertha with the towering figure of 'One Ear' Jack looming above them and are quickly put to work on the most feared pirate vessel ever to stalk the stormy seas. Satin Hotpants and Polyester shirts prove impractical when attempting to slice the main brace.

1977 Sins of the Hoof

Director: Fritz Lung

Tumbling in the hay was never so lurid than in Sins of the Hoof, a carnal trip into the dirty world of international Dressage. The film bombed in Germany on it first release until a second distributor spliced in some Equestrian Erotica and re-released the movie as 'Pony Boner'

1978 My Boss, The Monkey

Director: Dale McTavish

When the eccentric billionaire CEO of Mega Corp Industries dies, leaving his entire estate to his beloved Monkey companion Mr. Itchy, hilarity ensues.

1982 Shaolin Monk Academy

Director: Ralph Wankelstein

Classic 80s screwball comedy, rudely spliced with no holds barred martial arts action as a gang of wacky criminals are offered the chance to avoid prison if they train as Shaolin Monks. Stand out moment? Steve Guttenberg sets himself on fire in a protest about separate dorms.

1971 Deep Nose

Director: Hal Manciano

Near unwatchable tastelessness from the spiteful mind of Grindhouse kingpin Hal Manciano. Goofball comedy and XXX action combine in a lurid tale of a woman born with a clitorus up her nose. Features, thankfully, the first and only double nasal penetration scene ever commited to celluloid. Possibly the most banned movie ever made, Deep Nose was briefly popular during the era of 70s Porno Chic but caused uproar among ear, nose and throat specialists.

Lazer cobra: Death strike

Sam@Cult Labs — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:05:48 GMT

DESIGNER VIOLENCE

Year: 1983

AKA: 42nd Street Slither / Fangs of the Mecha-Asp / Midnight Venom

Tagline: Get out of New York City!

Doug Grifton's 1983 B-Movie is a minor classic of the Robot Snake Genre (who can forget classics like Rattletron 3000 and Bionic Boa Riders) which did good business on VHS, thanks to it's outrageous body count and frequently bloody nudity.

Starring fading action jock Grail Rudder (Pray to My Gun / Taste My Barrels / Time Tank) as elite Marine Sgt. Welt Rockford and Trixi La Boom as his plucky Tomboy righthand and eventual love interest Private Rene Flintish*.

Grail Rudder: Publicity still for the 1972 production 'Endless Road, Broken Brakes'.

In an extended pre-credit prologue we are taken to a hidden underground lab belonging to the secretive and amoral Omni Corp., an amorphous grouping of heartless business men, Banana Republic despots and religious organisations who have joined together to create weapons that will control and oppress the populace once the planned one world government is put into effect.

Among their most secretive and deadly projects is Lazer Cobra, 200 yards of slithering metallic death, with jaws capable of chewing through suspension bridge cables and an acidic venom that induces insanity and death in those unfortunate enough to feel it's sweet burning sting.

Trixi La Boom: CB Action Cover Girl

When pumped up super soldier Welt Rockford is seconded to a unit in charge of guarding the killer droid-snake, all seems routine in his world. In fact, a cushy few weeks of security duty feels like a godsend after months in the sticky green hell of the Amazon jungle. But things don't turn out as a planned when an apparent systems malfunction, which turns out to be an act of politically motivated sabotage, frees the Lazer Cobra, unleashing reptilian death and robotic fury onto the streets of Manhattan.

Powerless in the face of the most sophisticated weapon ever devised by man, the authorities and citizens of New York can only die, trembling and incontinent at the fangs of a machine built only to spread pain, suffering and death.

In theory that is. In practice the shocking sights and terrifying shocks promised by the PR hype are portrayed most often by singed extras who report second hand that "That Goddamn snake has torched the Chryslar Building" or "Eaten my children!". When we eventually see the robot snake in all it's glory, we are presented with a silver sprayed rattler with LEDs glued to its head which has been let loose on a very shaky model of New York City. Eagle eyed viewers will be able to see the directors 'poking stick' come into frame on numerous occasions as the filmmaker attempts to persuade the snake to go in the desired direction.

Producer Hal Machiano handed directorial duties for Lazer Cobra to Senior Runner Doug Grifton in what must be one of the fastest promotions in the movie business. Manciano was originally to direct but was unavoidably detained in Chad after some trouble involving a tribal leaders rotund daughter, a velvet bag full of blood diamonds and an unpaid room service bill described in the then current edition of Hotelier Monthly as "bigger than God".

Under qualified and woefully out of his depth, Grifton was prone to hiding in his trailer weeping, leaving the cast and crew to direct themselves while their leader sat in semi-darkness, practising his autograph in a haze of prescription medication.

The results, though profitable thanks to a remarkable and throughly sexist promotional campaign, were judged so poor by the doyens of Hollywood that the producers weren't allowed to list Alan Smithee as director, lest the other films carrying the Nom De Plume be judged in a similar light.

DVD SLEEVE

LAZER COBRA MAIN THEME by WEEVIL

DISCO COBRA 3000 by WEEVIL

Tracks included on their 1984 album Psychedelic Valhalla

Grail Rudder - Selected Filmography

1971 The Chinese Laundry Explosion

1971 Brock Danders: Enemy of Justice

1972 Endless Roads, Broken Brakes

1972 Cowboys of the Cosmos

1972 Big City Chameleon

1973 Attila the Hung

1974 Republican Cop

1975 Republican Cop 2: Gun Fetish

1976 The Paper Cut Assassin

1977 Day of the Lemming

1978 Pray to My Gun

1979 Grimace of the Frost Monster

1980 Lost Voyage of the Disco Pirates

1982 Bronx Zombies

1983 Lazer Cobra: Death Strike

1983 Kid Tycoon

1983 High School Holocaust

1984 Stab Camp 2

1985 Arachnodroid

1987 Taste My Barrels

1989 Time Tank

Trixi La Boom - Selected Filmography

1978 Space Hussies of the Poon Tang Nebula

1978 The Gun Bitchs of Monte Carlo

1979 Sex Queries of the Inuit

1980 The Asteroid Virus

1980 Emergency Ward Monkey

1980 American Whiplash

1980 Burning Lust of the Yeti Women

1981 Flesh Aerobics

1982 Karate Boys Vs Vampire Elvis

1983 24 Hour Neon Wacky Shack

1984 The Emperor of Antartica

1985 Sophies Choice 2: Regular or Unleaded

1985 Breasts of the Valkerie

1986 Screwball Holocaust

1986 Blame it on Bella

1987 The Feline Endorsement

1990 Mount Rushmore Lives!

1991 Slack Jawed Mountain Girls

1992 The Road Beasts of Rumble Cavern

*Their love is consumated in a scene involving helmet removal, cascading tresses and glasses being taken off with meaningful glances...

A Smack Down on Dope Street

Sam@Cult Labs — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:22:48 GMT

PEDROMONKEY

Year: 1972

AKA: Lucky Girls Die First / Dead Inside / Shoot Up at the Shooting Gallery

Tagline: "They raped her Sister. They killed her Parents. They Left Her to Die"

1972's A Smack Down on Dope Street represented a new low in the seamy world of the Grindhouse quickie as Hal Manciano stepped surefootedly over the line of acceptable taste, never to return.

Linda B. Hennessy (Sins of the Hoof / Born Wrong / The Erotic Adventures of Dr. Watson) is Lydia Plain, an uptown New York rich kid whose life is torn asunder when a gang of jonesing low-life junkies invade the Upper East Side apartment where she lives with her family.

The twisted, strung-out thieves bring bloody chaos into Lydia's life, as they gun down her father, sending him tumbling eight stories off the balcony, leaving his mangled corpse to bleed out on the midday sidewalk.

Her mother's gets her throat cut, spraying a crimson torrent of blood across the living room carpet, while two of the wild eyed thugs take turns on her younger sister, who dies of shock without either of them realizing.

Finally, they turn on Lydia, who can't fight all of them off as they beat and kick her to the floor, leaving her with a fractured skull. As a memento, the leader, Skull (Brick Edam - Forward to Yesterday / The President is a Hippy! / Chocolate Switchblade), takes her hand.

Dissolve...

Six months later... Lydia awakes in crisp clean hospital sheets. She sees the blurred forms of her family. Darkness envelopes her once more.

Dissolve...

Twelve months later... A training montage mixed with other scenes.

Lydia withdraws a large amount from her trustfund. Lydia learns the ancient Shaolin arts. Lydia practices evasive action in a series of muscle cars. Lydia sews up a wound on her arm in the depths of the wilderness. Lydia buys a large shipment of finest A-Grade China White Heroin from a dubious contact. Lydia sharp shooting at beer bottles. Lydia has an fourteen inch telescopic hypodermic needle grafted to the bloody stump where her hand used to be.

What follows is a masterclass in scuzzy Rape-Revenge action. With all emotion drained from her psyche by the harrowing toments that Skull, his gang and by association, all the denizens of the Bowery, have inflicted on her and her family, she sets about seeking hot vengeance on those who wronged her.

Striding down the street in a skin tight leather jumpsuit with two revolvers on her right hip, a lethally sharp knife in her boot and enough smack to wipe out every filthy junkie, mugger, rapist, pederast, smut peddler and sex killer in the city, Lydia is no longer a women... SHE IS DEMON!

The furious pace of the final twenty minutes more than compensates for the entertaining but somewhat rambling middle section, which, along with all the choice training scenes also wastes a good, unrelated ten minutes in a rough and ready nitespot.

This odd curveball is an excuse to get in some live footage of 'Melvine Pendleton & Boogie Chocolate', a strangely camp and rather oily jazz-funk group that had recently signed to Hi-Tone Records, a company he owed a favour to after welching on royalty payments for earlier soundtrack work. Nostalgia fans may remember their 1978 Disco Smash "Tropical Facial".

Meandering middle acts aside, when Lydia finally confronts Skull after slaying his entire gang and most of the neighbourhood in a series of horrific set pieces, the pay off is well worth the wait as she sits astride the bloodied and broken criminal and shoots a lethal dose of Heaven straight into his eyeball, sending him directly to Hell.

Fans of nasty urban thrillers of the era will be in their oils as they sit down and let A Smack Down on Dope Street ooze over them. Watch out for the pale UK edit under the title 'Taste the Needle', which removes a great deal of the violence, replacing the footage with another couple of numbers by Boogie Chocolate. Avoid at all costs.

Back in New York, a town with which the director seemed to have a hate-hate relationship, Manciano professed to loathing every second of the shoot despite the vast profit he made on the back of the film. The movie was an international success with the Lydia character proving so popular in Japan that a range of action figures, clothing, baby equipment and contraceptives were launched among other products along with a very successful animated series "Go Go Junkie Killer Lady".

Early shot of Linda

from the Dachshund Detective TV show

Linda B. Hennessy Selected Filmography

1968-70 Dachshund Detective (TV Show)

1970 The Forbidden Cravings of a Catholic Wife

1970 Four Dead in Delaware

1971 Tintin Unbound

1972 A Smack Down on Dope Street

1972 She Wore My Skin...

1973 Yellow Brick Road to Hell!

1973 The Erotic Adventures of Dr. Watson

1974 Tight Buns

1974 Tight Buns 2: Tighter

1975 The Machine Guns of Shoalin

1975 Tight Buns 3: Tighter Still

1976 Lady Taxi Driver

1976 Rasputin in New York

1977 Sins of the Hoof

1978 Blade of the Rigorous

1980 Born Wrong

1981 Born Wrong 2: Revenge of the Twin

1981 Born Wrong 3: Triplets of Satan

1982 Slasher Academy

1984 Born Wrong 4: Death Quads

1985 The Deafener

1986 Born Wrong 5: Quins of Evil*

* Linda quit acting in 1987 to devote more time to her cats and blocking out the memories of her career.

Soundtrack Selections

A Smack Down on Dope Street Main Theme - Boogie Chocolate

Spiral to Vengeance - Boogie Chocolate

Chasing the Dragon - Boogie Chocolate

Tripped Out on Dope Street - OKB Music Library San Diego

Opium Den Nightmare - OKB Music Library San Diego

Melvine Pendleton & Boogie Chocolate Discography

1970 Criminally Funky

1972 A Smack Down on Dope Street OST

1974 Funky Black Egypt

1975 Nubian Cosmos

1977 Dance Floor Numerology

1978 Tropical Facial 12'' Larry's Uptown Bathhouse Mix

GERMAN DVD SLEEVE