In many ways, I wish I could have been kinder to She Freak, it’s not a BAD movie by any stretch, I just feel like it’s a difficult film to market really, how do you sell a movie thats basically a 60’s remake of Todd brownings “Freaks” but with all the wonderful pathos and artiness that is the chiascuro 1920’s black and white drenched goodness removed?
“Oh, it’s basically “Freaks” but toned down because the MPAA didnt like the original and less interesting” is a HELL of a tagline. Not helped AT ALL, by the fact they hang their hat on the titular “She Freak” who doesnt ACTUALLY materialise ‘freaked up’ until the end, and even then only for 60 seconds max. I know the whole idea is that SHES THE REAL FREAK FOR BEING A JERK YEH? YEH!. But the reality is, it just fell short of really truely winning me over, and in many ways I felt quite let down by it for that.
That being said AGFA have done a BLINDER of a job on this thing, it looks incredible and if you were lucky enough to get the limited edition slip (as seen below) then you were doubly blessed! honestly while the film may not be *THAT* great, the release really cant be faulted.
Short and sweet, had Raymond not agreed to tag in and help me take this thing down, i’d probably have given up on the “Best of the Best” series. this film…this fucking film…jesus christ
Well; we’re back on the documentaries again, and honestly, it’s been WAY too long. EVERY season since the original “Doc Shock” I’ve sworn BLIND that i’d do another doc shock that season. EVERY. SINGLE SEASON. I’ve sworn id do it, and every time for one reason or another it’s completely fallen through. WELL! for my 5th anniversairy i’d be DAMNED if I was going to let one of the oddities of “The Red Triangle” go unloved! So here we are!
the big downer with this one was unfortunately the copyright aspect of the whole thing, at least 3 out of the 5 documentaries I covered in this video were almost ENTIRELY made up of archive footage. basically narratives built using news stories, old interviews, stock footage. a patchwork of history woven together to tell a story. and the problem with documentaries that are built like that from a critical standpoint is two fold.
First, it makes it difficult to convey exactly WHY the documentary is so good, because the footage isnt strictly indicative of the quality. me showing you news footage of Frank Sidebottom riding on a riverboat or Obama giving an interview wont tell you DIDDLY about what the documentary is like…it just tells you Frank Sidebottom and Obama are in those respective documentaries. and in the case of “The Silent Minority” the footage is SO harrowing, that even though it IS on youtube and available to view in full, I wouldnt feel comfortable showing it for the purpose of recommendation (seriously it’s that hardcore) So this is one of the rare cases where really, for the most part, I felt that including footage was kind of pointless…not that that matters really because…
Secondly; including all this archive footage is basically like trying to will youtubes copyright system to nuke the video. Seriously; it’s bad enough when I cover ONE movie in terms of getting worldwide blocks, takedown notices and other such bunkum. So IMAGINE trying to upload a review of a documentary that uses HUNDREDS of clips from various TV channels, films, internet uploads etc…it’d be a massacre. and one im not entirely interested in trying to clear.
So in the end this ended up being “Audio Only” a little underwhelming…true. But! this isnt a standard review…this is really more a list of recommendations. and I really hope you find a documentary thats right for you!
Out of all of these, I probably enjoyed “Thats Sexploitation” the most, though “Being Frank” is a close second!
So back in the mists of time, I found a movie called “Alien Species” from 1995, at the time I couldnt find ANY trivia for it really other than Troma being the distributor (but not creator) of the film AND the fact that less than 12 months after this movie got put out, in a COMPLETELY different part of the country ANOTHER film would come out ALSO called “Alien Species” At the time the idea that two movies could hit the market so close together with SUCH a small budget (the combined budgets of both of these films wouldnt even pay for the catering on a mid sized budget production) AND given they were both, kind of from the same stable…well it fascinated me to say the least. For a time I debated whether to cover them both back to back for comedic effect, indeed. what better way to follow up “Alien Species”, than with “Alien Species”? but I had trouble finding the ’96 version of Alien species and ultimately, while I had at least ONE version of the two films in my hands, it just made sense to cover the one I had and if I found the other one, then more power to me.
Anyway skip forward a year or two and I picked up Mill Creeks “Nightmare Worlds” set, and LO and behold! THIS movie was on it. I knew as soon as I saw it listed I needed to get it covered and originally this WAS going to be in my 10th Season of reviews in November, but given i’d already covered so many low budget SOV films at that point, It didnt feel like a fluid and natural situation and crowbar this into the season as well, it would have made the season lopsided and a bit too heavy on low budget, SOV sci fi and horror films. SO! I wrote the script and then shelved it (Swamp Women took the place of this in the November Schedules) and it sat on my dock ready to be implemented for the best part of 5 months until FINALLY it fit in in a comfy little spot in Season 11!
I think the review more than speaks for itself, I cant say I was a huge fan of this one, but; with it sort of being the “Part 1” of what was supposed to be a much bigger franchise, I feel maybe with a bit more development and a sequel or two, this could have been something a bit better. as it stands it feels like someones handed me a third of a rubicks cube and told me to “solve it” and im kind of just staring at it wondering what on earth that would involve
This poster looks like something “Ab-So-Lutely” productions would come up with. WAY to busy and just plain odd.
TYTD Reviews 