‘Maniac’ is a film for which I dont believe Im the target audience for honestly. Theres two reasons for that. The first being that im not a huge fan of the ‘Stalker mutilates women on and off for 90 minutes in increasingly grotesque ways’ subgenre of the stalker/slasher genre. But also in the sense that Im not that hugely into the kind of stalker/slasher movie where we spend the majority of the film trying to get into the mind of the killer, following them around and hearing their internal monologues or hearing what makes them tick.

I will say that ‘Maniac’ is probably one of the better entries in this subgenre, But even so. Its still not *quite* enough to tip me well and truly into a fan of it. I last watched this film around 15 years ago on a ropey VHS bootleg copy, and was just kind of bored by it honestly, but I figured with 88 films having a sale recently, i’d pick up the bluray and give it another shot. And while my opinions on it have mellowed a little bit since that initial watch, im still not 100% sold.

The film follows Joe Spinell as ‘Frank’ the titular ‘Maniac’. Franks a somewhat complex character, a man who lost his mother at an early age, and through a combination of psychological conditions, and bad circumstances, has taken to stalking the streets after dark looking for innocent women to kidnap, mutilate, kill and scalp, before returning the scalps home to stitch into mannaquins heads as a means of ‘capturing’ women he finds attractive, so that they can never leave him, and are ‘dependent’ on him.

The majority of the first and second act is being brought into Franks world, as we see him stalk and kill a number of women in increasingly tense and gory ways. Before, midway through Act 2, we’re introduced to Anna, a photographer that Frank has a random encounter with when he ISNT goring people, and the pair strike up a VERY unlikely ‘early days’ relationship.

However, as Franks killings become increasingly noticed, he becomes more and more paranoid, eventually fully giving into his psychotic urges, in a final 15 minutes or so that really kind of saved the film for me in some regards.

Objectively, the script is fine. its got a decent pace, the tone is bubbling bleakness mixed in with some genuinely unsettling moments of Frank masking as just a normal guy to try and lure people into his world and plans. the act structuring is fine (nothing to write home about) and it ends about as well as it could end, concluding the film with an increadible veer into outright horror that caught me off guard, woke me up, and got me back into the film.

Subjectively however, It wasnt really for me. Because I dont like the ‘women being tortured for X amount of time and little else’ style of film making, the first two acts of this movie felt positively glacial to me, and while I will conceed that getting to hear Franks internal monologue and thought processes, getting to see Frank just be a normal guy in between the gorings was definitely a nice break when compared to films like ‘The New York Ripper’. It wasnt really enough to win me over, and, if anything I just found myself frustrated we spent so much time with Frank, when the commentary he produces is essentially rambling gibberish with occasional trauma thrown in, it quickly becomes apparent that Franks law of killing is unpredictable and that he’s just saying whatever comes to mind as a way to justify or sooth his unsettled soul.

The moment Caroline Munroe enters the picture as Anna, the film seems to snap onto a track line that takes us all the way up to the finale in an actually pretty well structured way, it slow builds to a genuinely out of left field finale that I liked, and its especially nice to see Frank dealing with encounters he’s not used to like dinner dates, where its clear (to the audience) he’s sort of fumbling about just to try and find the magic words that’ll keep Anna close and unaware of his true intentions.

The characters are fine enough, and I get that Franks psycopathy is supposed to kind of be loosely tied to his mother, but also not really tied to anything in particular. But I just didnt really feel invested because of the lack of steerage on his character. It feels more naturalistic. But it feels dissatisfying to me. Anna is probably the only other character in this who we get ANY other kind of depth or complexity from, and its kind of unremarkable. part of me wonders if the reason why Anna is so ‘base line’ character wise is because we’re seeing her as Frank sees her. More interesting than the women he’s previously hunted, not interesting enough for him to really go beyond the surface level observation of ‘She’s a beautiful photographer’.

I cant say the script for ‘Maniac’ is bad per’se, but it took me a long time to settle into it, and I didnt really feel invested for most of the runtime.

What DID invest me was the direction, William Lustig here has done a phenominal job in creating a genuinely seedy looking/feeling film, but not one without creative flare and flourish. while the script may not be for me, its clear we had a director on hand who knew what he wanted to visualize to the screen and worked closely with the cast and crew to achieve that, he’s done a marvellous job with some incredible lighting and colour choices.

The cine also is superb, a mixture of locked off and hand held footage, its an incredibly claustrophobic film, especially during the stalkers sequences, where it really feels like the films closing in around the audience as Frank gets closer to the kill. excellent use of angles and B-roll here aid the sequence building to create, probably one of the more atmospheric pieces i’ve seen in the slasher genre for a good while. If I was going to say anything WAS the reason to see this movie, its the incredible way Lustigs direction within the cine shows the audience more about Franks world, than dialogue ever could.

Performance wise, this has probably got to be the career peak for Joe Spinell who gets a very meaty (if not incomprehensible) chunk of the script as ‘Frank’. and he absolutely owns the role, I cant imagine anyone else playing this part anywhere near as decently. the dialogue may not mean much to me, but he delivers it with a level of pain and fear that sells me that HE believes what he’s saying (whatever that may actually be!). Munroe by contrast plays a very grounded, slightly bouncy photographer type, and brings a wonderful contrast to Spinells performance. they’re both excellent here, and again, their parts alone really help pull this film up WAY above where it should be honestly.

Rounding off we have a hit and miss soundtrack score, with some tracks being astounding pieces that have stayed with me WELL after the credits, and other tracks feeling like cheap ‘Halloween’ knock offs. as such, im kind of conflicted, where it works. It works really well! Where it doesnt, it feels cheap and rushed. your milage may vary.

I may not have gelled with ‘Maniac’ but I can see what its trying to do and I think, for what its trying to do, it works well. For me? I’d personally rather watch something like ‘Dont go in the house’ or ‘Blood Sucking Freaks’ for this kind of cinema. But I could see myself checking this one out again in future. and im kind of piqued by the fact there was a proposed sequel to this film that never got released AND a spiritual sequel that did…and hey, if a film was interesting enough that its got me curious to see what happened next, I dont think it can be all bad!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/maniac-1980/1/

Probably my favourite work by Todd Browning, ‘Freaks’ is frankly revolutionary for the time it came out. A sympathetic drama with horror elements portraying actual disabled people in a way that (until the end at least) doesnt monster them or pity them. It plays them as real people, finding family and community within there small travelling roadshow, and protecting each other from the real ‘Freaks’ the people who bully them just for being different.

The plot revolves mainly around a dwarf named ‘Hans’ who slowly begins to fall in love with a radient trapeze artist called ‘Cleopatra’ who’s in a toxic relationship with the strong man ‘Hercules’. The problem? Hans is married and in a loving relationship with another woman called ‘Frieda’. Cleo picks up that Hans is interested, and decides to ‘date’ him as a cruel joke. But on getting to know him better, she finds out that he’s in fact an incredibly wealthy man. And so, working with Hercules; the pair decide to try and coerce Hans into leaving his wife, marrying Cleo, where Cleo and Hercules will then kill him via poisoning and claim his wealth. All the while Frieda confides in the other circus dwellers trying to find a way to get her husband back. And while all THIS is going on we’re treated to a whirlwind look at the life of these people as they face prejudice and ridicule simply for who they want to be.

Honestly? I love this film, its so bittersweet and sincere (for the most part) that its kind of mind blowing to me that something so progressive and unflinching could be made as early as 1932. But in the same breath, thats also probably the one thing that stops it from being truely perfect.

Because, at this time, the censoship boards were running rife over media in the US, and ‘Freaks’ is a VERY heavily hit victim of this era. with several key and important scenes cut from the film for being ‘obscene’ in the 30s and some final cuts being cut by as much as 30 minutes. You dont need a guide to see whats missing from ‘Freaks’ the blunt and sudden jumpcuts do that for you. These missing scenes added key additional information and helped to slow the narrative pacing a bit to let the characters breath and give them more depth and complexity. I consider this film in the same way that I considered ‘Metropolis’ in the sense that it feels like so much is missing thats critical to really getting under the skin of this piece. As such, whats left feels rushed and sporadic. the tones are a little all over the place and the grand ending (which revolted audiences in the 30s) has been reduced to scraps essentially.

I can only judge whats here, but what IS here is an incredible work for 1930 that feels naturalistic and compassionate in an era that most wouldnt typically associate with it. the pacings solid, the dialogue is fantastic (though, the fact the main character frequently drift in and out of german combined with some less than brilliant audio recording did stump me the first time I watched this) and the character feel deep, rich and lived in. I can only imagine a complete cut of this would make me love it even more.

The direction is superb, no notes from me its a slightly grimey, but creative work that has some absolutely unreal creative choices, particularly in the 3rd act. Which wouldnt be commonplace till the late 50s. Letalone the early 30s.

Cast directions a little flat at times, but I can forgive it that given the limitations of the cast, and the medium at this point in history.

The cine is rich and gorgeous, Its such a shame there isnt a better quality print of this film out there, as the one used for the criterion master is EASILY the best this films ever looked, but it still looks a bit soft and rough around the edges and the jarring jump edits really dont help matters either. Nontheless the scene structuring is sublime with some wonderful composition choices and astounding for the time lighting decisions. I really love the look of this film

Performance wise? Both Harry and Daisy Earles astound here as Hans and Frieda brining genuine sorrow and regret to the screen. I think they give energetic and brilliant performances where I always find some new layer to their performances every time I watch this.

Olga Baclanova and Henry Victor are ASTOUNDINGLY evil as Cleo and Hercules. bringing some genuine menace and discomfort to the roles alongside a genuine venemous streak that flirts with campy, but never fully commits to it.

The rest of the cast are all equally delightful and help really bring the picture together, its rare that I get to the end of a movie and really wish we’d just spent more time with the characters being who they are. But this film manages it.

And probably the weakest element of this whole production for me is the soundtrack, its largely diagetic sound, which is fine. But the one or two music cues in this film are VERY bombastic carnival pieces, and I feel that…while relevent to the location, they feel VERY out of place in all of this bleak drama works. That combined with the quality of the dialogue recording (which I know wasnt the best in the early 30s, and has seemingly degraded further over time) AND the constant shifting of languages with NO subtitles for those segments, made it kind of hard for me to keep up with exactly what was going on. I watched with subtitles this time around, but I think i’d have struggled in a non home viewing environment.

I love ‘Freaks’, I watched it for the first time over a decade ago and, like ‘Metropolis’ it still absolutely blows my mind that this film was made when it was, it was absolutely ahead of its time, and even today holds up remarkably well. I live in hope that one day the censor cuts may be found to truely restore this film. But for now, it’ll just have to settle as being ‘Remarkable’ and definitely worth checking out.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/freaks/1/

Im a man of simple pleasures, gimmie a good simple premise, no matter how fantastical, and if you can make it work? Im in. Thus, ‘Demolition Man’ a 90’s Stallone Vehical that takes the core premise of ‘Metropolis’ and marries it up to ‘Biodome’.

Its the far off future of 1996, and L.A has burned to the ground, a dangerous maniac named Pheonix (Snipes) roams the wastes running drug cartels and leading with violence above all else. Tasked with taking him in? is John Spartan (Stallone) a tough guy, all action cop who punches first and asks questions later. After a high speed chase involving Pheonix hijacking a bus with 30 tourists on board, the chase winds up at a warehouse, where Spartan finally manages to capture Pheonix, but is faced with the choice of letting Pheonix go free without fully knowing where he’s hidden the hostages, or taking him in and risking all of the hostages lives.

He chooses to take him in, but its revealed that the hostages were all in the building that Pheonix has now just destroyed. Both men are sentenced to Cryo-stasis to pay for the crimes, but part way through Pheonix’s sentence, in 2032, during a parole hearing, he breaks free and goes on a rampage. and we’re introduced to a new society, where crime has been all but eliminated, impurities are criminalised and the folks who WANT that nasty ‘free speech’ business have been driven into an underground city of dirty, but free, inhabitants.

The police of this time dont know how to deal with a maniac like Pheonix, as there hasnt been a murder committed in over 16 years. So…they go to thaw out the only man who knows how to kick arse and take names. Spartan. Hilarity ensues.

And, I always kind of considered this the B-picture to ‘Total Recall’. Demolition Man is fun, but it takes its concept just a little *too* heartily and ends up leaning a little *too* into its own tropes at times, turning what is ultimately a very fun and self aware Sci-fi Action Comedy, into the cinematic equivilent of a comedian who only has one set they play incessantly.

The script itself is fun, light weight, it deals with themes of classism, contrasting a free speech society, with a literal eugenecist ethnostate. But it doesnt bog itself down *too* heavily in the class unrest. Most of the film, is Stallone rolling his eyes at a society that learned to love and empathize, trying to deal with hardened criminals who actively take advantage of the situation.

Its a pacey hour and 55 minutes long, it zips through most of it with a clip, and while the plotting itself is a little all over the place in terms of trying to balance kooky ‘WELCOME TO THE FUTURE!’ness, with actual important narrative tropes, I dont feel it ever TRUELY became unbalanced, it comes close a fair bit, but it never truely lost me on that front.

We have a group of interesting and fairly well rounded characters, all with interesting back stories who all get a pretty decent chunk of the plotting, noone seems surplus and everyone seems to get their chance to shine.

We have a solid 3 act structure that feels fairly well balanced and transitions between the acts fairly seamlessly. The tone is really the thing that makes this movie a ‘must see’ for me. the comedies VERY on the nose, but the film makers relentless attention to detail in trying to KEEP reminding the audience about just how ‘soft’ this society has become, I thought was decently handled, if not a bit TOO on the nose.

Direction and cine? No notes. this is a 90s slice of action movie, it looks great, has a great sense of ‘futurism’ about it, its colourful, vivid and really gets the audience immersed in the universe its trying to build. Theres decent creative shot compositions, plenty of B-roll, room for experimentation and the edit is pretty rock solid, with some really well timed cuts and great use of coverage. I equally enjoyed the fairly minimal reliance on CG effects, outside of computer monitors and some lightning effects here and there, this is largely practical, and SO much better for it!

Performance wise, its basically the Stallone and Snipes show, Both are excellent, with Snipes playing a genuinely unhinged and effortlessly watchable criminal in Pheonix. He has amazing physicality and really brings himself into the role in a way that I feel would be hard for other actors to better.

Stallone by contrast brings a nice blend of self aware comedy and his usual macho performance to proceedings deliveirng a unique flavour to this film that I equally just, really enjoy sitting through. I find his tough guy roles sometimes a bit dry outside of the staple performances, but his comedy roles a bit too weird…This blend? is perfect.

Thats not to talk down the supporting cast, and its a veritable who’s who of 90s and early 2000s super stars. All of whome bring themselves to their roles sincerely and wholeheartedly, resulting in a great contrast of a clearly farsical world, with characters who seem to genuinely believe it in.

And the soundtrack? well, apart from a significant chunk of it being a gag for the movie to lean on (and a spookily accurate prediction of the future) its kind of unmemorable to me. Like…it punctuates the film fine enough, but it just didnt really do anything to set it apart from any other 90s Action or futurist action flick. Not bad, but just kind of…meh.

I always forget how long ‘Demolition Man’ is, I always seem to put it at the 90 minute mark, but for me? Even with it clocking in at 115 mins, it doesnt FEEL that long. its a goofy, fairly well made bit of cannon fodder that you could quite easily sink in an afternoon. I have a real soft spot for it. And though I will admit, sometimes its humour teeters into grating, by the end I always find myself promising myself I wont wait so long until the next screening.

Defintely worth checking out.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/demolition-man/

Irving Klaw was a cheap CHEAP film maker. Most of his films were a barely moving camera, bolted to the ground of a poorly dressed set, with half a dozen dancers and a couple of comedians.

And yet, when it comes to ‘Buxom Beautease’ one of the final ‘tease’ films he would produce. He somehow excelled himself at taking that cheapness to a whole new level.

I have been fairly charitable with the other entries in this series. The campy fun and ‘seedy lounge’ vibes has largely kept the series afloat in the face of objective poor quality.

But this film? It makes ‘cheap’ look expensive by comparison. It’s so cheap wind costs more. It’s so cheap, even the bums won’t touch it. It’s SO cheap restaurants have started serving it instead of bread rolls.

It’s literally 33/33/33. 33% new material shot on low quality black and white film stock with actresses who seem disinterested and comedians doing EASILY some of the worst comedy I’ve heard in a good while. 33% is made up of mixed colour and black and white footage that’s either from Irvings previous films or public domain footage, and 33% is deleted or excised material from Irvings other films such as ‘Teaserama’

Even at a 4k remaster this looks rough, stitched together and it’s cut through with the feeling that we’re basically done with the type of film making at this point.

No Bettie Page either which was very dissapointing.

Easily the worst of the triptic. Its depressing. And the Camp value is well and truely depleted. Not worth your time.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/buxom-beautease/

The second of Irvin Klaws mainline ‘Tease’ films (and the second to feature Bettie Page) ‘Varietease’ is a bit of a frustrating watch for me, because. While on the one hand, I feel it much better captures the feeling and vibe of a ‘Burlesque’ show. I.E a ‘naughty’ variety show with dancers, talent acts, comedians and striptease. It also feels to be a bit less polished than ‘Teaserama’.

For a starters, a lot of the film looks and feels like it was shot on the same day as Teaserama, and in one instance, im 99% sure they literally just wholesale recycled a dance number from that film into this one.

All the ‘dances’ in this film feel a lot less intricate or interesting, the girls seem less interested in being there and Page gets one single dance at the start of the film, that would have easily been the weakest dance in ‘Teaserama’ had it been in that film.

However, counterbalancing that. I do like that they actually bothered to bring in more variety, there are actual host segments, musical numbers, rubbish comedians. rubbish comedy singers, dancers, and that side of this film really helps bring it back up for me as thats largely where the campy fun is situated this time around.

Yes, ‘My Wife…’ jokes are the height of this films comedy zeal, but much like ‘tease’ it feels wonderfully nostalgic and engaging.

In every other regard on a technical level though? this feels like offcuts from ‘Tease’ theres very little to differentiate the two, with a couple of burlesque scenes taking place in dressed set spaces being about as ‘up market’ as it gets.

Once again, there are two cuts of this film on the Kino Cult release of this, a 4k remaster of the original print, and an extended cut from Something weird video, which contains some lower res extended sequences with the comedians and I believe maybe some extensions to some of the dance numbers…its about 5 minutes longer, and much like the last film, i’d probably go for the ‘SWV’ cut than the standard remaster.

Overall, while I really did appreciate the fact this did ACTUALLY feel like a burlesque show made for cinema screens (something Teaserama woefully attempted and failed at) I feel like ‘Tease’ had more charm and sincerity behind its intentions. This was fun, but the burlesque numbers were so drab it really made me as an audience member lose interest. Still a solid enough double feature piece. but not something I think i’d regularly return to.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/varietease/

A staple watch of my formative years, alongside the ‘Rocky’ movies, First Blood was in regular rotation over at my parents house from the moment it hit the home video market. This was one of my Dads favourite movies, and as a kid I didnt really ‘get it’…Like, I didnt HATE it, I just didnt see what was here to LOVE exactly…Well a few years ago after some time away I chose to revisit it, and fell absolutely in love with this film, and recently I upgraded to 4k and decided to give it a spin to my partner who hadnt seen it before.

The plot follows one ‘John Rambo’ a drifter attempting to reconnect with his old army buddies. Rambo served in Vietnam and the film opens with him arriving at one of his old army buddies house, only to find out he died of cancer a year previously. upset, Rambo heads into the nearest town to try and get a bite to eat, only to come acropper to Sheriff Teasle. a small town backwater sheriff, who sees rambo as a vagrant threatening to disrupt this ‘small honest hardworking towns’ vibes. So he picks Rambo up, drives him to the city limit, tells him he’s not welcome and to keep walking if he knows whats good for him, before telling Rambo to get a shave and a shower, and then driving off.

Rambo then essentially does a 180 and immediately begins to walk back into town, causing Teasle to pull him over, arrest him and take him into the station, where the corrupt local team beat him, spray him with a fire hose, intimidate him, threaten to kill him and finally try to force him to shave, dry, with a straight edge razor. The incidents break Rambo, who has a severe PTSD Psychosis induced flashback to his time in Nam, and he promptly demolishes the police station, steals a motorcycle and flees to the surrounding woodland area with Teasle and his team hot on his trail.

But Rambo is no ordinary Nam vet. He’s something EXTRA. and after showing Teasle what he’s made of, his colonel from his time in active service, Colonel Trautman, is drafted in who promptly explains that Rambo was the best of a crack squad of green Berets who were sent to deal with exceptional top secret missions in Nam, that he’s been awarded the medal of honour. and that, the cops better back off while they can, or Rambo will bring a little slice of Nam to this small backwater town.

This, to me, is arguably the closest a film can get to being perfect, and almost certainly would be in my top 10 favourite movies of all time.

The scripts razor sharp, lean and to the point. Its 3 rock solid acts that move at a clip, transition seamlessly between each other. The pacings electric, your almost always on the edge of your seat, not entirely sure as to what’ll happen next. For 1982, the exploration of mens mental health, the fallout of the Vietnam war from a mental health perspective and the utterly abhorrent treatment of Veterans and survivors of that war is handled in a very stark, very realistic and in places genuinely harrowing way.

The characters all feel incredibly believable and naturalistic, all of them have a degree of depth and complexity, whether its Teasles toxic masculinity in thinking he can handle a situation he clearly has NO business being involved in, Rambos PTSD fuelled rampaging or the Colonels realisation that in making a machine, he may have permanently damaged a man. its a thoughtful and incredibly well handled set of character pieces here, that wonderfully interact with each other creating a contrast of types that I havent seen handled this well since ‘Jaws’.

The dialogues astounding, infinitely quotable, with maybe only one or two gentle wobbles along the way. with the only gripe I can really think being that I feel the ending itself is maybe just a little bit *too* abrupt, and probably could have stood to have had another 3-5 minutes or so to help better descilate things.

The direction is astounding, GORGEOUS location work is married to set work that, for the most part, feels so rich, while also so effortless. This is one of those films where its identity is so intrinsically tied to the directoral decisions, its hard to imagine a remake of this film having even an ounce of the power this does. with direction of the cast equally ABSOLUTELY blowing me out of the water with some tender deliveries, good prop and set space usage. AND for me? the decision to make this a christmas movie (ala Die Hard) is an amazing choice. which likely WILL prompt me to watch this again around December.

The cine is exquisit, rustic and craggy mountain scenes the look gorgeous, rich and mossy combine with the neon soaked beer smelling streets of a small Kentucky town to create a very impressive visual palette that, for me personally, gave me everything I wanted out of a rough and gritty action film. sequences are arranged near perfectly, scene structuring is pretty solid, barring literally one or two VERY small (to the point of nitpicky) shot issues, this is about as good as it gets for me.

and thats not to mention the performances, with Sylvester Stallone utterly blowing me away with his performance as John Rambo, he makes playing such a complex character seem so effortless, Brian Dennehy as Teasle is the perfect antagonist playing against Rambos emotive persona as the distillation of the gruff ‘show no weakness’ masculine traits that lead to the kind of mental health conditions Rambo is afflicted with. he managed to get some of the biggest grins off me throughout as the film clearly doesnt like the character and portrays him to be blunt to a fault on multiple occasions, especially when he goes up against Richard Crenna as Colonel Trautman. Who reminded me quite heavily of Christopher Lees performance in ‘The Wicker Man’ as a main character who’s fully aware of the situation, wants to try and help, but the bullishness and antagoistic bolts from the people he’s trying to help, ultimately leave him little choice, but to let these men ‘touch the stove’ to find out how hot it is.

Throw in an absolutely unparalelled score thats rich, swelling orchestral work that honestly could not match this film much better if it tried and is used near perfectly. And you end up with ‘First Blood’ an astounding watch for the time, and a somehow EVEN MORE relevent feature to the social climate of 2025 than it was in 1982.

And, as an aside (as I may never actually watch them again) I found it absolutely heartbreaking that, after this very nuanced and poigniant film. The studios decided from every ‘Rambo’ film onwards to essentially just retcon or play down his PTSD, in favour of turning this character into a meat shield with guns for arms. The sequels do little but cheapen the original, Im unlikely to ever watch them again, Rambo should live and die by ‘First Blood’.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/first-blood/

Full thoughts on this are here at 13:12 – youtu.be/YTKlNZzDlCc

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/thats-sexploitation/2/

As a ‘Something Weird Video’ afficianado, one of the standout set of clips from their ‘preview’ showreel that would play at the start of almost all their releases were clips from ‘Teaserama’ and ‘Varietease’ Burlesque being essentially ‘naughty’ Vaudville I figured it might be something up my ally, So I recently picked up the Kino Lobar set of both movies + ‘Buxom Beautys’ for my troubles and…well, I cant exactly say its false advertising…But I just kind of wish there’d been more to it.

This film is presented in two different cuts on the Kino release, a 4k restoration running to 58 minutes, and a ‘SWV New Edition’ that runs to an hour and 6 minutes, and is basically the 58 minute cut with some low resolution inserts of ‘missing footage’ that was previously included in some circulations of the film.

Going into this, I expected essentially a film adaptation of a burlesque show. Beautiful girls, exotic dancing, titilation, comedians and maybe even a musical number or two to ‘complete the look’ I dived into the 58 minute cut of this first, and was kind of dissapointed.

The main reason being that, this isnt *really* a burlesque show…I dont entirely know exactly WHAT this is honestly. Dont get me wrong it absolutely has Burlesque elements. But non of the girls featured in this film were noted as burlesque dancers, most of them were models, pin up girls or strippers. Add to this that rigerous censorship laws in 1955 meant that there could be no nudity or overt sexual content, meant that this was essentially just girls who wernt really dancers, dancing in heavy coverage lengerie. With the more ‘near the knuckle’ moments involving skin tone bras…

Add to this that the 58 minute cut has only one sequence involving comedians in it…and thats your lot, and you end up with a film thats a little repetative and trading mainly on names above anything else.

However; there is one thing that saves this film, which is the total and utter campness of the production, ALL the girls here are gurning, overexaggerating both physically and in facial movements, the dance moves border on comedic at times. its a flounce, and the best kind of flounce. and while I personally felt the 58 minute cut failed to really capture the zeal and fun of a burlesque show. I have to admit that on campy-ness alone, it still managed to really win me over. It’s fun! the girls look like they’re having a fun time, Its a total vibe! and one that I really quite enjoyed.

The direction and cine is a bit flat, its a series of locked off shots on backdrop set…but the eastman colour really makes these visuals sing. and the score is SO music hall. I love it.

The ‘SWV New Version’ (the 66 minute cut) for my money is MUCH better, as it reinserts another 2-4 comedian ‘bits’ (they’re…VERY much of their time…be warned. I didnt find them particularly funny, but in a way, I kind of like that they capture that period of VERY rough comedy and it really helps break up the dancing) and I believe theres one additional dance that isnt in the 58 minute cut, thats really more of a showcase of talent than anything else, and it works really quite well I thought.

Of the two, I think i’d only ever watch the 66 minute cut again, as I found the colours warmer, and the variety much more easy to digest. But I’d say as a piece of erotic history, its definitely worth catching at least once, if only to see Betty Page CLEARLY having the time of her life!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/teaserama/

Watched on Tuesday May 6, 2025.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/withnail-i/1/

I was holding off on watching ‘Feeders’ after I caught the trailer for it about 15-20 years ago, thought it looked absolutely nuts, but then almost immediately realised that the only version readily available at the time looked like absolute arse, because this was the early days of the internet and the best quality version available on line appeared to be 80p resolution and compressed in a hydraulic press. I was, in particular, looking out for one of the boutique labels to maybe try and clean it up, and present it in a crisp 720p or even 1080p if the surviving master materials would allow it…But alas, its been all this time and they havent come up with the goods…With ‘Wildeye Releasing’ seemingly holding the rights currently and no immediate plans to put it out physically.

SO! When I was asked to chat about the film on an upcoming podcast, I finally took the plunge and threw myself into ‘Feeders’ because if not now…then when!? I was not (totally) dissapointed.

The plot follows two cool customers called Bennet and Derek, who are on a cross country roadtrip RIGHT as a series of UFO’s decide to fly around rural Pensylvania and cause all kinds of trouble. Beaming down two tiny and VERY hungry aliens, the ‘Feeders’ are here for one thing, invasion, and consumption. But Bennet and Derek are TOO COOL to be eaten. So after wandering around the backwoods for an age, and accidentally hitting a fisherman with their car. they eventually stumble on an abandoned farm house, where the true nature of the aliens will be revealed to them.

I would suggest this is a film thats ‘Low on theory, heavy on heart’ and these are the kinds of movies I have a lot of time for, the Polonia brothers were described by ‘Bleeding Skull’ as ‘Urgent filmakers’ in the sense that their works feel very much like two young men DESPERATELY trying to realise their ideas on WHATEVER format they could get their hands on quickest, using tools and props made from ANYTHING they could grab in a moments notice. And ‘Feeders’ is very much that.

Its a blender of a movie that feels like ‘Things’, ‘The Deadly Spawn’, ‘The Evil Dead’ and just a dash of ‘Return of the Living dead’ all got remixed into a low budget SOV film. and thats kind of the most endearing thing about it, the palpable fact that you can *FEEL* the influences on this film breaking through the script and subtext. it feels like these guys REALLY want you feel their film, their world and their art. Which I have a lot of time for.

The script itself is a little wirey, We have a strong opening act that sets pretty much everything up in a neat and concise way, a second act thats bloated and had me RIGHT on the cusp of fully losing interest, concluding with a short but sweet third act which ties everything up half decently, is totally insane and dumps the viewer off having VERY little idea what transpired, but wanting more.

I think the one thing that saves this film more than anything else across its full runtime, is its dialogue. both in terms of how its written (its very stilted, clearly exposition-centric style writing that reminded me a bit of ‘Things’) married up to the extreme ends of the performing spectrum. Everyones either hamming it up ROYALLY, or giving nothing. which is WILD and again, really put me in the mindset of ‘Things’.

the pacing is a bit all over the place, and as mentioned in the 2nd act, it starts to drag, but it never full goes TOO far into the red for me. Speaking with the host of the podcast I watched this with, he concluded that he felt if the film lost 10-15 minutes around the middle, it would be significantly better. I’d be inclined to agree.

The tone is clearly tongue in cheek sci-fi horror with a smidge of comedy. and Its committed to that thouroughly. which was something I really appreciated, as too often film makers will just get out there and run and gun a movie out the door that has ABSOLUTELY no narrative tonal direction and just goes wherever it wants to. This at least *tries* to have some cohesion.

The characters are wafer thin, one trope per actor and thats about it. no complexity, barely any backstory. they’re perfect for this kind of loose and free film making. and barring a couple of moments of mild homophobia in the middle that seemed unecessary. I enjoyed what was on offer here.

The direction is ROUGH, I dont think the Polonias had regular access to a tripod at this point, so everything is hand held, with maybe a little forethought into what the camera positions should be before they hit ‘record’, but thats about it. It garners a mixed result, with a significant chunk of the film being shaky running footage or footage of the actors faces pressed as close to the lens as possible. The intentions of the direction arnt entirely clear and are, if anything, made worse by the total lack of a HD capture of this footage. Even the DVD release of this is sourced from a VERY heavily compressed low res 3rd or 4th generation VHS copy from the looks of it. Which makes reading the creators intentions a bit hard. However, whether serendipity or momentary genius, there are moments here that I was impressed with and that definitely DID leave an impression on me.

Cine is much the same, badly framed, washed out, pixellated sequences are the flavour of the day, While I will say there are some really nice moments of creative lighting in this piece, thats probably about as good looking as this film gets. There are some (for the time) quite impressive CGI effects, which given the low/no budget nature of the film HAS to be acknowledged as being actually pretty impressive. but lacklustre footage edited together VERY poorly, does not a good movie make.

As for the performances. Legendary, nothing less. Jon Mcbride and John Polonia as Derek and Bennet are SO spaced for most of the movie, its incredible. they deliver their lines in a way that feels almost as alien as the ‘feeders’ themselves. and that combined with some VERY over the top ‘thrown about’ physical acting?… its wonderful. Truely a delight. easily being some of the saving grace this film really needed

As is the score, which I thought was very well put together ‘sound alike’ pieces that *just* manage to skirt any kind of lawsuit. its solid synthy music that suits the film fine enough. Not incredible really, but definitely ‘fitting’ of a film like this.

Did ‘Feeders’ change my life? unfortunatley, I dont think it quite got there in the end. But what I will say for this film is, as soon as I finished it, I had to boot up the trailer for ‘Feeders 2’, and THAT film REALLY doesnt look like its gonna dissapoint honestly. And if this film compelled me SO heavily to go and check out the sequel as soon as possible. Well…it must have been doing something right.

Are there better SOV films out there? Absolutely. But I feel ‘Feeders’ would be a great B-picture to another SOV or ‘shot on 8mm’ movie. Something like ‘Boarding house’ or ‘Things’ would absolutely be a must. Id say this is worth checking out almost certainly…but with ‘urgency’? Probably not THAT much…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/feeders/