Chillerama

Kaufman Drive-In is holding an one night showing of "holy grail" drive-in fodder, the show called Chillerama that is showing them, supposedly never seen, the only prints in the possession of the proprietor of the theater who must endure the closing of his business, soon to be bulldozed.
** ½

Well, I do think that Chillerama right out of the chute establishes what kind of experience it will be. In bad taste, gratuitous, and explicit; this film will be embraced by some and shat on by others. A guy with a really nasty attitude visits his wife's grave to bitch at her corpse about how disappointing she was, planning a little necrophilia, not expecting her to go all zombie and bite his pecker off. Right here will let you know what could be in store.

Who needs the old night out under the stars with some movie magic anymore?

Fade to black, right? Or maybe a smash cut...

After taking an experiment drug (pills not yet approved by the FDA) to strengthen the few spermatozoa that he does have, the employee of a firm is plagued by "monster sperm", growing in size when he's aroused by sexy women, particularly nice, plump boobs and curvy ass, needing to ejaculate them in order to cease the agonizing pain in his testicles when turned on. Modeled as a 50s monster picture, with characters dressed in the styles and mimicking the behaviors of that period, director Adam Rifkin and company can take modern adult themes, transplanting them into a different time (come on, a giant monster sperm with teeth eating dogs and the head of a chatty chic!). This absurd tale allows for plenty of jack-off, sperm, and sex jokes, with especially noticeable use of stunning women, without having to resort to explicit nudity (and, yes, these women would certainly be even easier on the eyes in the buff). For instance, Eric Roberts has a cameo as "General Bukkake" behind "Operation Moneyshot" where they try to lure the giant monster sperm on the rampage through New York City towards The Statue of Liberty, with helicopters carrying a huge condom, hoping to capture it. Seeing the monster sperm humping Ms. Liberty is quite a sight to behold as is a "fantasy Ms. Liberty" in stripper-guise (the sperm sees her as it desires). Along with Roberts, in cameos, you have the always-awesome Lin Shaye as a dumpster-diving hobo who gets eaten and Ray Wise as the doc who provided the drug that started all of this mayhem. Of course what's a general to do but bomb the damn thing, with sperm bathing the main characters. Such obvious influences include The Blob, King Kong, and Godzilla.

Director Tim Sullivan allows his star Sean Paul Lockhart to yell to the heavens while his dad and kid brother (in a coon skin hat?!?!) are next to him applauding his supposed making out with a would-be girlfriend, Peggy Lou (Gabby West) "You're tearing me apart!!!" A musical about addressing latent homosexuality using such influences as Rebel without a Cause (the leather jackets, their leader an obvious James Dean clone, and Lockhart slightly mirroring Sal Mineo) and Grease & Avalon/Annette beach party movies (the period sing-alongs have that breezy and sunny beach feel, as well as, the look and energy of these examples). I Was a Teenage Werewolf, also, is blatantly an influence if just because of the title. I think this is more for the gay horror community as most of the content, the humor, the use of school wrestling, jock straps, lots of guys with little on, and the songs about coming out and accepting who you are all pertain to homosexuality. Were-bear, from what I've read, is a play on the more hairy, rotund biker types that wear leather and chain outfits. This even has the wrestling coach trying to molest this tale's hero. Lockhart's character continues, the best he can, to deny his sexual orientation even as it is becomes increasingly obvious (his fantasies about the lead leather jacket, arousal towards men, etc.). When characters turn were-bear is upon arousal. Perhaps silver shoved up their ass will stop them from tearing humans apart. As is the case at a concert where the audience fall prey to the leather jackets, with a silver object needed to stop the onslaught. Lin Shaye returns in another cameo as a gypsy who forewarns Lockhart of the were-bear.

Got candelabra?

A Jewish family (descendents of Frankenstein) have a diary of a mad scientist's work and are hiding from the Nazis. Hitler (Joel David Moore, who plays him to the hilt as an absolute imbecilic moron) and his two goons (soldiers) raid their home, shoot them, and take the diary. With body parts of those his Nazis had killed, he forms the perfect killing machine. With electricity traveling from the sky into a candelabra and into his monster of stitched together body parts, Hitler declares him alive, celebrates, expects it to kill one of his soldiers, and is eventually left to be beaten over the head with his own bloody arm once it is torn from his own body. Fun times. This could easily enter the uncomfortable realm of nazisploitation, but Adam Green (Hatchet; Frozen) sends up Hitler and Eva Braun (the delicious Kristina Klebe; of Rob Zombie's Halloween; she is every bit Moore's equal in the dept of turning her character into a nympho who has a hard time hiding her slutty ways), turning these figures into total clowns, mocking them every scene they're in. And allowing the Jewish Monster to decimate them earns this brownie points. Green is wise enough to also include sight gags (mannequins in place of real characters destroyed by the Monster; going from the lab set into the Jewish family's home set during the Monster's scuffle with Hitler; golf-balls popping out of a fake head representing the eyes of Eva), even substituting a black man going through a table at one point in place of the German actor playing the soldier! Like others, Green sends up low budgets of past shlock by including rough edits (where it looks as if scenes were haphazardly pieced together in a hurry or by someone (or maybe multiple hands) not particularly talented) and "missing scenes" (there was a moment where Hitler was about to break out into song!). And Hitler, through Moore's lampoonery of the German language just so he can further make his character a tool to laugh at, can never be taken seriously as a fierce, commanding, or scary leader who masterminded a holocaust. This all lessens the blow that might have brought much criticism its way. Kane Hodder (not recognizable behind the make up), just like his fellow actors, plays the part for all its worth. Because the approach is so blithely goofy, there's no real harm done, except that making a jokey Frankenstein rif on the Nazis could cause some of the Jewish faith to be a bit miffed. That has to be expected. There was a ton of sex-and-violence Nazi movies made by the Italians among others that took depravity to a whole new level. Green doesn't opt to go that route; perhaps he had somewhat a conscience.

The less said about Deathication the better. People taking a shit after the host of the segment (mocking a pretentious director) prepares the audience for what they normally do when encountering something really scary. Flying turds, people squatting and dropping turds, turds of all shapes, sizes, and masses. Just not my thing.

Most anthologies feature the basic wraparound that functions as a sort of adhesive that attaches the piecemeal of tales into a collective. In this one, the employee of the soon-to-be-demolished Kaufman Drive-In that got his dick bitten into by his zombie wife spreads his "sickness" to others thanks to butter he was dipping into as a type of pleasure potion while whacking off with what remained. A counter girl doesn't know he was dipping into the butter as wacky oil, takes it off and uses it for the rest of the popcorn, with customers taking the sickness, soon themselves turning into zombies. So eventually you will have a bunch of Drive-In customers in search of human flesh, carnage certain to ensue.In this zombie tale--called Zom-B-Movie--sexual deviancy is as much a part of the frenzy as flesh eating. Basically zombies eat flesh and hump like bunnies. What makes this one sort of special despite the sordid shenanigans (a zombie is actually riding a severed lower torso (mostly waste wound and legs)!) is the casting of Richard Riehle as the proprietor of the drive-in, lamenting the good old days, planning to commit suicide after the night is over, packing a shotgun, and while blowing away the undead (and their dicks) tosses famous movie quotes ("I'm too old for this shit", "I coulda been a contender", and Bruce Willis' Die Hard line seemingly appropriate in a zombie gundown). A young couple, Tobe and Mayna (Corey Jones and Kalli Thorne), having finally expressed their love for each other, must try to make it back to their car as the zombies begin to congregate in unison. The visual of blue goo is frequently depended upon to establish "zombie semen" and "zombie breast liquid" for laughs. Lots and lots of blue goo. Lots of cock destruction. Cocks shot to hell. Cocks blown to smithereens. Cocks literally pulled from their roots.

The film has the end of Zom-B-Movie, despite being the wraparound, actually ending as the final reel with the four directors behind the tales sitting in a congratulatory audience in the Beverly Hills Cinema commenting on Chillerama. It is rather fitting and satirical to critique your own film, getting up from their seats dissatisfied and disappointed. Poking fun at yourself and realizing that it is all in good fun is the whole point of Chillerama. I thought it was all okay. None of the tales were that particularly awesome to me; the Hitler spoof, using Frankenstein, I thought was the most entertaining; the game cast (on their A-game) give the material some pizazz. None of the others--save Riehle in the wraparound (I just love his back-and-forth with a poster of Orson Welles, and his mourning in memory of the dying Drive-In era is certainly a sentiment for many)--really left that indelible a mark with me. There's some flesh torn from body, but the make-up effects (probably on purpose) are really foam-y and "sparkly". There was a real effort to make the production for each tale as low-production-value kitschy as possible. I think you can definitely feel this was a labor of love for all the filmmakers involved. I always thought they practically made the film they wanted to. That kind of privilege is rare these days without the final product being super duper cheap and low grade. This movie is just in super duper bad taste...the obvious intention. Still, all in all, not a total waste of time. 2 hours is a bit long-in-the-tooth, though.