Fridays Features: The Slayer, Bloody Birthday, and Porky's and Porky's 2

 The Slayer

I really take a liking to horror films that aren't quite rooted in pure reality and toy with how nightmares or just the tormented mind might produce or manufacture something primeval or worse. I was reading about what classifies as psychotronic cinema and I think this one thinks outside the box in terms of what is unleashed on an island, isolated and needing a plane or boat to get to it. It's tropical, idyllic, pleasing to the eye and senses. But add a troubled soul whose art seems to be painted nightmare fuel on canvas, somehow manifested when she goes to sleep ..which sucks for her hubby, brother, and sister-in-law. What was supposed to be a fun trip away from the rigors of business and painting turns into an actual waking nightmare, it seems, for the visitors to the island.

I love me a good severed head gag, and this one has a doozy. Kissing th bloody lips of her hubby's head, pulling the covers away with the body gone. Later finding hubby's body hanging upside down without the head in a building structures skeletal ruins...just the right kind of bloody grisliness. Not to mention an oar bonked on the head and a fishhook-line-and-sinker of the brother.

I couldn't imagine reverting back to that dodgy 📼 print of this movie. The Arrow transfer is just essential.

Bloody Birthday

The kills lack any real bite (the kids aren't shown killing the teenagers and adults, though, their evil intentions are played out well by the three actors' expressions, except for the blond kid who isn't quite as menacing as Hoy and Jayne, whose smiles make them easy to detest, the vile little shits) and the reason behind why the kids are such nasty pieces of work is rather silly (lunar eclipse, with astrology used to explain why these kids are such psychotic brats), but I have a bit of a soft spot for this early stage 80s slasher.

I think it is because I first caught this as a teenager late night on a Fox affiliate for its Chiller Theatre. Hilariously, each time it went to commercial, the voice would say, "We will return to 'Bloody Birthday' starring José Ferrer". Ferrer is in this like maybe a few minutes tops.

Funnily enough, I was watching "Murder, She Wrote" just the other evening (because I'm an old fuck now) and pretty Lori Lethin was in the episode, so it was fun to see her early in her career here...she has to ward off the kids and protect her little brother, Timmy (KC Martel, almost suffocating in a junkyard refrigerator when Jayne locks him in, that little bastard). Even funnier, I was watching "The Rockford Files" and Susan Strasberg was a guest star in that; here, she is a teacher who happens to piss the kids off because she told them homework is more important than their birthday. Yeah, there is not much you have to do to get these kids against you. The trio happens to set their sights on Timmy because he happened to pass by not long after they took a baseball bat to Hoy's sheriff father. Yep, the sheriff isn't much of a hero since his daughter is a maniac.

I have fun with the score because it is a mixture of those television movies of the week and slasher flicks. Ed Hunt really made sure to only shoot the kids fully in screen instead of them killing anyone on screen. Problem with that is Hunt just doesn't have the guts to kill the little psychos. It just wouldn't be allowed, even in 1981. This wouldn't be an early 80s slasher film without a peephole revealing Julie Brown taking off her bra while kids eyeball her with big, lustful smiles. Seeing Jayne with a gun, shooting a teacher in her classroom, just dates really badly. But the Glendale, California, locations in 1980 really give this film a vibe I jibe to. And I have always liked Lethin, even as her character really digs the astrology. Oh, and the Ambulance "game" for foreplay was something perfectly 80s cheesy. Not only is a peephole readymade for spying on your naked sister, it's good for an arrow shot to the torso as well. Jayne as some pint-sized stalker with a gun...yeah, this film might not be for everybody.

To make Jayne extra sickening, he has ant poison in his hand when Lethin walks in to make her look crazy when she tells a birthday full of guests he tainted the icing. God, if you don't want to get your hands on Jayne, I envy your threshold for douche face.

Porky's

I realized to my amusement that the adoptive parents of Webster were both in this film as Porky's scumbag sheriff brother and reputed local prostitute respectively.

To complete a scene in the principal's office -- where Miss Balbricker complains to the principal that she wants to inspect her arch nemesis student, Tommy Turner, for a mole on his penis since she grabbed it through a hole in the womens shower, as the coaching staff break out in laughter, calling for a wanted poster to artistically depict the very illustration of his member -- Bob Clark's camera closes in on the portrait of the smiling face of Dwight Eisenhower.

Meanwhile the closing pink credits has Pee Wee trying to finally seal the deal as a very giving Wendy takes his hand to the nearby schoolbus. And Balbricker stealthily runs out of the bushes to check her nemesis' member to prove her point.

In all caps the film would be PROBLEMATIC PORKY'S by quite a few, I'm sure. It is amazing there were multiple films, though.

Porky's 2

Wiley can muster up some sweat and bluster in his exaggerated fire and brimstone, going verse to verse with inspired and irritated Christmas's principal over whether or not Shakespeare fits a morally palatable play for the school, as the bible scripture is plucked of certain questionable material in retort. The reverend is very over the top as is the way Balbricker serves as quite the flock follower.

The inclusion of the KKK has them looking like hateful bigot idiots, also cartoonist to keep the tone not too heavy. The overt racism leaves a bad taste as intended. And politicians feel threatened by the reverend and his flock of voters. I get the point of all this, considering when the film is set. The play has Meat and Billy dodging the problematic barbs in terms of what their roles are and costumes.

The cemetery scene with Pee Wee falling for a ridiculous fake death of the carnival dancer while hoping to stage a zombie from the grave prank has the poor doofus running naked down a road again. Looks like Bob Clark got one his buddies from Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things to help with some zombie makeup.

This has Balbricker on the toilet in karaoke while Tommy puts a snake up the pipe leading to her freakout.

I was startled by a callback to A Christmas Story with the leg lamp used as a sword prop.