My secret is that I have nowhere near the stamina to engage in sustained debate, so I make my actual points within one or two posts and quickly pivot to nonsense like the above.

Jinnistan wrote:

Nuance!
 

This movie lives or dies from all the songs. And rollercoaster footage. And it definitely dies. But then rises again. And, you just sit there looking at it funny. And loving the fact you are alive in such a world that makes this.

Almost certainly a great movie.

 

Last edited by crumbsroom (5/27/2022 11:34 pm)

About the only one worth posting.

crumbsroom wrote:

The only thing I think I've seen from Steckler before this was Wild Guitar. Which I remember nothing about (I watched it maybe two months ago) but that I will assume I thought had lots of gumption.

I don't know if this had gumption. But I definitely liked what it had.

Rat Pfink a Boo Boo is justifiably on the short list for worst films ever made, and even that has nothing to do with the unchecked typo in the title.  Just a lame Batman and Robin riff with costumes worse than my Halloween digs as a child (and I had to wear towels as capes) that isn't really very funny or interesting and shot like an unlit home movie.  The best part is that it's short, but it does carry some cred for getting it under your belt.

Outside of that, I've seen Thrill Killers and Eegah but the latter isn't actually a Steckler, but the equally appalling Arch Hall Sr, which is also awful in many other ways altogether.  What's left?  The "White Rabbit" video?  Rock's done the deep dive into his "hot vampire" and later porn fare.  Rock's like a genius entomologist who's chosen to specialize in slug larvae.  (Oh?  Slugs aren't insects but mollusks?  Exactly the kind of exciting facts that Rock is certified to correct.)

crumbsroom wrote:

I've seen Eegah!

That had no gumption at all.
 

Richard Kiel is pretty gumpy though.

I have a few Steckler blind spots (including the ones Crumb's seen), but as far as "good" Steckler, I think The Lemon Grove Kids and Body Fever are genuinely enjoyable. I'm also much kinder to Rat Pfink a Boo Boo than JJ is, as I'm not immune to the charms of Carolyn Brandt and the gorilla. Look at the last scene on the beach. Everyone looks like they're having a great time. I can't say no to that.

He did a few slashers (Blood Shack, The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher, Las Vegas Serial Killer) that are not "good", exactly, but offer the kind of fried brain drone pleasures that will likely tickle Crumb's fancy, given his tolerance for boring garbage where nothing happens. I mostly like these, but one needs to be in the right mood.

His pornos though, Jesus Christ. Each one worse than the last. The Dracula one is sporadically amusing but the Sexorcist one is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I'm glad they exist though, and will be happy to have copies on the shelf once the box set arrives, although I doubt I'll be revisiting them ever.

Rock wrote:

He did a few slashers (Blood Shack, The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher, Las Vegas Serial Killer) that are not "good", exactly, but offer the kind of fried brain drone pleasures that will likely tickle Crumb's fancy,

There aren't many things that can make me reach a zen state quite as quickly as some grainy washed out images, tinny indecipherable dialogue, and a bunch of people standing around in poorly lit rooms. It's a hard thing to explain, but those long stretches of what we can almost call non-film, always seem like they are privately communicating to me. Having entire movies built from scenes that other movies would edit around or edit out, is just so obviously a thing of great value, that also completely understandably, is probably completely without value in normal society. 

But it has to be done....correctly. I started Blood Shack late last night when I was very tired, and it wasn't a good time for this kind of thing as I was already nodding off. But I'm feeling it knows how to do it right.


 

This is a lot. Nothing happens and it's still a lot. It's a movie wound so tight it should start to splinter and come apart before it can finish. And yet it still keeps scratching itself and picking at its scabs all the way to its conclusion.

It won't go away. It never stops asking you to pay attention to it, then shrinking into itself the moment it knows you are looking. You ask what it wants, what it's good for, but it only sputters and goes nowhere.

It's a pest. It's The Beast. It won't leave your living room.

This movie is an anxiety attack. The slowly creeping and cancerous kind. The kind that gets in your lungs and your liver and your stomach and lower intestine. That ruptures organs.

You won't like this movie. No one does. You can't possibly care about anyone in it. But you will still feel bad for everything you see. And everyone who is stuck in it. Even the one who is the most at fault.

But you also hate them, deeply, purely, and only with some guilt.

You also can't possibly enjoy any of this. Even when its funny, the noises you make are probably not laughter. They are the sound of something dying.

I would call it a masterpiece, but then it might start phoning me and asking me to say it again. Calling me in the middle of the night. My phone ringing and ringing until I pick it up and tell it how many stars out of five its love is worth to me.





 

crumbsroom wrote:

And sometimes it just makes Dennis Hoppers pants disappear.
 

The power of movie magic.