Grotesque (Joe Tornatore, 1988)

When a pajama clad Linda Blair bolts from her parents' house in Grotesque, I thought to myself: Yeah, baby. This is when the movie starts to get good. By running through the snow-covered woods, Linda Blair (Roller Boogie and Chained Heat) is making a valiant effort not to get killed by a gang of unruly "punkers." Little do these "punkers" know, but Linda Blair is not someone to be trifled with. Think about it. It's just a matter time before Linda Blair stumbles upon a crossbow and replaces her jammies with one of the "punkers'" leathery outfits. After drinking a well-deserved cup of cocoa, the now leather clad Linda Blair is ready to fight back. Oh, man. These "punkers" have no idea what they're up against. This is going to be sweet. I don't know 'bout you, but I'd be quaking in my designer combat boots if I was them. If you've seen Savage Streets, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't seen it. Let's just say, Linda Blair knows a thing or two about comeuppance. Hm, I don't get it. (What?) Why is Linda Blair still running through the snowy woods in her pajamas? I mean, she should be totally killing "punkers" with her newly-acquired crossbow by now. Weird.

I'm not worried. I'm sure Linda Blair will eventually stumble upon that crossbow and procure herself some punk-friendly threads.

Okay, I have some good news and some bad news. I guess I'll mention the bad news first. Remember that crossbow Linda Blair was supposed stumble upon? Yeah, well, she doesn't stumble upon any crossbows in this movie. The same goes for the punk clothes. So, you can forget about seeing Linda Blair slaying punks in tight leather pants.

I'm sorry, the thought of Linda Blair is tight leather pants caused me to lose my train of thought. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. The good news. The good news is that Grotesque turned out to be a pretty awesome horror punksploitation thrill ride.

I know, how can a movie be considered awesome if it doesn't feature Linda Blair doing the things I want her to be doing while wearing the clothes I want her to be wearing? Well, that's simple, really. The film, directed by Joe Tornatore, takes a bizarre turn near the halfway point that will leave even the most jaded of cinephiles slack-jawed and bewildered.

Setting itself up as your standard home invasion flick, Grotesque starts off like Punk Vacation meets House On the Edge of the Park. But then it slowly morphs into a strange amalgam of Deliverance and The Burning. Sure, I was somewhat disappointed that the characters played by Linda Blair and Donna Wilkes (Angel) didn't fight back the way I wanted them to. But still, I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the way it all played out. Plus, don't forget, the film has plenty of punks.

Granted, these punks seem to have gotten the bulk of their inspiration from Mad Max. In other words, they're not the type of punks you see panhandling outside The Yarn Barn. Nevertheless, they're punks, and they look like they're itching to harass some squares.

How can I tell? The way Shelly (Michelle Bensoussan) yells at Lisa (Linda Blair) and Kathy (Donna Wilkes) as they drove along a scenic road in the country practically screamed square harassment. Sticking her head out of the passenger side window of their VW Bus, Shelly threatens Lisa and Kathy with physical violence. Now, if you saw Shelly, who looks like she just parachuted in from the set of Future-Kill, and heard what she said, you might think twice about continuing down this particular road. But not Lisa and Kathy. No, they continue on their merry way.

(What's Linda Blair wearing? I mean, she can't be wearing pajamas, can she?) No, Linda Blair isn't wearing pajamas. She's wearing this long pink coat with a matching shirt. The cool thing about the shirt is that she's wearing a collar necklace and pearls. I thought these items gave her overall look the right amount of pizzazz.

As for Donna Wilkes... Her outfit, if you can call it that, isn't really worth examining.

Anyway, getting back to the Linda Blair. The scenes that lead up to Lisa and Kathy's confrontation with the "punkers," are the best ones for admiring Linda Blair's duds. Sure, the scenes, which feature Lisa and Kathy eating at a restaurant, getting coffee at the Burger King drive-thru and snagging a complementary bag of chips at Jim Fulton's convenience store, are pretty much filler, but you're not going to find a better showcase for her outfit.

On top of that, the scenes also allow us to witness Linda Blair's unique sense of humour. As Lisa and Kathy are approaching Jim Fulton's convenience store, a little girl, who obviously knows Lisa, introduces her to her new dolly. When Lisa asks what's the doll's name, the little girl replies: "She's an orphan... she doesn't have a name." To which Lisa responds: "That's nice." The way Linda Blair delivers this line and the face she makes while saying said line is classic Linda Blair. Funny, gorgeous, and not the type of woman to put up with little girl-fostered bullshit, Linda Blair is a national treasure.

Oh, and when I say, "national treasure," I'm not simply talking about the United States of America or Republika Hrvatska. I'm talking about the entire world. If that's the case, I should have called her a "global treasure." Whatever.

On their way to Lisa's parents' house in the woods, Lisa and Kathy run into the punks again. Having a bit of car trouble, the lead punk, Scratch (Brad Wilson), tries get them to stop and help, but ultimately fails to achieve this goal. Nonetheless, the car trouble scene gives us our first good look at all the punks.

Fans of cult and horror movies will notice right away that Robert Z'Dar (Samurai Cop) is playing one of the punks. Unfortunately, he doesn't really do that much in this film. Which is weird because he's Robert Z'Dar! If I made a movie with Robert Z'Dar, it would be all Z'Dar, all the Z'Time (this gag never gets old... or I should say, this gag never gets z'old).

As Scratch is ranting and raving, and Gibbs (Nels Van Patten) is laughing at his own jokes (he's like a coked up hyena), you will no doubt notice a vision of ghastliness in the form of Belle, a punk/goth chick in a long black coat. Hands down my favourite punker in the movie, Belle, like Robert Z'Dar, isn't given all that much to do. Which is a shame because the monkey noise she makes during the height of the home invasion scene is definitely one of the film's high points.

Oh, and I almost forgot, the actress who plays Belle is credited as "Bunki Z." I'll let that sink in for a bit.

All right, I'm back. When she's doing bit parts on Dynasty, she goes by the name "Bunky Jones." But when she's playing goth-punks in movies like Grotesque, she's Bunki Z! Yeah, baby!

It would seem that Lisa and Kathy and the punks have a date with destiny, as guess which house the punks decide to rob? That's right, Lisa's parents. Believing that Lisa's father, a horror film director named Orville Kruger (Guy Stockwell), has a stash of money and drugs hidden somewhere in his house, the punks show up unannounced during the night and demand that he hand over the goods.

 

When these "goods" are not handed over, things get a little hairy. It's at this point that the film takes a twisty left turn, when Patrick (Robert Apisa), Lisa's deformed brother, makes his presence felt. The action quickly moves outside, where Lisa and the punks must survive the elements. And, of course, the latter have to contend with Patrick, who wants to tear the punks apart.

There's a lot to like about the outdoor scenes. But I think most of you will agree that the fact the snowfall was genuine was the film's greatest asset in terms of creating actual suspense. Seriously, when I saw that it was really snowing, I started to feel concerned about the actors. This is especially true when it came to Linda Blair, who, like I mentioned earlier, is wearing nothing but a pair of pajamas. Now that's what I call commitment to one's craft.

If this twist wasn't enough, Grotesque gives another one when Tab Hunter (Polyester) literally runs onscreen. At first I thought Tab was running because someone had just told him that his paycheck had bounced. But that wasn't the case at all. Playing Lisa's "Uncle Rod," when Tab Hunter shows up the film goes in a completely different direction all-together. It's true, if you took away all the filler scenes and jettisoned the pointless fake out opening and the ultra-lame fake out ending, the film would barely run twenty minutes long. That being said, it's a pretty entertaining twenty minutes. Well, not really. But, hey, it's got punks, real snow and Linda Blair, what more do you want?

Santa Sangre (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1989)

Hauntingly beautiful in a way that made me not want to vomit, Santa Sangre (Holy Blood) is a work of gentle and demented grace. Filled with enough lunacy, mental trauma (seeing your father struggling to maintain his composure with acid-soaked genitalia will do that), mentally challenged cocaine users, and circus sex to last an undetermined amount of time, Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Holy Mountain) has created a masterful ode to letting go of the past. A veiled cautionary tale about the dangers that could develop when you don't use your hands to do your own bidding, the colourful, gory (a man tries to force feed a little girl his own right ear), and richly layered enterprise is a mellifluous feast for the senses – primarily the ones that are indispensable when it comes to watching and listening to films. Whether it be the awe-inspiring visual splendour of the aerial shot of a beloved elephant bleeding from its trunk, the graveyard dream sequence (synthesizers whirl while white zombies lurch), or the maddening ferocity of the bongo music heard during a grislier than usual flophouse stabbing, everything about this film, optically and audibly, is heightened to the point of rapturous madness.

A dreamlike mishmash that jumps back and forth between reality and fantasy, and, not to mention, the past and the present, the story revolves around a mental patient named Fenix (Axel Jodorowsky). A deeply troubled man trying to come to grips with a violent incident that transpired between his parents when he was a child (Adan Jodorowsky), the film flashes back to when he performed in a traveling circus called Circo del Gringo. There we meet his knife throwing father Orgo (Guy Stockwell), his religious fanatic/trapeze artist mother Goncha (Blanca Guerra), and Alma (Faviola Elenka Tapia), the deaf-mute flaming tightrope walker he has a crush on.

The intensity of Alma's adorableness cannot be accurately measured using conventional methods.

Upsetting the big top equilibrium is a woman who is covered head-to-toe in tattoos. You see, Orgo has these little flings with the tattooed lady, and Goncha isn't too happy about it. Taking matters into her own hands, Goncha, in the spur of the moment, decides to throw a vitriolic liquid into Orgo's sexing area just as he was about to penetrate the tattooed lady with his penis (it's not a Jodorwsky flick until someone loses their junk). Even though in agony, Orgo manages to muster enough energy to chop off Goncha's arms.

Profoundly traumatized by this event (though it should be said that the large eagle chest tattoo he receives from his father and the elephant funeral procession were pretty trauma-inducing as well), we jump forward to when a now grownup yet catatonic Fenix is living in an insane asylum. Reinvigorated by a night on the hooker-filled streets with some of his fellow patients, Fenix is surprised to find his now armless mother calling to him from the street outside his cell/room. Leaving the confines of his self-stylized prison, the reunited mother-son startup a stage show that involves Fenix standing behind Goncha and acting out her arm movements.

Now, while this sounds like a cute idea for a show, the fact that Goncha has Fenix acting as her hands to do everyday chores is a tad disturbing. Things get even more troubling when Goncha starts forcing Fenix to carry out her murderous wishes. The barely sane Fenix could easily refuse to follow through with her unhinged desires, but you should have seen how inflamed Goncha became when the local monsignor told her the blood pool at her favourite church was merely paint. In fact, their heated back and forth that involved the expressions: "This is paint!" and "It's holy blood!" reminded me of a certain beer commercial from the 1980s. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is Goncha is not someone to be trifled with; even while armless.

The undulating undercarriage of the excessively tattooed woman known as "The Tattooed Woman" (played by the sturdily built Thelma Tixou) was a joy to revel in. Of course, I wouldn't go as far as to say that she was a nice person (pimping out your deaf-mute daughter to horny military personnel isn't exactly an endearing quality), but the sight of Thelma erotically savouring the exquisite longness of her ink-covered frame did a pretty good job of deflating any scorn I felt towards her. After all, she was basically just an exhibitionist who loved to give knives fellatio. And, in the long run, I can't stay mad at someone like that.

Your hands were given to you by the secretive overlords, the one's who live amongst the nonjudgmental hairs that cover the cavernous highway that is God's ass, in order to assist humankind when it comes to masturbating and eating cereal with some level of lordliness. Sure, you can pretty do both of those things without hands, but the sheer amount of rubbing and flailing involved would be so demanding, that you'd no doubt discontinue engaging in both activities after about five years of undignified struggle. Regardless, the inherent freewill to utilize your hands in any way you see fit was the main message I took away from Santa Sangre; that, and elephant funerals rarely end pleasantly. It doesn't matter if you come from a dysfunctional family populated by womanizing knife throwers and overzealous crackpots, your hands are a gift; manipulate them with impunity.

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