Eating Raoul (Paul Bartel, 1982)

Nowadays, people are killed, or, as my combat instructor Tiffany likes to say, "dispatched," by guns, axes, hellfire missiles, and sharpened toilet bowl handles laced with plutonium. But twenty-five years ago, everyday items like hippie beads, fine-toothed combs, bug zappers, and frying pans were employed out of respect to the victim. I mean, who doesn't want to be murdered by a frying pan? I know I wouldn't mind. In the darkly humourous, Eating Raoul, that's the question debauched swingers across Los Angeles repeatedly ask themselves during their final moments of brain activity, as the trauma that comes with being hit in the head with a frying pan catches up with them and death consumes their immoral shells. I'd say a solid eighty percent of filmed entertainment is rendered unwatchable because of its high-principled stance against murder. The seemingly unending lesson that Hollywood and their overly earnest allies having been teaching us... you know, that the taking of a human life is wrong and stuff, has plagued me for a good chunk of two centuries. The only instance where homicide is accepted seems to be then perpetrator is wearing a tin hat. Well, in this deeply satirical film about Paul and Mary Bland, murder is not only rewarded, it's glamourized. Deadpan to the point of nonexistence, Paul Bartel and Richard Blackburn have created a script so wicked, so spiritually enriching, that I still can't believe they were allowed to get way it after all these years. Promoting the unlawful slaying of deviants and miscreants from start to finish, Eating Raoul is one of my all-time favourites because it makes its predators, the Bland's, seem so normal on the surface.

However, underneath lies a subtle layer of flavourless perversion. All it takes is just one look at the Bland's apartment and you'll begin to notice that something just ain't right. The erotic artwork, their fabulous collection of 1950s furniture, the matching pajamas, and the twin beds make one stop and pretend to think.

Summed up in a succinct manner by Paul Bland (played by writer, director, and male pattern baldness enthusiast Paul Bartel) at an orgy, the unsuspecting couple lure swingers to their apartment and murder them for their money.

Now this murderous binge may have been brought on by accident (their flat is crawling with swingers and a couple end up getting bludgeoned to death after straying into their place of residence), but the desire to acquire enough capital to open a restaurant causes them to ditch conventional means of raising money and to focus on killing full-time.

Only problem is a professional thief named Raoul Mendoza (a hunky Robert Beltran) is onto to the Bland's scheme. And since Raoul isn't a card carrying pervert, the Bland's don't kill him. Instead, they team up with him. (The Bland's kill, while Raoul is in charge of disposing of the bodies at the dog food factory.) Of course, to Paul, this awkward alliance is a tad shaky from the get-go, as indicated by the shameless flirting that takes place between Raoul and Mary Bland. You can't really blame Raoul in that regard. I mean, if I found myself suddenly thrust into the shapely presence of the sexy Mary Woronov, I, too, would be engaging in a nonstop barrage of lame come-ons and ill-conceived wooing.

The sublime, extremely talented, wonderfully gap-toothed Susan Saiger plays Doris The Dominatrix, a woman Paul employs in order to help him expose Mary and Raoul's secret sexual alliance.

Giving what I consider to be one of the leggiest performances in cinematic history, Mary Woronov wields her extra leggy gams like they were a pair of deadly weapons. Fraudulently seducing the likes of hippies, middle-aged weekend Nazis, a creepy man-child, unruly patients, and fake Latino locksmiths (the locksmith part is fake, not the Latino part), the svelte superstar proves that even the squarest of squares can induce erections in the pants of others with a nonchalant ease. Sure, she can't seem to tell the difference between a dead swinger and a merely unconscious swinger (which is weird being a nurse and all), but as a Naughty Nancy and Cruel Carla, she's the bee's knees.

Seriously, her knees alone are actually worthy of a couple of grammatically obtuse sonnets.

The brilliance of Eating Raoul is plainly obvious during the murder scenes (they evoke a time when murder was fun and a valued activity). However, it's seemingly throwaway scenes, like the one that takes place in the sex shop, that make the film purr so efficiently. The repartee Paul Bartel engages with an apple devouring sex shop salesmen (John Paragon), for example, is wonderfully perverse. I like how Paul offends the clerk by asking for the cheapest vibrator he's got "Hey, there's nothing cheap about my store, don't you mean inexpensive?" It's those kind of touches that keep me coming back to this twisted masterpiece at least once year.

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TerrorVision (Ted Nicolaou, 1986)

The fact that this super-terrific attempt at icky-based tomfoolery takes place in only four rooms of a kooky suburban home (five rooms, if you include the "pleasure dome," and why wouldn't you include it?), didn't seem to minimize its galactic impact. A mucilaginous remedy for everything sapless and uninteresting in this drab world, TerrorVision hit my face like a rainbow-coloured laser blast. A featherbrained enterprise that knows exactly what decade it's being made in and isn't ashamed to demonstrate that knowledge over and over again. All you need to do is take one look at the breadth of funky fashions and down-to-earth prosthetic techniques that populate this flick, and you'll quickly realize that it means business. The beautifully poetic film, written and directed by Ted Nicolaou, like the similar Remote Control, plays with the connection that exists between 1980s new wave culture and 1950s science fiction. However, instead of an alien videotape taking over the world, the aliens here use cable television as their means of planetary self-assertion. Sending up the '80s zeitgeist, the film also mocks the male psyche when it comes to the acquisition of newfangled gadgets. You see, without a major hot war to fight, thousands of men who would normally be killed in armed combat have been relegated to the arena of the mindless consumer. These docile individuals purchase inessential goods and services, while their warlike parents and increasingly violent offspring ridicule their pacifistic lifestyle at every turn.

Which, in this film's case, is a lifestyle that includes wallowing in the bourgeoning five hundred channel universe. One of the earliest signs of the disintegration of the family unit, this abundance of TV choice erodes at their collectiveness. Mommy wants to watch aerobics, teenage Suzy digs MTV, and Grampa (Bert Remsen) and little Sherman want war and monsters. And Dad, well, he's too captivated by the gizmo itself to have any taste to call his own. Made-up and overly reaching theories aside, TerrorVision is ultimately about a disgusting creature from outer space who escapes from a sanitation dump on the planet of Pluton and ends up being zapped into the satellite dish of the Putterman family.

The film pretty much stays inside Putterman residence, brief visits to the set of Medusa's Midnight Horrorthon, an Elvira-esque movie program, allow the audience to stretch our cinematic legs. But the Putterman home is adorned with such a strange assortment of erotic art, that you almost forget the film takes place in one location. Revolting, yet inventive monster effects are also employed to create to the slimy thing at the centre of this silly stew. And I must say, I liked the way the otherworldly creature oozed, and their green iridescent sludge really tickled my fancy.

Now, any movie that features a leggier than usual Mary Woronov (Eating Raoul) exercising in a skintight leotard, the always hilarious Gerrit Graham (Phantom of the Paradise) using the word "tomato" as a supplemental expletive, and moron extraordinaire Jon Gries wearing a W.A.S.P. t-shirt all within the first five minutes is bound to be topnotch. Add a Valley Girl-accented, pink, green, orange, blonde, and blue-haired Diane Franklin (The Last American Virgin) to the zany mix, and were talking about a freaking masterpiece up in here.

Sporting a new wave look so extreme, that the cast of Liquid Sky would no doubt feel drab in her presence, Diane plays the culturally relevant Suzy Putterman, music video junkie and junior-grade fashion icon. And while she is off screen during the film's perilous middle section, Miss Franklin explodes so righteously when she is onscreen, that her absence barely registers. I mean, even though Suzy's younger brother (Chad Allen) is the first to come face-to-face with the space monster, it's Diane's playful spirit that makes their brief friendship with the space monster such an unexpected joy to watch.

Teaching the space monster about the wonders of food and music, Diane, and to lesser extent, Jon Gries (who plays her her boyfriend, O.D.) shine comedically as they instruct the beast on how to eat snacks. Diane even says "yum" twice in quick succession to signify something that is tasty.

Speaking of phraseology, I love how she would liberally pepper her sentences with words like, "barf," "dork," and "awesome." Sure, the third is rarely used to denote anything that is actually awesome anymore. But back in 1986, if you called something "awesome," or in extreme cases, "totally awesome," it usually meant something was genuinely awesome. For example, The Fibonaccis' song, "TerrorVision," which opens and closes the film, is not only awesome, it's (you guessed it) totally awesome.

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Motorama (Barry Shills, 1991)

One of the weirdest films I have ever seen, Motorama is an enigma wrapped in a package made out of golden cat...Uh, that thought isn't really going anywhere, let me try something else... I don't want sound like a piece of self-flagellating cheese, but when I say something is "the weirdest," it's gotta be weird. Boasting the hippest supporting cast ever assembled and the most aloof protagonist since Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, the film, written by After Hours scribe Joseph Minion, leaves you with a feeling of unease; the tone of the movie always seems a little off. I mean, it's almost as if it's set in alternate universe: the currency is rainbow-coloured, the states and provinces have names that don't appear on any map I'm aware of, and no one seems to be the slightest bit freaked out by the sight of a little boy purchasing gasoline for his red 1965 Mustang. However, once I got used to the bizarre spirit of the film, I was able to appreciate what it was getting at. Which is, that the road is an unforgiving place, and sometimes you've got to ditch your children at a roadside picnic area in order to break-even after an impromptu game of horseshoes goes awry. Motorama is essentially about Gus (Jordan Christopher Michael), a single-minded ten year old who decides to hit the open road and the adventures he gets into along the way. His main goal is to collect these special game cards that contain letters that spell out the word "M-O-T-O-R-A-M-A" (the name of a chain of gas stations) and win the substantial cash prize. It may sound straightforward: find the letters, spell the word, don't get killed by bikers. But procuring the 'R' is gonna be tough.

The film's surrealistic bent is exposed early on when Gus meets Phil (John Diehl, who played the killer in the original Angel), a gas station attendant who is minding a yellow kite tied to the antler of a plastic deer when the youngster pulls in. The kite has a picture of Phil shaking hands with a police officer (Robert Picardo), and apparently it's his way of showing an unseen entity that lives in the clouds that he's a decent human being.

After that, things just seem to get progressively stranger, as the diminutive road warrior plunges deeper into the offbeat landscape that is this nonspecific country.

It's not always the case, but having a child actor carry the bulk of a movie on his or her shoulders can be a risky endeavour. But in the case of Motorama, I think they bypassed disaster with Jordan Christopher Michael.

He imbues Gus with a sauciness that sets him apart from his more adorable brethren. For example, Jordan swears like a person who swears a lot, wears an eye-patch, arm wrestles Meat Loaf, and washes his face using rainwater that has collected in a discarded tractor tire. Things I can pretty much guarantee you would never see Jeremy Miller or Danny Pintauro doing in a million years.

The best part of the film (you know, the parts that didn't involve looking for letters or beautiful desert scenery) was the wide array of kooky people Gus comes across on his journey. It's a veritable who's who of unorthodox cool. Seriously, any film that sports VJ extraordinaire Martha Quinn as a shiftless bank teller and Jack Nance as a squirrel-hating motel clerk has got to have something going for it.

Add the fact that cult movie queen Mary Woronov (Eating Raoul) appears as an apathetic kidnapper (she is paired with Sandy Baron - Jack Klompus from Seinfeld), Red Hot Chilli Peppers bass player Flea shows up as an opportunistic busboy and the ubiquitous Dick Miller can be seen as an unpredictable father of two, and things get even cooler.

But wait, there's more!

The always delightful Susan Tyrrell (Forbidden Zone) serves Gus a cup of coffee, a pre-Poison Ivy Drew Barrymore waves at our hero while wearing a floral garland, a surprisingly leggy Robin Duke epitomizes your typical corporate shill, and Allyce "Moonlighting" Beasley plays a receptionist.

You see, this movie is steeped in coolness. Which, I must admit, is quite odd for something that was conceived during the extremely cool-free year of 1991.

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Night of the Comet (Thom Eberhardt, 1984)

This movie is totally awesome! I know, it's a hackneyed idiom that has been used to extol cinematic shapes and colours for like, a quarter of a century or something, but it's the only sensible way I can think of to describe this flick. At any rate, when a motion picture comes along that combines the chromatic whimsicality of Valley Girl and the shopping spree-enhanced putrefaction of Dawn of the Dead, you know my eyes will be looking in its general direction the first chance I get. Well, I finally got my chance this past week, as I gazed upon the righteous neon sheen of Night of the Comet: the gold-encrusted scrunchy of teenage comet-zombie movies (one whose working title was apparently, "Teenage Mutant Horror Comet Zombies." Perfectly capturing the zeitgeist of 1980's fashion and philosophy, this giddy little film tells the story of Regina (a feisty young go-getter) and Samantha (a delightfully dim lotus-eater), two sisters who, one morning, find themselves all alone after a giant comet whizzes through the earths' atmosphere, vaporizing almost everyone and turning Los Angeles into a virtual ghost town. Through his use of drum machine-assisted cheekiness (the music score is a spine-tingling discharge of antiquated synths and wailing guitars), a gaudy colour scheme (the radio station walls were awash with flamboyant purples and mirthful reds), and opaque cinematography (a thicker than usual haze lurks over the City of Angels), writer-director Thom Eberhardt and his crack crew have created one humdinger of a comet-based zombie movie.

Add roomy hairdos, a Mac-10 shootout in ladies apparel, a hunky Robert Beltran (Eating Raoul), the legendary Mary Woronov (Rock 'n' Roll High School), Michael Bowen (Valley Girl) and Dick "Let's go get sushi and not pay" Rude to the mix, and we're not just talking about an inflamed pair of teal legwarmers lighting up the night sky, we're talking about a souped-up masterpiece.

Getting the fashions just right and teaching a pre-teen zombie to growl effectively is one thing, but casting is the key to the success of a comet-based zombie opus, especially one that features what has to be one of the most spiritually satisfying of shopping sequences ever caught on film. The casting of Edmonton's own Catherine Mary Stewart is a great start.

She is rock solid as Regina, a movie theatre employee who has a healthy addiction to the classic arcade game Tempest. Displaying a clearheadedness when it comes to firearms and dating, Catherine's plucky portrayal of the generously-coiffed hellcat is shimmering beacon for little girls to the world over.

The film's tour-de-force performance, however, comes in the diminutive, yet shapely form of Kelli Maroney. Playing the object-oriented Samantha, Kelli gives a performance for the ages. Wearing a magenta and turquoise cheerleading outfit, and a generously-conditioned mop of golden hair, the character of Samantha represents everything I stand for and epitomizes my belief in superficiality and unsupervised vacuity. (When the comet wipes out humanity, Samantha's main concern is breakfast cereal.)

Also, Sam's empty-headed whining (I love how she sulks when she finds out her sister has bagged the last man on earth), snarky one-liners ("You were born with an asshole, Doris, you don't need Chuck"), and frustration over her constantly jamming Mac-10 sub-machine ("Daddy would have gotten us Uzis") were downright spellbinding. Anyway, it's been awhile since I've come across a character that I've been so in tune with. And I tell ya, it's a good feeling.

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