Wednesday, May 25, 2011

7,000 views and reader appreciation yet again

Well, My little site has reached a little over 7,000 views now and The readership seems to be rising pretty substantially in the last few months and I could not be happier. I hope you all enjoyed My Tribute to the lesser known films of Troma in Troma Appreciation month. I have a few more to get to before the month is over than back to the usual random film that strikes my fancy at the given time. I am planning on reviewing Killer Condom, Graduation Day and maybe the secondary Troma mascot film Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD . However I may not make it to all three before the end of the month due to work. I have no plans for any genre specific themes for next month but I do have a ton of films I have been holding off on in lew of The Troma month. A few I am planning on getting to very soon are,
Class of 1984
Killer Pussy (sexual Parasite)
Rabid Dogs
Honestly the list could go on forever, as I have managed to pick up quite a few goodies in the last few months.So stay tuned and please continue to show the support , I truly appreciate it. I would love to do a Readers choice month but I don't seem to get enough actual feedback or votes on the polls to justify doing so, So I will just bring the random until I do achieve a more interactive reader group, But as long as people out there are checking my site out I will continue to bring the reviews and punish myself by sitting through some of these winners.....
                                     Thanks to all the readers,
                                                       Nathaniel (Dick Swift) Guest
P.S. If you are a returning reader please sign up and follow my page here, and leave comments. It really makes my day having a chance to interact with fellow film fanatics and it would mean allot to me.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Teenage Catgirls in Heat

Teenage Catgirls in Heat (1997)
Dir:Scott Perry

Ah, The 90's was a wonderful time for trash cinema as what the 80's was for the Slasher genre the 90's was for the sleazy sex comedy. The video stores although suffering by being taken over by bog chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood video , rentals were still a big business and companies were quick to churn out whatever kind of low budget film would garner some cash in their pocket. After Horror films kind of hit a valley in viewer ship , The popularity of shows like Up all Night and Late Night Cinemax movies , the sex comedy became the new go to forum for getting quick rentals because now teens who were too young to rent porn could get their T&A fix by picking up one of these at their local rental spot.Troma was quick to cash in as they are always known to find themselves a niche in the market especially during the rental boom. This brings me to todays film "Teenage Catgirls in Heat".
The film opens with an elderly woman as she is feeding her cats she is called to her attic by a mysterious force, Upon entering the room she uncovers a Cat statue and it tells her to sacrifice herself for the "Great Litter" The statue also goes on to speak of turning cats into humans in order to mate with humans to make this Litter. After the woman stabs herself she fades into dust and the house cat Cleo is called upon to lead the pack of Catgirls in Heat. Elsewhere a local hitch hiker is arriving in town and as he exits his latest ride he finds a naked woman on the side of the road after feeling he is being followed. Shortly following that a strange Cat hunter Warren is on the hunt for strays. Warren picks up a huge signal which leads him to Ralphs location where he is trying to communicate with the strange nude woman, who runs off as The hunter approaches. Warren and Ralph discuss the woman which brings Warren to his reasoning behind hunting cats and what his grand scheme is. After telling of his family being killed by cats Ralph decides to team up with Warren since he has nothing better going on and he hopes to come across the woman again.







As the two guys are on the hunt they come across a wreck yard where they find a dead body covered in cat like scratches and a smile on his face as he was apparently killed by one  of the horny females after sex. While Warren's readings go off the chart one of the catgirls roams the yard unseen.Warren and Ralph head to the hunters rundown shack where he studies the cats behavior believing that the cats are committing mass suicide which leads him to Egyptian mythology where he discovers that his family had brought back an ancient icon Keshra from Egypt. Meanwhile back at the older ladies house we see that the pack of catgirls is growing and Keshra demands that Cleo mates with Ralph in order to complete their sacrifices.Warren and Ralph trap and interrogate some cats, while the catgirls try to learn English from listening to the radio and watching t.v.  Cleo decides that she wishes to live as a human and Keshra says that if she can complete the mating with Ralph she will grant her that wish. One day while roaming around a hillside Ralph witnesses a cat jump from a cliff to it's death. He takes the cat with him in his truck before the cat reanimates and turns into human Cleo in the back of his trunk. Ralph takes Cleo home and finds several naked woman lying around acting like cats. He finds this and Cleo's actions strange but decides to ask her out on a date anyway. The following day they cross paths again and this time Warren see's the house where they stay before Ralph and Cleo plan to go on a picnic, as she chases a mouse in front of them.









As Warren tries to help Ralph with his dating skills, Minersha prepares Cleo for he date and tells her of her mission at hand. The two young lovebirds go on their date where Cleo continues to act strange , Sniffing ralph and pawing at his face.Warren takes this time to investigate the house where Cleo stays and he witnesses one of the Catgirls transform and he see's the statue which seems to temporarily hypnotize him before he snaps out of it and heads to prepare to capture the statue. Cleo takes Ralph back to her place to mate as Warren sneaks in to steal the icon. As the couple is Mating she goes to strike Ralph which scares him off , and Ralph runs into Warren who has Captured the statue and is being chased by the rest of the girls.After a few moments of chasing Cleo and Ralph hide out on a roof together and when they wake the others are waiting for them to come down to get the statue back. Cleo says that Ralph can lead them to it as Warren appears and is possessed by Keshra now. It turns out that he is part cat and his grandmother was the old woman who sacrificed herself to the Egyptian god. Warren disappears and fights within himself with Keshra which turns him into a tiger and then after some more struggling , Warren returns and is now Half Cat , Half man and is apparently both himself and Keshra in one body. He says that Keshra has decided to stop the sacrificing the men and to bring the victims back to life but, The girls must return to their normal cat form. This saddens Cleo and Ralph as Cleo is pregnant and in love with Ralph. Keshra decides to give in and allows the two to remain human but only during the day and they wil be cats by night so they can live together happily ever after.








If you are a fan of the 90's style "whacky" comedy and lots of T&A than this film is right up your alley. The film does have some genuinely funny moments but for the most part it is just corny joke after corny sight gag. The thing that hurts this film the most is the excessive use of Day for night shots , where the scene os obviously shot during day time but the editor makes the screen blue as to appear it is night outside, this makes for some very annoying and hard to see scenes. If those were cut to a minimum this film would have been much better but it ends up hurting the already low quality of the film. The girls in the movie are all cute and have nice bodies so the nude scenes are a welcome addition and the acting like cats business can both be creepy and cute at times, But mostly creepy. The story is ridiculous but what do you expect from a film called Teenage Catgirls in Heat? So on that level alone the film delivers. If you enjoy Troma this is a nice addition to their filmography and as a Sex Comedy it is not nealr as bas as some others I have seen, which I have seen plenty being a young pre teen during the 90's when these movies were flooding the video stores. Teenage Catgirls in Heat is a decent watch and a fun film too watch during a drunken movie night for sure , so I guess on that I would recommend this one just for fun factor alone.
Gore:N/A
Nudity:7
Story:5
Characters:5
Overall: 6 out of 10

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Dumpster Baby

Dumpster Baby (2000)
Dir: James Bickert, Randy Hill

Every so often Troma strays from the norm and attempts a serious film approach, One instance of this being successful is the cult classic Combat Shock which was a gritty and dark look at Post traumatic stress syndrome, Drugs and the Vietnam War. Unfortunately for this film it will not achieve nearly the same following as that film and rightfully so. Although the idea and premise behind this film are interesting the way it was filmed and the acting and dialog just make this film fall short of greatness.
Once again The approach and story matter of the film is about as dark as you could get. As the film opens up with a couple of junkies in a crack den discussing random dirt bag things when one of the ladies goes into labor without even knowing she was pregnant. After giving birth to the child in the rat hole she decides the baby needs to be disposed of since she does not want her ex, The babies father to know they had a child since she has not been with him in over six months. The mothers friend decides to try and sell the child for drugs before eventually dumping it in the trash.After that we meet a business man who hits the bar after work and hooks up with a prostitute, while receiving a blow job in the parking lot he see's the newborn in the dumpster, and the two argue over what to do about the child. As they argue the hooker's ex pimp arrives on the scene and attacks the businessman stabbing him and leaving him for dead before the prostitute shoots the pimp then steals the unconscious mans wallet and hailing him a cab as he lie on the ground, she then puts the baby in the trunk and sends them off. The following morning we see the cab driver at a gas station where a young woman who is cleaning the cab finds the baby and takes it in attempt to benefit from it. She goes to a local college campus and tries to say that the child is hers along with a teacher she had an affair with, She guilts the professor into giving her some hush money and after she receives a check for 3,000 dollars she dumps the baby off in a park. Later that day while a mentally handicap lands keeper is working he finds the baby and takes it home to take care of it but, Has it stolen from him by his landlord and his deadbeat friend as they take it to a comic book shop where the owner deals with black market goods under the table. The baby is traded for a collectible book and some strange bondage gear the shop owner was keeping in his back room. After the two leave the shop owner makes a call to someone who apparently was expecting the child to show up. Moments later we see a Reverend and a member of his church discussing missing children in the area and a man who was convicted of kidnapping in their town in the past and how he believes the man is back to his old tricks, Then a strange man in all black shows up at the comic shop to pick up the baby after he kills the shop owner.








The mysterious man takes the baby to a abandoned shack in the middle of the woods and hides the child in a small trunk before leaving. then a couple of hippies show up to make out in the supposed haunted cabin. WHile they are getting it on the towns reverend has gathered a gang together to ambush the kidnapper in his shack, Without even looking the reverend Jim shoot the hippie guy as the girl takes off into the woods.After that we see a group of young men hanging out nearby in the woods to drink and share ghost stories before venturing to the shack where they find the baby. After taking the baby with them into the woods while they drop acid they debate on what to do before eventually putting the infant in an ice cooler and sending it down the river. The next morning the guys wake up and after his friends leave him feeling guilty, Matt finds the child and takes it to his ex girlfriends house in hopes of getting her to talk to him. She does not give in but she secretly follows him as he drops the kid off at a church. She takes the child home with her before running away from home and taking the kid with her. Matt and Lisa do meet up but she splits on him after a small argument and gets picked up on the highway by a couple heading to Florida. Lisa falls asleep in the van and wakes up to being rapped by the man driving the van while his wife videotapes it. She asks where her child is and the couple says they had thrown it away. The couple discuss what they plan on doing with this girl they have abducted but Lisa manages to escape and she jumps off a bridge.









Next we see the baby being found in an alley by a crazy homeless man who prepares to eat the child  but is detoured by a man masturbating in the truck stop bathroom. The crazy man then kills and eats the fry cook in the restroom. Police arrive on the scene to find the man and his leftovers along with the baby. Now again we meet up with the crack heads from the opening of the film as they are in a hotel. While the child's mother is getting screwed her friend gets high in the next room as the mysterious man in black arrives and kills everyone except the friend who manages to make a run for it. She makes it to a beach where she finds the baby in a cradle by the shore. She grabs the child and runs but the man in black follows close by. She sees the child out of it's wraps in the closing moments as the man slowly approaches and a shot is fired as the film fades out.








In the end it appears that the mysterious man in black is supposed to be death which follows the baby anywhere it goes as a sort of form of karma to those scummy people who have tried to benefit from the child instead of actually caring for it, but it just does not really come off as effective as the film makers would have liked.The film takes an interesting approach as it follows the child as it passes through several peoples possession as the film proceeds leading to the viewer to see different peoples points of view and beliefs on what they would do in the position of finding a lost child. Although it seems everyone in the film is a dirt bag much like in films like Street Trash, Combat Shock and more recently Hobo with a Shotgun, Portraying the human species as selfish and awful in general.Sometimes this approach adds to a film and makes the movie more intense but in this film it just does not unfold well as you begin to just hate anyone involved and know exactly what is going to happen next becoming extremely predictable very early in the film.I do however think that if the writing was better and the actors were as well this film could have really been something special and would have been able to achieve such a cult status as Street Trash or Combat Shock, But due to the lack of those two very valuable assets this one comes off cheesy , gross and just pretty stupid in parts.I would like to see the people at Troma perhaps remake this film with a better budget and perhaps a different set of writers/directors as I can see allot of promise in this film and the Slackers style approach to the drifting of characters did make for some interesting twists but there has to be a balance between good and bad so the viewer does not know exactly what is going to happen in the next scene as one starts up.All in all the film is not the worst I have seen especially considering most of the newer Troma stuff they put out but it just doesn't quite hit the mark they intended in this one and that is sad.
Gore:3
Nudity:5
Story:6
Characters:5
Overall: 5 out of 10