FACES OF SCHLOCK (Boobs and Blood Edition)

On September 21, 2010, with the DVD release of "Faces of Schlock", Gonzoriffic will have completed its circle around the world of no-budget film. Around 2000, this site (originally on Yahoo! Geocities) began publishing features about such movies as "Caress of the Vampire" and "Erotic Witch Project", and quickly became one of the biggest supporters of Alternative Cinema. What readers didn't know was that Gonzoriffic was not on some special list to receive free DVDs from the company in exchange for all the positive reviews, we actually bought them in stores like all the other fans. Difference was, we wanted to share our enthusiasm and thoughts with the rest of the world.
Sometime around 2003, we decided to take a crack at making our own films. Largely influenced by the Seduction Cinema release "Mistress Frankenstein", we produced "Buttonhead", our first adventure with film making in the digital age. Falling head first into the close-knit microcinema universe, we found ourselves sharing a booth at the 2004 Twisted Nightmare Weekend convention, and returned home with a suitcase full of movies made by all the contacts we made at the show. One guy, a teenage whiz kid auteur by the name of Henrique Couto, wouldn't leave us alone after we published a story about his films. He sought to partner up with us on a project that would incorporate short films by a few of his friends, and while it wasn't the first time anyone approached us about distributing our stuff, Henrique was the most genuine and had an impressive DVD release catalog to back it up. We gave him "Buttonhead" on good faith, and "Faces of Schlock" was born. Our experience was a great one, so we signed on for the follow up volume, providing our film festival workhorse, "Psycho Vixens", as well as the script for Henrique's contribution, "Songs in the Key of Satan".
Reviews were good, sales were good, and by the end of 2005, we were already planning another collection. As a gift to Henrique for all his hard work, a script for a holiday-themed slasher film was tailor made for him to direct as his segment of the third "Schlock" release. "Slay Ride" was the first time we'd written a movie for someone else to make ("Songs" was originally intended as a Gonzoriffic production), and was very much a "kitchen sink" effort featuring modern b-movie staples like lesbians, chainsaws, gore and excessive nudity, while still maintaining our sense of responsibility toward unusual roles for women in cinema. On our end, we produced a re-tooling of one of our very first experiments, "Cannibal Sisters", and made efforts to secure higher production value so the new compilation would have a more uniform look (our previous segments were shot with dirt cheap equipment). The project went on hiatus for the better part of two years while the "schlock" gang, including Gonzoriffic, all went to work on our own respective feature-length films, but reconvened at just the right time in early 2008. By then, we had decided to release "Cannibal" on our own and instead provided a brand-new short for the new disc, "Blood Witch". We felt it represented our best work to date, and might help us catch the eye of a professional distributor.
The circle began to close when actor Ruby LaRocca accepted the lead role in "Slay Ride". A staple in many of Alternative Cinema's films, and recipient of much praise from reviews on Gonzoriffic over the years, it was huge thrill for us to know that Ruby would be reciting dialog in a film we wrote. The next thing we knew, the movie was done, and we were sitting at a convention booth next to her, signing posters and DVDs. We all had our fingers crossed that Alternative Cinema would like the movie enough to want to release it, and sure enough, they did. In ten years' time, we went from fans buying their films in stores and writing about them on the internet to actually getting to make one. There's a lot to be proud of. The movie is great and contains everything the packaging and the trailer promise, plus more that just might surprise you. Today's landscape is flooded with people making their own low-budget backyard zombie fests, but the herd thins out in a significant way by the time you get to the final stages of production. To see this kind of project through to completion is no easy task, and as you have read, takes a long time. We stand by the DVD and our contributions to it, and hope that the people who pick it up feel like they got what they came for. In my years as a reviewer, I was always critical of movies that tried to pass themselves off as something they weren't, using deceptive cover art and marketing tactics as an underhanded grab for the exploitation / cult film / b-movie audience's hard-earned dollar. I can honestly stand behind this one and say it is the kind of movie I love to watch.

Available on Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/Faces-Schlock-George-Stover/dp/B003QTBSUI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1280257548&sr=8-1

Check out the trailer and see for yourself. Not work safe, but you should expect no less!

REVIEW: CHRISTINA (1985)

In between HOLLYWOOD HOT TUBS and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, author and B-movie starlet Jewel Shepard went to Spain and made this film. Most well-known for featuring a fully nude or topless Shepard throughout its running time, CHRISTINA was written by the ultra-prolific cult figure Harry Alan Towers with the original intention of being an ongoing series. Shepard plays the title role, a rich nymphomaniac exhibitionist who appears to be allergic to clothing, spending as much time as possible in her birthday suit with her male friends. If you've ever read Jewel's book IF I'M SO FAMOUS you either wanted to see CHRISTINA really bad or you hoped to never lay eyes on it.

I was expecting this to be kinda soft-focus and boring, but when the movie picks up things are surprisingly bizarre. Christina gets kidnapped by lesbian terrorists (!!!) and is given away as a prize to the winner of a karate match (!!!), only to become an object of jealousy and passed around among the sapphic soldiers. The womens' outfits look like rejects from the Solid Gold dancers and come apart real easy during combat. Weirdest of all are the lesbian sex scenes, though. Get this - when things start to get hot n' heavy, the scene switches to Jewel lying on a white sheet in a smoke-filled tent while black-gloved hands run toy cars across her naked body as she writhes in ecstasy! TOY CARS. This happens twice, and the second time the hands use a toy truck and army tank to give her jollies.

The most unfortunate thing about this film is the shoddy DVD transfer, which is full screen and dark and muddy most of the time. Several poorly-lit outdoor scenes are rendered devoid of much detail, ruining otherwise "money" shots of Miss Shepard. Since its only selling point is the amount of skin displayed by its star, CHRISTINA kind of shoots itself in the foot by presenting most of these scenes far too darkly to see much of anything. However, it is worth watching for reasons beyond the frequent nudity as the bad dubbing and hilarious lesbian tomfoolery make it a memorable cult film obscurity. See it to say you saw it, that's what I did.

REVIEW: FEMALE VAMPIRE

Ultra-prolific sleaze merchant Jess Franco has made films for decades under 30 or 40 different names, I've seen several of them, and I can't say that I'm a huge fan. His stuff is a bit too slow-moving and arty for my MTV-ized sensibilities, but one thing I can say for sure: his choice to cast Lina Romay in so many of his films was genius. Because Lina Romay is beautiful.

In 1973's FEMALE VAMPIRE, Romay plays the title character. This flick has been released under many different titles (including EROTIKILL and BARE BREASTED COUNTESS) with varying degrees of sex and violence. The version I saw contained countless scenes of Romay walking around wearing nothing but her vampire cape, black belt and boots. There were also several scenes where she's writhing in bed humping a pillow or whatever, complete with Franco's camera repeatedly zooming into her crotch. It's definitely not something I understood or was particularly entertained by, but Romay makes it all worthwhile.

It should be noted that the cover image of Romay with blood dripping from her mouth (the same one that adorns Andy Black's NECRONOMICON II) doesn't appear in this cut of the film. In the DVD extras there are scenes from the EROTIKILL version, and that's where you'll find it. I can't remember seeing a drop of blood in FEMALE VAMPIRE. But it has Lina Romay. You get what I'm saying?