SHOCK scrapes off 5 films to make you feel icky.
This writer has hit the ground running this morning and, as of this writing, has yet to have his morning shower.
Gross, right?
I feel off.
I feel sticky, heavy, grubby and unpleasant.
And so, before I opt to scrub away the filth that has me in its grip, the mood struck me to roll out a list of 5 motion pictures that, to me, are the cinematic equivalent to the awful feeling of being filthy.
These movies aren’t exceptionally gory yet there’s an “ooze” about them; a kind of cocktail of microbial cheese that melts off the screen and gets stuck in your pores.
Plainly stated, these movies are disgusting.
So take my bacteria choked hand and come with me as we wallow in the goo stew that are these fantastically fetid films…
PIGS (1972)
Also known as DADDYS DEADLY DARLING, this low-budget rural psychodrama is ugly, leering, perverse and just plain awesomely unpleasant. Blacklisted actor Marc Lawrence (KING OF KONG ISLAND, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN) directs and stars in this grimy gem as a fully insane pig farmer who becomes obsessed with a mentally ill young woman who ends up staying at his ramshackle ranch. Said girl (Toni Lawrence, actually the directors daughter who he designed this dirty ditty for as a way to jump-start her career thanks dad!) was raped by her own father and now, whenever she feels sexual around a man, she murders him. The farmer in turn hacks up the corpses and feeds them to his hungry swine. One wonders in real-life Canadian pig farmer/serial killer Robert Pickton was a fan of this film.
Long available on DVD in a cut form via Troma, Vinegar Syndrome recently announced an uncut version coming to Blu-ray soon. PIGS on Blu? The mind reels…
And check out the awesome theme song, written by future A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET composer Charles Bernstein! Keep on driving, indeed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc1TMACWyc4
THE SINFUL DWARF (1973)
Legendary Danish sexploitation film is as disgusting as they come, an all-out orgy of ugliness and depravity that makes for a great party movie for miscreants and morons. Diminutive actor Torben Bille (who looks like a miniature Jack Black) plays a dwarf named Olaf who lives with his hideous mother and runs a white slavery operation under the guise of a boarding house. Olaf’s job is to abuse his kidnapped and chained female victims while keeping them doped up on the smack his mom peddles and renting out their orifices to lecherous dandys who want a tumble with rough trade. A total pig out of weirdness and sleaze, THE SINFUL DWARF is just so batty, it cant be taken seriously, but my God is it revolting. Even the music makes me sick. Politically incorrect and dripping all manner of body fluids, this one is a must-see (and youll never un-see it either).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQyrYZBoS1g
C.H.U.D. (1984)
A beloved 80s horror flick, C.H.U.D. isnt a great film but its got a charm all its own and man, is it grubby! In it, the titular monsters are really mutated transients who are soaked with corporate chemicals and become flesh-hungry sewer-chewers. Much of C.H.U.D takes place underground and everyone is so filthy, bloody and greasy at all times that a relentless sense of nausea permeates everything. So much sweat, stains, slop and a gaggle of unpleasant yet wonderfully essayed characters (played by the likes of John Heard, Daniel Stern and Kim Greist) plus a horde of awesome Caglione/Drexler monsters make C.H.U.D. a sludge horror classic.
THE CURSE (1987)
Soon the be released on Blu-ray with its unrelated sequel, CURSE 2: THE BITE, this Italian-financed, rural shocker (originally called THE FARM) is an adaptation of Lovecrafts The Colour Out of Space by way of Lucio Fulci, who actually co-produced this (with TENTACLES Ovidio G. Assonitis) under the name Louis Fulci. THE CURSE features STAND BY ME actor Will Wheaton and his sister Amy as kids in a troubled farming household lorded over by a religious zealot (BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES’ Claude Akins). When a meteor crashes in a nearby field, the bubbling scum that leaks out poisons everything, making apples leak maggots, turning mom into a horny madwoman and causing everyone else to morph into pustule-riddled, slime-dripping zombie monsters. Every character in this Southern Gothic is yucky and the endless array of oozing sores, spurting vegetables and crudely filmed gore makes you just want to puke. The movie (which was directed by actor David Keith from the brilliant Donald Cammell film THE WHITE OF THE EYE) even looks disgusting. Highly recommended!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7JCMqsXGVU
FEED (2005)
THE DEAD PIT and THE LAWNMOWER MAN director Brett Leonard had a surge in his career with this revolting 2005 thriller. In it, a serial killer and fetishist targets morbidly obese women and sets up a website where people can get off on watching these plus-plus-plus-sized femmes being fed to death! Endless scenes of prosthetically-enabled women eating a kind of paste and then puking and then eating, slurping, whining and puking are enough to make you scrape your jaw on the floor. But beware the climax when our heroes do battle with the horny baddie, falling into sacs of liquid lard that slops all over the screen. FEED is a well-made, bleakly humorous and astonishingly fetid film.
Keep reading SHOCK over the next few weeks as we trot our more movies that will make you want to take multiple showers.
