Trash Menagerie

aka Blue Passion Dir. Niko Mastorakis If Alfred Hitchcock and Brian DePalma teamed up to produce a film for a Pay-Per-View softcore channel, but only had a small fraction of their combined skill, and an even smaller fraction of their normal budget, the result might look something like In the Cold of the Night , a bonkers neon-noir thriller with more skin than sense. Our protagonist, Scott Bruin is living the coke-fueled, late 80’s/early 90’s American West Coast dream. He’s got a successful fashion photography studio/loft in L.A., swaths of conventionally attractive women ready to throw themselves at him, and a glowing waterbed on which to sleep with said women. The only trouble is he’s having recurring nightmares in which he murders the same woman in the same house by different means, causing him to question his own sanity and setting him on a search for this mysterious dream woman. In the Cold of the Night’s biggest issue is pacing. The running time is 113 minutes, generally...

aka The Hunting Trip Dir. Richard Gardner The marketing of exploitation films is an art in and of itself. It is also something one must be wary of. The posters and home video cover art for 80’s genre cinema are awesome to behold; snapshots from neon-soaked universe of kinetic madness deserving of appreciation for their own sake. But more often than not, expectations are being set too high for the movies housed within, and with good reason. Most of these movies aren’t very good by any popular metric. It the covers were altered to be more accurate depictions for the films they advertise, these videos would rarely get picked up off the self, so I guess you can argue that false advertising is a necessary evil. But boy is it frustrating, making the search for solid trash boil down to what is essentially a numbers game. There are some trash movies that are as awesome as their cover art suggests, but they are few and far between. So tempering one’s expectations is an absolute imper...

aka  Soul Vengeance Dir. Jamaa Fanaka Welcome Home Brother Charles is a film that is unfortunately as relevant and resonant today as it was when it was released over 40 years ago. In its racial politics at least. Not so much in its sexual politics. But more on that later. It is also unfortunately a little bland, rarely giving up any exploitation goodness until the final act. The second feature of then UCLA student Jamaa Fanaka, best known for the Penitentiary trilogy, Brother Charles is a meandering and disjointed film with a few surreal artistic touches that make it a worthwhile viewing if you can temper your expectations. Brother Charles ’ opening credits play over a dark void in the middle of which is what looks like the Zuni Fetish Doll from Trilogy of Terror if it were designed by H. R. Giger. Accompanying this image is a theme of creepy dissonant horns, priming the viewer for some kind of horror or dark fantasy. However what we’re first presented wi...