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Friday, December 23, 2022

Spooked! (1988)

Directed by:
John Kolopanis

With the advent of the internet, iPhone's and cheap digital cameras, which enable virtually anyone to make their own own movies for next to nothing and then release their glorified home videos to the unsuspecting masses online, came the true death of the B movie industry. We're at such a low point now that streaming platforms are virtually bursting at the seams with so many zero budget horror films that no person could possibly see them all... not that they would necessarily even want to. Most of these things are bloody awful! And it's truly a headache having to wade through so much junk to find a single worthwhile indie horror film. 

80s and 90s amateur filmmaker kids had it much harder than the kids of today. First of all, we had to have access to something like a VHS camcorder, which started out as a fairly pricey piece of equipment and wouldn't become "every household has one" affordable until the end of the 90s. Then we had the issue that the internet either wasn't around or was in its infancy, so we had approximately zero chance of ever releasing our films. Strangely enough, this hardcore porno reminded me of my youthful days as a video-shooting wannabe horror auteur in the 90s. No, not for THAT reason, ya perverts! Let me explain...

Back when my friends and I shot our camcorder horror videos, we would never, ever use a script. It was all ad-lib. We'd come up with a single idea, or have a single cool prop (skull, prop gun, etc.) or some fake blood and make-up or access to a good shooting location (abandoned farmhouse, college theater), and we'd just roll from there. And this movie is quite identical to the way we did it back in the day. Well, minus the sex, of course. It's quite obvious that the genesis for this one day wonder's entire existence was access to a fairly decent latex monster mask. Everything else smacks of make-it-all-up-as-you-go-along indifference.







Amateur magician Daddy (Frank James) is jealous of his roommate Sonny (Marc Wallice) because he's the best looking one in the house, though admittedly that's not saying much when your competition is Frank James and Buddy Love. Sick of Sonny getting "all of the pussy in the world" and leaving his "left-over trash" for them, Daddy talks their other roommate (Love) into helping him concoct a magical potion to turn Sonny into a hideous monster. After mixing all of their ingredients together (though I don't know how many people keep Nile crocodile balls stocked in their kitchen pantry), they slip the concoction into their unsuspecting roomies morning coffee and it works like a charm. Sonny is now a hideous monster.

Sonny's generously-endowed blonde girlfriend (star-billed Samantha Strong) shows up, sees a photo of the new Sonny and sighs, "I used to go out with him but there's no way I can go out with that!" She then immediately goes into another room and has sex with Buddy right on the living room floor. It's just that simple, folks!







Sonny's blonde "main squeeze" Dana (Dana Lynn, who can't act a lick but is awfully cute) shows up to help and reveals that Daddy has a magic spell book. She plots to steal it, reverse the spell and give Daddy and Buddy a taste of their own medicine. But first she needs to seduce Daddy. Well, actually she doesn't really need to but it's time for another sex scene so there she goes. Jessica Longe (K.U.N.T. TV) shows up as yet another of Sonny's bottle blonde girlfriends and she's so kind and compassionate that she's willing to have pity sex with her malformed lover on the couch, which is the most memorable scene in the film by default.

Meanwhile, on the back patio, Jessica and Samantha try to comfort one another. Jessica explains: "I tried to talk him in to trying out the story of the Princess and the Frog. You know how the princess turned into the monster? I tried to talk him into it and we, we're makin' love and we finish but he doesn't change back and I mean, he's the same if, if not uglier!" Samantha replies, "I personally can't think of any man on campus that could turn me on", leading to the following lesbian scene segue that the girls can barely spit out without laughing: "But you said man." / "Man. That's right." / "What about a woman?" / "That's true."

As is often the case, the highlight of these poorly slapped together quickies, and the greatest source of amusement for yours truly, is watching the performers try to bs their way through the dialogue scenes. We'll just say that some are better at it than others.









Most of these VHS-shot porn titles from the 80s were quickly cranked out with the absolute bare minimum of effort for the sole purpose of stocking adult book stores and video rental establishments back in the day. These things will never be remastered. They will never have special edition DVDs. They will never look or sound good due to the fact they were so poorly shot and lit and will simply float around the interwebs becoming more and more obscure and forgotten as thousands of new and much better-quality porn clips get uploaded every single day. That's the sad, albeit deserved, epitaph of these cheap tapes, which were once big money-makers. This one was put out by Video Exclusives.

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