Bikinis, Space, Chainsaws, Pigs And Leather

Recently, as I browsed through the “bad cinema” section of Amazon Prime, I panicked a bit. I had seen all the movies. Some I had seen twice. Was the well of horrible flicks finally running dry?

Then I found a free streaming service called Tubi TV. It doesn’t cost anything to use, but the movies and TV shows are interrupted at fairly large and logical intervals for, at most, a minute of ads. 

In return for ignoring these, Tubi provides lots of stuff, including some true dreck.

Let us begin with what Tubi calls “Calendar Girls 2” and what the filmmaker called “The Young Seducers 3.” It’s 1973, and a skinny blonde has had it with the convent school. So she scales the gate, even though there is a nice low stone wall right next to it, and gets picked up hitchhiking by a greasy business guy.

She tells him stories of schoolgirl shenanigans, which are acted out in flashback. This kind of sophisticated plot device is rare in the schlock world, where the auteurs prefer more classic, streamlined plots, such as “Young man delivers pizza to three bored housewives.”

Enough nekkidity to prevent falling asleep. Tremendous writing, as when the grape-picking lad says “You know, Linda, I’m just a simple farm boy...but I wish I could see more of you.” At least, that’s what the soundtrack said.

Moving right along, in “Space Girls from Beyond Infinity,” two plucky space babes in revealing outfits escape from some kind of space prison, steal a space lifeboat, and crash on the Island of the Leather Pants. 

Zed, wearer of the leather pants, not to mention puffy shirts and dippity-do in his hair, is doing the “The Most Dangerous Game” thing in his lonely corner of the galaxy. Joined by a third, somewhat less plucky space babe, our heroines defeat his evil plan.

But not without some hassles from the two robots, and some other idiot who looks like he escaped from the Planet of the Beverly Hills 90210 Extras, and a mutant monster who has a laser arm.

Leather pants. Mullet haircuts. An apparently inexhaustible supply of slinky dresses in the mad hunter’s lair. Brief nekkidity.

But 1980s glopfest “Motel Hell” blows the other entries out of the water. This is the flick that introduced the concept of the artisanal cannibal to the world.

See, Vincent and his sister Ida have a farm with a motel attached. They sell the tastiest smoked meat in the world. But the catch is…

Yep, you got it. It’s organic.

It’s also a mix of human and pig. Which is organic, in the strictest sense of the word.

We’re talking a garden of people buried up to their necks, with their vocal cords cut so they can’t do anything but make horrible gargling sounds.

Ida tries to help one of them. “You see,” she says, “When your vocal cords have been slit you gotta hiss real clearly if you expect anyone to understand you.”

But this Stockholm Syndrome tactic doesn’t work, as the guy tries to bite her fingers.

Also: Traveling rock band, called Ivan and the Terribles, doing a bootleg Iggy and the Stooges routine before they get waylaid by Vincent; a government scientist has a good time in the secret garden; good-looking blonde girl, with appropriate nekkidity, falls in love with Vincent for about three minutes; Wolfman Jack as a television evangelist; highly progressive views from Vincent on organic farming and world population.

And the best chainsaw duel ever, between the sheriff’s deputy and Vincent. Okay, it’s not Errol Flynn as Robin Hood. It’s not even the sword fight between Deathstalker and Jarek the Sorcerer in “Deathstalker II.” 

But Vincent is wearing a pig’s head during this one. Not a mask. A head.

So head on up to the marijuana store in Great Barrington, put the pizza joint on speed dial, and settle in for an evening of the finest fermented curd available.