DVD Review: The Greasy Strangler

In need of a good movie to watch after (or perhaps during) your Thanksgiving dinner? Let me recommend The Greasy Strangler, a nice family film with plenty of scenes of people dining to keep you in a festive mood. When Brayden (Sky Elobar) hands his father his morning coffee, his father (Michael St. Michaels) wonders, “Why not put a little grease in your coffee?” Then he offers, “Now you probably think I’m the greasy strangler.” He then immediately admits that he is in fact the strangler, but takes it back a moment later. And father and son share a laugh. That’s how The Greasy Strangler opens.

Ronnie and his son routinely accuse each other of being bullshit artists, and sometimes it’s a point of pride. Hell, they are bullshit artists. They run a dubious business, taking customers on tours of local disco-related landmarks. After an angry discussion about free drinks not being included with the tour, all the customers leave, except Janet (Elizabeth De Razzo), who comes on to Brayden. Ronnie worries that Brayden will leave him now that Brayden has found a female companion. Or maybe he’s just bullshitting and doesn’t care about his son. Either way, Ronnie is attracted to Janet himself, and flirts with her in front of his son, telling her, “I’ve been making my own olive oil in my bedroom, extra virgin,” and asking her, “Do you like oily grapefruit?” And at one point he tells her, “I wanted to watch you go pee.” Now that sort of flirting might not work on most women, but Janet is not most women. The characters who populate this film are unusual and interesting. I love that Janet wears the same sweater in nearly all of her scenes, giving you the sense that this movie is operating outside of normal time. Everyone in this movie is delightfully off.

A discussion about potato chips (food really plays a key role in this movie) turns deadly when a greasy creature shows up. “Am I dead yet?” one of the victims asks. When the greasy strangler kills Brayden’s best friend, Brayden becomes determined to learn the killer’s identity and to stop him. Early on, we know who the killer is, but that does not lessen our enjoyment of the movie in the least. The murders aren’t really the focus or the point, but are rather just one element in the crazy reality of this film. At its heart is the strained relationship between a man and his father.

The Greasy Strangler had me laughing out loud many times, sometimes in utter amazement. Also remarkable are the performances by the three leads. Michael St. Michaels, Sky Elobar and Elizabeth De Razzo turn in fearless and wild performances, unlike any you’ve probably seen.

The Greasy Strangler was directed by Jim Hosking, and was released on DVD on May 9, 2017 through MVD Visual. The DVD contains no special features.

DVD Review: Evil In The Time Of Heroes

Evil In The Time Of Heroes is an unusual and mostly entertaining and enjoyable take on the zombie tale, with its own style and humor. It starts in the deep past – ancient Greece, in fact – showing that it was never safe to sit around a campfire outside the city walls at night. The movie then brings us to the present, introducing us to Argyris, who is impaled on a pipe when we meet him. He doesn’t let that stop him from providing a bit of narration, letting us know about a few other survivors that he’s met. The film drops us right into the action, as those survivors run from the zombies. Soon they are trapped in a stadium, with zombies closing in on them from all sides. Rather than a long fight sequence, we get a title card that reads, “Ten minutes later,” and we see the four of them, now covered in blood, emerging from the building. One of them says, “Yeah, that was a brilliant idea.” Wonderful! Obviously, this film has a sense of humor, which should be immediately apparent, what with that bit of narration from a corpse and all. And even though the film skips a potentially violent fight sequence, don’t worry, as there is plenty of blood, and even a headless body bumping into a fence. And shit, that’s just the first ten minutes.

Zombies are not the only danger our heroes have to face. Someone shoots out one of the tires of their vehicle, because, hey, after the zombie apocalypse, law and order go out the window, and some people are just assholes no matter what the situation. (Isn’t that right, Donald Trump? Yeah, you know you’re an asshole.) And unlike many zombie films, it is discovered that the zombie troubles are limited to just Greece. So it is decided that Athens will be bombed with chemical weapons to wipe out the problem before it can spread, suddenly putting our heroes in still greater danger.

The movie travels back and forth in time a bit, with some brief flashbacks to the beginning of the zombie problem, as well as flashes to the time of the opening scene. And a mysterious figure from that time reappears in the present, a man with seemingly magical powers (played by Billy Zane). He isn’t the only one with unexplained powers, as Argyris, as we learn, is capable of returning from the dead.

There are lots of quirky details, like a guy pausing to straighten a photograph on the wall before letting the survivors back into their hideout. The film certainly has its own style. Sure, some shots are poorly lit, like a fight sequence on a rooftop, and there are moments when the film loses me for a bit, like when Lieutenant Vakirtzis and Olga go to confront the people who were shooting at them and then suddenly are gazing up at the stars. What happened? And the film gets a bit goofy toward the end. But still it’s an enjoyable and original take on the zombie subgenre of horror, and I am happy to be along for the ride.

Evil In The Time Of Heroes was released on DVD on October 24, 2017 through Doppelganger Releasing (Music Box Films). It is presented in its original Greek with English subtitles. The DVD includes two special features – the original battlefield storyboards and the film’s theatrical trailer.

DVD Review: Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XXXIX

I am always happy when a new volume of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes is released. But the new one, Volume XXXIX, if you believe the rumors, may be the last set ever (of the original series). That’s not because all of the episodes have been released, but because of troubles with rights and licenses and the like regarding the remaining episodes. This set has three episodes, rather than the usual four, with the fourth disc being a collection of the host segments from those still-unreleased episodes. Well, if this set does end up being the final one released, it seems that Shout! Factory saved some of the best episodes for last. The three episodes are Girls Town, The Amazing Transparent Man and Diabolik (Diabolik being the very last episode to be produced), and each disc contains bonus material.

Disc One: Girls Town

This is a Mike Nelson episode from 1994, and poor Gypsy is a physical link to Dr. Forrester back on Earth. The movie the gang is forced to watch stars Mamie Van Doren, Mel Torme and Paul Anka. And, yes, there are plenty of jokes about Mel Torme: “Mel always looked fifty,” “He’s like a youthful Jabba The Hutt.” Paul Anka doesn’t escape their quips. “He looks like a young Cher,” they observe. As a woman is chased by a man on screen at the start of the film, the guys joke “Heidi in The Most Dangerous Game.” Then, after the guy falls to his death, Mike quips, “Hey, I think the date’s going pretty well.” When an unstable fan lunges at Paul Anka, the nuns stop her and Tom Servo says, “Paul Anka’s beefy security nuns step in.” The running jokes about that loony girl are among the episode’s best. This movie has it all: Mamie Van Doren, The Platters, nuns and even Mel Torme in a car race. Sheilah Graham is also in it, a name familiar to you F. Scott Fitzgerald fans. (As an interesting side note, Girls Town was also given the title The Innocent And The Damned when it was re-issued, a title close to Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful And Damned.) There are references to Velvet Underground, Van Morrison, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, The Godfather and The Hotel New Hampshire.

The first disc includes Anatomy Of A Theme: An Interview With Chuck Love, in which he talks about how he was approached to write the theme song to the show. He also explains how the end theme came about. The trailer for Girls Town is also included.

Disc Two: The Amazing Transparent Man

This is a Mike Nelson episode from 1995, and it has Crow as the latest insect in Tom Servo’s collection, while Dr. Forrester has turned his laboratory into a bed and breakfast inn. Everything is okay as long as no one gives matches to Mike. Before the main attraction, this episode contains The Days Of Our Years, a deliciously bad short film that Mike and the robots enjoy skewering. A title card reads, “‘The days of our years are three score and ten’…Psalm 90:10,” leading Mike to ask, “So we have seventy days in each year?” The short is narrated, and the narrator tells us, “In those days, Joe was about as average a young fellow as you’d be likely to meet.” Mike responds, “He sounds great.” And when the narrator describes Helen as “a wonderful girl who wanted nothing in the world more than to be Mrs. Joe,” Mike says “So his name is Joe Joe?” In the main film, a character says, “We’re completely equipped for our experiment.” Crow adds, “We got a grant from viewers like you.” As another character offers an explanation of some apparatus, Tom Servo offers this comment: “Honey, I shrunk the audience’s interest.” Throughout the film, the gang jokes about an organ that is in several shots but is never played. There are references to Talking Heads, Psycho, Apocalypse Now and Chinatown. They also make several references to the short film.

The second disc includes Beyond Transparency, in which film historian C. Courtney Joyner talks about The Amazing Transparent Man and Beyond The Time Barrier, and how these two films came about, and how American International acquired them. The film’s trailer is also included.

Disc Three: Diabolik

This is the final episode. Mike finds the Satellite Of Love employee handbook, and soon learns the ship will be heading back to Earth, which makes Pearl unhappy. But first Mike and the robots have to suffer through Diabolik, and Tom Servo has to do some cleaning. As motorcyclists follow an armored truck, the gang quips, “If Hitler had won and hired Stu Sutcliffe as a fashion designer.” Tom Servo adds, “Some movies just won’t stop and ask for directions.” As two characters enter an underground lair, Crow comments “Great hideout, but it’s hard to get your Sunday paper delivered.” The gang also jokes about the difficulty in getting contractors to construct a place like that, something I always wonder about when I see something like this in a movie. The gang sings a delightful song about going to earth. This episode contains references to The Graduate, The Wizard Of Oz, Dr. Strangelove, The Avengers, Sesame Street, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Devo and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. The guys even make a reference to Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, or at least to This Island Earth: “Welcome, Dr. Meacham.”

The third disc includes Showdown In Eden Prairie: Their Final Experiment, which features interviews with cast and crew members about the end of the series, as well as some behind-the-scenes footage. The Last Dance is a whole hell of a lot of behind-the-scenes footage from the production of the final episode, including some shots of the props room. The film’s trailer is also included.

Disc Four: Satellite Dishes

There are eleven episodes that have yet to be released, and likely will not be – six Joel episodes and five Mike episodes. The fourth disc in this set contains the host segments from those episodes (nearly three hours of material). Let’s hope the universe will shift slightly in our favor, and those episodes will be released. But for now, we can enjoy the host segments. In the Rocketship X-M episode, Frank says he’s new. He wears a name tag and another tag that says “Trainee.” The invention exchange includes Joel’s drum set that we see toward the end of the opening theme sequence. And in the Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster episode, the gang sings a song about Godzilla’s family. And later Mothra shows up at the Satellite Of Love. In other segments, Joel works as Crow’s puppet, Crow wants to marry into posture, and Tom Servo has some questions about making out. He must have learned a thing or two, because in another segment he mans a kissing both. In one of the best segments, the gang provides evidence supporting their case that the filmmakers responsible for Attack Of The Eye Creatures just didn’t care. In another episode, an alien lifeform attaches itself to Tom Servo, and Mike makes a giant omelet out of the alien’s eggs. In the last of these missing episodes, Mike and Pearl swap places.

This disc also includes a special feature, Behind The Scream, an interview with Daniel Griffith about Ballyhoo and Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XXXIX is scheduled to be released on November 21, 2017 through Shout! Factory.