The Visitor (1979)

The Visitor (1979)

Director: Giulio Paradisi

Stars: John Huston, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen

So apparently Space Satan was being a real bastard when Space God sent tons of birds to fight him. Space Satan, instead of turning into a Space cannon, turns into an eagle and kills most of them before becoming mortally wounded himself. He then decides to have sex with LOTS of women so his seed can carry out his plan to break shit and be assholes to the world. At least that's what Space Jesus is telling a group of bald children.

So Space God (Huston) comes in and says there's a demon he has to get...which is in the form of the bitchiest 8 year old girl ever created. She blows up basketballs, makes shit fall, and plays pong a lot.  Seems there's a plan for the Bad Seed to have a baby brother, whether the mother wants one or not. The Space demon/Illuminati sends the always sweet faced Lance Henriksen to do the job. When that doesn't work they go all date rapey.

Throw in Shelley Winters as the new housekeeper to the mom and devil child. She knows the score and proceeds to slap this little demon around...hopefully for our amusement. All this is going on while Space God is casually just strolling around without a care in the world.

I was VERY hesitant to watch this last night, figuring it to be another of those boring late 70's space movies where people talk A LOT. I was wrong...oh so very wrong. This movie is a glorious insane mess. How in the world they got John Huston, Glenn Ford, Mel Ferrer, Shelly Winters and Sam Peckinpah to be in this I'll never know.

Alamo Drafthouse Films has recently released a blu ray of this fantastic mess. So by all means pick this up. Here's a trailer to give you a taste of madness.

Six Things (I Think) I Took from The Visitor

1. If you're on the trail of a devil child and pissing her off, maybe when she sends her asshole hawk to peck your eyes out while you're driving maybe it's best if you instead of weaving at full speed between cars that you hit that bigger pad. It's called a "brake". It does things like stop so you can deal with your nasty little hawk pecking out your eyeballs problem.

2. Never in the history of cinema has there ever been as exciting an ice skating scene as the one in this film. Watch demon child knock motherfuckers with bad hair all over the place! See these assholes fail to beat up an 8 year old girl! Slow motion crashing free of charge!

3. At one point a space semi stops and we end up with a very disturbing scene I like to call "Close Encounters of the Rape Kind" as the Space Illuminati proceeds to impregnate the mom themselves. Not cool space demons...not cool.

4. I love Space God's theme music. It's like some cross between an action packed chase scene and the 6 O'Clock News. Here's Space Jesus with Action Weather!

5. I like that Shelley Winters does all this shit to help out Space God, including killing that pesky hawk that murdered Glenn Ford, and when she asks to go up to space Heaven is told "thanks for your help, now fuck off". Maybe Space God didn't say it exactly like that, but you could tell he was thinking it. Space jerk.

6. This movie makes no damn sense. So the whole purpose of Obi WannabeGod was to wander around Atlanta, let an innocent woman, whose only crime was having sex with Space Satan and having a demon seed, get shot in the spine (ON PURPOSE), plays pong with the demon child, lets the mom get beaten up multiple times, and unleashes more birds than a Prince video to do his dirty work....all so he can take demon kids to space Heaven? Why did Space God go and not hippie Space Jesus (an uncredited Franco Nero)? And why is everyone bald but these two?  Is it so they don't have competition for space chicks!? How many times do I have to write space in this article!?

Skatetown U.S.A. (1979)

Skatetown U.S.A (1979)

Director: William A. Levey

Stars: Patrick Swayze, Flip Wilson, Maureen McCormick

In the late 70's everyone and their grandmother were putting out roller skating films due to Xanadu. Had they known how badly it would bomb, they would have went with orangutan movies instead. Besides Xanadu, we had Roller Boogie, starring the still young but big tittied Linda Blair, and this mish mash of crap.But what do you expect from the guy who brings you Blackenstein and Wham! Bam! Thank You Spaceman?

I like ensemble movies, the ones where everything happens in a single day/night and involves multiple characters in different subplots, but this one just doesn't do it very well. Characters you think are important disappear for half the movie, while we're stuck watching morons like the doctor who thinks he's in Nam for what seems like hours at a time.

Flip Wilson and his dad Billy Barty (yes, the famous white little person) run Skatetown U.S.A, which is so huge it might as well be it's own actual town. There's a big skating contest and Stan from the valley plans to win it with help from his manager Chachi and his sister Marsha Brady. Standing in their way is a gang led by that dreamy dastardly Ace (Swayze in his first role).Ace never loses, not only due to his mad skills, but also because his buddy Horshack sabotages the competition.

In other asinine subplots, Flip Wilson dresses in drag as his mom, the aforementioned doctor who thinks he's in simulated 'Nam, a chick with an awesome rack being told jokes for an hour by some geriatric pervert while waiting for pizza, and Murray Langston basically being an annoying douchebag. I think I saw Ruth Buzzi in there too. 

Six Things I've Learned From Skatetown U.S.A

1. Dress him in leather, grow a beard, make him act crazy, but nobody is going to believe Ron Palillo is a mean gang thug. EVER.

2. We are cursed to have an appearance by the Unknown Comic in this film. I fully believe this is the reason that this movie has never been released on VHS or DVD (I saw it on youtube). They were trying to spare you his unfunny act!

3. The DJ in this movie not only has Gary Spivey hair (look him up), but can shoot bolts out of his hands and make terrible skating troupes appear. He's suppose to be the guy that's hip and cool, but I kept thinking that the living mr. microphone was going to electrocute himself shooting out sparks willy nilly. Bet he stole his power from KISS after they met the Phantom of the Park,

4. When I think of fun sexy teen skating disco films, I think of Dave Mason.

5. You'd think seeing Maureen McCormick wear a tube top and hot pants would do things to your "lil skating partner" but oddly it just isn't all that flattering. Damn you tube tops!

6. I fully think they were recruiting a new Village People type band. In the skate contest, you had Swayze as the gay Warrior (gang member), there was a guy dressed like Uncle Sam, someone dressed like a bullfighter or bandit or something, and Stan, who decides to be the gay Zorro after putting on a mask. This of course not at all hiding the fact that the guy playing Stan couldn't do the moves gay Zorro could. They even play Macho Man during fake Stan's routine!

The Psychotronic Man (1979)

The Psychotronic Man (1979)

Directed by (and everything else): Jack M Sell

Stars: Peter Spelson, Curt Colbert, Robin Newton

I put 1979 on here as it's what the IMDb says, but I've seen 1980 and 1975 listed as well. By the look of the film I'm guessing '75 was the shooting date. Anyway, this is about a barber named Rocky who can apparently kill people with his mind. After taking the long way home (a long long cross country trip home), Rocky passes out in his car. He wakes up to find that he's the owner of the first flying car in the US (Repo Man's glowing car was a couple years later). He also has fast forward visions of the future, where ugly people are screaming in his fish eyed face. There's some goofy cops chasing him, and there's a LOT of scenes where nothing happens at all. 

Despite all that, this flick has a certain charm to it that made it oddly enjoyable. Also the inspiration for the greatest zine/books ever, The Psychotronic Video Guide.

Six Things I've Learned From The Psychotronic Man

1.  It's probably not going to help on gas if your drive home consists of driving through several states and requiring that you pull over to rest up for the rest of the trip home.

2. I want a radio station that only plays songs that are 30 seconds long all the time. In all seriousness, the music is one of the best things about this film...that and it's 80 minutes long.

3. I don't care how good a job he does with hair, NEVER get a haircut from a man with a pompadour.

4. This movie must have saved a ton of money on lights because everything is in the damn dark. It does help in the club scene though as everyone there looked like school teachers out on a bender. Or they could have been bears...I'm not sure.

5. If you live in a huge house, and you're forced to have breakfast on a little glass table right in front of the front door, you might want to look into an interior decorator.

6. If a late to the film CIA Agent shows up to tell you to NOT shoot the crazy mind killing barber, the best thing to do is to think "fuck it" and gleefully shoot him down anyways. (SPOILER) Too bad Rocky the Flying Barber flies away.