Schlock and awful: a vacation in bad movies

Owing to a bum hip my recent vacation week in the Catskills was light on fishing and heavy on cruddy films. I was joined in this endeavor by my nomadic attorney Thos. and Steve D., with whom I have been cracking juvenile jokes since the sixth grade.

We got through quite a stack of DVDs and even rejected a couple as being too awful, even for us.

Which brings us to one of the rules of schlock: It can be appalling but it can’t be boring.

Nightmare Beach (1989): The immortal John Saxon stars in the flick that answers the question “What Do You Miss the Least About the 1980s?” Feathered hair, high-waisted jeans and wet t-shirt contests are all good answers and feature heavily in this movie. But the real star is the soundtrack, particularly a ditty called “Mean ‘n’ Nasty.” The story: Biker gang raises hell in Florida beach town during spring break, and a masked biker is electrocuting people. Our hero is a college quarterback who lost the Orange Bowl and makes up for it by saving the plucky bartender girl. Meanwhile a lot of young women in various stages of undress cavort on the beach. Crispy critters. Gratuitous nekkidity. Unconvincing bikers. John Saxon looking like he’s about to fire his agent. And relentless, horrible, generic 80s rock throughout.

Stupid people in the jungle, Jess Franco-style. This group is dumber than average.Provided

Diamonds of Kilimindjaro (1983): From the prolific and immensely untalented Jess Franco comes this tale of Stupid People in the Jungle. See, a plane crashes in Africa and the only survivors are a Scottish guy and his granddaughter. He retreats to a hut and plays the bagpipes for 20 years while she grows up to be the local goddess. And this completely satisfactory state of affairs is rudely interrupted by a team of adventurers, some of whom want to find the girl, some want to find her and leave her so they can collect the inheritance, and some of them are there because Franco realized he was about 30 minutes short on the running time. We’ve got fun with machetes. Gratuitous snakes. Gratuitous spears. Gratuitous stock footage crocodile vs. nekkid lady in lake (shown twice, once with dubbed sound and once in pure silence). Gratuitous bagpipe music, actual bagpipes not shown. Starring the immortal Katja Bienert, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a pleasant expression. Plus “Kilimindjaro” spelled with a “d.” Outstanding.

Alien Outlaw (1986): Hicktastic zombie flick featuring an elderly Lash Larue sounding like he gargles with Thunderbird to start the day and the lissome Kari Anderson as a modern-day Annie Oakley. The story: Alien spaceship comes to the sticks, aliens hide in medium-sized creek where they attack one idiot successfully but miss the other idiot. Meanwhile gun gal Jessi Jamison is trying to get her career back on track. The aliens learn fast because they can twirl their six-shooters. Lots of gratuitous nekkidity, not all of it welcome. (Unfortunately we’re looking at you, Lash Larue.) Bad fishing. Good shooting. Horses. Mumbling. Jessi’s legs. Extended meditation on the ins and outs of the motel business. Highlight: A bargain-basement Walter Cronkite in a canoe tells a cop to “suck worms.”

The aliens learn to use Earth-based weaponry, with fair-to-middling results.Provided

Zoltan: Hound of Dracula (1977): This flick was the outstanding find of this fall’s schlockfest.

Soviet soldiers accidentally open up a tomb belonging to a cadet branch of the Dracula family, and in the confusion the Dracula servant (played by Reggie Nalder, who was the assassin in the 1956 version of “The Man Who Knew Too Much”) and a vampire dog named Zoltan are revived and set off to find the last Dracula, who’s named Michael and lives in Los Angeles. Vampire dogs. Vampire puppy. Gratuitous RV parking. Gratuitous driving of rental cars. The highlight is when Zoltan gets Mike Dracula and the Romanian cop (played by Jose Ferrer) holed up in a cabin and eats through the roof, only to be foiled by the rising sun.