My first review after becoming a married man (more on this at a later date). Historic? Probably. But did I put any thought into the movie selection? No. Well, sort of. I selected this movie because it’s only 73 minutes long, and I put it in at 9:00 p.m., after returning from the second of two Thanksgiving meals (this one with the new in-laws). Let’s just say I didn’t exactly show restraint at either one of them. Let’s also just say I pretty well ate myself into a food coma on Thursday, and that the only reason I ate less at the second meal than the first is that if I tried to push the boundaries of my stomach capacity any further, there’s a good chance my incorporeal self would be trying to astral-project this review in by the deadline from beyond the grave.
Our movie starts outside the Barrio Club, a popular night spot in the Philippines. I’m guessing it’s popular because it looks like about the only night spot in the Philippines where your chances of being shived to death upon stepping outside the door are only slightly lower than your chances of not winning the lottery…again. One of the waitresses has stayed late to help with inventory, and for her troubles, is attacked by a melty-faced bipedal turd on the way home.
The next morning, her body is found hanging from a tree, drained of blood. Captain Miguel of the crack Philippine Miami Vice Squad: CSI – SVU: CI: Law and Order Unit (there are a lot of crime shows on TV these days, you see, and I am making a clever reference to this fact by exercising hyperbole to describe Captain Miguel’s police force) immediately gives up trying to solve the case and calls in his American detective buddy Adam Rourke, because Rourke is an expert on sex crimes (probably because he’s perpetrated more than a few of them), and clearly being hung from a tree and drained of blood is a sex crime (?)(I told you before, I’m the Tolkien of parentheticals – did you think I was kidding?).
Rourke starts out by posing as a magazine writer and failing to get an interview with Mr. Calderon, the club’s owner. Then hired hit men start making attempts on his life (cleverly foiled by Harvey, the crash-test dummy he carries on all his cases and leaves in his bed to take the occasional machete to the chest in the name of justice). The entire middle section of the movie is Rourke going to the club, trying to work an interview out of Calderon, with the uncomfortably sleazy and highly unlikely premise that a story on the dead waitresses will make the club famous world-wide, and Calderon will become a millionaire by exploiting the grisly murders of his employees. Because Cthulhu knows whenever I read a story about someone being murdered at a club, the first thing I think is, “Holy shit, I gotta have me a beer at that place!” Then Calderon says, “Well, I’ll think about it,” and Rourke will go back to Miguel’s pad and tell him he thinks he’s getting closer if only he can get Calderon to talk. Lather, rinse, fall asleep.
Thankfully, the monotony is broken by a gleefully misogynistic subplot where Miguel’s adopted sister, Sylvia, falls in love with Rourke. Rourke is a snarky bastard, and at first Sylvia can’t stand him. In typical 1960’s (the movie was shot in 1965, but wasn’t released until 1971) fashion, he takes this to mean he should kiss her. At first she balks, but then seems to give in to his beefy, manly wiles, picking him up from the club one night and driving him out to a lonely spot to make out. Just as he’s about to go in for the kiss, she whacks him a good one and drives off, leaving him stuck in the middle of nowhere to walk home. Yay feminism, right? But when he gets back to Miguel’s house, he apparently thinks she’s just playing hard to get and heads up to her room for another kiss. She smacks him again, he smacks her right back, then he MULE KICKS HER LAMP OFF THE BEDSIDE TABLE AND THEY GET BUSY! BOOOO! And just when I was starting to respect women, too. Get in the kitchen and make me a pork chop!
With the help of Miguel’s one-legged undercover agent, Rourke discovers that not Calderon, but his belly dancer is the culprit. In fact, she’s a centuries-old sun goddess, who needs the blood of fresh young women to retain her immortality. Oh, but Calderon is in on the dirty deeds – he works for her as the melty-faced turd monster! Why exactly she turns him into a melty-faced turd monster is never quite explained. I guess he’s bullet-proof that way, because he corners Rourke and Miguel after they both shoot him in the face. The only way he can be stopped is by the one-legged dude whacking him in the face with his prosthetic leg. No, really.
Anyway, Sylvia is saved from the clutches of the evil sun goddess, the melty-faced turd monster is flushed away to the giant vampire toilet in the sky, and as a gesture of thanks for his help in the case, Miguel has Harvey overhauled and given a new suit. The end.
I alternately wanted to love and hate this movie. As it stands, I could do neither. With the exception of the gleeful misogyny, the first two acts are incredibly boring. There’s no blood, there’s hardly any monster, and Rourke just runs around in circles trying to score an interview with Calderon, and then complaining to Miguel about how close he is to scoring an interview with Calderon.
But then, the end of the movie just goes bonkers, with wildly inappropriate BWAH BWAH BWAH BWAAAAAAH porno sax music, and that ridiculous bit where the one-legged guy wails on melty-faced turd monster with his fake leg. In fact, that scored the movie a whole extra half-point right there. And Rourke… good grief, Rourke. He’s like a slimier, less-lovable Abraham Gentry. Cocky, smug, constantly cracking stupid jokes… and yet I couldn’t help liking him. He’s the kind of guy you wind up being friends with just because he’s “that guy”, and you keep him around for amusement. Come to think of it, I’m probably kept around by several people because I’m “that guy”.
This flick is as much detective mystery as it is horror movie, and it’s so over the top that if it were made today it would be obnoxiously wink-wink and self-aware. As it is, I’m pretty sure this movie is barely aware at all. It just sits there and acts silly and thinks it’s really cool because it’s had a few too many and the bartender wasn’t paying enough attention to cut it off in time.
The Moral of the Story: If you whack a woman in the face and destroy random pieces of her furniture, she will have sex with you. This really, really works, and I think you should all try it for Valentine’s Day. Really. Then send me an e-mail and tell me how it worked out for you. I want all the details. And maybe pictures. A mug shot would be nice.
