(This film was sent to Bad Lit as a screener copy from the 2010 Spooky Movie Film Festival, which runs Oct. 21-25.)
When Herschell Gordon Lewis invented the splatter movie back in 1963 with the film Blood Feast, it was a dour, humorless affair with one of the least fearsome movie murderers of all time. Now, nearly 50 years later and a long absence from the genre he pioneered, Lewis has reinvented himself as a more genteel version of Lloyd Kaufman for his latest endeavor The Uh-Oh Show. Which is fitting since Kaufman does cameo in the film as a pimp.
The Uh-Oh Show is a bit of a hodgepodge: Part social satire, part gross-out fest, part straight-up comedy, part fairy tale. None of it quite gels together, but what it lacks in cohesion is made up in sheer exuberance, which is especially evident in the director’s own face when he cameos as the film’s introductory storyteller, terrorizing children with severed limbs and decapitated heads. At 81, it’s refreshing to see someone still so devoted to stirring shit up and being confrontational — all with a big, infectious grin on his mug.
Oct. 12
7:30 p.m.
Light Industry
177 Livingston Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201
Hosted by: Light Industry
Restless nurses! Lovesick sheriffs! Sexed-up Girl Scout leaders! Lonely motel managers! And other degenerates populate George Kuchar’s early ’70s mock-Hollywood soap opera, The Devil’s Cleavage.
Ainslie Pryor stars as Nurse Ginger, who is stuck married to a total slob, so she takes to cheating on her hubby with anybody she cans. Eventually, she leaves home and becomes the object of obsession of a seedy Oklahoma motel manager played by Kuchar compatriot Curt McDowell.
Continue Reading Light Industry: George Kuchar’s The Devil’s Cleavage
Embedded above is the earliest surviving work by Paul Sharits, Wintercourse, which was produced in 1962. While Sharits would go on to become one of the pioneers of the structuralist movement, Wintercourse is a more playful, seemingly less structured film than the ones he would become most well-known for, such as T, O, U, C, H, I, N, G, (1968) and N.O.T.H.I.N.G. (1968). Wintercourse was shot in B&W in 16mm and is silent. WARNING: There are brief flashes of non-sexual nudity in the film, so while it's not quite NSFW, be considerate if you are indeed at work planning to watch this.
From out of the ashes of Evil City (2005-07) rises the Royal Flush Festival, presented in conjunction with Royal Flush magazine. This is a week-long celebration of music, film, art and good times that runs Oct. 11-18 at the Knitting Factory in Manhattan.
Films run Oct. 13-17, beginning with the NYC No Wave documentary Downtown Calling by Shan Nicholson and ends with the raucous Australian underground hit El Monstro Del Mar! by Stuart Simpson, which was recently reviewed on Bad Lit.
In between, they’re also screening the nunsploitation short flick Thy Kill Be Done by Greg Hanson and Casey Regan, also recently reviewed on this site. Plus, there’s more feature films, including The Vinyl Frontier documentary on killer toys, the Prayer to a Vengeful God revenge flick, and newspaper reporter Robert Patton-Spruill desperate attempt to get the Kinks to reunite in the film Do It Again.
Continue Reading 2010 Royal Flush Festival: Official Film Lineup
