GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW (1959)

One morning I woke up a few hours earlier than normal.  I flipped on the TV right as the opening credits were coming on for some movie called GHOST OF DRAGSTRIP HOLLOW. I was confused by the bizarre title, and the actions onscreen were so silly that in my sleepy state I almost thought that it was maybe an extremely vivid dream. But it wasn't, so right then and there (with my handsome eyelids so heavy I could barely keep them up) I fell in love with this goofy pile of crap.

If you don't have a similar experience you might not enjoy this film quite as much as I did, but you should at least give it a try. The story (which has the depth of a Scooby-Doo mystery) is about some teenage hot-rodders who lose their car club’s garage, so in the last half of the movie they set up shop in an old haunted house. Between those two events you have some soda shop dancing/singing, non-stop beatnik lingo, an all-girl slumber party, a dance party, and a shit talking parrot. Finally we get to the haunted house and it’s your standard rotating fireplace/spooky sounds variety, so the gang decides to have a rock n' roll party! The End.

I can't really put my finger on why I like this film so much, but I think it’s the combination of innocence and wackiness.  I do wish there had been more racing though. Besides the one brief race at the very beginning, you barely even see a car in motion the rest of the movie!

The entire cast had really good chemistry together, but outside of Dorothy Neumann nobody ever went on to do too much of anything. Dorothy ended up (according to IMDb) having over 140 acting credits in everything from SORRY, WRONG NUMBER and THE TEN COMMANDMENTS to an episode of "Tales from the Crypt".

SLAUGHTERHOUSE (1987)

Old man Lester Bacon used to own a big slaughterhouse, but he refused to "mechanize" and  eventually went out of business. The owners of the new improved slaughterhouse down the road want to buy his land, but old man Bacon ain't sellin' cause he's as crazy a shithouse rat.  So, he and his big, fat intellectually disabled son, Buddy Bacon, are gonna fix those fancy shit talkers but good and anybody else who happens onto their land. Especially those dorky 30 year-old teenagers that keep creepin' around filming a horror movie.

For a low-budget TCM rip-off SLAUGHTERHOUSE ain't that bad. The story is passable and the teenagers are entertaining with their horrible acting and funny 80's clothes. The biggest problem is it's just too lightweight. Yea, there's some blood splattered here and there, but other than that this movie is pretty much gore free. Also, there's zero nudity.

An entertaining watch for 80's horror fans, but forgettable.

PUBLIC ENEMY RETURNS (2008)

[Update 02/03/2021: Going to rewatch and fix this review.]

 

As you don't remember I liked the original PUBLIC ENEMY and absolutely hated the second one. So. What's the verdict on Part 3? It's just so-so.

 

On the positive side, Kang Cheol-jung is back to being a homicide detective as opposed the boring public prosecutor he played the Part 2. Also the villain (Jae-yeong Jeong) in this ones pretty good, but there's not enough action and it's way too long! The thing I enjoyed about the original was Officer Cheol-jung was so goddamn fucked up he literally skirted the line between police officer and gangster. The method he used to catch criminals were highly illegal and he had zero manners (he even took a shit on the sidewalk at one point). This time around he has an reputation of being a loose cannon, but he's really not that bad.

 

I really, really wanted this movie to be as awesome as the original, but it's not. Maybe worth a rental, but probably not.

 

Part 1 - Public Enemy (2002)

Part 2 - Another Public Enemy (2005)

GROPER TRAIN: SEARCH FOR THE BLACK PEARL (1984)

In World War II, a soldier steals a rare giant black pearl ring off of a corpse.  He later becomes a famous baseball player.  On his death bed, in 1984, he's fucking his younger girlfriend and when she asks him the location of the pearl, he says "Pussy print." and then dies.  What does "pussy print" mean?  Could it be a reference to an un-cut version of CITIZEN KANE?  No, the old man had a hobby of painting women's pussies with ink and then pressing a piece of paper against their pussy.  Sounds like a normal enough hobby.  The pussy print in question (hanging on his bedroom wall) belongs to his niece (what the hell?), so the girlfriend and the old man's adult son hire a detective to locate the missing niece.  Now a normal detective would probably start searching through public records and boring stuff like that, since he has a picture of the woman and her name, but no, instead this weirdo dresses up like a bug exterminator and hangs out on public transportation trains and collects pussy prints of random women!  It doesn't make any since at all.

As far as mystery's go this one's shit and as far as erotic movies go...it's pretty shitty as well. The story is passable (I guess), but there's no laughs, the sex scenes are rubbish, and the small amount of nudity there is is terrible.  I didn't even care enough to take screenshots.

I wanted to like this film, but, even at 66 minutes, it was a chore to get through.  One strange thing I discovered while reading about this film, is: there's an entire series of these Groper Train movies!!!  I'm sure that'd be a fascination things to research, but for now, I really don't care.