Blood Freak: Special Edition (1972) Something Weird Special Edition

Blood Freak: Special Edition (1972)

Running Time: 80 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Format: Standard 4:3
Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Region: 1
MSRP: $19.99

Blood Freak: Special Edition (1972)'

Praise the Lord and Pass the Turkey! Testify! 

Possibly the only film that can not only claim to be a "turkey", but star one as well - and certainly the ONLY Pro-Jesus, Anti-Pot, Turkey Monster Splatter flick in existence. 

After an intro like that, how does one follow up with a simple and concise plot synopsis? I'm placing my talents in the hands of the Lord on this one....(heh) Steve Hawkes (a former low-rent Tarzan movie star) is "Herschell", a tall, dark, and clueless type who can't decide whether he's an Elvis impersonator or a motorcycle riding tough guy. Seriously, this flick's opening looks like they took some discarded, out-of-focus footage from an AIP biker flick and hastily cut it together....with a cleaver! 

Anyway, during his Easy Rider experience, Hersch meets up with two sisters: Pure and God-fearing Angel and her "naughty" younger sister, Anne...who turns Hersch onto the devil weed.....Marijuana! Hersch also gets a job with an old research scientist. Who does turkey research... 

Oh, wait.....it gets better. It seems that the pot grown in this particular goofy-ass alternate universe is the most addictive stuff on Earth. It makes crack cocaine look like marshmallow s'mores. Hersch is sent into crazy-mad withdrawal sickness, and the loco-weed kick combines with chemically treated turkey meat (which he has to consume at his job) to cause a genetic mutation in Herschell of the wacky kind. No kidding....he becomes GOBB-LOR! The TURKEY of DEATH!  

Okay, I made that last part up, but it makes this crap seem a heck of a lot cooler than it actually is. And Hersch does become a blood-thirsty turkey-headed monster who goes on a kill-crazy murder spree to feed his hunger. Best bit: Turkey monster pleading with God to forgive him and end his existence. 

Intercut into all of this is footage of director Brad Grinter (former nudie movie star) giving pseudo-philosophical moral warnings, looking as if he just came off a three day bender. His ending speech on the dangers of drugs just has to be seen.

 Sadly, if you're expecting high definition in picture and sound, yer in the wrong place, brother. Time has not been kind to the original elements of this flick, and that's understandable, seeing as how I don't think Blood Freak is on the AFI list, or sat around in any major studio vaults since its 1972 debut. Seeing as how this is a Something Weird release, Mike Vraney probably stumbled across it in somebody's basement behind the hot water heater or buried in a lock box somewhere in the Louisiana bayou. It's watchable, but "the curse of 1970s cheap film stock" lingers around it to the worst possible degree. The original mono track has degraded severely and Hawkes' crazy (and vaguely European.... y'know...like Fabio's) accent doesn't help matters much. Kudos to Something Weird, though, for rescuing this little oddity and pushing it, squawking and gobbling, into the digital age.

This is where the disc excels.....packed to the brim with over 2 hours worth of supplementary material, as if to make up for the really bad movie and it's deteriorated condition. 

Original Theatrical Trailer- yep....see all the hype that made this film a "classic" 
Bonus "Blood Drenched Horror Trailers- Teasers for the following: Blood Feast, The Blood-Spattered Bride, Bloody Pit of Horror, Color Me Blood Red, The Dorm That Dripped Blood, I Drink Your Blood/ I Eat Your Skin, Night of the Bloody Apes, and Flesh Feast 
The Walls Have Eyes- Steve Hawkes in soft core nudie 28 minute 1968 sex flick 
Brad Grinter: Nudist- Pro-naturalist short subject starring the Blood Freak co-director/co-star 
Narcotics: Pit of Despair- 1960s anti-drug scare film 
Beggar At The Gates- late 1960s short subject which deals with weird tangents of the Christian denomination
Turkeys in the Wild- Everything you wanted to know about woodland fowl (but were afraid to ask) 1960s nature short subject 
A Day of Thanksgiving- 1950s proganda short subject on Thanksgiving that reveals the origins of the November holiday and how great it is to be an American....and not a dirty pinko commie!
Ghastly Gallery of Ghoulish Comic Book Art- Several still shots of various cheapo Stanley and Eerie publications of the late 1960s and 1970s, with several horror rockabilly punk cues by the Dead Elvi played as atmosphere music. Great band, too.   
Incredibly stupid film, poorly made....yet, fun nonetheless and the unintentional humor is hilarious. Something Weird's disc is a definite must-have for "bad" movie enthusiasts.

Stupid Heroes: 10-4, Good Fanboy! The Ballad of U.S. 1

I grew up in the rural farmlands in the Ohio River Valley in a nurturing environment that resembled the folkiness of Mayberry....if inhabited by rejects from a casting call for extras for THE DUKES OF HAZZARD.

It was during a period of the late 1970s in which a trend of, what I've come to call,  "hillbilly"  or "redneck chic" seemed to be the theme making waves in popular culture.  In music, it was a generation of "Outlaw Country" performers (comprised of artists such as Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams Jr., etc.,...) and a wave of "Southern Rock " and Graham Parsons- driven progressive Alt Country flooding the radio waves.  On television, shows like THE WALTONS, the aforementioned DUKES, B.J. & THE BEAR, and HEE-HAW in syndication proving that stories and songs about good natured yokels had struck a nerve with the public's fickle interests.  Theater screens were full of SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT and as many possible variations of structuring a plot around the lyrics of C.W. McCall's "Convoy" one can imagine.

So, it's no great stretch of the imagination that I'd dig the comic book exploits of superhero trucker....

One of the vintage U.S.1 racetracks I own.  I am obsessive about the things I'm passionate about, if anything.

U.S. 1 was a 1982 Marvel Comics series which lasted 12 issues,  and featured just exactly that: a truck driver, who after a tragic trucking accident that seemingly leaves his brother dead and himself hospitalized,  who is then put under the knife for lifesaving cybernetic surgery involving putting a remote control for his high tech rig in his head, as well as a C.B. receiver.

No, really.   This shit is priceless, and I cannot make it up.

The result of Marvel licensing the then new Tyco trucking themed racetrack, U.S. 1 didn't exactly set sales figures on fire, nor was a sleeper success, but it has attained an odd little cult following amongst comics fandom, generally because of how ridiculously stupid the premise is....

From Wikipedia:

 "In 1981 Tyco Toys began selling HO scale, or 1/87 scale slot trucks. Similar to HO Scale racing sets, it had two lane track with various lengths and shapes available, and, unlike its racing counterparts, the vehicles traveled in the normal fashion employed on American roads. As to suit the driving style, the controllers were not hand-held, but were intended to resemble the dashboard of a truck, with a steering wheel (to control the speed) and a shifter mounted to the side (to control the direction). Some trucks pulled trailers, some (like the dump truck) did not. The line was unique because of the ability to pick up and deliver the loads, doing so with help from various accessories including a pipe loader, and a gravel loader, all without intervention from the operator.

There were various loading and unloading docks and a range of three plastic construction kits: a gas station, diner and freight depot.

The track was the same type as the Tyco Quick Clik series, but moulded in gray. There were two types of junctions made for the range. All sets came with 9" radius 90 degree curves. The least common track pieces are the Railroad Grade Crossing and the 12" radius curves.

The US-1 Trucking series was produced until 1986.

Despite having a short life, the range is avidly collected and replacement tires and pick up shoes are available from traders online."

I'm also a sucker for cheap knock offs in popular culture.   Sure, as a kid I loved Hasbro's G.I.JOE or THE TRANSFORMERS, but also found hours of joy from Remco's THE CORPS (anybody remember seeing those pegwarmers hanging out in K-Mart toy aisles for what seemed like decades?) and generic "Truck-O-Bots"....so, anything connected merchandising-wise to an also-ran toy line is of interest to me.

It seems this taste for the second, third, and forty-fifth tier on the popular culture ladder is cross platform for me....I love B movies, short lived cult TV, oddball novelty music....and bad comic books.  The nuttier or goofier the premise.... and that can reach amazingly weird places in a genre that caters to characters that are basically Jesus from outer space (Superman) and obsessive millionaires that dress up like nocturnal animals (Batman)....the more I seem to love it.  Plus, It doesn't seem to help matters much that my tastes seem to always lay left of center from the mainstream when choosing funnybooks to collect and follow on a monthly basis. For example: in the early 1980s, fans seemed to divide and fall into two separate camps when deciding what angst driven teenage superheroes they wanted to read...you either went the Marvel route and were a fan of Claremont's UNCANNY X-MEN, or you were a D.C. Comics devotee and read Wolfman and Perez's NEW TEEN TITANS.

Me?   I was the weird kid in the corner reading Levitz and Giffen's run on LEGION OF SUPERHEROES.  Oh, I read those two other books (I've always been bipartisan in my reading, neither a Marvel Zombie nor a devout supporter of the "Distinct Competition "), but....c'mon.    "The Great Darkness Saga" is pretty fuckin' epic.

But, needless to say, even though U.S. 1 contains nowhere near the 30th century cosmic grandeur that was the battle against the Apokalipian God of Evil Darkseid, the Marvel Comics promotional tie-in with a Tyco tractor trailer racing set is not without it's own charms....

1.)  It's dumb as shit, and the writing immediately dates itself.   Terribly,  I might add.  You got a head full wiring that allows you to telepathically remote control your big rig and receive citizens band signals, Big Daddy....plus you got a truck that's basically "Goliath" from KNIGHT RIDER...and the thing you're impressed about is the cassette player?  

I shouldn't tease....I had one, too, in the first car I ever owned for about six months when I was 16....a 1979 Ford Fairmont that was about 10 years old at the time.   But, I got laid in the back seat and the tape player was about the only fucking thing that worked.

Hey, Bo Duke...why dontcha say hello to the Fonz while yer hanging out in 1978....

My '79 Fairmont, circa 1991ish.  Or, as I liked to call it, "The Green Spanish Fly".

2.)  The premise and plots were batshit insane.  I had a few relatives and friends who went into the interstate trucking trade, but none of them ever told me tales of brothers who were secretly evil vampires who got their rocks off causing traffic accidents, megalomaniacal wannabe dictators riding in zeppelins, or motorcycle riding chicks in leather cosplay gear hassling them. 

Which, by the way, sounds awesome. ..

Trimpe's cover for the first appearance of Wolverine

3.) While the writing and ongoing plotlines were laughable at best, and the central characters the most goofy cliched examples of such, the majority of the interior artwork was provided by Herb Trimpe, who was responsible for a celebrated run in the 1970s on Marvel's THE INCREDIBLE HULK (Trimpe is the artist of note on the first comic book appearance of a little cottage industry Marvel likes to call "Wolverine"...you may have heard of him) and will always have a soft spot in my heart for providing the artwork on the 70s Marvel GODZILLA title.

But, the real selling point on this book is a series of absolutely gorgeous painted covers by a favorite artist of mine, Michael Golden (MICRONAUTS, THE 'NAM, BUCKY O'HARE). I've always found it ironic that some of my favorite work by Golden graced the front of what might quite possibly be the worst of Marvel's ideas published during the 1980s.  But, nevertheless,  I still covet these books because of the covers, and would literally give my eyeteeth for the original pieces.

The main characters of U.S. 1 have turned up from time to time in the contemporary Marvel Universe, most notably in a story arc in John Byrne's SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK in the late 1980s and another in a GHOST RIDER storyline in the 90s.  The character was used for comedic effect in last decade's CIVIL WAR storyline, attempting to register as a superhero with the government.

It's kinda comforting to know that somewhere out there in a universe full of Asgardian gods,  megalomaniacs from outer space,  Gamma powered rage beasts,  and evil Latverian tyrants....there's still just a trucker trying to get Eastbound and down.....

Pop Culture Nonsense: Sweet Christmas! A Look at LUKE CAGE

There was a good intentioned effort within the mainstream comics industry at some point in the 1970s to create ethnically, culturally,  and gender diverse heroes in their books that came off like a contradictory cross between a genuine movement towards change and,....well, grindhouse exploitation filmmaking.

The most popular of these characters, it seems, turned out to be Marvel's LUKE CAGE a.k.a. POWER MAN. The product of a fairly decent funnybook anti-hero origin story and the best antics of a Blaxploitation movie, Luke Cage pretty much was the superheroic equivalent of John Shaft.

Cage's debut issue from 1972

 Over course of the character's publication history, he's had his peaks and lows in popularity.   He starred in his own solo title for a little over 6 years, whose fiftieth issue was rebranded as POWER MAN AND IRON FIST in 1978, when he began sharing his book with another product of Marvel's attempts at cashing in on a 70s B-movie craze, this time in the form of Bruceploitation/ the chop-socky kung fu martial arts film fad, Danny Rand's alter ego Iron Fist.  This pairing lasted another 75 issues until cancellation in 1985.

The character then went into relative obscurity for about a half decade, popping up again in his own title, that not only was part of the early 1990s attempt by Marvel during the collectors speculation boom of that decade to oversaturate the market with product (a phenomenon similar to what had happened to the sports card collecting market a few years earlier....everyone became of the opinion that the product had inflated monetary value, which led to a spike in production numbers, and ultimately,  a ton of unsold merchandise) and, hilariously,  had spun out of one of the most fucked up PUNISHER storylines in the history of the character....

No....really.  The Punisher becomes a black guy.

Seriously.  It's one of those stories that needs to be read to be believed.

There was another attempt in the mid-to-late 90s to relaunch HEROES FOR HIRE in it's own title, which while met with critical praise, found itself a victim of the industry level bankruptcy of sales numbers that were the aftermath during  the following few years after the aforementioned speculation "boom" amongst collectors.   So, back into the limbo of obscurity Luke Cage went.

The 1997 attempted relaunch

That is, until about a decade later, when in the midway part of the first decade of this century, superstar comics writer (and self proclaimed massive Luke Cage fan) Brian Michael Bendis began utilizing Cage as a supporting character in his Marvel mature readers title ALIAS, featuring super powered private detective Jessica Jones.   You may have heard of her.... she was the focus of last year's Marvel Netflix critical darling TV show entitled (naturally) JESSICA JONES, in which we were first treated to Mike Colter as Luke Cage in a supporting role. 

Bendis' critically acclaimed ALIAS, starring Jessica Jones

 Around the time that ALIAS was popping big on comic store shelves, writer Bendis was also then handed the keys to Marvel's flagship superhero team title, THE AVENGERS,  and began featuring Cage as a member of their roster,  boosting the character's popularity into heights he hadn't seen since the heyday of his 1970s solo title.

Luke during his Avengers heyday

LUKE CAGE, the Netflix series, is good.  Allow me to repeat that:  it's really good.  Marvel seems to be knocking it out of the park with these Netflix efforts,  offering a grittier, slightly more mature themed alternative to the glitzy CGI filled big screen extravaganzas such as THE AVENGERS, THOR, and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY,  while doing it in a way that feels as if they take place in the same universe (which they do....there's tons of references to the events of the New York alien invasion depicted in AVENGERS as well as other nice nods to Marvel properties).

What really shines is the superb casting, that presents us with an ensemble of well rounded characters that are incredibly touching and cringe inducing (in the case of the bad guys) that makes you want to continue watching their stories.

Mike Colter is great as Cage, the no nonsense, damaged yet noble, hero of the piece. He's exactly what you'd imagine and want Luke Cage to be.   Plus, the effortless fight scenes between a bulletproof man with incredible strength don't come off as boring, because you literally want to see how he lays waste to the next round of bad guys.

  Plus,  there are moments of subtle humor, such as his interaction with the character of Pop (portrayed by Frankie Faison) which is heart warming.  Be on the lookout for one moment,  in episode 4, for Cage's reaction his classic 1970 yellow shirt and tiara look that's a short but priceless nod to Marvel Comics canon and fanboys alike.

Alfre Woodard and Mahershala Ali are the villainous duo of Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes and his cousin, city councilwoman "Black Mariah" Dillard, who both as characters pleasantly possess more depth than expected, almost to the point where one sympathizes with their motivations.

Also, a shout out to two actors who I'm personally a fan of: Frank Whaley, who shows up as police detective Rafael Scarfe and Ron Cephas Jones as chess playing friend of Cage, Bobby Fish.  Those two dudes have matured into excellent character actors, IMO.

LUKE CAGE is yet another stellar television effort out of Marvel Studios,  on par in terms of quality with their past efforts (DAREDEVIL Seasons 1 & 2 and JESSICA JONES) which makes me excited to see their upcoming stuff (IRON FIST, apparently third and second seasons for DAREDEVIL and JONES, respectively. ...and the upcoming crossover miniseries,  THE DEFENDERS).  Highly recommended.

The What, When, and Why of Who? Part 1: The Classic American DOCTOR WHO Experience

I'm a longtime fan of that staple of the BBC, DOCTOR WHO.  I'm also kind of obsessive about another BBC product,  ARE YOU BEING SERVED? (1974-85)....and I don't know what being a fan of cheeky half hours filled with an impossible amount of rapid fire sexual innuendo has to do with Time Lords or Daleks...or what it says about my personal character, but I do know that there's one thing I can blame my interest in both on: the Public Broadcasting Service, or simply, PBS.

Now, if you are amongst the multitude of readers of my blog....of which I'm sure numbers in at least a dozen, and are somehow unfamiliar with the free American educational television broadcasting network known as the PBS (potentially you are foreigners,  like the savage yet noble Canadians or residents of the state of Kentucky....or, you belong to some Jesus cult that lives underground), here's the lowdown: some hippies in the late 1960s, who were probably broadcasting and theater majors, decided it'd be cool if there was a TV channel that was commercial free, funded by corporate and government grants, as well as by viewers....that presented educational programming.  This idea seemed to catch on with college broadcasting programs, because it appears that every PBS station I've ever encountered transmits out of a local  campus (or at least that's the case here in my native gateway to the Midwest state, Ohio).

The biggest and most recognizable success experienced by PBS is probably the foundation of the Children's Television Workshop and the various educational programs it's produced over it's nearly half century existence.   Two words:  SESAME STREET. Y'know....the one with the loveable Jim Henson puppets and 46 continuous seasons on air under it's belt.  The one with the big goofy yellow bird and his buddy, the (formerly) invisible wooly mammoth only he could see?   Yeah.  That one.

Giant talking birds and invisible fuzzy elephants.  Again,  I say:  Hippies.

Somewhere along the way, the brains behind PBS decided that foreign television, especially stuff produced in the UK, was somehow more cultured, classy and sophisticated than American programming.  That totally explains why they'd start running BENNY HILL and the aforementioned ARE YOU BEING SERVED?.

To be fair, PBS's predecessor NET (National Educational Television, 1954-1970) experimented with BBC programming,  and the syndicated packages of MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS, THE AVENGERS (Steed and Peel, not Cap and Iron Man) and UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS did break up the monotonous atmosphere generated by nature documentaries hosted by bearded dudes from Montana and Gram Parkeresque country rock concerts that seemed to define PBS of the 1970s.

Now, I've spoken to fellow Whovians from the U.K. and Canada in the past about how the perspective of "Classic" WHO differs amongst American fandom from those outside our borders,  and it all can be attributed to how and (more importantly) when we were introduced to it.

I tend to fall within the oldest demographic of fans here in the U.S., folks  who were primarily children when PBS began airing their initial acquisition of syndication packages of the show in 1978.  I've heard of an earlier attempt at syndication to independent TV stations that happened about a year prior that was only moderately successful,  at best.  I can't really comment on that, because in my headspace,  DOCTOR WHO was always a PBS thing creeping into my childhood memories.

Now, the significance of having been introduced to the property in this way tends to play out like this:

First off.....we ugly Americans love us some Tom Baker.  The Fourth Doctor continues to be the primary face of the franchise here, due a lot to the oddball timing and circumstances involved in his participation with the role.  You see, we were introduced to the The Doctor and his antics a full 15 years into the show 's history...and even then, we were still around 4 to 5 years behind in canon , due to the BBC 's insistence on pushing Baker's first few seasons (1974-76) as part of their initial syndication offerings to PBS. This caused us, especially in those early, uninformed years of American fandom, to formulate a few inaccurate assumptions.

I've theorized that those first American audiences, especially prior to witnessing our first Regeneration,  regarded Baker much like how those first, early British audiences who experienced William Hartnell firsthand did :  Baker was our first and only Doctor, what the hell is "Regeneration" , and "There were other Doctors prior to this one?"....

I mean,....I didn't see my first Regeneration  until about three years later....and it was confusing as hell because it was the wrong one.  Around the summer of 1982, during one of the local PBS affiliate's summer pledge drives (WOSU, Channel 41, Columbus,  Ohio...remember. .."funded by viewers...just like you"), they ran a Saturday night Doctor Who marathon that started with "Planet of the Spiders", the previous Doctor's final serial,  and then continued straight into Baker's first few serials.  My 8 year old mind being baffled, I can remember,  at first, thinking,  "These must be newer episodes...and Tom Baker's hair has gotten gray...or maybe his brain got switched into another body and I've missed the episode it happened in...."
It didn't help matters much that due to the shows we were watching were still about two years behind chronologically in canon, so we still had around a two year wait to get to Peter Davidson's Fifth Doctor.

As a matter of fact,  I wouldn't see The next Regeneration until about the summer of 1984, when during another pledge marathon Who marathon, WOSU aired the following in conjunction with WHO'S 20th anniversary:  The Third Doctor serial "The Three Doctors", followed by Baker's final serial, "Logopolis", then Davidson's introduction as the Fifth Doctor,  "Castrovalva", and wrapping up the night with "The Five Doctors", the twentieth anniversary special.

That night not only was I introduced to a new Doctor,  but it was also the first time I ever encountered any of the previous Doctors,  But there's also the fact that, practically,  I never saw any Fifth Doctor stuff until Davidson had left the role in the U.K., and Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor was the current incarnation.

Oh, Colin Baker.    How I disliked your Sixth Doctor.  How I disliked you, so much so that your manic exploits caused me to stop watching the show....but, was back in the fold in high school for Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor.

To compound our confusion,  during the weird lengthy hiatus between Colin Baker's adventures,  we started getting syndication packages of John Pertwee's Third Doctor, which we were finally seeing nearly 15 years after the fact.

So, to summarize: we Americans in early fandom think of Tom Baker as the penultimate Doctor,  Regeneration baffled and shocked the shit out of us, nobody took readily to the Sixth Doctor (which is a shame, because Colin Baker is actually a lovely human being), and nobody actually saw any of the first two Doctors' work outside of the anniversary specials until VHS and DVD releases about a decade and a half later.

What a delightfully wonderful mess....