THAT IRREPRESSIBLE DOMESTIC IMPULSE

Though they were denied the right to wed in the state where they lived, Frankie and Igor never regretted their decision to adopt.

SAM'S LAKE: can a slasher flick be PC?

Sam's Lake (2005) seems like a typical slasher film -- a group of five young adults visit a cottage on a lake near another house where a legendary mass murder took place, despite warnings from local hicks that the area “ain't safe." Dolls made from corn husks are hanging from trees, and on any neighboring houses; a symbol like a simplified dream catcher has been made from carefully arranged stones in a nearby clearing. So far we've borrowed imagery from "Friday The 13th" and its myriad knockoffs, and "The Blair Witch Project."

After the obligatory campfire story of the local massacre, our crew pays a nighttime visit to the house where it took place. While there, they hear spooky noises and find a journal kept by the "slow" boy who committed the murders. They go back to the cottage and read from it aloud -- bad idea. A major plot twist comes to light -- in the most dramatic scene in the film -- and most of the characters spend the film's last act running for their lives from, well, let's not spoil it for those who haven't seen it. The action does really take off from this point, and the rest of the film is much more exciting than what preceded it.

I saw the plot twist coming; you may not, and even if you do, its revelation is handled very effectively. The twist itself is plausible, but the problem is, it makes a few scenes that happened before it seem implausible in retrospect (though you won't have time to think about that during the action-packed remainder of the film).

"Sam's Lake" gets a couple of things right; the characters are likable rather than annoying, and they all have our sympathy because they've all had to struggle with difficult life situations. They aren't -- as is too often the case -- annoying young snots we want to see killed, so we do feel afraid for them. And it helps that the cast is good. The movie also doesn't overdo the gore aspect (though the first killing of a principal character is pretty bloody and shocking.)

Speaking of the first principal character to get killed – spoiler ahead -- he’s the gay one. He’s Dominik (Salvatore Antonio), the only mildly queeny best friend of title character Sam (Fay Masterson). His murder is the most brutal thing in the film. His depiction isn’t homophobic otherwise, though he occasionally gets subtle attitude from Melanie (Megan Fahlenbock). He does bring out the homophobia in movie critics, though, who love to refer to him as “the obligatory gay sidekick.”


("Gay sidekick" Domink, played by Salvatore Antonio.)

Several critics expressed annoyance at the film’s so-called “politically correct”/“Movie Of The Week” characters: a black man (Stephen Bishop) with a recovering addict Caucasian girlfriend (Fahlenbock), a woman fresh out of an abusive relationship (Sandrine Holt), and the gay male Dominik. I found it refreshing to have characters who had more of a back story than Hot Eye Rolling Blonde Bimbo and Hot Jock.

However, speaking of hot – Sam’s local friend Jesse (William Gregory Lee), a handsome and svelte young blond, runs around shirtless throughout the last third of the film. And I was glad he did. What’s a slasher flick without eye candy?

Writer/director Andrew Erin's film is entertaining and well worth seeing. I wouldn't call it great, but it's got more substance than a lot of slasher films. Generally fans seem to like the big plot twist, but it bothered me. See what you think.

FEAR NO EVIL: What's Scarier Than A Feminine Guy?

I just revisited this 1981 release, the first film by a then very young Frank LaLoggia. Many people accuse this film of having a muddled plot, but I had no problem following it. I was raised Catholic, and it probably helps you if you have some knowledge of the theology referenced here; but having seen a bunch of other horror films that draw on Catholic myth and imagery should be more than enough to help you get it.

"Fear No Evil" has some teenagers as major characters, and it was publicized as a sort of male answer to "Carrie." But it actually has more in common with a demon child film like “The Omen.”

Two archangels (Jack Holland and Elizabeth Hoffman), incarnated on earth, kill a similarly incarnated demon, but one of them -- whose everyday identity is as a Catholic priest (Holland)-- is found guilty of murder and imprisoned. Seems the authorities didn’t understand that the victim wasn’t human. The supernatural conflict was also complicated because the killers were waiting for help from a third angel who was supposed to incarnate with them, but for some reason lagged behind.

Meanwhile, the Antichrist incarnates as a strange, somewhat feminine boy named Andrew (Stefan Angrim from "Land Of The Giants"). He destroys the lives of his mortal parents, paralyzing his mother and driving his father to drink. He sacrifices a dog, preparing himself to bring on Armageddon. Ultimately he performs a demonic ceremony on a spooky island where criminals are buried, causing the corpses to rise. (So the movie also owes something to “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things”). But the third angel is now incarnated as a teenage girl (Kathleen Rowe McAllen), and there ensues a climactic struggle between the forces of good and evil. McAllen and Hoffman's angelic characters join forces against Andrew in a special effects light show battle.

The film has a strong visual style thanks to director of photography Frederic Goodrich, and makes good use of music by such then-current groups as The Boomtown Rats,. The Ramones, and The Sex Pistols. The actor's performances are compellingly tortured. I found the film fascinating, if not exactly scary.

It even has a powerfully homoerotic shower scene between a taunted Andrew and an early-John-Travolta-like bully (Daniel Eden). Naked in the shower, Andrew grabs the bully and passionately kisses him for a long time; he can’t break free. Ultimately, the bully commits suicide after Andrew magickally causes him to grow female breasts. (Isn’t that the irony of homophobia – the supposedly straight guy feels there’s nothing worse a man can be than like a woman, betraying an attitude toward women that’s not exactly loving).

It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a consciously ambitious and quite different low-budget horror film.

THIS SILLY MOVIE SHOULD GIVE YOU A BUZZ

This film was released in 1973, the year I graduated high school, but I didn't learn of its existence till Roger Ebert mentioned it on a "Guilty Pleasures" edition of Siskel and Ebert many years later. I made a point of tracking it down then, and found it to be every bit the hoot he'd said it was.

Neil Agar (William Smith) of State Department Security is sent to a small town called Peckham to investigate the death of Dr. Grabowski, a prominent scientist conducting government-sponsored research at Brandt University. Grabowski died of a coronary during sexual intercourse at a local motel. The problem is, he's not the only one. 8 local men die the same way within 3 days, 2 of them other scientists at Brandt. Among the others are a 21 year old boy, a cop, and a cannery worker, all apparently healthy with no history of heart trouble.

The jokes that start going around are exactly the kind you'd think. One of Grabowski's colleagues says, "I'd sure like to meet the girl he was with -- just think about it, boys: coming and going at the same time!" At a town meeting held to discuss the "epidemic," Dr. Murger from Brandt (Wright King) suggests it may be a virulent new venereal disease, with sexual abstinence as a possible solution. The crowd scorns him and he is murdered shortly thereafter. But later we see the following exchange between a local couple in their bedroom: the man looks at his wife and says, "abstinence isn't going to be anything new around here," and she retorts, "If I thought it would kill you, I'd do it."

The killers are a cult of "Bee Girls," local women who have mutated into creatures with black compound eyes who are compelled to mate frantically over and over, though the mutation has made them sterile. Except for their weird eyes, which they hide behind shades, these are voluptuous babes who have no problem seducing the leering, panting local men, who keep thinking with their nether regions even though their peers are dropping like flies. Their bitter, frustrated wives are also easy to recruit for the growing Bee Girl brigade; the transformation involves being exposed to radiation, covered with white goo and then live bees, and then peeled-- and welcomed in a soft-core lesbian orgy.

The prime suspect as the Bee Girl leader is Doctor Susan Harris (Anitra Ford), an entomology professor at Brandt. It's up to Agar and college librarian Julie Zorn (Victoria Vetri) to figure out exactly what's happening and how to stop it. (BTW, another suspect is a gay man, and it's handled inoffensivley -- and not made into one of the film's many jokes.)

The movie is about as funny as the jokes quoted above, with lots of nudge-nudge-wink-wink dialogue and some very silly special effects (the scenes from the mating bee girl's compound-eyes viewpoint are amusingly ludicrous). The 70s outfits and hairdos will provoke some chuckles too. There are lots of exposed female breasts and butts, some full frontal female nudity, and a number of very brief soft-core sex scenes. (It was rated R). But it all has a giggly "isn't-this-naughty" innocence about it that defuses the eroticism. You'll have some laughs, but in the literal sense.

It's light, cheesy 70s science fiction -- not at all plausible, but fun. Directed by Denis Sanders, it runs 85 minutes. It is available as a DVD (amusingly, one recently released disc bears the totally inaccurate title "Graveyard Tramps.")

THE GAY BED AND BREAKFAST OF TERROR

The Gay Bed And Breakfast Of Terror, which had a limited 2007 theatrical release, is a spoof of “setting” slasher movies like Sleepaway Camp. This time the setting is a “gay friendly” bed and breakfast run by lunatic Helen (Mari Marks) and her spastic nerd daughter Louella (Georgia Jean). For the first forty minutes we meet their victims, five gay and lesbian couples going to attend a big commercial party who couldn’t find accommodations any closer or better. They don’t know Helen is a fanatical fundamentalist who intends to convert or kill them – and to imprison one of their men as a husband for Louella. Or that Helen has another offspring she keeps hidden – cannibal mutant Manfred (Noah Taylor), the “love child” resulting from her once being gang-banged by delegates at the Republican Convention.

Once the killings start, the film becomes a lot funnier (and quite gory). The dialogue is full of catty one-liners, and the plot is full of outrageous twists and revelations that have you thinking, “don’t tell me they’re going to go there” (and then, of course, they do). The gore effects aren’t bad, but Manfred’s “monster suit” is intentionally laughable; he’s supposed to be half man, half maggot, but he looks like he’s just swaddled from the waist down in shiny trash bags.

Sadly, intentionally bad doesn’t have the amusingly naïve charm of sincerely bad. If the flick worked better, I’d say, “Imagine John Waters making a horror film.” But John Waters has the instincts and energy these folks lack, though they do seem to take the same perverse glee in their work.

One big problem is that the film has no sense of pace at all; it ambles, lurches and drags. The acting ranges from wooden to competent with an occasional inspired moment. Director/writer Jaymes Thompson really needs to go to film school (or to go to a better film school).

The violence is gross, but not scary, because we don’t like any of the characters – we share their cynical, sarcastic view of each other, just as we would if they were snotty teenagers in a summer camp massacre flick, and we want to see them “get it.” There’s some gratuitous nudity and very mild softcore “sex” scenes (again, at about the same level of those in slasher flicks). The movie has its moments, but the script’s ideas are often a lot more entertaining than their (pardon the expression) execution.