It would be nice to report on all the wonderful movies and television shows I discovered during the pandemic.

Alas.

A short grab bag of recent suckiness:

“The American Side” — Neo-noir starring Buffalo and a bunch of people I never heard of. Involves some kind of conspiracy involving Nikola Tesla. I gave it a solid 20 minutes and it failed to grip.

“Dahmer” (Netflix series) — Episode one covers when Jeffrey Dahmer gets arrested. Excellently creepy scene leading up to arrest. But what are they going to do for the rest of it? Answer: Lotsa flashbacks about how it’s someone else’s fault JD turned into a cannibal. Pass.

“Darby and Joan” (UK TV) — Highly irritating load of shite about some dopey woman who goes to Australia to try and figure what happened to someone. Features the worst fly-casting ever shown on screen. One episode and out.

Amazon’s “Some Kind of Hobbit Shit” — OK, they are promoting the hell out of it, let’s have a look. Oh it’s a Diversity ad. Maybe they’ll get super transgressive and lob a black Viking in the mix. Oh wait…

I can’t find the coil photos so taken together these add up to one full coil.

Noburo Iguchi’s Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead is not, strictly speaking, about toilets. There is an outhouse in the film, and it has dead people in it, but it’s really incidental to the plot, which almost never gets in the way of the story.

Arisa Nakamura plays Megumi, a nice Japanese schoolgirl who knows some kung fu and is heartbroken over the suicide of her sister. She’s with two girls and a dorky guy, plus a skeezy weirdo, and they are going camping, in the best, time-honored, “Stupid People in the Woods” manner.

One of the gals wants to eat a parasitic worm so she can be skinny and become a model. They find a worm in a trout which Megumi catches with a net.

Now here’s where we have some problems. First of all, are there trout in Japan? Second — do they have big worms in them? Third, is it bcause they are wormy that they hang in space, waiting for a kung fu net-twirling Japanese kid to show up and catch them? Fourth — ever hear of cat and release?

I realized at this point in the film that the ol’ suspension of disbelief was going to come in handy.

Anyhoo, as you might guess, there are zombies around, and in trying to get away from them the gang find a little village.

Ko (played by Yuki, or maybe it’s the other way around), is feeling a little under the weather on account of the worm she ate, and she starts farting.

 She poots her way to the outhouse, where, as is often the case in these isolated locations with a mad scientist in  the barn and tapeworms in the trout, there are also zombies in — or under — the outhouse.  

Iguchi keeps upping the ante, to the point where the film is utterly disgusting in every possible way.

But never tasteless.

We’re talking the usual exploding heads and popping eyes. Visible farts. Visible farts with demons in them. Zombies walking on all fours, backwards, with demon parasites sticking out of their butts. White panties. Flying parasite queen, in blue sun dress and flowered panties. Two breasts. Eight gallons blood; four gallons assorted glop. One mad scientist, one toothless goober, one skeezy drug addict, one flying trout.

An outstanding piece of work, and short, too.  Iguchi is an instant Immortal. Four coils, no doubt about it.

In case the legions of fans were wondering, the Coiled Pleasures staff is healthy, if somewhat depressed after 10 months of sitting around the house, with only the occasional fishing trip to alleviate the boredom.

And there have been some changes. Ralphus, our favorite malignant dwarf, died in July at age 62. He died, not of COVID-19, but from sheer meanness.

Nobody was sorry.

We didn’t try to replace Ralphus. Instead we spent the money we would have paid him on stupid shit, like the Hitachi vibrator and 24-foot carp rods.

We also bought some new socks.

What better time than now to develop a taste for bad cinema? Liven up those long stretches of coronavirus-induced boredom with the worst films ever made!

 

Here is a carefully selected group of truly bad films to get you started:

 

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies: Not only does this intensely weird film have no discernible plot, it’s also a musical. The Mystery Science Theater version is worth the extra three bucks or whatever it is.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Science-Theater-3000-Incredibly/dp/B008C8A6E2/ref=sr_1_2?crid=39HXJKLZNMBNL&dchild=1&keywords=incredibly+strange+creatures&qid=1584371305&s=instant-video&sprefix=incredibly+%2Cinstant-video%2C205&sr=1-2

 

Deathstalker 2: Gets the nod over Deathstalker 3 because it stars Denison University’s own John Terlesky, and because it features the immortal John La Zar, who is the star of…

 

https://www.amazon.com/Deathstalker-II-John-Terlesky/dp/B07DVMQXS3/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BXY373O1N1RY&dchild=1&keywords=deathstalker+2&qid=1584371027&s=instant-video&sprefix=deathst%2Cinstant-video%2C422&sr=1-1

 

…Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Also featuring the Strawberry Alarm Clock, which makes it a horror flick. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Valley-Dolls-Dolly-Read/dp/B00FEC4RD0/ref=sr_1_1?crid=VV9V98MK19D1&dchild=1&keywords=beyond+the+valley+of+the+dolls+prime&qid=1584371146&s=instant-video&sprefix=beyond+the+%2Cinstant-video%2C225&sr=1-1

 

Circle of Iron: Kung Fu, ersatz mysticism, loincloths and Eli Wallach in a barrel of oil. A classic of the extended non-sequitur.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Circle-Iron-David-Carradine/dp/B017PSRM3W/ref=sr_1_1?crid=4XVZA180KKNZ&dchild=1&keywords=circle+of+iron&qid=1584371624&s=instant-video&sprefix=circle+of+iron%2Caps%2C192&sr=1-1

 

FDR — American Badass: Relive the glory days of World War II with this unique take on the defeat of the Axis powers. With Werewolf Hitler. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/FDR-American-Badass-Barry-Bostwick/dp/B00EPQRNVY/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2HXDJG46IZ8VT&dchild=1&keywords=fdr+american+badass&qid=1584371796&s=instant-video&sprefix=fdr+%2Cinstant-video%2C200&sr=1-2

The Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy: This might take some finding, but it’s well worth it, especially for the spectacle of the bad guys in pointy shoes trying to scramble around on the pyramid.

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058304/

 

The Acid Eaters: Another one that will require some effort to locate. Worth it for the ziggurat scene alone. 

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061329/

 

Manos — Hands of Fate: This was made on a bet in 1966 by some guy in Texas. Net production cost — $11.37 ($90.78 in 2020 dollars). Also exciting scenes involving the inability of the lead bad guy’s belt to hold his pants up. (The MST version is the only one I know of.)

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060666/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

 

Zero Woman — Red Handcuffs: This exciting Japanese “pinky violence” flick features, among other things, the regrettable state of Japanese male underpants in the mid-1970s.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Woman:_Red_Handcuffs

 

And finally, Iron Sky: Return to the heady days of the Obama presidency, when men were (sort of) men and space Nazis led by Sarah Palin established a base on the dark side of the moon!

 

https://www.amazon.com/Iron-Sky-Julia-Dietze/dp/B073WDVJFS/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=iron+sky&qid=1584372910&sr=8-1

 

The NBC horror show “Hannibal” ran three seasons and was cancelled without my noticing it.

But there’s something about having a stubborn head cold that makes damn near anything on a streaming service attractive. So I watched the first two seasons of “Hannibal” and am three or four episodes into the third.

I’m a big fan of Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham, Jack Crawford and the rest of the gang, so I was curious as to how this network production would stack up against the movies.

Answer: So-so.

(From top left: Will and his wimpy permabeard; Hannibal as dressed by the denizens of Style Forum; oh, great, it’s another antler scene)

The show gets off to a solid if somewhat stately start. But after a while a pattern emerges. Will goes off into la-la land, and grows antlers. Hannibal prepares food while wearing plaid suits, extreme spread collar shirts and ties with gigantic Windsor knots.

Also Will has discovered how to always have eight days’ worth of beard. Never more, never less.

By the time I got to season three I was thoroughly sick of the entire thing and my cold is done.

So I think I am going to leave Hannibal in Italy.

 

Clockwise from top left: Three-Mop rig; decent-sized brook trout; one of a handful of truly good largemouth I got this season

 

My annual fishing week in the Catskills got rained out, so I am slowly working my way through the stack of crappy DVDs I bought for comic relief in the Land of No Internet or Cable.

Let’s get started:

The Hooker Cult Murders (aka The Pyx) is a semi-police procedural and about one-quarter devil movie. It is also shot in the dark and there are no subtitles for the French parts.

The idea of the leader of a devil cult with a madam on the payroll for the human sacrifices and whatnot is solid enough, but this flick goes back and forth with flashbacks and jump cuts and overlapping dialogue and a bunch of other artsy stuff that makes me suspect that someone was trying to make a SERIOUS FILM and not an excuse to see the immortal Karen Black nekkid.

Which we do, sort of. Does a see-thru nighty count?

Anyhoo, this is pretty damn boring and unless you have a really strong feeling about the immortal Karen Black, I’d give it a miss.

 

 

 

 

The erotic highlight of “Mitchell” — Linda Evans’ back (above left); Mitchell drinks Schlitz while sitting on a couch (top right) that matches his sport coat (below right).

If you’ve never seen Andrew McLaglen’s 1975 film “Mitchell,” starring the immortal Joe Don Baker, then you must drop everything and find it. Preferably the version available on one of those “50 Godawful Movies for $7” box sets, which are so badly produced that the titles are too fuzzy to read.

Mitchell is a renegade Los Angeles cop who goes after the bad guys and spends a lot of time getting in and out of cars. He also drives cars and crashes cars. And dune buggies.

He has a magic sport coat that matches his sofa, a fine-looking hooker (Linda Evans) who comes over when the plot needs goosing, and he can hit anyone or anything at any range with any gun.

“Mitchell” is an hommage du fromage, with scenery-chewing performances from John Saxon ( who was always getting in Jim Rockford’s pomaded hair) and Martin Balsam, who must have needed the work.

And there is musical commentary by the great Hoyt Axton, a man who had no peer when it came to rhyming “June” with “spoon.”

A CACA classic.

Three coils, with the automatic one coil deduction for no nekkidity, not even Linda Evans’ butt.

 

 

I’ve owned “The Big Sleep” forever, and read the novel umpty-ump times.

And I’ve always been confused by the plot.

It didn’t matter.

I dug out the DVD the other night and realized there was an unreleased, earlier version on the flip side of the disc.

Maybe I watched it before, but if I did, I didn’t remember it.

According to a comparison between the unreleased and released versions, the changes were made — mostly — in order to beef up Lauren Bacall’s scenes with Humphrey Bogart.

In particular, they cheesed a scene with Bacall in a weird veil, for no apparent reason.

But the big change is a long scene in the district attorney’s office. It’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but it does go a long way toward making the story more comprehensible.

It’s worth a look

 

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This was in late November. Deer season, hence the orange clothing. The brookies were sluggish and responded best to the more garish offerings — the squirmy worm in particular. I was using a Cabelas 6 1/2 foot, 4 weight glass rod, which are typically about $69 plus shipping and as such an incredible deal. I also have the 7 foot 5 weight and just ordered the 5 foot 9 inch 3 weight. All are three piece rods.