In Which I Watch Christian Kids' Videos

The Butter Cream Gang (1992)
Director: Bruce Neibaur
Rating: ??? / 10
Seen Via: Feature Films for Families VHS

As I mentioned before, living in the southern U.S. means that every time I browse thrift store video shelves, I find at least a handful of Christian kids' movies. Most look boring or dreadful to me, so I can pass them by without a second thought. The exceptions are films released by Feature Films for Families (hereafter FFFF). FFFF is an ambiguously Christian distribution company that specializes in films centered around "traditional values." While they firmly deny any connection to a specific religion, they're located in Utah, which is also where many of their independently-produced films take place, so draw your own conclusions. In addition to their original films, they also edit down other kids' films and remove questionable content. Totally necessary for stuff like the septic tank that is the uncut edition of Space Camp.

Most of the FFFF films are effectively feature-length after school specials with some added preachiness stirred in. I have a deeply weird fascination with the world these films present, where idyllic middle class families free from material concerns struggle with lofty moral quandaries. Despite the fact that these films grapple with problems that purportedly prepare children for life in the secular world of adulthood, there's a squeaky-clean quality to the dilemmas. They're too polished. Too abstract. They're also usually set in creepily perfect towns, like something you'd find in a TV commercial. Watching these movies is almost like watching a dystopian science fiction film set in a flawless society. One of those films where you're just waiting for the final reveal in which cannibalism or slavery or some other abomination underlies the whole pristine mess - only here, the reveal never comes.

No FFFF film exemplifies these qualities more than The Buttercream Gang, which is centered around a "gang" of middle-schoolers who take it upon themselves to be the official neighborhood do-gooders. They help out by doing things like painting picket fences or assisting the Widow Jenkins when she falls in her home and can't get up. It's set in a picture perfect whitewashed town in Utah where butterflies soar majestically in soft-focus over flowers and churches, and the baseball team's coach is also the pastor of the local church.

Every establishing shot looks like this.

Children dressed in primary colored t-shirts tucked into jean shorts with rolled-up cuffs jump rope, ride bikes, and get along just so gee golly well. Never fear though, there is some conflict, and in this film it comes in the form of a Buttercreamer (yes, they call themselves that) named Pete who has to move to Chicago to be a role model for his younger cousins. While in the big city, he becomes involved in a gang and is eventually sent back to Utah. Having been exposed to city life, he now becomes a full-blown misfit, the likes of which nobody is prepared to handle. As he spraypaints, vandalizes, and steals his way across the little town, his old friend Scott wonders what he can do to win Pete back from the Dark Side.

"I know you're not blond, Pete, but God still loves you."

I totally identified with Pete as he tried desperately to misbehave and wreck this too-good-to-be true town. Rural Utah must have seemed torturous to him after he'd been exposed to the vice and corruption of the big city. He's the only character in the movie who looks for cracks in the facade, and finding none, becomes increasingly insane. How awful must it feel to be surrounded by perfect people all of the time? Every insecurity and flaw grossly magnified in comparison, your doubts mocked by the selfless smiling faces who repair every small thing you break - no wonder he eventually flips his shit, screaming "I WANT YOU TO HATE ME" at the placid general store owner who has just volunteered to give him the entire contents of the cash register so that Pete won't have to steal it from him.

If you think this movie is primarily about gangs or crime, you're wrong. This movie is about Unconditional Love, which you know because it's mentioned no fewer than three times on the box. It's hard to convey just how ceaselessly, relentlessly earnest this movie is, and how little subtlety it possesses. This is the kind of movie that has no qualms about literally inserting a sermon to drive home the point it has to make, which ultimately seems to be that allowing yourself to be victimized by bad people will cause them to become good people.

Like Pete, I felt beaten into submission by the sentimentality and overbearing goodness of this film. I fell victim to some sort of weird Stockholm syndrome induced by swells of strings and solemn monologues on forgiveness delivered by blond Christian kids. Maybe it was the TWO montages of Goofus and Gallant sequences featuring Pete and Scott, one vandalizing and the other doing good deeds. All of this over an original song about loving your neighbor. It's too much, I can't take it. You win. I love everyone!

The Good:

I can't say this is a bad movie. While I was flabbergasted at many things throughout, I actually enjoyed it. I laughed, I cried, I wanted the movie to hate me, and it refused.

The Bad:

Did we need two music montages? Really, guys?

...the Hell?

This movie actually adopts sort of a pro-bullying stance, and tells kids that you should let someone steal your bike, beat you bloody, screw with your job, and generally make your life a living hell so that they'll eventually turn over a new leaf.

Also, this is what gangs look like:

The Verdict:

A strange, baffling, overly sentimental after-school special, interesting primarily because of how far its reality diverges from my own. A unique viewing experience, even among FFFF films. You will either feel compelled to slash your wrists in uncomprehending madness or start up your own Buttercream gang.

Get Old, Get Evil, with PHANTOM OF DEATH

Phantom of Death (1988)
Director: Ruggero Deodato
Rating: 4.5 / 10
Seen via: Vidmark VHS

Phantom of Death sports one of the most hideous covers on my shelf of tapes. There's Michael York, front and center, pulling an Animorphs-style transformation into ... Donald Pleasence? That's what the names above the portraits seem to suggest, anyway. Then below there's a woman falling through glass, which makes me think this movie wants me to associate it with Suspiria. The title offers no insight into what the hell is happening in this film, even in its native Italian: Un Delitto Poco Comune, or "An Unusual Crime" (according to Google Translate). Due to video store stickers that obscured a large portion of the back of the box, I wasn't aware that this was the work of Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust, House on the Edge of the Park) until after buying it and looking it up online. That gave me some hope that at the very least this would be an utter sleaze-fest. For a little while anyway, it certainly seems to go that direction.

Robert Dominici (Michael York) is a renowned pianist with a failing marriage. After his wife is killed on her way back from a tryst, Inspector Datti (Donald Pleasance) vows to track the murderer down. Things become personal when the killer calls up Datti and taunts him, threatening his daughter. Meanwhile, as the killings continue they seem to point toward Robert... is this an elaborate setup? Based on the plot and the way these murders are presented, you might think you're about to watch a giallo. But Deodato was always more comfortable with gritty crime, cannibals, and other less stylish forms of trash, and the film soon becomes something else entirely.

Also, since this is Ruggero Deodato, expect gushing rivers of blood.

The big twist (that isn't really a twist, since it occurs only after the first act has wrapped up), is that Robert has a rare form of adult progeria, causing him to age rapidly and fall into violent rages. As he struggles to suppress his new urge to kill, he's also forced to navigate the relationship he's fallen into with a woman named Helene (Edwige Fenech), who was seemingly waiting for his wife to die so she could jump in and take her place. A fair amount of the story has Robert coming to terms with his impending death and accelerated aging, which pushes him even further into madness. There's some pretty fun stuff here, such as Robert's trip to a children's clinic, which I was not at all prepared for - especially when this little guy turned around and faced the camera:

What works does so in large part because of Deodato's willingness to acknowledge that this is a slasher rather than a drama. Michael York may not have gotten the memo, however, and takes even the most outlandish material seriously. He gives it 100%, even when the script feeds him a monologue in which he threatens to kill all the old and young people in the world so he won't be reminded of his lost youth OR his newly acquired age. Donald Pleasance grounds the film as he stoically gathers information and pieces together evidence, but even he's not exempt from a few overblown scenes. The most notable is when a taunting phone call drives him over the edge and causes him to run out into the street and throw a fit, screaming "You fucking bastard! I'll kill you!" at the sky. I was also happy to see Edwige Fenech pop up, although the late 80's were not as kind to her as the 70's. No fault of hers, really - giallo fashion was just way more stylish than the big hair and shoulder pads in this film could ever hope to be.

"My BRAIN is ROTTING!" (Actual dialogue.)

While Phantom of Death certainly has a few stylistic echoes from the giallo era (note the black gloves on York above), it's too bad that it never really takes advantage of them. The giallo was effectively dead in the late 80's, so perhaps Deodato didn't want to seem as though he was clinging to old trends. I doubt this was the case though. Nothing in this movie seems that skillfully assembled - the early giallo-style kills seem thrown in at random, the main plot doesn't really begin until the second act, and there's some really questionable use of a flash forward that's confusing and misleading. I'm guessing Deodato was just borrowing stylistic elements without thinking too much about the overall result.

The Good:

The premise is pretty interesting, and the film's willingness to handle it as an outrageous slasher was definitely the right way to go.

The Bad:

Sometimes there's just too much acting from Michael York. It's a shame that Edwige Fenech is underutilized.

...the Hell?

I'm pretty sure progeria doesn't turn you into a psychopath. I mean, I hope it doesn't...

The Verdict

Despite the fact that the audio on the tape was seriously damaged and I had to listen to buzzing throughout the entire film, I was interested enough to finish it. This is not a great film, nor one that I'd recommend, but it never feels repetitive and stays entertaining for most of its runtime. This would fit perfectly in a double feature with Lamberto Bava's Delerium if you're looking for a night of trashy Italian post-giallo slashers filled to the brim with overacting.

Let's Relive Some Childhood Trauma with INVADERS FROM MARS

Invaders from Mars (1986)
Director: Tobe Hooper
Rating: 6 / 10
Source: Cannon VHS

I was not a brave kid. For evidence, I present to you Tobe Hooper's 1986 remake of Invaders from Mars. I must have been about nine when I first caught this on TV some weekend afternoon. While I clearly remember being riveted to the screen throughout its runtime, I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep for about a week afterwards. If child-me was a boss in Contra, my giant red flashing weak spot would have been stories about extraterrestrials, particularly alien invasions/abductions. This movie was a rocket fired with eagle-eye precision toward that glowing core. For the next year or so after I watched this, I'd check the newspaper TV listings every Saturday to make sure it wasn't playing that afternoon. Because if it was, I couldn't trust myself. I knew I'd end up sitting in front of the TV again, reopening all those barely healed mental wounds. This is why I had to pick this tape up when I saw it for sale. I'm now a firm believer in the notion that facing fears head-on is the best way to dispel them (which probably doesn't mix well with my innate masochism).

One of the things that's sort of alarming about Invaders from Mars is how quickly it gets going. We're introduced to our young hero, David (Hunter Caron) as he watches a meteor shower with his Dad (Timothy Bottoms). Just after he goes to bed that night, David witnesses a monstrous alien craft landing behind the hill near his house. He runs screaming into his room and wakes his parents - a scene similar to that which would occur many times in my own home thanks to this movie.

It was only a dream, they reassure him, and usher him back to bed. But the next morning, Dad's acting sort of weird. He walks around in a daze with a strange wound on the back of his neck. After Mom leaves for work, he pours an entire container of Tic-Tacs into his coffee and gulps the whole mess down like nothing's wrong. He's also strangely insistent that David take a walk with him over the hill behind the house... David flees to school, but soon finds out his teacher (Louise Fletcher, a.k.a. Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) is also acting more strangely than usual. Only the school nurse, Linda (Karen Black) believes him. As the rest of the adults in his life become increasingly sinister, it seems like she's the only one he can trust.

And this is where we're going to drill the hole for the mind control device...

One of the things that stood out to me watching this film as an adult is how deliberately it plays on fears specific to childhood. The idea of your parents suddenly turning on you was one of the things that really got to me as a kid, especially when the secondary adult authority figures began to do so as well. Children are always given lists of people who they're supposed to go to for help - teachers, neighbors, the police - and this movie goes right down that list and crosses them off one by one. Thank god for Karen Black. If it wasn't for her, this movie would leave David on his own. It's also interesting how so many of the typical (and sometimes comforting) kid movie tropes are absent here. David seemingly has no friends in school, no pet, no secret crush - not even a bully that could eventually side with him when shit hits the fan - just his parents, who seem normal enough until the aliens land. Which happens almost immediately. Again, the fast pacing of this film is sort of remarkable.

Would you care for a snack?

There are also an abundance of scares that play on base fears centered around food. In addition to Dad's aforementioned Tic-Tac coffee, there's a scene where mom serves David a horribly burned breakfast and then chows down on raw hamburger loaded with salt. The first time David suspects something is wrong with his evil teacher is when he spots her eating a frog, which is also the movie's first real "oh shit" moment. These are all pretty effective gut-level scares that hit even harder when you're young enough to have to depend on other people for your meals.

And we haven't even talked about the ALIENS yet. It's probably no surprise that David eventually musters up the courage to scale the hill behind his house and check out the beings that are responsible for everything that has transpired. The aliens have established a series of subterranean tunnels, which are typically entered via whirlpools that suck intruders beneath the sand (another terrifying childhood memory). The aliens in all their practical-effect glory look like gigantic ambulatory Deadly Spawn - essentially gigantic toothy maws perched atop warty chicken legs. There's also the boss alien, a little Krang-like fellow who rides out of the ship's central core on a gigantic tentacle. The aliens themselves are well-done, designed by effects wizard Stan Winston, whose work has been featured in essentially every landmark sci-fi/monster movie from the late 80's to early 90's.

Wait a second - is that...?

Oh, hi, Bud Cort!

If there was one detail that stood out in memory even above these creeps (the aliens, not Bud), it was this:

The alien mind-control mechanism is inserted by this giant drill, which we get to see in full operation as it bores into the cerebellum of some poor nameless extra. This, of course, is shown in the kind of terrifyingly bloodless PG-rated style that's sometimes extra disturbing simply because you're not expecting it.

If it were just David and Karen Black vs. the martians, the game would be over pretty quickly, but when David manages to get the military involved, things escalate significantly. I'm not sure how I feel about the final confrontation that occurs inside the alien lair. While it provides an explosion-laden finale clearly targeted at the young boys in the audience, it eliminates a lot of the terror of the first two acts by removing David's responsibility for exposing and eliminating the aliens. He still gets his chance to shine, as all child protagonists eventually do, but it feels like there's less at stake at the end than there was throughout the rest of the film.

The Good

Filled with shocks and scares that still hit a nerve after two decades.

The aliens are creepy as hell and make for some really memorable villains.

The Bad

I'm hard-pressed to believe that Hunter Carson was the best actor Tobe Hooper could find to play David. He tries so hard, but ... wow.

...the Hell?

This movie features what's likely the only instance of Chekhov's Penny.

The Verdict

You can probably tell from my review that most of the enjoyment I got out of this film came from re-living scares that destroyed me as a kid. If I were to see this film for the first time as an adult, I doubt it'd do a whole lot for me. All the same, the paranoia and the aliens are both well-crafted. If there's a youngster in your life who you think needs to be terrified, you could do a lot worse than Invaders from Mars.

Swing on Over for Some Murder in EATING RAOUL

Eating Raoul (1982)
Director: Paul Bartel
Rating: 7 / 10
Source: CBS/Fox VHS

For the next entry in It Came From the Thrift Store, let's head back to Hollywood in an entirely unintentional followup to Avenging Angel. Eating Raoul also involves loads of murder and comedy, although the humor here is a little more deliberate. I was pretty oblivious to its existence when I picked this tape up. The insinuated cannibalism on the cover was more than enough to get me interested though. What a pleasant surprise that this is the work of Paul Bartel, probably best known directorially for his masterpiece Death Race 2000, and as an actor in countless weird cinema gems. If that wasn't enough, it also stars cult film icon Mary Woronov, who's been a staple of genre film since the 70's, and is also a Death Race 2000 alum. Shortly after I bought this tape, I read that the Criterion collection had picked up Eating Raoul, which only increased my curiosity.

The film starts off with a great voice-over introduction that sets the stage by telling us just how far into debauchery Hollywood has fallen. Words won't do it justice, just watch:

In the midst of all this, we're introduced to Paul and Mary Bland (played by Bartel and Woronov), a truly boring middle-class couple whose interests involve collecting rare wines and planning the opening of their restaurant, which they intend to call "Paul and Mary's Country Kitchen." (Gag.) They've decked out their apartment in furniture from the 50's (on loan from Grandma), and sleep in separate beds. Dull people like this couldn't be less interested in the infestation of swingers who have taken over their apartment building. These sex-crazed lunatics harass Paul and Mary at every opportunity and harass them incessantly until Paul snaps and kills one with a frying pan.

They seemed like such a nice couple.

After discovering hundreds of dollars in the man's wallet, they begin to think that murder may be a more lucrative enterprise than they ever imagined. Could this be the solution to obtaining the funding for their restaurant in light of their recently failed attempt at a bank loan? It seems to be, and to attract more pervs to their apartment, the duo run an ad for a fake dominatrix service in the paper. Business takes off and all seems to be going fine, at least until they become involved with a crooked locksmith named Raoul. Raoul isn't fooled by their act, and after witnessing a murder, offers to help dispose of the corpses. As he becomes more involved with the couple, he breaks through Mary's tough shell, threatening the stability of her lifeless marriage with Paul.

Eating Raoul is a freewheeling comedy centered around some pretty dark humor, but despite the descent into murder and perversion it almost always stays colorful and light-hearted. Adding to the hilarity is how well Bartel's straight-laced portrayal of Paul contrasts with the rest of the film. One of my favorite scenes is when he shows up at a sex shop with a grocery list of items and politely tells the clerk "I would like a cock ring, please." Woronov's intrinsic weirdness also works well when Mary turns out to be something of a closet freak and falls for the far more interesting Raoul over her husband. The clash between Paul and Mary and over-the-top parade of swingers and sex maniacs that make up the duo's clientele is entertaining, even if it's not quite as shocking in the internet age as it might have been in the early 80's. Still, lampooning both the chaste couple who are stuck in the 50's and the sexually liberated populace of Hollywood provides more than enough entertainment.

[Spoilers ahead]

The last act of the film is where Eating Raoul sort of falters.  As close as Mary gets to breaking free from her sexually stifling marriage with Paul, she never gains the courage to fully rid herself of him. She's willing to dabble in whatever kink her customers (or Raoul) ask her to, and she'll even enjoy it. But as a lifestyle - no thanks. On the film's IMDB page, I stumbled across a user description of the film as a "straight John Waters movie," which is a great way to sum it up (but sort of weird since Bartel is gay). Despite how outlandish and reckless the sex and violence gets, it's always reined in by the fact that our protagonists are a straight white middle-class couple. It gives the film sort of a disconcertingly conservative feel that's at odds with the subject matter. Thankfully, Bartel is smart enough to spin it to make the point that success in the business world is built through exploitation and treachery. I just wish the main characters weren't the ones doing the exploiting!

[End spoilers]

The Good:

Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov are great, as is Robert Beltran as Raoul.

The film has a lot of fun with its subject matter, and Bartel's gleeful insanity as a director often shines through.

The Bad:

Not nearly enough cannibalism.

We're supposed to cheer for the boring people.

...the Hell?

Were swingers really a big thing in the 70's and 80's, or are they just a symbol of sexual excess? I've been noticing them lately in a lot of films from the era, including TerrorVision, which also starred Mary Woronov...

The Verdict

I initially had some mixed feelings about Eating Raoul, but after thinking about it, I've been won over. Despite its seeming insistence that we root for the normal folks as they kill all the freaks, there's an equal focus on how awfully repressed and terrible the Blands are. Bartel and Woronov do a great job at making them likable even if you usually hate their actions. I'm glad Eating Raoul has gotten the Criterion treatment, and might check out that release just for the extras. In the meantime, there's this interview.

AVENGING ANGEL Hits the Streets of Hollywood for Some Wacky Antics

Avenging Angel (1985)
Director: Robert Vincent O'Neill
Rating: 4 / 10
Source: New World VHS

Avenging Angel returns to the streets of Hollywood four years after the events of Angel. In the original film, a high school student led a double life as a Hollywood hooker to support herself after the death of her parents. Pretty sleazy-sounding material, but the weirdest thing about it was how light-hearted it tried to be. Switching back and forth between Angel's life on the streets and the more commonplace drama of high school helped a bit, but it was the gang of goofy street performers that introduced most of the levity. It's a weird tone for a film that focuses on prostitution to take - particularly when the main character is a minor.

In Avenging Angel, nearly the whole gang is all back. Well, their characters are, anyway. Molly Stewart, a.k.a. Angel, is now played by Betsy Russell, after Donna Wilkes felt shortchanged by the first film and departed for the world of TV. In this film, Angel is finishing her pre-law studies when she learns of the murder of her old policeman friend and mentor Lt. Andrews. The only witness to the crime was a street performer named Johnny Glitter, who has what's by far the most annoying act on Hollywood Boulevard - he spouts vague sayings about peace and happiness and throws glitter around.

I mean, have you ever tried getting glitter off your clothes?

To track down Johnny and figure out who's responsible for the death of her friend, Angel heads back to the strip and reunites with all of her old street performer friends. There's Yo-Yo Charlie, a Chaplinesque figure who does tricks with... well, guess. There's also the far more interesting Solly, a foul-mouthed lesbian landlord and sculpture artist played by the fascinatingly over-the-top Susan Tyrrell. Rory Calhoun steps in as Kit Carson, a former western actor who suffers from dementia and acts as if he's a real-live cowboy. In the original, these characters were largely a reprieve from the gritty central plot about a serial killer who murdered hookers and sucked down raw eggs. Pretty graphic stuff on the whole, but effectively balanced by the warm-hearted family of misfits who cared for the young Angel. Here the street performers take center stage and reduce the movie to a comedy. It's kind of an unusual turn for the film to take, especially since it occurs not ten minutes after we watch a gang of thugs conduct a hit on an undercover cop and murder her entire family along with Angel's friend Lt. Andrews.

Goodbye, Grandma

Angel begins working the streets again in search of clues, while simultaneously using her new knowledge of the law to aid her efforts. This is actually a brilliant direction for the plot to take - no longer is she the poor neglected waif who has to sell her body to survive. She's fully empowered, fully educated, and knows how to use her body alongside the body of the law to get what she wants. This leads to some pretty inspired scenes - one of which takes place in the local Hall of Records as Angel (in her full hooker getup) does research into some fishy real-estate transactions while onlookers gape, aghast. When she's picked up by Vice along with a whole crowd of prostitutes and thrown into jail, she's able to get the whole lot freed by pointing out the specific statues the officers violated by hauling them in without just cause.

Developing Angel like this is a nice touch. It's just a shame that all the other characters remain stuck in their one-dimensional ruts. I realized about halfway through the film that the street performers never turn their act off. They're always in costume and always in character. As a result, they're more like cartoons than real people. Even when they appeared in the previous film, it was amongst various genuine specimens of street trash, but here there's no such thing. The only exception might be a minor sub-plot about a thirteen year-old runaway. Even this part is handled in a pretty over-the-top fashion, especially when a client carries her away as she counts a huge pile of cash...

Yeah, Vice will never notice that...

To push things farther along the comedy axis, the villians here are also giant caricatures: a father-son duo of evil real-estate barons who want to buy up property on the boulevard and gentrify it. For MONEY *cue cackling and maniacal laughter.* In case you doubt the extent of their evil, they're not opposed to negotiation tactics like this:

So even when the gang of heroes does something uncharacteristically dark like shoot the younger of the two in the head and deliver his corpse to his father in a wheelchair, it doesn't register as particularly awful because of the antics we've seen for the past hour and change. Is it just me, or is that sort of weird?

The Good:

The atmosphere - actually filming on Hollywood Boulevard really adds a lot to the movie. This was  filmed before the real-life revitalization of the district in the 90s, and it shows.

The gang of street performers is a pretty likable group of oddballs, with the exception of annoying newcomer Johnny Glitter.

The Bad:

I would have preferred more of the gritty sleaze of the first film as opposed to the Looney Tunes vibe that takes over here.

...the Hell?

Susan Tyrrell's facial expressions:

She makes this face for roughly 80% of the movie.

The Verdict:

This is a perfectly watchable sequel to Angel that'll probably hold your attention. Too bad it sacrifices any shreds of grittiness for goofy comedy that's at odds with all the sex and violence. Writer/director Robert O'Neill abandoned the series after this one. I think I'll do the same.