STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER
Yes, hot on the heels of endorsing a nudie Tarzan movie directed by Jess Franco, I’m back to encourage people to watch a completely irredeemable and tasteless piece of filth from the bottom of the giallo barrel. It is because I am beyond saving and know no shame that i am able to say nice things about a movie I myself liken to finding a hobo pleasuring himself behind a dumpster.
#1 by El Santo on December 12, 2007 - 9:31 pm
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Huh. Sounds like it’s sort of the giallo equivalent to SS Hell Camp. I’ll definitely need to see this one.
#2 by lyzard on December 12, 2007 - 9:57 pm
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>> You: Let’s watch Strip Nude for Your Killer.
>> Your Friend: That looks like crap.
>> You: Oh, come on!
My conversations tend to go like this:
Me: Soooo….[shuffles feet]….wanna watch XYZ?
Anon: XYZ?
Me: Um, yeah.
[Long pause, during which I am given a look that lies somewhere between blank and “The dog left WHAT on the carpet?”]
Anon: There’s a film called XYZ!?
Alas, we rarely get to the “Oh, come on!” stage.
#3 by Matthew Fudge on December 13, 2007 - 8:00 am
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Me: “let’s watch the 70’s version of Black Christmas, and then the new remake…”
Wife:…pause….blank stare…”I think I have some work to do”
#4 by Blake Matthews on December 13, 2007 - 8:51 am
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How often to you guys come across movies that pass your personal limits of bad taste?
#5 by KeithA on December 13, 2007 - 10:34 am
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Lyz–
My actual conversations usually go:
Me: So I bought this 50 movie box set for $14. You wanna watch a movie where Franco Nero punches a shark in the face?
Girlfriend: Who?
Me: You know, the guy from Enter the Ninja.
Girlfriend: What?
Me: You don’t understand me at all!!!! (cue me running, in tears, into the bedroom and slamming the door)
#6 by KeithA on December 13, 2007 - 10:39 am
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Blake —
I find it pretty hard to be offended by movies. Or rather, my tastes are offended by very odd things that other people find charming and heart-warming (for example, I hate the romantic comedy notion that fun-loving, single people are secretly hollow inside and can’t wait to find Mr./Ms. Right, settle down, and get married so they can finally achieve fulfillment). I still shake my head whenever a film revels in the actual butchering of animals. And I suppose any movie that actively promotes the idea that sexual assault or racism are genuinely good and right things would go beyond my limits. But in the end, almost all the “shocking and offensive” movies I’ve seen are either so ridiculous or so boring that I can’t see the point in getting all in a huff about them.
#7 by Nathan Shumate on December 13, 2007 - 10:40 am
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You mean, far enough across the line that we won’t watch them? Or just far enough that we trash them in our reviews?
#8 by Blake Matthews on December 13, 2007 - 10:45 am
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Favorite criticism of my movies: All of your movies are just excuses for fight scenes, except for Jackie Chan. His films have good plots.
#9 by Blake Matthews on December 13, 2007 - 10:46 am
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“You mean, far enough across the line that we won’t watch them? Or just far enough that we trash them in our reviews?”
The former.
#10 by Nathan Shumate on December 13, 2007 - 10:58 am
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I haven’t hit one of those for a long, long time — and that was back when I hadn’t toughened up enough callus. These days, I can grit my teeth and force myself through something craptaculariffic that I would never view for enjoyment, simply so that I can bear witness to the world.
On the other hand, I self-select to a goodly degree, so I’m rarely caught off-guard watching something I really don’t want to see. (Once again, thanks to El Santo for taking Skull & Bones — the director had been bugging me to accept a screener, and I could tell from the synopsis that it was nothing I wanted to watch. So I foisted it off on someone else.)
#11 by KeithA on December 13, 2007 - 11:28 am
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I certainly have type sof films I won’t watch, not out of deference to taste, but more because I know I won’t like them. I hate “along on a ride with a serial killer” type movies. They’re all so dull, and the shocks are all so predictable. Similarly,, I don’t watch many movies that pen their hopes and dreams on shocking me with torture scenes, because you’re not going to shock me, but you will very likely bore me. And I don’t watch movies that teach me about the horrors of drug abuse and heroin, because at this point that’s like teaching me that sticking a white hot poker in my eye will hurt.
But these are matters of taste in that I know what I won’t like, more than taste as being offended. It’s all pretend anyway, and the world offers up enough real material that I don’t need to worry about being offended by made-up stuff.
That said, I was offended by My Super Ex-Girlfriend. I can’t believe someone made a movie that crummy. And they call Jess Franco incompetent!
#12 by El Santo on December 13, 2007 - 1:35 pm
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The one thing I absolutely will not touch are those Mondo-style death “documentaries”– Faces of Death and that lot. Yes, I know the vast majority of the stuff is faked. I don’t care. If anything, that actually makes it worse. As if it weren’t bad enough that the creators of those movies attempt to make a buck by exploiting a market for genuine human suffering, they defraud the audience while they’re at it. They’re the filmmaking equivalent of those e-mail scammers who try to convince you to give them your financial information by offering to cut you in on a scheme to rip off some non-existent bank in Subsaharan Africa.
#13 by lyzard on December 13, 2007 - 3:24 pm
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“Offended” is an interesting word. I get offended – lower case ‘o’ – all the time. I am offended by Caucasian people slapping on fake eyelids or brown shoepolish and pretending to be “Asian”. I am offended by about forty years’ depiction of black people. I am offended by films that offer me breasts instead of ideas, or plots, or action, or fun; I am particularly offended by films that include a rape scene in order to show breasts. I am offended by films that tell me that unless I find that mystical thing called True Love with that mythical being known as My Soul Mate, then I am worthless as a human being.
In other words, I register the affront, but it doesn’t stop me watching the film, and even enjoying it.
On the other hand, I am Offended primarily by animal cruelty. I wouldn’t watch any Italian cannibal film for any consideration. Like Santo, I also avoid “documentaries” that trade on death and misery, even if their specifics are faked. So I guess what Offends me is real pain, and people trading in real pain. And the expectation that either I will be “entertained” by it, or that I’m so jaded I need to be shocked into feeling something.
There are grey areas. There are films that do show animal killing that I have watched, knowingly. And then you get into the area of something that isn’t necessarily “offensive” – or even “Offensive” – but you just don’t want to deal with. For instance, and without getting too spoileriffic, I wouldn’t want to go near films like What Have They Done To Solange? or Late Night Trains; I just don’t need those images in my head, thank you.
#14 by KeithA on December 13, 2007 - 5:15 pm
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Ugh. Mondo violence films. No thanks. I once knew someone that was about to watch one and asked me how it was, and my response was “You will be disgusted and bored.” And that’s exactly what happened. I think I sat through Mondo Cane, a few minutes of Faces of Death, and that was it. It’s not even a matter of offense. They just fail on every level for me. I know there are other far more tasteless ones that cull together actual police and accident footage. I don’t get the appeal at all.
On the other hand, i like the “ain’t people goofy” sort of Mondo films that shy away from the death and all and just concentrate on strange, often made up customs, though at this point in my life, I could do without seeing those Indian guys who stick a bunch of needles in their face and chest and hang religious crap off them. It’s like some law was passed that you have to put those guys in every mondo tour of the world. I say cut them out, and make more room for that midget who dresses up in a zoot suit and sings Sinatra tunes.
#15 by Blake Matthews on December 13, 2007 - 5:30 pm
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I was told a real dog was harmed for a trap scene in Tsui Hark’s “The Blade.” Although knowing his vision for that movie, maybe he didn’t do it with quite the same attitude as “One Million B.C.” or cannibal movies. It’s funny, I can easily deal with Chinese kung fu violence, but some types of “realistic” violence make me squirm. (example: when John Malkovich crushes the guy’s hand in “Of Mice and Men”).
#16 by lyzard on December 13, 2007 - 5:56 pm
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You would appreciate my frustration (and disgust) at having a large percentage of the world’s killer snake films off-limits to me. Snaky revenge is no fun at all when there’s such a concrete reason for it.
I didn’t need the gall-bladderectomy scene in Mr Vampire, either.
#17 by Blake Matthews on December 13, 2007 - 6:05 pm
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I assume you’re referring to (among others) Hong Kong’s “Calamity of the Snakes.” There were some snake violence scenes in “Eastern Condors” and “Future Cops.” I love “Eastern Condors”, I wouldn’t wish “Future Cops” on anyone, no matter how much they love Street Fighter II.
#18 by John Doe on December 13, 2007 - 7:20 pm
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“You wouldn’t think that a movie with a title like Strip Nude for Your Killer would turn out to be among the sleazier, trashier, less redeemable Italian thrillers ”
. . .
Why wouldn’t I? In fact looking at that title, that’s exactly what I would think.
better title: “Strip Nude for the Guy Who’s Gonna Pour Ketchup All Over Your Body”
#19 by lyzard on December 13, 2007 - 9:57 pm
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They never have come up with a suitable emoticon for sarcasm, have they??
#20 by Matthew Fudge on December 14, 2007 - 4:29 am
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Re: all the offence questions
I had a similar conversationabout the recent wave of ‘torture porn’ (as they call it), i.e. Saw, Hostel. etc etc. I have to admit that I enjoyed both of those movies, but the torture stuff makes me uncomfortable. My main argument though is that because special effects are now so realistic we get offended by this stuff, whereas when someone’s brain got chewed off in an eighties horror it was so patently fake that no-one got upste. To cut a long story short then, do movies then become more morally dubious simply because they look more real?
#21 by Blake Matthews on December 14, 2007 - 4:44 am
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I’m trying not to touch torture porn film with a ten-foot pole. If I have to watch a torture scene, I prefer watching Angela Mao torture two guys with a see-saw in “Lady Constables.”
#22 by El Santo on December 14, 2007 - 8:55 am
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Hmmm… Apparently I’m going to have to check out What Have They Done to Solange?…
#23 by lyzard on December 14, 2007 - 3:27 pm
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Ohhh-kay….I’ll just get this waiver ready for you….
#24 by KeithA on December 14, 2007 - 5:10 pm
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If you want to make a good “torture porn” movie, just film me having to listen to someone explain to me how much I’ll love SAW.
#25 by Blake Matthews on December 14, 2007 - 6:19 pm
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In contrast, someone filming you having to listen to someone explain how much you have to watch a Lina Romay (sp.) film would qualify as an uplifting film, huh? (or maybe just the film itself).
#26 by John Doe on December 14, 2007 - 7:19 pm
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lyzard said “They never have come up with a suitable emoticon for sarcasm, have they??”
no, and I really wish they would. uh, who are they? so I can write them a nasty letter.
#27 by Tom Meade on December 14, 2007 - 11:31 pm
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I think one thing that annoys me a great deal is when people go to see a genuinely effective horror film and then complain about it having genuinely effected them. As though the role of the horror film should always be to reaffirm our faith in survival the face of the horror of the universe. Sometimes I want to see a film that is relentlessly bleak and unpleasant (because I’m a pessimist), and when one comes along that does it’s job it gets lambasted as morally bankrupt or sadistic, despite the fact that a properly effective horror film is a masochistic experience. I suppose a lot of the time people don’t look past the visuals to the actual tone?
I’m obviously, in saying this, overlooking the loads of crap which is just as worthless as critics say it is.
Also, it’s largely a propos of nothing.
#28 by HP on December 16, 2007 - 2:54 am
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Is it possible that there’s an edit of Strip Nude… that doesn’t include the abortion scene or the fat guy? Because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this movie from the rest of the description, but I don’t recall those two scenes, and that seems unlikely. Though for my money, for an “irredeemable and tasteless” giallo, Delirio Caldo takes the prize.
Regarding movies that cross the line: Swamp of the Ravens dances on the line in a couple of scenes, but the rest of the movie is either so boring or so hilariously inept it’s hard to hate. Watching Goodbye Uncle Tom, on the other hand, made me feel complicit in a crime against humanity (and considering the involvement of the Tonton Macoutes in providing “extras,” I likely am). I think what makes Goodbye Uncle Tom so morally outrageous is that parts of it are surreally brilliant. I mean, the opening sequence where the helicopter lands in the middle of an antebellum cotton field is some kind of twisted genius.
#29 by KeithA on December 16, 2007 - 1:01 pm
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Blake — at least the movie of me convincing someone to watch a Lina Romay film would contain my karaoke rendition of “Eye of the Tiger,” which — and I don’t usually brag — kicks Clubber Lang’s ass.
#30 by KeithA on December 16, 2007 - 9:36 pm
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HP — I don’t know of a version that was distributed in the US other than the current DVD. However, I should note that the basic plot of this movie is the basic plot of 95% of all giallo films.
#31 by KeithA on December 16, 2007 - 9:41 pm
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Tom — I agree with what you’re saying, though I don’t personally apply it to a number of the more recent torture films. I actually like the idea of “no one gets out of here alive” in a horror film, but I have found recent entries like SAW and HOSTEL to be largely empty affairs. Still, others seem to like them, so that’s cool with me. I did mostly like WOLF CREEK, and I think what sets it apart is that it at least took the time to sketch out some likable characters. Unfortunately, it later made one of them do some phenomenally dumb things, but heck — that’s horror films.
And as for “no one gets out of here alive” — THE DESCENT, man. Lordy I love that movie.
#32 by HP on December 17, 2007 - 12:01 am
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I should note that the basic plot of this movie is the basic plot of 95% of all giallo films.
Well, that would explain the killer turning out to be the impotent, closeted, gay, cross-dressing, incestuous guy who was only on-screen for five minutes prior to the big reveal.
I just earlier today watched Luciano Ercoli’s Death Walks at Midnight. The big reveal in this one involves the most exuberant and inspiring five minutes of voice-over exposition, concealed identities, elaborate and unworkable conspiracies, and outright ret-conning I’ve ever witnessed. Plus a cackling Austrian psychopath with scoliosis. It was a breathtaking tour de force.
#33 by The Rev. D.D. on December 17, 2007 - 9:56 am
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I’ll second The Descent. That was one of the better horror movies to come out of the “mainstream” cinema business in some time.
I actually enjoyed most of Saw. I may have been too busy mentally giggling over the constant implausibility of the entire premise (and indulging my love of death traps) to be offended, but I actually found myself enjoying it for what it was, and managed to keep the rational part of my brain from ruining things. The last minute or two ramped up the nonsense too far, though, and ruined the whole experience for me.
I believe my first words as the credits rolled were…(wait for it)…”Oh COME ON!!!!”
#34 by Tom Meade on December 17, 2007 - 3:34 pm
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The ending of Wolf Creek was monstrously stupid and the whole “true story” angle seemed underdeveloped as a gimmick, which annoyed me to no end. The Descent really was excellent, although it also had an ending which, while interesting, was a tad confusing.
I was mostly just venting at nothing. Roger Ebert’s review of Day of the Woman pisses me off.
#35 by KeithA on December 17, 2007 - 4:18 pm
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Yeah, the less said about the end of Wolf Creek…and that from a guy who thought the end of The Descent was fine and, heck, even the end of High Tension was all right. Of course, I think EVERY movie, horror or not, should end with a character saying, “It’s over,” only have Angus Scrimm pop up and go, “No, it’s not!” then fade to black. Imagine the improvement that would be made to movies like The Polar Express and Martian Child if they ended that way.
#36 by Blake Matthews on December 17, 2007 - 4:31 pm
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I can’t wait for them to make a horror movie where they kill the bad guy/monster, and it ends. So many potentially-great movies, “Proteus”, “Phantoms”, “Deep Rising”, for example, were ruined by the sequel set-ups.
#37 by lyzard on December 17, 2007 - 4:32 pm
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Speaking of Angus Scrimm – and speaking of Bruce Lee In Snake Island (well, you guys weren’t, but Keith and I were) – I had such a nasty Phantasm moment when they were rubbing that baby’s face with the Magic Silver Ping Pong Ball….
#38 by KeithA on December 17, 2007 - 5:07 pm
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Gotta admit — it’s nice having a place where you can write the sentence “I had such a nasty Phantasm moment when they were rubbing that baby’s face with the Magic Silver Ping Pong Ball,” and people know exactly what you are talking about.
#39 by lyzard on December 17, 2007 - 5:37 pm
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Oh, yes, indeed….
#40 by lyzard on December 17, 2007 - 5:48 pm
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It’s also nice to have a place to bitch about the fact that my Christmas-present-to-myself DVD order is being held up because they can’t get hold of the 25th Anniversary uncut edition of Tintorera!! (Yup, that’s right: I am *complaining* about not being able to watch the two-hour cut of Tintorera. If anything ever defined “be careful what you pray for”….)
#41 by Blake Matthews on December 17, 2007 - 6:11 pm
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Does that mean that, conversely, I have a place to go on and on about how where I live, there’s little market for giant monster movies, and yet, I came across inexpensive DVDs of “Gamera: Little Braves” and “Garuda”?
#42 by El Santo on December 17, 2007 - 8:40 pm
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“25th Anniversary uncut edition of Tintorera”
25th Anniversary edition?!?! Seriously? Everything under the sun gets a director’s cut these days, but a silver anniverary reissue for freaking Tintorera?!
#43 by lyzard on December 17, 2007 - 8:48 pm
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Would I lie to you, baby? DVD Pacific are charging all of $3.22 for it, which is about $3.21 more than it’s worth.
#44 by KeithA on December 18, 2007 - 10:47 am
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Hey, if Santa Claus: The Movie can have a 25th anniversary edition even though everyone hated the movie and it flopped…
#45 by Tom Meade on December 18, 2007 - 6:15 pm
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I remember loving that movie when I was five.
#46 by Braineater on December 19, 2007 - 1:13 pm
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HP —
> Well, that would explain the killer turning out to be the impotent,
> closeted, gay, cross-dressing, incestuous guy who was only on-screen
> for five minutes prior to the big reveal.
Unless there’s a priest anywhere in the movie. Even in a crowd scene. Then it’s him. Especially if he’s also the closeted, cross-dressing etc.
> Luciano Ercoli’s Death Walks at Midnight
Ercoli’s gialli were only an excuse to film Nieves Navarro nearly-naked and say to the world, “She’s mine.” And on that level, they are pretty good. Maurizio Pradeaux made a giallo with most of the same cast Ercoli usually used, and it’s flat and dull by comparison — he wasn’t in love with his actress.
#47 by Braineater on December 19, 2007 - 1:18 pm
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Keith —
> and people know exactly what you are talking about.
… and share your disappointment that it wasn’t a real Phantasm moment?
#48 by lyzard on December 19, 2007 - 3:06 pm
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In a film where the “snake curse” is conveyed by drawing a squiggly line on the camera lens in marker pen? I didn’t have any real hope….
#49 by The Rev. D.D. on December 20, 2007 - 9:20 am
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OK, marker-made snake curses and magic silver ping-pong balls…I need to see this thing. Time to search Netflix…
#50 by lyzard on December 20, 2007 - 1:30 pm
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Did I mention the island princess in the leopard print mini-dress with matching knee high-platform boots? And her kung fu guard-ape? I didn’t? How remiss of me!
#51 by The Rev. D.D. on December 26, 2007 - 4:19 pm
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Kung-fu guard ape!?
All right, that’s it, it’s getting moved up the cue.
(Although I’m still leaving the top three where they are…”Blood Freak” because I need some turkey for the holidays; “Chinese Ghost Story” because your review has made me desperate to see it for years, and now I finally have the chance; and “Rock and Roll Nightmare” because I feel my bad movie watcher credentials aren’t complete without having seen it.)
Then after that I’m going to, at long last, work my way through the “Lone Wolf and Cub” films and the 70s gore films of H.G. Lewis (sans “The Gore Gore Girls” which I already own, against my better judgment.)