MOUTHY ISSUE THREE
FEAR ON FILM
September 2003
by Michael Bill


...No longer need you fear what goes bump in the night. Instead, be afraid of what bad horror films can do to your mental health in... Fear On Film... ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

Question: What do you get when you cross a possessed chick who sets fire to nuns with a couple of rednecks who run a motel that doubles as a meat processing plant? You get this month's episode of Fear On Film, of course! This installment deals with the finest Satanic film in Mexican moviemaking history, Alucarda; and the delightfully retarded (but not retardedly delightful) Motel Hell. So get comfortable, turn down the lights - but not too much. You are trying to read here... and prepare for two flicks that will make you sick... For a twin bill of terror. For a double dose of debauchery. For a... Oh fuck it. Here are the reviews.

ALUCARDA (1978)
Directed by Juan Lopez Moctezuma

First, let me say up front that just because the name of this movie is "Adracula" spelled backwards, and there's blood-drinking, Alucarda is not a vampire movie. I know, it doesn’t make any sense to me either.

The film begins with the birth of Alucarda, (who's pretty hot in a 1970s way when she's fully grown) in a kind of half-assed mausoleum. She's quickly whisked away to a nearby monastery at the request of her mother. The monastery is more or less a glorified cave filled with nuns draped in what appears to be cheesecloth (just like the mutant humans in the second Planet of the Apes film) and the same stereotypical monks you always see in religious films.

The movie then flashes years ahead as a 20-something ho-bag named Justine comes to live in the monastery cave-dwelling. There she meets her roommate, the Christina Ricci-ish Alucarda. The two are quick friends and their relationship soon turns pseudo-lesbian. But more on that later.

The two twats go skipping through the woods and meet a hunchback gypsy who looks like a cross between Quasimodo and Groundskeeper Willie. Quasi-Willie takes the two quims back to the gypsy camp where they meet a Cher-like slut who tells them not to listen to the hunchback. Then the hunchback babbles about turning dirt into pretty little rocks and he shows them all a knife. It turns out the Cher-like slut was right! They really shouldn’t have listened to the guy.

The two tramps end up at Alucarda's birthplace. Of course Alucarda keeps saying that she knows she’s been there before and she won’t shut the fuck up about it. When they go inside, statues and carvings start to whimper and hiss at them ala The Exorcist, which causes the cooze brigade to cry and mindlessly run away.

The whimpering and hissing causes them to flip out in front of the "mummy-nuns," which in turn makes the nuns flip out. These occurrences escalate to the extent that the two girls stand up and start chanting about Satan in school one day. Mother Superior Nun Mummy concludes that the girls need to confess their sins to Father Lazaro.

When Alucarda goes into the confessional, she babbles something about Beelzebub before punching through the partition to grab Father Lazaro's weenus. From there, the consensus is that these two bitches are possessed by THE DEVIL (to the considerable dismay of all the nuns and monks. Just mentioning THE DEVIL causes them all to nearly faint.) And an exorcism is ordered.

The exorcism scene is even more ridiculous. The two coozes are strapped to big crosses while Father Lazaro (whose voice sounds just like Allen Ginsberg) goes on a religious tirade. He wants to look for "THE DEVIL’S MARK" on the girls, so he orders a monk to strip Justine's clothes off. The monk then stabs Justine in the abdomen with a stick (not deep stabs; just enough to break the skin) six or seven times and before you know it, POOF! she’s dead. The town doctor (played by the same guy who brilliantly portrays the hunchback. Apparently his acting talents warranted dual roles) rushes in to save the day (where the fuck did he come from?), as well as to save Alucarda from that ancient evil I like to call "religion."

The doctor takes the unconscious Alucarda to his house to rest, where his blind daughter Daniela eagerly greets the new guest. So, as Alucarda gets acquainted with her new blind friend, a monk comes to fetch the doc back to the monastery. When he gets there he sees that Justine had woken up and, by THE DEVIL’S HAND, caused all sorts of mayhem and destruction. So the doc arrives just in time to see Father Lazaro chopping off Justine’s head with a sword (?). The doctor and the priest then become friends. Meanwhile, the doctor realizes just how dangerous the possessed Alucarda really is, so he rushes home to save his blind daughter.

But they're not there when he gets home, so he returns to the convent to recruit reinforcements and to figure out where to look next for the girls. Of course they decide to go to Alucarda’s birthplace. And once there they discover Justine lying in a blood-filled coffin, in the nude. Justine stands up and bites one of the Mummy Nuns on the shoulder, to the considerable dismay of the onlookers.

Alucarda isn’t there, so they brilliantly conclude that she must be back at the monastery. Upon arrival at the monastery, they discover Alucarda and Daniela wreaking hellish havoc and the building is burning. It is so laughable. Alucarda merely has to look at a nun or monk and say "Beelzebub" and they instantly catch on fire. I’m sure the cheesecloth doesn’t help the situation.

The best scene in Alucarda is when, for whatever reason, Daniela falls down a stairwell in extreme slow motion. I’m not saying the film was in slow motion, rather that Daniela was very slowly and carefully rolling down the steps. Nice acting. Now, here’s the thing. The scenes with Alucarda catching the religious freaks on fire take place in the main hall of the monastery, which is where the front door is. Meanwhile there are like thirty nuns and monks running around in circles to avoid being caught on fire. Here’s a tip: walk out the fucking door next time, fucksticks.

Back to the story, everyone follows my advice and eventually ends up outside. Including Alucarda. This is the climax of the film. You can see it coming from a million miles away. But wait - will the heroes simply throw Alucarda back into the burning building to die? Or will they hold her down and stab her instead? Neither. They all lift an injured nun while she holds out her arms in the shape of a cross. Since the sight is so appalling to Alucarda, she decides to go back inside the building to burn to death. Solid decision-making on all sides there.

FEAR ON FILM fans know I like to leave the best for last. So here it is.

1. In the film's first great scene, the two main sluts were sitting in their room when they heard the Satanic hissing. Next thing you know, Quasimodo is there and the girls are naked and in a trance - just how I like my women. Groundskeeper Quasimodo Willie takes out a knife, babbles a bunch of shit and then cuts the two chicks’ tits. To top it off, he feeds their blood to each other.

2. After they "wake up" from that scene, they naturally start to kiss and lick nip. Now that’s what I’m fucking talking about.

3. At the beginning of the film, when the two coozes meet, Alucarda says she wants to show Justine “something” (hell yeah), but it just turns out to be a bag of garbage. Alucarda shows a piece of trash to Justine and says "this means I like you." Thanks a lot, you dumb cunt.

4. When the twin-twats go back to the gypsy camp for the "Satanic orgy," Cher-slut is there too, and so is a guy with a big goat mask. After dancing around naked, everyone ends up fucking each other. But the camera just shows a bunch of tangled-up feet and arms.

Overall, Alucarda isn’t a bad film. It does have some nice imagery and a what could be considered a unique approach to cinematography. I give it 3 out of 5 cadavers on meat hooks. It would have been 2 out of 5 but the nip-licking and naked bitches sleeping in blood-filled coffins raised the score.

MOTEL HELL (1980)
Directed by Kevin Connor

There's nothing like a film with people being planted in the ground and their meat being sold to unsuspecting neighbors. Ed Gein could have written this screenplay for all I know, but I don't think he ever actually planted anyone in the fucking ground. I don't even know what that's about.

Motel Hell is the story of Farmer Vincent Smith, who looks like Mr. Rogers crossed with Mr. Green Jeans, and his sister Ida, played by Nancy Parsons. You may remember her as the girls' gym teacher from the Porky's movies. Together they run a motel called...Motel Hello. Motel Hello? Who the fuck would name their motel that? You can already see where this is headed, I'm sure. You know, the "O" on the neon sign isn't working properly so it says "Motel Hell." Whatever. I'd better stop rambling or this review will be over before it's started.

Vincent and Ida run their little motel in addition to raising hogs and chickens. They also sell smoked meat, of all things. There's even a billboard that advertises the fact that the motel sells meat. I am fucking sorry, but I would personally rather sleep naked, covered with molasses, in a rat-infested ditch before I'd go to a place like that. That would be like inviting Ron Jeremy over for dinner and serving bratwurst. I know that doesn't make any sense, but I had to refer to Ron Jeremy somehow.

Farmer Fuckwad and his fat pig sister set traps in the road to disable vehicles at night so drivers will have to stay at the motel. The only problem is, it rarely happens that way. Most of the time when Farmer Vince gets the cars to wreck, he just gives them some kind of gas to knock them out for a while, and he then takes them to his "secret garden."

This "secret garden" is where he and Miss Piggy plant the people in the ground up to their necks. The fat cooze cuts the vocal cords (?) with a scalpel and then they put burlap bags over the victim's heads. The funny thing is, these two cannibal retards come back every now and then and lift up one of the burlap bags to feed them and sometimes say shit like "Well, this here one's about ready." Ready for what? Why would you need to plant them in the first place? To fatten them up? If that were the case, how would you know how fat they are when they are buried in the fucking ground?! Again, whatever. Draw your own conclusions. I'm over it.

Anyhoo, while these mental midgets are at work down on the farm, the sub-plot begins to develop. You like that? "The sub-plot." I like it too, except to have a sub-plot, you must first have what is known in the business as a "regular plot." Or, give me just a plot. Or, fuck it, give me a "piece-of-shit-non-existent-plot." Which takes me back to the movie.

Farmer Vince wrecks a motorcycle with a dude and a cooze on it. He gasses the dude and then, when he sees the lovely young twat, he falls deeply in... Oh fuck that shit. He takes said ho-bag back to the motel and plans to keep her or something. He doesn't really say, he just kind of lets her live for some reason. Don't ask me. It's confusing.

So Farmer Vince's brother, the sheriff (give me a fucking break) conveniently comes to visit and sees the young girl and falls immediately in love... God fucking dammit! Why do they insist on having these bullshit romances in the middle of a movie about cannibalism? Did you just read what I wrote? Yes, a love story in a stupid fucking horror film. Whew, that just about wore me out.

Moving on, Farmer Fuckface and sheriff Fuckstick have the hots for the same hole. The problem is, Vincent wants to "teach her the business of smoking meat" (I'll bet he does) and the sheriff doesn't know that his brother is a cannibal. Needless to say, the dumb cooze doesn't know about the cannibal thing either, but she will soon find out. Insert malicious sounding laughter.

Let's wrap this piece of shit up, shall we? Farmer Vincent and Ida's business comes to a close when the friendly folks who are buried in the "secret garden" decide to stand up and climb out of their holes - why they didn't do that earlier is way beyond me - and attack fat Ida when she least expects it. Meanwhile, in the smoke house (you know what goes on in there), Farmer Vince plans to kill the young slut and sell her meat. But wait. At the last minute, Sheriff Dumbass comes in to save the day. The two brothers duke it out for like fifteen minutes with a couple of twelve-inch chainsaws (?), until, finally, Farmer Vincent gets killed and finally, the sheriff and his newfound love can make a new life for... There it is again! That love thing showing up in a scary movie. I'm the first to admit that love can most definitely be like a horror film, but you don't see Jason fucking Voorhees coming out of the ocean during Beaches, do you? Or does Michael Myers kill motherfuckers onboard the Titanic? No. Because Beaches and Titanic are chick flicks, and bitches all over the world would shit out a bird if that happened in one of their movies.

But when it comes to horror films, for whatever reason, there has to be a love story. Look, it's bad enough when the horror genre doesn't give us enough titty and bush, now we have to suffer through all this love bullshit.

There are some weird, unexplained moments in Motel Hell. You want examples? Alright, fucker:

1. In the "secret garden," Farmer Vincent has a wooden box with an 8-track in it. When he goes into the garden, he turns it on and the sound of nature comes out - mixed with the sound of tractors.

2. Two sex maniacs show up because they see an ad for the motel in a swingers magazine. They think Vincent and Ida are into the whole “swapping” thing. After the two sexoholics are in their room, the female sexaholic whips out a whip (pardon the pun) and starts breaking shit with it. The funny thing is, the sound of the whip isn't synchronized with the motion of her cracking it. Okay, that's not that weird or unexplained. But it is fucked up.

3. Wolfman Jack - Hahahahah! Wolfman Jack!! - plays a preacher who confiscates a porn mag from the sheriff. No bullshit, that's all he does.

I am going to have to give Motel Hell 1 3/4 souls burning in hell out of 5. You can tell they’re trying to make light of films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Last House on the Left, but it misses the target more often than not. Probably the most memorable thing from the movie is its tag line: "It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent fritters." Hell yeah.




Mouthy Magazine home