Messenger of Death

Messenger of Death

United States - 1988

Director J. Lee Thompson

Media Home Entertainment, 1990, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 32 minutes

Future Tense

 

Future Tense

United States - 1991

Director - Fred Carpenter

 Mars Hill Productions, 1991, VHS

Run Time - 30 minutes

I realize that its the sort of thing that lots of people can relate to, but I'm not sure that comparing the Rapture to missing or catching an airline flight is really a good idea. I mean, I don't think I know anybody who likes to fly, and it suggests that being a Christian might just be like waiting in the concourse your whole life. Such terrible food, and the booze is way overpriced.

Apocalypse

Apocalypse

Canada - 1998

Director - Peter Gerretsen

PPI Films, 1998, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 34 Minutes

Harking back to the fine Evangelical video prostheltization of films like my personal favorite, Years of the Beast, Apocalypse offers up Canadian flavored Tribulation. This early entry in the episodic Christploitation empire slowly accumulating like spent shell-casing around the feet of French-Canadian producer Peter Lalonde "deserves capital punishment" according to one reviewer. Later films started accumulating washed-up (read "born-again") stars like plaque, but Apocalypse features awesomely named lead character "Bronson Pearl" easily making it the "must see Christian movie of the nineties!"

Marjoe

Marjoe

United States – 1971

 Director – Sarah Kernochan and Howard Smith

RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, 1983, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 25 minutes

The first impression one gets while watching Marjoe – the man, not the movie- is that you’re being conned. Marjoe the film is about the man of the same name, Marjoe Gortner, whom I was introduced to, as I suspect most people within ten or so years on either side of 30 who watch movies were, by way of Starcrash. He was in a few other choice exploitation films of the late 70’s, but the Luigi Cozzi Star Wars rip off is probably his greatest work (and Cozzi’s.) Before he entered low budget cinema however, Gortner was a Pentacostal revival preacher from the age of four.

The difficulty, if it can be called that, for it is something more akin to suspicion and contagion, is in deciphering which of Gortner’s personalities is real; the speaking in tounges version, or the turned on tie-dye version, for each seems equally genuine. True, it’s unlikely that many of us has been to a revival the likes of those seen in Marjoe, but they bear a striking resemblance to the stories, and if the conviction and feeling of the attendees is anything to go on, Gortner is both effective and affective. Gortner is as convincing in his spasmic and gesticulating Haleilujah’s as he is counting the cash afterwards and explaining the intricacies of the faith healing scam to the documentary crew. Therein lies what I suspect is the convincing factor for so many fans of Marjoe (The Academy deemed it Best Documentary, 1972); its protagonists bizarre lack of duality. There is no difference outside context.

Gortner is not at one time a preacher and at another a hippie, but at all times Marjoe. To me this is what reveals the great lie in religion, for the pious man, the mouthpiece of God, the very conduit of the Holy Spirit (and thus the source of experiential faith) is merely a skilled and practiced (and it appears, weary) man at a job. He preaches because he knows how and it is lucrative, called to it as much as a plumber is “called” to fit pipe. The devout need him to confirm their faith in God as much as his long-haired pals need him to confirm their belief that it’s a sham. And of course, Gortner needs Marjoe in order to prove that he has a moral soul. It is fortunate for us, and I assume for Gortner that he can see and point to the difference between truth and fiction. It’s even more so to those like myself who are unbelievers, that Marjoe (the man and the movie) doesn’t clearly distinguish between the two because to do otherwise would be to rely on a common, but false dichotomy. Whether or not religion or science can be empirically proven is, for most of us, irrelevant. Each exists primarily to affirm through varying methods, our desires rather than any objective reality.

 We're gonna save this here pup, show him the kingdom of the almighty and bring him to Jesus!

Image 2 from MOMA
Image 3 from Jarrett's Blog
Image 4 from Awkwardboyhero

Christ Returns!

Christ Returns!

United States - 

Director - 

Van Impe Video, 1998, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 20 minutes

Set Free

Set Free 

United States – 1976

Director –

Omega Entertainment, 1986, VHS

Run Time – 42 minutes

I simultaneously love and cringe at the cruel and irony in that title; Set Free. It’s as if every secular stereotype about Christianity and its professed morality was simply embraced as an obvious necessity. Of course, the title is meant to refer to the spiritual freedom supposedly discovered by the men it depicts; born again convicts, some of them on death row, in San Quentin Maximum Security State Prison in 1976. They are hardly “free” in any sense that you and I might tangibly comprehend of course. But, through a belief in Christ and their own subsequent re-birth, they have ostensibly become “spiritually free.”

Boy, he sure looks like he feels "free"

The veracity of this claim of “freedom” rests of course on the Christian assumption that morality comes through God and his religion, that morality is received by imperfect men, from God. If morality is externalized, or not of men, it becomes normal, even expected for men to commit immoral acts. This is an awfully convenient claim because it means that a person doesn’t have to live the morality, only the practice, the ritual, the rites of religion. This is because, while certainly admirable, morality isn’t necessary to the practice of the Christian faith, it’s just a side benefit. Would anyone argue that moral behavior is invalid when practiced outside a religious context? No, but by Christianity’s standards, an immoral person can, through piety and ritual remain a good Christian, while a moral person who is not “saved” (or converted) is surely going to Hell.

'Powered by Christ'

And this gives us some idea why it’s easy, or inspiring for death-row inmates to find “freedom” in a Christian re-birth. They are Set Free from responsibility for their past behaviors by the ritual of Christianity; which is principally testifying and prosthelytizing, of which constitutes the entire forty-two minutes of this film. A number of the converts admit of this freely, asserting that they “couldn’t do it, only Jesus could do it” for them, and that he “gave them a new brain.”

Of course, these inmate’s failures to observe social duties, moral obligations which are general and well known, is what led to their paying the social price for their crimes. This of course is the cruel irony of the title to which I was referring. These inmates are in no sense of the word “free.” Their feelings of guilt (however subconscious they may be) has led them to a double incarceration. In the physical sense of course there can be no question, but in coping with the reality of their circumstances they have been led to a doctrine which asserts strict rules, yet in no way prevents them from returning (either to the behavior or the prison to which it led them.) That is because, as many believers have forgotten, spiritual enlightenment still does not free us from our moral duties to ourselves and others.

Ellen Burstyn

While dawdling over an Umberto Lenzi war flick at IMDB last night I noticed in their Born Today section that Pearl Harbor Day is also the birthday of actress Ellen Burstyn, not only a talented but also beautiful actress who's been in a number of great genre films. She strikes me as one of those actresses/actors who you never realize how good they are until you take the time to do a little research and find out that they were crucial to some of your favorite films.



I'm not a particularly big fan of occult or religious horror, but I do like The Exorcist (1973). You'd have to try pretty damn hard not to. Ellen plays Regan's mother Chris with an alarmingly natural mix of hysteria and calm, some of which came from a spinal injury she received on set and which remained in the film. Along with star Linda Blair, Ellen very nearly wasn't in this film at all. The Exorcist may be her best known genre film, but she has another 119 titles to her credit at IMDB.
Also check out the Exorcist Soundtrack at Illogical Contraption.


Just a couple of years earlier Ellen had a supporting role (one of her first outside TV) in the low budget car crashing exploitation flick Pit Stop (1969). This is one of the only racing movies I like, but that's not surprising, it's old and it was directed by Jack Hill, a protege of Roger Corman who basically wrote and/or directed an unending string of classic exploitation films like Spider Baby, Switchblade Sisters and Coffy to name just a few. It also stars exploitation powerhouse Sid Haig who some may know better or more recently as Captain Spaulding.


And finally, this is the movie that put the name to the face of Ellen Burstyn for me, Darren Aronofsky's 2000 masterpiece of drug horror Requiem For A Dream. I think it's safe to say that it changed everyone's perception of just about every actor who was in it, Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans (especially), Jennifer Connely, Keith David etc.... I know I feel more than a little bit soiled after every time I watch it. Ellen Burstyn plays Leto's lonely older mother, a woman hounded by memories of a sad and unfulfilling life. Her portrayal of a diet-pill addict earned her an Oscar nomination (her 6th), but she also won numerous awards for her awesome portrayal of Sarah Goldfarb.
I shudder just thinking about it as I write this, and agree with my own mother's assessment of this film; "They should get rid of the DARE Program and just show this movie to schoolkids."

There ya go, if ya haven't seen 'em do it if for no other reason than to see Ellen at work or to get your gross on. Since I've only seen a couple of her other roles I'll get to work seeing some of those.

Bells of Innocence

I had to buy all of these Norris movies when I was journeying through The Many Circles of Norris Hell, but I've since disposed of most of them so I got this cover image from Amazon.

Bells of Innocence

2003 – United States

Director – Ali Bijan

Good Times Video, DVD, 2004

Run time – 1 hour, 50 minutes

Two members of a Texas church, Oren and Conrad are headed to Mexico with a planeload of bibles for the peasants. "They couldn't ask for a better gift" one guy says. I'm thinking that they probably could ask you to keep your misguided gringo imperialism to yourself, or at the very least to deliver bibles in Spanish. Anyway, Oren and Conrad are joined by a third, troubled quasi-suicidal alcoholic, Jux (Mike Norris, yes, the offspring) who, after a bender the night before, is their acting "pilot".

On the way to Mexico they are forced to land in a field. A field surrounded by infinite sand dunes up every one of which Oren whines his big fat mouth. Just as I am about to press eject, they stumble upon a small prop "old west" town inhabited by stiff awkward extras (read members of the church that funded this movie). The town is evil, the mayor is even a minor demon or something, all this obviated by the fact that there is no municipal or economic infrastructure to speak of. God bless commerce, and the people walking back and forth across screen repeatedly clearly aren’t doing business, or anything else.

But, our three intrepid heroes are stuck there, so mongoloid Oren staggers around town, loud fat and cringingly friendly. Jux fawns over a little girl who reminds him of his deceased daughter. Conrad, I don't know what that loony fucker is up to, I think he's trying to seem smart and really "together," like the moral anchor to Oren’s charisma ball & chain. The town invites the three amigos to a harvest festival (read “Halloween is evil”) where they are given boozy tropical punch, and the children start playing satanic chanting games. Clearly, you’re either with us or you’re openly worshipping the devil in the streets.

Our three "faith based" heroes escape the demonic rituals to the home of Michael; Michael the archangel; Michael the Archangel played by stringy old homeless Chuck Norris. With the help of some banal faithy hard-rock theme music Michael mumbles something about the three of them being sent to Ceres to save it.

There is a stereotype of crass American tourists in which, unwilling to learn even some of the most basic local language, they yell English in people’s faces. The less the natives understand the slower and louder the Americans yell. Evangelists have embraced this principle because redeeming Satanists requires a similar narcissistic arrogance. The eviler folks are the louder and simpler you need to yell about the love of Jesus to make any progress. Actually, I hear that all foreigners are evil, so it follows.

Kazablan

Kazablan

Israel - 1974

Director- Menahem Golan

Cannon Films, 1990, VHS

Run Time - 2 Hours, 3 min.

Holy shit, this is really quite unbelievable. It’s an Israeli musical! The credit sequence itself is full of alternating shots of an old fisherman telling the sorrowful tale of the Jews and the little town of Jaffa, and shots of a gang of young men in 70’s couture dancing in the streets and raising a ruckus. Casablan is a Moroccan Jew from Casablanca (really?) whose real name is Joseph Shiman-Tov, has a thing for Rachel, the beautiful young daughter of a Polish Jew family. Although they all live in the same slummy part of Jaffa, Rachel’s parents disapprove of the carousing Casa and his friends and their penchant for tight bell-bottoms. Now come the songs.
· Casa sings a song about self-respect.
· All the Jews of Jaffa sing a song about the diversity of Jewish culture.
Casa confronts Rachel’s parents and demands that Rachel come out of the house and bid him good morning. Reluctantly she acquiesces.
· Casa sings about home and unrequited love.

Soon, the government authority shows up in the slums of Jaffa to inform the residents of their intent to raze the condemned and apparently unlivable homes. The neighborhood gets together and has a big vote on what to do about it, deciding to pool their income and fix the ‘hood up.
· Ensemble song about voting and the beauty of the democratic process.
Casa comes across Rachel at the store of the lascivious local shoe salesman and saves her from the salesman’s impertinent advances. Casa tells his friends who have been constantly follow him around like a pack of dancing hippie vultures to beat it, and he walks Rachel home alone.
· Casa’s pals sing about having fun and ogling girls.
After leaving Rachel at her home, Casa is accosted and beaten by the shoe salesman’s hired muscle.
· Song about how Jaffa is really great because even though the hood aint pretty, it is in a Jewish gangsta’s blood.
At the local bar, Rosa’s, Casa and his pals commiserate.
· Song about how much they love Rosa and her bar.
Rachel, who actually really does like Casa, invites him over for lunch with her parents. He reluctantly goes, and has an unfortunate experience with gefilte fish because that’s a funny joke for Ashkenazi Jews to play on all the other Jews. Afterwards, Rachel and Casa take a day trip to Jerusalem where they visit all the hopping tourist destinations. Meanwhile, the shoe salesman pays a visit to Rachel’s pops to try and get him to consent to their marriage, but Rachel’s father denies him. Somewhere during the course of the days visits to Rachel’s household, the community moneybox, which is in her fathers care, disappears. Of course, everyone suspects Casa, not because he’s brown no, but because he sings and dances in the street with a pack of , uh well, singing dancing hoods. For this crime he is arrested.
· Rachel’s love song about Casa in jail.
Casa’s old army buddy, now working as chief of police gets him out of the clink simply on the basis of their previous friendship. Showered with racism from his fellow Jews, Casa seeks the same hypocritical retribution that his tormentors have visited upon him for their own previous sufferings, and hey, that’s considered a happy ending in the Promised Land. Which brings us to the final soaring tune;
· A song about making peace with yourself.

This is a bizarre and dated spinoff of Shakespeare via West Side Story via Zionistic Judaism and opens a brief window into a different cultural era. Entertaining enough and highly amusing for a completely detached young American to watch 32 years after the fact particularly considering the subsequent legacy of director Golan who went on to found Cannon Films with Yoram Globus and produce some of the finest American schlock ever to grace the screen. Here the aspiring Golan reveals some of his future sleazegrinder with various scenes of funky disco beats and gratuitous shots of girls asses and crotches and naked men running about. And of course what Israeli romantic-musical-comedy would be complete without a bris?

Parenting Today

Parenting Today - The Preschooler: 3 to 5 Years
United States - 1993
Director – Craig Chapman
Aid Association For Lutherans, 1993, VHS
Run Time – 40 minutes

Produced by the Aid Association for Lutherans, Shelacked hive queen Michael Learned (The Waltons) hosts this undiluted divinely inspired informational/instructional video, giving a touchy feely absolute word-of-god spin to the practice of effective indoctrination of Preschoolers. Professing to have an insight into the unique epistemology of Preschooler culture, a panel of so-called Experts chosen for their unnatural appearance divulges the secrets of successful psychological manipulation and indoctrination. Their research is backed up by the testimony of numerous semi articulate Parents chosen for their rigid hair and subdued intellect.

The Experts make the assumption that their own system of institutions is the only morally “right” system, dismissing the validity of Preschooler epistemology as primitive compared to their own. Thus they offer rhetorical justifications for imposing them upon the uncivilized Preschoolers. A blinking pale toad-woman uses Parent generated language of acceptance to classify the average Preschooler into an established taxonomy of correct vs. “misbehavior”, portraying the Preschooler as a sociopathic liar in order to justify the imposition of the Parents moral institutions.


Learned summarizes the three classic methods of colonizing Preschoolers as provided by Experts Abraham Lincoln and Toad Woman, and the likely outcomes of each. Each of these techniques is demonstrated by a female Parent and a sufficiently compliant Preschooler aping the role of “typical” Preschooler.1

Permissive – Choices without limits: in this vignette, the Parent attempts to coerce the Preschooler into donning typical Parent clothing. When the Preschooler opts instead for traditional Preschooler garb, the Expert digresses and allows the subject to wear traditional clothing. This type of tolerance often leads to a lack of discipline and inability to make difficult (but ultimately correct) choices in the Preschooler.

Autocratic – Limits without choices: in this version, the Parent again attempts to coerce the Preschooler into wearing Parent attire rather than Preschooler attire. In this case the Preschoolers poor choice is met with harsh rebuke and the Parents desired outcome is harshly imposed. Discipline of this sort can later lead to the Preschoolers dependence on the Parent to make choices on the Preschoolers behalf.

Authoritarian – Choices with limits: Clearly this is the preferred method of imposing Parent culture on the primitive Preschooler. Authoritarianism invokes the best aspects of both preceding techniques. The Authoritarian Parent gives Preschoolers a choice of several actions and explains the consequences of each. However, the choices alluded to are subtly designed to conceal the fact that the only acceptable outcome is that desired by the Parent. In effect they are false-choices which cleverly manipulate the Preschoolers ability to rely on her own self-generated knowledge.


This is the ultimate form of coercion because it leads the Preschooler to “choose” Parent culture without realizing she has invalidated her own indigenous Preschooler culture. The Preschooler subliminally learns that all things Preschooler are inherently inferior, and were she to attempt to return to traditional Preschooler ways she would feel at the very least disgusted and shamed. In effect this method teaches the Preschooler that Parents are better simply because they are Parents and Preschoolers are not Parents therefore they can never be as good. The Preschooler can then spend the rest of her life hating herself and striving mightily to deny her inferior condition.


1. The Preschooler in this case appeared to be merely reciting lines that were supplied ahead of time, and lacked the genuine inflection that would indicate emotional involvement in the process. Furthermore the Preschooler was wearing a look of barely restrained boredom which leads us to believe that she was coerced into participation, most likely with candy, a favorite tool of Parents trying to undermine the traditional values of Preschoolers.

The Abomination

Cover image from Amazon. Since I never saw the cover I assume this is what you'd find on the market if you could get this video at a reasonable price.

The Abomination

United States - 1986

Director – Bret McCormick (as Max Raven)

Donna Michelle, 1988, VHS

Run time – 1 hour, 40 min.

There are sadly a great number of philistines out there who like to cast aspersion on this film, fortunately you and I are smarter and more attractive than all of those throwbacks, and we know better. Our friends at Metal Thai (Thailand’s first and greatest webzine for Metalheads!”) captured this movie in one sentence; “When the carnivorous creature grew inside the Cody's body, he became to the brutal guy who killed the people to feed the monster!” I doubt I can improve much on that description, but I’ll try and flesh out the details a bit here…
Opening with a ten-minute montage recap of every good splatter scene in the whole movie The Abomination wears its eviscerated heart on its sleeve. (Plus that means you get to watch them twice!)

Cody is an average 20-something Texan boy, working as a car mechanic and living at home with his chain smoking evangelical mother. TV evangelist Brother Fogg has convinced her that the tumor in her lung is an infestation of evil. One night she hacks and spits up a big pulsing bloody lump that she tosses in the trash, but it slithers into Cody’s room and into his mouth while he’s sleeping. Soon Cody is also hacking up bloody throbbing nuggets, all of which compel him telepathically to provide meat food in large and expanding quantities.

Bye, bye Mommy, say hi to Jesus for me.

Grown huge feasting on the devil’s work, The Abomination quickly infests Cody’s house filling any enclosure suited for the awesome practical puppet effects used to create the flesh hungry gore-beast. Wet leathery tentacles bursting from every drawer it feeds on anything that comes too close, dragging it into a gullet big enough for an entire human body to be sucked up and go slipping down its toothy throat screaming and thrashing the whole way. The cozy split-level soon becomes a charnel house where Cody grins sardonically as his mother and girlfriend are each dismembered and eaten. He pitchforks buckets of viscera into the snapping meat holes that strain the joints of every blood caked cabinet. This is truly become the demon seed of evangelism, the flesh eating offspring of idiot faith.

The Abomination is a gut-churning experience in homemade extreme gorror at its finest. Even though it suffers from the usual super-indie problem of generally lousy production, every minute of The Abomination is worth watching simply for the unsettling audacity of meat eating god monsters. Think Bad Taste meets a gospel Deadly Spawn in Texas and you have some idea of what this baby is like.

Sadly, The Abomination is an impossible to find VHS only gem. Thankfully I live quite close to Scarecrow Video, and although I refuse to enter the place because I don’t think I could control myself, my friend Daniel is kind enough to bring these things over to my screening room now and again…

I found the Metal Thai website thanks to an image search that turned up the gorgeous UK VHS cover above, and a bunch of other great images from The Abomination.

Dark Tower

Dark Tower

United States - 1987

Director- Ken Barnett

Video Treasures, 1994, VHS

Run time - 1 hour, 31 min.

I personally believe that it is a bad idea to try and push anything other than the plot of the film at hand on the box itself. The obvious deduction when you see a video sleeve with claims like “in the tradition of…” is to think the film can’t stand on its own merit. When it’s an indie movie, like Dark Tower, it might also be a bad move to call out all the actors and their previous roles, in a bulleted list no less, to try and generate interest in the film. In short, any attempt to play up the quality of a film by invoking other films is a bad idea. But, for all I know, that was the only thing the marketing team though they had going for them.

Carolyn Page (Jenny Agutter) gives a bunch of fellows a tour of a skyscraper under construction and then retires to her office to undress and walk around in some underwear. A window washer catching an eyeful cranes his neck to get a better look but when she sees him he suddenly starts getting jerked around by an unseen force, his head bashed against the window and finally hurled over the side of his pulley falling like a giant bird poo to splatter on top of one of the guys who was just getting the tour. This says less I think about the fall, than the woman’s full closet nightie setup in her office, in an otherwise totally unfinished building.

Dennis Randall (Michael Moriarty, The Stuff, Hanoi Hilton) is called in as a head of security or something, to give the film a procedural feel and sporadically squeeze out his lines with a manic yell. Randall also has numerous waking psychic episodes in which he visualizes himself raping Carolyn while some guy in a shabby suit watches. He also appears to be sleeping with her while he has these visions, but the films producers deemed this paradox beneath clarification. That evening a security guard is menaced by a malfunctioning fluorescent light fixture and some spooky music. The whole thing is like a primitive god concept, in which a little understood phenomenon, mechanical failure in this case, is explained by the irrational invention of a supernatural controlling force. Hence the evil elevator, which drops at terminal velocity to splatter the security guard, but remains functional for the rest of the film to perform the same trick ad nauseum with the same boring static shot. Nobody calls a repairman, it’s just taken for granted that it's an evil spirit.

Instead, Randall hires a "French" paranormal-psychologist to bring still more verbal diarrhea to this buffet of talent. The shrink, Kevin McCarthy (My Tutor and Innerspace among other gems) gets drunk and tells everyone they are stupid. Advice for the ages to be sure, but perhaps better received prior to signing a contract to be in this film. In any case all three of the boys team up to tackle the building's poltergeist, dragging a snarky Carolyn along for laughs. Soon confronted by some wind and noises, everyone becomes overwhelmed by the awesome vapidity of the film. Randall becomes possessed by said spirit, apparently Carolyn’s dead husband, and barks out the whole back-story like a steaming hairball into Carolyn’s lap. Inexplicably he becomes a cheap rubber zombie and chases Carolyn around the building, grabs her and magically re-seals them both back into the broken concrete piling of the buildings foundation before reappearing moments later as Moriarty, apparently at peace with the whole ridiculous poltergeist-zombie-transmogrification thing. Well, that’s faith for you. Amen.




IMDB claims that this was directed by Freddie Francis who was later replaced by Ken Wiederhorn (Return of the Living Dead II, Shockwaves), the former seems ridiculous because he's a multiple Oscar winner, but the second sounds more feasible simply because this is his caliber of film

Commander Kellie and The Superkids: The Intruder

Commander Kellie & The Superkids: The Intruder
United States - 1992
Director – Stephen Yake
Heirborne Video, 1992, VHS
Run time - 30 minutes

Commander Kellie and the Superkids is a bit like an episode of the Twilight Zone not just because of the crude special effects that illustrate obviously impractical science-fiction, but also because it warps and simplifies reality, in this case into an impressively stark good and evil world painted with ham handed strokes by optimistic Christian ideologues.

Case in point: The Superkids are creeping through some guys house from one closet to another while he sleeps. In the second closet, on the other side of the room, the kids come across a shimmering portal called a “Super Translator” that they all happily march into, the last of them pushing a big floor polisher. So as far as I know at this point, they’re just stealing big-ticket janitorial appliances. The sleeping guy awakens and unperturbed by the closet vortex, follows them in. Right behind him is a guy in a black “NME” uniform who is apparently tracking the kids on behalf of his sinister leader (who looks like his grampa, a friendly toy’s-for-tots biker who plays Santa Claus at the mall during Christmas)
Just to clarify, NME is the top “secret” acronym which stands for “Notoriously Malicious Entertainment” an evil media corporation whose malice is so “notorious” that they keep it “secret” by publicly airing violent TV shows featuring their foot soldiers holding guns to children’s heads while other children wail on Casio keyboards.

The superkids themselves are a mix of middle American white children, with the exception of one minority Alex, unless you consider robots a marginalized population, and after watching this you might. Since it would be to obviously racist to make the black kid the rapper, the producers went for a Steve Urkel clone instead, and unwittingly reinforced the juvenile reactionary racism of cultural "slumming" by making Rapper a confused white-boy.

When they arrive back at what I guess is their base, the kids report to, yes, Commander Kellie, a smokin’ hot southern belle who promptly leads them in song and dance. If ever there was a reason to simplistically rail against evil, the Superkid Acedemy theme is it. In the background poor Techno, cursed at birth with only three small wheels and a boxy unarticulated body, is left to his own devices and spins forlornly just slightly onscreen. No ramp has been installed on the stairs down to the dancefloor, and so only three small steps (so small they are, but like cliffs of injustice!) prevent Techno from rotating along with the kids (who also, cruel fate of organics, get to enjoy the warm supple embrace of Commander Kellie herself.)

The sleeping guy, ostensibly the “Intruder” of the title, pops up after the dance and turns out to be Carman who relates his story of woe when (based on the level of calamity related, I assumed that it must have been) Satan himself took a personal interest in destroying his life. Shocked out of their catatonic awe from meeting such a mercurial celeb and hearing the tale of his fate, the kids break out an inspiring song to lift Carman’s (downtrodden by the devil) spirits. Some clue as to why the antichrist may have made a point of persecuting him is revealed as Carman leans back in his seat, eyes narrowed and nods hungrily at the gyrating children. Oh yummy.


After their song, Carman performs one of his own derivative tunes about faith etc. while guitar-excluding close up shots of him rocking out give the appearance of furious, skin-tearing masturbation while the kids (along with the sudden unexplained bolstering of their number, though still almost exclusively white) clap along. Techno meanwhile is positioned behind all the skin bags, almost out of sight where, cursed with cold hinged metal claws, he can only sadly clank them together in a repetitive pinching motion, depressingly out of time with Carman’s, uh… performance.

After such an inspiring climax, the surplus children are zapped back into ozone, and all that remains is for someone to be saved. The Notoriously Malicious dope who followed Carman through the Super Translator pops up with a blaster while Commander Kellie is alone in the engine room. Shielding herself from the blast of his weapon with a glimmering blue “faith shield” she uses “The Manual” and a bitter tough-love sermon to convince NME tool to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior.

As the kids and Kellie bid farewell to a visibly sweaty and spent Carman, Techno stands motionless amid the chirping preteen crowd considering why such a benevolent god would forsake a lonely robot, and if it’s physically possible to tie a noose with barely articulated iron pincers.


Bonus Program! (AKA shameless advertisement):
Following the 30 minute feature is an extended plug for Carman’s christian evangelism video series Time 2 Club Video in which various faith experts make factual arguments for god, christian musicians rock out and general video prosthelytization occurs. Decked out in a retina assaulting uranium sweater, Carman encourages us to subscribe to his monthly video club which will be “not just fun, nah”, it will be “a straight up blast”. Based on what I’ve just seen him do in front of those kids, I now know exactly what he means by that.

Visit Kellie’s parents ministry online, and apparently all throughout the world as their traveling Christ Circus seems to be perpetually preaching unsophisticated and polarized morality towards the brown people they deign to include in their video propaganda.

R.I.P.
Techno
1990 - 1992