Murderlust

Murderlust

United States – 1985

Director – Donald M. Jones

Prism Entertainment, 1987, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 30 minutes

Because I enjoy horror films people often assume that I don’t mind violence and gore in real life, but that’s pretty off the mark. I like splatter and dismemberment performed by zombies and even sometimes people as long as they’re fictional, but the real thing is pretty repulsive to me. Even working in a meatcutting union I have a hard time watching the butchers break the sides of cow. That’s why I’ll never get the “popularity” of serial killers. I can sit through a Giallo or slasher movie fine, but I prefer silly monsters, and  Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer did not appeal to me.

Murderlust seems to have come at a time when things were changing from the fictional to the biographical in the serial killer microgenre. It would have been difficult to get away with too much realism before then, which I suspect is why Henry is considered such a watershed moment. Something happened in 1984-6 that hardened the American psyche, and that sort of callousness wasn’t so shocking anymore.
One of the things that distinguishes the pre-biographical era is its combination of the ridiculous and sinister and Murderlust is no different. In fact it actually has a lot in common with Bill Lustig’s Maniac (1981), and not just in that respect. Intentionally or otherwise, Joe Spinell’s Frank Zito was both a psychotic murderer, natty photography critic and affectionate boyfriend. But he was above all over the top.

In Murderlust Steve Belmont is pretty much the same , but his overarching problems are stupidity and religion. He manages to stain a borrowed necktie before even putting it on but easily forges a masters degree in psychology to land a job as the director of his churches teen crisis center. Steve is fundamentally unsettling but the character is portrayed with a sort of pitiful slovenly loserishness that comes across mildly comedic. The guy is literally beer swilling trailer trash and can’t hold down a job or pay his rent but functions as the church's highly respected Sunday school teacher. This dichotomy captures the irony of horror films for me; Steve does unpleasant things, but otherwise the guy is a bumbling laughable idiot. Even the direction and script treat the subject as a sinister joke, and while I’m not compelled to sympathize, I can’t help but chuckle, and I can appreciate it because of it's hyperbole.

Murderlust is a movie that I bought for the same reason I became obsessed with VHS tapes in the first place: I saw the cover art and had to have it. The artist responsible is Roger Loveless who went on to do young adult mystery book covers and Dungeons and Dragons artwork (right) before turning to religion and “inspirational” artwork as it is called on his website. I can’t find any other movie related art to his credit, and needless to say, the Murderlust cover is not featured on his website. Although disturbing, like the movie itself the cover is rendered too intentionally, in a way that lends it a surreal, posed quality that pretty much makes my point all over again.

Starcrash

Starcrash
1978 – Italy

Director – Luigi Cozzi (as Lewis Coates)

VCI Entertainment, 2007, DVD

Starcrash is an homage, a science-fiction movie nerd film. If I had been able to make a seriously budgeted sci-fi film at 15, I would have done the exact same thing. Luigi Cozzi is not a man of subtlety. He knows what he likes, and he seeks to recreate it. He openly admits to stealing the Aliens concept to make 1980’s Contamination. What better way to extend the ecstasy of the original experience than to do your best to mimic it. Cozzi’s films are, for lack of a better term, cinematic masturbation.

Starcrash may very well be the pinnacle of that form, an amalgam of great moments from the best sci-fi nerd films very poorly redone . Lets begin with an egregious Star Wars rip-off opening. Within the first scene, we meet Marjoe Gortner’s character (the reason I picked this up) and soon, a plethora of other B-list actors and brutally dollar store special effects. First is his sidekick, Stella Star (Caroline Munroe). The two are on the run from the space cops and enter hyperspace to escape, but when they stop to check out an abandoned ship, they are busted and sentenced to hard labor by a goofy brain creature (which screams “directly stolen from another movie”, but I can’t place it). While doing penance in a balloon mine, Stella uses a guards laser gun to escape the barbarian movie set and “board” a model ship where badguys inform her of her clandestine mission with Marjoe…

Somehow, dirty drunk Italians, Stella and her dumb-redneck sidekick Robot-L end up landing a ship on a beach and blundering into a Jason and the Argonauts ripoff with a giant metal-boobed robot titan. Yes, this fucking open theft is such garbage!


Yes, there’s some snowy planet Empire Strikes ripoff, but wait! That movie hasn’t been made yet! Another search of another shipwreck results in Stella and the damned huckster-robot being captured by cave-dwelling dwarves. (insert 2001 rip) Suddenly they are almost rescued by a hideous monster guy in tights who shoots lasers from his makeup caked eyes, David Hasselhoff! What? Hoff screws up and Marjoe must perform the final heroics with his awesome laser-sword thing, damn what a genius concept.

Luckily our heroes have tripped and fallen into the right planet, the Evil Counts HQ basey thing, where he keeps his stop-motion robot-golems. Yes! Finally, a giant incredibly prolonged laser battle, with a few mercifully brief breaks, takes place between the good guys, who make some benevolent plans, and the Count, who does some evil-planning betwixt spaceship launchings. The Count, Zarth Arn, played to the absolute hilt by Joe fucking Spinell cackles a lot, and his evil space base, which is shaped like a giant evil claw, literally curls into a fist and shoots lasers at stuff, and goes down in sparkly space-flames as Zarth Arn and I both chortled our way into glorious idiotic hell.

Watch the Starcrash trailer at CultTrailers.
See some rad promotional art at Satan's Hope Chest.


The John Solie poster that became the video cassette cover.


The publicity shot that became the DVD cover of a different title.

Thai or Indonesian poster I got from somewhere.