DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
"The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 80."—newspaper ad for Suspiria. Don't believe it. The last 12 minutes of this flick features the crucifixion of a young woman and the brutal knife slashing of a very old woman that makes the shower scene in Psycho look like a commercial for personal sized Ivory.
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DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
Double Feature!
Edouard Dauphin
"The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 80."—newspaper ad for Suspiria.
Don't believe it. The last 12 minutes of this flick features the crucifixion of a young woman and the brutal knife slashing of a very old woman that makes the shower scene in Psycho look like a commercial for personal sized Ivory.
Because Suspiria means to be horrible and succeeds in a theatreclearing way. When this gore-athon hit the Times Square houses, people were exiting the premises before the first reel was over. And why.not? Who wants an opening segment showing an • innocent ballerina getting dragged through broken glass, then strung up in bloody close-up from a chandelier?
I do, that's who! And so do you. Especially since this dumb girl can't even speak English!
Nobody in this picture can speak English. Except Joan Bennett and someone called Jessica Harper, who probablyFiolds the ingenue s world record for rolling her eyeballs.
Bennett plays the leader of a witches' coven devoted to the veneration of a satanic presence from the beginning of the century. Which is perfect, since she herself looks like she's been dead for 50 years.
The action in this chokerama takes place at an ornate ballet school in Munich. But if it's Deutschejetes you're after} forget it. The best footwork in this flick involves your own as you slink out (like the coward you are) to the lobby for some Nonpareils or maybe some Raisinette^. (Hope they go down the wrong way!)
A word about the music in Suspiria. It's by a group called The Goblins; it's loud, it surrounds you, and it's bad.
The Goblins should be submerged in a vat of Progresso olive oil, buried close to the surface at the Roman Coliseum—at which point, another Ben Hur should be made on top of them!
See Suspiria and hold the anchovies. ' ☆ ☆ ☆
Scene: a meeting of high ranking U.S. Defense Dept, officials. They are discussing a portion of the world so barren, so desolate and so rotten no country will claim it. One official raises an eyebrow in surprise.
"Worse than Detroit?"
Scene: the Cruel ..primitive court of a Chinese war lord. Two prisoners are brought before him. The first is ordered beheaded. The warlord commands: "Then have him tortured." The second prisoner, guilty of even more serious crimes, stands there trembling, awaiting his fate. The war lord scowls at* him.
"Send him to Detroit."
Any film that takes this many cheap shots at the Motor City gets my vote. Making smart-ass cracks about Detroit is like kicking a dead man when he's down. Like asking Son of Sam if he'd like to double date and go disco dancing a week from Friday.
The film is The Kentucky Fried Movie and, as the title would indicate, it's junk food all the way. In fact, if Col. Sanders sees this picture, he'll probably pour hot sauce on it and eat it.
Kentucky Fried spoofs television news, sex education, politics, kungfu fighting, advertising, and about 400 other easy targets. Nearly half of the picture consists of a mini-epic entitled A Fistful Of Yen, that would make Bruce Lee whirl in his grave, had the little high-kicking rascal not been cremated, with his ashes sprinkled over the rock journalists on the Kiss Japan junket.
See The Kentucky Fried Movie. You just might find it "finger licking good." But then, that depends pretty much on where your fingers have been.
