Reflections on ... The Deliverance (2024)

 

Recently watched: Netflix’s The Deliverance (2024). Tagline: “Every family has its demons.” 

Directed by the reliably juicy and lurid Lee Daniels (the filmmaker best known for Precious (2009) and The Paperboy (2012)), it begins as a gritty urban drama (complete with Lil’ Kim on the soundtrack) about poverty, abuse, alcoholism, and racism as we watch the troubled African American Jackson family (mother, three kids and grandmother) hoping for a fresh start by moving into a new home in blue collar Pittsburgh. But within no time, it becomes apparent the house is cursed, and The Deliverance shifts tone into berserk, traumatic down-and-dirty horror in the tradition of The Exorcist (1973) or Amityville Horror (1979). (Or more accurately, The Deliverance is like an update or variation of Abby, the 1974 Blaxploitation version of The Exorcist). All the demonic possession horror movie tropes are present and correct: possessed children scuttle up the walls. Characters suddenly adopt growling, guttural voices or speak in tongues or develop stigmata on their hands. A cross on the wall bursts into flame. When someone is sprinkled with holy water, they scream “It burns!” 

Is The Deliverance silly and cliched? Sure, and the reviews have been savage, but if you keep your expectations low it’s also a blast. And the acting is exceptional: Andra Day is ferocious as tough, beleaguered single mom Ebony Jackson, as is Mo’Nique as a no-nonsense social worker. But it’s Glenn Close - gamely sporting wig and make-up choices pitched somewhere between Tammy Faye Bakker and Rachel Dolezal - as flamboyant born again grandmother Alberta (her wildest role since playing J D Vance’s Mamaw in Hillbilly Elegy) who steals the whole thing. Alberta is the kind of part Shelley Winters or Susan Tyrrell once might have played and the way Close attacks it is pure, gleeful hagsploitation. My favourite scene: the three generations of Jackson women (grandmother, mother and granddaughter) braiding each other’s hair while watching 1967 camp classic Valley of the Dolls on TV and reciting the “Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope” dialogue off by heart. But weirdly, for such a cine-literate family, none of them seems to have watched The Exorcist!

Reflections on ... Poor Pretty Eddie (1975)

Recently watched: Poor Pretty Eddie (1975). “Look, I have two weeks before my next concert. Now I’m going to get in my car and drive until I find a nice, quiet hole to crawl into.” When glamorous but exhausted African American show biz diva Liz Wetherly (Leslie Uggams) utters those words, little does she anticipate the horrors this impromptu solo road trip holds in store. In no time, her car has broken down on some godforsaken Southern dirt road in the middle of nowhere. (Poor Pretty Eddie was filmed in Athens, Georgia). Looking for assistance, Liz wanders into a decaying isolated hunting lodge called Bertha’s Oasis. The first person she encounters is handyman Keno (Ted Cassidy – aka Lurch from The Addams Family) just as he’s beheading a chicken with an ax! Further grotesquery awaits: the proprietress Bertha (Shelley Winters) is a former showgirl-turned-sloppy alcoholic harridan who lives with her much-younger studmuffin lover, aspiring Country & Western singer Eddie (Michael Christian). While her car is getting repaired, Liz checks into one of Bertha’s cabins – but will she survive to check out?

Poor Pretty Eddie is a putrid exploitation shocker that lives up to its notorious reputation. It’s a prime exemplar of “hicksploitation”: the subgenre of rural horror movies featuring homicidal rednecks. The hit film Deliverance came out three years earlier and clearly influenced the representation of hillbilly characters here. And the decrepit shanty town locale also anticipates Mortville in John Waters’ punk epic Desperate Living (1977).

The acting is genuinely good. As child-like but dangerously deluded halfwit Eddie, Christian manages to be simultaneously repellent and sexy (it must be said: he fills-out his Vegas-era Elvis fringed outfits nicely). And of course, Winters specialized in portraying blowzy, frowzy slatterns. An aside: for some masochistic reason, I’ve read both volumes of Winters’ wildly self-aggrandizing memoirs. She’s keen to depict herself as the highly-principled uncompromising earth mother of Method Acting – but she never once mentions the multitude of low-budget hagsploitation b-movies she mainly made from the early seventies onward. That would have been so much more interesting!

What the hell was classy mainstream entertainer Uggams thinking when she signed up for this? The only comparable example that comes to mind is Lyle Waggoner appearing in the necrophilia-themed Love Me Deadly (1972). Full credit to Uggams, though: she fully embraces the material. I love the haughty contempt with which Liz contemplates the dumb crackers she’s surrounded with, and she gives great side eye. Interestingly, the role was originally offered to Nichelle Nichols (Uhuru from Star Trek). I bet Nichols felt like she had a lucky escape!

Eddie’s behind-the-scenes story is almost more interesting than what unfolds onscreen. The production company had links to pornography, organized crime and money-laundering. (The executive producer was known as “The Scarface of Porn”). In a laudable attempt to cover all the bases, the film was released under multiple titles for different demographics. For the honky drive-in / grindhouse circuit it was called Poor Pretty Eddie. For African American audiences, it was sold as a blaxploitation movie re-titled Black Vengeance. And there’s supposedly a radically different, much softer-core version entitled Heartbreak Hotel that shifts the emphasis to Eddie and Bertha’s relationship – and has a happy ending!

With its queasy, bad taste emphasis on rape and racism, Eddie has something to offend everyone. It certainly abounds with unpleasant moments. But it feels weirdly relevant today in the era of Black Lives Matter and Trump. Today, the hicks who brutalize Liz would sport MAGA hats, rage against the removal of Confederate flags and be addicted to opioids. Time has not mellowed Poor Pretty Eddie. Approach with caution!

Further reading:

Temple of Schlock's in-depth account of the production of Poor Pretty Eddie.

Funny and perceptive analysis of Poor Pretty Eddie here.

Reflections on ... Disco Godfather (1979)

Recently watched: Disco Godfather (1979). Tagline: “Touch him and you're dust!” I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend Pal is accompanying me only semi-willingly).   

Blaxploitation action movie. Anti-drug cautionary tale. A joyous celebration of disco hedonism featuring rollerskating. Disco Godfather is all this and more! If that’s not enough, Disco Godfather also keeps threatening to turn into a horror movie when we witness the freaky demonic bad trip “visions” of zombified angel dust casualties. When a reverend and some church ladies gather to perform a bedside exorcism to “save the soul” of a female PCP victim, it overtly recalls the earlier blaxploitation Exorcist rip-off Abby (1974). As if to underscore the comparison, Abby’s leading lady (Carol Speed) even appears here in a supporting role!  

Rudy Ray Moore stars as Tucker Williams, an ex-cop turned fiercely glamorous nightclub impresario and superstar DJ known as “Disco Godfather”. When his much-loved nephew – a promising basketball player – is hospitalized after freaking-out on angel dust, Williams vows revenge on the elusive local drug kingpin – and kicks a lot of bad guy ass along the way! (The ultra-fake fight scenes – complete with sprays of spurting blood – are pure comedy gold. Some martial arts are thrown in too for good measure). 

I’m the first to admit I wasn’t previously au fait with charismatic actor, comedian, singer, film producer and all-round Renaissance man Rudy Ray Moore (1927 - 2008) and haven’t yet seen Dolemite Is My Name (the acclaimed 2019 biopic starring Eddie Murphy), but I’m an instant fan. Apparently, Moore’s homosexuality was a tightly guarded secret during his lifetime (and Dolemite is My Name reportedly skips the issue entirely). For me, seen today there is a genuine camp / queer sensibility to Disco Godfather and Moore himself emerges as a regal, flamingly flamboyant African American man in the grand style of Little Richard or Esquerita. In the close-ups he clearly seems to be wearing false eyelashes, and his outrageous sparkly disco attire is designed for maximum nipple exposure!

The climactic final show-down at the abandoned warehouse goes on forever and the constant fighting becomes numbingly repetitive, but anything-goes oddity Disco Godfather has much to recommend it. For aficionados of seventies style, the disco scenes offer a sublime time capsule of superfly fashion and hairstyles. And watch for the dancing white twink extra with the ultra-seventies “bowl” haircut who manages to hog a lot of screen-time in the nightclub sequences doing his signature “robot move”! 

Watch Disco Godfather here:



Note: the good folks at Vinegar Syndrome have issued a deluxe remastered region free Blu-ray and DVD combo pack of Disco Godfather. 

Reflections on ... Abby (1974)

Abby (1974). Taglines: “Abby doesn't need a man anymore... The Devil is her Lover Now!” “The Story of a Woman Possessed!” 

I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend Pal is accompanying me only semi-willingly). Think of this one as The Blackorcist. Dr Garrett Williams (William Marshall, best remembered from Blacula and Scream, Blacula, Scream!) is an esteemed authority on pagan African religions. While working on an archaeological dig in Nigeria, he inadvertently unleashes an evil Yoruba “sex spirit” called Eshu – which promptly possesses the body of his devoutly Christian daughter in law Abby across the globe in Louisville, Kentucky! (The movie doesn’t even attempt to make sense of this, so don’t worry). Williams must rush back to the US to perform an emergency exorcism. Can he save Abby’s soul? 

Aside from Marshall, the biggest name in the virtually all-black cast is African American character actress Juanita Moore (from great fifties Hollywood films like The Girl Can’t Help It and the Douglas Sirk masterpiece Imitation of Life) as Abby’s mother. Full credit to the gutsy star Carol Speed, who is totally game and really goes for it once Abby is possessed and transformed into a lewd, vomit-spewing, sexually insatiable and foul-mouthed devil. The film is at its unintentionally hilarious best when the formerly virtuous Abby begins growling dialogue like, “I’m gonna fuck the shit outta him!” and “You ugly motherfuckers, I’ll see you in hell!” in a demonic guttural male voice. (None of the characters ever think to ask, “Abby? What’s happened to your voice?”). The climactic finale takes place at a dive bar, where “bad Abby” has been wantonly flirting and reveling in vice. (The film seems to imply that dim nightclub lighting, drinking cocktails and dancing to disco music is the height of sin! In which case: hail, Satan!). 

As you may have guessed, Abby is freaky so-bad-it’s-great fun. No wonder kitsch connoisseur John Waters himself has cited it as a favourite. If Abby sounds like The Blaxploitation Exorcist, Warner Brothers certainly thought so too – they successfully accused the distributors (American International Pictures) of copyright violation, the film was yanked from cinemas and subsequently legally suppressed. (Before that, Abby had been an instant box office smash, grossing $4 million in its opening month against an estimated budget of $100,00 - $200,000). Long considered a “lost film”, the version of Abby available online is apparently from an inferior 16 mm print and is in faded, grainy (but still watchable) condition. In theory, there is a pristine original master print languishing in a vault somewhere for legal reasons. Hopefully, this will eventually be resolved, and we’ll get the digitally re-mastered deluxe director’s cut edition of Abby the world has been waiting for! 

/ Apparently being possessed by a demon = a glue-on pair of werewolf eyebrows /

Watch Abby below.

Reflections on ... Friday Foster (1975)

Recently watched: Friday Foster (1975). Tagline: “Her name is Friday, but you can love her any day of the week!” An irresistibly trashy and lurid late entry in the seventies Blaxploitation genre, Friday Foster is no masterpiece, but it's vivid and wildly entertaining. 

In the action-packed but incomprehensible plot, glamorous, gutsy, fun-loving, fearless and intrepid ex-fashion model-turned-photojournalist titular heroine Friday Foster (Pam Grier) gets caught up in a complicated and impossible-to-follow narrative about an assassination attempt against the world’s wealthiest African-American magnate Blake Tarr. From there: something something … her fashion model best friend Cloris gets murdered … something something … the action keeps shuttling between Los Angeles and Washington … something something … an assassin who knows Friday know too much keeps trying to kill her … something something … Friday has an obligatory nude shower scene … something something  … Friday steals a hearse from Cloris’ funeral to evade her killer … something something … car chases and shoot-outs ensue … something something … a genuinely tense and suspenseful chase scene in an abandoned warehouse … something something … private detectives and political conspiracy theories … something something … political intrigue, murder and a conspiracy theory called “Black Widow” ... something something … helicopters!

But frankly, who cares when it’s this much fun? Friday Foster is never remotely boring, and I’d rather watch the buxom, stylish Pam Grier outwitting villains than tired old honky James Bond. On the plus side: the blistering funk soundtrack is sensational. (Of course, it instantly evokes not just Blaxploitation but the golden age of retro porn! On the addictive theme tune, the female chorus coos “Hey Friday watcha doin’? / Watcha doin’? Friday / Friday / Get it on! Do it!”). There are copious gratuitous glimpses of naked female boobage. All the male characters sport safari-style leisure wear with huge collars and flared trousers. The seventies cars, costumes and earth-toned décor are kitsch heaven. The low-life milieu of pimps and hookers is well-represented. Huge snifters of cognac signify the height of aspiration, sophistication and conspicuous consumption. Blake Tarr seduces Friday in a hot tub! I love that all the central characters are defiantly black and that everything is saturated in a Black Power message.

/ The height of sophistication: big fishbowl snifters of cognac /

/ Ladies and gentlemen ... Ms Eartha Kitt as "the magnificent Madame Rena!" / 

(An aside: Jim Backus (Gilligan's Island / Mr Magoo / Rebel without a Cause), Scatman Crothers and Ted Lange (Isaac from Love Boat) round out the truly bizarre cast!). 

(Another aside: Grier’s wardrobe is fiercely chic throughout. Check out the scarf emblazoned with “YVES ST LAURENT” in block letters to ensure you don’t miss she's wearing the high-end luxury label).

Leading lady majestic, statuesque and frequently-naked Grier was the supreme goddess / female superstar of Blaxploitation (her closest rival: Tamara Dobson in the Cleopatra Jones movies). As utterly magnetic as Grier is, for me she is comprehensively upstaged by scarily-intense veteran sex kitten extraordinaire Eartha Kitt in a fleeting “guest star” appearance as bitchy fashion designer Madame Rena. (The poolside fashion show segment is like an ultra-low rent version of Diana Ross’ Mahogany (1975)). By this time, temperamental chanteuse Kitt was 48-years old, long past her 1950s heyday and widely regarded as washed-up. In Friday Foster the diva is onscreen for maybe ten minutes and yet she wrings maximum dramatic impact from every second! Wearing a ratty wiglet, durable pro Kitt approaches the role as if she’s still playing Catwoman on TV’s Batman series and is gloriously campy and almost drag queen-like. SPOILER ALERT: wait until you see Kitt’s death scene!

/ Madame Rena on the topic of her arch rival, Ford Malotte /

Reflecting the prejudices of the time, Friday Foster is casually, outrageously homophobic. (The gay characters are treated as a freaky, titillating joke. As the kids today would say, Friday Foster is "problematic"). Madame Rena rages against her haute couture competitor Ford Malotte: “This plastic faggot couldn’t design a handkerchief, let alone a dress!” Eventually we catch up with Malotte himself – a stereotypical acid-tongued queen – surrounded by his entourage in a sleazy homosexual dive bar in Washington. (Positioned as unsympathetic, Malotte turns out to be a queer sexist who suggests Friday, "Go home. Get laid. Have a baby."). Yeah, the depiction is pretty hateful and cliched, but it’s also a fascinating snapshot of social history. And damn, that dank red-lit gay bar setting looks inviting!

/ Kudos to effervescent Todd Brandt of the essential Stirred, Straight Up with a Twist blog for pointing out to me that Ms Eartha’s enraged “teeth-gritting telephone scene” beautifully echoes Diana Ross’ telephone tantrum in Mahogany! And that “the sketch of what appears to be a 1950s Edith Head gown (pictured behind Kitt is) completely unlike any of the sleazy Qiana halter numbers from Madame Rena’s show!” /

Further reading:

Check out my reflections on Eartha Kitt's underrated, long-forgotten 1970 album Sentimental Eartha here.