Monster of the Day #196

Well, she could always date Dirk Benedict.

  • The Rev.

    Years ago, when we had Comcast, they had some Something Weird selections on their On Demand service. Thanks to them, we saw this movie. Even though, at that time, I hadn’t seen Freaks, I knew enough about it to quickly realize this movie was a rip-off of it. Which makes this character’s fate all the more insane: what could attacking circus freaks possibly do to someone that would result in them looking like a werewolf with third-degree burns…on only one side!? I mean, I could understand burns, but the whole werewolf thing is completely nuts.

    To be fair, “completely nuts” pretty much fits the last minute of this movie, what with this and the laughing fat guy and the out-of-nowhere, unrelated Bible quote. I don’t know if it justified slogging through the rest of the movie, but it was a welcome bit of batshittery.

  • sandra

    Well, in the original movie, what did the FREAKS do to turn a statuesque blonde into a chicken with a woman’s head ?

  • The Rev.

    Hmmm…well–LOOK! A DOG WITH A FLUFFY TAIL!!!

    I actually was slightly more forgiving of this movie’s ending after seeing the similar one in Freaks, truth be told, but since the older movie is a lot better in just about every way possible, I’m willing to be more forgiving to it.

    I mean, maybe they mangled her limbs and gave her brain damage. This…not so much.

  • Rock Baker

    One of those I bought because I loved the title. She Freak just had that perfect drive-in title!

    Maybe they dipped half of her into a vat of reactor waste? Stuff like this is always the result in the movies!

    The Bible verse sighted about vengence being God’s domain seems to fit I think. Had it not been for the freaks, Jade would’ve escaped punishment. You could sorta evaluate the freaks as being instruments of a higher power if one is willing. God has certainly used plenty of monsters and mad men to (often unknowingly) do his work on this earth. (This does prompt one of the funniest bits in the commentary track, when Freidman notes that there are two things that have been in every motel room in the nation “David F. Freidman and the Gideon Bible!”)

    Ken, You’ll have to explain the Dirk Benedict joke to me. Did he do a movie where he fell in love with a snake charmer or something? Or a werewolf?

  • @Rock
    I think Ken is talking about the movie ‘Hissss’, where Dirk is slowly turned into a snake.

  • The Rev.

    Rock: Well, I didn’t remember the exact quote, so I’ll rescind the “unrelated.”

    I’m still sticking by “out-of-nowhere,” though.

  • Rock Baker

    Right! I forgot all about Ssssss! Even worse, I forgot that Benedict was the star! I may have to turn in my credentials over this one!

    And yeah, I’ll admit the moral just sort of pops up from nowhere. (The really funny one is Eegah!, in which Dr. Miller twice refers to a quote from Genesis “There were giants in the earth, in those days…” and the second time its played as if he’d gone back and looked up the verse to make sure. The only problem is, this noted professor of anthropology credits these words as coming from Genesis 4:32, when its actually Genesis 6:4! And this was 1962/3, when any gradeschool kid could probably tell you this! Plus, there is no verse 32 in chapter 4!)

  • Rock Baker

    I never noticed the skull before. This looks like a scene from a remake of Orgy of the Dead starring the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and influneced by Rick Baker’s back yard home movies.

  • P Stroud

    Looks like Rock put a lot more thought into this movie than the filmmakers ever did.

  • The Rev.

    Considering their thoughts on the movie were pretty much, “Let’s remake Freaks with the change I found between the couch cushions!” I do believe you are correct.