Terror Toons

This is a really screwed up film... on many levels. Wow, where does one start? First of all this film looks like it was filmed with a home camcorder, the characters are beyond surrealistic and totally unbelievable, the concept is really weird, and the acting is some of the worst ever caught on celluloid. Anyway, the story is about how Satan discovers the amazing qualities of a popular modern item we all know as a DVD. He creates a monstrous cartoon character (mostly played by a guy in a costume) called Dr. Carnage and his sidekick, a ravenous monkey named Max Assassin, and places them on DVD's and drops one in everyone's mailbox (I guess since AOL always did that, he thought could too). Some weird chick with breasts big enough to be classified as weapons of mass destruction, that also looks 35 years old but acts like a 6 year old, finds one in her mailbox and decides to play it out of childish boredom. Meanwhile, her parents (consisting of an obvious man in drag with a voice like John Wayne) are going out of town for the weekend and put her older sister in charge. Somehow as if planned, the "older" sister looks much much younger than the "younger" sister. Anyway, the older sis invites some friends over, some boys, some liquor, what have you, and has a party. Little sister with boobs so big they have separate zip codes, is watching what looks like a stupid cartoon about a mad doctor and his rabid pet monkey. Suddenly, Dr Carnage and Max Assassin leap from the TV and extract very cartoonish (and strikingly gruesome) ways of killing everyone. All the cartoon cliches are used... safe dropped on the head, sawed in half, spine ripped out, TNT explosives, etc. Live action is mixed with cheap cartoon overlay and computer effects, some of which are truly hilarious and deserve really good drugs. As expected this movie is extremely colorful, being about cartoons and all, but this is as gory as can be expected when a safe falls on your head. In a real cartoon, their head came out flat, they blew on their thumbs and everything pops out into place. But here, when a safe falls on you, you're squashed beyond recognition, your guts are coming out and brain matter is staining the wall. All through the night, everyone gets it in a different way. Monday when "Mom" and Dad return, they find the house a mess and body parts everywhere. The drag queen mom goes into a totally hilarious spastic fit that was so side-splittingly funny that it was almost worth sitting through this cheap piece of crap! And, I serious stretch the word "almost".

Fritz the Cat

Fritz the Cat has been one of my very favorite movies for years. It's got so many pluses that make it worth watching again and again. It's got fascinating animation which is beyond cartoonish in its intermittent psychedelic sequences. It's got a great soundtrack. It's got a great story that is both comedic and moralistic (sort of), especially for a film that actually became the first animated motion picture to receive an X rating. Therefore, like most of the content on Cultarama, it really shouldn't be shown to kids, even if it is animated. It also received the honor of becoming the first independent film to gross over a million dollars. The character of Fritz the Cat was actually a character created by Robert Crumb who's "Keep on Truckin'" logo became part of the 60's. In fact the entire movie really captures the feel of the late 60's which is when it was being made, despite a 1972 release. Robert Crumb never gave the producers of the movie any rights or permissions to use his characters and actually sued to have his name removed from the credits. Crumb even went so far as to kill off Fritz the Cat in his comics so as to discourage another film. It didn't work, a sequel named "The Nine Live of Fritz the Cat" was released the following year. The story takes us through Fritz's adventures as he strolls through the major themes of the late 60's... orgies, drugs, religion, music, activism, etc. Even though it's rated X doesn't mean it's a porno, and especially by today's standards, far from it. It's just a great adventure story told by one of the most suave cool cats you'll ever meet. Plus a myriad of other colorful characters. All animals of course, but appropriate animals (cops are pigs, black people are crows, shady activists are lizards, Jews are old lions, the list goes on and on). This is a true classic and doesn't just deserve to be watched, it demands to be owned. It just made it to DVD so you have no excuse not to go out and get your copy!! An interesting side note to this movie is towards the end of the film when the activists are plotting to "make a statement" (blowing something up, I think). The makers of the movie invited real militants and activists into the recording studio and just recorded whatever they talked about. This actual dialogue recording was edited and used as the dialogue of the shady activists in the movie.

Forbidden Zone

Forbidden Zone is the hilarious brainchild of Danny Elfmans older less popular brother. Starring Danny himself as Satan (no leap of imagination there). Danny Elfmans early career with Oingo Boingo conveniently leant the soundtrack for the movie, and what a soundtrack it is!!! Being that's it's a comedic musical drenched with Yiddish humor just makes it that more hilarious. Frenchy (a foreign exchange student, maybe?) is sucked down a hole in her families basement and ends up in the Sixth Dimension Ruled by the evil Queen Doris and her perverted staff of dancing frogs and the weirder than weird performers known only as the Kipper Kids (one of whom is actually married to Bette Midler). Lucky for Frenchy, King Fausto of the sixth dimension (Herve Villachaiz, "de plane, de plane!") is falling for the young french girl, much to the Queens dismay. Frenchy and the Queen duke it out for the coveted position of least hated among the inhabitants of the Sixth Dimension. With it's cheap sets and incredible overacting, this black and white yet colorful movie is a great find for any cult classics fan.