MISTER TRASH PRESENTS....

THE EXTERMINATOR - Allow me to state the blindingly obvious: any film that opens with a massive explosion that sends people flying through the air, which is immediately followed by a gruesome and explicit beheading, is pure grade A cinematic gold.  So begins James Glickenhaus' 1980 vigilante classic The Exterminator.  The scene is Vietnam, where a group of American soldiers has been taken prisoner by the Vietcong, only to brutally fight their way out almost instantly - resulting in a number of nasty deaths on both sides.  The survivors make it to a helicopter and are rescued.  Years later, at a warehouse in New York City that employs a couple of the old army buddies, a gang of thugs attack the guys while stealing beer from the joint.  But since one of them, Michael Jefferson (American Ninja's Steve James), knows kung fu, the thugs are easily handled.  Divested of their free beer and dignity, however, the cretins track Michael down in order to break his neck and dig out his spine with gardening tools (!), permanently paralyzing him.  M.J.'s best pal Robert (John Ginty) isn't going to take this lying down, though - so he breaks out his old flamethrower and assault rifle and takes the gang head on.  He tortures one into telling him where their clubhouse is, then kills another and ties the other two up in a rat hole to get munched on by vermin.  (Wait a minute - clubhouse??  Who is this gang, the Mouseketeers?) 

Now Detective Dalton (Christopher George) is on the case, working to catch Robert before he kills again.  Too late.  Discovering that his boss is being shaken down by the mob, Robert abducts a mob boss, robs his house, kills his dog with an electric carving knife, and then feeds the poor bastard into a giant meat grinder!  The money, of course, goes to the Jefferson family – proving that Robert is an altruistic mass murderer, which is kinda sweet.  Meanwhile, an evil pimp lures an unsuspecting hooker into a room where a kiddy fiddler wants her to screw him with a dildo while he molests boys.  When she refuses (“I don’t get involved with no chicken-hawks, man!”), the pimp ties her up and the pervert burns her with a soldering iron.  When all that killing gets Robert horny (who wouldn’t?), he picks the same hooker up and learns of her ordeal by way of her severely scarred boobs.  It begins with “Who did this to you?” and ends with dousing the kiddy-pimp with lighter fluid, burning him alive, and shooting his no. 1 customer in the crotch with a .357 round that has a poisoned tip. 

Added bonus: the customer was a state senator from New Jersey (where else?).  Later, Robert visits his old BFF Michael Jefferson, who says he would rather die than be paralyzed.  So, like any good friend would do, Robert talks him out of these bad feelings and convinces Michael that he must live for his family and the good things that still remain.  Just kidding, Robert kills Michael in his hospital bed.  What a pal!  Now the fuzz have identified him, and Dalton meets Robert at the Navy Yard in the middle of the night, but it’s a triple-cross!!  Robert plans to kill Dalton, the CIA plans to kill both of them, Dalton doesn’t know what the hell is going on.  Ultimately, the CIA get their wish, and Robert gets away with it.  Hooray for murder!  Filled with eye-popping shots of Times Square in the scummiest heyday of its ultra-filth period (damn you, Guilliani!!), The Exterminator is a thrill for a grindhouse-addict to watch.  Highly recommended – and keep an eye out for Exterminator 2.

STRANGLER OF THE SWAMP - "He was hanged for a crime he didn't commit, and now he's the STRANGLER OF THE SWAMP!"  A poverty row horror programmer from 1946 (produced by PRC Pictures, whoever the hell they were), Strangler is surely among the earliest of the tried and true revenge-from-beyond-the-grave subgenre.  All sorts of folks are turning up dead in the swamp, the the cornpoke local women are all certain that this is the work of "the strangler," and equally sure that their menfolk are all "marked men."  Soon, it becomes clear that these men lynched a fellow a while back, and the strangler is none other than his ghost of the hanged man - one Ferryman Douglas - seeking retribution by choking the life out of his murderers one by one.  Furthermore, only a willing sacrifice from one of the murderers or their offspring can break the curse, but of course none of these old bastards is going to do that.  The current ferryman is one such asshole, who scoffs at the rumors but soon encounters the ghost in the swamp in a surprising creepy little sequence. 

So the ghostly killings continue, while the dead ferryman's granddaughter Maria is swept off her feet by Christian, the son of one of the lynchmen, as she takes over her granddad's extremely lame business.  And wouldja believe that Christian is played by none other than future director Blake Edwards?  But as the smitten young lovers coo at each other on the ferry in the stagnant swamp in the middle of the night (wow – how romantic), the sallow-faced ghost looms nearby, watching with murderous intent.  He deigns to kill poor Christian, since both his pop and granddad had a hand in the lynching.  And he nearly succeeds too, except for Maria doing what none of the cowardly old bastards in the village could do – namely offering herself as a sacrifice to the ghost in order to break the curse.  Strangler of the Swamp plays like hillbilly Dickens, and like many of its cheapjack kin from the poverty row studios of the 1940s, it makes the most of its limitations and works quite well. 

It's only an hour long, so nothing is wasted here - the picture cuts right to the chase and runs rapidly through the simple tale with sufficient creepiness from the titular strangler (whose lips never move when he speaks).  They don't make 'em like this anymore, folks.

Highlight of the Film:  Christian is an awesome 40s stud, the sort of man 21^st century metrosexual milquetoast mollycoddles should be routinely beaten up by.  When a local dumbshit gets pickled and puts the moves on Maria (read: attempted rape), Christian shows up to clock him on the chin with a swift right hook and warn the fellow about “getting fresh.”  Damn right.  Today, all the wusses who call themselves men drone on about how violence doesn’t solve problems.  They want to talk it out.  Nuts to that, I says.  And how!