Hello there, friends of Trash. I’ve got some pretty obscure treats for you this time around, from a Turkish stab at exploitation to an 80s jazzercise-inspired slasher flick. And in between – necrophilia! Huzzah!! The Dark Knight didn’t have no necrophilia, did it? No sir, it sure didn’t. And that, Mr. Christopher Nolan, is why you suck.

LAST HOUSE IN INSTANBUL (aka MONDO BRUTALE II, IT BEGAN AT MIDNIGHT, ÇIRKIN DÜNYA) – Osman F. Seden (here credited as Rowland Kramer) wrote, directed and produced more than 120 movies from the 1950s to the 1990s. In 1974, he decided to make a tribute/remake/rip-off/sequel to Wes Craven's 1972 grindhouse classic The Last House on the Left, which had been released in some European territories as Mondo Brutale. Thus began Last House in Istanbul (a title that makes zero sense), Turkey's response to the seemingly endless stream of Last House rip-offs from every corner of the globe. Cruising around at night and looking for a good time, a trio of criminals led by “The Scorpion” terrorize a young couple by beating the man and slicing the woman to ribbons with a knife. When the cops show up, they beat it and find themselves at the home of a wealthy physician and his family. Pretending that they need a doctor, the man of the house takes pity on them, so they beat the kebab out of him. A police inspector shows up looking for them, but they’ve got the doc’s wife in another room, so he must listen as the cop describes the ruthless killers and act like he hasn’t seen them. (He also describes them as “rowdyish,” according to the subtitles. Rowdyish??) Once the killers regain control of the house, they frighten the woman by suggesting that they are gay, replete with suspenseful music and the poor homophobic lady inching away from them in terror. They demand money, but the banks are closed until morning, so they force the wife to drink booze and eat cake. I happen to like both booze and cake, so I fail to see how this is torture, but I suppose things are different in Turkey. At any rate, wifey manages to get a gun, but her infant son Morio ruins everything by staggering into the room and surprising her, allowing The Scorpion the opportunity to kick the gun out of her hand. Kids suck.

The next morning, Scorpion’ two lackeys skinny-dip in the pool in what is probably the most horrifying scene of the film. Morio watches them frolic, and will now probably turn out gay too, just as his mother fears. As the boss watches over his captives, the two goons retreat to the bedroom and dress up in the lady’s underwear in order to do a striptease for the whole group. By now it seems clear that this entire movie is a morality tale about the kinds of things homos are up to and why they should be avoided. Criminals, the lot of ‘em! What’s really weird here is the abuse of the kid – one of the goons repeatedly dunks him in the pool, for example, before he and the mother have a tug-of-war match with him. This is all quite real, by the way. That little shaver does his own stunts, and probably almost died several times during filming. Just like Jackie Chan!

Cleverly, the captives drug their captors when they demand steak, but only enough to make them fall asleep, because they are pussies. Then they send the 3 year old to collect a gun from one of them, and of course he trips, drops the gun, and loudly cries. Seriously, I hate all children. Ultimately, the doc escorts The Scorpion to the bank for the dough, while the goons rough up the wife and dunk the kid in the pool until he drowns. The doc’s wife drifts off to crazyland, so the doc shoots one goon dead, takes a knife in the heart, and the fuzz show up to arrest the surviving crooks. The flick ends with the wife wandering around town with a rat’s nest for hair and a doll in her arms, batshit crazy for life. Learning that “The Clockwork Orange Gang” are being released from prison, she shows up with a gun and blows them all away before being arrested herself. FINE.

Hooray! The good news here is that I scored a pretty rare copy of a Turkish Last House rip-off. The bad news is that it’s boring as hell and barely anything happens at any given point in it. Generally speaking, when you decide to rip off a classic, you should plan on including some pretty eye-popping elements in an effort to outdo the original in audaciousness if nothing else. For instance, they should have had the kid spontaneously explode or the kidnappers turn out to be robots sent by Martians to rape Earth’s women. Sheesh. If and when you’re in the mood for some good old fashioned Last-Houseploitation, try The Last House on the Beach or The Last House on Dead End Street instead.

Highlight of the Film: Not very long into the home invasion here, The Scorpion begins looking through the doc’s research material, all of which is patently sexual in nature. The first several are standard Dr. Ruth stuff, but this quickly segues into material about “The Feminine Side of the Man” and the like. It is then implied that the good doctor is working on a cure for homosexuality, which was popular medicine in Germany just before the rise of Hitler, when “cure” gave way to genocide. Good job, doc – and carry on, boys. Terrorize away.

THE UNDERTAKER - You know who really rocked? Joe Spinell, that's who. The pock-faced star of the inimitable grindhouse classic Maniac had an unfortunately short career due to his death in 1989 from complications with hemophilia. But he was always Hollywood's go-to guy for greasy Italian bad guy roles, angry police captains, and the like - and more importantly, he was the underground film world's grand duke of murder and mayhem. He even appeared in my all-time favorite movie, Forbidden Zone, as Squeezit's long lost daddy. The Undertaker was one of Spinell's very last films, made the year before he died, and his last psycho killer role. Here he is Uncle Roscoe, a bugfuck crazy undertaker who boosts business by killing folks himself, and also providing himself with a whole bunch of new friends in the process.

The movie opens with the worst day ever – a poor woman breaks down in the middle of nowhere, is rescued by a guy on a motorcycle, but he just tries to rape her. She gets away and manages to flag down another car, but it’s Roscoe, and she’s royally screwed. The bad news is that Roscoe wants him some of that, too. The good news is that he waits until she’s dead to partake. That’s good, right? Kind of? Okay, maybe not. Anyway, Roscoe is soon pushing the envelope by killing the mayor’s secretary, who had just been transcribing a meeting discussing the murders. Ooh, the irony! Meanwhile, a college professor explains the ancient rite of necrophilia to her class, complete with graphic descriptions of ejaculating into corpses to take one’s seed into the next world. I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit. Because I very deeply need it to be. Gross. Roscoe’s nephew Nick happens to be in the class, and begs the prof to meet with him so he can discuss necrophilia in greater detail. Naturally, she thinks this is a come-on, since she is a dirty pervert. Nick persists, and manages to convince her to come to the funeral home. At that moment, Roscoe is at the movies, reveling in the satanic human sacrifice on the screen as the other patrons run for the aisles (losers). Of course Uncle Roscoe follows some poor girl home, which can only lead to one conclusion – naked, tied between two trees in the woods, and disemboweled while Roscoe wildly weeps. Reminds me of Christmases when I was a kid…but I digress.

Poor Nicky confronts Roscoe with his awareness of uncle’s doings, which results in Roscoe keeping him in the mortuary as a corpse. Next on Roscoe’s list in the detective who’s after him – he gets his throat opened up for him. And when the rest of the force comes to Roscoe with questions, he just pegs the blame on his missing nephew. What a dick. And y’know, that teacher never did believe Nick – that is, until Roscoe comes to her house, puts a machete in her boyfriend’s head, and then chases her throughout the house giggling like a lunatic. Not only does he carve her up, he leaves Nick’s frigging driver’s license behind as evidence. WOW that’s lame. Almost as lame as Nick coming back to life at the funeral home to kill his uncle, but nothing’s that lame. As rare as this flick is, there is evidently an ever rarer version titled The Death Merchant, which has an entirely different musical score and a tweaked plot device that calls for additional footage of girls in radical 80s workout gear. God help us!

Still, The Undertaker is super obscure, and probably for good reason. Spinell is the only participant with any kind of career either behind him or ahead (he did make one last movie). Even the director hasn’t got anything else on his resume. And to be sure, the picture is strictly amateur hour stuff that makes me wonder if Joe was doing a favor for someone. In any event, it’s always nice to see my favorite Maniac again, whatever the venue. I sure miss ya, Joe.

Highlight of the Film: In a segue between Roscoe’s murder of the girl in the woods and a return to the university where the professor teaches, we are treated to an old jogger sprinting through those very woods only to slip on some entrails as if they were a damn banana peel. In addition to the ridiculously overblown foley work on the slippery stuff, the old guy shrieks “What is THIS?! JESUS CHRIST! GOD!” before vomiting where he stands. Soooo much better than a star-wipe, and I didn’t think there was a better segue in the world than the ol’ star-wipe.

AEROBICIDE (aka KILLER WORKOUT) - Holy slash-dance, it's more of that much reviled sub-sub-subgenre of 80s horror, the legwarmer horror flick. I'm thinking Death Spa, I'm thinking Murder Rock, and I'm definitely thinking Aerobicide. I mean, for God's sakes - this astounding little turd was directed by the great David A. Prior, the unimaginably inept helmer of Deadly Prey, so what can possibly go wrong? This masterpiece begins with Valerie, a body-conscious woman who works out by day and tans in the tanning salon by night. Until the night she’s burned to a crisp in an exploding tanning bed, natch. Was it….murder?!?!

Some time later, Rhonda runs a gym for chicks with abnormally colossal boobs in spandex to feel the burn while jamming to some righteous synth licks. But there is something rotten at Rhonda’s Workout, as exemplified by the vicious murder of a naked girl in the showers with a giant safety pin. You see, in the 80s, when slashers were king, there was a need for originality in a genre that proffers none, so filmmakers tried to come up with new gimmicks. These were almost always either new masks or new weapons. Thus, Mr. Prior came up with the ingenious idea of making a picture about jazzercise bimbos getting stabbed by a huge novelty pin. Detective Morgan is on the case now, listening intently as the girls bemoan the loss of their friend – “She was soooo pretty!” Back in the weight room, buff n’ sweaty studs lift away until the veins pop out of their skin, including Chuck (Deadly Prey’s mullet-sporting hero and the director’s brother, Ted Prior). Chuck is the newest employee of the joint, much to Rhonda’s chagrin. Ooh, could it be sexual tension? Must be, because when an even beefier dude threatens Chuck for talking to her, Chuck warns him that he “just made a MISTAKE!” and proceeds to beat the snot out of the guy. Temper, temper. This immediately attracts the attention of a dawg-ugly chick in tights whose arrival heralds a song that screeches “She’s a KNOCKOUT!” I’m confused.

Soon thereafter, our unseen killer has moved on from his pin to a boring old kitchen knife, which he uses to slice and dice a couple of broads before we head back to the gym for more aerobic madness. And that’s pretty much how this film works: killing, exercise, killing, exercise, rinse, repeat. While Chuck pursues the hunk he beat up earlier on as his main suspect, we learn that Rhonda is really Valerie, the chick who was burned up in the beginning. When confronted by the detective about it, she screams “What do you want? Is THIS what you wanted to see?!” and displays her boobs caked with second rate Freddy Krueger make-up. Still got a bit of bounce to ‘em, though. He arrests her, but another murder occurs simultaneously, proving that the cop’s personal bias against scarred funbags got the better of him. I guess it was the guy who burned her. I can’t substantiate that, however – this movie is such a mess that I got a little puzzled about that. Also, I was looking at pictures of kittens online, which were just adorable. But mostly, the fault is the soundtrack’s, which frequently overwhelms the dialogue throughout the film so badly you can’t hear what is being said. Luckily, Rhonda holds a giant safety pin up to the camera and laughs maniacally right at the end, which makes any need for a sensible plot or continuity unnecessary. It’s the future of narrative filmmaking, and the future is NOW!

Highlight of the Film: My favorite murder in the film occurs about halfway through, when Det. Morgan frets that the killer may have already gotten to one of the girls. So he goes to her apartment and begins violently beating on the door. “Who is it?” she asks. “OPEN UP!” he bellows, beating on the door with two fists now. “OPEN THE DOOR!! OPEN THE DOOR!!” Naturally, she doesn’t. The stupid shithead neglected to identify himself in any way, opting instead to act like a complete psychopath himself. Of course, the killer is inside and guts her with his hilarious novelty safety pin before the dumb cop can save her. That’s some good police work there, Lou.