Australia – the land of scary ass deadly spiders, nasty snakes, kangaroos that will probably kick you in the balls, koalas with chlamydia, and movies!

The land down under has given us lots of entertainment over the years like Russell Crowe, Yahoo Serious, OG Mad Max, Paul Hogan.  You know, people you probably don’t really want to hang out with (though Yahoo Serious is probably cool).  Since about the 70s or so, they have been pumping out a certain brand of movies too usually referred to as “ozploitation”.  These movies started rolling out over the 70s and 80s after the R rating was introduced.  There are some spectacular entries under the ozploitation banner too – Mad Max, Thirst, Dead End Drive-In, and Patrick to just name a few.  Thirst, is a particular favorite of mine.

The Wikipedia page discussing and listing Ozploitation films lists this week’s feature, Sheborg (aka SheBorg Massacre) as one of the newer films in the subgenre.  

To be completely honest, I’m not sure how Sheborg came into my orbit.  Like seriously…  I woke up one morning a week or so ago with some sort of notification from Amazon or some sort of weird Australian mind meld or something, but whatever it was, I suddenly knew of this movie, looked at images, and watched a trailer.  From that point forward, I knew this had to be part of B-Movie Enema.

Although…  Now that I think about it…  This could be like the beginning of Star Trek: First Contact and I’m having some sort of nightmare about being assimilated and metal bits are going to burrow their way out of my skin and ruin my money maker.  However, I would get to hang out with a sexy, albeit kinda of gooey, Borg Queen who talks surprisingly sensual for someone who is not much more than cleavage, shoulders, and a head with robot boobs and nice legs.  I’m kind of into it.

Look, guys, if you haven’t noticed over the past 150 posts, I have some serious issues that I desperately need to speak to a psychiatrist about, but decide to just write about B-movies instead of dealing with my problems like a real human being, then I dunno what to tell ya.  What I’m saying is if you have issues with me liking the idea of having sex with a robot lady with gooey fleshy bits, well…  That’s your problem.  I also notice you are still reading this entry so checkmate, motherfuckers.

I went off on a Star Trek tangent mostly because the first thing I think of when I watched the trailer for this was that it felt like some Australian guys sat around a room (and, yes, by guys I mean some kangaroos were sitting around a room talking about what kind of movie to make), and was just pitching out gold.  One guy was like, “Oy!  I like Star Trek!”  And another dude was like, “Oy!  I like Doctor Who!”  And a third guy said, “Oy!  I’m Australian!”  Then the wallaby in a real nice suit at the head of the table was like, “Oy!  Let’s make a Star Trek/Doctor Who Australian movie!”  Then they all pounded Fosters oil cans and flooded the streets forcing people to compare knife sizes.

Alright, I’ll quit dunking on the Australians.  I’m actually quite excited to watch this movie.  Originally, this spot was reserved for the notoriously bonkers Winterbeast, but I called an audible, like, two days ago in favor of Sheborg.  It has a silly title, yes.  It might just end up being a halfway decent trailer, but the movie turns out to be some sort of shitty Asylum movie, sure.  But to be totally fair, what I’ve seen so far from the trailer, promotional stills, the beautiful poster (seriously, scroll up for a moment and take that art in!), and the DVD box itself, I think its heart might be in the right place – which for a Sheborg, that right place is probably like right next to her robot kidneys.

I don’t just watch movies, folks, I try to educate too.

Alright, enough wasting time.  It’s time to start watching Sheborg.  We are introduced to two girls, Dylan, a saucy redhead who wants to rebel against authority, and Eddie, a little less rebellious.  They are caught by the police after Dylan vandalizes a patrol car.  This is where I feel we get a little bit of the Doctor Who angle.

Allow me to explain.  Ever since the return of Doctor Who in 2005, the premise of the show mostly pivoted toward the quirky companions.  Most of the quirks are based around general displeasure with the doldrums of life.  Some were kind of rebellious, but mostly they were bored.  What used to be a supporting character kind of wound up in the Doctor’s world became the Doctor (and ostensibly, the viewers) getting wound up in the world and aggravation of a bored young woman in desperate need to either spread her wings, smash an oppressive life (or possibly parental or societal figure), or just so full of youthful energy that hopping across time and time and running directly into crazy ass scary shit just sounded too good to pass up.

I’m not critiquing the show or the taste or the hordes of new fans the revival of the series was able to bring at all.  It’s just not my cup of tea personally.

I took an aside while the movie’s credits ran and the chase sequence that eventually leads Dylan and Eddie in the back of the cop car that Dylan vandalized because this was something I spotted in the trailer for this movie.  There are quirky characters with very strong perspectives about their lot in life.  Dylan is all about revolution and kind of worships anarchy.  Eddie is a little more even tempered about the right and wrong ways to effect change.  Later, we will meet another girl with kooky purple hair and knows all about space aliens and shit.  So I’m definitely seeing that Doctor Who supporting character vibe from these various characters.

Alright, after Eddie and Dylan get caught, cut to a spaceship that looks like a metal croissant.  the Sheborg is brought before a lady alien and sentenced to disintegration.  Basically, we have ourselves here a classic example of some aliens who believe specifically in order while the Sheborg’s people believes, and actually worships, chaos.  These other two aliens that are all into order start to carry out the sentence of disintegration by puking green acid stuff onto Sheborg.  That was… unexpected.   Unfortunately for the order aliens, the acidic puke doesn’t have the effect they were hoping for because Sheborg escapes and basically kills the two pukers.

Holy shit…  No matter how many of these goddamn articles I write, I still find myself surprised to type shit like “the acidic puke doesn’t have the effect they were hoping for because Sheborg escapes and basically kills the two pukers.”

Also, unsurprisingly…  I’m attracted to Sheborg.  I learn something new about myself with each and every article.  Turns out I have a fetish for cyborg women.  That is, well…  This will probably going to ultimately lead me down some very dark internet search holes in the very near future.

Oh!  Not to change topics, but that whole Doctor Who ramble?  Well, look who might be onto something!

Sheborg and Queen Order Alien Lady are hightailing it through space and seem to be crashing onto Earth.  Our purple haired girl I teased during said Doctor Who rant spots it and chases off to see what she can find out.  Before she can chase down the alien ships, a couple ladies at a dog shelter (that might also be a lab where they do testing on dogs and shit?) find Sheborg.  Sheborg kills one and feeds off the other.

Down the road a bit, Dylan and Eddie are at a rock show watching a a punk rocker they met at the police station.  The punk rocker tells them about the puppy shelter down the road, and with Eddie real keen on that guy’s balls, she wants to go and break in and save all the doggos.

Back at that shelter,  Queen Order Alien Lady gets out of her ship and starts a fight with Sheborg, but finally gets killed.  The next morning, our kooky purple hair dorky girl, who I will refer to as Purple Hair Velma from this point forward, has finally found the remains of Queen Order Alien Lady and is, understandably, freaking the fuck out.  She starts collecting stuff from the squished bits of the dead Queen Order Alien Lady, but gets attacked by a person that has syringes for fingers.

The punk rocker (Rik), Dylan, and Eddie sneak into the shelter to free all the puppers, but they are being watched too.  Not only that,  they passed Purple Hair Velma’s car which has had its engine gutted with wires all over the place and such.  I say this a lot on Film Seizure, the podcast I co-host with Jason Oliver, but it’s little things like seeing the car’s engine torn up to help make more cyborgs and the assimilated people stalking our lead characters that help make movies land somewhere on the scale between charming and good.

The trio search the shelter and are cornered by a security guard that has been assimilated.  Eddie and Dylan do fairly well in a fight with the cyborg guard but when she feeds off the energy from Eddie’s cell phone, they get a little overpowered.  Eventually, they use a shovel to kill the cyborg.  It was a fun little scene with a little action and a little humor.  Well done, Sheborg.

Eddie and Dylan can’t leave because Rik has the keys to the van they came in.  Rik has been captured by one of the scientists who worked at the shelter and got assimilated.  He’s brought to a kennel where another guy and Purple Hair Velma are kept.  She takes the other guy to get assimilated.  The girls figure out that if they unplug the implants on the assimilated people, it seems to disable them – possibly kill them?

Purple Hair Velma explains she thinks this is an invasion from a cyborg who can cast some sort of mind controlling signal to those who have been assimilated, but she needs the bio samples she collected previously to be sure.  When more of the cyborgs chase them, Dylan figures out that the bio samples from the Queen Order Alien Lady is acidic and they use it to fight off some of the attackers.

Rik, being the useless idiot he basically is, is killed.  The three girls are able to get in his van and beat a hasty retreat.  They go to City Hall to talk to Dylan’s dad, who runs the town.  They try to explain what they saw and what is going on, but he seems real dubious of the whole story.  In fact, he just has security kick them out.

Eddie and Purple Hair Velma think they basically need to go back to either kick Sheborg’s ass or communicate with her.  Dylan is pretty much not digging that.  So this leads to a catfight between Eddie and Dylan that is every bit as hot and fun as you might think.  What’s kind of funny about the fight is that it doesn’t so much end but they just wear each other out.

While our main girls sort out their business together, we find out that the assimilated scientist lady from the dog shelter/testing place is now in the city and has assimilated one of the cops trying to sort out the whole deal with Rik – they also plan on assimilating the female members of Rik’s band and anally probe the male member.  So it is time for our intrepid heroines to bust out of their holding room at City Hall and kick some cyborg ass.

Well… after they clean up I suppose.

The girls slip the cops, but they have a bigger problem on their hands.  A cyborg problem.  It ain’t just the police station, either.  A couple outside the city fucking in some shack get attacked by Rik’s bandmates.  The main cop also gets attacked by the bandmates but he escapes.

Sheborg is basically creating these drones so they can obtain power to contact her people.  The cars and other various generators they’ve been stringing together aren’t enough for them to power her needs.  But it’s a good thing a TV tells her about a power plant that has been upgraded.

At City Hall, the crazy scientist lady chases Dylan around threatening to take her face off all Nic Cage style.  Dylan does finally escape and meets up with Eddie, Velma (not just Purple Hair Velma, but I recently discovered her character name actually is “Velma”), and main cop.  They need to get to Velma’s apartment to analyze her data.  They run into a bunch of assimilated people, including Dylan’s father, which causes main cop to wreck his car.  Eddie, Dylan, and Main cop have to fight their way out of the mess while Velma runs off with her data.

The fight scenes are fun (and, yes, this is like the 27th fight scene in this movie).  This one has main cop get his ass handed to him, somehow all the guys’ shirts getting ripped off, Dylan getting kicked in the box, and Eddie karate kicking people all over the place.  I kind of feel like this would have been a really fun movie to make.  People running around doing kicks and jumps and falls, etc.

While Velma looks over the data, the rest of the team makes a plan.  Dylan actually wants to leave and run away, but Eddie basically calls her out on her bullshit.  All this anarchy, all this rebellion, all this talk of revolution and she runs away the first moment of any real opportunity to do anything.  Velma, Eddie, and main cop spot that Sheborg has succeeded in getting the power she needs.  Dylan plans to cut the power supply off while the other three collect the acid blood to cover for her.  Naturally, Dylan runs into the crazy scientist cyborg and they have to have another fight scene.

Eddie realizes that they need to give Dylan more time, but before she can come up with a plan, Velma approaches Sheborg with a plea to be friends and discuss a peaceful resolution.  This doesn’t exactly go over as she planned, but Eddie and main cop is able to keep Sheborg from killing her.  More fighting breaks out, but between Eddie kung fu fighting a cyborg and Dylan fighting the crazy Nic Cage lady at the power plant, we almost thing things work out nicely…

Except Sheborg isn’t dead yet.  She rips Eddie’s tongue out and tears her heart out of her chest to eat it.  Enraged, Dylan fights back and eventually kills the Sheborg by forcing the alien goo acid blood down her throat.  The movie ends with main cop, Velma, and G.I. Joe Dylan hunting down more cyborg aliens that have answered Sheborg’s message sent with the power from the plant.

This movie, though a bummer at the very end with Eddie getting killed, is a whole lotta damn fun.  As mentioned, there are a lot of fight scenes, but it seems like everyone is just having a fucking blast jumping and kicking and doing falls and stunts.  A lot of the people associated with the movie have been in other ozploitation flicks including one called Murder Drome about roller derby girls going up against supernatural forces.  I can assume that a lot of the people in this are roller derby girls, stunt people, or possibly even wrestlers – or all three.  The stunts and fights are pretty plentiful and look decent for a low budget flick.

With a title like Sheborg, you’d almost have to assume that this movie would either be utterly insane or really crappy.  Maybe both.  However, I actually rather enjoyed the movie.  It does play on a lot of sensibilities people like me enjoy – Star Trek stuff, Doctor Who-like side characters, babes, blood, action, babes covered in blood, etc.  Honestly, when I look back at movies I’ve covered on this blog of this kind of nature (micro budget, mostly actors and production people who have worked together on other films, etc.), I could say this belongs in the conversation with Amazon Hot Box and Space Babes from Outer Space.  I don’t know if Sheborg is quite as good as those two overall, but I’d say it can sit at the family table with those two.

I’d have to say give this one a shot.  If you have any of the same sensibilities and just want to watch people seemingly have a ton of fun making a movie in a small Australian town, you really don’t have anything to lose.

Next week, oh boy…  Next week starts something I’m not sure how it will go.  A little bit ago, I talked about the movie Dracula Sucks.  That movie is an adult movie.  Back when it was made, it could be called a “blue” movie.  “Blue” typically a signal that it includes hardcore sex.  Several movies from the late 60s into the 70s used that actual title, Blue Movie, in fact.

Well…  at B-Movie Enema, March 2019 will be known as Blue March!  We kick things off with 1977’s SexWorld!  So, if you, like me, are a creep and want to read about me watching pornos, I’ll see you next week!