Welcome back to another spooktacular review at B-Movie Enema!

This week, we continue our trek through 70s horror from the Black community that I’m calling Black Horror Halloween. I’m also going through these movies in chronological order. So that brings me to 1976 and a movie that has been on the pile to cover for a long time, J.D.’s Revenge, directed by Arthur Marks. I’ve had a copy of the movie from Arrow for years. So, if I’m being as honest as possible, it’s possible to say that J.D.’s Revenge was the origin of this entire theme month.

Some might even go so far as to say that I chose this theme because of last week’s movie and the giant hypnotic, killer dong was the, uh, thrust to my choosing this theme, but I digress.

Arthur Marks is another case of a White director making a blaxploitation movie this month. That said, Marks has a really interesting career. He worked a great deal on TV earlier in his career. He directed and produced many episodes of Perry Mason. He also worked on episodes of Starsky & Hutch, I Spy, and The Dukes of Hazzard. His father, David Marks, worked for MGM for decades. Most notably, David was the assistant director on The Wizard of Oz. So, Arthur was literally born to love the industry.

By the 70s, Arthur was making a lot of exploitation films along with his TV work. He co-wrote The Centerfold Girls, which I covered on B-Movie Enema: The Series. Between 1973 and 1976, he made five films with Black casts. Detroit 9000 got a massive reappraisal in the 90s. Friday Foster starred Pam Grier. The Monkey Hu$tle, released the same year as J.D.’s Revenge, proved to be a major influence on Michael Jai White to make one of my favorite movies of the 21st Century, Black Dynamite.

Also, The Monkey Hu$tle also co-starred the man who will help bring this whole month of Black Horror to a close.

For J.D.’s Revenge, Marks cast two pretty notable actors. In the lead, playing Ike, is Glynn Turman. Turman appeared on TV for over a decade. Perhaps his best-known role was as a Season 5 regular on Peyton Place. In the 70s, he appeared in quite a few Black films. 1975’s Cooley High really put him on the map in film. Most people my age would likely know him for 1984’s Gremlins, but we saw him in Jamaa Fanaka’s Penitentiary II. Turman is still working to this very day at the age of 78.

As Reverend Elija Bliss, we also have Louis Gossett Jr. Gossett was one of the biggest Black actors until he sadly passed away last year. His big screen debut was in 1961’s A Raisin in the Sun, as George, the role he originated on Broadway. He spent most of the 60s and 70s working pretty hard in film and on TV while also continuing to appear on Broadway. Gossett would ultimately be a very popular actor. His popularity and status rose significantly in the 80s. In 1982, he took the role he would likely forever be remembered for – Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman. The movie was a big hit, and he would go home with the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 55th Oscars.

Our tale kicks off in hazy, blurry, “Once upon a time” vision. We are taken to New Orleans in 1942. We follow hustler J.D. Walker through his black market meat plant (yes, you read that right). Inside, he hears his sister Betty Jo talking to her brother-in-law, gangster Theotis Bliss. The conversation is really more of an argument as Betty Jo continuously belittles Theotis. She and Theotis have been involved in an affair. Betty Jo and her husband, Elija, have allowed Elija’s brother, Theotis, to live with them. Well, it turns out that Betty Jo and Theotis slept together at least once and produced the daughter that Elija thinks is his biological daughter. She threatens to reveal the true father to her husband, which would make Elija kick Theotis out of his house.

Now, never let it be said that a gangster who consistently carries a switchblade with him simply takes news like this easy because he uses said switchblade to slice Betty Jo’s throat just as J.D. arrives to witness the killing.

J.D. rushed to his sister’s body and was cradling her when Elija arrived to see the blood on J.D.’s hand. Out of grief, Theotis shoots J.D. dead. With the two siblings interred side by side in the mausoleum, it would seem as though the identity of Betty Jo’s actual murderer has been buried with them.

Transition to present-day New Orleans. We meet Isaac “Ike” Hendrix and his girlfriend, Christella. Ike works as a cab driver while remaining in law school to become a lawyer. Ike is studying pretty seriously for an upcoming exam on, ostensibly, the law. Christella wants him to go out with her to celebrate their friends’ first anniversary. Ike really doesn’t want to be taken out of his study mindset, but Christella eventually convinces him that he should go out more often.

This would prove to be something of a mistake. Well, maybe not their first stop, which seems to be a titty bar. Dang, these Black ladies are down with the titty bars. Like, seriously, they are dancing in their seats, clapping along to the beat of the music, and what have you. They do comment that they wouldn’t be able to do what these girls do, but not in a belittling way. They just don’t have the confidence these girls have. It’s once they go out onto Bourbon Street that things get dicey. They are convinced by the guy on the street outside a bar to come in to see the hottest show in town – Sara Divine, the “Hip Hypnotist.” Apparently, Sara liked the cut of Ike’s jib because, without even a montage showing people volunteering or being selected, Ike is on stage with a few other honks.

Early on, things are relatively innocent. The first command Sara gives is to tell them they are in the middle of the Sahara Desert. The guys start stripping out of their clothing. She has them freeze, and everyone has a good laugh over the half-dressed men. Then, she tells them they are somewhere cold, and they are colder than they’ve ever been. As they hurry to put their clothes on or cover themselves up, Ike’s eyes pop open, and he sees stuff at a meat factory… a black market meat factory.

After the show, he seems perfectly fine. He and Christella decide to hit the disco for some dancing. While dancing, though, he sees more from that meat factory, the black market meat factory. He also sees the slain body of Bobby Jo. This time, he seems a little disturbed by his visions. He tells Christella he just has a little bit of a headache from the beer he’s been guzzling like a champ all night long. She eventually convinces him that they should head home. At home, Christella wants to sex her man up real good like, but he gives that time-honored excuse all men have when they aren’t wanting to fool around: “I’ve got a lot on my mind tonight.”

A week later, he visits his friend, Tony, at the hospital. Tony was the friend he was with the night he went out on the double date. Ike tells him that he’s been getting these headaches. Tony says that it might just be stress. He’s got a heavy load at school. In between classes, he’s driving a cab. He’s worn pretty thin right now. Still, Tony, being a medical professional, suggests Ike go see a guy to talk about this stuff. While driving his cab, Ike spots a fine-looking white fedora in the window of a shop and decides to buy it.

Christella finds the hat and kind of teases Ike about it not really being his style. Ike snatches the hat off her and takes it to the bathroom while she ponders what’s up with her beau. As he wears the hat and looks into the mirror, Ike sees the reflection of the slain J.D. Ike takes Tony up on that advice to visit a psychiatrist. This guy is the best doctor in New Orleans. Not only does he say that Ike doesn’t have hypertension or high blood pressure, but he thinks that the studies and the constant work have gotten him kinda messed up. So he suggests the best possible medication: weed.

Ike heads to the red-light district and finds an old friend of his, Enoch. Enoch’s a jack of all trades. He’s got bitches. He runs numbers. After putting a bet on the number 141, Ike goes home to do some more studying with Christella. He’s not able to answer one of the questions because he sees J.D. fuckin’ and slappin’ some bitches around. After getting some aspirin for another headache, he decides he wants to work on Christella instead of his upcoming exams. Whatever he’s doing, she is not entirely into it. It’s a bit rougher and more aggressive than Ike typically is. She even asks him to stop, but he doesn’t, effectively raping her.

Domestic rape… It’s a real thing, guys. It is just as bad as any other kind.

Later, Ike is driving an old lady around in his cab, and he’s listening to the radio. A sermon from Reverend Elija Bliss comes on the radio, and it sends Ike into a crazy spiral. He drives his cab around dangerously, causing the old lady to smash her head against the backseat window. He literally throws her out of her cab, robs her, and tells her to GTFO while he leaves with her bleeding all over the pavement. I dunno, readers… I’m beginning to think this Ike fella is having a hard time as of late.

Back at home, he starts getting really into his straight razor. So… You know… I’m guessing things are going to continue to get pretty bad around these parts for Ike. Ike’s boss at the cab company is pissed that Ike wants to cut back on shifts until he’s finished with his exams. His boss also says that the old lady he attacked also told the cops about a Black cabbie beating her up, and now the cops are sniffing around. But all that kind of fades to the background because Ike sees an advertisement for Reverend Bliss’s sermons.

Enter Lou Gossett Jr., just going to fucking town as he performs one of his sermons for a packed house. Goddamn Gossett is a hell of an actor. Not only is he a great actor, but the moment he comes into this movie, your eyes are glued to him. As good as Glynn Turman is as Ike, holy shit, Lou Gossett is a… Look. I hate it when I see movie trailers that have those little pull quotes from critics that read that so-and-so is “a force of nature!” That’s so eye-rollingly cringy to me.

But then I saw J.D.’s Revenge and witnessed Lou Gossett Jr. play a Southern Baptist Reverend. Holy balls, this is what that kind of pull quote means. He is KILLING this first scene. Okay, well, maybe it isn’t technically his first scene. We saw him in the 1942 scene. We heard him on the radio. But this is the first time we’re seeing him go whole hog on this motherfucker. He’s talking about Jesus going to bat for him against the devil. He’s taking his jacket off. He’s unbuttoning the top couple of buttons on his shirt. He’s flailing his arms. He’s shouting lines with conviction. He’s imitating a prizefighter about to go into the ring. This movie is already good, but Gossett has just come up to the plate to give this movie some more insurance runs.

I don’t know what it means, but I can feel it, so I know what I’m talking about.

After his sermon, Elija is attacked by a member of the congregation over whether or not Elija was that good of a fighter in his youth. Ike, suddenly getting a little clarity from being briefly possessed by J.D., tries to beat a hasty retreat, but Elija runs him down. He introduces Ike to Theotis and his daughter, Roberta. Elija also says he feels like he knows Ike somehow. Elija invites Ike back to the church, and through gritted teeth, Ike says he will be back… very soon. Roberta, looking hot as shit, says she hopes he does come back soon.

Question. Okay, so Roberta, one way or another, is J.D.’s niece, right? But Ike… Ike’s just some poor sap who is possessed by J.D. Is it incest if Ike gets the hots for Roberta? I mean, I would not like Ike to fuck things up with Christella because she seems quite lovely. It’s just that I don’t think Ike is really being himself right now. I think spiritual possession is enough to let the guy off the hook if he decides to do a little adultery.

Then again… If Ike ends up hitting on Roberta, or, I suppose, doing something worse to her, he would be doing it because of J.D. And that’s her uncle. Hmmm… Maybe I’ve spiraled down a rabbit hole I shouldn’t have. Okay, that’s it. Everyone forget the previous paragraph and this one too. Let’s move on, shall we?

The next stop Ike takes while trying to figure out what’s going on inside his noodle is the meat factory… the black market meat factory. Okay, I’m only continuing that gag because Wikipedia says that J.D. ran a black market meat factory. That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard a slaughterhouse be called. One, the place is not making meat. The animals are brought in with the meat already. You’re just slaughtering and preparing the meat there. So it wouldn’t be a factory. Also, how do you sell meat on the black market? Meat is meat. I would understand if they have, like, some endangered species there or some such shit. But it’s cows and stuff. Don’t let this gag give you the impression that I don’t think this movie is any good. Quite the contrary. This movie kinda rules. The performances are great. The story is interesting. I’m really into it. It’s just that description of the meat-packing company that is killing me.

But I digress… Again.

Alright, so Ike has kind of connected some dots. The visions he has take place at that warehouse he went to, where the black market meats are sold to, I dunno, Arby’s… probably. He comes home to a worried Christella. She realizes Ike is drunk. After showing a great deal of concern for him, he tells her to shut her yap and then slaps the shit out of her. Christella is fucking rad because she gets up and asks Ike what the fuck all this is about. Unfortunately, he’s a little stronger than she is, so he picks her up and tosses her out of the house.

In the bathroom, he has a pretty significant breakdown. He seemingly is now switching back and forth between the mean and pretty nasty J.D. and his normal self. Immediately after tossing Christella out, he seemed to show some sorrow before the J.D. persona took control again. In the bathroom, he’s frightened by the reflection of J.D. laughing at him. I think he also called Ike a “mark-ass busta,” but I could be wrong about that. My point is, things are getting pretty bad.

At the clinic, Ike is with Tony while Christella is with Tony’s wife, Phyllis. Christella doesn’t exactly accept Ike’s apology because she knows he was drunk and, well, that’s just not going to cut it for her. Tony tells him all about how she arrived there in quite a state and took several hours to calm down. Ike, in turn, tells Tony he’s flipping the fuck out. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, but he honestly cannot remember what he did to Christella. All he knows is that something is seriously wrong with him.

I will say I’m not too sure I like Dr. Tony’s diagnosis. He says Ike doesn’t need to see a shrink. All he did was finally let off some steam. He says that sometimes a guy just has to show his “[n-word] self” and you just gotta go upside a bitch’s head if she’s giving you lip. He even tells Ike that, believe it or not, bitches like that. They want to know what the line is that they can push their man. He thinks this is pretty encouraging that Ike is not as pent up anymore.

Mind you, Tony is saying this, pretty loudly, in the waiting room at a clinic. I… hmmm. Nurse? I think I would like to cancel my appointment with Dr. Tony.

Christella’s folks have called her ex-husband, Carl, who is also a cop. He thinks Ike is pretty dang dangerous. Christella says he’s just going through some things, but Carl isn’t so sure that’s a good way to look at this. I mean… she’s also got a pretty beefy shiner on her face. That seems pretty dangerous. He says that he’s going to keep an eye on ol’ Ike to see if he’s as cool as Christella seems to think he is.

Christella officially breaks things off with Ike. That night, while trying to still study for his law exams, Ike listens to another sermon from Elija. As he does, J.D. fully takes over, and he scrawls the word REVENGE on a flyer for the church. He arrives at the church, and Roberta immediately slides over to Ike and puts the moves on him. After the service, she asks Ike to take her home to her apartment. Outside the church, a waiting Carl watches.

Meanwhile, Theotis tells Elija that he doesn’t like this Ike fella. He thinks he has “funny eyes,” like he’s on something. Theotis tells Elija that he needs to remember what business he is really in. Theotis says he’s going to keep an eye on both of their asses. At Roberta’s apartment, this daughter of a preacher man is ALL about getting Ike all up in her.

Okay, but maybe we shouldn’t just ignore those two paragraphs earlier in this review. Ike is basically gone at this point. J.D. is in full control. This woman he’s sexing up, even though she is effectively seducing him, is not just his niece. She is the spitting image of his own sister. I mean, she’s hot as fuck (this is actress Alice Jubert in her final film role before retiring from acting), but she is definitely this guy’s spiritual niece. I get it that he’s using this as a way to in close with the Bliss family so he can get his revenge, but damn… That’s some serious revenge if he wants to bed his own niece. I wouldn’t want to do that. I think I’d be fine with finding some other way of getting revenge.

She was a baby when her mother was killed. She’s not to blame for what happened then or how she’s been raised since. Hell, Elija isn’t even all that much to blame for what happened to J.D. It’s Theotis who was the real turd. Elija just saw his dead wife and J.D. with blood on his hand. He jumped to the empirical conclusion that J.D. killed Betty Jo based on what his eyes told him. Still, I think I would look for some other way to get that revenge.

Theotis, protecting his family and their interests, sends some goons to rough up Ike. After Ike even says something he said to Betty Jo about her being his baby sister and the Blisses are his enemies, the goons start to see things like Theotis… This guy is weird.

Christella comes home to try to make things work with Ike. However, Ike gets himself a pretty nifty new hairdo, much to her dismay. Ike even begins referring to himself as J.D Walker. He roughs her up again and tells her to call off Carl. He then attempts to rape her again until she smashes a vase over his head.

With J.D. really in charge now, he goes out on the prowl. While he goes to pick up bitches at the nightclub, Christella is back over at Phyllis and Tony’s place. She tells Carl that it was like Ike had become somebody else. Carl is uninterested in any more defense from Christella. Tony even says that, on a medical or emotional level, Ike is definitely going through something. Carl storms out, saying that he’s going to find Ike and deal with him once and for all.

Carl tells another cop how he plans to get Ike for beating up Christella and mentions the name J.D. Walker. That other cop tells Carl that J.D. Walker has been dead for decades. Speaking of J.D./Ike, J.D. picks up a woman named Cheryl, who tells him that was the best fucking she ever had. Her husband comes home, and J.D. just straight-up cuts the motherfucker and takes their car for his trouble.

With Cheryl’s car, J.D. visits his and Betty Jo’s grave. Ike pleads with J.D. to let him go, but J.D. regains control to say he’s gonna get his revenge. The next stop is the church. Since J.D. dresses like a sly mofo, his presence brings the sermon to a screeching halt. He reveals himself as J.D. Walker. He says he’s got a score to settle with Elija and Theotis. He tells Elija to meet him on the killing floor in his black market meat factory.

Elija completely believes that J.D. is back. He says that J.D. has possessed Ike to come to terms with the heinous crime he committed by killing Betty Jo. He wants to meet with J.D., talk to him, and settle this between the two of them. He still believes that it was because of his relationship with Betty Jo that led to J.D. killing her. Theotis doesn’t believe any of this shit. He just thinks it’s Ike hopped up on crazy drugs. So, Theotis pulls a gun out of the desk drawer and says, “Fine, we’ll both go to meet his guy.”

At the black market meat factory, J.D. waits for the Bliss brothers. He’s replaying what he heard in the argument between Betty Jo and Theotis. The brothers arrive to confront J.D./Ike. Elija says he’s there to save his soul, but J.D. wants to settle the score with Theotis. Roberta followed them to the black market meat factory. She hears the accusation from J.D. that Theotis was the one who killed her mother. It turns out that Theotis ran a whole racket with Elija when he was a boxer. Theotis was making money off of Elija taking falls. This whole time, Theotis was basically building Elija up and eventually got him into this business of being a respected reverend. He had to get rid of Betty Jo and J.D. because they were no good and were going to basically muck everything he was planning up.

Not only did Theotis make Elija who he was, but he also got Betty Jo pregnant despite her being with Elija. Elija and Roberta wrestle with Theotis who is trying to shoot J.D. The gun goes off, killing Theotis. Elija runs away in terror while Roberta cries over her real father’s body. J.D. seemingly frees Ike from his possession. Carl comes busting in and tells Ike he’s gonna kill him. He starts beating the shit out of Ike before being restrained by his partner.

Elija retreats to his church. There, he smashes the picture of himself out front. He goes inside and collapses in front of the altar to ask God what he has done. At the police station, Ike remembers nothing of what happened over the last several days. Roberta confesses to killing Theotis, much to the frustration of Carl, who really wants to pin everything on Ike. His partner reminds him that Christella doesn’t want to press charges against Ike, so they really don’t have anything. Elija arrives at the police station to tell Ike what happened – Isaac Hendrix was a vessel for J.D. Walker to commit God’s justice for an unjust death. Elija even says that it’s possible Theotis pulled the trigger himself. So, Ike is free of J.D., Elija’s conscience is clear, and Roberta is no longer being held on a murder charge. It’s a happy ending for everyone!

J.D.’s Revenge is a fine film. It’s very straightforward in its plot. Here’s a decent guy living a pretty good life who gets possessed by a real bad dude. The real bad dude does real bad things to get revenge on the people who killed his sister. It’s not without some pretty interesting elements, despite being almost painfully straightforward. Glynn Turman is fantastic in what essentially becomes a dual role as the kindly Ike and the utterly insane J.D. There really is no redemption whatsoever for J.D. He was bad before. He’s bad now. He rapes women. He has a hair-trigger temper. He’s a real shitbag. If there is one redeeming quality to him is that he really did love his sister, Betty Jo. He was upset with her for getting involved with Elija because the Bliss brothers were J.D.’s rivals. Aside from that, he was heartbroken that she was killed and returned from the dead to right that wrong. The movie does not flinch and tries to make J.D. a decent guy in the end. He’s just righteously angry over something that does suck, even if he sucks.

Lou Gossett Jr. is just fantastic in this. He’s got something of an interesting arc in this. He was a boxer who was mixed up in some gangster shit many years ago, but turned that into a redemption story when he became a reverend. The problem, though, is that he had no idea his brother was manipulating him from the get-go. He kind of pulled the strings on Elija’s boxing career by ordering him to take a fall to make money. Theotis then uses Elija’s reputation as this powerful reverend with a lot of community ties to continue to, seemingly, do some mob-like crimes behind the scenes. If nothing else, he has goons to hire to try to scare Ike away from Roberta.

So, yeah, Turman is a bit of a revelation if you’ve only ever seen him in his bit parts, like the science teacher in Gremlins. He’s very good when he switches between the two characters he’s tasked to play. Gossett reminds you that, yeah, he was one of the very best actors of any race for a while there. He’s so watchable in this movie. You get the idea that there is this good man there, even if he did some not-so-great things in his past. This is definitely one to check out.

Next time, we close out Black Horror Halloween with a lighter tale of the devil and a guy who is going to get to return to life if he marries the devil’s daughter. Oh, and it’s the return of Rudy Ray Moore, too! So, why don’t you come back here next week for the 1977 comedy Petey Wheatstraw, and let’s celebrate Halloween together!