Theme Months – Page 13

Shock (aka Beyond the Door II, 1977)

Published on October 2, 2020June 14, 2026 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

It’s October! It’s the spoooooookiest month of the year!

In years past, I generally would find some sort of loose theme to tie all the movies covered in the month (with usual exception to the actual Halloween “special” article). This year is no different! This is B-Movie Enema and that means I can’t do no movies like The Exorcist or its sequels. They are hardly “B” in quality of production, even if Exorcist II really fucking tried pretty hard. I can, however, do the next best thing.

Welcome to the 2020 October theme month I’m calling Exorcist Rip-Off Month! We’re getting things started with Mario Bava’s Shock from 1977. Here’s the thing about Shock… It’s a possession movie, yes. However, it may only be an Exorcist Rip-Off in sort of name only. You see, Shock was released in the United States as Beyond the Door II. Beyond the Door was a 1974 rip-off of The Exorcist and a B-Movie Enema alum. I really really really needed to cover this.

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Up! (1976)

Published on May 29, 2020June 14, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

We’ve come to the end of Russ Meyer Month here at B-Movie Enema.

Over the last several weeks, we’ve gone from Depression-era Missouri farms to a sexually liberated Canadian girl to go-go dancers with an axe to grind to wild Hollywood hippie parties. So naturally there is only one place left to go… Nazisploitation. This week, it’s the 1976 soft-core sex comedy Up!

This is another of the Meyer-Ebert collaborations, much like with last week’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. After that film and its success with audiences and some critics, Meyer tried his hand a couple more times with mainstream films, but both flopped. He decided he needed to get back to boobs… er basics. Back to basics. He swore he’d never stray away from his formula again.

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Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

Published on May 22, 2020June 14, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle1 Comment

“This is my happening, and it freaks me out!”

Welcome back to B-Movie Enema’s Russ Meyer Month. We’ve finally gotten to the back end of the month and his 70s features. It also brings us to two features Meyer did with famous Chicago movie critic Roger Ebert. First up, it’s the one the duo is most famous for – Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Meyer and Ebert cranked out a treatment that came to 127 pages in about a week and a half. Ebert completed the screenplay in three weeks. It was intended to be a straight sequel to the 1967 film Valley of the Dolls. Now, here’s where we start in on the rabbit hole that leads to Meyer and Ebert coming in.

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Vixen! (1968)

Published on May 15, 2020June 14, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle3 Comments

I love how Russ Meyer uses punctuation in his titles.

Welcome back to Russ Meyer Month here at B-Movie Enema. This week, we’re going to venture into X-rated territory for the 1968 drama-satire-softcore porn exploitation classic Vixen! We also travel north of the border to Canada for our story as well.

Vixen! might just be considered one of Meyer’s very best (though I have some commentary to add later). The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times both gave high praise to this film despite its themes and obvious sexploitation nature. However, again, it’s Roger Ebert who maybe says the best, most heartfelt comments calling this not just the “quintessential Meyer film” but that he also talks about how Meyer creates characters. We should already be aware with Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Mudhoney that Meyer likes going over the top for his villains and various other stereotypical characters. Ebert calls to the front that its Meyer’s talent in doing that that helps put people at ease seeing their first “skin-flick” and allows people to just have a good time – maybe the only thing Russ Meyer really wanted people to have.

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Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Published on May 8, 2020June 14, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

Last week, Russ Meyer Month started at B-Movie Enema with Mudhoney, a nice little tawdry tale in the American Plains during the Depression. This week, we pick up a movie that is one of Meyer’s best known – Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

As I mused there, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a fairly well known movie. There are two movies in Meyer’s filmography that probably get the most attention in terms of being trivia answers, but for different reasons. There’s this one that we’re talking about this week for its fun title. The other will be covered in two weeks because of who wrote it.

Curiously, though, as popular as Pussycat is, it was an unusual box office dud for Meyer. Most of his films did fairly well. There was a built-in audience at drive-ins full of horny guys wanting to see big breasted chicks. You’d think none of these movies would fail, but this one did. It wasn’t until later that it gained a cult status.

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Mudhoney (1965)

Published on May 1, 2020June 14, 2026 by Geoff Arbuckle2 Comments

Russ Meyer…

The name usually conjures up images of sleazy things happening with buxom beauties and just about everything that someone might call “exploitation” when it comes to 60s and 70s cinema. While it may seem like his movies are full of that sleaze, many note that his films were important in terms of female empowerment and showing women who aren’t just sexually free, but generally more powerful than the men in his films. That said, he would also place his female characters in ordeals that they would have to prove their strength and their ability to overcome the obstacles that they face in his movies. It’s probably true that his films were subversive in many ways that would eventually strike at the heart of a rising feminist movement.

All that and more will be discussed over the course of the next five weeks as B-Movie Enema tackles Russ Meyer Month! We begin with 1965’s Mudhoney…

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Trick or Treat (1986)

Published on October 31, 2019June 14, 2026 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Well… Would you look at that? It’s Halloween. The best month in all the world for all history and stuff is over, but on maybe one of the best days ever! What better way to celebrate than with a movie from 1986 called Trick or Treat?

In years past, B-Movie Enema celebrated Halloween by discussing Halloween: Resurrection, Halloween III, and Night of the Demons (the 2009 one). As you can see… October is pretty well liked around here. But you know what else we really like? Rock and Rollsploitation! The 80s, somehow, had a lot of people believing in demonology as an ultimate evil, so they tuned into televangelists to learn about how toys, cereal, rock and roll, and whatever else was going to lead you to damnation eternal.

Oh yeah… Rock and roll. You had people who were questioning the direction the genre was headed. Gone were the days of the 60s pleasantness, political protest, and psychedelic good vibrations. The same kids defending their love of the Rolling Stones and Beatles from parents claiming the bands were leading their daughters to sexual deviancy was now claiming their kids were being led to outright devil worship.

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The Children (1980)

Published on October 25, 2019June 14, 2026 by Geoff ArbuckleLeave a comment

Another week, another movie I was exposed to by my brothers when I was younger – The Children!

What’s great about a company like Vinegar Syndrome is that they have a wonderful eye for obscure horror, sci-fi, and erotica. The Children came out when I was really young, and somewhere along the way, my brothers watched the movie. I sincerely doubt they saw it at a real movie theater, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if it played at one of our local drive-ins. However they saw it, they saw it and brought it home from the video store or recorded it on cable or something, and then I watched it.

Now, I don’t want you to believe they made me watch these horror movies when I was a wee tyke. That simply wasn’t the case. No one made me watch these horror movies. My brothers weren’t complete monsters. Nah… I could have, at any point in time, simply closed my eyes or fallen asleep while they had me strapped and chained down to the chair to make me watch these movies.

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