Embracing the Melodrama Part II #32: The Sidehackers (dir by Gus Trikonis)

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Why the Hell am I reviewing The Sidehackers, a rather terrible film from 1969?

A lot of it is because The Sidehackers is famous for being featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and my boyfriend absolutely loves that show. And, after I watched The Sidehackers, I viewed the Mystery Science 3000 version of the film. Seriously, if any film deserves to be mocked by two robots and a possibly stoned space traveler, it’s The Sidehackers.

Another reason that I agreed to watch The Sidehackers is that it’s included in one of my many Mill Creek box sets and, as I’ve stated in the past, I always enjoy seeing what I can find hiding in those compilations. Sometimes, you find a surprisingly good film. And sometimes, you find The Sidehackers.

Finally, The Sidehackers is a Crown International production and, as of late, I’ve become a bit obsessed with seeing as many Crown International films as possible.

Anyway, The Sidehackers is one of those films that’s built around a sport that was probably never popular with anyone other than the guy who produced the film. No, I’m not talking soccer. I’m talking about sidehacking!

Let’s see if I can explain this. You’re going to have to forgive my limited knowledge of just what the Hell this sport was all about. Basically, sidehacking is a former of motocross where all the motorcycles have a sidecar attached to them. So, when racing, one person steers the motorcycle and then his teammate stands in the sidecar and spends the entire race adjusting his body and providing balance whenever the motorcycle has to make a sharp turn.

Or something.

All I know is that it looks extremely silly and kinda stupid but everyone in The Sidehackers is just fascinated by it. The Sidehackers features two full races and I have to admit that, as hard as I tried, I could not keep up with who was on which motorcycle or how much help the guy in the sidecar really was. I found myself wondering why someone would decide they wanted to race as a part of a team instead of as an individual. At one point, the film’s main character says that sidehacking is all about “teamwork” but seriously, who needs that crap? Individual glory all the way!

Anyway, surly Rommel (Ross Hagen) is the greatest sidehacker in the world. However, he makes a mistake when he agree to show cult leader J.C. (Michael Pataki) how to sidehack. J.C. loves the sport but he can’t handle the fact that he’s not very good at it. He gets jealous of Rommel and his amazing sidehacking skills. J.C.’s girlfriend, Paisley (Claire Polan) is also impressed with Rommel’s sidehacking. It looks like this sidehack might end in tragedy!

(To be honest, I just like using the word “sidehack” and I will probably use it a few more times before this review ends.)

When he’s not busy sidehacking, Rommel likes to go on picnics with his wife Rita (Diane McBain) and think about how happy they are and how much they both love sidehacking. It’s a life so perfect that an American Idol style ballad is heard whenever Rommel and Rita are together. However, then Paisley claims that Rommel assaulted her so J.C. briefly abandons his sidehacking obsession so that he and his gang can beat up Rommel and murder Rita.

Rommel handles the tragedy not by sidehacking but by walking along the highway. Rommel no longer cares about sidehacking. Sidehacking is J.C.’s thing now. Rommel, instead, is out for revenge. He recruits a few random people from around town and they go off to kill sidehacking J.C. and his gang.

And it should be easy enough to accomplish all of this because it’s not like J.C. is a particularly intelligent murderous cult leader but since this film was made in 1969, it has to end on a down note. Let’s just say that the film ends with a close-up of a dead body while the Sidehackers love theme plays on the soundtrack.

The Sidehackers is incredibly bad and pretty boring. Michael Pataki deserves some credit for giving a good performance as J.C. but Ross Hagen is amazingly surly. Even before Rita dies, Hagen seems to be in a generally pissed off mood. If anything, I doubt Ross Hagen’s performance did much to increase the popularity of sidehacking.

I searched YouTube and most of the clips of The Sidehackers was taken from the Mystery Science Theater episode. Unfortunately, those clips tends to make The Sidehackers look more interesting than it actually is. I really wanted to find some sidehacking footage so you could see how stupid it really does look but unfortunately, I couldn’t find any. However, I did find this clip of one of Rommel’s men telling a stupid joke that has nothing to do with sidehacking.

Enjoy!

Horror on The Lens: Grave of the Vampire

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this 1972 film (which was reportedly made for $50,000), exploitation vet William Smith plays James Eastman, a young man who just happens to be half-vampire and who has dedicated his life to tracking down and destroying his father. And who is his father? None other than serial killer-turned-bloodsucker Caleb Croft (Michael Pataki) who is now teaching a course down at the local college! What choice does James have but to enroll in his father’s class and then make plans to destroy him?

While it’s pretty obvious that Grave of the Vampire was made for next to no money, it’s still got a few atmospheric scenes. While the film really doesn’t do as much as one might hope with the whole idea of James between half-vampire and half-human, it’s still worth seeing for Michael Pataki’s performance. He is one intimidating vampire!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX4Aa0Ajs8M

Back to School #24: Graduation Day (dir by Herb Freed)

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past week, we’ve been doing Back T0 School here at the Shattered Lens: 76 high school and teen film reviews, all posted in chronological order. We started with two films released in 1946 and now, we’ve finally reached the golden age of teen films: the 1980s.

You really can’t take a look at 80s teen films without reviewing at least one slasher film. With the twin box office successes of Halloween in 1978 and Friday the 13th in 1980, there were literally hundreds of slasher films released in the early 80s. Since those films were specifically targeted towards a teen audience, it’s not surprising that quite a few of them took place in high school. And, since the majority of these films were also low-budget affairs, we also should not be surprised that the majority of them were filmed in Canada. In other words, this would appear to be the perfect opportunity for me to review my favorite Canadian slasher film, Prom Night! However, I’ve already reviewed that film so, instead, let’s take a look at the next best thing.

First released in 1981, Graduation Day has a great opening. Various good-looking teenagers compete in athletic activities. One guy throws the shot put. Another one does the pole vault. A dark-haired girl does gymnastics. In the stands, other teenagers cheer and smile because apparently, they’re really into the shot put. Standing on the sidelines, Coach Michaels (Christopher George) shouts things like, “GO! GO! GO!” Laura Ramstead (Ruth Ann Llorens) runs the 100 meter race. “GO, LAURA, GO! 30 SECONDS LAURA!” Coach Michaels shouts. We get a close-up of a stop watch. Then we get a close-up of Laura running. Then we get a close-up of everyone in the stands cheering insanely. And then a close-up of …. well, let’s just say there’s a lot of close-ups. Laura crosses the finish line and then collapses dead of a heart attack. What makes this montage of competition, cheering, and death all the more fascinating is that there’s a wonderfully bad song playing in the background. “Everybody wants to be a winner!” the singer tells us. And I guess that’s true…

Anyway, jump forward a few months and now, mere days before high school graduation, somebody with a stop watch is killing the members of the track team! What’s interesting about this is, despite the fact that they’re the only targets of this killer, we really don’t get to know much about any of the members of the team. By that I mean that most of them are only really seen three times in the movie: during the opening credits, when they die, and then at the end of the movie when their bodies are discovered. One of them — a blonde girl — is only seen twice, reportedly because the actress playing her got mad and walked off the movie before her death scene was filmed. Hence, we only see her at the start of the film and then at the end of the film when another character stumbles over her head. (In a move that would be copied by Tommy Wiseau in The Room, director Herb Freed gave all of her lines and her death scene to a totally new character, played by future horror mainstay Linnea Quigley.) The end result may be the only slasher film where the victims themselves are all largely red herrings.

Instead, Graduation Day spends the majority of its time with the possible suspects. Graduation Day came out at a time when the North American slasher film was still largely influenced by Italian giallo films and, as a result, the film is structured like a whodunit. When we see the killer, all we see are the black gloves that he or she wears whenever committing murder. So, who could the killer be?

Could it be Laura’s grieving and bitter boyfriend, Kevin (E. Danny Murray), who appears to be in his 40s but is apparently a high school student?

Could it be the grieving and bitter Coach Michaels, who is being forced to retire as a result of Laura’s death?

Could it be Laura’s sister, Anne (Patch McKenzie), who knows karate and always seems to pop up right before anyone is murdered?

Could it be the principal (Michael Pataki), who is automatically a suspect just because he’s played by Michael Pataki?

Or maybe it’s the school’s music teacher, who is fat, balding and wears a powder blue leisure suit?

Or maybe it’s the school security guard, MacGregor (Virgil Frye), who says stuff like, “I could hurt you bad if I put my mind to it!”

Or maybe it’s Felony, the band that shows up to play at some sort of weird pre-graduation roller skating party? Felony — which was an actual band that apparently had one hit in the early 80s — plays a 10-minute song called Gangster Rock. Now, personally, I happen to really like the song so I’m going to include it below. Be warned that, while Felony was performing, the unseen killer managed to kill both Linnea Quigley and her boyfriend, so watch at your own discretion.

How much you enjoy Graduation Day is going to depend on who you see it with. Like most of the early 80s slasher films, Graduation Day is a film that’s best viewed with a group of your most snarky friends. As a group, you can consider such oddities as the fact that, though the film takes place in a large high school, it appears that there’s only about 40 students in the graduating class. You can point out that every single character in the film appears to be a potential homicidal maniac. You can enjoy the nonstop bitterness of Christopher George’s performance. You can talk about different your graduation day was from the one shown in this film. You can argue about who the killer is and then, at the end of the film, you can wonder how someone that stupid could have managed to kill 7 people in one day without anyone ever noticing. Even better, you can all get up and dance to Gangster Rock, just like the doomed characters in the film.

What fun!