Porky’s Revenge (1985, directed by James Komack)

Posted on November 5, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

The senior class of Angel Beach High finally graduate in Porky’s Revenge, the last official Porky’s film. It’s a good thing, too. Most of the members of the Porky’s cast were already in their late 20s when they were cast in the first Porky’s. By the time Porky’s Revenge was made, most of them looked more like they should be planning for their retirement than for college.

Director Bob Clark did not return for Porky’s Revenge and it really shows. The third film doesn’t have any messages about tolerance or fighting bigotry. Instead, it’s just a typical teen sex comedy with a subplot about Brian Schwartz (Scott Colomby) trying to help Coach Goodenough (Bill Hindman) pay back his gambling debt to Porky (Chuck Mitchell). Otherwise, the gang plays basketball, tries to arrange an orgy with the cheerleaders, and even helps Ms. Balbircker (Ellen Parsons) find love. I guess everyone forgot about Ms. Balbricker allying herself with the Klan during the previous film.

Porky’s Revenge doesn’t really have enough ambition to be terrible though. It’s just bland. Just as it doesn’t have the social conscience of the first two film, it’s also not as raunchy. There’s considerably less nudity and the occasionally rough edges of the first two films have been removed. That makes Porky’s Revenge less problematic but it also makes it less interesting. The first two films may have been imperfect but they did capture the feel of high school. This one doesn’t do that because the actors are too old and suddenly their characters are too nice. If not for the title, you would think this was just another dumb comedy that played for a week at the drive-in as opposed to being the second sequel to the most commercially-successful Canadian film of the 80s.

I did laugh when the gang went to the ruins of Porky’s to make sure that it hadn’t been rebuilt, just to discover that Porky now owned his own steamboat. I’m also glad that everyone finally graduated and gave the Porky’s saga a fitting close.

There was a direct-to-video sequel to Porky’s Revenge. It came out in 2009 and was called Porky’s Pimpin’ Pee Wee. I think I can live without watching it.

Porky’s (1981, directed by Bob Clark)

Posted on November 3, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Porky’s.

On the one hand, it’s a crude, juvenile, and raunchy sex comedy where a bunch of teenagers in 1960s Florida think that it’s a hoot and not at all problematic to spy on the girls shower and to hire a black man to scare all of their (white) friends.

On the other hand, it’s a heartfelt plea for tolerance where Tim (Cyril O’Reilly) finally stands up to his abusive father (Wayne Maunder) and makes friends with Brian Schwartz (Scott Colomby), who is apparently the only Jewish person living in Angel Beach, Florida.

What’s strange about Porky’s is that everyone knows it for being the template for almost every bad high school film that followed, with tons of nudity, jokes about sex, and characters with names like Pee Wee, Miss Honeywell, Cherry Forever, and Porky. But, when you sit down and watch the movie, you discover that, for all the raunchiness, it actually devotes even more time to Brian Schwartz dealing with the local bigots than it does to any of the things that it’s known for. Everyone remembers the shower scene but it’s obvious the film’s heart is with Brian and his attempts to make the world a better place. Porky’s is a sex comedy with a conscience.

Porky’s is an episodic film about a group of teenage boys trying to get laid and also trying to get revenge on the owner of the local brothel. There’s a lot of characters but I’d dare anyone to tell me the difference between Billy, Tommy, and Mickey. I went through the entire movie thinking that Billy was Mickey until I turned on the subtitles and discovered who was who. Porky’s has a reputation for being a terrible movie but it’s actually a pretty accurate depiction of the way that most men like to imagine how their high school years went. It captures the atmosphere of good-spirited teenage hijinks if not the reality.

One of the interesting things about Porky’s is that Bob Clark went from directing this to directing A Christmas Story. The innocence of A Christmas Story might seem like it has nothing in common with raunchiness of Porky’s but, actually, they’re both nostalgic films that are set in an idealized past. (If you still think A Christmas Story has nothing in common with Porky’s, just remember that Ralphie didn’t actually say “fudge.”) Of course, A Christmas Story struggled at the box office and only became a hit when it was released on video while Porky’s is still the most successful Canadian film to ever be released in the U.S. Sex sells. As cool as it was to see Brian Schwartz stand up for himself, I doubt the people who made Porky’s a monster hit were buying their tickets because they had heard the film struck a blow against anti-Semitism. They were going because they knew there was a shower scene.

Porky’s deserves its reputation for being a not-so great movie but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t laugh more than once while watching it. (Of course, I still didn’t laugh as much as the characters in the films laughed. I’ve never seen a cast that was as apparently amused with themselves as the cast of Porky’s.) There’s a lot of bad moments but it’s hard not to crack a smile when Miss Honeywell demonstrates why she’s known as Lassie or when one of the coaches suggests that wanted posters can be hung around the school to help catch the shower voyeur. Plus, everyone learns an important lesson about tolerance and how to destroy a brothel. As bad as it is, it’s hard to really dislike Porky’s.

Horror Film Review: Motel Hell (1980, dir. Kevin Connor)

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

You read the title of this post correctly. This is directed by Kevin Connor who has made numerous Hallmark films I’ve reviewed on this site. In addition, Bradford May was the camera operator on this film who also went on to direct numerous Hallmark movies I’ve reviewed. And it has one more connection to Hallmark because it has John Ratzenberger in it who went on to be in a few Hallmark movies.

So with all those connections to Hallmark in this 80s horror film, does it have any similarities to those films? Actually, it does in a way. In the case of Kevin Connor, it makes sense to hire a director who has proven themselves to be able to make a memorable movie with a small budget to make your small TV Movies.

Let’s talk about the movie now.

The film opens with Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) sitting on the porch of his Motel Hello. The ‘O’ being in need of replacing as it keeps going out. Thus changing the name of the place to Motel Hell. Smith drives out to the road and we see a motorcycle carrying a guy and a girl go past a sign.

Smith sells smoked meat out of his motel. He sees the motorcycle hit something then go down. The guy is dead, but the girl is still alive. He loads them up and brings them back home.

Smith doesn’t live alone. He lives with his sister Ida (Nancy Parsons). Look familiar?

If a painful game of tug of war came to mind, then you do recognize her, because that’s Balbricker from Porky’s (1981). She grabs no dicks in this movie. This is Rory Calhoun’s film. And he makes it known with his time tested and approved way of calming kids down who just ran scared after wandering through a slaughterhouse.

We are now introduced to the three other characters who matter in this movie.

First, the girl who survived the crash. Her name is Terry (Nina Axelrod). She wakes up to find out that her boyfriend is long gone. Smith has already buried him.

Second, the 80s sheriff Bruce Smith (Paul Linke). He’s Vincent Smith’s kid brother.

And inspector Bob Anderson (E. Hampton Beagle). Oh, poor poor Bob. Because after he gets this goodbye from Vincent.

Bob makes an unfortunate discovery about Vincent’s secret garden.

Yep, Vincent’s meat comes from people. Let me try and explain it the best I can. He sets traps on the nearby road so that people crash. He goes in and gasses them. He then takes them back to his secret garden and slits their vocal cords. He then plants them in the ground leaving just their head poking out. That’s why when the bag covering their heads are pulled off they just making groaning almost zombie like noises. Then he appears to hypnotize them using colorful pinwheels and hypnotic noise before he snaps their necks with a noose attached to a tractor trailer. They are then turned into the meat that he sells. Rather gruesome, but there honestly isn’t a whole lot to it. Here’s the scene that basically sums it all up.

Luckily, one of those heads is attached to John Ratzenberger. I say luckily because it means we finally all got our wish. Cliff Clavin has no way to tell his annoying stories anymore.

Oh, and Ratzenberger is captured after a van carrying himself and several bandmates hits a trap laid by Vincent. And you know what? More bands need to be named after Sergei Eisenstein movies.

That’s basically the film right there. Vincent and Ida collecting bodies, feeding the heads, and justifying it all to themselves with crazy talk. Then Bruce and Terry eventually figure things out and the net closes in on them.

There is one particular capturing scene that is worth watching. Here’s the capture of the kinky couple.

The other thing that is worth mentioning is that Wolfman Jack is in this. He plays a reverend.

According to Motel Hell, the lord works in mysterious ways. Sometimes the lord provides you with an excuse to confiscate a copy of Hustler for your own personal collection.

Horror really isn’t my thing and this film does begin to wear out it’s welcome at a certain point, but it’s Calhoun’s performance and the creepy atmosphere that makes it work. There are more clips up on YouTube if you want to see more in order to make your decision about watching this or not. I guess you have my recommendation.