Jive Turkey [1974]

A while ago Adam watched all the movies in a 50 pack of Drive-In movies (see: public domain) and decided that there were about three or so errant good ones and four worthy of bad movie night. We have already watched Prisoners of the Lost Universe, Single Room Furnished, and The Guy From Harlem so it was time to finish it up with Jive Turkey a.k.a. Baby Needs A New Pair Of Shoes. Ultimately it might actually be the weakest of the four with Guy From Harlem definitely the best, but Adam explained that after watching that many disappointing films, Jive Turkey looked really good in comparison.

Jive Turkey's premise is established quickly and then the film putters around for an hour and a half. An Italian restaurateur named Tony who deals drugs is trying to get into business with a black guy named Pasha who is a bookie. Pasha's friend, Serene, offs Tony's bodyguard and now they're apparently at war. A lot of vague criminal business happens. There's a very tall, snappy fellow named Sweetman who collects the horse race money from the barber shop, an opium brothel, a pastor who cheats on his wife in the vestry. None of us really know what the point of any of this was. Our favorite characters were this group of five guys who would just randomly appear from an alley and swarm around one of our mains for no reason at all. Eventually we find out that there's a double agent working for Tony and a double agent working for the cops, who care about all of this for some reason that may have to do with a mayoral election? We aren't even sure where this film takes place, by the way, but the license plates all said Ohio. It turns out that Serene, the enthusiastic murderer, was the cop's plant, which we discover after watching her de-drag. Sweetman gets gunned down by Pasha's crew, and we managed to piece together that this was because he was Tony's plant. He was the real jive turkey all along. The film ends there with nothing really resolved.

We got a few laughs from a cameo from a boom mic and from Serene's murdering scenes, but overall this film was too incoherent and didn't have enough camp to really be fun.

Quote: "I've always been arrogant. It's my only fault."

Spoon Rating: 3

The Dalmatians & Nice Cats [1995]

 In the interest of having a surefire good time, we decided to return to the Dingo Pictures well, the super low budget German Disney rip-off factory. While we really wanted to get our hands on "Hercules", with what we had available we decided that a pet-themed double feature would work. Each film was a mere half hour but felt longer.

"The Dalmatians," unlike it's more popular counterpart, only features three Dalmatians, siblings named Toby, Timmy, and Teuful (devil in German). Toby and Timmy get kidnapped by black pitbulls who make them work in a factory "licking and gluing and licking and gluing and licking and gluing..." Their demonic sister teams up with a beagle who gets her in with a gang of dogs who help to look for the missing pups. The gang includes a dog named Tramp who is clearly styled after "Lady And The Tramp," a dog with a weirdly sensual voice, and a bulldog who is completely incomprehensible. An exceedingly annoying bird who acts as our narrator prides herself on not getting involved until she helps free the dogs. Maybe there's a moral there.

Spoon Rating: 6

"Nice Cats" is about some really classist cats going on vacation with their owner. The female kitten ends up walking off on her own and is captured by the cat catcher (a man with a droopy ear, large nose, and "I Love Cats" shirt) and thrown in cat prison where she meets a street cat. In spite of her being an "educated domestic cat" they form a friendship and break out of prison together. The rest of the film involves them trying to get her back home. This film was slightly less amusing than its predecessor because it only had one voice actor who told the plot like a children's story, but it did have the backgrounds from "The Dalmatians," the music from "Alladin," and the Italian and Asian stereotype chefs from "Pocahontas." We are now much more versed in the Dingo Expanded Universe.

Spoon Rating: 5

REWATCH: Death Bed: The Bed That Eats [1977]

Today was a rewatch of the absolutely wonderful "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats." You can read my two previous reviews here and here. And, as is necessary every time we watch it, we have come up with even more sequel titles for another "Death Bed" movie.

• Death Bed: The Grim Sleeper
• Death Bed: Laid Out
• Death Bed: No Pillow Talk
• Death Bed: Not Full Yet
• Death Bed: Sleep Like The Dead
• Death Bed: Slumber Room
• Death Bed 2: The Twin

Spoon Rating: 7.5

Karla Faye Tucker: Forevermore [2004]

Again in the absence of a couple of Bad Movie Night people, we decided to take a gamble with Occult Demon Cassette's most recent movie night upload: "Karla Faye Tucker: Forevermore." This film is based on the real life story of Texas death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker. It's an uncommon combination of a Christian movie with a prominent romance and a hefty dose of tragedy porn. The film is also clearly a passion project of the writer, director, and producer Helen Gibson and in a unique casting situation the roles of Tucker and her eventual husband Dana Brown are seemingly played by a married couple.

Considering the fact that this movie is a full two hours long, it's kind of surprising how little plot there is. The first half of the movie is more or less about the love story of Karla and Dana. Dana is a preacher who dresses like Adam (black t-shirt, black jeans, black belt) who goes to meet Karla and they fall in love and have a prison marriage. Karla herself is a pickaxe murderer and former drug addict and prostitute who has found Jesus. The cast of characters is rounded out by a prison chaplain who wears silly hats to amuse Karla and a prison guard, possibly played by Helen Gibson, who is not so charmed by Karla that she doesn't think she deserves to die and also threatens to tear up the inmate vegetable garden so you know she's mean. Both the prison guard and a cigarette-smoking judge who has a few scenes are campy evil and also love to accessorize with Texas-shaped things. The second half of the movie is a lot of random scenes of Karla reading or writing letters in her cell, full length song sequences that look like low budget music videos, and discussions about trying to get her sentence thrown out. There is no success there and the last half hour is a lot of moving her to her execution, the execution itself, and a little bit of aftermath. Somewhat surprisingly, the movie ends on a very clear anti-death penalty stance and also uses the real life footage of George W. Bush denying a commuting of her sentence. For a Christian movie in 2004, this is actually a pretty hot take.

This movie is definitely on the fence. Were it only 90 minutes, we would probably be more comfortable recommending it, but the length of the film really causes it to drag. Of the positives, there's the fact that no one in the movie can show anger or meanness without being completely over-the-top, excessive use of the adjective "God-sized" (I thought he was infinite and formless?), and some absolutely choice images and editing. At one point a character is talking about Karla and says he saw the face of God and the film cuts to a close up of a boy dressed like a grim reaper eating a hot dog. On two different occasions we have Karla t-posing like Christ, once right before her husband macs on her in front of the disapproving guard and then, of course, on the execution table made to look even more like a cross than it already does. So much of the film is constructed in this very specific way that feels a little fetishistic in the way romantic comedies are but through a sad, Jesus lens. Basically, if this sounds like your jam, go for it. None of us regret watching it, and it was kind of interesting from a true crime perspective, but we can't really recommend it.

Spoon Rating: 4.5