Curfew Breakers (1957)

I picked this thing up thinking it was going to be a juvenile delinquent film with greaser gangs fighting on the city streets. Man was I wrong. Curfew Breakers may have marketed itself as a JD flick on Johnny Legend's Untamed Video but it turns out to be more of a drugsploitation movie when it was all said and done. This makes a lot of sense considering the original title was Hooked and then Narcotics Squad. Being a fan of the silly druggy genre I wasn't all to disappointed.

Curfew Breakers starts like an episode of dragnet with old geezer police trying to break into a teenage drug ring. Things get more serious when a high school kid kicks the bucket from "a hot shot". For those unfamiliar a hot shot is when a dealer purposely sells a junkie poison bag of goods. We see lots of this in blaxploitation flicks like Hammer and Coffy. Anyway the cops are after the killer drug dealers and come across typical greasy haired street kids with hep 50's jargon and a bad attitude. The lead female Julie is a bit of a babe with torpedo-tits and a tight sweaters but she seems to be running with the bad crowd. The portrayal of heroin addiction is surprisingly accurate for a movie in the 50's, similar to Frank Sinatra's The Man With The Golden Arm. As the police close in on the dealers the teenage junkies have a hard time getting a fix and they resort to crime. In one of the films highlights two delinquent street kids shoot and kill a gas station attendant only to end up burning alive in a explosive car crash. This one also comes complete with two ridiculous songs one of which involves a scat-singing weirdo who looks like hes about 45. We also get a pretty cool artsy-fartsy withdrawal sequence and plenty of cheesy 50's dialogue.

If you're not a square and you dig cheesy drugsploitation flicks of the yesteryear you could do worse.

  

The Deadly Organ (1967)

This slice of Argentinian sleaze comes from director Emilio Vieyra, the same cat who would go on to do the insane The Curious Doctor Humpp and the English dialogue was written by Jack Curtis who I remember best as the director of the awesome 60's monster-rama gore flick The Flesh Eaters but unfortunately The Deadly Organ doesn't quite compete with either of the films just mentioned.

Fans of the superior The Curious Doctor Humpp should understand what I mean when I say the The Deadly Organ is weird, sleazy and interesting but a bit slow moving and confusing. The Deadly Organ is actually extremely slow paced. The only thing that saves the film from putting its audience into a drooling coma is just how strange it is. Of course the good looking Spanish women and the gratuitous nudity helps out a lot but for me the main interest in the film is within the subtext of the plot.

The Deadly Organ is probably known better as Feast Of Flesh by most due to the fact that this is the title it screened under in the United States. It ran on a double bill with the awesome sex & violence filled monster epic from Mexico Night Of The Bloody Apes and the two films would be released through Something Weird Video on a double feature dvd. The Deadly Organ is clearly the duller of the two but as I mentioned the story is strange enough that it works.

Although at times The Deadly Organ may seem like a monster movie it absolutely is not. Its more of an early slasher film then anything else. We have a masked villain that is terrorizing the women of a small town but our killer is not just content with slashing up young women. He lures them in with an entrancing tune from his Deadly Organ. The music gives the film a dream like vibe and is repetitive but pretty cool at the same time. Then the masked killer hooks his victims on heroin and with the help of the entrancing music the females become completely obsessed with him as if he were a drug himself. Then of course he kills them. His weapon of choice is in fact a giant syringe which he plunges deep into his victims chests and leaves them over dosed, cold and dead. Of course he changes it up from time to time and we do get some strangulation and knife-fu but it is usually a giant needle that is found buried in the chest of a corpse.

Now if that's not a cool and twisted plot, I don't know what is. It is never really spelled out but The Deadly Organ almost plays like a warped anti drug horror movie, similar to something like Blood Freak or Frank Henenlotter's Brain Damage. Some would probably say that I am over analyzing this cheep exploitation flick a little to much but there is definitely some kind of social message wrapped up inside this bizarre stalk and kill flick.

The majority of the characters are supposed to be part of the younger generation, the hip generation. They run around naked, listen to "weird music", drive fast cars, have sex with anyone they please and use drugs. The older generation fears for the future and the main characters who represent the older folk are two police/detectives. These guys can't seem to get it right. They can not find the killer any quicker then they can understand the youth. They always seem to a be a bit to late and even when they have a full proof plan some how it falls to shit.

The Deadly Organ is kinda like a drug. You can be wide awake but once you fix yourself you drift in and out of consciousness. If you nod out, you will be pulled out of your dreamlike state for another dose of murder and weird bloodletting. This is not recommended for most. Only hardcore exploitation enthusists will be awake by the films final reel.

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Remember when Matt Dillon was cool? In movies like Rumble Fish and Over The Edge? Well I guess there comes a time where you get to old to keep up the bad-ass juvenile delinquent act but its a shame when such a cool actor moves on to do Hollywood crap like Crash (2004). Drugstore Cowboy is the last of Dillon's more cutting edge stuff and I'm sure its safe to say that it is his last cult film.

Directed by Gus Van Sant, Drugstore Cowboy follows a gang of four junkies lead by Bob (Dillon) and his girlfriend Dianne (Kelly Lynch) who get their fix by breaking into drug stores and stealing the pills.

Gus Van Sant artistically depicts the life of the criminal junkie in a comedic manner. To take such a dark subject matter and make it funny is quite the task. Throw in the artsy-fartsy stuff and you are left with a classic in drugsploitation.

Bob is loser who has been in and out of jail most of his life. As he gets older the life style of being a drug addict is getting harder. Not only is it getting hard to find a new place to rob but the police are hot on his tail. He decides to take his gang of junkies on the road, across country to what will be be a life changing experience for him. Bob believes a hex is placed on him and his crew when one of his followers puts a hat on a bed. This is never explained in a way that makes any sense but Bob has some wacky ideas about luck. Well the hat on the bed turns out to be a bad omen after all and the result is an over dose of one of his friends. Stuck in a hotel room with a corpse Bob has to make some serious decisions on what to do. A cop gets shot, Bob is beaten bloody and his childhood sweet heart turns out to not not be as faithful as Bob thought.

Perhaps the drugs will not help Bob escape this one. His whole world is turned upside down and it is time for Bob to make a change but even as he tries to straighten out it seems the world is against him... or is it just the hex from the hat on the bed?

William S. Burroughs shows up as a junkie-priest and offers up some awesome Burroughs type dialogue. The movie also sports an okay soundtrack and when its all said and done Drugstore Cowboy makes for a good time with plenty of replay value. I think the main audience for this movie is people who like more modern type junkie films like Trainspotting but there is also a Rivers Edge type of feel that runs through out. There is also something a bit artistic about it. Whether it is the cinematography, the plot or the social messages that are thrown into it. Drugstore Cowboy is not your average time waster. It is more of a conversation starter that is filled with humor.

Reefer Madness (1936)

This cult classic is amongst the most important of all teen-scare, drugsploitation flick. Its also been released as Tell Your Children in 1938 and Dope Addict, Doped Youth, Love Madness and The Burning Question.

Reefer Madness shows marijuana as you have never seen it before. An evil, evil drug! and I don't mean evil in the sense of a bunch of long haired smelly hippies talking about peace and love... I'm talking about crazed gun slinging mobsters who are quick to turn the youth onto "the devils weed".

According to Reefer Madness, marijuana isn't the mellow drug that you thought it was. Belly-laughs turn to madness and anything can happen from violent beatings with a cane to murder. The most memorable scene shows a man excessively smoking grass while a woman plays the piano. "Bring me some reefers". "Play it faster! Faster! Play it faster!"

I was lucky enough to catch this thing in the theater in a strange colorized version. Not that the color made the film any better it was just something different. The main thing that I found interesting about the colorized version was that the clouds of smoke was all different crazy colors. Each person exhaled a different color smoke. We had reds, blues, yellows, purples etc.

Anybody who is into teen-scare movies or exploitation films in general is usually familiar with this one. Its by no means a great example of good film making. Its loaded with bad acting, bad editing and very strange camera perspectives. We have a horrible special effect in a court house with a swinging noose and very silly dialogue. In other words its a bad example of film making but a good example in exploitation and bad taste.

Reefer Madness comes complete with a car crash, the obvious gratuitous marijuana smoking, death by hand gun, a suicide (complete with leap through a window), excessive laughing, violent cane-fu, crazy haircuts, and lots of youngster making out in a stoned stupor.

The Hard Road (1970)

The Hard Road is not a pretty picture! Or at least that's what the tagline says and I think I'm going to have to agree. This anti-drug sexual hygiene scare flick is about a 17 year old girl named Pam and bad choices she makes and The Hard Road she chooses. The film opens up with teenage Pam delivering a baby which unfortunately they didn't show in true exploitation fashion. Pam chooses to put the baby up for adoption and tries to get on with her normal teenage life but the kids in school all know what happened and they are making life very hard for Pam. Pam's parents also feel the pressures of their judgemental surroundings and dad starts drinking heavily while mom pops over the counter pills. Pam gets a job as a secretary for a sleazy man named Leo who runs a music agency. Leo likes to watch Pam through a secret two way mirror in his office but unfortunately the most Pam skin we get is watching her fix her thigh high stalkings. Sorry guys but this ones not a skin flick. Pam meets a rocker who introduces her to some grass and trashy hippie folk. Pam plunges further and further into depravity as she gets turned onto wild orgies, psychedelics, pills and heroin.
As I mentioned this is not a sexploitation flick so we don't get much nudity in the sex scenes. Instead were treated to another disturbing film within the film. Pam catches Gonorrhea and we get a good honest sex hygiene scare film with nasty pictures of rotting genitals and open sores. Its really the typical stuff you see in all these v.d. scare flicks but this one manages to catch us a bit off guard when it pretty much comes from nowhere.
My favorite scenes are probably all the weird hippy-trippy scenes with wide angle lenses and unique camera work. The proper use of lighting and camera angles actually shows a bit of talent on the filmmakers end. As the film goes on we enter darker territory with harder drugs and more violent characters. Pam eventually sees not everyone is a peace loving hippy. There is one hilarious seen where a "o.d." hippy is running through a long tunnel screaming his lungs out. He is then picked up by a friend and the two junkies mug a business man. They kick him in the face with sandals on their feet until the mans face is red with blood and every time they kick him his head rocks back and forth like a bobble-head. This scene has to be seen to be believed. Another very memorable seen is the painful withdrawal from heroin in a prison cell. The junkie smashes his face into a cement wall and goes into convulsions in a pretty realistic scene. The film all comes to a 70's downer ending with Pam having a hell of a acid trip at a airport runway. She is hit by a car and killed. As the tagline says The Hard Road Is Not A Pretty Picture.