Film Miasma PSA: I couldn’t really find any good images of this thing other than four chicks embroiled in a pillow fight (that I tried to capture at the top of this thing) so the images I did grab are – maybe more PG-13 than usual. Probably not intended for screen sharing during your weekly Team Zoom call.

The sequel arrives! Is it good? It’s not too bad. I could totally have done without ANYTHING to do with the dancing and singing here. The killer wasn’t too bad but his dance moves were kind of sucky and the voiceover with the laughing and screeching really drove me nuts BUT, the rest of this thing seemed like good fun. Being the lazy fuck that I am, I’m not going to look anything up but I’ll try and recall what was going on in 1987. Based on JUST THIS movie I would guess The Bangles or Bananarama were the talk of the industry with some sort of Adam Ant porking The Stray Cats in the butt – giving us the killer here. We also have a bunch of dream sequences so I guess we’re capitalizing on Nightmare on Elm Street (we’ve even got characters named Kruger and Craven for good measure, for fuck’s sake!).

One thing I didn’t mention the first time around is that I can clearly see how it (the screenplay) (probably) started out as some sort of allegory of a girl turning into a woman and the dangers of having men stick their pointy dicks inside her because they’d just as fucking well kill her with it and everyone she loved. Right? The drill. The “Do you know how much love this takes?” The magically appearing inside a two story window with no ladder, drill in hand. Maybe not that last part but I can see the writer spending years on this story of womanhood and finally selling it to some studio guy she met while bartending on the Santa Monica Strip. Eventually she sees it onscreen and it’s a slasher flick with loads of tits but she didn’t have to blow him in the parking lot and got 500 bucks for her hard work.

“That’s my screenplay…” she says, wiping a moist tear from her eye as she leaves the Venice Cine-luxe one steamy night with her girlfriend arm-in-arm. “At least I got my Pinto with it. Oh well. Wanna to drop some ludes [quaaludes] and go to the roller derby? I hear Filet of Flesh is really killing it this week!“

This time, instead of a power drill, we get an electric guitar with a drill built into it. This time, instead of a doob filled night of swapping t-shirts and tossing cigarette butts out of windows, we get a topless champagne dousing and some pillow feathers flying around for good measure. We also get some dream sequences involving the younger sister from the first movie who used to “beat off to pictures of Burt Reynolds” dreaming of hunky boys (and girls) only to have them brutally murdered when she – uh – gets ready to do some drilling herself. I guess girls don’t normally do the drilling, right? Teenage guys do. Porkin’ and drillin’ and bangin’ and whatnot? As I mentioned in the first post of this series, I never got invited to champagne-bath slumber parties and never really did a lot of high school sex. I wanted to, sure, but the occasion never really presented itself, I guess.

The particulars of this beauty are that two of the survivors (the neighbor sisters) (no mention of the lead from last time) are alive and well although one of them is quite unwell and languishing in the local insane asylum. One night, the younger system dreams of some beefcake jock, then her mind R.E.M.s over to her poor sister who is subsequently murdered by a dude with a wicked-nasty drill built into his guitar. Understandably, that fucks her clean up but not enough to miss out on a weekend up the coast with her bandmate girlfriends, at her dad’s house which is stocked with a couple of couches, a bed and some unopened champagne. Sounds like some good time for some Ballin’.

It is also worth noting that the teenage girl, younger sister from the first movie has changed from, how do I put this, that young, teenage tomboy girl actress who seemed to be in EVERY TV movie that came out during the 70s into the girl from Wings complete with a nice Texan accent. If you’re paying attention, I think I’m thinking about Kristy McNichol.

Continuity aside, I thought this movie was pretty fun – EXCEPT when our dream boy dances and grooves and thrusts and tiptoes and cackles and looks into the camera – all of which he does a lot to the the tunes of some shitty rockabilly type music I have never been fond of.

I know, I know you’re thinking that might be some of our old VHS footage from the summers I spent in Valencia, prowling around Magic Mountain, but that’s not me. If you haven’t tapped into my OCD by now – – – I would NEVER wear gloves without fingertips. WHAT IN THE FUCK WOULD BE THE POINT OF THAT.

I would also not film a scene where the lightswitch is clearly off but the room is very well lit.

But – one thing this does have that the first one did not – it’s a lot more gory, I guess to lure in the NoES kids. Maybe? I don’t know but it does have some good blood-ness. Oh – and a giant exploding pimple (that I didn’t put in here). I’ve seen them all but I don’t really remember – didn’t one of the Nightmares have a giant, exploding zit? I think so. How about that one in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark? BARF. *Runs away screaming*

In summation! This wasn’t bad but it’s poorly interlaced with some shitty musical numbers. Maybe you’d like them, they’re just not my style. Maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you’d hate me for bringing it up. Maybe this is true or maybe this is false: My uncle used to own and run a window treatment business in the Thousand Oaks area of Southern California. One time we were hired to do a job at Keith Carradine’s house. He was there and leaving and only had a 100 dollar bill so he asked us if we had anything smaller. I gave him a ten and he said he’d pay me back when he got home – BUT HE NEVER CAME HOME and HE OWES ME MONEY. !

Finally – here is part 2 of my crowning work of art! My lifetime achievement! You don’t have to say anything but I’m so proud! I even figured out how – if you click it because you’re looking at it on your phone – it will open up in a new window so you can see it in all of it’s glory. GO ME!

Filed under: MIASMA COLLECTIONS, SLASHERS AND CHICKS