Review: Dead Hooker In A Trunk

A few weeks ago I had a chance to see a movie that had been on My "to watch" list, Dead Hooker In A Trunk.  Yes, for those of you who have not heard of this film it probably sounds like it should be paired up as a grindhouse double feature with Hobo With A Shotgun, and yeah in all reality it probably should.  This is the vision and debut film of Jen and Sylvia Soska, a pair of twins from Canada who are crafty, creative, sexy and definately twisted, as their Twisted Twins production company with a logo that is a pair of small "t's" which look like gravestones would imply.

Now I love independent films. even the really bad ones and especially off the wall ones.  For those unaware before Peter Jackson began putting out Lord Of The Rings, and Sami Rami began making Spider-Man films that they had both churned out outrageous splatterfest like Brain Dead, Bad Taste and the Evil Dead Trilogy.  So if Dead Hooker In A Trunk seems a little off the wall, wild and wierd, remember that some of the biggest names in movies started out the same way.

I have seen some people complain that the plot seemed jumbled, that the sound and camera work was shoddy, and that the situations are pretty unbelievable, as well as the fact that none of the characters really seem to have any names.  However, if you love the indies that won't bother you at all, because such things are standard fare.

Given the basics: A pair of sisters, played by the Soska's themeselves, (one a bad-ass and the other one a geek), head out with their band member druggie female friend to pick up Geek Sister's youth church group leader friend.  Bad-Ass Sister catches the eye of the Youth Minister at the church, a small event that becomes more important later in the film.

Well it isn't too long before the foursome discover that there's an extra occupant in the car, the titular Dead Hooker in the trunk, a local prostitute that Bad-Ass Sister and Druggie Friend know from the club they hang out at.  From there it's surreal situation after surreal situation.  They check into a motel where a creepy night clerk hugged up with a goat lets them have a room after Geek Sister convinces him that their friend (the Dead Hooker) thinks he's hot and wants to have sex with him.  Oh, yeah, a little unintentional necrophillia.  Later on a pair of bumbling cops track Bad-Ass Sister down, only to be tricked into being stripped and put into a compromising position with each other, and of course to be later found by Pervert Motel Clerk.

Later on they go by Druggie Friend's boyfriend's so she can fight with him and then have make-up sex.  However it seems that the Cowboy Pimp watching the door is in cahoots with some Asian Drug Dealers that Boyfriend owes money to.  Boyfriend is killed and Druggie nearly has her arm severed before Bad-Ass takes out the whole Asian Trio in an over the top fight and gun scene set to a little J-Pop.  Meanwhile someone whacks Geek Sister in the head as she is waiting outside of the car causing her eye to fly out of her head.

Well, the group regroups momentarily, Geek fixing her eye with an X of black tape, while the others argue on the street.  As Druggie throws her wounded arn out in frustration it is taken the rest of the way off by a passing semi, and believe it or not Druggie stays on her feet for the entire scene.  Getting more in to unbelievable territory?  Well it is an independent film, and I think the Soskas showed a lot of guts by not trying to make some of the action real or even serious.

After regrouping again the foursome heads to the woods, where Youth Group Leader sews Druggie's arm back on, and it works as good as new.  After some pot smoking and talking the group decides to bury Dead Hooker.  Just as Bad-Ass is about to shovel the first shovel full of dirt on top of her following a eulogy by Youth Group Leader, Dead Hooker sits up.  Bad-Ass whacks her full force with the shovel and comments it must be nerves, before continuing to bury Dead Hooker.

Cowboy Pimp returns, complete with horse, demanding that the group give him back his hooker.  He ropes Bad-Ass and drags her behind the horse, before she shoots the rope, then engages in another little fight scene.  After she kills Cowboy Pimp comes one of the funniest moments of the film as Youth Group Leader goes off and cusses out the body.  I don't think that the term "Ass Rape" has been used as effectively in a film until now.

Well feeling everything is over the group head back to town and go their seperate ways, Druggie Friend to the hospital because her arm has fallen off again.  Eventually they are all drawn to the house where Dead Hooker lived to discover that she had a dog and that she was afraid of a Hooker Killer who was mentioned in the news paper in her house.  There is a police sketch of the killer in the paper, and as the group exits Dead Hooker's house they see him walking down the street, and know they have to bring him to justice.

What happens next is a surreal and violent scene.  Hooker Killler awakes to find himself tied to a chair in Dead Hooker's house.  He looks down to see that there is a bowl between his feet that already contains his severed penis, which the dog begins to eat.  He starts screaming for help and protesting his innocence once the sisters tell him that they know he is the Hooker Killer.  What follows is a scene of tortue with household objects as the two sisters take turns mutilating Hooker Killer.

Jen and Sylvia Soska.  Twisted Twins?  For sure!

You may think that's it, but in great indy horror fashion there's a bizzare twist.  It turns out that Hooker Killer is Youth Minister's twin brother, and that Youth Minister is actually Hooker Killer.  The reason he kills women are that they make fun of his penis, which is forked due to being circumsized by a drunken rabbi at his bris.  The Dead Hooker in the trunk was his way of getting Bad-Ass's attention, having picked her out as a target the same night as his encounter with Dead Hooker.  Bad-Ass's sister and their friends fight off Youth Minister/Hooker Killer's gang, and rescue her from Hooker Killer's lair full of dead women.

Now despite its many twist and flaws, and sometimes complete absence of traditional logic I give Dead Hooker In A Trunk Five Stars.  It is a hell of a lot better than Rob Zombie's House Of 1,000 Corpses, which I'm still wishing to get the two hours of My life I lost watching it back.  The Soska sisters have talent, and like those other famous directors I mentioned before them it's easy to see that Dead Hooker In A Trunk is only the tip of their creative iceburg.

If you're a stick in the mud who wants every frame of a movie to look slick, sound crystal clear and make perfect sense, you'll hate it.  There's a fair amout of gore in the places it needs to be, while in some places I'm sure it's either sublte or only implied due to the budget they had to work with.  The lines of humor thrown in are gold, including an early scene where Bad-Ass Sister pulls a strand of huge anal beads off Dead Hooker's body and comments, "I think these are mine", the Youth Group Leader's NC-17 Rated rant, and of course Bad-Ass's response to Geek saying that she though she was dead with, "As if death could kill me."  Plus I have to mention that Dead Hooker In A Trunk features a cameo by the most cheesy fake penis since The Gore Whore.

If you like off the wall films like Bad Taste and Pink Flamingos then Dead Hooker In A Trunk is right up your alley.  It's one of those movies you have to see to appericiate, but in My opinion it doesn't fall into that "so bad" it has to be seen to be appericiated films category, becuase in the end for all its cheesiness and lack of logic Dead Hooker In A Trunk is a great film.  In fact I even told the Soskas if I was ever in an accident and lost a limb I hoped it happened in Canada, where it appears they're doing miricales with reattachments.

Master Vyle

 

Lurking For Dr. Paul Bearer...My Saturday Writing Influence

Doctor Paul Bearer's Creature Feature Laid The Foundation For My Obsession With Science Fiction And Horror And Was A Huge Part Of My Saturday Television Time.

Saturday.  There was a time when it was a day of special meaning.  Its importance is now pretty much lost to changes in technology and those cultural changes that go hand and hand with it.  For Me growing up, especially in Florida, Saturday meant three things.  First and foremost it was they day that Dr. Paul Bearer's Creature Feature came on WTOG Channel 44.  Later on I discovered My second Saturday television joy, Doctor Who on WEDU PBS Channel 3.  And finally, when I was in middle school, I truly began to embrace pro-wrestling, and NWA Championship Wrestling From Florida (now FCW) came on at 7:00, also on Channel 44, where the greatest commentator in history, the late Gordon Solie, called all the action.

Of course the world moved on.  Saturday began to loose its importance.  It's become just another day within the  last 20 years.  However sometimes things you loose get to come back.  Doctor Who met with cancellation near the end of the 80's and came back stronger than ever in 2005.  Championship Wrestling From Florida was acquired by Jim Crockett Promotions and along with NWA Mid-Atlantic Wrestling and the Universal Wrestling Federation as well as a few other JCP territories were merged to form WCW, however the promotion was revived time and again by various promoters and within the last couple of years now called FCW (Florida Championship Wrestling) it acts as WWE's developmental promotion.

Creature Feature though, despite one attempt at a revival, is unfortunately gone forever.  The host of the show, Dick Bennick, passed away in 1995, not long after I moved to Missouri.  Despite the fact that Channel 44 promised that horror movies would always fill the 12:00 P.M. time slot it was a promise that never materialized, mainly due to the fact that the station had planned to re-run the series, but met with the objection of Bennick's family.  Bennick initially developed the character of  Dr. Paul Bearer in the late 60's while he was hosting another weekly horror movie feature program in North Carolina and long before the former Percival Pringle III, Bill Moody, became Paul Bearer in the WWF.  Initially he played the skull face painted Count Shockula, but decided that he never liked the character, and according to several websites, through the magic of television, he found a way to appear as the ill fated Count and the good Doctor at the same time, Bearer  driving a stake through Shockula's heart and taking over "his" show.

In 1971, the year before I was born, Channel 44's Creature Feature began its run.  I was too young  to remember the program as it began, initially running four features every Saturday in an 8 hour program block.  I am sure I would have been in "hog heaven" if I could remember that time.  However I do remember the show when it presented two of what Dr. Paul Bearer referred to as "horrible old movies", the Saturday double feature format continued on until I was nearly in middle school, and whether I was at home or at Grandma's from 12 to 4 I was glued to the screen.

To say that I was influenced by the movies that appeared on Creature Feature would be an understatement.  And it wasn't just the movies that I looked forward to, but also to the host segments, because it just wasn't a Saturday without Dr. Paul Bearer's mock advertisements, wisecracks and eerie presence.  Even if the movies had been on before, or if they were something that I was not really interested in seeing I wanted to know what Dr. Paul would say or do.  Unlike Elvira or the crew of the Satellite of Love the good Doctor didn't really joke or comment directly on the films, but he did some off the wall stuff like, smoking his coffin nails, or eating Chicken McMaggots, or getting beat with his "Mummy's" purse, and occasional be asked, "Your money or your life," by a burglar, to which he happily gave his life (A copy of Life Magazine that is).  He always presented the films  from the un-living room of his Tenement Castle, and there was always a least a prop or two on the coffin table.  Every now and then he was joined by a static and wisecracking spider known as Spenjamin Bock.  And of course once in a great while he also retreated to the music room where he lip sank such Tom Leher classics as 'Posioning Pigeons In The Park'.

Dr. Paul Bearer and Spenjamin Bock

There were two pictures decorating the walls of the Tenement Castle that will always stick out in My mind, and often shown before the show cut to a commercial.  One was of a cross-stitch that proclaimed Tomb Sweet Tomb.  There happens to be a copy of this in The Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom, although I am not quite sure if there is any relationship between them, or in fact the origin of the cross-stitch itself.  The other is an illusionary painting I believe it titled Vanity.  It is a picture of a woman at her dressing table that also makes the picture of a skull.  You may already be aware that I have a thing for skulls and skeletons, and I can pretty much assure you that that initially came from watching Creature Feature as well.

A painting I believe called Vanity adorned a wall of Dr. Paul Bearer's Tenement Castle



My Skelaton Belaton icon bares an unintentional and superficial resemblance to the illusionary skull in the painting.

Bennick himself was also a radio personality during the week, and he lived in Winter Haven, which was one of the next towns over from where I lived in Auburndale growing up.  When I was about ten I met  Dr. Paul Bearer for the first time.  He was judging a Halloween costume contest at the Winter Haven Speedway (now the Auburndale Speedway).  I was dressed as a clown, and at the time I had no clue of the possible horror there was at being a clown, or that there were even people who had a fear of clowns.  (I still had not seen Halloween at that time.)  He complimented Me on the costume, and I had asked what movies he was going to be showing the next week, because at the time I believed that it aired live.  He told me I would have to "lurk and see" because it was a secret.  Of course that got to My proto-fan boy heart, because he ended each show by welcoming the viewers back every week for more "horrible old movies" and signing off with the catchphrase "I will be lurking for you."  (Which I did paraphrase as "We will be lurking for you", for the Meet the Author's Chat Night I did with Nicola Matthews).  When I was in high school I would occasionally catch sight of him driving around Winter Haven in his hearse, yes he actually did drive a Cadillac hearse around town, and despite the fact I was nearly an adult it still gave Me a thrill every time I saw him.

Dr. Paul Bearer and Creature Feature were the first things that influenced Me to become a writer.  Every week there were movies from the 30's to the 70's when I was a kid.  I was treated to a share of Universal Classics and Corman  Monsterpieces.  I saw more than a few Hammer Horror films, and was introduced to Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing well before they ever appeared in Star Wars films.  Lugosi, Price, Karloff and the Carridnes were other genre actors I became aware of early on, and I was treated to programmers and drive-in delights from Europe and Asia as well as more home grown Sci-Fi and  B Horror movies.  I saw the original King Kong months before the 1976 remake hit the screens through Creature Feature.  I was also given My introduction to tokusatsu on Saturday mornings, and quite often hoped more than anything that there would be a Godzilla or Gamera movie on.  Even beyond the classic Japanese monsters I saw a couple of the Super-Giant films as well as the Dai-Majin series, and Attack Of The Mushroom People (Matango).  One time, when I was in the sixth grade, I even got to see full frontal, naked, white girl boobies, when apparently a European film with a strip scene had not been edited closely enough.  (Woo-Hoo!)

The Super-Giant Series (A.K.A. Starman in the U.S.) were My first taste of a non-Kaiju toku.

Alien council from the Super-Giant films.

A few years back the return of Creature Feature was announced.  I was pretty jacked, especially since the week after the relaunch I was going to be on vacation and would actually be home to see My Saturday morning writing influence come back.  I was interested to see how the show would fare with its new host, Professor Paul Bearer II and to see what format changes would be done to present the show to a new and more "modern" audience.  Alas it was not to be.  There was no Creature Feature that day, the revival apparently canceled after only a single episode.  So again I floundered without My Saturday fix of "horrible old movies".

Original double feature poster for I Was A Teenage Werewolf and Invasion Of The Saucer Men.  Such creature double features were the fodder for My imagination.

Now seven years have passed, and I am sure that unlike Doctor Who and FCW that Creature Feature will never be back.  Recently I decided to revisit many of the movies that I first through Dr. Paul Bearer's presentation on Saturday afternoons.  True they're not the same without the good Doctor sitting in the un-living room of the Tenement castle, but to some extent I now have that old excitement I used to feel when watching them, which was the best Saturday escape, and the sign that the weekend has truly arrived.  Now My son is a little jaded, weened on CGI and big  time special effects, and the lady vyle prefers to do a little cross-stitching of her own as I watch, but every now and then they do get a little in to the stories.  And I still do have a couple of Creature Features I video taped, such as Diary Of A Madman, and Destroy All Monsters, complete with Dr. Paul "singing" 'Posioning Pigeons In The Park'.

Dr. Paul Bearer and his horrible old movies have been with  Me pretty much from the beginning of My writing hobby.  Corman's Poe films inspired many of My early poems, and Bleeders, which  I consider My first short story, was definitely inspired by Corman's Attack Of The Giant Leeches.  Before beginning work on Whispers Of Darkness I did a couple of dry writing runs, penning updated adaptations of Godzilla King Of The Monsters and Mothra to see if I could write something beyond 50 pages, both movies I developed a love for by seeing them over and over on Creature Feature.

As well as Doctor Who and pro-wrestling there are several references to Doctor Paul Bearer and Creature Feature in My stories, and there will continue to be as long as I write.  King Kong Vs. Godzilla, a movie I was particular jacked to see when I found out that Creature Feature was going to have it on, was referenced  in My first erotic short story, Older Is Bedder.  Dr. Paul has been paid homage to as Colonel Creepy in Fungi and as Count Shockula, named after his former ego and nemisis, in Shadows Of The Night and Story Number Two of the Fungi Collection that I am currently working on.  Dr. Paul and Creature Feature were even directly referenced in the original version of Whispers Of Darkness, although the reference will be changed to Count Shockula to fit into the Shadows Of The Night continuity I am building.  Colonel Creepy will probably have a cameo in Story Three of the Fungi Collection, and Shockula may appear in another of the stories in the collection as well.

Late 70's early 80's title card for Creature Feature.

Will there ever be another Dr. Paul Bearer or Creature Feature?  Alas, no, I don't believe so.  However the influence and impact that Dr. Paul and his horrible old movies had on Me, My writing and My sense of gross humor will never be undone.  It is My greatest hope that somehow, someday, the series will be released on DVD.  It's unlikely, but it is the only way that the good Doctor will ever truly come back from the grave to provide Me with that Saturday writing influeence I still crave.  Until then Dr. Paul Bearer, I will be lurking for you.

Master Vyle