Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Forbidden Fruits of the 1980s
posted @5:15 p.m. by Richard Kelly
Fraser MacDonald's Listmania! Ten of the verboten movies he rented on VHS as an adolescent is not only hilarious and beautifully candid: it has, I believe, a universal application to all nascent (male) movie lovers who were too young to smoke at the time when the infamous Video Recordings Act of 1985 passed into British law... Fraser, we salute you, as one.
10 videos rented as a pubescent male teen in the 1980s By Fraser MacDonald
The point of this list is to highlight a time in a young man's life when he was too old to play soldiers and too young to buy alcohol. These days we have the internet and lads mags to help those pubescent yearnings along. But my era was 1983-86.
And in 1986/7 Channel Four presented the ‘red triangle’ season... I, being lucky enough to have a portable TV in my room, would wait with baited breath for 11pm to come along and tune in. Themroc was one film that sticks in the mind. But it was through this interest in catching the slightest glimpse of the female form that I fell in love with the art of film-making (rather like Jonathan Gates in the novel 'Flicker', only his nirvana was the Nouvelle Vague.)
Of course all this could be seen as merely an excuse for the dirty little teenage pervert I was...
10. The Choirboys 1977 dir. Robert Aldrich
Included because of its cover: a New York cop's nightstick held at an acute angle being caressed by a manicured female hand. Not the first time a video cover promised more than it delivered, yet the film itself is discarded classic. It feels disjointed, a film of two halves: low-brow comedy then a sharp descent into tragedy. For the point of this list, one scene that sticks is Charles Durning simulating cunnilingus through a glass table. As well as the much maligned Capt. being caught in a honey trap.... and being told he still had a little dressing on the salad.
9. Party Party 1983 dir. Terry Windsor
Movies about grown up teenagers – alcohol and women and general debauchery. America gave me 'Bachelor Party' with the young Tom Hanks and ’Animal House', a leviathan of gross-out humour. I've gone for Party Party, mainly because it was crap. A group of South London friends decide to throw a New Year's Party to get drunk and laid. Featuring Perry Fenwick, Karl Howden and Nick Berry, this was on par with Benny Hill or Carry On, a saucy postcard of celluloid. I could have watched it with my Mum. This was one of the pratfalls of hiring videos and, as above, a lesson I have taken on in later life: Never, NEVER trust the cover. Sometimes the Yanks do things better.
8. The Exterminator 1980 dir. James Glickenhaus
Left by my father in the VCR one day. I watched this film with a few friends and proceeded to have nightmares until I was 18. The opening scene in Vietnam with a long slow beheading still haunts me. Let's not talk about the mincer scene... But viewing of this film gave certain kudos in the playground: walking round the tarmac, scuffing your DM's, nodding apathetically that you had seen The Exterminator and it wasn't up to much. I suppose this was my first brush with cultural snobbery.
7. Deathrace 2000 1975 dir. Paul Bartel
Recently re-run on ITV4. A little ahead of its time: Sly Stallone as Machine Gun Joe, David Carradine as the all American hero Frankenstein. With hindsight, it’s a modern-day parable; little bits of Orwell and Huxley, America-centrism and an audience baying for blood. But all this was meaningless as we stared at the pneumatic talents of Roberta Collins as she played Matilda the Hun with gusto. Martin Kove made a brief appearance, he would later pop up in 'The Karate Kid', a film I watched with prospective girlfriends (and thus the circle is complete...)
6. Tarzan The Ape-man 1981 dir. John Derek
Most young males remember their first sight of Bo, in 10, running down the beach, cornrows bouncing, soon to lose her clothes. I saw her in Orca The Killer Whale, where the only thing she lost was her leg. Orca also starred Richard Harris, who is seen here running around with no trousers on when the young Jane Parker disembarks from a boat floating on the Congo. Miles O'Keefe dons the loin cloth and only just manages to out-bad-act Bo... all while searching for the mythical Elephant's Graveyard. I rented this under the guise that I was reading Edgar Rice Burroughs for English at school. My mother phoned the school soon after, and my father started taking a greater interest in my homework.
5. The Beastmaster 1982 dir. Don Coscarelli
Ah, the Fantasy film. Brought to serious attention by John Millus and Senator Schwarenegger in Conan The Barbarian. Beastmaster was a little low on production values: Marc Singer as Dar, who has supernatural powers that means he can control animals. (The clue is in the title.) Rip Torn as a baddie, and then Tanya Roberts, rising from the water after some birds had stolen her costume. The problem with VHS tape was it tended to stretch if held on pause too long. I was one of the last of my group of cinephiles to see this. At certain points the tracking would go, static would appear on screen for a number of seconds and then the film would carry on. This would be the video equivalent of sticky pages.
4. The Evil Dead 1981 dir. Sam Raimi
There are films that shock and films that scare. Where The Exterminator shocked, Raimi made a film that caused me no end of suffering. I watched this film in the darkness of a winter's evening at a friend's house. I couldn't walk home afterwards, I lived in the countryside, there were trees everywhere. The Evil Dead was caught up in all the video nasty hype, so it was forbidden fruit to be viewing it. But all kudos was lost and that night we realised that men can be scared too.
3. The Last American Virgin 1982 dir. Boaz Davidson
A remake of the Israeli 'Lemon Popsicle' series, this film again does a massive switch and becomes serious about 3/4 of the way through. Where the 'Popsicle's could be seen as slight and fun, and a lot of the set pieces are lifted from those films, this film turns on you. The repercussions of all the main characters’ actions come back to haunt them, culminating in a brutal abortion scene. The ultimate betrayal at the end cuts into every young man’s heart. Your friends can shit on you... from a great height.
2. Quadrophenia 1979 dir. Franc Roddam
OK, I was a mod and this was my bible. I cannot watch this without remembering my first boating jacket, my first scooter ride and my first kiss, she was a modette. Like Scum, this film was an initiation: passed illicitly round the playground after being pilfered from the bedroom of a big brother. We re-enacted the Brighton walk, tried to buy frothy coffee from the local caff and I fell for Leslie Ash, just like Jimmy. My first taste of teenage angst, I later discovered Joy Division, and I loved it.
1. Porky’s 1982 dir. Bob Clark
The genesis of this list came on my last birthday. My wife asked me what I wanted and I said ‘To feel young again.’ She bought me Porky’s on DVD. What can I say about this film? The shower scene... Kim Cattrall barking in the sweat room... Now this genre has gone mainstream with American Pie. But Porky’s harks back to a time when spotty teenagers had to hunt for the films they wanted to see; now they seem to be Hollywood’s main target audience.
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