Really Awful Movies

For a brief period in the 60s, the nudie cutie sub-genre founds its footing.

The Immoral Mr. Teas, Russ Meyer’s uber-cheap $24,000-dollar production grossed $1 million + bucks in 1959, as a kind of lecher version of Man with the X-Ray Eyes, in which a man has the ability to see through women’s clothing.

Kiss Me Quick pledged the very same fraternity, a club which included in its membership criteria, women in various states of undress, and precious little else.

As Greg Merritt put it in Celluloid Mavericks: The History of American Independent Film, “if you had $30,000, something resembling a script, and two weeks to shoot, you could slap together a flick that could turn a profit.”

In this episode of the Really Awful Movies Podcast, we examine the context in which a film like Kiss Me Quick soared into the public consciousness.

Kiss Me Quick_film The plot? Obviously, it’s as scant as the clothing…

The planet Buttless is a male-only planet and its leader sends his emissary to earth to find “the perfect female specimen.” He’s aided in this quest by a mad scientist, Dr. Breedlove, but really, it’s all about the surf music, pasties, the go-go dancing and the groan-worthy Vaudeville zingers in this shoestring Harry Novak production (read about Novak, the so-called Sexploitation King)

With a growing acceptance of cinematic nudity, the nudie cutie genre had a very short shelf life indeed and fizzled out by the mid 60s, but not before the likes of Ed Wood got in on the action with Orgy of the Dead, as well as Herschell Gordon Lewis/David F Freeman with The Adventures of Lucky Pierre (have a listen to our interview with the legendary HG Lewis here)

We love genre film — any and all genres — and Kiss Me Quick is an interesting curio from the exploitation era.

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Malcolm McDowell admitted to Dread Central, when asked about the making of Silent Night, that he’s “not a great fan of horror movies.”

The man who made unrepentant sociopath Alex spring to life in A Clockwork Orange did concede that he likes them when they “work” and that ideally they should “leave people smiling.”

Agreed.

However, there’s nothing funny about this film’s source material, a loose remake of the infamous Silent Night, Deadly Night, about which Mickey Rooney said: “The scum who made that movie should be run out of town,” surprising, as The Mick later appeared in one of its countless sequels.

No word on what the nine-decade legend of stage and screen might’ve said about Silent Night before he passed, but we can hazard a guess as the bad taste ante was upped considerably.

Silent Night includes plot details lifted from the real-life “Covina Massacre,” in which a gunman decked out in Santa Claus regalia shot nine people at a Christmas Eve party. He’d carried four handguns into the residence, discharged all of them, and came equipped with two tanks, one which contained oxygen, the other racing fuel, and a makeshift flamethrower was used to burn the home to the ground. The grisly Los Angeles-area horror happened in 2008 and Silent Night was released in November of 2012.

In the film, a psychotic Santa terrorizes the small, Midwestern town of Crier, Wisconsin (in actuality, Winnipeg and Selkirk Manitoba), blending into the crowd amongst all the other Santas.

Malcolm McDowell is Sheriff Cooper, who “is dogged in his determination to find the serial killer,” according to the actor, who “brought lightness and humor to the role.” Malcolm McD is having hammy fun as he spouts off hilarious non sequiturs such as “Don’t put avocado on a burger” and “My Aunt is my Uncle.”

The charismatic Donal Logue (Sons of Anarchy/Gotham) is embittered Kris Kringle “Santa Jim.”

The killer here wears one of those incredibly creepy translucent plastic facemasks.

Like Silent Night, Deadly Night, the kills are as brutal as they are superabundant. Santa uses an ax, fists and yes, the aforementioned flamethrower. There’s also a scene in which Santa visits a no-tell motel where a nude photoshoot is taking place. He castrates the photographer with a scythe, hacks off the model’s leg and then shoves her into a wood chipper.

Not exactly Miracle on 34th Street to say the least, but worth a look.

*** (out of 5)