Second Clue: September's Mystery Movie

Clue #2: Most of the character names in this month's movie are references to well known genre directors.

>>>THIS MONTH'S SHOW WILL BE AT DIFFERENT LOCATION!! Read on to find out more!<<<<

>>>>THE TRYLON IS IN THE MIDST OF A REMODEL SO OUR SHOW IS TEMPORARILY ON THE ROAD!!! Come check us out this month at the community room in the Carleton Artist Lofts! <<<<

Tape Freaks Presents: September's Mystery Movie at the Carleton Artist Lofts community room, Wednesday September 6th @ 7:00pm. Suggested donation $5

Back to School: Swinging Cheerleaders

This one's probably furthest in tone from the movie we're screening, but we watched it recently and it's too weird not to fit into the theme!

The plot unfolds something like this: A squad of cheerleaders at a small college are holding tryouts for a new member! Unwittingly, they fill the position with an under cover campus reporter who's looking to write an expose on the damages cheerleading can have on society at large. But, as you'd probably guess, she's gonna have a change of heart before the end of the film and everyone will end up friends.

Plot twist: Our undercover reporter and the star football player uncover a plot by the football coach, the statistics professor, and the dean to rig an entire season of football so they can throw the last game and make out like bandits! 

Nudity and commentary: This movie is mostly just an excuse for boobs on screen, but there's some weird commentary and role juxtapositions thrown in for good measure. The star football player for instance is intelligent and emotionally well rounded (even though he's using and cheating on his cheerleader girlfriend). The dude hippy is a misogynist in feminist clothing, and is ultimately (and thankfully off camera) a rapist. The cheerleaders themselves are a diverse group: there's the gal who's trying to lose her virginity, the one who's got the aforementioned statistics professor in her side pocket, the undercover reporter, the daughter of the dean, and the one we only saw three times outside of the locker room. They operate in the team as individuals, they hold conflicting opinions, and each character has an arch of sorts (except the one we never saw), but the most surprising one was Lisa, the gal who was banging her professor.

Lisa: She ends up being the key to uncovering the gambling plot when her (totally married and WAY older) professor boyfriend brings her along one night while he picks up gambling-winnings at some local bars. This night on the town also tips off the professor's wife who pays Lisa an intense visit instructing her to find her own man. But, that threat isn't what makes Lisa leave her gross boyfriend. First Lisa goes to her friend to discuss her new problems (inadvertently tipping her friend off to the gambling ring) so she can work out what she should do. In the end Lisa does leave the professor, but on her own terms and without making her decision to leave him about him. She tells him that she needs to figure out who she is, and that she can't do that with him in her life. That character frankly has more agency than most modern (and fully clothed) female characters in comedy or romance flicks (not to mention a black women in an overwhelmingly white cast). Her character's arch was interesting and well rounded, and frankly took this weird little flick to a more watchable level.

Starts a titty movie, ends abruptly: This movie starts off a straight up titty movie, but about half way through, the nudity is completely dropped. And then it suddenly becomes this slapstick comedy where the star football player (I don't think they even mentioned what position he played) is kidnapped by mob goons because he won't throw the game. But the cheerleaders save the day! They rally the rest of the team to save the star player, bring him back to the game, have a pep-talk in the parking lot, and cut to a cheerleader jumping in the air –freeze frame– credits. No joke. It's so abrupt and unexpected it made a movie I might recommend, to a movie I would TOTALLY recommend.

This is from the opening credits, but the closing stills are recycled from the opening so, you get the idea!

"That lady!" moments with: Rosanne Katon (Motel Hell, St. Elsewhere, Full House, and Playboy Bunny), and Colleen Camp (Election, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Clue!).

The Director: Jack Hill was the reason we watched this movie, he wrote and directed Coffy and Foxy Brown!

Bonus fact: Swinging Cheerleaders makes an appearance in the Errol Morris documentary, The Thin Blue Line. The subject of the documentary's alibi includes having watched part of this movie at the drive-in the night of the murder.

Back to School: Suspiria

We've written up Suspiria before, it's really a striking movie to watch, but's it's also about one of the worst school experiences you could POSSIBLY have...

First night: Suzy Bannion flies from America to Germany, immediately takes a cab to the campus of her new dance school only to be left standing in the pouring rain and the dead of night pounding on the school's door while being refused to be let in. While attempting to enter the building, another student flees the school, nearly knocking Suzy to the ground, and runs straight into the woods. Defeated and confused, Suzy takes her cab back into town to find a hotel for the night.

Later that night: Pat (the fleeing student) has found refuge at another student's apartment in town; but unfortunately for her, it's no sanctuary. While trying to collect herself in the bathroom, Pat hears noises outside the window, and what happens next is one of the more cinematic (but still bloody) kills in the horror genre:

The school year only get's better from there: Suzy returns to the school the next morning only to discover what she witnessed the night before were the last moments of her classmate's life. Suzy eventually teams up with her dorm-mate to investigate the increasingly suspicious reactions from the school's staff, as the students disappear/turn up dead at an increasingly alarming rate. 

Recommended for: Anyone attending art college, studying abroad, or attending school in New England... 

First Clue: September's Mystery Movie

Clue #1: The theme for this month's movie is Back to School! This month we'll be covering those lovely films that take place in high school (and sometimes middle school) that get usually get things hilariously wrong.

>>>THIS MONTH'S SHOW WILL BE AT DIFFERENT LOCATION!! Read on to find out more!<<<<

>>>>THE TRYLON IS IN THE MIDST OF A REMODEL SO OUR SHOW IS TEMPORARILY ON THE ROAD!!! Come check us out this month at the community room in the Carleton Artist Lofts! <<<<

Tape Freaks Presents: September's Mystery Movie at the Carleton Artist Lofts community room, Wednesday September 6th @ 7:00pm. Suggested donation $5

Horror in the Woods: The Burning

Another round of Tape Freaks guest writing by Izzi Xiques:

This 80s slasher takes place at a summer camp where a former camp groundskeeper (Cropsy) was the victim of a prank gone seriously awry many years before. What was the said prank? The campers thought it would be HILARIOUS to wake Cropsy up by tossing a flaming skull into his cabin. For some reason they weren't expecting Cropsy (or anything else) to catch on fire, but that's exactly what happened! Five years later, horribly disfigured and garden shears in hand, Cropsy's begins his quest for revenge against a backdrop of POVs shots, continuity errors, and adults portraying teenagers.


One of the fantastically gory highlights of this film is a massacre scene that takes place in broad daylight, in a canoe, with a bunch of teenagers. We're treated to fingers getting chopped off (fully in frame), someone getting garden shears through the neck, and blood basically exploding out of campers. It's glorious. And, that particular scene was what got the film on the UK's “video nasties” banned list!

But as much as the special effects bring to this film (thanks to a young Tom Savini's reluctance to do the Friday the 13th sequel) the score brings that much more. Personally, I consider the main theme of this film to be nothing other than classic. The score was composed by Rick Wakeman, who's name you might recognize for a number of reasons, but the most notable reason would be he was the keyboardist for the band Yes. (Which should give you an idea as to how fantastic this score is, I mean, classic prog rock meets 80’s slasher score? What more could you want!?)

This film is also notable for it’s pre-stardom cast, writers, and producer. We get treated to baby Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens, and Holly Hunter (for a brief second). But this film was also what launched the Weinstein Corporation! Bob and Harvey both had a hand in writing this slasher (and Harvey produced) and it was the very first film project they collaborated on.

This film also has often been brushed off as a Friday the 13th rip off, but it was apparently written before Friday was released, and was based off of a classic campfire tale that circulated around the east coast about “Cropsey” a maniac who was reported to have murdered children in a wooded Staten Island. That makes this movie all the more creepy and that much more worthy of it's cult classic status!

Horror in the Woods: Grizzly

This movie started with so much promise, but ultimately it fell short of delivering on it's VERY promising set up. However, it wasn't a complete let down, even though it was pretty much Jaws with a bear...

The opening: Two women are breaking camp in the woods when an animal (presumably a bear) mauls each of them POV slasher style. The first woman gets it at the camp site, and the second woman takes cover inside a shack that the (presumably) bear literally tears apart before also killing her.

The next time we see that shack: It's all in one piece again and the bear has seemingly hung the woman's body from the rafters (before or after putting the shack back together, who can be sure) because she falls from the ceiling and freaks the hell of the rangers searching for the two women.

The actual plot: I couldn't really tell you, this one is aaaaaall over the place. But basically, it's Jaws in the woods with a bear.


The love interest that vanishes into thin air: A good chunk of the first half of the film is spent setting up a romance between our "hero" (pictured left) and a reporter. They finally kiss at one point, and then we literally never see her again. Very strange.

The bear's MO: At the start of the film it seems like the bear is strictly targeting women, so much so that the rangers discuss it at one point. And then, very suddenly, the bear decides to kill dudes, kids and other bears, and no one mentions the initial pattern again. Over all the bear seems to be killing indiscriminately, though the rangers are pretty sure the bear is hunting for food, never mind that the bear has already killed enough people to sustain him for a good three years...

Kinda surprisingly gory: Parts of this film are VERY gory in contrast to rest of the film. This is especially well illustrated in a scene where a little boy, innocently playing with a bunny in his yard, is mauled by the bear. The final shot of that scene: a substantial  hold on the kid's newly ripped off leg. It's SUPER graphic and absolutely doesn't fit with the humdrum tone of the rest of the flick.

And then, there was a rocket launcher: There's not much happening between bear kills (aside from ASININE dialogue), but in the last few mins of the film, the movie tries really hard to make up for that by EXPLODING A BEAR WITH A ROCKET LAUNCHER. That part is pretty undeniably fun.



via GIPHY

Third Clue: August's Mystery Movie

Clue #3: This month's film features an early leading role for one of the key actors in Guardians of the Galaxy 1&2!

 >>>THIS MONTH'S SHOW WILL BE AT DIFFERENT LOCATION!! Read on to find out more!<<<

>>>>THE TRYLON IS IN THE MIDST OF A REMODEL SO OUR SHOW IS TEMPORARILY ON THE ROAD!!! Come check us out this month at the community room in the Carleton Artist Lofts! <<<<

Tape Freaks Presents: August's Mystery Movie at the Carleton Artist Lofts community room, Wednesday August 2nd @ 7:00pm. Suggested donation $5