CAUTION: This article references rape, incest, and other topics of a potentially upsetting nature.
The world today is a place of wonder. We can connect with people from every culture, continent, and climate with the click of a mouse or the stroke of a key. This wide, wicked world is getting smaller by the day, and soon, we’ll all be part of a global village--all one big, happy--
Wait, scratch that.
Sometimes people just suck. And you know what kind of people suck most of all? Your co-workers.
You’re stuck in an airless, artificially lit cube with them for 40 plus hours a week and you know what? My life would be a whole lot richer if I didn’t have to hear about their political beliefs, religious practices, or their kids (especially their kids).
But what can an innocent horror freak do?
Oh, my friends, read on, take notes, and soon, your water cooler time will be a lot more tranquil.
A disclaimer before we proceed: Flicks like The Human Centipede and Serbian Film may seem like safe, easy standbys, but, let’s be realistic. By now, even the most avowed non-horror fan has heard of them, and their reputation for offensiveness proceeds them. Whip one of those bad boys out and everyone will just KNOW you’re trying to be offensive. If you REALLY want to put people off, you need a soft touch. The subtle approach. The velvet glove over the clawed hand…
1. Daughter of Death (aka Julie Darling) (1983) - Preston’s Choice
Don’t you just hate the “family” coworker? Not that hipster dad with all the pictures of his baby in his cube—that guy’s cool. No, the coworker who thinks that the whole world needs to be reformed to be “family friendly.” The one who asks you to signs petitions to ban “inappropriate” music from public spaces and thinks the only venues that should cater specifically to adults are strip clubs and bars (and maybe those shouldn't be around, either). The one who comes into the office Monday morning indignant that a manager asked him to take his screaming infant out of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Don’t you just hate that guy? Maybe you should tell him about this delightful little daddy/daughter flick. It’s a family movie, after all…
You thought Norman Bates had issues? Norman ain’t got nothing on Julie. The prim daddy’s girl (Isabelle Mejias) arranges to have her abusive mother raped and murdered by a Kevin Bacon clone so she can have the old man (Anthony Franciosa) all to herself. Subtext becomes text when the grieving papa hooks up with tough-as-nails single mom Susan (Sybil Danning, embodying the MILF trope before there ever was one) and Julie decides to perv on the action. Feel your coworkers’ skin crawl as you lovingly describe how, in Julie’s eyes, Danning morphs into Mejias and we’re subjected to her Elektra fantasies graphically come to life. Somewhere, Jung is nodding approvingly.
2. The Eyes of My Mother (2016) - Pennie’s Choice
“You haven’t seen Nicolas Pesce’s Eyes of My Mother?”
You have a co-worker who won’t stop talking about how Trump’s budget cuts are going to make us all live longer and have better orgasms? Here’s what you do: Over lunch, casually mention the premise, easy as you please: A young girl (Kika Magalhães) witnesses her mother’s murder, and understandably, she’s haunted. Maybe you’ll get some sympathetic nods before things get all lofty and philosophical again.
Later, motion you co-worker over and show him the scene where an eyeless woman gasps for breath and tries to scream as she discovers that her vocal cords have been snipped with a surgeon’s brutal precision. It’s a long scene. You might want to drag over a comfy swivel chair.
What’s that you said, token Right Wing Co-Worker? Nothing to say? This vicious little flick celebrates the sound of silence, and soon, that’s all you’ll hear when you waltz into the lunchroom, you counterculture badass, you.
3. Goodbye Gemini (aka Twinsanity) (1970) - Preston’s Choice
If Austin Powers gave a generation fantasies about living young and free in Swinging London, Goodbye Gemini will have your coworkers afraid to ever even set foot in the UK. It’s also a great one to whip out when that stodgy sixty-year-old with a 24k Day-Date and a Mercedes starts pontificating about how terrible Millennials are. He thinks there’s something wrong with TODAY'S college set? They ain’t got nothing on the pair at the heart of Goodbye Gemini.
Fraternal twin university students Jacki and Julian (Judy Geeson and Martin Potter) befriend sleazy pimp Clive (Alexis Kanner) during Spring break, unaware that he’s using them (and their parents' house) to hide from the East End gangsters to whom he’s indebted. Things go well for a while: The twins are willing to overlook his creepy sideburns and baffling accent; he’s willing to overlook the fact that the pair worship a teddy bear named Agamemnon which they address as their father and which Julian thinks is telling him to sleep with Jacki because they are “one.” Then, Clive goes and ruins things by hiring a gang of male prostitutes called “The Circus” to rape Julian while he photographs it, hoping to make enough money from blackmail to get free of the mob. Turns out, Agamemnon does not like blackmail; and when he finds out, things get a little… sacrificial.
4. The Witch Who Came From the Sea (1976) - Pennie’s Choice
True stories generally suck, unless they’re as awesome as this one: Ever been stuck in a gridlock in one of the nation’s largest cities sitting shotgun with a carpool driver who thinks that rape is the liberal media’s attempt to shame men? Keep your hands up. I didn’t get a good count the first time…
The all-too easy hack? Get your fellow freaks in the carpool to have a pajama party at your house and watch Witch Who Came from the Sea-- just don’t get into any pillow fights afterward...emotions can run too high for all that.
It’s the story of a chronically sexually abused woman (Millie Perkins) who begins to stalk and systematically castrate macho, destructive alpha males. As much a stunning character study as a truly grimy piece of exploitation cinema, this gorgeous little gem features such squirm worthy moments to share at red lights as: a three-way cut short (literally) by a dull razor; scenes of body builders trussed up like dead animals and hanging from beach equipment; and, some misguided art history.
Get a giddy conversation going about it on Monday morning, and you’ll be surprised how quiet the car trip is for the rest of the year...
5. Private Parts (1972) - Preston’s Choice
Does your office have a delicate flower who’ll only watch romantic comedies and criticizes every personal choice you make that doesn’t fit their rigid expectations of behavior? The one who's chronically single but forever judging your relationship choices? Do you want that coworker never talk to you again? Tell them about a little charmer called Private Parts. “Oh, no,” you can reassure them, “this isn’t the Howard Stern Private Parts.” That’ll lull ‘em into a false sense of security.
Paul Bartel channels Tennessee Williams by way of David Lynch in a story about the extended stay from Hell. Midwesterner Cheryl (Ayn Ruymen) runs away to California and moves into a skid-row residency hotel, where she falls for sexy-but-shy photographer George (John Ventantonio). In another movie, George would be the kindly, buttoned-down love interest whom wild-child Cheryl helps come out of his shell. In this movie, George lives in the hotel’s walls and surreptitiously photographs Cheryl while she bathes so that he can tape the pictures to his water-filled, translucent sex doll and shoot it up with human blood while he masturbates. Notting Hill this ain’t.
6. Baskin (2015) - Pennie’s Choice
Oh, Baskin, what ailment can’t you cure?
That creepy guy who keeps wanting to give you enthusiastic, unwanted hugs? Baskin.
That passive-aggressive committee member who starts every sentence with, “I’m not saying I’m right, but…” Baskin.
The self-righteous cube mate who can’t stop staring down their nose long enough to zip their fly? Another round of Baskin over here, please.
I’ve gushed about Baskin before, but not nearly enough. It’s a 2015 surrealistic Turkish horror film that starts with a group of butch police flunkies having nervous breakdowns and talking about losing their virginity to various animals. From there, it moves into a torturous descent into Hell that includes, among other delights, ritualized eye gouging; having said empty eye sockets licked clean; and hordes of mucus-munching cultists undulating and twitching hysterically while a nude, goat-headed woman gets paraded around before things really get weird...
Baskin worked hard to get here, but you’re a hard worker too, aren’t you, slugger? Watch this twisted tale and keep this ace up your sleeve. You never know when a marathon meeting needs to be cut a little short...