Storefront Theatre Collection #2 – Bizar — Storefront Theatre Collection #2 – Bizarre Art( DV
The set appears on Vinegar Syndrome and comes in fold out DVD sized card digipak, which features a card slipcase. This label are often known restoration and cleaning up of their reissues- but on this release all the films here are left pretty much untouched, but as the whole thing comes in around $30.00/£30.00, and many of these films haven’t seen the light of day for many a year( if ever)- so you can’t really complain.
The discs are labeled & laid out like an all-night, perverse & mostly extremely lo-rent grindhouse visual feast. With the inner under disc artwork taking in a collage of newspapers ads, posters, and artwork for most of the twelve films featured here.
The first disk takes in four films and is labeled 7PM-11pm And so first up we have The Geek- which is somewhat of a nature doc-meets- 70’s Bigfoot parody. A group of campers go out into the wildness for some hardcore interplay, then one female of the party gets attacked & then screwed by a Bigfoot. It starts off campy & mocking, and ends up a little unpleasant.
The other three films on disc one are The House Of De Sade which features a group of swingers going to a dark & creepy house for a séance, and after many sexual interplays, they raise Marquis de Sade. The film's finale features a more S&M themed session.
Hotter Than Hell has a distinctly slap-stick 50’s comic vibe to it, but of course with lengthy hardcore scenes. The film opens with the devil( dressed all-in-one pink fur suit) in hell surrounded by his two sons. They get a notification thorough that people on earth are not been as sinful as the used to be, so fewer souls are been sent his way…so he sends his sons( with their red cloaks, fluffy wigs ‘n’ horns, and tights) to try & deprive a series of women.
And lastly on the first disc, we have the Sorceress which features a perverse femme fatale who dresses as a fortune teller, giving a selection of men & women their sexual fantasy. The film has a soundtrack the mixers noise slid psych-rock, and whole big snippets of Mike Oldfield’s tubular bells (Fellatio Bells anyone!). In her final encounter, the Sorceress comes across a rough & violent man, who in the final minutes strangles her, props her up a coffin & closes the door which have the words ‘The End’ written on it’s door.
Disc two ( subtitled 11 pm- 3am) opens with The Scorpion- this tells of women looking for her missing sister, who goes to a detective for help. The detective turns out to be part of a sex-cult(who all have a tattoo of a Scorpion on their bodies). Of all the films here this is the least interesting- as there is really nothing here beyond the intercourse scenes, and there really seems little resolve to the whole thing.
Next we have Dr Sexual & Mr Hyde- this takes the classic horror transformation story, and re-sets it in an asylum, where Mr Hyde is brewing up a potion to unleash sexual passions in his Victorian patients & wife to be. This is a real oddity with a fairly downbeat vibe- the sex scenes feature hammy horror organ soundtracking. We get a weird blood red tinged & lo-if surreal scene early on, lots of close-ups of skulls & cobwebs. It’s seeming filmed in a bombed-out building, and in the last scene Mr Hyde gets gunned down.
The third film of disc two comes in the form of Rites Of Uranus- this one of the more bizarre & head scratching offerings here. It’s based around the cult of Uranus, which is strange sexual charged sect, who are advertising on the local beach for new female members. When the women turn-up at the sect’s headquarters, they get spoken to by a male voice fed through a large brass horn in the wall. When inside the sect's inner walls the female sect members get lit candles put up their anus & wonky chanted to, prodded with ritual dildos, etc.
After this we have the slightly more light-hearted & comic, though no less bizarre Waltz Of The Bat. Which tells of a topped-hated & cape wearing man whose a hundred years plus old- but still looks in his late 40’s. The man has one sexual encounter after another, with the backdrop of buoyant waltzing classical music. As the film progress, we find out he was given the power of near immortality a century ago by women dressed as a bee. Odd indeed, though a lot of fun.
Moving onto the third & final disc subtitled 3am-7am. And first up we have Come Deadly, which I would imagine is quite a rarity a blend of hardcore & Giallo. The film tells of a small theater troupe, that’s be plagued by a black glad rapist & killer. The film blends together serious bad acting, a sex-obsessed undercover cop, and a killer who wears a floppy hat, nylon mask, and stripy gardening gloves- while molesting & killing his victims over a soundtrack of Toccata and Fugue in D minor played on church organ.
After this, we have Mania- which is based in a teenage girl reform school. This features an incestuous relationship between school head & her moustached son( who is a spitting image for Cory Feldman). A killer whose has sex, then kill & chops -up the the girls to make a perfect body. And once again we get Toccata and Fugue in D minor in the soundtrack, though this time it’s used more randomly.
Thirdly we have Daughters Of Darkness- this finds a young writer going to stay in a boarding house that turns out to be the lair of a group of Satanist. The film features a tattooed women, with a badly drawn tat of Satan over her privates. And an end orgy, that features a man tired to a up-side down cross, getting Fellatio from a group of four or five women.
Lastly we have The Unholy Child- and this is an odd blend of mystery film & hardcore. It features a sailor coming home from sea, and everything has changed in his town, plus he’s been stalked by a strange man whose trying to kill him. This has some truly terrible acting, as the cast of hardcore actors try to portray the mystery story, in-between the bonking. This is certainly the least film of this third disc, and I'd say is one the less interesting films on the set.
Kudos must go to Vinegar Syndrome for having the guts for releasing this collection of real 70’s porn oddities. Storefront Theatre Collection #2 – Bizarre Art is most certainly not for those who are in any way prudish or easily shocked, but if you enjoy weird sleaze, then there is a lot here to both satisfy your needs, puzzle & amuse