A Bucket Of Blood (1959) / Little Shop Of Horrors (1960) / Eat My Dust (1976) / Hollywood Boulevard (1976) / Rock 'N' Roll High School (1978) / Saturday The 14th (1981) / The Last Resort (1986)
A Bucket Of Blood (1959) Equal part jet black horror comedy and skewering of 50s Beatnik artistic pretension, sculptor Dick Miller finds that accidentally killing a cat leads to success. Humans are naturally next. Low budget doesn't cramp the energy and sly humour.
Little Shop Of Horrors (1960) Classic black comedy famously shot in 2 days, an inventive blend of the absurd and the macabre. Jonathan Haze is the 'little guy' who nurtures a flesh-eating plant. Jack Nicholson is a memorable masochist. A barrage of verbal and visual jokes.
Eat My Dust (1976) Flimsiest of setups sees Ron Howard impress his girlfriend by driving fast and evading inept police. Cue a fast-moving series of crashes and some laboured comedy. Not without a certain anarchic charm, a disposable hit aptly summed up by the title.
Hollywood Boulevard (1976) Famously originating from a bet to make the cheapest film, previous Roger Corman productions are intercut with the story of an aspiring LA actress. Both glorifying and satirizing low budget exploitation, a crude, energetic, hit and miss comedy.
Rock 'N' Roll High School (1978) Fondly remembered school rebellion musical that combines a riotous, gag-stuffed visual style with a non-stop parade of songs and iconic sequences. Cannily subversive, PJ Soles gets to bring in the Ramones and blow up her school.
Saturday The 14th (1981) A gentler parody of monster and horror movies than expected as Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss inherit a house that brings evil off the page of an ancient book. The humor tends to the juvenile and the pacing is flat, but individual scenes charm.
The Last Resort (1986) Downtrodden salesman Charles Grodin escapes urban winter for a family vacation, only to find Club Sand is a swingers camp located in the midst of a revolution. Impressive collection of LA comics are stuck without a script and flail for the few jokes.
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