I have always edged closer to the Russ Meyer end of the exploitation spectrum than the Harry Novak one. I am not really a boob fan, which would seem to work against my like of Meyer, but his middle period movies have the sense of violence, menace, and dirtiness that I find enjoyable. But after watching The Toy Box (1972) and taking another look at Novak’s film credits, I have a new respect for Harry.

The Toy Box is sexploitation, no ways around it. It starts with a vibrator scene; there is a full-on hippy orgy; there is even some necrophilia thrown in for funsies. So far, there is not much to distinguish it from tens of other skin flicks that are doing the same thing in the early 1970s. But none of these other movies [as far as I know] feature aliens who are using the sexy time toy box to freeze the various naked hippies, send them back to Rigel 7 or whatever the name of the home planet is, and then use their brains as a primary ingredient in illegal drugs [shades of Liquid Sky and I Come in Peace]. Seriously, this is the plot that surrounds all of the boobs and bush and occasional dong shots.

The Toy Box also has Uschi Digart making out with her bed sheets, which I would like to believe influenced the death of Rob in Nightmare on Elm Street. Even if it didn’t, take a look at this bed:

I knew about the 1968 movie Astro Zombies from the Misfits song of the same name, but I had never gotten around to watching it until a couple days ago. From what the internets had to say, I was thinking Zombies was going to be somewhere between Plan 9 and Blood Feast in its level of coherency and competency. Turns out the internets was wrong again.

Yes, there are four plots going on that occasionally intersect, but they weren’t that hard to follow. Sure, day turns to night quite frequently, and Satana’s [of Faster Pussycat fame] dress switches color almost as frequently but still this movie wasn’t that bad. At one point, one of the Astro Zombies [or quasi humans as they are also called] uses a flashlight to power his solar batteries. And there is quite a bit of bad scientist technobabble from John Carradine.

The Astro Zombies don’t rape the land, and their prime directive was not to exterminate the whole human race, and certain film snob types might think this movie is terrible, but who cares what they think?

I have been watching nunsploitation movies the last four or five days, and in case there was any confusion about what walking in on a nun orgy looks like:

This is from the movie Satanico Pandemonium (1974ish), and I watched it in Spanish, which I understand minimally, so I am not real sure what happened. But needless to say, there was a nun orgy.

But, fear not, moralists, the peeping nun did not escape unpunished, as this nun’s hand demonstrates:

Perverse Osmosis basement show at the Owl Cave, B’More, Maryland.

Shh, don’t tell anyone but PO is getting together next weekend to do some lights for our longtime friends The Flying Eyes and production work for a polar bear plunge [not using actual polar bears]. More importantly, we are playing a limited version of Vale of the Basilisk. Sure, we don’t know how the songs go or the order of the dungeon, but lack of skill or knowledge has never stopped us before.

Also, in honor of hating Vermont less, I recently re-read Lovecraft’s “A Whisperer in Darkness,” which is set in the dark hills of VT. It is not difficult to tell that Lovecraft was a fellow city slicker. There are some great lines about how going into the mountains is like going back in time, and I do not disagree.

Hey all Osmosites:

Enjoy your end of the year festivities. 2011 pretty much sucked, so let’s hope for a better 2012.

One of my resolutions: smoking more cigarettes