Don’t let the gently mocking, faux-anthropological title of Penelope Spheeris’ riotous and hilarious Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years fool you into thinking this is some kind of staid, academic approach to the decidedly anti-academic world of drunken trashy 1980s hair metal. Starting with a blast of Alice Cooper music over the opening credits montage of Die Hard Metal Fans (looking nigh indistinguishable from the frizzy-haired masses assembled in the epochal Heavy Metal Parking Lot), the film maintains a full-throttle pace, leaping between interviews with all the major and not-so-major players in the scene, thrilling and not-so-thrilling concerts, and the occasional satirical or surreal aside.

Granted, Spheeris and her crew (including the husband and wife production team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who would later direct the ultra quirky overrated indie darling Little Miss Sunshine for some bizarre reason) don’t have to work very hard to land satirical blows when their well-known subjects already inhabit a lifestyle that surpasses self-parody and approaches total megalomania, and their unknown or lesser-known subjects are merely pretenders to that throne of supreme excess. First we meet Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, better known as the legendary power-pop duo KISS; their interviews are filmed in separate locations but share the common theme of unbridled carnality bordering on satyriasis.

Stanley, in the sack with a trio of identical white women, issues braindead would-be-inspirational platitudes about years of hard work paying off and virtue being its own reward or some such shit. What the girly-man says isn’t as important as the way he wishes to portray himself; the shot is so immaculately composed, so clearly planned out weeks or months in advance that its inherent staged quality transcends its obvious falseness and speaks volumes about egoism, insecurity, and the soul-draining emptiness of “success”. Did any of these women even know Stanley before the film shoot? Were they floozies picked at random from Central Casting? Is this even Paul Stanley’s bedroom, or is it merely a smoke-filled soundstage? Who knows? Who cares? The issue of the film’s authenticity has been called into question more than a few times by its detractors, concerning a handful of scenes that will be covered later.

More amusingly, Gene Simmons gives a lucid interview in a Frederick’s of Hollywood high-end lingerie boutique wearing his trademark leather biker jacket and looking for all the world like a sleazy sexual predator. In a contrast to his comrade Stanley’s empty-headed oratory, Simmons is quick to point out the high burnout rate in his particular strata of success, and the temptation to succumb to self-destructive urges can be unavoidable in such a high-pressure, high-profile lifestyle … before his gaze wanders to the particularly well-built behind of a passing lady, and his train of thought derails completely.

From there we are introduced to a few followers of KISS, glam-rock bands such as the soon-to-be-forgotten Lizzie Borden (who perform an underwhelming power-metal cover of Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” before an indifferent crowd) and the outrageously smutty Faster Pussycat, who dress like a debauched biker gang and wear an obvious Russ Meyer influence on their tattered sleeves. Thrill to the tender, sensitive lyrics of “Bathroom Wall”, a romantic love ballad about a steamy hookup facilitated via restroom graffiti, like a much less subtle version of “Jenny (867-5309)”. We briefly sojourn backstage after a successful gig at one of LA’s better-known sleazepits to discover that after performing songs about wanton drunkenness and screwing, they commence with wanton drunkenness and screwing. Hardly inspired, but at least their self-deprecating candor and lack of pretense is refreshing compared to the unchecked egoism of some of their hair-metal compatriots.

Unknown, deservedly obscure bands such as Seduce and Rigor Mortis perform loud, sloppy, derivative and just plain crappy sets, then retreat backstage for some debauchery and boasting about all the multimillion dollar record deals, world tours headlining sold-out shows in the biggest stadiums on Earth, and all the bitchin’ shit they’re gonna buy to fill up their 80-room mansions; generally behaving like entitled douchebag clowns, overgrown children who feel success is owed them simply by virtue of being able to bang out three or four power chords and investing in enough Aqua-Net to burn a hole in the ozone layer the size of Canada.

Granted, this could hardly be called a newfangled 1980s phenomenon, as these idiots are simply the next generation of washouts, just like all the hippies of the 1960s and 70s who would ingest copious amounts of marijuana, LSD and psilocybin and form shitty psychedelic bands in the hope of becoming the next Jefferson Airplane. Likewise, all the Seduces and Rigor Mortises of the hair-metal era would place a much higher priority on partying than honing their musical craft, as if Motley Crue or Van Halen became successful due to the amount of alcohol consumed rather than the amount of time spent practicing or songwriting. For every Metallica that could somehow pull off an awesome set while knocking back cubes of lager onstage, there were countless pretenders lacking in any semblance of talent. Partying was somehow seen as an impetus to greatness, rather than a reward for hard work. Surely, the fact that Spheeris and her crew with following them with cameras and sound techs must have been a sign that they were headed for the big time, and their narcissistic delusions are fueled all the more.

For a surprisingly nuanced account of a depraved, alcoholic and drug-addled existence (with occasional music), we turn to none other than the poster boy for that lifestyle: Ozzy Osbourne, the man who was once kicked out of San Antonio, Texas,  for the crime of drunkenly urinating on the Alamo.

In a sequence nearly as spellbinding as the climax of The Thirty-Nine Steps, Ozzy recounts the bad old days spent in a perpetual narcotic haze while touring with Black Sabbath, and the alcoholism that continued to plague him after the legendary heavy metal pioneers broke up and he pursued his solo career. While he recounts hilarious and cringe-inducing anecdotes in a jovial, conversational tone, Osbourne is preparing breakfast in the modest kitchen of his home in Los Angeles. The boiling tea, scrambled eggs and sizzling bacon strips on his griddle are captured with all the fetishistic detail of your typical Food Network program. It’s a strangely humanizing moment for this larger-than-life caricature of a man; compared to the KISS interviews, or the scene with some jackass from Poison talking about his “brand” with all the passion of a record company shill, Osbourne is as humble and down-to-earth as you can get while still being a world-famous rock star with more money than God.

With alcohol abuse becoming more and more of a dominant theme in the film, we meet various drunken fans, drunken wannabe successes (one kid with a towering blonde mullet, when asked about any contingency plans, claims without irony that he’d “probably die” if he did not achieve success as a musician), and perhaps the most egregious cirrhosis case in the making: Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P., a self-proclaimed “full-blown alcoholic”. In the most notorious scene in Decline Part II, he’s interviewed sitting on a floating pool chair, downing at least one and a half bottles of vodka while his own mother looks on, horrified but powerless, from poolside. When asked the reason for his suicidal and downright idiotic alcohol abuse, Holmes unscrews the cap of a fresh bottle and repeats his mantra: “I’m a full-blown alcoholic!” Then he proceeds to guzzle about a third of the bottle in one pull. Nostrovia, indeed!

One thing that most, if not all, of the drunken party groups depicted in the film have in common is that, musically, they’re all terrible in their own special, unique and precious way. While most seem to be content with being slapdash, forgettable, and slipshod in arrangement and performance of their uninspired material, Odin is a band that is terrible in a kind of transcendent, all encompassing shittiness. Their segment begins, apropos enough, with a creepy old man running a beauty pageant, an old Vaudevillian who wants to “keep it clean” while he parades around a couple dozen half-naked bimbos; the rowdy crowd soon usurps him and turns his pageant into a striptease contest, setting the stage for Odin to come out with their spandex, waist-length hair, and unspeakably shitty musicianship. The androgynous, presumably male vocalist rocks his assless chaps and lashes out his disturbingly long, lizard-like prehensile tongue while humping his microphone stand in a prone position on stage; all the while the old man is trying to pump up the crowd with an “Odin! Odin! Odin!” chant that somehow fails to catch on. The whole sequence is horrifying and inexplicable, all the more so when we join Odin backstage for familiar drunken hot tub hijinx and the insufferable vocalist is going on and on about how they’re gonna take over the world, etc. etc.

As of the time of this writing, Odin is still waiting on their record deal; their biggest exposure came from Decline Part II and their myspace profile, the best efforts of the old Vaudevillian all for naught.

All the sober personalities seen in the film, on the other hand, are not only much more articulate and distanced from the subject matter at hand, but their level-headedness seems to bring about a total lack of ego. Aside from the jaw-droppingly soulless musings of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry (who were much more interesting when they were constantly Hoovering rails of cocaine throughout the 70s), we have musings on originality and shock value from the always fascinating Alice Cooper, interviewed on stage in freshly applied bloody corpse makeup, and surprisingly passionate anti-drug sentiment from Jeff Young and Dave Mustaine of Megadeth.

While Young’s ideas about sobriety may be as trite as the verbiage from a D.A.R.E. workbook (“I don’t get fucked up when I’m practicing at home, so why would I cheat the audience that way?”) and Mustaine is still visibly bitter about his ejection from Metallica, but once Megadeth comes onstage to perform their epic “In My Darkest Hour”, all their words become meaningless white noise in the face of PURE METAL SHREDDING AWESOMENESS, which whips the crowd into a frenzy and creates a turbulent, swirling, dangerous environment filled with impromptu mosh pits, vicious elbowing, and unprovoked fistfights breaking out between concert patrons. Then Mustaine’s solo incites crowd-surfers to charge the stage and fling themselves headlong into the pulsating crowd. From the camera angle just below the edge of the stage, Megadeth towers like metal Gods before a worshipful congregation, a unified mass of rabid fans churned up into a frenzy and becoming one mindless organism, with a heart that beats to the relentless tempo of the music. Then slapstick comedy ensues after the crowd’s frenzy has sated somewhat but the crowdsurfers continue to charge the stage. Some end up crashing down painfully to the concrete, some poor folks are nearly flattened, and others misjudge their angle of approach, crashing headfirst into a towering amplifier.

While Megadeth gives far and away the best performance in a film packed with wall-to-wall music, Decline Part II should not be judged solely on the strength of its concert scenes. Some are terrible, as discussed earlier, so be sure to get as sauced up as the performers. The greatest strength of Spheeris’ epic documentary, aside from its invaluable importance as a late-80s time capsule, is its multifaceted approach to the subject matter. In a dramatic improvement from Decline Part I, which focused on the early 80s punk scene and was more or less a collection of concert scenes bookended by brief interviews, Part II adopts a more kaleidoscopic approach, making the already cartoonish personalities depicted within somehow both even more ridiculous, and yet achingly human. Those who don’t try to drown their insecurities in an alcohol blitzkrieg realize their limitations not only as artists but also as fragile human beings who generally aren’t cut out for the insane workaday lifestyle of a touring band. While the delusional drunken idiots are far more entertaining to watch, the handful successful sober individuals are the heart and soul of the film.

Sorry. I take that back. The heart and soul of Decline Part II is the universally horrendous hair. But the few who successfully combine artistry with badass guitar shredding and their awful hair are those who are most deserving of respect. Everyone else is just a fool with an enlarged liver and way too much Aqua-Net.

Unquestionably the finest product of the entire Canadian Tax Shelter era, the intensely grim yet bittersweet Christmastime caper The Silent Partner should be a holiday staple for those fed up with saccharine Christian sentimentality and 24-hour marathon reruns of A Christmas Story. Much like Bob Clark’s masterpiece Black Christmas, the Yuletide setting provides an ironic counterpoint to the nerve-wracking wintry paranoia that threatens to become overwhelming, with a villain who knows not the meaning of “Good Will Towards Men”. Or women, for that matter. Beneath its ice cold, pseudo-slasher surface is a genuinely heartwarming tale of love, spiritual redemption, and the temptation of all-consuming greed.

Based on Anders Bodelsen’s obscure potboiler Think of a Number, Curtis Hanson’s screenplay transposes the setting from Denmark to metropolitan Toronto, preserving the snowy atmosphere and excising a few subplots while adding a much-needed transfusion of good old fashioned Canadian charm. The story is deceptively simple: Miles Cullen (Elliott Gould), hapless everyman bank teller, discovers that a local Santa Claus is planning a holdup, and decides to skim a few grand from his till the next day. Predictably, Santa returns with a gun, scores, makes a clean getaway, and Cullen”s theft goes completely unnoticed. Neat. On top of that, he’s attracting the interest of his co-worker Julie (Susannah York), a longtime crush on which their sleazy sideburn-sporting boss has obvious designs.

In perhaps the only plot contrivance in an otherwise fiercely intelligent script, Miles is interviewed by a field crew for the TV news, becomes a little cocky, and discloses the exact sum total of money stolen, including the $48,000 he stuffed into his tin lunch box before it all went down. This is odd for a number of reasons, but perhaps Canadian reportage is really this candid; if the story took place in America, the bank would dispatch a suit who would then give a vague though undoubtedly inflated estimate of their losses in order to maximize insurance payouts. Stranger still, Miles must grapple with a new-found and unexpected celebrity, and take some lighthearted jabs from his extremely merry co-worker Simonsen (John God Damn Candy, on a break from SCTV). Will he work up the gumption to win Julie’s heart and shed his nebbish skin, or be content to live as a hermit collecting tropical fish?

More importantly, what is he going to do about Harry Reikle (Christopher Plummer), former disgruntled Santa turned bank robber, who thinks nothing of grand larceny and even less of common courtesy? It may be a coincidence that Reikle just happened to be watching the broadcast during Miles’ interview, but what thief wouldn’t want to experience the adrenaline rush of watching their own exploits on the news? While Miles is sensible enough to shuttle away his 48 grand in a safety deposit box, he’s powerless to prevent Reikle from bombarding his home with menacing phone calls and ransacking the place when he’s not there. Suffice it to say, the obsessive thief does not handle Miles’ lack of cooperation with much decorum, and the film contains more cruelty to fish than A Fish Called Wanda.

Despite the mayhem unfolding at home, Miles is still composed enough to come up with avoidance tactics when he’s not pursuing Julie, which involves going to a very depressing swingers’ party hosted by the sleazy boss and being the designated driver. The scene in her apartment is extremely well acted, not surprising given the deft touch director Daryl Duke has with actors: witness his ability to rein in Rip Torn’s unique brand of Method acting as his character becomes increasingly unhinged in the epic Payday. Likewise, Plummer’s performance is a masterwork of simmering rage manifesting from suppressed sexual frustration, alternately cool and terrifying, usually in the same scene. Gould plays it as low-key as possible, which is exactly the right thing to do.

Through an ingeniously executed plan that I dare not reveal, Miles succeeds in dealing with Harry, settles into his new life and begins building sandcastles in the sky, planning out exactly how to spend his 48 grand. Sure, he could only live a year or two on that much money, and the smart thing would be to invest the entire lump sum. But he’s starting to understand the allure of a life of crime, and paranoid about his skimming being found out. Around this time, he has a chance encounter with the stunningly gorgeous Elaine (Céline Lomez) and his burgeoning affair with Julie is jeopardized when the two strangers fall head over heels for each other.

For a short, blissful passage, The Silent Partner is sweet, romantic, and delicate; lest you think this quasi-love-triangle is an unnecessary detour (as it is in so many other Capers), think again. Gratuitous nudity and soft focus candlelit foreplay sequence aside, the secondary romance subplot is absolutely necessary not only for the brief levity it provides, but for the unexpected emotional payoff and tie-in to the A-plot. Oh yeah, also eye candy:

Nice as this flirtatious dalliance turns out to be, Miles does not have much time to enjoy his newfound status as a swaggering ladykiller. No, it’s not because it was approaching the end of the decade when someone like Elliott Gould could conceivably embody a suave Don Juan character, but rather when Harry returns, with a vengeance that is oftentimes vicious on a level nigh unseen outside of the horror genre. On top of that, Harry is such an asshole that most of his apoplectic rage is directed toward dainty, defenseless women; if we didn’t already hate him just on general principle of him being a greedy bank robber and all, his treatment of the fairer sex has drawn sharp criticism toward the film itself. Curtis Hanson’s script has been called misogynistic, sexist, and unnecessarily brutal, and while it’s hard to argue against the latter claim, the film itself is obviously not a celebration of machismo. Miles, in a sharp contrast to the antagonist, respects women so much that he’s intimidated by them; understandably so in the cases of headstrong, whip-smart British lass Julie and the ethereal Elaine.

The scene involving Elaine, Harry and the fish tank has often been referred to as one of the most repulsively violent scenes in all the sundry, seedy annals of exploitation, which is a bit of an overstatement. True, it’s protracted and uncomfortable, but that’s kind of the point of the scene: ratcheting up the tension and stakes to an unbearable fever pitch. Duke could have cut out a few seconds of beating and thrashing with no one wanting more, but perhaps he, like any typical viewer, was simply in awe at seeing Baron Von Trapp acting like Ike Turner during a PCP binge.

After a point, Harry’s rampage becomes less about recovering the 48 large and more about making Miles as miserable as humanly possible. You’d think a sensible bloke like our hero would cut ties and hightail it out of Toronto after a particular plot development, yet he doesn’t. Miles always has a plan, always has enough sand in him to stand up to his tormentor, even if he is deathly afraid the whole time. He’s a classic film noir protagonist, with several weaknesses and shades of gray complicating his character, while he undergoes misfortune after misfortune as a direct result of his dabbling in crime. He is also smart enough to realize the wide-ranging consequences of his actions, and humble enough to take drastic steps to correct his mistake.

Will there be a Christmas Miracle to save everything at the 11th hour? Will Miles and Julie’s be a romance for the ages? Will Miles learn that virtue is its own reward? Will Christopher Plummer be cross-dressing? We can disclose the answer to exactly one of these dilemmas. You’ll have to find out the rest.

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Scum of the Earth is a delightful piece of early 70s hack work, as bizarrely endearing as it is oppressively sleazy; if it were sold as a comedy instead of a proto-slasher flick, perhaps it would have a faithful cult following as opposed to languishing in obscurity for the past 35 odd years. While the gross misrepresentation of the VHS artwork is jarring enough (the film does not take place in a bayou, nor does the heroine wear a tattered dress), the original release poster does a better job reflecting the scuzzy hixploitation quasi-romantic vibe, while completely avoiding the slasher subtext. Maybe it was a tough sell. This unique hybrid of God’s Little Acre by way of Johnny Got his Gun has plenty to offer the schlock aficionado, and an even greater appeal for those who grew up in the Bible Belt and managed to escape with their dignity intact.

Despite the reissue title, Scum of the Earth has absolutely nothing to do with the 1957 Peter Graves cornpone drama Bayou, which was re-edited for the drive-in circuit, had its title changed to Poor White Trash, and was a massive success, especially in certain regions of the Deep South. While one could make the assumption that Bayou was some kind of Douglas Sirk styled celebration of backwater hick “culture”, it would be nigh impossible to make the same mistake when judging the merits of its unofficial sequel: Scum of the Earth is unequivocally and uncompromisingly disgusted with its subject matter, depicting every moment of low-class excess with an ugly, overlit Velveeta sheen rendering its hideous supporting cast even more freakish than usual. And then there are the axe murders.

Or rather, the single axing that acts as a dubious curtain-raiser: newlyweds Helen and Paul Fraser are inexplicably picnicking in some off-the-beaten-path sinkhole in rural Texas, enjoying roughly two minutes of vanilla wedded bliss before the business end of an axe finds its way into Paul’s chest.

Helen quickly comes to terms with becoming a widow, but she is unable to find the keys to their station wagon and is cast off into the wilderness. Instead of finding help, she encounters Odis, the odious patriarch of the Pickett clan, and foolishly follows him home to his ramshackle log cabin. Meanwhile, the unseen axe murderer hovers around, contributing an occasional POV shot, but he’s maddeningly inactive for the bulk of the running time. It would seem that his plan is to allow Helen to enjoy her Southern hospitality until it breaks her very psyche, and the Pickett clan is more than up to the task. Every member of the household embodies one or more crass Southern stereotypes to go along with their other fatal character flaws.

It’s a motley crew indeed.

Odis (pictured at Right), our heroine’s “savior”, is a misogynistic moonshine-chugging Good Ole Boy, who doesn’t have the slightest intention of helping Helen; the house doesn’t have a phone, nor does he have a vehicle, but what he DOES have is a raging libido and more than enough homemade booze chillin’ in the well to keep it raging. Meek Emmy (in chair, to Left of Odis) is pregnant with the newest member of the Picketts, and her pleasant yet vacant demeanor belies the fact that she’s essentially trapped in a loveless marriage, as her first husband essentially used her as collateral in order to pay off a loan to Odis. She’s hardly of an upper-crust background, but her down-to-earth humility stands in stark contrast to perennial tart Sarah Pickett (at Left of frame). Pronounced “Say-Ruh”, she’s been living at home since she done got run straight outta Beaumont, and Odis probably fathered her first aborted child. Good times!

Later we meet Bo Pickett, Sarah’s dimbulb younger brother, who is often tasked to “fetch a jar” of moonshine for his alcoholic dad, and is more than handy when it comes to bringin’ home chow for supper.

So while Helen may not exactly relish the thought of freshly killed possum in her stew, dinner time with the Picketts is by far the least horrific ordeal in what turns out to be a very, very, very long night out in the boondocks. But the frequently hilarious dialogue, and whimsical musical score, turn the proceedings into high camp rather than the penetrating social commentary that Z-list auteur S.F. Brownrigg was likely aiming for. Sure, there are still rural areas in the undeveloped Southern countryside where people still live like it was the late 19th century, inbreeding is common, and progressive politics are demonized, but the depiction of the lifestyle in Scum of the Earth is part affectionate parody, part hysterical exaggeration; there is no ring of truth to its gallery of low-rent horrors. The script plays on cliches and stereotypes, depicting this regressive culture as nothing short of Hell on Earth.

It’s a tonally appropriate companion piece and spiritual sequel to Brownrigg’s inexplicably titled Don’t Look in the Basement, which examined the treatment of the mentally ill and the inherent dangers in experimental treatments vis-a-vis group therapy. It works well for its micro-budget but does not transcend the trappings of its genre. Ultimately Basement devolves into mindless slasher fare in its third act, and the blatantly telegraphed Big Twist is less mindblowing and more shrug-inducing. The film has lapsed into the public domain, and is worth checking out if only to plumb the cinematic genealogy of Scum of the Earth. The price is right.

Much like its successor, Scum devolves into a very slow-paced stalk-and-kill murder mystery deal, only without any tension or emotional stakes or, indeed, any sense of mystery at all.

During one especially inept sequence, Bo is summoned with the words “fetch me a jar” and sent to the chillin’ well to retrieve more moonshine for his deposed Paw; the interior shots of the cabin show that it’s pitch black outside, but once Bo steps out it’s clearly just past High Noon. The Day-For-Night might match up with the similarly mishandled POV shots, but when there’s bright sunlight, stark shadows and birdsong in the middle of your tense murder sequence, well, say goodbye to any and all tension. To top it off, once Bo has his fatal meeting with a sharpened fence post, the discharge oozing from his open maw looks less like stage blood and more like raspberry preserves.

Once Odis is done slapping around his daughter and trading lewd remarks (it’s a remarkable bout of one-upsmanship that culminates in Odis declaring “They run you outta Beaumont ’cause you gave the Clap to half the town!”), his discovery of Bo’s corpse fills him with sorrow; less because he’s out one son than the fact that he’s going to have to fetch his moonshine by himself. Act 3 sends the atrocities flying at breakneck speed: an offscreen rape, more spousal abuse, a sloppy seduction turned barbed wire strangulation, drunken fury followed by a shotgun blast to the face. Then, of course, the Brownrigg signature: a ludicrous twist that adds absolutely nothing to the story.

As much as the lurid marketing campaign would like you to believe otherwise, there’s nary a single moment of terror to be found in Scum of the Earth, and indeed, were it not for the incest subplot and the occasional freshet of stage blood, it could have been reissued as a tongue-in-cheek parody fit for family consumption. With the somewhat optimistic yet totally bleak conclusion, combined with the weird upbeat theme song “Love is a Final Affair”, there’s tangible Family Values subtext to be found here. It’s just nearly impossible to decipher amidst the layers of grime and sleaze and Z-grade exploitation.

At the very least, co-writer and star Gene Ross deserves credit for creating one of the most loathsome yet inexplicably appealing quasi-villains in Odis Pickett. Making a drinking game out of his shenanigans is easy enough; dying from alcohol poisoning is a simple proposition if one were to drink with every utterance of  “Fetch me a jar”. And when’s the last time you saw a slasher flick that ended with cute little credit buttons?

Recommended with all the usual caveats.