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.

The Slithis is a strange creature, indeed; borne of unchecked seepage from a Venice Beach nuclear power plant and the inbred hillbilly cousin of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, he emerges from a drainage canal early in the A.M. to feast on local denizens. But the charming humanoid beast is almost an afterthought until the third act of Spawn of the Slithis, a film which is perfectly content to plant its tranquilized ass on the couch and sloooooowly tell the tale of Wayne Connors, a high school journalism teacher, and his profound disillusionment with the current generation of students, who produce the “worst high school newspaper in the nation” under his ever more jaded aegis. Yes, it’s a sad state of affairs for the Baby Boomers reared during the ultra-conservative Eisenhower Era, who have their optimism dashed against the rocks time and time again by the hippie generation. “Teaching’s beginning to be a big turn-off,” he laments to his wife, who is a woman named Jeff, as they leave his sorry campus for their humble Love Shack and a night full of red wine and Quaaludes.

Sporadic Slithis attacks give Wayne a grim new lease on life, giving him the opportunity to use his Los Angeles press card(!?) and fanangle his way into a string of murder investigations. Since the LA County Coroner must have been stoned on elephant tranquilizers, the Overacting Police Chief declares that the Slithis meals are merely the work of a Mansonian “Satanic Death Cult”. If you’re willing to accept that plot contrivance, you may be functionally retarded. For those who aren’t suffering from severe cognitive impairment, there happens to be a bottled solution that comes in many flavors to suit your particular pleasure. All the actors seem to be drunk or stoned or flying eight miles high, and what’s more, director Steven Traxler’s skewed vision of LA is populated mostly by drunken transients who specifically drink economy-priced red wine. You should probably do the same.

There is an “investigation” carried out by Wayne the high school newspaper editor, wherein he illegally lifts evidence from multiple crime scenes, conveniently left open and unguarded for anyone to walk in, and sends them to his pal “Doctor John” for analysis. Since none of the characters seem to have any sort of background or history, it’s unclear whether the hippie-bearded Doc is a high school science teacher, or just some rogue biologist who spends his free time getting stoned and poring over conspiracy theories.

After a brief period of befuddlement, mandated by the script, the good doctor shows up at Wayne and Jeff’s house one night, unannounced and most likely blitzed out of his hairy gourd, and begins an incredibly insane tale of nuclear waste, stagnant marshes, and radioactive dirt. The Man is trying to play God with his unstable nuclear power plants, nature is becoming polluted, Mother Earth is bleeding, blah blah blah… but then John builds to a kicker:

“It’s one of the most important discoveries in scientific history, and they called this radioactive silt…”

…

“…Slithis.”

How and why Doctor John decided to bombard us with this info overload is a question best left unanswered. What’s more important is the actor’s hilarious, intoxicated delivery of the exposition, and the fact that said info-dump serves no purpose in Wayne’s investigation whatsoever. Sure, it sets up an unexplained scene where Wayne and Jeff go to the igloo-shaped house of a former nuclear scientist, but what comes out of that is just more crap about how Man Shouldn’t Play God. Oh, and a hilarious close-up of the scientist’s “radiation-scarred” visage.

Put as simply as possible, Spawn of the Slithis is about a monster mutated by radioactive silt that comes out at night to feast on society’s undesirables. When it finally decides to become a poor ripoff of Jaws, complete with a hardscrabble crew scraped together and placed on a lonely wooden boat, the narrative is already lying dead in the water and stinking like carp left out in the sun. The film would barely qualify for feature-length if the editing was tighter, and Traxler’s infatuation with his high-speed slow motion camera slows things down even more. There’s one fact that makes it stand out in the overcrowded pool of horrible monster movies, and that’s the basic level of competence behind the scenes, coupled with an earnest desire to make a significant work of art. While there’s no doubt that it fails to achieve any sort of depth, the attempt at subtext is fascinating in the same way of a slow motion train derailment.

Feasting on drunken hobos by night, swimming in irradiated ocean water by day, the Slithis leads a lonesome yet unpretentious lifestyle. His choice of victims leaves plenty up to interpretation: from slum inhabitants to transients to the sexually uninhibited swingers of the Me Generation. The attack scenes are surprisingly gruesome and drawn out, complete with a subjective Slithis-Cam for terrifying split-diopter POV shots. Yet there is a gaping hole in the middle of the story: the monster drops out of sight for a half-hour lacuna while Wayne wanders the city interrogating homeless drunks and charters a boat from a black man named Christopher Columbus, who uses the word “mother” as an all-purpose noun and is obsessed with handshake etiquette. His hobo interrogations lead to a dead end, but Columbus is all too happy to aid Wayne in his thrilling quest to gather specimens from the ocean floor for thorough radiation analysis. There is little to do but bide our time by drinking or otherwise putting yourself in the same mindset as the cast and crew, waiting for the real protagonist to crawl out of the ocean once more.

Once our hero makes his triumphant return, it’s a real doozy. First, a disorienting jump cut puts us in the middle of a bizarre nightclub where patrons make drunken bets on turtle races as an MC provides moronic running commentary. It is in this hideous milieu where libidinous swinger Doug sets sights on virginal vacationer Jennifer, who is 18 but “could pass for 20″. Spirited away by this mustachioed Lothario in his blue Volkswagen Beetle, she all too easily surrenders her humble life story: a lifelong resident of backwoods Suska, North Dakota, Jennifer was just waiting for the day when she would be old enough to jump ship and immerse herself in the bright lights, spinning disco balls, Free Love and free-flowing cocaine of the Big City. And along came her knight in bell-bottoms and leisure suit and dress shirt unbuttoned down to his navel.

Once aboard Doug’s houseboat, the Casanova of Venice Beach lights a couple of candles flanking a B&W framed picture of himself(?!) and doles out the obligatory red wine. For the sake of your sanity, please follow suit.

As Doug reaches behind the love seat for a switch, our minds are left racing. What hideous contraption could he possibly have hidden in this den of horrors? Lamely, it’s just a power switch for some red lights to provide the “romantic ambience” of a nuclear meltdown. Poor, poor naive little Jennifer thinks she’s reeled in a catch. The  awkward, PG rated foreplay commences.

But what’s that? A knocking on the door? Surely it’s just Rex, the friendly neighborhood peeping tom, doing his daily run on Doug’s well-stocked liquor cabinet? Surely nothing could be more important than stealing third base before diving headfirst into the home plate? And yet, and yet… there always remains the possibility of a former hook-up coming to call, and after all, what could be sweeter than parlaying this successful pickup into a threesome? Hoping against hope, Doug ascends the stairs, with Traxler fetishizing his every move with Hitchcockian intensity, then crosses the cabin while bathed in sanguine light, then slicks back his hair, then sloooowly moving for the doorknob, and then

GWAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHNNNNNN

A familiar scaly hand pulls Doug from his haven of moral iniquity and into the harsh realities of life!! There is much rejoicing, much spilling of stage blood, and much red-tinted Slithis action. The beast is back, and hungrier than ever! Would it be redundant to highlight, again, how satisfying this sequence becomes?

What ho? The sounds of a lass crying for her dear departed beau, in spite of all the inhuman groaning, bone snapping and flesh rending! What could be sweeter than a virginal North Dakotan for dessert? And yet… we have come to know this couple better than some of us know ourselves, shared their hopes and dreams and lusts and perversions. Paradoxically, we share the beast’s bloodlust and we want to see Jennifer obey Doug’s softly cooed command to “get naked”, which prove to be his last words uttered as a sentient being. Were it not for Jennifer’s promiscuity, she would not even be in this debacle, and were it not for her naivete in crying for a dead lover, the Slithis would not mosey on board Doug’s Love Boat for his second helping.

This is easily the most drawn out monster attack in the film, a tour de force of conflicting moralities, tragically wasted youth, nature’s inhumanity to man, and copious red lighting. As we’re immersed in the color of sin, Traxler further implicates the audience with multiple cuts to the split-diopter Slithis-Cam, lingering on Jennifer’s mortal terror and fragile, writhing form. Then the attack, inevitably, turns into a molestation, recalling the poster depicting our lovely monster with a scantily clad bride cradled in his loving arms: another paradoxical image that recalls the inner torment of the eponymous 40 foot ape of King Kong. The agonizingly drawn out attack is like some first-year film student’s tribute to Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom filtered through The Horror of Party Beach. Was the monster once human, or did humans unknowingly create the monster with their unchecked nuclear power plants? Is this sequence brilliant or idiotic? Have I really gone through an entire 12 pack of Schlitz?

We end with a shot that practically oozes depth and meaning and subtext, etc.

The hilarity doesn’t let up at all, when in the next scene Wayne makes a visit to the police station to check in on the mentally unbalanced Stupid Chief, whose acting style can best be described as “like Vincent Price on amphetamines.” Even when he’s serving as the meat in the middle of a Bad Actor Sandwich, doing his business in the background, this nutcase chews scenery with all the gusto of a failed classically trained Shakespearean actor. The hilarity remains on a constant high pretty much throughout the rest of the film.

Had enough ham to wash down with all that red wine? Good, because now we’re on board the humble SS. Creation piloted by the one and only Christopher Columbus, as Traxler shamelessly rips off Jaws with all the weird fever-dream logic of Jaws the Revenge. It’s kind of refreshing that nobody discovers some simple household chemical that reduces the Slithis back to his radioactive silt stage, so instead Wayne and Chris must engage the creature in a mano a mano streetfight involving a shotgun and numerous improvised weapons. For those of us rooting for the monster, the ultimate outcome is kind of refreshing; the heroes snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by abiding in the Order of Mother Nature. In other words, Christopher Columbus babbles some jibba-jabba about the infinite possibilities of the ocean, the order of chaos, and the Dismal Tide. And then… well, it’s insane. And the screen goes negative. If you have any theories as to what the last shot signifies, please let us know. If you can make it through without dousing your brain with alcohol, you are either very brave or very stupid.