Directed by: Art Names
Starring: Les Tremayne, Janet Wood, Bebe Kelly, Marvin Kaplan, Alice Nunn
From: World Wide Films
Featuring Large Marge, marching band music, Dad’s Black Cow Root Beer, a love of Wednesday & Snakey Bender.
I was not expecting to start Spooky Season already, but as I saw on Twitter from a Letterboxd mutual that the annual “Hooptober” challenge was starting tonight at 8:26 PM ET-random, I know-my unofficial list might as well start now also. My involvement has never been official—instead, whatever strikes my fancy is watched and even now, there’s only a few movies I’m sure will be on the list this year. Heck, what the list will even be called is unknown… which is not a big deal as that won’t be posted until November 1st. I always enjoy discovering what the official participants view and the same will surely be true in ’22.
Most likely, this won’t be the only man vs. animal picture seen in the next two months. What appealed to me about this recent addition to Shudder: the revenge plot-which ends up being “inspired” by Willard-and the presence of Alice Nunn, best known as Large Marge from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Turns out, it was a flawed wacky tale which still greatly entertained me.
Right away, I laughed that the lead was an old guy (Les Tremayne, the biggest name in this) dressed as a hobo who loves snakes so much, he is known as “SNAKEY” BENDER-a hilarious name. The setting is a tiny bucolic town in rural Texas filled w/ trashy people where Snakey knows a variety of people. He is on the grumpy side yet takes his animals to show a classroom of 4th grade students-he knows the teacher… oh yes he does!-children find animals to serve as food for the serpents, and always goes into town once a week, on Wednesday… otherwise he hangs out in the boondocks.
I don’t want to say “like David Lynch” but I was greatly entertained seeing how odd/sleazy this was. A brother/sister combo who run the town market both go after the 4th grade teacher (yes, the sister was played by Nunn, so apparently the character’s a lesbian! Insert your own comments if you wish), but the teacher herself loves serpents… as in, really loves. What a tableaux that’s presented here, a rich tapestry of a town that is full of undercover scummy people. Anyhow, some bad things happen to Snakey so admittedly Mr. Bender overreacts in getting revenge but unlike what the Shudder description implies, he brings the people to the snakes instead of bringing the snakes to the people.
It's a weird movie where the long setup interested me not only for learning how Bender knows everyone, it has moments such as he and one of his pals spending each Wednesday night blasting music from his stereo… and it’s marching band music! That’s why there’s the amazing credit of John Philip Sousa being listed among the composers; the other two managed to create an odd score that sometimes had the 70’s version of synth music but it worked. The elaborate deaths at least tickled me pink; then again, I was bemused that there was a reverend character who was a young hairy man w/ huge glasses and even more huge mustache, or how the town’s constable had an “official vehicle” that was a first-generation Ford Mustang painted School Bus Yellow!
Of course something this wacky won’t appeal to everyone but it worked for me. As for Dad’s Root Beer once having a Black Cow variant… that’s what root beer floats were originally called, no kidding. In the store run by the creepy old siblings, a sign for that was displayed. Hopefully one day Dad's brings that back as it sounds tasty as F.
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