Oversexed Rugsucker From Mars

"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 12/8/89

cutline: The brutal reality of "Oversexed Rugsucker From Mars"

By Joe Bob Briggs

Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas

The eighties were real scary to me. Every decade since the drive-in started going away has been scarier and scarier.

Like in the fifties, when the drive-in was king, you go to a scary movie, you know what's gonna happen. Something's coming from outer space, and it's gonna eat you. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." I understand that. Or maybe something's got zapped by atomic radiation. "The Killer Shrews." "Giant Gila Monster." "Godzilla." Isn't that what happened to Godzilla? Ate some nuclear stuff and crawled up out of the ocean? "Creature from the Black Lagoon." So it either comes from outer space, or it comes up out of the ocean, and it eats you.

Then, in the sixties, things get a little bit MORE scary. Something's gonna eat you, but it doesn't live in outer space. It lives right next door! There are MEAN people out there. There are bikers that are gonna beat you up for no reason, like in "The Wild Angels." And rednecks that are gonna hassle you like in "Cool Hand Luke." And some crazy people, like Fuad Ramses, the maniac Egyptian caterer in "Blood Feast." We've even got zombies, dead people that have fungus growing off their face, like in "Night of the Living Dead" and "Two Thousand Maniacs." But you can still KILL the goldurn things. Those zombies in "Night of the Living Dead" WILL DIE if you shoot em through the brain. They're just MEAN people, nothing a double‑barreled shotgun can't take care of.

But then in the 1970's, starting with "Dirty Harry," you've got people that are not just mean, they're not just gonna eat you if you don't kill em first, they're DERANGED people. Dirty Harry can kill em, he can eventually blow their brains into the San Francisco Bay, but he's the ONLY ONE. You and me, we can't kill em. And there's people in your OWN family that are gonna eat you. Like in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," or "Halloween"--Michael Meyers was RELATED to Jamie Lee Curtis in that movie. "I Spit On Your Grave"‑‑those guys were so mean that, by the end of the movie, we still wanna keep killing em, and they're already all dead. In fact, the seventies were the Cannibal Years. The seventies kinda made cannibalism what it is today in this country. Remember "The Hills Have Eyes"? They're cannibals, AND they're mutated atomic‑radiation baby killers.

And then finally we get to the eighties, and I'll be dogged if they didn't come up with something even sicker. In the eighties, it doesn't come from outer space, and it doesn't come from up off the ocean floor, and it doesn't ride into town on a Harley, and it's not Crazy Lonnie your cousin who turns out to be a cannibal. In the eighties, something INSIDE your own body is gonna get nastier and nastier and then come OUT of your body and eat you. Probly the first great transformation scene, where your body starts getting the heebie jeebies and then you grow claws and your skull turns into a ravioli dinner, was "An American Werewolf in London" in 1981. But then we had "The Beast Within," where the guy turns into a giant katydid, and "The Evil Dead," where the zombies hide inside you and there's only one way to kill em‑‑total dismemberment: arms, legs, head, everything. And then we had "Forbidden World," where they have a little accident in the genetic‑DNA lab and pretty soon everybody's face is covered in slime glopola, and it grows into this enormous thing that looks like Hamburger Helper with teeth, and that's really the first great genetic‑DNA mutant intestine monster.

But the best one of all came right smack dab in the middle of the eighties. You know what I'm talking about. "The Fly." A little mixup in Jeff Goldblum's body, he gets fused with a fly, and suddenly he's got stiff hairs growing out his back and a Pizza Face and his ear falls off. Remember that? And then it gets WORSE. He gets this sort of Cream‑of‑Wheat Cancer Face, and when things get really bad, he's got Vomit Jubilee Face. And pretty soon Jeff looks so bad we feel SORRY for the fly that got fused with him. His body eats him alive. And that's what the eighties were all about. Vomit. That's what it all comes down to when you sum it up. The eighties were about vomit. That's my opinion. That kinda sums it all up. Okay, we can go forward now.

And in today's column I'm very pleased to be honoring the new standard for drive-in excellence in the nineties, the film that sums up the whole history of the twentieth-century cinema. You know what I'm talking about. It's "Over-Sexed Rugsuckers From Mars." This story has it all--sex, violence, major household appliances. And it's actually a serious examination of what exactly would happen if three drunk six-inch-high Martians landed on earth, climbed inside a vacuum cleaner bag, and electronically mated with a street bum. Of course, people would eventually go running from their homes, pursued by deranged R2-D2 Hoovers. And if one of them were to successfully assault an innocent woman with its . . . I'm shuddering, it's too horrible to consider . . . with its utility hose . . . oh God no . . . what would the right-to-lifers have to say then? Does a half-human, half-Dustbuster have rights, too?

Unfortunately, this is one ugly rugsucker, and he eats housewives for breakfast, steals herb tea, and sucks up single women one high heel at a time. There's only one person who loves "Dusty"--Vernon the street bum--and only one person who can save him from a life of sweeping the streets in downtown El Lay. Will the Martians return in time to take the Dustbuster baby home? Will Vernon commit suicide rather than live without Dusty? Will the Claymation budget run out before the Martians get back? Is this a real movie?

Well. I guess, yeah, sort of. Sure, it's a real movie. (Isn't video great.)

And we've got two breasts. Three dead bodies. One dead rugsucker. An 89 on the Vomit Meter (including two scenes that grossed ME out). One motor vehicle chase. Two outer-space vacuum sex attacks. TV-dinner sucking. Kinky Martian mini-sex. Head rolls. Gratuitous Ray Zone Day concert in the middle of the movie. Gratuitous biorhythm ring. Hoover Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Dick Monda, as Vernon the street bum, for saying "I don't care what you say, I'm in love with Dusty" and for taking the vacuum cleaner for a romantic paddleboat ride; Jean Stewart, as the object of the outer-space rugsucker's desire; and Michael Paul Girard, the writer, producer, and director, for having the courage to put his name on this movie.

Three stars. Joe Bob says check it out.

ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS

Communist Alert! The Studio Drive-In in Culver City, Calif., a thousand-car ozoner, will be ripped down in February 1991 because of a new city plan that wants to use the land . . . for HOUSING! Now I ask you, what's more important, houses or drive-ins? First Ted Turner rips up MGM, now this. What are you people in Culver City DOING? Remember, without eternal vigilance, it can happen here. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get his free junk and world famous newsletter, write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221. Joe Bob's Fax line is always open: 214-368-2310.

Dear Joe Bob,

Here is a question that only a guy who is cool, suave, knowing, wears sox and knows a good can of beer when he guzzles it could answer. What is the best feature length Three Stooges movie ever made? A deluxe pizza rides on your answer.

Yours truly,

Elton Van Nostrand

Owego, N.Y.

Dear Elton:

Of the five movies starring the Stoogesters, I would have to vote for "The Three Stooges Meet Hercules" (1962), which was also Larry Fine's favorite Stooge movie. If you're talking about movies the Stooges were just APPEARING in, the best one was "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" (1963), but they were only in it for about five seconds. None of the Stooge movies are as good as the shorts, and we all know why, don't we?

Joe DeRita was Curly-Joe.

Not funny.

Dear Joe Bob,

Remember, every minute spent out of a mall is a minute added to your life.

Best regards,

Gary Moon

Tacoma, Wash.

Dear Gary:

Yes, but I couldn't live without Sticky Notes.

Dear Joe Bob,

It seems that you have become my only hope.

About, oh, maybe fifteen years ago, my best friends and I made our bi-weekly trip to the Snohomish Drive-in, about 30 minutes north of Seattle. That night there was a triple bill: "Sisters," something I don't remember, and a movie I feel that, aside from the original "Saw" and maybe "Last House on the Left"--no, I think it may very well be THE Best Drive-in Movie of all time, called "Deranged."

It was the satory of everybody's favorite country boy next door, Ed Geene, and his heartwarming devotion to his mother. Complete with ersatz newscasts and "Tum-drum" demonstrations, to me this was what made the drive-in great.

What I need your help with, Joe Bob, is that since that glorious night, I a) haven't been able to get that movie out of my mind (the phrase "All that's left to do, is stick it on to you!" STILL is part of my daily vocabulary), b) haven't been able to find anyone besides those friends who were with me who has seen it, and c) cannot find it on videotape, or even find out if it's available.

Have you seen it? Or am I just doomed to spend the rest of my days reliving the glories of it all with no one to share the vision with. (Those friends are all long gone.)

I live in California now and having that movie in my home would make it easier to take the fact that most all the drive-ins around here are now Cineplex-sushi-zen-bran-malls. Please help!

Sincerely,

Matt Robkin

Novato, Calif.

Dear Matt:

You're absolutely right. "Deranged" came out in 1974 but was overshadowed by "Saw." There are three films based on the life of Ed Gein, the Wisconsin handyman who liked to collect human body parts in his barn, dry the skin, wear it on HIS body, and dance around in the moonlight. The first two were "Psycho" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." But the one that sticks closest to the real story is "Deranged." It was written by Alan Ormsby, who also wrote the famous "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" (1972) and then, ten years later, wrote the Nastassia Kinski version of "Cat People." You can't get "Deranged" on video right now, but I'll try to kick some hiney and see what I can do.

Dear Joe Bob,

I recently watched a deep and meaningful movie called "Deathstalker." I rented it because it had a really nifty cover with a muscular barbarian and a half-naked Barbarian babe on it. After watching it I discovered two things--the movie had a budget of about 15 dollars, and the cover was better than the movie. Although I must commend the blonde barbarian babe that battled without a top on for the first three-fourths of the movie. Altogether, I counted 18 naked breasts (excluding the male barbarians) and I couldn't even count the dead bodies. So I have to ask you:

1) How do you count the naked garbonzas and dead bodies so well?

2) What drive-in flick has had the MOST naked breasts and dead bodies?

Your faithful listener,

Joel Watson

Terre Haute, Ind.

Dear Joel:

1) Sony has a new garbonza-counting device, originally designed for Japanese businessmen in New York City, that consists of a squeezable latex breast-like mold with a digital readout, so that all breasts may be counted without the eyes ever moving from the screen.

2) "Deathstalker" would be very far from the all-time champeen, even though it IS the only movie ever made in which a male barbarian is transformed before our very eyes into Barbi Benton. "Gas Pump Girls" has 110 breasts. "American Ninja" has 231 dead bodies.

Dear Joe Bob:

The North 340 Memorial Drive-In Society, a group named after the beloved North 340 Drive-In near Waynesboro, Virginia (now defunct, but still standing, hence "Memorial"), immediately adjacent to Eastside Speedway, noted for showing ONLY appropriate Drive-In material during its heyday, has elected you to receive the Hollingshead-Smith Life Achievement Award for your role in helping keep the Spirit of the Drive-In alive. However, we hate to be too presumptuous, so perhaps we'd better ask if you'd accept first.

Sincerely,

F. Lee Snavely

Charlottesville, Va.

Dear Lee:

If nominated, I will humbly . . . do I get any money?

Answer that part first, but I think I'm interested.

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