Chilling Classics Cthursday: DEVIL TIMES FIVE (1974)

Ah, well, if it isn't Devil Times Five. We've met before, you and I, 'round about fifteen years or so ago--yep, in the early years of this here blog. In the era when I first gave a peep-see to many a movie from the Mill Creek Entertainment 50 Movie Pack Chilling Classics 12-DVD Collection. (That is her Christian name.) And now here we are again, you and I, meeting once more in the interests of this here blog. When your number came up courtesy of RNGesus, I immediately remembered a few things about you. 

I remembered that you featured Boss Hogg from The Dukes of Hazzard and Rosario from Will and Grace, the latter of whom eats a banana at one point in the proceedings. 

I remembered that teen heartthrob Leif Garrett stars, though it's a bit before his teen heartthrob-dom, and he cries about his "beautiful face" after he gets hurt. 

While those are about all the specifics that have remained with me over the years, I will say that you left such an impression on me that a big feeling about you also remained: a feeling that I don't like you. Sorry to say it but that's right! It was a negative impression because you were godawful boring.

But hey, that was 2007 Final Girl. I am now 2024 Final Crone. And as was the hope when I revisited another 2007 Chilling Classic I disliked (The House of the Dead), I felt a rumblin' in my nethers that (blessedly) was merely my hope springing eternal. "How could I not enjoy a movie about killer kids wherein Rosario from Will and Grace eats a banana? Was not such a movie made just for me?" Armed with this hope and my modern-day crusade against finding movies "boring," I settled in, ready for you and I to merge and become Devil Times Six.

Look, I'm just gonna cut to the chase: Sad to say, but we are destined to remain Devil Times Five and Devil Times One.

I did find more to take with me into the future as rememberin's though. Like the couple I called "That's Really Not a Mustachioed Ken Howard?" and "Dollar Tree Lynda Day George."

Fun (??) Fact #1: I recently spied Dollar Tree Lynda Day George (aka Joan McCall) in a rewatch of Grizzly for my recent spot on The Evolution of Horror. In Grizzly she is Christopher George's love interest, which really drives home the "why are you not Lynda Day George"-ness of it all.

Fun (??) Fact #2: As an alternate name to "That's Really Not a Mustachioed Ken Howard?" I will also accept "White John Amos."

You know I'm not wrong!

There's also the kid who dresses up as a nun...she's giving a young Sister Wendy.

You feature a corpse party, Devil Times Five! One of my very favorite slasher things!

You've got a real nasty streak. Whether it's kids setting someone on fire, causing death-by-piranha (or "piraña," as one character says it), or beating someone to death with a variety of tools, when these kids get to murderin' they really get to it.

The issue remains, though, that it takes too long for the kids to get to murderin' and you can't figure out what you want to be in the meantime. Your soundtrack says "fourth rate sexploitation," and you try to go there a couple of times. You bust out some drama with all the married couples, but it just drags. 

And speaking of drag...I want to know what is up with Leif Garrett's character occasionally dressing up as a woman! But you give it naught but a throwaway moment or two.

Sigh. Given all of that, it's surprising that we are not Devil Times Six, is it not? My impulse is to say "it's not you, it's me," because that is the polite thing to do. But fuck it! It's not me at all. It's you! You're a mess! Your original cut was a paltry 40 minutes and your director quit, which left others holding the bag and having to do a whole lotta padding...and we can feel all 50 minutes of padding, lemme tell ya. That's your biggest problem, I think, and it's one I can't really surmount.

I mean, maybe I could if I'd watched you on Tubi, where I nabbed all these nice screencaps from. Or maybe if I watched you on the upcoming 4K Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray? (I can't believe you're getting a $40 4K Blu-ray, if I'm being totally honest, but hey.) But I watched the Chilling Classics version of you, which....phew. Muddy, dark, dreary, brown. Color was MIA, as were crisp edges to shapes. Resolution, man. It's kinda great.

Sigh I don't know. I don't know if that would really have helped. Sometimes a movie and a blogger simply aren't compatible, even if one of those things includes Rosario eating a banana and Leif Garrett in a series of wigs. To cling to each other after trying--and writing!--twice is a bit unseemly, no? Best to let go. 

And so I release you, Devil Times Five. I release your Boss Hogg (not a euphemism), your wigs, your corpse party, your pretend nuns...I release them so someone else--perhaps someone who will spend $40 on you via Vinegar Syndrome, or maybe someone who will spend $0 on you via Tubi--will give you and get from you what you both need. I'll always remember your "beautiful face." Probably.