I’ve never seen of heard of this movie before which doesn’t mean much but I feel like this is something that would have been on my radar back in the 80s but nope I guessed I missed it and an initial thought would be something like “I probably would have liked this a lot better back when I was a kid before modern special effects” and “that guy with the hand puppet was really irritating” and “a hand puppet?” and “what’s with the pirate monster cat guy thing?” and “what” and “mmm hmm” and “side eyes” and “well I” and “well I guess that was ok I bet some people really like that” and “a pirate cat woods thing or what is he I don’t get it”. But in the end it was a fun 80s movie I suppose and probably looked and felt a lot better 40 years ago.

The opening: a kid who I think I remember from something else is walking through the woods with a backpack. He mumbles something about running away from home or some other bullshit. A guy crawls up into a fallen tree and tells the kid to light his cigarette. Being the bravest boy ever in the history of the world, the kid pulls out his zippo and lights the guy’s smoke who then turns into some sort of cat thing or something and chases him through the woods to some sort of manor or estate out in the middle of nowhere. Inside someone has everything set up for his birthday party and being the smartest boy in the history of the world, he thinks this is ok. He sits down to open his present and inside is a human head so he runs off screaming through the headstones out in front of the giant house and falls in a grave where he gets buried alive by the cat guy thing. That seems pretty normal and probably how most of our ancestors lived.

After that a couple of cars are driving down an unlit road out in the middle of the woods I guess and there’s no real reason – I mean I guess we don’t need one since it’s just a movie but something would be nice I think –

So, since it’s been a while since we’ve done something like this, we’re going to test out a new name for a feature: Eric Undead Cuts a D.E.U.C.E. (or Deep Eric Undead Character Examination) as we explore the character of Linda. How did she arrive here at this time and place? Why is she with Duke? How is she so strong yet so weak when her leg gets cut by the grim reaper’s scythe? Let’s take a look.

Linda (far right, above) grew up in a small town in Georgia before moving to New Jersey and giving her body to Duke with a heart full of love. It wasn’t necessarily a farm town, rural sure, but not truly agricultural – the only profitable business was a blanket processing factory – one of those ones that make the blankets that look like the indigenous American people made them but for these imitations they really didn’t and corporate greed tried to make a quick buck. Anyway, her family all worked at the factory and her father came to and from there every day, toting his lunch pail full of sandwich crusts, chewed fingernails and a thermos full of cold coffee. Those were The Salad Days as people from that area liked to call them, not bountiful but sweet memories and nostalgia and the personal zeitgeist of the smell of rain on leaves or birds outside of your window. That all changed when Linda was just sixteen and her daddy, swollen and soggy from drinking gin martinis and playing craps on his lunch break at the blanket factory, mistook the stalled elevator and fell three stories down the shaft and broke both of his arms and legs.

The unforeseen invalidism pronounced upon her father sent more than just her family into a downward turn; her socializing mother now spent her days in the gloomy home cooking soft foods and washing filthy loins and buttcracks, Linda herself had to take a job at the local grain silo one county over – and if anyone has ever read anything I’ve written we know what happens in the grain silo – cleaning up and disposing of dried human liquids and most alarming of all was when the widow woman on 3rd and Main hung herself from her attic rafters in despair once her proud, virulent and dominant lover lost the use of his appendages. The depth of this scandal considering the lack of small town secrecy – because if you’ve ever lived in one you know you can’t have a shit without somebody telling someone else about it – turned the family into the town pariahs where it was hard to show their sorrowful faces in the daytime. Lucky for Linda, one morning she was cleaning out the silo per her regular duty sheet and came across a pair of shorts, discarded after well you know and after instinctively checking the pockets, found a somewhat crumpled pack of Pall Mall cigarettes. After fishing one out to smoke she also discovered an unused rubber and a five dollar bill which she used that to catch a bus to Atlanta where she worked in a topless pool hall serving beer and cleaning ashtrays for a few months before hopping another bus to New Jersey.

Jersey wasn’t much better and it might have even been worse with the persistent smell of fish everywhere you go and I mean everywhere but one night after vacuuming and dusting an office in Piscataway, she found herself sitting next to what appeared to be a young buck of a man on her bus ride home and she would learn his name was Duke (second from left, above). “Look I’ll protect you forever aw man can’t you see that’s what I’m built for my old man didn’t raise no wimp I’m born strong and raised strong and no matter hows many times he beat me with that belt I came back and socked him good and said you can’t hurt Duke old man I’m strong as a bull and can lift the front of your Studebaker so you better not mess with me you’re the one that’s drunk anyway so get those mitts up if you wanna fight and I’ll show you who’s boss so let that be a lesson to you you drunk old dog just try it again I dare ya” to which she was somehow smitten with this guy despite his fake leather pants and top.

“Look here,” she said, grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze. “ I’m not always going to be cleaning offices for a living see I’m just using this to make ends meet until something bigger comes my way you know I’ve known something better was coming my way ever since my daddy fell down that elevator shaft and broke his arms and legs and my momma sat around all day wiping his butt and that widow lady hung herself I’ve known something good was coming see because I’ve got heart and I’ve never hurt anyone I mean except for that guy in the pool hall who stuck that pool cue between my legs and tried to ride it like a horse you know and i took that pool cue and smacked him in the head with it and he went down hard see because you can’t treat ladies like that you know and my boss said lady you’re a good shot you got moxie but I still had to scrub up all the blood you know but after a while I got out of there and came here through Memphis and Bala Cynwyd and now here we are on this bus together see and we’re holding hands and I think I’m in love and I don’t even know if I’ve ever been in love before does anyone have a cigarette my god I’d go crazy for a cigarette you know just crazy does anyo”

“Baby girl,” he mercifully interrupted. “Duke’ll take care you forever just ask anybody Duke is your man your main squeeze your lover I mean bam hey I’ll take care of you first we just need to get where we’re headed then I’m gonna steal a car and we’ll go pick up my best friend and his puppet and then we’ll go round up some completely random strangers we never met before even an English lady and some old dude who could be your daddy for all I kno-“

“But my daddy is crippled and back in Georgia and might be dead for all I kno-“

“So anyway we’ll all get in these two cars you see and drive out in the woods off the paved roads and see what happens and then Duke’ll take care you of forever I tell you.”

“Ok” she says, loosening her blouse a little.

So how’s that for dropping a big deuce? Or dropping something for sure.

So here we all are. At a house in the middle of nowhere with gravestones in the front yard. Naturally they go in to drink beer and smoke some cigarettes and one of them – uuuuuhhhh – gets killed by a magic ouija board I think. Behind the scenes, maybe in some sort of other dimension ? some warlock is playing a chess like board game with himself to capture these pawns so he can wake up his dead wife like Snow White while the cat like guy from earlier just kind of hangs around watching things through windows and holding door knobs so they won’t turn when the story needs a closed door. There also truly is a guy with a hand puppet that goes around making wise cracks. Maybe we should cut a deuce about him and his insecurities but now is probably not the time.

As we lead up to the extended finale where the lady in the poster and her overflowing -uh – figure – runs around in a cemetery for about 20 minutes getting chased by the undead, our main characters literally get into a lengthy fistfight, almost have basement sex, run afoul of a spider woman, face off against the grim reaper and his glowing scythe, and one guy jumps through a shut door like he’s diving into the ocean and it was hilarious. There’s also some sort of blue kid with yellow fangs for good measure.

All in all I didn’t think this movie was so great but I probably would have loved it if I had seen it when I was younger. Kind of like how I love Classic Doctor Who or Logan’s Run or even The Swimmer for that matter but this just seemed kind of silly and a cash in on Evil Dead (probably 2) but hey it’s all right.

FILED UNDER: HAND PUPPETS AND SCHLITZ AND BASEMENT SEX BLOCKAGE AND I WONDER IF THAT BLUE GUY HAS BLUE BAL- OH NEVER MIND THAT SHIT