True story – it’s very rare that I start watching a movie and turn it off because i normally don’t mind sitting through something terrible because that’s what i’ve kind of done my whole life – watch bad movies – and now i have my place here where i can go write about them and try and make myself laugh or something or relate it to something that may or may not have happened to me in my life at some point and all of that shit and try not to drive people away but if this comes out when i have it scheduled for in April then: last summer I started watching this movie called Garden of Eden with a lady named Sarah French in it. The trailer was super alluring with some lady or ladies dancing around in the sunset maybe on some cliff or something wearing these elaborate masks and i thought it would be something cool about some cult and all of these masks seemed like good fun so i started watching it and it was so miserable that i turned it off about 15 minutes in because i didn’t want to waste my entire day off starting and stopping that thing out of boredom and general restlessness.

It was directed by someone named Marcel Walz and starring and produced by Sarah French (I think) and it was about the rich who raffle off tickets to see who can win the present of their wildest dreams which – from what I watched was someone murdering a waitress. The murder scene was kind of irritating with tons of shrieking and i kind of hated it and the next scene was some guy watching it on his computer and working his hog and when he was done it looked like he’d just dipped his hand in a jar of mayonnaise and i was all come on now and decided to just go watch something else and that was that.

So then I was off some other time I think for three days in a row and I saw this movie out to rent and I remembered people writing about it and liking it I think so I spent my money on it and as the opening credits rolled on I saw it was by French and Walz and I thought OH FUCKING SHIT HERE WE GO AGAIN FOR PETES SAKE AREN’T I THE KING OF BAD LUCK JESUS WHY HAS THIS HAPPENED TO ME AGAIN IVE NEVER HURT ANYONE ITS NOT MY FAULT IT WASN’T MY FAULT MAN OH MAN I MEAN COME ON SERIOUSLY FUCK ME WHY IS MY LIFE SO HARD NO ONE HAS EVER HAD IT ROUGHER OH MY GOD MY GOD HOW CAN THUS BY REAL I HAD A GOOD JOB ONCE IS THIS JUST ANOTHER NIGHTMARE I THOUGHT WE’D PUT THAT ALL BEHIND US but I had paid money for this thing so I welcomed the shame and guilt my life is associated with and pressed on like a Viking warrior. Áfram!

Drones (or a drone) sweeps over what they are calling Death Valley here in the states – a place in the west where only sand and rocks and tumbleweeds grow and of course mutated castoffs from nuclear experiments as seen in The Hills Have Eyes and The Hills Have Eyes and The Hills Have Eyes 2 and your high school prom dance video. The sweeping drone sweeps in and finds two slightly clothed women trying to figure out what going on with a burned out car and what they’re going to do next. Just roast in the sun and die or walk for help? Luckily they decide on the second and come to an abandoned mining town where they go in a mine and decide to bang. No real banging is seen or heard because as soon as they start kissing French style they hear a scary noise and one of em goes to check it out and the other is murdered and left naked because this has something to do with part of the story for real. The other one is chased out of the mine by a lingering guy in a mask wielding a chainsaw and dancing around with it and screaming just like someone you know. Spoiler: the movie is dedicated to Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven.

Meanwhile, along comes a VW bus full of folks looking to do a photo shoot. There’s a blond and a brunette and a gay and a dude who wears his shorts so short you’ll probably see his nuts pop out and the stoner bus driver and the other dude. They are supposed to meet the ladies from the broken down car we talked about earlier but of course they’re dead so goddammit they’ll just have to do the shoot without them – yay! ! Go people!

Elsewhere, the blond lady from earlier who just wanted to bang her girlfriend in the mine shaft isn’t actually dead – she’s alive and being held captive! A man comes in walking down the stairs! He’s very feminine! “Your friend had beautiful breasts,” he remarks backing up my point about how those naked boobs would come into play later even though that comment is probably forgotten by now. “So I took them” he adds and opens up his blouse and he’s wearing what I can only describe as a skin apron with two full bosoms there. It’s not nearly as gross or even startling as I bet they wanted but there they are. “Aieeeeeee!” Screams the blond lady. “Aieeeeeeeeee!”

Elsewhere, the bus troupe decide to go find a working payphone because it’s 1976. Some folks might not know what that is so if there’s time left we can talk about it but before that – our gang goes into a dusty old run down ghost town mining town place full of rusty old cars and vans and vehicles and jalopies and building structures and is surely a place of nightmares where humans go to die painful deaths. “They call this place: death” someone even says. So naturally, like you or I would, they split up to go do other things.

First off the guy with his short shorts and cutoff tee shirt takes off with the gay fellow. Are they going to bang? You might think so but it seems the short shorts guy just needs to take a big deep greasy shit in the dirtiest outhouse in the middle of the desert. “Gotta shit!” he says “sorry if you thought we were gonna ball” and heads into the tiny shithouse. Luckily for him, there’s a hole in the wall so he sticks his dick in it just to see what happens because that’s what all guys do, just stick it into random holes in walls. Also lucky for him in this abandoned town full of nothing but ghosts and rusted metals, someone is on the other side of the hold and gives his dong a tickle and he’s all happy and ready and then – you’ve probably already guessed – someone goes after the poor dick with deadly intentions and then goes after the spurned gay fellow with his chainsaw, running around and screaming.

Elsewhere, the man with his boob apron does a dance. Elsewhere the mother of all of these people is planning a sacrifice Elsewhere, someone bangs her brother (I think). Someone’s head gets chopped off. Everyone wears elaborate and nifty looking masks. Someone has angel wings. An actress who I do not find super good at delivering her lines delivers a way too long speech. My patience for Brute 1976 grows irritable. I use my own landline pay phone to prank call people. “Your mom licks your butt” I hoarsely whisper to a male of unknown age. “Do you have my glasses” I ask an elderly person, “I said no mayonnaise on this fucking club sandwich!” I scream at the guy at the ebony hair supply shop. “Look what you’ve done!” “This post is way too long Eric, look what you’ve done!” My imaginary editor tells me, waving his or her finger in a circle in a “wrap it up” fashion.

I thought this movie was just ok and don’t remember if people liked it or not last year. I want to say the reactions were positive but I really don’t remember and I know they’re making a sequel. I thought the best thing was the hazy photoshop on the hill and the worst was either the guy wearing the boobs or the lady giving the speech. Or the whoever it was that either forgot or didn’t order the rye bread for the pastrami sandwich special the other day at the cafe on the campus at work. I mean who does pastrami on sourdough? I mean come on!!

FILED UNDER: WHO MADE ALL OF THOSE MASKS JUST WHO MADE THEM REALLY AND BOOB APRON