Schlock

Connoisseurs of le bad cinema will appreciate this deluxe reissue of director John Landis’s aptly titled debut feature film, shot in less than two weeks with mostly amateur actors in 1971, when Landis was 21, for a mere $60,000. Landis, wearing an exceptionally fine gorilla costume designed by aspiring makeup artist Rick Baker, also stars in this satire of terrible “missing link” movies like Trog (1970), playing an ape-like creature who emerges from beneath the California landscape to kill people indiscriminately while in search of bananas and love. Schlock is essentially a series of comic sketches in which the titular monster ambles around a small town wreaking havoc and leaving corpses in his wake as he is pursued by bumbling cops. It is obviously the work of a dedicated movie buff, reveling in references not only to the obvious simian predecessors (King Kong, Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey), but also to horror movies good and bad (Frankenstein, The Blob). One marginally tasteless plot thread—the monster’s infatuation with a blind girl—even brings in a musical allusion to the then-popular soapy Swedish romance Elvira Madigan. For some reason Schlock became a big cult favorite in Germany—the source of this beautiful restoration, which also includes a nice collection of extras, including a dubbed German version of the film, a joke introduction by Landis, a 2001 audio commentary by Landis and Baker, and interviews with Landis, cinematographer Bob Collins, and author and critic Kim Newman. Even Landis admits that Schlock is not a good movie, but for anyone in the mood for its brand of juvenile camp, this is the definitive version. A strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)