Luther the Geek

Luther the Geek (1990) is a grade Z horror offering available in a Troma release with special features, or a bare bones German region-free version in English from RLDVDs.com. This film uses as a premise the original meaning of geek, which was a specific type of "human curiosity" in circus sideshows -- one who was required to bite the heads off live chickens and drink the blood. The film opens with a bunch of drunken townsfolk entering the geek tent and demanding that he do his shtick with a chicken. In the crowd was a young boy, who got shoved out of the way, lost 4 teeth when he landed on something, but was fascinated by the geek After everyone left, his mother showed up allowing as how she was going to have to beat him again. Cut to several years later. Luther is up for parole after serving 22 years for three murders. Seems he liked to bite the heads off of people. His bleeding heart liberal parole officer convinces the board that he has paid his debt to society and deserves to be free. They don't let small things like the fact that he has false metal teeth which he files razor sharp, and and that he clucks like a chicken, discourage them, so Luther is sprung.

Surprisingly, his return to society is no struggle at all for him. He immediately goes into a store, eats several of their raw eggs, and then goes outside and offers a raw egg to an old woman on a park bench. Then he bites her head off, but only after she drops his gift -- the raw egg. Who can blame him -- ungrateful old biddy. This attracts the stupidest police force in the galaxy, so he hides in the back of a car, and the widow who owns it takes him home with her. He ties her up, has his way with one of her chickens, and then her daughter comes home from college with her boyfriend. They evidently attended the same school as the cops and majored in stupidity.

Then the daughter, Stacy Haiduk, does the only worthwhile thing in this film. She takes a shower and then has sex with her boyfriend, showing breasts in the process. The rest of the film is pretty much splatter material, and ends in kind of a battle of the chicken people.

IMDb readers say 5.2, and the film seems to have a following among horror fans, but it is not clear to me if this is for its horror merits or bad movie energy. The transfer on both versions is far from excellent. I have to grudgingly award this a C- due to the existence of an appreciative audience, but I am not among them.

SCOOP's note: VERY IMPORTANT

We have listed the link above because the supplier provided us with a screener copy of this film, but you absolutely do NOT want this German DVD under any circumstances

• It is billed as the director's cut, but that's hard to believe, considering that the director contributed to the other one.

• It actually has LESS nudity than the Troma release (see the encyclopedia for details).

• The Troma release is loaded with features!

• The Troma release is two dollars cheaper!

If you just have to have one of the strangest movies ever made (which we do not recommend in either case), get the Troma version, which is superior in every way imaginable.

Stacy Haiduk

 

The Thirst

Maxx (Matt Keeslar) and Lisa (Clare Kramer) are recovering drug addicts. Maxx suspected Lisa is still on drugs but that is not the case. She is actually sick and in chemotherapy for cancer. Late one night Lisa gets a visit from a strange woman named Mariel claiming to be a therapist. Lisa is not so cheerful, given that it's 3 AM and she has a terminal disease. Somehow Mariel and Lisa soon both disappear from the hospital.

Maxx finds out that Lisa left with the strange lady, then gets a voice mail from her that sounds like a suicide call. He finds her dead with a slit wrist. One night, much later, he sees her at a club. No one believes him, so he tries to dig her up - and gets arrested for grave-robbing. He eventually meets up with her and she recruits him as a vampire.

At first the killing of the innocent and the feast on their blood was fun and games for Maxx, as he seemed to love the thrill and excitement of draining the life out of someone. It is later in the film that both he and his girlfriend grow tired of these activities and realize that what they do is wrong. They decide to go against the other vampires, and rid the earth of their cruelty.