Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Joe Sherlock, who makes wild exploitation movies from the wilds of Oregon, doesn't like to pay for things like actors, sets, costumes, cameras or film, which is one way to explain "Odd Noggins," the finest demonic-housewife sci-fi gorefest of the last three, four weeks. What Sherlock did is choose a bunch of actor/filmmaker types who wanted to work with him -- in Iowa, Alabama and New Jersey -- then gave them scenes to shoot and send in so he could patch it all together and come up with a sort of stream-of-consciousness French art film with a lot of down-and-dirty cinematography that plays like an Ed Wood nightmare. Advertisement I loved it, of course. The plot, if you can call it that, involves aliens harvesting human heads by sending women to Earth to work for a performing telegram service. Most of these women are, shall we say, prodigious, but that doesn't stop Joe from dressing them up in lingerie and showing them getting in and out of the tub before and after scenes involving yellow-goo-spitting, decapitation, belly-dancing, and various forms of gross-out food preparation. Advertisement What does it all mean? It's sort of a "Stepford Wives" Meets "Pink Flamingos," but with take-out-tray flying saucer special effects. The whole thing is framed by an introduction from "Mirracalla The Velvet Vampiress" (don't ask) and a blooper reel that's hard to distinguish from the non-blooper footage actually in the film. Even though it doesn't make a lick of sense, featuring nightmare visions inside horror movies on TV coupled with actual horror scenes that may or may not be part of the narrative, it does hold your attention by satisfying the first rule of great drive-in filmmaking: Anyone can die at any moment. There's one area where Joe is not fully developed as an exploitation filmmaker, however. In his post-film interview, he says that he tried to fill up the film with the three B's: Blood, Babes and Beasts. Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, JOE. I've been preaching the three B's for YEARS now. It's blood, BREASTS and beasts. And indeed, there's entirely too much Playtex in this flick. Meanwhile, I would call him the Jean Paul Sartre of exploitation. To the meaninglessness of life he's added the meaninglessness of plot, characterization and continuity. He might be a genius, and then again he might just be a guy in rural Oregon with way too much time on his hands. Advertisement Let's take a look at those drive-in totals. We have: Eleven dead bodies. Two breasts (sort of). Throat-throttling. Blood-drinking. Head-ripping. One alien abduction, with surgery. Multiple yellow-goo regurgitation, with convulsions and body mutilation. Multiple lard-filled bathtubs. Charbroiled corpse. Screaming head. Multiple strangulation. Heads roll. Potato-salad Fu. Ray-gun Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Kimberly Lynn Cole, as the lead performing-telegram-service alien housewife, for doing an erotic belly dance, an erotic striptease, and doubling as the vampiress hostess; Ian Dunlap, as the bored convenience store clerk who says "So when do you take it all off?"; and Joe Sherlock, the writer/director/composer/editor, for doing things the drive-in way. Three stars. Joe Bob says check it out. "Odd Noggins" Web site: proaxis.com/~sherlockfam/odd.html. (To reach Joe Bob, go to joebobbriggs.com or email him at [email protected]. Snail-mail: P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, Texas 75221.)
