Rating: 2/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2017 | 8/52 | Ray Dennis Steckler
It’s night in the big city—the moon is full, and the dogs are howling. Irma La Streetwalker leaves a club, lighting a cigarette on her walk. From the shadows emerge members of the Chain Gang. They chase her into a walkway. When she thinks she has evaded them, another member bursts from the trash and attacks her. They strangle her and steal her purse, running off and leaving her straggling but alive in the alleyway.
Cut to Lonnie Lord, a multi-million record-selling rock and roll singer with a “legion” of fans. He signs some autographs in Hollywood, carrying his guitar just in case. He and his girlfriend, Cee Bee Beaumont, ride the merry-go-round and frolic through the park—you know, adult stuff. We get a montage of their assorted activities as Ron Haydock’s Runnin’ Wild plays.
The Chain Gang sits around, antsy to do more crime. They look up a name at random in the phonebook to target. Who else would it be but Cee Bee Beaumont? What’s going to happen? Who will come to her rescue?
The movie maintains a pretty grim tone for the first half—funny but because of goofy choices. Then, out of nowhere, Lonnie and the gardener turn into Rat Pfink and Boo Boo to save Cee Bee. From there, the film turns into something of a Batman parody. The movie is way more successful with the silly superhero tone, but success is relative here.
The only time I’ve watched a Ray Dennis Steckler movie was through MST3K, and I don’t think that’s the best framing for his films. The legend goes that this movie’s title sounds like nonsense because it is a typo that was too expensive to fix. However, Steckler has said that the choice was deliberate.
There were several moments in the movie when I thought, “Man if I could see what was going on, this might look pretty cool.”
This movie is almost impossible to hate. It isn’t well-made, but it has such a wild energy.