EXPLOITATION

Inside the Grind House you will find a wide variety of films exploiting various cinematic elements. Mostly sex and violence are heavily on display.

“SCHOOF” (2008)

Starring: Miles Dougal, Marybeth Spychalski, Karen Bo Baren, Ed, Vietnam Ron, Sir Bigfoot George, Tiffany Naylor, Tommy Salami, Giuseppe Andrews & Walt Dongo
Written & Directed by Giuseppe Andrews
GiuseppeAndrews.net

Polly Staffle Rating: ***

The country is at war over a natural resource. Crazy occurrences are happening all over the place. The media is covering it all, broadcasting insane news 24 hours of day. Is this a new Michael Moore documentary about the George Bush administration? Nope, this is a sci-fi comedy from the one-man crew Giuseppe Andrews, who not only wrote and directed, but also produced, scored, shot, edited and appeared in the film.

As a general rule, with the films of Andrews, nothing makes sense while you are watching the movie, but somehow when it’s all over, everything fits into place - kind of like a Quentin Tarantino or M. Night Shymalian story on crack with a much smaller budget. “Schoof,” his 23rd feature shot at a trailer park in Ventura, Calif., lives up to that rule.

We learn from the film’s narrator Tracy, played by Andrews’ girlfriend Marybeth Spychalski, that a strange cosmic force named “Schoof” has taken hold of the Earth. The force has made her grandfather spin in circles in his wheelchair, while her brother (Andrews) jumps over mini Christmas trees in a bathrobe and climbs up palm trees in his underwear. Also as a result of schoof, her parents fuss and fight over whether cowboys are or aren’t in their vacuum cleaner. Not real cowboys, but guys that dress as cowboys, so they can score with the ladies. Dad (the loveable Vietnam Ron) is also mad Mom (Karen Bo Baren) makes him step outside to fart even though she herself is quite talented in rhythmic gas passing. While Mom, who also has a giant dildo she whips out from time to time, hears cowboys having sex in the vacuum cleaner, Dad starts to see aliens.

Meanwhile, across town a couple of real life fake cowboys (the always delightful and extremely underrated Miles Dougal and the oh too funny for words Walt Dongo) are currently escorting a woman they got drunk to a hotel room. They plan on gang banging her when they get there, but end up accidentally killing her. No worries, they will just cut her up into bits and cook her, after the necrophiliac cowboy (Dongo) has his way with her body of course.

Don’t go feeling too sorry for that lady just yet. Prior to hooking up with these country line dancers, she made her boyfriend perform an abortion on her with a coat hanger. He now carries the coat hanger everywhere he goes in remembering his unborn child. The ex-boyfriend is completely distraught and is now convinced that he was being used all along for rides on his skateboard to the mall.

The narrator may think she has been unaffected, but she’s fallen victim to schoof as well. Tracy recently has become a cheerleader, bestfriended a jumbo Barbie doll that was recently molested on live on Channel 200, and she is having really wacky dreams. To top it off, Tracy also has a 25-foot clit and beds a sailor, who jumps rope with her clit, before he is shipped off to Istanbul to fight for America’s right to eat pancakes with syrup. It seems our country’s supply of maple syrup has been depleted, so we, as we always have throughout the course of history, have taken it upon ourselves to force another nation to share their natural resource.

If reading this review has you laughing, while scratching your head, thinking “What the hell?” then you are getting the gist of what the experience of watching Andrews’ film is like. I have yet to mention the giant gerbil that chases after people that makes Ed Wood’s special effects seem flawless, the mad scientist whose response to the curse is that we are all “fucked,” a scene featuring the dumping of a colostomy bag next to a bus stop because feces is “eco-friendly,” or the sing-along song finale that gives hope in overcoming obstacles that are bigger than we are as individuals.

Silly? Outrageous? Absurd? Sure, all of the above and then some. There simply is nothing like the experience of watching a film crafted by the multitalented Giuseppe Andrews. But evidently everyone does not agree that it is a positive experience. Some either can’t get over the lack of a budget or are unable to wrap their minds around the social commentary on display. “I am not this movie’s target audience,” wrote Tasha Chemplavil for LasVegasWeekly.com shortly after the film’s world premiere played the 10th Annual CineVegas Film Festival. “But if you are the target audience for this sickening pile of excrement, may God have mercy on your soul.”Mark Bell of FilmThreat.com wasn’t offended by the film, but wasn’t impressed either. “I’m all for experimental,” Bell wrote. “Hell, I’m all for the whole ‘so ridiculous it’s wonderful’ thing too. What I’m not in for is absolute gibberish, filmed with a video camera, and then passed off as a ‘narrative’ when the only thing holding anything together is a loosely-written voiceover.”

If he were talking about “The March of the Penguins,” I’d be in full agreement with Bell. But really, what’s not to like with “Schoof.” Had I not seen the Giuseppe Andrews masterpiece “Garbanzo Gas” last year at CineVegas, I’d probably be praising “Schoof” more than I am. But in comparison to that film, I admit that it comes up a little short. However, I personally felt this was a more accessible and more mature piece of celluloid from the Underground King. There were less sophomoric “fart and poop” jokes than his previous works and no rambling monologues of vulgarities and obscenities. Don’t get me wrong, I love those things and the lack of those elements may very well be why I liked this film less than other stuff Giuseppe Andrews has done.

As a whole though, I’d still say “Schoof” is an entertaining and funny watch that brilliantly blasts the American institutions of science, government and media. His film also attacks hypocrisy like nothing else you will ever see. Andrews does all of this while also showing the ability to blend his low-fi trailer park style of cinema with other genres. Here sci-fi is the dominate vehicle, but he also bleeds a bit of western and musical into “Schoof.” Perhaps in the future we’ll see a full fledged musical, horror film or political drama from Andrews. Regardless, as long as he continues to produce works of art, I’ll watch them no matter the genre and happily proclaim myself a member of his target audience, God’s mercy notwithstanding.

- CCF, July 2008