The Wish List: ‘Dirty New Yorker’ Edition

Another edition of first world problems. Instead of adding completely random picks for the growing Dada Debaser Wish List, here are five grubby films set in New York City which prove the Big Apple really was the Rotten Apple.

Blood Sucking Freaks (Joel M. Reed, 1976)

Out of print for years and and it's one of the few Troma films I would even bother getting. Gutted. If you've never seen it, chances are you've still heard of Blood Sucking Freaks, or The Incredible Torture Show if we want to call it by its original title. A cheap and scuzzy seventies exploitation horror with a title that's synonymous with film pop culture and beyond.

Crammed with enough grotesque scene to repulse and offend most people, it's no surprise it became the scorn of many a film critic. Despite its nastiness, it effectively hits the mark with its satirical take on pretentious theatre art. The Grand Guignol theme is bang on. Master Sardo and Ralphus are the Mr. Roarke and Tattoo of New York depravity.

From severed tongues to Native Tongues, it must have struck a chord with the legendary rap group De La Soul as it's Plug One's favourite Troma movie and Prince Paul sampled dialogue from it, too.

Ms .45 (Abel Ferrara, 1981)

Could probably list a few other Abel Ferrara films which deserve the HD treatment too, but I've always been torn between Ms .45 and The King of New York (1990) as my favourite Ferrara film, and the latter is already available as a gorgeous 4K release from Arrow Video. Hopefully, Ms .45 receives similar treatment.

Huge fan of vigilante films, but rape revenge thrillers; a category which can often result into an uncomfortable viewing experience, even for a desensitised film head like your host, are tough to revist with more frequency. Despite it hitting like a sledgehammer, Ferrara's vigilante flick is a surprisingly more palatable offering in comparison to a film like I Spit on Your Grave (1978).

Drugs really destroyed the film's lead, Zoë Lund as I bearly recognised her when she appeared in Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant (1992).

Paid the price in avoiding an import blu-ray, thinking it would eventually be released on these shores. It never did, sadly.

C.H.U.D. (Douglas Cheek, 1984)

Chud might be a cringe-worthy word thrown around by the terminally online, but I'll always associate it as the acronym for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. 

Love subterranean themed horror films and C.H.U.D. is one of the more popular efforts. It's like a portal to another world when it takes the viewer through a trip down below.

Other than the great creature effects, the film also sports a cast of actors who would eventually become recognisable names, like John Heard, Daniel Stern and John Goodman.

Can you believe C.H.U.D. has never been released on blu-ray in my region yet, but C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D. (1989) has?

After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 1985)

How is the only HD release I could find of Martin Scorsese's dark comedy After Hours an expensive Spanish blu-ray? Surely one of the greatest directors around today would garner interest from distribution labels fighting one another over any of his films to release. Guessing there's a licensing problem, or it's just to expensive. Either way, it's a huge shame there hasn't been a worthy release of this film more readily available. 

This might be the only film I've seen with Griffin Dunne in anything other than An American Werewolf in London (1981). It's also the time where I've yelled at the screen at him for failing to get off with either Rosanna Arquette and Linda Fiorentino.

After Hours has Criterion release written all over it. 

A Gun for Jennifer (Todd Morris, 1997)

NYC feminists waging war on toxic males in a gory vigilante flick from the nineties are far more appealing than compared to the various heroines featured in today's acclaimed #metoo films. Personally, I see the violent femmes in A Gun for Jennifer as the spiritual daughters of Jennifer Hills from I Spit on Your Grave (1978), which makes them a lot cooler than Jodie Foster's unconvincing stint as a New York vigilante in The Brave One (2007).

Deborah Twiss turned up as Mrs. Zane, the teacher from Kick-Ass (2010). She's the only recognisable person in this film.

A Gun for Jennifer is a prime pick to get a lavish release by Vinegar Syndrome as it's a specialist in releasing top quality prints of trashy nineties films. Would forgo all that import shipping palaver and pre-order it in an instant.

EDIT:

Call me Costradamus! Criterion just announced a 4K/blu-ray release of After Hours the day after I made this blogpost.

It was written.