Geek Maggot Bingo or The Freak from Suckweasel Mountain

This film is unique in its own strange way, but to be totally honest I found it really dull. I'm a fan of director Nick Zedd's other films such as They Eat Scum and War is Menstrual Envy. They're mostly fascinating and one-of-a-kind curiousities. This one is reminiscent of a home movie that is way overacted and lacking in any sort of shocking or original material. The vague plot concerns a mad scientist bringing back the dead, and lots of bad jokes and crude, but amusing gore FX follow. It's all very pointless, although it features Richard Hell (of the Voidoids) as a cowboy and Zacherle as a funny narrator. All in all, it's one of Zedd's worst films.

I've seen many many movies that some would call BAD. I've seen many others that I myself would call BAD. But this video goes way beyond being just mere BAD. This video is ... well it's hard to find a word for it...awful...horrible...dreadful...they all come close, but just don't quite fit the mark. But maybe, just maybe, the title says it all. GEEK MAGGOT BINGO!!! So I slide this sucker into my VCR and begin to watch. I see the one and only Zacherley hosting this. Now old Zach might be the Cool Ghoul and all, but this was definitely not his finest hour. Then the story begins. Don't ask me to explain it to you but there is a Cowboy and a mad scientist, his daughter and his humpback assistant and a two-headed monster and a hottie vampire and her vampire followers. They they wander around and say a bunch of stuff in some of the most amateurish sets imaginable. The sets make Ed Wood's look like big-budget Hollywood. It looks like it was made in someones basement or garage, like a home movie. Like some guy got a camera and all his friends (or anyone else who was willing to dress up, or get undressed, and act like a retard) and made something up over the weekend and edited it himself (I don't think I've ever seen worse editing). And who was that guy? Why it was Nick Zedd, God bless 'em.

Of note, however, is the fact that, then up and coming, Ed French, did the special effects on this. And, almost in contrast to the terrible sets, he does a couple very cool make-ups including the two headed monster.

Also of note was a certain Bob Martin in the credits. Could this be the same Uncle Bob Martin I remember from the early days of Fangoria magazine. I'll have to dig out my back issues and find out. (*and sure enough it was, thanks for the email Uncle BoB*)

And speaking of Bobs, I saw a few Church of the Subgenius references which could go to explain a lot.

So what's with the title? Is there geeks and do they play Bingo with maggots? I think my girlfriend solved that one for me I think, suggesting it was a take-off of 'Beach Blanket Bingo'. But who knows what goes on in the minds of people who make movies like this. It could be or mean anything. Sort of reminiscent of pre- Pink Flamingoes John Waters, this movie is definitely an endurance challenge to even the most die-hard fan of shlock-camp-B movie videos. A must see!!!

This amateur film is reminiscent of erstwhile Saturday Morning Spook Show fare, only without the character some of those clinkers had. It was obviously filmed in someone's basement; the next-door neighbors are utilized as actors, and anyone else willing to put on a vinyl Halloween get-up and make a fool of himself; it uses crude line drawings painted on sheets and hung on a wall to simulate a mad doctor's laboratory; and there is nothing here that could be dignified with so grandiose a name as "plot," much less anything remotely original. All this would be well and good if it were funny, and god knows the performers mug and strain so hard to let us know it's a COMEDY we're watching, it's a wonder they don't implode. How this thing ever got general video release is one of the marvels of modern marketing. It would be difficult to imagine anything harder to sit through, and would have to be on anyone's "ten worst films" list. If you haven't seen it, let's just call it A MUST AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

Nick Zedd is largely a hack, but its hard not to enjoy Geek Maggot Bingo. The amateurness and lack of focus alone is appealing in a strange way, coupled with a seemingly unending barrage of terrible horror movie cliches. There are lots of in-jokes for horror fans (ZACHERLEY is the host!) and a very strange take on the punk DIY aesthetic. The acting is horrible, and everything else on the dvd is worthless, but I was charmed by this absurd film.

In my entire life, I have never seen a more stunning example of how parody can fall flat on it's face. Listen, I get it, low-budget horror movies are laughable with their bad acting, corny dialog and low- budget special effects. Soooo......the obvious way to satirize them is with worse acting, cornier dialog, and special effects that would make Ed Wood cringe, right?. WRONG. And this movie proves it with a vengeance. Parodying low budget horror movies is an OK idea, just as long as you don't end up with a film that is substantially worse than most low budget horror movies. Furthermore, for a film to succeed as a parody, it usually requires humor and that is something that is PAINFULLY missing in this film. The amateurish acting and cringe worthy dialog would have been fine with me if I had, at least gotten a few decent laughs out of it. But the (intentional) laughs are few and far between. As far as the low-budget sets and bad special effects are concerned, I understand that they were deliberately bad. However, they went WAY overboard to make them look cheap and cheezy.