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.

This is the first (and probably only) Nick Zedd movie I have ever seen but I can already tell what kind of a director he is. He's one that deliberately attempts to make his movies look bad and even cheaper than they already were in fact to make. He does this by using cardboard sets, that deliberately look all the more like cheap cardboard sets, bad editing, old camera's, over-lighting and a bad script, with bad visuals and actors in it.

It's the sort of movie that tries to be a sort of a throwback to the '50's B-monster and science-fiction genre. I could recognize about everything that the movie tried to do but yet I still really couldn't appreciate it all that much. Why? Well, you could better ask that question to the film-makers.

I really don't see the point of this movie. It's a 'modern' movie, that deliberately wants to look bad, cheap and utterly silly. But why? What's the point of it all it it doesn't make the movie a good or entertaining one to watch. This is really the biggest complaint I have about this movie. I can enjoy watching a bad and silly B-movie from the '50's but I really couldn't enjoy watching this movie. The movie is too busy trying to be silly and forgets to ever become a fun one as well. It makes this ultimately such a pointless watch, that besides feels more like a torment instead.

Just its title alone makes it apparent what kind of movie this is. The title looks as if it's the most crazy one they could come up with during a short brainstorm session. 'We should name our movie Geek Maggot. Bigno! Or perhaps The Freak. From Suckweasel Mountain?' It's title makes absolutely no sense though in the context of the movie and has actually nothing to do with the movie at all. It simply wants to come across as as silly as possible, as does the entire movie.

Really, I wanted to appreciate and like this movie, since I recognized all of tricks Nick Zedd used to make the movie look and feel like a low-budget, Z-grade, monster/science-fiction flick and I also really sort of liked its cheap visuals and unusual directing approach but about half way through I really had to give up on it all. It just started to drag on and on, without being about anything really and the story actually got worse as it neared its end. And like I said, the movie still could had been somewhat saved if it actually was a fun one to watch. But there is really hardly entertainment to be found in this odd production, which still remains the movie its biggest miss.

An unusual and odd little movie that I wish I could recommend, since it's definitely something unique but I just can't find any good reasons to do so.

3/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Zedd's take on Dracula, Frankenstein, etc... all filmed using painted sets, bad acting and tiresome dialog. Some of the makeup effects are kinda cool like the melting face with the eyeball falling out of it's socket. Um, ok...

We also get Richard Hell as the cowboy. Jeez, he CAN'T act !

I'm glad he didn't make acting a career.

There's the added bonus of a 1983 interview with the cast and crew, videotaped while they're all sitting around drunk, rambling incoherently. And the NY Times calls this sh#t, art ?

Other Zedd shorts included on this travesty of a DVD include:

ELF PANTIES - Jen with fake Elf ears, wets her panties. We also get to see her crappy apartment as well as Jen's ugly body while she eats a popsicle.

Wow...big deal...

LORD OF THE COCK RINGS - Magical cock ring that some idiot can't get off ? We wind up seeing him and Jen's ugly, skanky friends all piled up in someone's apartment. Some of them topless, some of them not and they're all wearing fake Elf's ears, again.

Jesus, what's with the elf ears?

THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA - Zedd wanders aimlessly around in Manhattan in the snow, looking like some kind of junkie loser, finally touching base with some of his fellow junkie losers on some snow covered corner at night.

More big deal...

1 out of 10 for being a waste of time...

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!!!

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.