By I. Alexander Nash
It's been many years since the classic film Deliverance posed one engaging question to America, and through it's success, the rest of the world: If you had a choice to rape Burt Reynolds or Ned Beatty, would you pick Beatty!?! I mean I understand Beatty was weak and it was all about preying on that weakness, but young, shirtless and fucking chiseled Burt!?! Gay or not you rape that dude! I mean I'm not gay or anything. Just ask my girlfriend...wait...on second thought. Maybe you ask...ah...my...mom? Yeah talk to her, she'll back me up. She's my mom....I'm not gay alright. Where was I? Oh yeah, hardcore raping Burt Reynolds. First I tussle his wet comb-over and see him for who he truly is. He doesn't need to put heirs on for me. He's beautiful just the way he...okay, after receiving a text from my girlfriend I need to kill this whole line of thinking...for now. Deliverance was a huge success and helped create the genre of Hicksploitation. Many entries in this genre have been created and disappeared over the years. You have your Backwoods from 1987, Hunter's Blood from 1986 and of course the superior Best Little Whore House in Texas from 1982. God, did Burt look great in the that Sheriff's hat. Man I'd love too...moving on. Canada was not exempt from this genre. Canada did their own share of tar and feathering with movies like 1982's Trapped and with the Canada staffed but Texas shit, I mean shot Junior (aka Hot Water aka A Cut Above).
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| I want to listen to Air Supply and sip Chablis with this box art |
This movie is one of video store lore so to speak. Released primarily as Junior in the states, it was toted as a supreme horror film with it's Jason/Freddy bashing on the cover as well as it's chainsaw wielding star buzzing right through the fucking cover. God, you have to miss 80's video box art. The giant balls these marketing companies had to try to sell you something they knew god damn well was not the movie in their beautifully designed package is worth the price of the rental alone. Junior is no exception. They packaged it as slasher (with absolutely no still shots on the back might I add) when in all honesty this is a Hicksploitation film through and through. When sold in other territories as Hot Water, you get exactly that. Bountiful breasts and explosive action don it's cover. Well maybe the action part is bullshit, but the bountiful part is right on the nose.
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| Vixen album cover or vhs art. You be the judge. |
I don't know where the hell this thing was sold as A Cut Above. It's even listed as it's title on IMDB and most of the internet. The only place I've seen that title is as a splash line on the Junior box. The internet is never wrong about any of it's facts. I'll just chock this one up as the internet's first ever mistake. IMDB can't be wrong, right? I know the film in it's cut form as Junior and will be discussing this version as I don't have enough time nor give a shit to bother to ever find an uncut copy of this movie. In the video explosion era of history, this movie would taunt me from the mislabeled horror shelf. Junior's soft psychotic buggy eyes seem to call to you, "Come forth young squire and find a new horror icon." As it turns out, I was lied to by Junior that two timing tobacco chewing fiend. He just wanted to fuck me as a horror film but he was really engaged to be married to Hicksploitation this whole time. Burt wouldn't dare pull that shit on me.
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| Andy Sidaris assistant buys a new pair of pants |
The film was shot in English but apparently had shitty sound as the actors are all dubbed. And it's not quite like Italian film's Nick Alexander dubbing, but more like Indonesian Lady Terminator dubbing. Odd. We start with the title song "Hot Water," played over a very cheap video title card which obviously was not it's original. Plus the song is too much of a good time song. This thing could have played in the film Up the Creek and no one would be the wiser. A couple of Whitesnake groupies/whores (which is basically synonymous) get released from the set of The Destroyer only to run into their ex-pimp. After literally exploding his nose with a coke spoon, the gals steal the pimps wheels and show us how sassy two 1980's ex-prostitutes can be by stopping an attempted rape with nothing more than a bathtub in the middle of a working garage filled with slop. The Macks special stable decide they need a new line of work and a less coked up costumer. Seemingly out of fucking nowhere they decide to go straight and do what all modern ladies of the night do when their time to leave their profession comes, open a marina? I mean after all old Lita Ford over here did take that mechanics class in prison. Immediately after taking over this dilapidated lake shore house, the girls are harassed by the local Dukes of Hazzard cosplay club.
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| The perks of being Winger's security |
This is where we are introduced to our star, Junior. Very rarely in film history have we been introduced to a main character mid-coitus as Junior comes barreling through their front door with his dick firmly implanted (while wearing overalls the whole time. still haven't figured this one out) in what appears to be a leftover extra from Roadhouse.
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| Jerry O'Connell selects a new bride |
Turns out Junior, the sheriff and the whole town are out to get them for being the whores that they are, even though they are a way higher quality whore than any of their local whores. Why step in the way of whore progress in your town? First you get a McDonalds. Then you get a Wallmart and a Pizza Hut. Then you get a more upper class of whores. This is how the economy works people! Junior gets dunked into the drink damaging the only part of his brain untouched by that bathtub crank, i.e. his ego. Junior seems to have a very Norman Bates like relationship with that 20 kid from tech support dressed up as an old woman representing his mother. Why is it in a lot of these exploitation movies do they always throw a powdered wig on some young, dumb, and to top it off male actor to play old women? Kinda like throwing the baby out with the bathwater and then squashing it with the whole bathtub.
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| Ike you've made your Mother very proud |
This is where the real action begins as this is where this movie turns into a huge tittyfest. I mean so many pointless nude scenes, and even in the midst of action there are always, and I do stress always, close ups of this girls ass. Man I've seen this girls ass more than my own at this point. This cinematographer really knows what he's doing. Further on into the thing one of the girls meets an aquaphobic botanist who lives on a houseboat that is literally a Semi trailer roped onto a couple of pontoons. Man is this guy swift. He plays guitar AND he had the same pain tolerance surgery in Darkman as Junior rips a fish hook right out of the guys hand with no response whatsoever. Where do I sign up? I mean he's no Burt Re....stop it! Stop it! I don't wanna wear the dress mommy! Who was I again? Right, movie reviewer.
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| That girls ass...plus leaches |
Where I get lost in this movie is Junior's attitude towards the whole kitten caboodle. Apparently he is trying to impress his mother with his property destruction and his many attempted rapes. Aw that rascal Junior. I guess it's the same mother from the Charles Kaufman film Mother's Day. Problem is you put Junior in a street fight with Ike from Mother's Day and I take 4 to 1 odds on Ike any day of the damn week. It really never gives a reason why this guy is basically one of the characters from I Spit on Your Grave. I guess it's the same reason as in that film, he's just a regular dumb shit old redneck. Dumb shit or not, he does have a great parlor trick by consuming a long neck, bottle and all. Slow witted Junior continues to fuck with the trio (the whores invite one of Junior's victims to join their coven) relentlessly always asking his mother for acceptance and approval. Ah I see. I guess this was the base story for Forrest Gump. They should write "Based on the Winston Groom book" on the video sleeve. It'll help those sorts of issues out.
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| My momma always says that I have magic raping legs |
Probably the most exciting scene in this movie happens when the girls get their high performance speed boat out on the lake, only to be surrounded by Junior and company (a possible sequel title for Coscarelli's Kenny and Co. Don I have a phone that rings. I'm just saying). This whole thing is starting to play out like an evil Meatballs 3. Hold on...yep, shot on the same set. What do ex-prostitutes do when surrounded on a speed boat by several dingys in.dingys? They do what any whores/Hollywood actresses/bikini models/Hooter's waitresses/strippers (again all synonymous) would do. Why you make a Molotov cocktail with your soaking wet bikini top and a handy 40 oz Coors bottle filled with gasoline, that's what you do. Oh Patrick Dempsey, you had it so wrong brother. You didn't need the ghost of Sally Kellerman at all.
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| Still from the new parody porn film "Ramboob" |
It's a whole back and forth situation until I'd say the last 20 minutes when their dog, who was specifically introduced to be killed, is killed. I can't really say it was the dog or even Junior's actions. I prefer to think Rowlf the piano playing Muppet was having a hard time balancing out that Seroquel prescription. Junior is at his wit end and proceeds to take a chainsaw to the house for ten minute scene of destruction culminating in a very phallic display chainsawery. The sheriff finally takes an interest when they find desiccated corpses in the boat house. He must be up for reelection.
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| Chainsawery! It's a word. Look it up |
The final straw for the Bangles is when Junior's intended rape victim shows up dead and Bud, one of the boyfriends, gets dragged away by a boat and a noose combo...did I forget to tell you about Bud earlier? Well, you see how much that character registered on my radar. With one girl left at the house and one girl on the hunt, Junior's last stand comes as he tries to burn down what the producers of the film called a house. Through trickery and chicanery the girls trap Junior in a net ala the Ewoks on Endor. Nets were all the rage in 1984. What we are given at the end is actually a surprise, it's a switcharoo. I can honestly say I didn't see it coming. I mean yes in a plodding sort of way it's not unexpected, but for them to even try to pull the switcharoo at the end is the unexpected part. I figured dispatch Junior, movie over. They attempt to actually do something at all. Congrats guys Dom Perignon on me. It's been the sheriff the whole time. It's strange that in this movie you spend the whole time hating this white trash river rat and they actually have the balls to try to give Junior some sympathy at the end. It doesn't work but the attempt is much appreciated. Momma becomes the ultimate savior running in with shotguns blazing. Quite literally blazing as she sets the whole fucking house on fire engulfing herself, her son and a few dead bodies including the shotgun blasted sheriff.
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| Nice work fuzzball |
Im surprised about the downer ending for this thing. All the boyfriends die. All the villains die. All emo kids pretending to be old women die. In fact, everyone who comes in contact with these two die. Christ those are some cursed whores. The sheriff was right the whole time. Those girls really were trouble. No one comes outta this thing smelling of roses. The weirdest curve ball this movie throws at you at the end are two just depressed ex-whores riding off on a home made houseboat while the extremely upbeat song "Hot Water" reprises. I don't really know how to feel about this. How do you feel when you go in feeling Gorp, go out feeling Bellflower, and then left with the title track from King Frat? I'm a little frightened. It's very rare when I don't have an opinion on a movie. Am I broken or is this movie. Was it great? No. Was it terrible? No. Was it entertaining? Not really. Was it boring? Not really. I guess the only thing I can equate this movie with is like that funeral you had for your pet fish Burt when you were a kid. It's not that you were sad. It's not that you were happy. You just kind of....were. Wait a minute. Is this what that Smashing Pumpkins album was talking about all along?
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