LUTHER THE GEEK. (1990) DIRECTED BY/SCREENPLAY BY CARLTON J. ALBRIGHT. PRODUCED BY DAVID PLATT. STARRING EDWARD TERRY, JOAN ROTH AND STACEY HAIDUK. DISTRIBUTED BY TROMA ENTERTAINMENT.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
'The most riveting splatter film since 'THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE:' It grabs you by the throat from the very beginning and refuses to let go.' Anthony Timpone, Editor Fangoria magazine.
'Could well be the most memorable and disturbing white-trash killer since Leatherface.' Doug Brod, GOREZONE.
'Pointless, sadistic stupid horror sleaze.' Video Hounds Cult Flicks & Trash Pics.'
'Come on, Chicken Man, Colonel Sanders wants to fry your ass...!'
I sincerely hope that no chickens were harmed in the making of this utterly disgusting movie. I love chickens, I do, cute little furry things. I especially like 'em in my Saturday night snack-box in front of X FACTOR, as preordained and ageless an activity as going to Mass on Sundays used to be when I was a kid.
I don't dare darken the door of any churches nowadays in case the altar wine starts sizzling like the fires of hell and all the crosses magically invert themselves. All the sins, you know. I could be blowing the heavenly doorman for aeons and aeons and aeons and still not be allowed to set foot past Reception, haha.
Anyway, it's my sad duty to have to inform my readers that I doubt that I shall be partaking of my snack-box this Saturday night or, indeed, ever again. Such has been the effect of LUTHER THE GEEK on both my appetite and my fondness for... puke, gag... chicken and any dishes derived thereof.
Let me elaborate. LUTHER THE GEEK is a stomach-churning video-nasty-type slasher movie from 1990 which you may have missed out on seeing back in the day, because apparently a lot of people did. It's gained a cult following since then, though, and now it's freely available to buy from 88 FILMS as part of their excellent SLASHER CLASSICS COLLECTION.
Whether or not I should encourage you guys to buy it is another matter entirely. Morally, I'd be consigned to hell-and-brimstone for all eternity if I didn't advise you all to steer clear of this hideously corrupting influence of a movie, this cancerous boil-on-the-backside of a film.
On the other hand, it seems I'm almost certainly going to hell anyway so I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Did I say lamb? Silly me. Of course, I meant to say chicken...
Here's the lowdown. Luther Watts has got to be the most fucked-up serial killer in the history of serial killers. He's, like, seriously twisted. As a child in the late 1930s, he's fascinated by the carnival 'geeks,' the freaks who bite the heads off chickens behind bars for the price of a drink or a few pills, whatever takes their particular fancy.
It's such a bizarre and messed-up profession, if you can even call it by a name so dignified. The spectators urge the geek to bite off the chicken's head and swallow its blood and then they turn away in disgust and revulsion when he does it. Sick, really. This was entertainment...?
I know that people in the 'Thirties hadn't that much to do on account of TV and the Internet hadn't been invented yet, but seriously. They could have stayed home and had sex with their sisters, for crying out loud. Do their bit for in-breeding, especially in those pesky hard-to-reach countryside areas.
Geeks must have been the lowest form of carnival life, the dregs of humanity, the freaks who were prepared to 'geek out' for a pathetic fix of booze or narcotics. Little Luther Watts (played by the director's son, the little cuss) certainly loves to geek out, anyway.
His biting off of the heads of chickens is facilitated by the metal dentures (like that JAWS fella from JAMES BOND) that have replaced his real teeth. Filing them to a razor-sharp point is something he likes to do to keep 'em in good nick...
After twenty years in prison for biting people on the neck and killing them before drinking their blood, the world's worst, most irresponsible parole board decides that Luther Watts is fit to re-enter society. Are they fucking crazy or what?
They actually think that this deranged mother-clucker, a mute who imitates chicken movements and noises exactly when aroused, has been rehabilitated? If he's rehabilitated, then I'm a bleedin' virgin, haha.
The minute Luther gets out of the nick, of course he kills again. Norman Bates's elderly mother Norma is seemingly his first victim, or at least that's what the grey wig puts one in mind of. Luther kills the old lady with a savage bite to the neck while she sits on a bench outside the supermarket. The blood flows like the booze at an open bar. It's a bad start to Luther's parole...
He's all cock-a-whoop after his triumph, all cock-of-the-walk, as it were, but instead of quitting while he's ahead, he orchestrates a home invasion that has catastrophic consequences for everyone concerned. A mother and daughter bear the full brunt of Luther's insanity while the daughter's boyfriend and the-first-cop-on-the-scene also get caught in some seriously crazed crossfire...
The daughter Beth is such a cute character. A college girl home on vacation or whatever with her boyfriend, she giggles when he squirts whipped cream on her pert little titties and strips off unashamedly for the camera to shower it all off, even going so far as to hang her pretty little girlish panties on the bathroom door handle after shimmying out of them.
Boyfriend Rob, a dead ringer for Ian Beale from the Caff in EASTENDERS, pulls his own keks off at lightning speed and steps in the shower too, grabbing the naked Beth and giving her what-for under the hot steamy spray.
If you check out the extra features that come with the film, you'll see Beth's glorious bazookas over and over again as the director goes for numerous takes of the shower scene. Her cheeky little backside isn't half bad either, and it's quite funny at the end of the scene when she appears to give Rob an unexpected little goose to his own, ahem, glory-hole.
She's the perfect slasher-horror-heroine, is Beth. Played by the stunning Stacy Haiduk who later went on to star in vampire-sex series TRUE BLOOD on HBO ('Everyone gets naked on HBO anyway...!'), the actress reveals in the extra features that she didn't want her Mom to see the film because of the shower scene. She'd obviously forgotten about all the nudie sex with Rob in her on-screen-Mom's bed, haha. That alone would've earned her quite the paddling on her pretty bottom, methinks.
Luther as a serial killer is so terrifying because he's entirely sub-human. There's no part of him that you could appeal to, if you get me. This is where he differs from other fictional serial killers we know and love. Jason Voorhees just needs a good mothering, so you could offer him some of that in exchange for your life.
Michael Myers I've always found to be kinda hot in his boiler-suit-and-mask ensemble so, if I found myself in a tight situation with him, say, on the night he came back or something, I'd try to appeal to his horny side by desperately offering him sexual favours in return for my freedom.
Luther, on the other hand, is clearly insane all the way through and he'd be therefore impervious to all or any attempts to appeal to his better nature. Here's a clue. He doesn't have one. He's the most dangerous killer I've ever seen in a horror film. He's batshit-crazy, completely and utterly batshit-crazy.
Batshit-crazy and sexless too, or at least he appears thus. He goes to a lot of trouble to tie up the lovely blonde Mom in the film, and he's bloody nifty at it too. Is he planning to come back and rape her later, or is she just another chicken dinner to the crazy old Metal-Mouth? You'll have to watch this highly morally suspect film to find out, folks. You know I'll never tell...
BUY 'LUTHER THE GEEK' FROM 88 FILMS HERE, TODAY, NOW, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO IT NOW, BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS AND IT'S TOO LATE...
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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