It’s been way too long since the last sex comedy review, and what better way to kick it off then with the radical, racy, and reckless, Summer School! The whole three R’s thing doesn’t actually work for me. I would much rather go with my own list (which you need to learn, ‘cause there’ll be a test on it), “The Five B’s”… Babes, boobs, butts, bikinis, and beaches! All of which this movie is loaded with.
You know you’re off to a good start when a bunch of teens pull up in a van and go sprinting onto the beach and bust into a free-for-all frisbee match. No holds barred. Teens are diving, ripping off bikini tops in that fun, free-spirited sexual harassment kind of way, and getting mouthfuls of sand in the process. That’s how you know it’s intense. They even cut high school to do it. Our two leads are Steve (John Laughlin’s first role) and Anita (Shelly Horner’s only role). They don’t know each other, but fall in love instantly while at the beach. It’s no surprise why Steve likes her… she has huge boobs. You know who else has boobs, though? Steve’s girlfriend, who doesn’t take kindly to this new bitch’s flirtatious ways. She vows to ruin Anita’s life. And pretty much succeeds.
Now I should get this out of the way. I will never understand the whole 70s van culture, especially after seeing this movie. Correct me if I’m wrong, but, according to this movie, there were gangs of girls who were obsessed with pickup trucks and gangs of guys who were obsessed with vans, and they often would get in violent altercations because of it? This seems highly unlikely and completely ridiculous, which is why I like it so much.
Anita has it really hard, and I mean really, really hard. In her first week at her new job she gets raped by the sleazeball boss because she asks for her check, then Steve’s girlfriend and her friends chase Anita with their van and try to kill her by running her off the road, then she gets home and her dad flips out on her and won’t believe anything she tells him. Don’t worry, it gets worse. Her and Steve are hitting it off, despite the fact Steve still has a girlfriend. They go to a creek to make out and, of course, Steve tries to feel her up. She stops him, but he keeps forcing it. She says she doesn’t want to do it, so he “romantically” throws her into the creek and forces her to have sex.
Steve is as sexist and sleazy as they come. He not only basically forced Anita to have sex with him while he still is dating someone, he also delivered this brilliant exchange of ideas:
Steve: Chicks aren’t supposed to be tough! Random girl: Why not?! Steve: ‘Cause guys won’t like ‘em. Random girl: I get laid once in a while. Steve: If chicks were supposed to be tough, God would have given them muscles. Random girl: We got muscles where it counts!
Did the head writer for Hustler magazine pen this movie?!
Steve’s idiotic girlfriend finds out they had sex, so she lies to the cops and says Steve is selling coke. When the cops bust Steve, she blames it on Anita. Instead of asking Anita if it’s true or confronting her, he and all of his friends RAPE HER. They literally have a high speed chase which involves jumping between the vans and pickups and crossing ropes, then they throw Anita to the ground and rip all of her clothes off and rape her.
In school the next day they happen to be discussing rape, which makes all of the people involved start arguing and results in a huge cat fight between Steve’s girlfriend and Anita, which Anita gets blamed and expelled for. Then, the pickup girls decide to have a “drag out” with the guys, which apparently is a tug o’ war between cars across a giant pit. The loser fucking dies. Yeah, this movie got even more fucking insane, but it doesn’t stop there. Anita still has feelings for Steve and in order to stop the rival gangs from killing one another, she drives her fucking car into the pit to commit suicide. Steve runs down there to see if she’s okay and finds out she’s still barely alive. Everyone jumps in the air because she is still breathing, and the movie ends. Yep, you heard me right. This is one of the most insane and fucked-up movies I’ve ever seen. I could not believe my eyes when I saw this suicide attempt or when I found out Anita still liked Steve after he raped her twice and almost killed all of her friends. I applaud this movie for being so ridiculous and highly recommend it to anyone into cult/exploitation cinema.
Summer School is also known as Mag Wheels (terrible title), and was the last movie from one of my favorite directors, Bethel Buckalew, and with a name like that it’s no surprise he got his start in the 70s directing hixploitation sex comedies like Midnight Plowboy, Country Cuzzins, and The Pigkeeper’s Daughter. In all of his movies he comes across as one of the most misogynistic, sexist, sleazeballs ever, but damn does he make entertaining films.
The movie is actually fairly rare on VHS and hard to come by. It was released in a big box through Active Home Video and has that fantastic cover art. Active tried to promote this like a straight-up hilarious comedy and even compared it to Porky’s and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. This movie is nothing like either of those. It’s in a category all by itself and honestly no one should try to compare it to anything. The movie was released on DVD in a Drive-In Grindhouse four-movie pack, with The Farmer’s Other Daughter, Psychedelic Fever, and Up Yours. I’d go with this VHS, though, because you not only get the great cover, you also get an excellent trailer reel from Active (linked at the bottom).
This movie literally has everything: rape, car chases, an original rock soundtrack by the band The Word, a nerdy pledge who gets paddled, pinball, skateboarding, and of course, The Five B’s. What were those again? You were supposed to fucking learn them! Babes, boobs, butts, bikinis, and beaches! What’s so hard to understand?! Go see this movie.
To round out our Camelot Studios weekend, we have an interview with Dave Duncan! Dave has been working in film since the mid-80s on such cult films as The Hackers and Black River Monster. He is also the current owner of Camelot Studios, who distributed VHS in the 1980s, and the former owner of two video stores. VHShitfest is proud to have the first interview with Dave about these films and hopefully it sheds some light on this very obscure part of film/VHS history.
How did you get involved in filmmaking?
My father and I had a recording studio when I was a teen in the 70s, and when the early video cameras came out we purchased two and started offering video services along with audio recording. Our first feature was called The Earhunter. It was written by my uncle and shot in 1984. The story was a western about a bounty hunter who would collect the ears of villains as trophies. It was an experiment to see if we could do it. I shot it with a single tube video camera and edited it, the final product was just released to the cast and crew. It was a great learning experience for me. Also, about that time we opened our own video rental store.
Can you talk about Black River Magic and Black River Monster? What did you do on those movies?
One of our clients had a girls’ summer horse ranch and we filmed shows there every other week during the summer. Business was slow and my father pitched the idea of making features to the camp owner. He liked the idea and we first made Black River Magic. This was written and directed by a college professor from Ohio. Black River Magic was funded by the ranch and so we were able to add a sound man to our crew. The film turned out to be more of a promo for the ranch and didnʼt have a strong enough storyline. Our crew consisted of myself on camera, a sound man, grip, my father and the director. The following winter my father wrote The Black River Monster and the ranch decided to help us produce it. My father had written the story with a certain local theatre talent in mind. With a small budget to cover costs, the Black River Monster was made in 1986.
First picture of Black River Magic on the internet
Any stories you remember?
The owner of the ranch had a large role in The Black River Monster and he was a fantastic person, but was not easy to film. Anytime you did more than two takes you could feel the tensions rising. In our subsequent project, The Hackers, Arnie gets his finger cut off by a saw. He actually had a finger missing due to working a punch press in a factory so we just worked it in. There were a lot more scenes we had written and planned but we ran out of time and money.
How were those films distributed? Did they get sold to video stores or stay locally?
The Black River Ranch distributed Black River Magic. The Hackers and Black River Monster we attempted to distribute ourselves through smaller distributors.
How did The Hackers come about and how was the transition from kids movies to a violent slasher movie?
I was a horror movie fan. My favorites were Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Mother’s Day, and Dawn of the Dead. I noticed that you didnʼt need a name actor to have people rent this type of movie, and there was a core group who would rent every horror movie you had in the store. At this time we had two rental stores. So I talked with my father and we decided to make The Hackers. My father wrote the script that winter and we held casting at the studio. We shot The Hackers over a few months working it in between industrial video projects. My father wanted to work as many local landmarks in as possible to help sell the success of the movie locally.
Also, what was your role on the film?
I had a small acting role at the start of the movie. Iʼm the hitchhiker who gets his thumb cut off on the roadway. I was also the cameraman, editor and music producer.
Dave Duncan in The Hackers
How did you go about getting the movie released on video?
Having two rental stores we got to know some of the smaller distributors and they took them on.
Was it strictly direct-to-video or did it play in any theaters?
Direct to video.
How many copies of the movie were produced and how did you go about selling it to video stores?
The small distributors took on The Hackers and we sold some of the BR Monster along with it. All the local rental stores wanted The Hackers. We ended up selling a few thousand copies through a couple of the small distributors in the West, I believe out of Arizona. We were contacted by New Line Cinema about The Hackers at the time. They had heard about it and requested a copy be sent to their Detroit office and one of the owners (Mr. Shay) really liked it. They sent it on to their New York office where it was shot down because it was shot on video and not film.
All the early movies you worked on were shot on video, can you talk a little bit about that?
Video was our medium, I would have liked to work in film, but unlike the flexibility found in cameras today, film was too cost prohibitive. The most difficult task was the editing and music sync. We had two sound tracks and actually had to physically mark the audio tape with magic markers trying to line them up using a TEAC A3340 reel to reel. On the edit deck itself there were only 2 tracks of audio.
I’ve heard people from around the area still talking about the movies. Are they still embraced and watched there? Do you still keep in contact with the crew/actors who worked on them?
I have lost contact with most, and several have passed away, but I still have people come up to me when out shooting and ask about it.
Can you talk about what movies were released through Camelot Studios? The only ones that I know about are The Hackers, Black River Monster, Black River Magic?
Were there others? I’ve always been curious to know! Just The Earhunter, which was our first.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It can be assumed that The Earhunter was the first (CAM 1001), then Black River Magic was next (CAM 1002), then Black River Monster (CAM 1003), then the next two are unknown, then last, The Hackers (CAM 1006). Through digging I think they also released a VHS called The Black River Horse Capades after Black River Monster, but I am not 100% sure.
What was it like to run a low budget studio and how did you eventually take over ownership?
After The Hackers our commercial business started picking up and we focused on that. My father retired in 1992 and he was the real push behind independent features. I have always wanted to get back and remake The Hackers with todayʼs tools. Now we have cameras that can shoot candlelight and unlimited audio tracks, the limitations are gone.
Is it weird to find out that movies you worked on have cult followings and copies have sold for nearly $100?
I find it very surprising and flattering. I would get emails over the years from people that had seen the movies and wanted to find copies of them. So in 2010 we converted The Hackers to DVD and made it available on our website. One Canadian gentleman who contacted me made a pilgrimage with his girlfriend of all The Hackers sites filmed. He even located the house in which I grew up in, and was the primary location used in The Hackers movie, and sent me pictures. That was the first time I realized that our movie has a following and I was amazed at the influence it had on some people.
What did you do after The Hackers and what do you do currently?
After The Hackers I focused on the commercial side of the business. We did some work for Chrysler and filmed a daily news program for headline news, Local Edition, for over six and half years. I now produce corporate projects, programs for the C-Span Network, documentaries and TV commercials.
Thanks so much! Is there anything you’d like to promote?
We still have Hackers DVDs and Black River Monster DVDs available on our website. www.CamelotStudios.net
Anyone who’s read any of my reviews knows there’s nothing better than a slasher, except for a slasher that was shat-on-hideo that is. The Hackers is one of the rarest of its kind and is likely on most horror fans’ wishlists, if they’ve heard of it. The second I saw the cover I knew I must own this movie, no matter what it took. Thankfully, the hype I built around this was actually met and the movie is a hilarious time capsule of late 80s Michigan that I’m happy to be able to watch and laugh at (and occasionally with)!
The first 20 minutes or so is honestly a gift from God. It opens with a hitchhiker (Dave Duncan) sticking his thumb out for a ride and it getting sliced off by a knife from an oncoming track… The Hackers repair truck to be exact! The rockin’ theme song, “The Hackers,” kicks right in as you’re introduced to The Hackers Family. You get “Pa” Hacker, the leader of the clan, who is a ridiculous, borderline narcoleptic, 80-year-old man who’s always disgruntled, there’s also Arnie, who “never did grow right” (whatever that means), and finally, the Leatherface of the family, Junior, who bit his tongue off and got chewed up by a chainsaw when he was younger, so now he wears fake, 25 cent novelty teeth and half a tin foil mask.
They spend their time doing odd jobs around town, killing people for fun, and playing on the jungle gym. If someone has a problem with the shoddy job they did on their roof, The Hackers just take a machete and kill the mother fucker. It’s absurd these guys could still be in business since they murder all their customers without getting paid. How do they not get caught? “Pa” even lets Junior and Arnie play around in the daylight at a local park, just minutes after they slit some random punk chick’s throat. It’s pure hilarity to see these two freaks running around with little children, climbing the monkey bars and sliding down slides.
After the glorious playground scene the movie does begin to drag. There are long stretches where literally nothing happens. Characters just walk around mumbling nonsense to themselves. You do get a priceless death scene where a man screams in pain and they use sound effects of a baby crying, but beyond that, the movie doesn’t pick up till the last 25 minutes, where it turns into Straw Dogs. The Hackers begin work on a woman’s house (who would hire them I don’t know) and they harass her and watch her shower. All I could notice is how she didn’t get naked and how her hair is more feathered than a fucking chicken (see cover). She eventually has to make a run for it or else she’d probably get raped by Junior.
She’s chased by the lead characters and has to fight them off one by one. She finally kills them, steals their truck, and is driving away when Junior jumps out of the back and grabs her. It would have been an incredibly dark ending till you find out IT WAS ALL A DREAM and she wakes up!
The movie sticks out above many late 80s slashers because you can feel the sense of community and you honestly feel like everyone, from the housewives to the local drunkards, helped out. It’s great to know that everyone in the town of Croswell, Michigan thought this low budget horror movie was worth working on. Not to mention, none of the people even feel like they’re acting (whether that’s a good thing or not I can’t decide), especially “Pa,” played by Howard Coburn. He really makes the movie, with his constant crotchety attitude and violent behavior. It’s a pleasure to watch the man go from chopping a dude’s shoulder with a machete to reminiscing about his love of boats to taking five naps an hour. I’m sure you’re napping in Heaven, Howie. Thank you.
The Hackers was always on my list of movies I must find. I never thought it would be possible because whenever this bad boy popped up, which was very rarely, it would sell for around the $100 mark. Then the day came where I said “fuck it,” I’m going to win this tape no matter what it takes. I was sick of not owning it and wondering when the next time the damn thing would pop up. So I bid hard. Hard as fuck. I went all out and now I can proudly say it’s mine. Apparently only 3,000 copies were sold back in the late 80s (which can only be assumed is inflated to make it seem more impressive), which makes this a really hard one to come by. It was the sixth release by Camelot Studios, a company that is still around today. They specialized in releasing various shot-on-video projects in the mid-to-late 80s with movies like The Earhunter, Black River Magic, and Black River Monster. I cannot stress enough, if you have the ability to get this tape, do it, because it’s a hard beast to obtain but well worth it. Anyone who appreciates movies like 555, Cannibal Campout, and Sledgehammer will love this film to death. I do wish it would have taken a cue from Black River Monster and only been an hour long, but at 80 minutes it never completely overstays its welcome or gets boring. Overall, it’s a joy to watch and you can buy DVD-R copies and posters (!) straight from Camelot Studios here.
Welcome to Camelot Studios weekend! This interesting Michigan based studio released six movies in the mid-to-late eighties including The Earhunter (1985), Black River Magic (1985), The Black River Horse Capades (year unknown), and The Hackers (1988). The company still exists, though they no longer produce features; these days, they prefer to focus on commercials and industrial videos. Later this weekend, Dan will review The Hackers, but let’s start things off with the bizarre shot on video kids’ movie, Black River Monster.
Now, Black River Monster is most definitely the rarest movie we’ve ever reviewed. It had one of the smallest print runs of any of the Camelot releases, it has no IMDb page, and there are no other reviews anywhere on the internet. What makes it even more of an oddity is its affiliation with the Black River Farm and Ranch, a summer camp for girls based in Croswell, Michigan. It’s about halfway between a movie and a promotional video for the camp.
As the movie begins, one of the campers is scared off by a “monster,” who looks like your average sasquatch/big foot/skunkape. She runs off to get “Mr. D,” presumably the owner of the ranch (in the movie, and probably in real life, at least at the time the movie was made), to look into it for her. Of course, there’s no sign of the monster, but he did leave a giant footprint in the barn.
Despite being called Black River Monster, this movie is really about a fat guy named Leroy who lives with his mother (who looks exactly like him). Leroy’s mom is sick of his lazing about, so she gets him a summer job at the Black River Ranch. Now, Leroy is a miserable asshole who can’t accept this kindness. He just wishes he could “get something more in his line of work,” which seems to be eating a lot of Little Debbie’s.
Leroy is too fat and lazy to walk to the ranch, so he hitchhikes. He’s picked up by a couple of ridiculous creatures literally named Louie and Sleaze.
These guys make him sit in the bed of their pick-up truck and drive so fast he tumbles around for the whole ride. Watch the clip below and tell me you can’t hear the Dukes of Hazard theme kick in as soon as they hit the gas pedal.
Black River Monster is all over the place, tonally. It often feels like a kids’ movie, but then it goes and makes a bunch of mean-spirited fat jokes about Leroy. Even the kindly Mr. D berates Leroy for being lazy and for sleeping on the job. I thought this was mean at first, but Leroy is constantly complaining about everything. Just do your job, fatass. You’re not an air traffic controller, you’re a ranch hand. Scoop cow shit, motherfucker.
The monster almost always feels like an afterthought until the film’s climax, in which Louie and Sleaze return to try to steal some of the ranch’s horses in order to sell them and make a “quick buck.” Here is where the monster has his greatest moment. He picks Louie and Sleaze up by the throats and chokes them for a full minute. Crime doesn’t pay when the Black River Monster is afoot.
Leroy and Mr. D find Louie and Sleaze passed out in the barn and turn them in to the police. All of the campers (portrayed by actual campers from the summer the movie was shot) rally around Leroy. Sadly, one of these poor little girls was forced to say Leroy was “kinda cute.” Yuck. Anyway, Mr. D gives Leroy the rest of the day off, but asks if he could close the barn door first. Leroy obviously can’t appreciate Mr. D’s kindness and must complain that there’s “always one more thing to do.” You can’t get through life this way, Leroy. Do some work, lose some weight, and avoid a heart attack. When he goes to close the door, the monster appears and Leroy goes running like a little bitch. Credits.
At a brisk 50 minutes, Black River Monster is light, stupid fun. You can buy a DVD copy directly from Camelot Studios at their website. Camelot still produces promotional videos for Black River Farm and Ranch, but this obscurity is a charming time capsule for an incredibly specific and elite group (campers and councilors who were at the ranch the summer the movie was made). Basically, it’s an elaborate yearbook with a lot of fat jokes and a dopey ape costume.
Most of the images in this review were provided by our boy, Grant Cornelison.
Hey everyone! I am going to be on the podcast Pieces tonight at 5 p.m. Eastern. It’s going to be great fun so everyone make sure you check it out. We’ll be talking VHS, horror movies, VHShitfest and the upcoming documentary. You can listen to it live, or you can download it later. Spread the word and make sure to listen. Thanks.
