COUSIN GIACOMO'S TAPES FROM THE GARAGE PRESENTS:
THE STRANGENESS
Hey kids, it's Bwana, substituting for cousin Giacomo, who at the moment is busy shoveling nutria corpses out of a sewer in beautiful downtown Westwego, Lousiana. Don't know what a nutria is? It's basically a huge water rat some idiots in Louisiana imported from South America which now are everywhere, much like a disease ridden tribble. So let's talk about THE STRANGENESS. I'm of course referring to the 1980 monster in a mine flick and not the legendary crystal meth that would cause you to inexplicably put up shelves everywhere till you passed out or died.
THE STRANGENESS is a pretty straight forward story about some people and the freaky deaky penis/vagina monster they encounter while exploring an abandoned mine. It was made for around twelve dollars and sold to home video. You gotta go back to the olden days of Mom and Pop video stores to find it and even then it might be tough. It's easy to rip on these low budget flicks but some of them have some charm. I like the monster, which was done in stop motion but there is just not enough of it. Besides being slow in parts, I suppose the biggest problem is that the movie is dark and this is made worse by the video transfer. Still, I would rather see a low budget monster flick than an equally low budget zombie flick. It also needed something else, something the French call "tits and ass". THE STRANGENESS is rarely mentioned in horror fandom, but recently was given a whole chapter in the excellent "Nightmare U.S.A by Stephen Thrower. I really recommend this book to anyone interested in exploitation independent film as it discusses flicks and directors that have barely been covered. Now, what would Giacomo say? "It was okay but not as good as TOUGH TURF. Can I have an orange drink?" If you people are looking for further Monster in a mine mayhem try THE BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE and of course THE BOOGENS. You can't go wrong with THE BOOGENS.
B & W photos are from Nightmare U.S.A by Stephen Thrower