Thursday, April 28, 2011

Schadenfreuden Movie Review!


THE HOOKED GENERATION
1968
Directed by William Grefe


It’s important to bring up Beyond The Valley of The Dolls at the very beginning of this review. Firstly, it will get us more hits on web searches. Secondly, students of film must realize that no great work of art pops out of the cultural womb without parents; there are no virgin births in art.


On Pop Culture’s road to Beyond, The Hooked Generation was a bus stop floozie who tossed a little chromosomal freakiness into the milieu. Hooked is an example of Exploitation film called ‘Young naked Hippies running amok taking drugs and upsetting older people’, and they were a popular form of Exploitation film in the late Sixties and the early Seventies. The Stereotypical hippie icon was used to replace monsters like Godzilla, Dracula and the Blob, who had become drained of their power to terrify with every passing day of the Atomic Age. Vampires were
nothing compared to the living horror of the pot smoker just around the corner!


We start off slow, and for the first twenty minutes we are deceived into thinking this is a crime movie, with shoot outs, explosions, foreign drug dealers and even junkies shooting up during inappropriate times. The acting is passable and the special effects are of a decent quality. In short, who cares? It seems like just another Miami Vice Mutation. The Schadenfreuden Movie Conclave almost voted to walk away and dustbin the film, but our dedication to suffering held us firm, and held us true. And lo, we were rewarded with some incredibly bad cinema!


Our central characters are Daisey, Dum Dum and Acid. Acid is a heroine addict, Dum Dum is a violent psychopath, and Daisey is a guy with a girls’ name who leads them all! What more could you want? How about a bunch of Cubans, Coast Guard Sailors local and federal Cops? But wait! Our three villains shoot ‘em all! There are more dead authority figures in this movie than in Ice-T’s wet dreams. And just to make sure all the visual vice bases are covered, we have a young lady and her boyfriend who stumble upon the drug runners, and get caught up in their shenanigans. And yes, the young lady is clad only in a bikini.


The young couple are taken hostage and predictable things happen, though some ridiculously method acting choices keep us interested during the rather tame rape scene. A good example of this is Dum Dum biting off wax from a candle in response to a sexy Go-Go dance our young lady hostage is forced to perform, to her extreme shame as evinced by thick Glycerine tears!


The real treats of Hooked are the scene which take place at the private office of a psychedelic club owner and a large mansion full of hippies, both of which our intrepid triumvirate attempt to sell their drugs. The office stands for itself, it’s great! And the scene where owner stares at the pink phone, debating whether or not to turn the guys in, is truly inspired. Then, we have the scenes wherein Acid visits a Hippie mansion that should be cut into it’s own short film. It has junkies, stoners, flower children, gurus preaching, flute playing and backgammon. Yes! The counter culture terror of backgammon as you’ve never seen before! Acid dies a beautiful death in the mansion, redeeming the insulting normalcy of the first twenty minutes of this movie.


There’s all kind of death and stupidity to close out the film. The hostages do dumb stuff, the crooks do dumb stuff and despite the evilness of the three baddies, the ineptitude of the police almost makes you root for the criminals; those schmuck cops don’t deserve to catch ‘em! There are some odd law enforcement choices that just won’t fly with the Law And Order TV show generation, let us leave it at that. You’ll love the indignation you’ll feel.


The last half hour will feel like a Russ Meyer movie in it’s pace, sentimentality and violence. Which is why we brought it up in the first place. Though there is much to dislike, The Schadenfreuden Conclave would like to send a special Commendation of EatMe to the foley artist who chose the sound effect for the swamp scenes of this movie. Shame on you, and well done.


This movie won’t make you want to do drugs, but it also won’t make you want to quit them. It’s a great example of why actors should be given hugs, not the Method. Strap on your hose America and take a shot of The Hooked Generation!

Some fun stuff particular to this flick are:
The hippie Mansion
Coke snorting scene in office
Hippie lingo galore

Classsic bad movie elements contained in this Flick
Plot holes bigger than Shakespeare’s foot
Cops that can’t shoot
Method inspired over acting

THE DRINKING GAME FOR “The Hooked Generation”


DRINK WHEN:
You see a hookah.
You see any land line telephone
Whenever a joint is passed.
Any one says, “Beautiful.”

CHUG A WHOLE BEER WHEN:
When Glycerin tears flow
When Acid shoots up
When Dum Dum files his bulles
As the club owner looks at the pink phone, you have to drink during the entire scene until he picks up the receiver

IF ONE HAS TO WRITE A COLLEGE ESSAY FOR FILM CLASS
As Ken Kesey explores the subconscious of his generation, Grefe’s The Hooked Generation condemns this exploration with a dystopian yet doctrinal view of the Masochistic Chauvinism of the male psyche. The three leading men split all manhood into the Mythic truth of Creative Theology within the matrix of burgeoning economic upheaval as edified by the rise of the feminine mystique within the Cultural mainstream.

SCHADEN FREUDEN SCORE
Elements: 7 ( out of 10 )
Titillation: 2 ( out of 5)
Wrongness: 3( out of 5)
Style & Funness: 3 ( out of five)
Extra points: 4 ( out of five)
TOTAL: 19 ( out of 30 )

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