THE SOD COUPLE

Review of They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore (1985) by screenqueeen: 👍 3/5

58/100

girlie's first Nathan Schiff flick. structured almost exactly like a porn flick but the footage that would be devoted to detailed and graphic sexual acts are instead focused on frequently repetitive medium shots and closeups of simulated bodily harm leading to Schiff's "money shots" -- a buff gardener deconstructing a human prop head covered in discarded viscera indeterminate, offal, whatever they could get from the butcher's shop for cheap production value. it's cute and even though the moments after the kill linger for well more than they should it makes me laugh with joy anyway. what makes this feel somewhat otherworldly, kind of hovering above and alongside reality with a knowing nudge is the use of its library music. paired alongside the well-worn and scratched transferred super 8 footage makes this feel closer in time as it is in spirit to something Herschel Gordon Lewis would stamp his name on or whip up in about a month or less. i loved the little false hope the psychiatrist girl builds up near the end almost creating a fake-out final girl sequence, and cocaine girl's death is a work of fucking art only elmer fudd and the roadrunner* could worship at the altar of.

*has anyone done an ODD COUPLE pairing with these two? because i think they should explore that.