Audience Member
This was definitely an interesting Gordon-Lewis film. Honestly Harmon and Sandra felt like antiheroes. They weren’t really good people, but they were also trapped so it hindered their moral compasses. They acknowledged this at the end of the film when Harmon says something about Kim changing them from wild animals back to humans. If you are curious but don’t care enough to watch, I’ll summarize it. Basically this girl named Sandra doesn’t wanna be in this we shall call illegal playboy ring anymore. Lang this boss dude who is balding, also in charge of everyone, (Harmon, Sandra, Ajax, Larry). Tells her she gotta go get more models if she wants out. Ajax has his eyes on one little girl in particular, so Sandra and Harmon go out and convince her to model. They start really small, just doing dresses, then progresses to bikini’s and so on. The money was really good for whatever year this was, because Kim almost has enough to get into college from just doing this. Then “assignments” start running low, and Harmon tells her “you gotta do some nsfw stuff if you want more money, otherwise I can’t help ya”. After some pressure she says yes. He takes pics, Ajax and Larry I believe are just actually evil. Ajax in particular graped Sandra and she was yelling and everything. That scene was hard to watch. Anyways Kim decides she no longer wants part in this, but they blackmail her and force her to do some more. She reluctantly agrees because she doesn’t want her father to find out. Marie who is also one of the girls also threatens to call the police on them, and when hearing of this Larry tells Ajax and Ajax kidnaps her in broad daylight and whips her with a belt in a hotel room. This is something that really happened in the movie, I’m telling you it’s crazy. Anyways back to Kim. Her and two other girls, one of them being Sandra go to take the pics, Ajax tired of waiting finally wants to “get a feel” for Kim. Kim runs and Harmon who for the whole movie has been like “I’m bad and I can’t really do nothin about it” beats Ajax to death with a bat. So I guess he could do something about it. Then he gives Kim all the pictures he ever took of her, and gets rid of all the negatives. Destroying all the negatives. The girls run away, Harmon nearly sacrifices his freedom to keep the girls identity’s hidden but Sandra vouches for him. Sandra also tells the fuzz about Lang. The police go to Lang, and when we cut to Lang we see Larry threatening Lang. Saying since he’s a minor they’ll go easy on him, whereas for him he’s done for. Lang refuses and Larry says “It’s your funeral daddy-o” probably I don’t remember the thing he said after those first three words. Lang rebuttals “no, it’s your funeral” and then shoots him to death. Outside now Lang is running away from the cops, and for some reason he is heading towards….. the ocean…… makes a lot of sense. It would have been smart if he had a boat like the main dudes from “Some Like It Hot” but I guess he was just going that way cause why not. Anyways they shoot him and he dies in the current like a nerd. One thing I didn’t mention when Sandra vouched for Harmon…. THEY ARE ENGAGED!!!!! WOOHOO!!!! So now we see Kim all smiley because she is free, but a little disappointed they don’t get to rot away in jail forever. Harmon says he has a wedding to go to and they part ways. Then it cuts to Kim outside the school she wanted to go to (I think, could just be some regular place idk) and the narration says something about the scum of the earth are people who take advantage of human weakness. Then the end card flashes. There you go. 2.5/5 stars, this was a weird movie lol. Idk how much of a problem this was back then but it was exploited for this film, that’s for sure.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
10/29/24
Full Review
Audience Member
A little corny, but considering when it was made and it's budget, it's a decent fable. Aptly titled for sure. It's too bad real life doesn't usually have endings like this in these kind of situations.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
Full Review
Audience Member
2 1/2 for Boin-n-g, 4 for Scum of the Earth
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/29/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Review only of Scum of the Earth:
This would be a completely forgettable bit of misguided early-60s moralizing ephemera if not for one thing; it was directed by the wonderfully infamous Herschell Gordon Lewis. It was written by him, too, shortly before he moved into making his much better known gore-horror flicks, practically inventing that genre (for which all horror fans owe him eternal gratitude). Here, we get just a twinkling of what's to come when Uncle Herschell would hit hi stride with films like Bucket of Blood, The Wizard of Gore, and The Gore-Gore Girls.
"Scum" tells the tale of a sleazy purveyor of mildly pornographic pictures and his lackeys. When they lure in an innocent young girl looking for tuition money, things fall apart quickly (it's only an hour long flick, after all). There's misogyny, baseball-bat wielding violence, and a moralizing speech about the shortcomings of American youth in 1962 ("You young people make me sick!.. Deep down, you're dirty! Hear me? Dirty!") that's become the call sign of Something Weird Video, the outfit that resurrected this strange novelty (we owe them our gratitude, too!)
There's actually a decent story buried in here somewhere, but it's hard to find beneath the terrible acting, clunky direction and incompetent photography (be prepared for a few boom shadows and a near total lack of shot blocking). There are intimations of a moral lecture in here, too, but it's hard to say what it is beyond "don't take money from strangers because we live in a sick world." Still, it's our beloved Uncle Herschell at work here, so we can forgive all of that. Thanks to Something Weird, we have the privilege of seeing Lewis' last exploitation flick, made just months before he became a schlock-horror auteur with Two Thousand Maniacs! That alone makes "Scum," if not a good film, at least a very interesting one from the POV of horror history.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Another Something Weird Video selection, I was surprised that Herschell Gordon Lewis didn't get a bit sleazier, given the reputation of both he and his films.
I Liked it well enough, but honestly found the other film it was packaged with (The Defilers) to be more interesting as a whole.
Rental?
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/07/23
Full Review
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