...for TheDeadGuy...
Luther: "Aw, Bag of Crushed Child! Another one? You killed another one?"
Bag of Crushed Child: "Grrglaarr."
Luther: "Aw, hell. She was even gonna put out!"
Horror movie, released in 1979. It was directed, written, and produced by
Lawrence I. Eltberg, with
special effects provided by
Doug Genner and
Stephen Lest,
cinematography by
Oscar "Fathead" Vickers, and music by
Thunderland, a rock band from
Atlanta, Georgia. The stars included
Eltberg as Luther,
Artie Plugg as the sheriff,
Wendy Theckerton as Wendy,
William B. Planter as Farmer Joe,
Carrie Echols as Carrie,
Terry T. Tedd as Officer Simpson,
John Lansing as Officer Jones,
Reginald Sanders IV as Stinky the gas station attendant,
Phillip Watson as the unnamed token black guy,
Sam Donavon as the bus driver,
Vickie Byers and
Sandra Tucker as hookers, and an unconvincing special effect as Bag of Crushed Child.
Farmer Joe: "Kid, whatchoo doing out here at this time of night?"
Luther: "Who, me? I'm just walkin'."
Farmer Joe: "You best be careful out here. There's coyotes all over the place. Cats, too."
Luther: "Hey, what's your name, man?"
Farmer Joe: "Me? Why, I'm Farmer Joe!"
Basic plot: Luther is a
hippie/
headbanger/
drifter, and his brother (or merely good friend -- the movie is
ambiguous about how they know each other) is Bag of Crushed Child, a sealed
plastic bag containing the
pulped,
bloody,
undead corpse of a
baby. Luther is a pretty
easygoing guy, but Bag of Crushed Child is a
vengeful,
angry,
murderous monstrosity. Luther doesn't much enjoy the way Bag of Crushed Child
kills random people everywhere it goes, but like I said, he's an easygoing guy, and if his pal wants to
assault and
dismember bus drivers,
farmers,
police officers, and
teenagers, Luther doesn't really feel like it's his place to make too many waves. So Luther and Bag of Crushed Child drift through a
rural town. Luther tries to pick up
chicks and avoid the
pigs, while Bag of Crushed Child (usually carried in a thick
burlap sack by Luther)
slaughters people. At the end of the
movie, Luther and Bag of Crushed Child are captured in a wheat field by an
angry mob and beaten to death with
farm implements.
Officer Jones: "Hell shit! What the hell is that?"
Bag of Crushed Child: "Grrglargg! Grraaarrr!"
Officer Jones: "AAAAAH! AAAAAH! BAG OF CRUSHED CHILD! BAG OF CRUSHED CHIIIIIIILD!"
This is a really
awful film. The
acting is universally
laughable, the
direction is
inept, the
photography and
sound is
muddy, the
music is just plain
stupid (Thunderland combined all the worst elements of
Bad Company,
Iron Butterfly, and
Boston, with none of the musical skill), and the special effects are distractingly, embarrassingly bad. There are a number of similarities to the plot of
Frank Hennenlotter's "
Basket Case" (which wouldn't be made for another couple of years) and to the themes of
David Lynch's earlier work, particularly "
Eraserhead," but "Bag of Crushed Child" simply never rises far enough above the level of "
crap" to qualify as anything other than just pure and simple
crap. This isn't even "
Plan 9 from Outer Space," which is entertaining despite its
ineptitude; it's just a
painfully bad movie.
Carrie: "Whatcha got in that bag, baby? You got something for me?"
Bag of Crushed Child: "Grrglargg! Grraaarrr!"
Carrie: "AAAAAH! AAAAAH! BAG OF CRUSHED CHILD! BAG OF CRUSHED CHIIIIIIILD!"
So is there any reason at all to try to track this movie down and watch it? Well, you could be a
masochist. You could be an aspiring
filmmaker looking for something that will make you look like a
cinematic genius. You may want to groove on Bag of Crushed Child's "special" effects -- imagine mixing a
Cabbage Patch Kid with five pounds of raw
hamburger, a couple quarts of
ketchup, and about a dozen
cocktail onions, all stuck inside a
freezer bag, which sometimes gets
hurled at the camera to simulate a deadly attack.
Voila! You've got the special effects for Bag of Crushed Child!
Luther: "Hey, Bag of Crushed Child, you ever wanted something bigger in your life? You ever wondered what's out there in the big, wide world?"
Bag of Crushed Child: "Ggrrglarrr. Grrrarghh."
Luther: "Yeah, me too. Tell you what, Bag of Crushed Child, someday, I gonna marry a rich woman and eat that fancy chicken all day long."
Bag of Crushed Child: "Grrrglarrr."
Well, okay, you might want to watch it just for the fact that no one ever calls Bag of Crushed Child anything but "Bag of Crushed Child." Luther never once calls it "
Bag" or "
Crush" or "
Kid" or "
Fella" -- it's always something like, "Hey, Bag of Crushed Child, you wanna watch TV?" And Bag of Crushed Child's victims follow this rule, too. Every single time someone gets attacked, they scream "BAG OF CRUSHED CHIIIIIIILD!" before they snuff it. This is
weird enough when it happens to the sheriff, who at least knew what he was dealing with, but when Farmer Joe, Carrie, and the cops get killed, they all scream "BAG OF CRUSHED CHIIIIIIILD!" even though it's the very first time they've seen the
critter. Somehow, it's
creepier than anything else in the movie -- you get the feeling that Eltberg really,
really liked the character of Bag of Crushed Child more than was
healthy for any
sane man and thought it would take its place among
cinema's greats.
Luther: "Oh, wow! WOW! You guys are great! What's your name, man?"
Lead singer of Thunderland: "We're Thunderland, man!"
Luther: "Thunderland? Wow, you guys ROCK! I'd buy all your records!"
Lead singer of Thunderland: (waggles tongue directly at the camera while making the "sign of the devil" with both hands)
If you're crazed enough to look for this
film... well, I don't think you're going to find it. I've never seen it in any video stores, at Amazon, or at any specialty video outfit. I saw it once in a theater and once on video, but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere anymore. It may even be a
lost film at this point. I'm not even sure this is a
bad thing.
Bus driver: "Hey, punk, you can't bring that sack on board this here bus. You gotta pack it with the rest of the luggage. Gimme that sack. Gimme!"
Luther: "Hey, wait, man..."
Bag of Crushed Child: "Grrglargg! Grraaarrr!"
Bus driver: "AAAAAH! AAAAAH! BAG OF CRUSHED CHILD! BAG OF CRUSHED CHIIIIIIILD!"
Research from the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)