Juliette Cummins Week Day 3: RUNNING HOT

Okay, so if you've seen Running Hot (1984) then you know it's not a horror film. But hey, it's the kind of sleazy exploitation flick that would have (and probably did) fit right in on USA's Up All Night, and therefore it fits right in my heart. If you are too young to have indulged in Up All Night back in the day, I'm sorry. Things really were better in Olden Times.


The short of Running Hot is this: 17-year-old Danny (Eric Stoltz) has been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his father. He escapes police custody and goes on the run with Charlene (Monica Carrico), a 30-year-old prostitute. They head for Arizona, hoping to avoid the cops and to get to Danny's little sister Jenny (Juliette Cummins).

That sounds entertaining enough, I know. But y'all, it's the long of Running Hot that makes it so amazing and wonderful and will make you want to be its best friend.

We need to start with Charlene, our hooker with a heart of gold. She falls in love with Danny after she sees him on television because a) he reminds her of a boyfriend she had a long time ago, and b) she's obsessed with the number 13 and if you subtract 17 from 30 you get 13 and so they're meant to be together forever, duh. How does she express this obsessive love of hers? Well, before they meet in the flesh, Charlene kisses Danny's face when he appears on her TV.

She's also inspired to create interpretive dance routines to news reports about his trial.

"it's jazz, tap, and ballet all rolled into one"

She gets a Lucky 13 tattoo...or maybe she just draws it on with Sharpie, it's hard to tell.

As you'd expect, she masturbates face-down in the bathtub.

Most importantly, however, Charlene writes letters to Danny incessantly- sometimes 3 a day!- so when he manages to escape from the back of a cop car, he limps, bloodied and bruised, right into her lovin' arms.

That is, she'd like 'em to be her lovin' arms, but Danny's pretty bashful and put off by the fact that she's a prostitute. Don't worry, though, her winsome ways win him over eventually. OOPS SPOILER. But seriously, though, Charlene is just so strange that it doesn't take long for the viewer to succumb to her bizarre charms. In fact, that's true of Running Hot as a whole. As Danny and Charlene travel from Los Angeles to the Arizona desert, we're treated to all kinds of seedy, sordid goodness. To wit:

There are pimps in banana hammocks and hookers who read comic books!

that's Virgil Frye, the dad of Soleil Moon "Punky Brewster" Frye, just thought you should know

People bust out guns and blow people away at the slightest provocation!

Sorrells Pickard provides some of the most indelible lines in the films, such as "Don't get wise with me, fuckbutt."

If IMDb.com dates are accurate, Juliette Cummins is 19-20, playing 12!

There are some really weird-ass sexnanigans!

And finally, the Running Hot gallery of l'arte du sleaze:

He ends this conversation by saying "Nice nips."

Man, there's just so much more but you should really experience Running Hot for yourself, preferably with a group of friends and a group of beers. Watching it at the drive-in would be best, but as it's not 1984 anymore, I'm willing to let that go. Eric Stoltz is a bit of a dullard, but hey, it was his first starring role. Whatever spark he lacks is made up for by Stuart Margolin chewing up the scenery as the detective hot on Danny's trail, and newcomer Carrico, who seems game for anything. Get out your banana hammocks and your nips and give this one a whirl...you won't regret it! Or you might, if you're a jerk. But you're not.

OR ARE YOU?

Juliette Cummins Week Day 2: CLICK: THE CALENDAR GIRL KILLER

There are two kinds of people in this workaday world of ours. Some people see "After Dark Thrillers" and run away as if the case itself is dripping with Ebola- it's eight "erotic thrillers" crammed onto two DVDs! It's under five bucks! They're all gonna be crap! Other people are like me, and perhaps like you, those who see "After Dark Thrillers" in a store and get positively giddy over it just reading the names dripping off of it like Ebola: Elizabeth Kaitan! Karen Black! David Naughton! Sybil Danning! Eight erotic thrillers for under five bucks? This is the greatest deal in the history of ever! Yeah, there's a warning light flashing somewhere in the back of your mind (these movies are going to be terrible you know they're terrible think of all the pizza you could buy with under five bucks, where am I going to get a lot of pizza for under five bucks, get it anywhere pizza is eight dollars, pizza hasn't been eight dollars in like twenty years what's wrong with you, well you could get Little Caesars I think that's still five bucks, eat Little Caesars are you nuts why don't I just eat Ebola) but when you see that Click: The Calendar Killer (1990) listed amongst the garbage, you give that warning light the bird and you go on your way. Didn't a friend tell you one time that Click was the best movie ever? You think maybe that happened, but you can't really remember. Oh well, it's only under five bucks.

Much later: is Click the best movie ever? Was it worth under five bucks? I just don't know, my friends, I just don't know. There's no denying it's an absolute shitshow, but then it  brings out so many feelings in a viewer. Generally these feelings alternate between "I'm going to marry this movie!" and "This movie is torture!" I've already hyped it up for people, letting them know that we must watch Click asap and forever because it's amazing. I know that as we partake, I will wonder why I ever wanted to see this movie again. Then it will end and I'll immediately want to start it over and show more people because wasn't it so great? The cycle will continue forever, and so are the days of our lives.

Although I am tempted to warn you away from this movie, we all know how this scenario plays out. You will see the screencaps herein, you will read about dazzling things like "models", "photo shoots", "explosions", and "Dollar Tree Norman Bates", and you will rush headlong into procuring a copy of Click: The Calendar Killer to clutch to your own bosoms. I won't blame you, for I understand you. I am you. Blessed be.

Look, I know Juliette Cummins is not mentioned on the cast list for this film and it's Juliette Cummins Week around these parts. What kind of bait-and-switch shit is this? I assure you, I am neither baiting nor switching! Cummins has a sizable role in this film (as "Rhonda"), but she's uncredited. As far as I've been able to figure out, it's due to union snafus- I mean, Click boasts two directors and six fucking screenwriters...there's no doubt the entire production was a clusterfuck of epic proportions. In fact, it's the last film she was in, save a cameo in the equally terrible Camp Fear. Click may have been agonizing enough an experience to drive her away from horror movies altogether!

Come on, let's profile the evidence Clarice Starling-style.

Throughout the entire affair she wears the pained, world-weary "I went to Julliard for this?" expression that sneaks right through the fourth wall sometimes, that awareness that completely betrays an actor's true feelings. Why, it's as if you can see her whole life pass right before her eyes! Now let's couple these moments with some of her dialogue, which is all the more delicious if you imagine she ad-libbed everything.

"I'm so frustrated from being here."

"Working for you is worse than getting raped."

"This is totally embarrassing."

"I'm gonna get out of here."

Case closed, Your Honor. This is the urban legend I have made up and I'm sticking to it! So, what kind of film could drive an actor completely out of bargain basement features and right into the lucrative, lovin' arms of commercials? Let's dig our acrylic talons into Click's naugahyde and find out!

Click begins with a photo shoot. There are a lot of photo shoots in Click, and they are all pretty much the same. They feature a plain background (save the light fixtures, of course!), a fog machine, and a model- in a bikini or an industrial strength Playtex bra- posing listlessly with a weapon or power tool. The same "funky" synth music plays every time. Your life becomes a möbius strip that comprises these images. As they flicker endlessly before your eyes, it seems that the cycle will continue forever, that Click might break you, too. And so are the days of our lives.

What I mean is, Click might break you with its awesomeness! Come on, there is nothing not to love here. Oblivious to how horrid these photographs will undoubtedly be, Jack (co-writer/co-director Ross Hagen) snaps away, providing direction to the models, such as "Put some shit in it, man!"

Oh, they do, Jack. They do.

Intermittently we get flashbacks to someone's childhood, wherein a young boy cries as he's berated by a mean nurse for the crimes of 1) existing and 2) sneaking a peek at a nudie mag. It seems his mother is dead and the nurse is his caretaker...? Eh, it's not really explained. All we really need to take away from this is that the mystery boy's torturous past has led to a murderous present as he shaves a leather recliner his chest and dons a wig and nurse's uniform.

Hold on, let me amend that: we assume it's a murderous present because it takes forfuckingever for the Calendar Girl Killer to actually kill a calendar girl. What happens in the meantime? Models and clingy boyfriends hang out at a ranch. There's a moment where one Friday the 13th alum (Part VII's Susan Jennifer Sullivan) clamjams another (Cummins) just for the fun of it, so that's something.

There are more photo shoots, each more extreme to the extreme than the last. Jack is interested in the intersection of sex and violence, you see. I'm pretty sure that's what's going on, but then I don't get art, so.

There are a bunch of red herrings running around, even though as I said no one dies for the longest time. But Click really wants us to ask: who is dressing up as the weirdo nurse? Is it...

Jack's assistant?

A model's hot-headed boyfriend?

This guy, who has a camera?

Or Jack, who is clearly the one behind the mask?

Why surprise, it's Jack! Shit finally gets real an hour in when Rhonda puts on lipstick and then takes a bath. As you do.

Are you feeling the terror yet?

There are a few more killings, and while there are certainly no Tom Savini-level effects going on (shit, there are no Halloween Store-level effects going on!) at least they're varied. I mean, Nursie busts out a blow gun. That's not nothin'! Neither is the epileptic seizure you may have during the murder sequence where a strobe light flashes for five minutes.

Lemme tell you, once Jack is revealed to be the Dollar Tree Norman Bates, Click goes off the rails into Crazytown like nobody's business. He chases the few remaining survivors around the grounds of the ranch, yelling his totally psychotic (he's crazy, you know) nursery rhymes, such as "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick...I'll burn your balls off with my candlestick!"

He shoots a flare gun that somehow fires grenades? And there's a minefield? Look, the details are sketchy and it makes no sense, but know this: there are 27 explosions in the span of seven minutes. It's like a Michael Bay wet dream, I'm telling you!

Eventually Jack grabs the Last Model Alive and ties her to a giant cross for some reason. Her hot-headed boyfriend saves her, and Jack dies in a fire. Like everything else that came before, it makes no sense whatsoever.

See what I mean? Click is the best movie ever, how can you not love it?

Okay, yeah, it's terrible. There are long stretches of nothingness punctuated by fleeting moments of glory. Why, I haven't even mentioned the big-haired all-girl metal band that plays at a party early on!

But as there are two kinds of people in the world, so are there two kinds of slasher movies. In one corner, you've got the likes of  John Carpenter's Halloween. In that film, there's a moment when we think the killer is dead...but he slowly, silently sits up. The iconic, chilling score kicks in as he steps ever closer to his oblivious prey without making a sound. It's one of the most frightening scenes in movie history.

In the other corner, you've got Click: The Calendar Girl Killer. In that film, there's a moment when we think the killer is dead...but then he simply appears in the next shot and says "I'm fine!" to his would-be victims.

Where oh where shall the twain meet? They meet in us, dear reader. They meet in us.