Nasties Review

I haven't played tennis in a week--or even left the apartment, really--thanks to an unstoppable goddamn migraine that started Saturday afternoon and continues unabated. With the blood vessels in my brain hyperdilated, the nerve endings agitated into stupor, and my neurochemicals all zapped into disequilibrium (threatening a long and loving depression should I actually recover from this headache), I figure, hey, what better way to disturb myself and rile my anxieties than by watching pseudo-snuff films about cannibals and murderous racists.

This unpleasant and often (very often) banned little corner of the cinematic planet goes by "Mondo," an epithet taken from the 1962 mock-masterpiece Mondo Cane, an Italian shock-documentary featuring footage of sharks biting men in half and other real/fake nastiness. (Faces of Death is the most recognized Mondo specimen and is therefore to some extent representative of the genre.) Because it merely compiles available, if taboo, footage to exploit for pleasure or shock, or, in most cases, simulates extreme violence and gore to present as real to an audience, Mondo is, with the exceptions of actual acts of animal cruelty, mostly harmless. It is, nevertheless, disturbing, not least for its sly mixture of found and manufactured scenes, some real, some fake, and all, to the inexpert eye, persuasive enough to be believed.

I post on this topic for three reasons. First, my head hurts, I'm nervous, and very little makes sense to me right now. Hence the cannibals. Second, Mondo is a specialized but established, perhaps underestimated but certainly misunderstood market within movie making and watching. As such, it deserves comment. Third, this guy does what Slothrop and I pretend to do, but he does it way, way better, and about exploitation film, no less, including Mondo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyRLQMQFyEU

Seriously, check him out. How else will you learn that within exploitation lurks an actual subgenre called "nunsploitation," in which, you guessed it, the camera exploits nuns? His name is Glenn, and I think he would make a fine addition to the Bungalow.

Slothrop: May Slothrop bring you a mound of strawberries for soul-healing purposes?

Koko: Please do, although after what happened last night to the Phillies I should be asking you the same question.

Slothrop: It's alright, Koko. I've read Paradise Lost. Nothing in there about the Phillies. When do you want your strawberry delivery? Also, if this is your mood, shouldn't you opt for something like Monsters Inc. instead?