The Psychedelic Films of William Grefé

Canon Fodder

No one turns on a fish!

 

The Hooked Generation (1968)

Director: William Grefé

Screenplay: William Grefé

Cast: Jeremy Slate as Daisey; Steve Alaimo as Mark; John Davis Chandler as Acid; Willie Pastrano as Dum Dum; Socrates Ballis as Cuban Leader; Cece Stone as Kelly; Walter R. Philbin as Lieutenant Dern; Lee Warren as Charlie

 

Progressing from two monster films (Sting of Death and Death Curse of Tartu from 1966), among other productions, Florida based filmmaker Grefé would progress as the world around him did. As motorbike films like The Wild Angels (1966) came to be, he made The Wild Rebels (1967). And with the bludgeoning era of hippies, drugs and psychedelic coming about, we get this crime film in the process. Three men are involved in drug smuggling with the Cubans, which is more poignant in knowledge that Cuba and Florida has had real life connections in their closeness, including Cuban exiles fleeing to Miami as Castro took over their homeland, an initial set which will escalate as things do not go to plan with the trade between both sides.

The three leads are Daisey (Jeremy Slate), Dum Dum (played by former boxer Willie Pastrano) and Acid, as played by character actor John Davis Chandler, whose character can be perfectly described with him doing heroin over the main opening credits and whose drug addiction is a real reliability for the trio. None of said trio is likable, and it is fascinating to watch a pulp film entirely about figures that are utterly irredemable in their attitudes, anti-heroes who are truly unlikable and where the narrative is not redemption but a downward spiral, blameable on Acid in particular. Killing the Cubans when they demand more money starts the ball rolling, as is killing the coast guards that find them, and generally burning bridges around them. Even in tangents not connected to the plot you have a moment like one of them killing a young Native American woman, at a hut village in the Everglades (shot at a real one with real Native Americans), in an event which does not have any real effect on making things worse as I thought it might have led to. Instead, having two hostages already does not help their stakes.

Like an old film noir narrative brought to the then modern day with more grit, if the review is dry and explaining the plot more, The Hooked Generation is a difficult film for me to really elaborate on without ruining it. This is not a dismissal, as I was engaged with it through, instead belonging to what I have already referred, genre cinema which is less about any hidden meaning but a dynamic storytelling which engaged on the surface. This is a film with a lot more nastiness to it, even if tame by the modern day in actual content, but that seen of streamlined storytelling is still here and to be appreciated.

This argues why Grefé took a while to be appreciated, decades later, as his films are more closer to traditional genre filmmaking, from a man whose professionalism and strive to improve is seen in his work history, whilst the likes of Herschell Gordon Lewis and Doris Wishman made odd films which defied filmmaking conventions and won fans over even if a few might have been "ironic". The moment where this film gets any eccentricity is the stint among the hippies, shot with real ones in a home decorated in multi-colour and ending with a shootout that, to Grefé's credit, does embrace the surreal with a drug haze death flashback for a character, involving psych effects and monkeys looking close up at the camera, a weird touch from a hippie preacher beforehand showing them in a cage part of a karmic scale lecture involving evolution. For the most part, The Hooked Generation is a solidly made, exploitation crime film, not one of the best but interesting. It is meaningful in a filmography of a director who, thankfully, made films which are better and thus increases the virtues of this one tenfold. Particularly as well, if you look at a creator's career, The Hooked Generation as a film planned ahead with a small budget and Grefé's resourcefulness makes a perfect contrast for its complete opposite, where Grefé could not plan ahead in a scenario entirely out of his hands....

 

========

Electric Shades of Grey (1971)

Director: William Grefé (and Terry Merrill)

Cast: John Darrell as Father John

 

Also known as The Psychedelic Priest, which is not a great title even if one to sell the film easier, this was a film made without any script. The producer Terry Merrill wished to make a film with Grefé but had no script, causing complete improvisation to be necessary and having to make do with who came onboard, including more real hippies, forcing William Grefé out of his comfort zone of being efficient and telling a simple story into something more unconventional. The film's back-story gets weirder as, due to unfortunate circumstances, it never got a proper release until 2001 originally from Something Weird Video, before being made available again through Arrow Video in 2020.

An initial set-up does exist - that it follows a young priest (John Darrell) who, in the midst of the hippie era, is offered a cup of drink by students, caught cutting class and smoking pot, spiked with acid. With pinhole camera lenses for distortion and swirling lights, he has a bad trip with a religious crisis the result, with an extended sombre scene of him being told his is doing God's work by a voice (God's or the acid's effect?) with a distorted voice echo as the scene is under the flickers of coloured light in a darkened catholic church.

Anyone expecting an exploitation film will be disappointed, as Electric Shades of Grey is going to be one of the more difficult films from Grefé to appreciate. It is an odd film - languid and relaxed, a drama shot by Grefé himself as cinematographer with a tiny group on 16mm film, a large part of the film a drama where the priest picks up a female hitchhiker, traumatised by being raped by the last person she got in a car with, who start to bond and connect together in a sedate and even serious tone. Grefé accidentally made an independently made road movie, about existential questions in the hippy era, as a result of the scenario he found himself within, an outlier in a career of genre films.

Events do happen. The couple find a woman on the edge of the road about to give birth, the production having to stage a birthing scene with non-actors and with no baby, which actually works. It has anti-hippy cops who are also racists, leading to a scene with a black doctor, trying to find himself and wishing to go research cancer treatment when he returns to civilisation, which sadly are still relevent decades later. The relationship with the priest and the hitchhiker eventually becomes tense too, as she has fallen for him but he has taken vow of chastity, leading to a tragedy that turns the film into Drugsploitation, as he descends into alcoholism and then becoming a penniless drug addict.

It is an awkward, curious film but I confess I admired it. Grefé took the chance to be experimental, including non-chronological scenes and unconventional editing, whilst the score with its psych rock feels like him catching up to the time with some relevance.  Considering how much of a disaster this film could have been, it is a testament to Grefé instead he managed to put together a film from nothing of interest. The result is a very acquired taste, definitely, but a surprise for me.

Impulse (1974)

 

Director: William Grefé

Screenplay: Tony Crechales

Cast: William Shatner as Matt Stone; Ruth Roman as Julia Marstow; Jennifer Bishop as Ann Moy; Kim Nicholas as Tina Moy; James Dobson as Clarence; Harold Sakata as Karate Pete; Marcia Knight as Helen

Canon Fodder

 

People like you should be ground up and made into dog food!

Black and white cinematography introduces us to the past, post World War II American, where an older woman is being romanced in her lounge by William Kerwin of Blood Feast (1963) fame. Beau to her, he shows her the samurai katana he acquired in the war and is about to woo her with until her son stops them. Kerwin shows a rare nasty side in his small scene, as son proceeds to use that katana to stab him.

Said son will become William Shatner, five years past the Canadian actor shooting the last scene of the original Star Trek series. This is a busy period for him until Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), full of television and genre films, where Shatner transitions to playing Matt Stone, a man who seduces older woman and, in his psychosis, kills them even if it was just in a fit of mania. Shatner made The Intruder (1962) with Roger Corman where he played a racist, but it is odd to find him here in a William Grefé genre film, becoming part of the history of Hollywood and television actors finding their way into exploitation films, like one of Rita Haywood's final roles being in Grefé's The Naked Zoo (1970). Ironically Impulse, in Grefé's trait of making films closer to traditional mainstream cinema, comes off as an exploitation film you could imagine either as a TV movie of the time or an old Hollywood b-movie crime flick, a thriller where we learn how wound up like a coil Shatner's character is when, when caught by his older girlfriend with women from a Go-Go club, he has a switch causing him to throttle her to death in her car, acting like a child afterwards when she realises she is dead. This introduction to him adds a cherry on top of the cake when he pushes the car into the river they are near, Grefé's willingness to have flair seen as he has a first person shot, with camera entering the water, from the dashboard as it rolls into the river and starts to sink.

Shatner is the kind of figure, playing Matt Stone, that when he runs over a puppy, implied and cutting to a separate shot of a dog (hopefully) acting dead with fake blood on, he just continues driving and blames dogs being left to run into the road. It is an awkward introduction to Tina (Kim Nicholas), a young girl he randomly picks up in his car at the time, dressed in her red sleeved and white dress like she wandered out of an Alice in Wonderland adaptation, who is also the daughter to a young widow Ann (Jennifer Bishop), owner of a store who he will meet up and start his con romance with for her money.

Impulse is more of a thriller than horror, though it fascinates to see Grefé in an urban environment than the Everglades, of mid seventies fashion and design than sixties novelty rock and striped shirts, nary an airboat in sight, of Sunflower wallpaper, long patterned dresses and bric-a-brac similar to that found in my late grandmother's house on my father's side. It would also work as a film of this era from Hollywood let alone at a lower budget, especially as a large part of the narrative is arguably a melodrama, as Julia is a widowed thirty plus mother who wishes to move on in her life but with a daughter fearing her father is forgotten already, lashing out in ways like breaking a precious china plate. This is a huge leap forwards from Sting of Death (1966) for Grefé, a figure who wished to make films closer to traditional movies than peers like Herschell Gordon Lewis, but with the grit around the edges as an independent production adding more. Everything in Impulse feels a lot more stained and lurid even if Impulse is gunning as much for its drama as it is the thriller content.

Shatner is a huge factor to Impulse's qualities. He is a good actor, one however infamous for his habit for overemphasising mannerisms which coined "Shatner-esque" acting, not a method actor but expressing in emphasis in dialogue, manner of speech, and when infamously trying for a music career, spoken poetry singing for The Transformed Man (1968). Dropped here, he is an unpredictable influence when, even if Impulse has a lot more for its story and dialogue, exploitation films unlike this one could coast on their tropes and exploitation content than unpredictable acting and detailed plot. Shatner commits to wall chewing, but whilst this is seen as a low for some in his career, it does make Impulse more rewarding. Infamously Grefé kept a take in where Shatner, in his many exaggerated moments when provoked or manic, farted for real mid-performance. It is not as over-the-top when it happens as that reads. It also makes complete sense, ultimately seen as a grotesque and violent parasite of masculinity, chasing a little girl around a funeral parlor to silence her, exploitation women for their through their money through the promise of romance, and trying to drown someone in their own fish tank. Able to show charisma to woo women, he is also a giant man-child who can suddenly bark at random people like a mad man¹.

Adding to this territory's weird connective nature, crossing with "respectable cinema", is that Harold Sakata, known for Oddjob from Goldfinger (1964) has a brief role as Karate Pete, a fellow older con artist who knows Matt and demands to have a cut of the money he is acquiring from Ann and her older female friend Julia (Ruth Roman). Arguably, whether his acting is good or not, Impulse has a far more rewarding role for the former pro wrestler and Olympic weightlifter Sakata, and I say this as someone who holds, whilst fun, that Goldfinger's status in the original run of James Bond films is arguably overhyped. Sakata here, getting speaking lines rather than as a mute with a razored bowler hat, gets in his little time in Impulse a lot of fun things to do. Carrying a pipe, and driving around in an RV branded with "Karate Pete", he is a nice shot of tension to the film, a man who can smash a bedside cabinet to pieces, even nearing his fifties, with his bare hands if you piss him off and refuse to pour him a drink. His role is sadly small, but he will return to Grefé's world in Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976), and it does lead to conflict between Sakata and William Shatner at a car wash at night, involving a noose attached on a pulley, jazz rock on the soundtrack, and Sakata being chased through a car wash, turned on, by Shatner in a car. It is the one lurid, grotty exploitation aspect of the film, but by God, it is entertaining to see². On the midway point in Grefé's career, as he would by 1978 close out his career and start making promotional films for Bacardi, with Shatner in the lead role for the first, Impulse is of note as he developed quite a bit over eight years to this film from the initial monster films I first saw. I also found Impulse rewarding to see and memorable as a lurid yet compelling thriller, a film in Grefé's work which does lean the most to the lurid Florida made movies of the era but with his more structurally fleshed out production style helping considerably.

=======

1) [Spoiler] The fart happens in Stone's death scene at the end too, thematically perfect as a death rattle for a pathetic figure of evil. [Spoilers End]

2) The one aspect which, whilst should have not happened, adds more to this sequence even if a morbid touch is knowing Harold Sakata nearly got hanged for real by accident, as documented in the William Grefé documentary They Came from the Swamp: The Films of William Grefé (2016). An incident due to the original noose mechanism being tampered with behind its creator's back, and with Shatner having to save Sakata in the moment, this sequence has gained a greater madness, again with respect for poor Sakata. Especially when the documentary even has footage of when Shatner realises something goes wrong and has to help him.

Two William Grefé Monster Films: Sting of Death/Death Curse of Tartu (1966)

 

Director: William Grefé

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #216-217

 

Sting of Death

Screenplay: William Kerwin

Cast: Joe Morrison as Dr. John Hoyt; Valerie Hawkins as Karen Richardson; John Vella as Egon; Jack Nagle as Dr. Richardson

 

Do the Jella...Jellafish...

Sting of Death was my introduction to William Grefé. As Herschell Gordon Lewis was making exploitation films in Florida, so was Grefé, prolific through the sixties to the eighties. Ironically, the two films being covered feel like they were transported from the fifties and just happen to have eye popping (Arrow restored) colour aesthetic. And if anyone wants to cross the two directors' timelines together, I do think it is that William Kerwin of Blood Feast (1963) that wrote the script, especially as he has an onscreen role, briefly, in the future production Impulse (1974).

Sting of Death is definitely out of time, of a jellyfish man monster, though one smarter then his peers as, unseen, his first scene is going for a screwdriver to kill the radio on the island home of a marine biologist, killing and dragging off a female victim in one of the many arguably impressive underwater sequences. Grefé has to put with a lot of stress making this film, shot in the middle of the Florida countryside on the water¹, so I am softer to Sting of Death in spite of what is a very cheesy film undercut by its pacing issues. The set up is simple, where a group of people come on the island - the marine biologist himself, a doctor, some relatives and friends including the biologist's daughter, and a group of biology students wishing to party. And then there is Egon, the facially disfigured assistant who is attracted to the biologist's daughter but is shunned for his appearance.

Restored, this is a striking film even if a low budget one. Grefé is different from Herschell Gordon Lewis, which can be argued even in terms of some auteurist theory, because whilst Gordon really rested upon very heightened and absurd humour, alongside his garish colours and stark floodlight, Grefé's aesthetic is found in itself in the down-and-dirty nature of the films being shot quickly and in the environments he used, even a film closer inland like Impulse (1974) with William Shatner not embracing camp in spite of Shatner's costumes. Only the fashions, including striped shirts and jumpers, feel closer to the multicolour of his compatriot, and even then, I suspect that dissipates when he moves away from this type of monster film.  The two horror films being covered today were also shot in the Florida Everglades, which has a distinct aesthetic in itself of the naturally countryside and isolation.

This still feels part of the early years of the decade, or the fifties, where even the first corpse found, stung by what appears to be a giant Portuguese Man-o-War, has practical effects on it that whilst gristly could have been gotten away with back then. That is not a dismissal of the film but does stand out when, at this time, sexploitation existed and Lewis was gory until the censors started biting at his ankles. Then there is the tangent, if brief, into a little sub-genre of rock 'n' roll beach movies, which also started sneaking in haunted house and horror tropes, even old horror icons like Boris Karloff, among the hijinks. It is a weird culturally distinct world, one I have touched upon with this film, one which even brought Elvis a success with Tickle Me (1965), a film with a haunted house as a plot point, the beach and naturally songs in what sounds like a bizarre psychotronic brew. It is an odd tangent here, shimming to a new dance called the Jellyfish, which feels so alien to a world two years later which would embrace the psychedelic movement which Grefé himself would hitch his tent to, the irony not lost that these films were made year by year as cultural shifts, especially the sixties, would change one half of the decade to the other half. This scene also leads to poor Egon being tormented by the biology students, talking as if they are pirates as they ostracize him for some reason. This will come into play not long afterwards for the plot.

The monster itself is definitely from a decade before, beyond not seeing its head until later visibly wearing a scuba costume below the waist, though that is more logical then that sounds in the narrative. He is a rare b-movie monster too, as mentioned, with intelligence and an ability to weld tools like an axe, but he still wanders towards victims slowly which few ever take advantage of. It is admittedly a creature, when we see its head, with the actor's visible through what can only be described as a giant plastic bag on top of his shoulders. It is ridiculous yet weirdly compelling.

The bigger problem than the look of the creature is that, in the connective tissue between the middle of the narrative to the finale, you have a tedious stretch of padding which mars the film. This is unfortunately a common issue with many films, and this is no exception, and Sting of Death sadly does feel its length and predictability, a bane of so many of these type of films but one I have found especially in the older lot of them. It is a film that could have been trimmed, as your pleasures will come from its pulpy silliness than a compelling story. One scene has won me over with this in mind, when a boat is capsized and the people in the water are being terrorised by a mass of jellyfish...all visibly played by plastic bags with strings attached to them floating on the water. It is ridiculous yet, again, charming and also cute even when actors have to pretend being stung by them.

Most of the pleasure of Sting of Death for me was its silly nature, little details which delighted more than the plot itself. An obsession with airboats which will appear in other films; the oddly funny image of a jellyfish person's feet on bath mats of multiple colours in close-up; that the underwater cave the film ends in is full to prop bones, including a plastic skull on  a stalagmite, and pink and green lighting like a special nautical themed Halloween horror house. It is a film in spite of itself, charming for these little quirks, and this is to bear in mind for the next film made this year by Grefé....

=======

Death Curse of Tartu

Screenplay: William Grefé

Cast: Fred Pinero as Ed Tison; Babette Sherrill as Julie Tison; Bill Marcus as Billy; Mayra Gómez Kemp as Cindy; Sherman Hayes as Johnny; Gary Holtz as Tommy; Maurice Stewart as Joann; Doug Hobart as Tartu; Frank Weed as Sam Gunter

...sharks don't live in fresh water...

This is why I prefer Death Curse of Tartu, which Grefé openly admits was a script he wrote within twenty four hours by himself originally². A film which still has the flair, to induce a chef's kiss hand gesture, to have the opening credits on a scroll taken from a victim, page after page turned, but very much made from such a swift and hastily produced work schedule. The film does stray into a territory, let alone feeling a film from an older decade, back when we exotisied cultures in problematic ways, about a cursed Native American burial ground of a witch doctor who could turn into an alligator and other animals. This is worth bringing up from the get-go as, even if this is definitely the audience rewriting the script the author created, how I got into the film was the unintentional humours of an alternative take on the subject matter.

The film follows the trope that there is a Native American guide, named Billy, we briefly meet not stupid enough like the white people who are the leads, leaving as soon as possible after he has brought them to the burial ground of Tartu on an island to stay. Many old stories, even in turn of the century pulp literature, have a lot about the sceptic facing things beyond their comprehension, after dismissing belief in ghosts and goblins³, a holdover of faith which even finds its way here as a well worn genre plot, one of the many old shoes which still fit for a b-movie premise. The other aspect, barring that he sabotages the boat to leave the island and openly terrorises the survivors in the ending, is that you could watch this with Tartu as the anti-hero. It may be weird to transcribe a mobile phone text to a family member in the middle of a review, but this encapsulates what I thought the actual plot was:

Death Curse of [Tartu]. Someone is being eaten by a shark currently as people have disturbed a witch doctor on his burial ground by playing rock n roll music whilst he was sleeping.

Whilst it feels like another film more likely to be shot in the fifties and even forties in content, barring the stop for a bikini rock n roll dance sequence, Tartu just wants to sleep in his burial ground in peace, not have bland white adults prat about nearby and blast out music on high volume in the middle of the Everglade. Sadly, it still turns into a film which vilifies non-suburban white culture whilst championing truly white bread leads, something Grefé never likely thought about, but it helps that one that is considerably better paced and more entertaining than Sting of Death, both in terms of entertainment but also this accidentally shade to it. Alongside curious details like quicksand apparently existing in Florida, unintentionally this comes off as the Something Weird Video approved take of ignorance of white suburbanites or people from the metropolis wandering outside their territories, without commonsense and listening to the locals. Billy for one, even if superstitious, had childhood memories of bodies of tribesmen being brought back from the island as evidence, something which even a materialist atheist would be wary of, the film gleefully embracing its premise of what happens when said leads do take this warning and land on the island regardless.

Namely, that Tartu picks them off as various animals. Whilst this leads to a plastic snake for close-ups in one scene, it also includes an actor play wrestling a real giant snake worthy of Bela Lugosi against the fake squid from Bride of the Monster (1955). We can only hope there was no animal cruelty on set, but that the special effects are real snakes and alligators wrangled by a trainer adds a great deal. As much an accidental nature documentary transpires as a result, as we see a big alligator mind its own business as an actress has to act being fearful for her life, or a giant snake navigates around camp props and jostle past a metal kettle. If the shark is just a fake fin in the water, well they were not cruel to realistically have a shark swimming out of its natural habitat in fresh water like the magical one here does. Probably the only thing which might make people uncomfortable is the real alligator skulls, contrasting the plastic human ones, but considering Florida has a lot of alligators, and gator farms, those might be easy to come by.

The film does have a dull extended chase scene at the end, emphasising my belief that trying to have extended scenes of action is just padding in any film, but with complete understanding of this film's origins, this was a fun piece which, most importantly, showed that a lot of potential was to be found in delving into William Grefé's filmography. Poignantly, beyond this production you would have him move with the times, to the psychedelic era and even Jawsploitation to capitalise on Jaws (1975), making his a fascinating career up the eighties, when his filmography slows down, to investigate. These as a throwback to an older era, before Grefé would go on to darker subject matter, offer a nice moment of cheesy light heartedness beforehand. As they are also not that long into his career either, after just two films before, this is very early in a career gathering moss on its rolling boulder, leaving a lot to progress as he did.

=========

1) As documented in his brief, but rewarding, introduction to the film for the 2020 Arrow Video release.

2) Also from the Arrow Blu Ray film introductions.

3) Why always goblins?