Raw Force: The Best Kung-Fu Zombie Sex Comedy Out There!
All you need to know about Edward D. Murphy’s 1982 low budget Raw Force is that it was originally called Kung-Fu Cannibals, and if that doesn’t make your grindhouse lovin’ trousers tight in the crotch I have no idea what will!
So, what is Raw Force all about? 85 minutes give or take. Thank you, thank you; I’ll be here all week, two shows nightly! Wait, you want to actually know what it’s about? Oh man, you better be sitting down…
So dig this cats n’ creeps; on a secluded tropical island, a group of magical monks led by Filipino screen legend Vic Diaz (he of Eddie Romero’s Pam Grier/Sid Haig vehicle Black Mama White Mama from 1973… and literally over 150 more features) get a wild hair that they can resurrect all of the corpses of martial arts masters scattered around the island by means of slaughtering and eating rando women unfortunate enough to fall into his clutches via a white slavery ring run by a German dude who is probably Hitler (that facial hair don’t lie Bub). Seems legit.
As fate would have it, Harry Dodds (a slumming Cameron Mitchell… which is like saying wet water) is running a leisure cruise business that uses that icky island as a port of call. Aboard his vessel are various ne’er-do’wells, ass kickers and a bartender you looks like a Muppet on his way to a Molly Hatchet show. Horniness ensues.
What do these two plots have in common? Fucked if I know, but eventually the two disparate groups meet which goes about as standardly substandard as the rest of the picture…
Now I know I’m new around these parts, and you don’t know shit from shineola about yours cruelly, but let me just clue ya in; this is the type of picture that really floats my beastly boat! How can you not love a film that can’t even decide what kind of film it actually is? Is it a sex comedy? A Kung-fu flick? A cannibal movie? A zombie film? Yup… to all.
One thing it isn’t however is boring, it’s too deliriously insane to ever be that, and the “let’s put on a show… even though we can’t decide what show to put on” aesthetic is infectious; Murphy set out to entertain every grindhouse fan no matter what type of flick they preferred, and while he clearly had no clue on how to do it, he just went right ahead and did it anyway!
Raw Force plays December 12th at 7:00p.m. at Proctors as part of the It Came From Schenectady series. Head here for more info!
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