The Long Island Cannibal Massacre (1980)

There is no Trailer for this cinema classic unfortunately, so here’s one for The Long Island RAILROAD Massacre, which actually looks like an infinitely better film:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: Is this a massacre by cannibals or are cannibals getting massacred? Let’s find out.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Is this the music for It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown?
• Young lady drives to a rural area with no houses or anything in view, almost looks like a swamp. She gets out with a bunch of school books and walks into the woods. Is her study partner in there?
• She’s just changing her clothes and sunbathing, I think. She has a funny way of studying.
• Oh here’s her study buddy now. And he brought his own bludgeoning weapon.
• Why is he wearing a pillowcase over his face as a mask?

• She was knocked out a moment ago but is now awake. That was one quick unconsciousness. 
• Now this is the lawnmower death scene that Sleepaway Camp 2 missed out on! This even shows the headless body and the killer emptying out the leaf bag with the girl’s head pieces. Awesome.
• Another woman at the beach approaches her glum boyfriend who’s gazing out into the ocean: “Hey what are you thinking about?” And he replies, “Oh nothing much…I was just imagining how twisted this world really is.” Come on movie don’t depress me this soon.
• This acting is sub-par to put it mildly.
• Filmmakers couldn’t afford a dolly track on the beach and the camera is just bobbing up and down as it follows this fella walking up the beach. It’s hurting my eyes and brain. But I’m sure it won’t end there.
• This guy finds a bloody piece of clothing in the sand and immediately starts digging. Eventually he finds a severed head.
• Another guy notices what the digger guy found and he states that he owns this beach and that the other guy shouldn’t go to the police to report it because it would be bad for tourism. So someone saw Jaws and didn’t quite understand it.
• This guy believes that this other guy actually owns this particular beach?
• Anyway, he pays off the guy with a wad of 20s and that’s that.
• Hahaha, he just covers up the head again with sand. 
• Is this a student film? Because it sure looks and feels like one.
• Was that a tumbleweed?
• The beach owner dude drives a bit to the wooden area and gets attacked by Pillowcase man and some other blonde guy riding a moped. They are beating him up because he owes them money.
• If only he didn’t have to pay off that fella on the beach.
• Man, this movie’s grainy. 

• Pillowman and his minion want to burn some trash bags filled with who knows what but beach guy pulls out a gun and tells them to stop and put the bags in his van. I’m sure this scene is very important to the plot somehow and I’m on the edge of my seat in suspense.
• This music sounds like horror movie music from the 40s or 50s. This is made in 1980. And it’s continuous. Meaning there has been background non-diegetic music since the movie started.
• Wait a minute, the guy who dug up the body was a cop already?! And he didn’t call for back-up when he found a dead girl’s decapitated head on a beach or arrest the guy paying him off to keep quiet about it? Maybe he was off-duty and he takes that very seriously.
• The New Yawk accent is thicker than a pastrami on rye sandwich at Katz’ Deli!
• The music now sounds like Night of the Living Dead’s score.
• Now this cop is back at the beach and trying to find the head again? That’s some fine police work there, Lou.
• The cop, Jim, goes to his friend or partner’s house (this new guy is wearing a gun holster) to talk to him. The friend has a self portrait of Rembrandt hanging in his living room.
• Lieutenant Lipshitz!
• Jim tells this friend that they found a female body last week buried on the beach. The friend asks: “Big tits?”
• And he’s talking about the same female victim as he dug up earlier. He only found just her head. Not a whole body!
• Well, did she have big tits or not?
• Wait, now the friend just called Jim, Dave. And then Jim replied to the friend as Dave. Great quality flick we have here.
• Couple making out in a car on the beach take a quick break to smoke some reefer. Where’s the priorities these days?
• Pillowman and his minion (let’s call him Blondie) attacks them. While Pillowman is beating the guy with a lug wrench you can see the blood getting sprayed from a turkey baster off frame. This film couldn’t be more amateurish and cheap.
• They cut up the girl and open up her belly to reveal condoms filled with raw beef and fish guts. Awesome.
• Jim just told Dave that he quit the force. He’s says that these maniacs aren’t worth his time anymore.
• And now he’s telling Dave that he’s going vigilante. Why did he have to quit the police force to go vigilante? Someone saw Death Wish and didn’t quite understand it.
• The beach owner guy is talking to the trash bag full of dead lady and getting upset for no reason at it to the point of beating the bag. Someone saw Maniac and didn’t quite understand it. He even looks like Joe Spinell.
• More like Ron Jeremy actually.

• Now the beach guy just imagined a hand coming out of the trash bag to strangle him. We get it, he’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
• Some guy who’s wearing make up made of crusty oatmeal covering his whole face stumbles over to beach guy and tells him that “they wouldn’t give me food.” I have absolutely ZERO clue what the fuck is going on.
• Now oatmeal man is eating the raw meat from the trash bag. Finally some cannibalism in this cannibal flick.

• I’m mid-way through this POS and I’ve already declared this my Things, Heavy Metal Massacre, Satan War entry of this year.
• So Jim is out on the ocean with his girlfriend on a boat and he tells her he’s glad he quit the force. He’s really taking this vigilante career slow ain’t he?
• She asks him if they should go skinny-dipping but he says that the water is too cold, even though the scene started with him coming up on the boat after he was swimming.
• She asked him in their first scene earlier in the film to go skinny dipping and he refused saying the water’s too cold. I’m thinking he just doesn’t want to get naked. Like Tobias Funke the never nude. Jim here is also wearing cut off jean shorts.

• Now he’s freaking out on his girlfriend because they ran out of beer! 
• Hahaha, Jim just jumped back into the water! See, he just doesn’t want to be nude!
• Even though this movie is a compete amateur nightmare in epic proportions the gore isn’t so bad. 
• This flick is so Crom-damned grainy! I’m thinking that they maybe filmed with low quality camcorders in too low of light.
• And I’m quite sure but I think I hear a generator humming in the background.
• Jack, the beach owner guy, tells some hitch-hiker that he “feeds his father” in a very angry tone when she asks him what he does for a living.
• As he’s rambling on about his crazy and diseased father the camera slowly pans closer and closer to his face virtually making it out of focus.
• He just told her as she fled his van that “She doesn’t know what it’s like to live with a leper!”
• Now she’s the next victim for Pillowman and Pillowman brings her back to Jack and says that he killed her to make it easier for Jack to rape now. Jack, thankfully, is disgusted by this.
• Jack is in the middle of nowhere and talks to his father who sounds like Marlon Brando in The Godfather but after 5 packs of cigarettes.
• “You shouldn’t even be alive and yet you still live. I realize now that you must be destroyed.” Someone saw The Empire Strikes Back and didn’t quite understand it.
• Jack’s father tells Jack to eat this female victim and Jack bites her thigh but through the jeans first. He didn’t bother taking her jeans off but bit right through the denim. I’m thinking this film is a comedy masterpiece at this point. I have to, it’s the only way my sanity will survive until the end.
• Another hitch-hiker? And man, what a thick New Yawk accent. Everyone sounds like my Brooklyn in-laws.
• Besides the film being grainier than the beach at Coney Island, the film is also terribly scratched only adding to the already poor quality.
• Jim’s handlebar mustache keeps changing lengths in every scene he’s in.
• This fight between Jim and Blondie is going on way too long.
• Jim takes a bent traffic sign pole and plunges it into Blondie’s face. Blondie doesn’t immediately die but we see what looks to be a badly decomposed face. It looks like a skull now.
• Pillowman used to wear a white pillowcase but now he’s in a blue one. Must be laundry day.
• I have maybe 20 minutes left and so far barely any cannibalism to constitute a massacre in my opinion.
• A uniformed cop finds and approaches Jack who’s doing something with a syringe. Jack asks him “Who are you anyway, Police?” And the cop says “No, I’m Batman!” This is so fucking stupid!
• The cop just took out a large walkie-talkie and tried to get help from Jim which doesn’t make sense since Jim has no Walkie-Talkie nor should he since he’s no longer a cop since he quit the force.
• Jack unmasks Pillowman and it’s JIM! I’m so shocked! No seriously, this doesn’t make a lick of sense. Why was he fighting Blondie then?
• Is this a flashback of Jim killing his sister or something?
• And now he’s a kid? I’m really fucking confused. And who the fuck is Bruce?!
• Jack just took a turkey baster and somehow filled it with car battery acid and sprayed Jim in the face with it! How is that even possible?
• So now does the movie want us to root for Jack as a hero? This is absurd.
• Besides the 1950s schlock movie music, there’s also sometimes a constant motor-running noise. Again, I’m thinking it’s the generator the filmmakers are using in the background.
• How and why does Jack own a M16 Machine gun?
• And how is it this hard to kill Pillowman? He’s been stabbed in the face with a harpoon spear, then shot a few times with the machine gun and is still trying to kill Jack.
• The film just added in some ominous thunderclaps even though it’s bright outside. Well as bright as this film could be. Bravo boys.
• I’m finding it hard to believe that this film was made by a human and not some sort of AI programmed to make a horror movie.
• So Jack’s leper-like demented father just lives in the woods by the beach?

• And he’s impervious to machine gun bullets.
• Jack is now fighting him with a chainsaw. Someone saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and didn’t quite understand it.
•  Jack’s father’s makeup effects are the anti-Rick Baker of effects.
• You gotta be kidding me, Jim is still alive and crawling towards Jack! 
• Jack is literally just standing there with a chainsaw with his back to Jim. He’s not attacking his father because we have to wait until Jim crawls his ass over to Jack.
• The movie could be over by now. But NoooooOOooOooOoOOoOO.
• Jim speed chews Jack’s ankle faster than a fat lady at a Golden Corral shrimp station.
• Bear in mind that Jack has a fucking chainsaw to defend himself with. But we have to wait until the special effects of Jim eating Jack’s ankle is done.
• Jack’s dad picks up Jack and actually images him on a thin sharp tree. Then he rips out Jack’s tongue and eats it.
• Jack’s dad then grabs the chainsaw to finish Jack off with by slowly sawing off his arm, leg and fingers. This movie doesn’t give a hot shit at all. AT ALL! This movie is the honey badger of movies.

• After Jack’s dad is satisfied with the mutilation of his son he turns around and there’s 5 little girls just wandering over to him without saying a word or showing emotion.
• Focus! Focus! Focus the fucking camera!
• Now they are tearing Jack’s guts out to consume. 
• Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand that’s it.
• Hahahaha. This film was made in 1980 but the end credits say 2003 Post Production! For all the glaring and obvious technical mistakes from this movie (which looks like it cost $209 to make) it made sense in 1980 standards. But fixing it up in 2003 they still couldn’t correct or enhance anything. Just goes to show that you can never polish a turd. I’m scared to even imagine what the film looked like prior to the 2003 post work.

Is It Actually Palatable: I know we complained about the amount of horror-comedies that we watched this month but this is the first time I wished the film was a comedy.

Scariest Entree: The scariest thing about this movie is that the writer-director went on to make more movies.

 

Is It Raw and Bloody:This is the only positive I can give this sorry excuse for a film, that it is chock full of blood and gore effects.

Any Mouth-Watering Nudity: Nada.

Most Delectable Line: I guess it would be either “Who are you anyway, Police?” And the cop says “No, I’m Batman!” or “She doesn’t know what it’s like to live with a leper!”

Most Delicious Scene: There are so many to choose from! I’d have to go with the first scene with the girl getting killed with the lawnmower. Why she was killed with a lawnmower and not in a less messy and simpler way is a great question though. But this scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie which is off the wall gore effects.

Most Flavorless Scene: There are so many to choose from! The ending with the “twist” that Jim was Pillowman was so fucking stupid it was basically comedy brilliance!

Overall: I am so thankful that this month is over. I cannot believe the level of trash I endured this Schlocktoberfest. I originally was going to watch the French cannibal feature Raw or the other French one, Delicatessen but I really didn’t want to watch a foreign-language movie since that would be difficult to take notes with constantly pausing to write so I don’t miss a subtitle. But after watching The Long Island Cannibal Massacre, I was really going to watch either of them because I needed to watch something somewhat worthwhile (Both Raw and Delicatessen are critically lauded) but I was just so spent and tired of these cannibal movies. So I said ‘fuck it’ and just gave up. But if you want to watch something so cheap and amateurish that you’d swear you can a better job now with an iPhone and some fish guts then this is the movie for you! Like I said, this should be a comedy and if you go in thinking this is a spoof of the cannibal/slasher genre then you may be better off. I watched this last past Friday and after the weekend thinking about it, I appreciated it more because it’s so fucking stupid and terrible.

Score: 3 Oatmeal Faced Lepers (out of 10)