by Josh Pasnak

TEENAGE TUPELO

Well I really wanted to see a title from Big Broad Guerrilla Monster as I went to their site and it just looked so rebellious. I picked up this one as I could rent it locally because it was released by Something Weird Video and let me tell you:

This one was great.

It is so nice to see something so totally original in the 90's. D'Lana Tunnell ("Gore Whore") stars as D'Lana, a bad girl who has a tremendous crush on local music legend Johnny Tu-Note (Hugh B. Brooks). Soon D'Lana is pregnant with Johnny's child and he snubs her. A group of women who hate men hook up with her and they bond throughout the movie. It all culminates in them wanting to meet their idol who is a local stripper/exploitation film star named Topsy Turvy who is also played by D'Lana.

This is an extremely fun movie that just reeks of coolness with great 50's/60's garage-surf music by IMPALA and just campy enough performances from all of the cast members.

A special mention should be made of the cinematography by Darin Ipema with his interesting choices of film stock, camera angles, distance, and color. The blending of these different aspects of the camera really works out and makes for a compeltely original view in today's world which seems to lack originality. Although Director J. Michael McCarthy does rather obviously have great influences from exploitation films of the 50's and 60's, he makes it seem like everything was totally his idea even though the movie is at times one big homage. I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for something completely different on your next trip to the video store.