The Beauties of El Superbeasto

If I could make a blog solely to defend Rob Zombie's luminous career in horror film, I would. If I truly felt there was enough material to nitpick and gush over that would be meaningful to anyone but myself, I would create that blog without hesitation. But there are two reasons I haven't done this after many years of consideration:

1. I'm not yet studied enough to properly tackle the subject to the scholarly degree that I would like to, but I'm working on it (I'm also taking volunteers for thesis partners), and 
2. Even with the all the research and passion in the world to back me up, I won't change anyone's mind about Rob Zombie.

Zombie is an alienating name among the horror community--namely for his contributions to your precious Halloween series (which I will get to one day)--and he has a way of inspiring a love it/hate it split between fans. I am staunchly in the LOVE IT camp, all the time every day, but I have entered that zone of fandom where even the annoying tropes about that favorite auteur are inherently lovable. Think more Stephen King, less Quentin Tarantino. Those tropes like how Zombie gives his psychotic murderers nearly lyrical vocabulary but writes cringe-worthy dialogue for suburbanites, or how little time there is between seeing Sheri Moon's face and seeing her bare ass.

In light of the recent announcement of a new installment in the saga of the Firefly family, 3 From Hell, on the way, I'd like to highlight one of Rob Zombie's less appreciated ventures. No, not that one. Or that one. I'm talking about the one nobody seems to ever talk about, most likely because it's the one everyone forgets even exists.

Ohhh, right, that one.

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is as much an homage to classic horror as it is Ren & Stimpy. Over the top violence and crass humor meets cartoon physics, with a healthy dose of exploitation thrown in, all with a self-aware meta approach. It all fits together somehow, in that delicious Rob Zombie way. This is truly a film that his fans (perhaps only his fans) can appreciate, highlighting all of his strengths while showing off his goofier side.

WARNING: Many screenshots ahead are definitely NSFW.

The plot--or more accurately the sequence of events that vaguely string together--is thus. The film takes place in a world populated with all the great monsters of Hollywood, plus a variety of other horrific freaks. El Superbeasto (Tom Papa) is a former celebrity luchador who has spent his retirement getting fat and producing porno flicks. He occasionally does bounty-hunting business with his adopted sister Suzi X (Sheri Moon Zombie), although she is clearly more committed to the job than Beasto.

Thanks for the moral support, I guess?

Elsewhere, the evil Dr. Satan (Paul Giamatti in maybe my favorite role, which is saying something) is looking for a wifey in order to achieve his full potential as a super-demon. He searches the globe for a woman with the mark of 666 on her ass, and finds his unholy bride in the luscious stripper Velvet von Black (Rosario Dawson). Beasto witnesses Velvet being kidnapped by Dr. Satan's gorilla manservant Otto (Tom Kenny) and rounds up his sister and his old wrestling buddies to rescue the girl and "get busy tapping that ass." A whole other bunch of crazy shit happens too, including Nazi zombies, spooky stripclubs, horny robots, explosions, mutilations, city-wide destruction, and musical numbers. And tits. Lots and lots of tits.

Here's a souvenir!

I won't sugarcoat it, folks. I hated this movie the first time I saw it. Hell, I didn't even finish it until my third watch. It's is a tasteless mess with lots of hokey jokes and gross imagery, plus some not-so-flattering depictions of women. But, after many viewings, it is precisely those things that I have come to appreciate about this trashy cartoon romp. Especially when it comes to my girls, Suzi and Velvet.

Before we get into that, a personal note: there's something about animated girls that has always been close to my heart. Like any kid, I always loved animation and I paid special attention to the ladies. Back in the 90's, there were maybe two girls in any given ensemble kids show (at least the ones that weren't specifically marketed to girls), and in the movies, even less. They were often love interests and many weren't especially complex. But there were standouts.

I imagine that Jessica Rabbit had a profound effect on most of us at an early age, but for me personally, she was an idol. She was everything seven-year-old me hoped to be one day, a stunning pillar of grace and slink that could cause a whole room to fall silent in awe, all while she pulls the strings behind your back. My big break on the Toon Town jazz scene never did hit, but to this day, I still carry some of Jessica around with me the way others may follow Marilyn's or Audrey's example. The best of these animated beauties revealed the layers of their character over time--like Jessica turning out to be a master sleuth as well as a faithful adoring wife, or Lola Bunny being an exceptionally good basketball player, I could go on--and thus they remain with us as icons, despite the questionable intentions behind their conception and design.

Exactly.

With that in mind, I have fallen deeply in love with the girls of El Superbeasto, because they follow this formula to its absolute unapologetic extreme. Suzi X and Velvet von Black are a thirteen-year-old boy's idea of "strong female characters" and I'm totally okay with it. I'm more than okay with it, I fucking love it from every ridiculous angle, to the point that--just like these other sexy idols of my childhood--I carry a little bit of them with me through my day. Most of that credit has to go to the ladies playing these cartoon pinups, since Sheri Moon and Rosario Dawson are both personal heroes and they seem to really have a blast rolling with the material.

And they've both certainly done worse.

First, there's the bubbly one-eyed badass Suzi X. Sheri Moon is Rob Zombie's muse and makes an appearance in all his films, so it's no surprise that she gets the dream role of impossibly sexy blonde super assassin. Her sex appeal and killer instincts are doled out in spades throughout the film. Suzi's origin story is portrayed as a sexy parody of Taxi Driver--a cheerleader turned vigilante doing pull ups in her closet and holding her arm over a stove burner in a dingy apartment, wearing only a gun holster and a thong. We first meet her infiltrating a Nazi castle guarded by werewolves and topless fembots in order to steal Hitler's preserved head, all while sporting an outfit straight out of Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS.

Try doing this cosplay sometime.

Suzi's a walking wet dream and the movie exploits that at every opportunity, but the cool thing about Suzi is that doesn't seem to care either way about the attention she gets. She uses all of her skills, including her looks, to gain the upper hand in any situation. And more often than not, she prefers to resolve things with her guns...and her pistols. She's known more for her violent tendencies than her beauty, able to clear out a bar full of monsters at the mere mention of her name. The only ones to underestimate her are those who don't know any better, but they learn soon enough--she responds to a certain scuzzy clown grabbing her ass by clenching her glutes tight enough to break his hand.

Somehow the least disgusting thing Captain Spaulding's ever done.

There only seems to be room in Suzi's heart for her sexually-frustrated robot companion Murray (Brian Posehn). Murray's in the ultimate friend-zone, programmed to adore Suzi while she seems oblivious to his advances. He gets his own rewards, though, like morphing into a vehicle she can straddle or getting the pleasure of watching her change into a new outfit. Personally, I think Suzi has the right idea having a robot boyfriend. He's got the obedience of a golden retriever, the sex drive of a desperate teenager, and he has all sorts of neat uses for the girl on the go.

She invented the multi-purpose boyfriend. Where's her Kickstarter?

On a whole other level of horny animators entertaining themselves, we have Velvet von Black, the star attraction of Monsterland's premier titty bar. She's a chain-smoking vixen with inflatable breasts and a bad attitude, and she remains topless for almost the entire movie. I absolutely love her, and her burlesque theme song gets stuck in my head on a weekly basis.

She invented multi-purpose titties. Where's her Kickstarter?

Rosario Dawson is sublime as the foul-mouthed alpha stripper who doesn't have a nice thing to say to anybody. She dominates the stage with her natural charisma, her act consisting of assaulting the audience with her opposable tits, pouring particular moterboat-y abuse on any poor schmuck foolish enough to tip her. She's nonplussed when a giant talking gorilla appears in her dressing room, and proceeds to trash-talk the brute even as he hauls her over his shoulder "like a mink-ass stole and shit" and takes off into the night.

This woman can take a fart joke and turn it into a sexual power move.

As a damsel, she's hardly distressed, responding to her imprisonment in Dr. Satan's lair with delight over the jacuzzi and complimentary minibar. She's a nightmare of a hostage, lounging in luxury and still talking shit at every opportunity. Despite being pulled between two men's affections/erections, Velvet is only ever interested in herself. She only agrees to marry Dr. Satan on the promise of financial gain and making her girlfriends jealous, and I don't think she ever even acknowledges Beasto (aside from briefly smothering him with her ass onstage).

Did I also mention how she ain't got time for your bullshit?

Although Dr. Satan needs Velvet to ascend to his super-demon status according to an unholy prophecy, his heart truly lies with Suzi, a torch he's been carrying since they were in high school (because of course). Not a moment after getting hitched to Velvet and triggers Dr. Satan's transmogrification into a giant hell monster does he scoop up Suzi and go stomping off to consummate his pubescent fantasies. So we have two women, both completely uninterested and detached from the primary situation, forced between the affections of a super-powered Dr. Satan. What's a girl to do?

This conflict brings us to the moment we were all waiting for, the Catfight. Two voluptuous badass bitches get down on the pavement to a musical number about how it's totally okay to jerk off to it!

Let's just not even bring up the Bechdel test, shall we?

I'll be an El Superbeasto apologist till the day I die, but there isn't much you can defend with a catfight scene. The first and only interaction between our two female leads consists of shit-talking one another over Dr. Satan's attentions, and swiftly dissolves into a topless street fight that's cheered on by a gaggle of drooling men. I will argue that the scene isn't as much over a man as it is a fight over each girl's self-respect--newlywed Velvet isn't gonna tolerate being cheated on, and Suzi doesn't respond well to name-calling. Since neither of them have romantic feelings for Dr. Satan, their fight is solely between them, so I can rest easy that El Superbeasto at least has that over a number of other films. Plus, this scene provides a truly great moment just before the brawl where Suzi sweetly asks a giant kaiju demon to release her, then coerces him by grinding her stiletto into his palm.

She did ask.

The whole venture ends pretty unfortunately for Velvet, with Suzi serving her a mouthful of pavement and a final crushing blow coming from her new husband's cloven hoof. But it all works out okay, because squishing his wife causes Dr. Satan's power-up to melt away and makes him vulnerable to "a little smashing of the ol' fuckface" from Beasto. We all live happily ever after as Suzi and Murray take off on another adventure, and Velvet recovers under Otto the gorilla's care, occasionally taking advantage of his baser drives. You could argue that tweaking his smart screw is a form of interspecies sexual manipulation...but again, Velvet's in it for her own gain, and if that means switching off a gorilla's sentience to harness his more animal instincts, so be it. Plus, they do seem pretty happy together.

"He's so cute when he goes all rabid on me!"

I have struggled with the feminist interpretation of many movies I love, because whether it's exploitative nonsense or critically acclaimed Oscar bait, it's excruciatingly difficult to find a female character that isn't PROBLEMATIC in some sense. I'm not even sure what the ideal female character is anymore, since a lot of the ones I thought were perfect haven't aged so well in 2018 (did I already mention Quentin Tarantino?).

I'm sorry, Uma. I'm sorry for everything.

AND YET THIS MOVIE. Somehow, for all the sleaze and silliness that saturates every frame of this demented film, El Superbeasto goes down pretty smooth for the perpetually annoyed feminist inside of me. Suzi X and Velvet von Black are prime spank bank material literally by design, but they are also fully realized characters that go for what they want and never compromise themselves, and they get the happiest endings of this entire stupid romp.

Consider that the "main" male characters, Beasto and Dr. Satan, are portrayed as insecure, egotistical buffoons whose only motivation is chasing ass and gaining power, and both walk away empty handed (although Beasto does go on tour with Loverboy, which is alright). Meanwhile, the babes they were lusting after end up with a robot and a talking gorilla, respectively, and not only are these both portrayed as happy fulfilling relationships, but you can also take away that sentient non-human manservants are preferable to actual men.

I AM GIVING A FEMINIST DEFENSE OF A FILM CONTAINING THIS IMAGE. FIGHT ME.

If you hate this movie, keep in mind, I did too once. But if, like me, you just can't get it out of your head, it may be time to give it another shot. This is a movie that repulsed me upon entry and now it's the one I put on when I'm plastered and all that can satisfy me is pure grease (plus, it's better to quote these lines and sing these songs with a slur in your speech). El Superbeasto is trash, but it's such a beautiful mess with zero morality and the salty stench of ham throughout, with just a smidge of loving homage thrown in, that it ascends its original purpose. It's more than trash, it's a masterpiece of trash, and I hope as time goes by, it's one of the more fondly remembered of Rob Zombie's oeuvre.

Period Pieces -- Movies to Watch When You're on the Rag

(Disclaimer: The following contains candid references to menstruation.)

It's that time of the month, ladies! I'm talking cramps, bloating, mood swings! I'm talking a typhoon of hormones and phantom baby rage let loose upon your uterus, with your own personal crime scene to admire every time you go to the bathroom! That's right, it's your period, and it's happy to see ya!

Despite the week-long maelstrom they bring with them, periods really are an amazing phenomenon. It's our uniquely feminine connection to the earth, the will of the tides, the waning of the moon. Even in such an unpleasant state, I can't help but get a sense of my feminine energy being recharged, this pain representing a sort of rebirth. My time of the month is when I feel most female, and that in itself is a beautiful thing.

All that being said, it still really fucking sucks. For me, the first day is always the worst. It's like a vampire is literally draining me dry from my most vulnerable place, taking all my energy with it. All I'm good for that horrible first day is curling up with a heating pad and watching some movies. And since I tend to watch stuff that fits my mood, this monthly celebration of womanhood deserves female-driven films dripping with blood. Here are some of my recommendations for your next camp out in the Red Tent.

CARRIE

The pinnacle of all period movies, Stephen King's Carrie as imagined by Brian de Palma is an absolute classic. But that's not the one I'm talking about. I love it to pieces, but it also makes me cry, and given my delicate state, I'm especially vulnerable to such emotional outbursts. So how do I enjoy the ultimate menstrual movie without weeping? Simply pop in the 2002 made-for-television remake and get ready to have some fun! This movie jazzes up Carrie's powers with bad CGI, beating the 2013 movie to the punch, and threw in a modern touch and a few jokes for extra flavor. The result still doesn't hold a candle to de Palma's masterpiece, but it's more like the Lifetime version of Carrie, cranking up the melodrama and tasking pretty good actors with terrible dialogue. Angela Bettis (May, The Woman) makes a fantastic Carrie, playing it as a true weirdo outcast, all wild hair and jittery meltdowns. Margaret White as portrayed by Patricia Clarkson (The Green Mile, Easy A) is somehow more chilling than ever, all soft soothing tones as she recites archaic verses before throwing a sudden cold slap to the face--plus the horrified way she says "Internet!" is truly priceless. Add appearances by horror alums Jodelle Ferland (Silent Hill) as a young Carrie and Katherine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps, American Mary) as one of the mean girls, and you've got yourself a fine addition to the long line of King adaptations that tried to be truer to the book and ended up forgotten by everyone but thinkpiece writers who grew up with cable.

GINGER SNAPS

Let's see how Katherine Isabelle likes it when she gets a period! Another great film where the plot is kicked off by someone's first blood, Ginger Snaps takes the idea of menstruation and blossoming womanhood and turns it rabid. I don't know anyone who enjoys getting their period, but I certainly didn't know anyone in school who never wanted one in the first place. It's a rite of passage, a sign of growing up, and something every girl wants to experience at some point. From Ginger and Bridget's point of view, becoming a woman and becoming a monster are one and the same. Neither of them intend to grow up, or at least go anywhere the other won't follow. When Ginger is bitten by a werewolf on the eve of her first period and has no choice but to become both, the true horror emerges from how much she likes it. She's suddenly more interested in boys than having suicide photoshoots with her sister. She relishes the power that comes with this body, but when it begins to turn on her, she is powerless to stop it. You could pick apart the parallels between lycanthropy and femininity all day, from a body charged by the moon to a hunger for sex that borders on bloodlust. Ginger Snaps pulls all the humor and tragedy of The Curse together into one sweet package.

TEETH

I think every girl has felt the storm brewing inside her once a month and wondered what her ladybits could be capable of if given the right tools to lash out. Teeth takes a legend as old as time and puts it in the modern day, hilariously bestowing vagina dentata upon a young abstinence advocate. This is another about the geyser of complications that comes with budding womanhood, most of it stemming from the chaos going on in your nethers. Teeth beautifully renders one of the more delicate horrors of being a teenage girl, especially growing up with a Christian identity. You aspire to purity and marriage while the motives of the mystery in your pants invades your every other thought, and should you choose to act on those desires, you face a multitude of risks even more severe than sinner's guilt. Dawn (Jess Weixler) has one of the most satisfying arcs I've seen in a horror film--starting out as a timid girl afraid of the potential of her own body, coming away at the end transformed into a liberated, powerful praying mantis of a woman with one hell of a secret weapon.

EXCISION

What woman hasn't discovered an especially gnarly glob of raspberry jam in her panties and taken a second to marvel at the repulsive wonders of the human body? A polar opposite to the protagonist of Teeth, Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord) is fascinated by her own body, right down to the gory details. One of the unsung heroines of feminist horror, Pauline makes every effort to reject any hint of traditional femininity. She's enamored with blood, purposefully unkempt and gleefully crass, most of her antics in direct rebellion against her prim mother (Traci Lords). When she decides to lose her virginity, she marches right up to her chosen mate and bluntly declares her intentions. What she doesn't mention is that she's scheduled their hookup during the heaviest day of her flow. The tryst that follows is a highlight in a film that's stuffed with amazing moments, cutting between the blood-soaked passion pit in Pauline's head and the squelchy reality in a dingy motel room. The disgusting delights of this film only escalate from there. In an industry that's lousy with flawless hotties being hot for hotness' sake, it's so refreshing to have a female protagonist that is just a powerhouse of gross and flaunts it shamelessly. For once, the outcast girl is not the shrinking violet in need of some gentle soul to notice her, but instead a sexually-charged psychopath who dreams in giallo gore. Definitely the kind of girl I can get behind when I'm feeling a weird mix of profoundly unattractive, inexplicably horny and capable of terrible things.

JENNIFER'S BODY

Ever get to a point in your cycle where you just want to rip a man apart based on the simple truth that he doesn't have to deal with this shit? And does that thought lead to remembering all the other things men don't have to deal with, like catcalls and bra shopping and sneezing right after applying mascara and systematic oppression dating back to time immemorial and suddenly you find yourself staring daggers at your fiance and digging your fingernails into your thigh to keep from scratching his eyes out? Or is that just me? Anyway, Jennifer's Body is a great way to take that fantasy for a walk and have a few laughs along the way. Jennifer (Megan Fox) is the girl we all hated in high school, outrageously beautiful with her pick of any boy she lays her sultry blue eyes upon, her seductive ways hiding a fragile ego and girlish naivete. When a satanic ritual goes sour because she lies about being a virgin, Jennifer develops demonic powers and starts feeding on local boys, working her way toward the one thing she could never have: her best friend's boyfriend. Jennifer's Body has some interesting things to say about the more poisonous aspects of female friendship, despite a few kinks in the flow (I'm looking at you, girl on girl makeout scene that was only included for the misleading trailers and you know it), but like Ginger Snaps it speaks to the little ways girls can grow apart as they grow up, sometimes over something as petty as our own insecurities. At the end of the day, it's just so much fun to watch lovely Megan Fox unhinge her jaw and slurp up boy blood, and it's a lot healthier than taking out those jolts of misandry on the men in your life.

THE DESCENT

Six women go spelunking into an uncharted cave full of dead ends, tight tunnels, deep pools, and unknowable darkness. If you've studied your literary analysis, you'll recognize this as six characters in search of an exit from a giant vagina. (The sheer imagery of the blood swamp at the climax is enough to give any menstrual girl a nagging sense of deja vu.) Make those characters kick ass women--each with a well established personality and active purpose among the group as well as driving motivation based on interpersonal relationships with one another as well as survival--and you really can't get much more girl power than that. Throw some mole people into an already harrowing situation and we've got a wild ride ahead. This film is so intense and definitely the biggest downer of the list, but it's hard not to get jazzed up watching these women dangle over chasms by their bare hands and wriggle through tunnels with little more than a "woohoo!" once they get to the other side. It's not many horror movies that can claim to be more terrifying before the monsters show up, but The Descent understands that the true horrors come from what you bring with you down into the cave. (That's another vagina metaphor for you.)

DUMPLINGS

With all the age-reversal pills and potions on any given skin care aisle, it's enough to drive any woman insane searching for the ultimate product that would return everything she has lost between the lines on her face. It's hard to shake the feeling that maybe the answer lies in a more ancient, infinitely more barbaric solution. Effortlessly cool spinster Aunt Mei (Bai Ling) has a business selling homemade dumplings guaranteed to restore beauty and vitality to the women who eat them. The only catch is that the secret ingredient is a bit hard to come by...aborted fetuses don't just grow on trees. When one of her customers, Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung), craves a stronger product, Mei tells her the only solution is a rarer variety of meat--one that comes at an unspeakable cost. Dumplings examines the roles women are expected to fill--to be beautiful and to bear children--and wonders what happens when a woman chooses priority of one over the other, and what she would do to keep what she has worked so hard to claim. Feminine fears are in injected into every frame of the film, from the paranoid suspicion of a husband's infidelity, to the profound horror of realizing that you are the source of that strong fishy smell wafting through the room. Plus it's hard not to notice the delicious imagery of fetuses being re-purposed as filling for suggestively shaped pillows of dough. Whether you choose to watch the original short included in Three...Extremes (which I recommend) or the full-length film, this movie is a deliciously uncomfortable journey through the body when we see it as magic, a vessel charged by the power we feed to it.

So how ya doing, champ? Has the storm subsided, or does it still feel like goblins are chasing cave divers through your guts? Pop another Midol and take a hot bath, you beautiful menstrual monster, and never be ashamed of what you're going through. We may not be able to discuss Shark Week at the water cooler, but we can at least feel that female power and inherent understanding through the movies, the bloodier the better. Never forget the ancient power given to you, how it has frightened and fascinated men across the ages, and always remember that if you can withstand this torment from within, you can face anything waiting for you out there. Solidarity, my sisters! Let us not bleed alone!