The Ghost Of Voo Dew Past

The Ghosts Of Voo Dew Past
Mountain Dew (2022)

Last month, I tried the new Mountain Dew Voo Dew 4, which had a flavor that tasted to me like a raspberry lemonade mixed with grapefruit soda.  In my review, I mentioned that it's difficult to compare it to the Voo Dew flavors that were released over the past three years since there's no way to try all four flavors at the same time to give an accurate comparison.  Perhaps the spirit of the Mountain Dew Reaper has heard me because on October 18th, they announced that a six pack that includes each of the previous versions of Voo Dew would be made available to purchase through their web store.

This was a deal that I couldn't pass up, and I'm happy to say that they've arrived just in time for a Halloween taste test.

In my previous reviews of these flavors, I thought that the 2019 version tasted like a Creamsicle mixed with Fruit Loops, the 2020 version tasted like Tropical Skittles, the 2021 version tasted like Yipe Stripe Fruit Stripe Gum mixed with a tart citrus flavor, and this year's version was like raspberry lemonade mixed with grapefruit soda.  I was reasonably sure that these were four distinct flavors and that they weren't just putting out the same exact flavor every year and letting my mind play tricks on me.  The fact that they put them all out at the same time confirms that they are definitely different from one another.

It's difficult to tell from the photo, but each of the version of Voo Dew have a slightly different color.  It's subtle, but it's there.  The flavor differences are not subtle, but they're also hard to describe.  If you think that's a cop out, see if you can find the words to describe the flavor of cola to someone who has never tried it.  Once you realize that the words "fizzy" and "sweet" can be applied to every carbonated soft drink, it becomes a pretty challenging task to put the flavor into words.

Now that I've had an opportunity to try them back-to-back, I'd like to revise my description of each of the flavors:

• Voo Dew 1 (2019): Fruity Pebbles cereal
• Voo Dew 2 (2020): Gummy Bears with a creme base
• Voo Dew 3 (2021): Blue Raspberry Blow Pop
• Voo Dew 4 (2022): Grapefruit Flavored Sour Patch Kids (which don't exist, as far as I know)

They're all pretty good, but my favorite one is still Voo Dew 2.  Next would probably be the current one because I tend to like grapefruit soda, followed by the first Voo Doo, and then Voo Dew 3.  It's not that I think the 2021 version is bad; I'm just not a big blue raspberry fan so I enjoyed the other ones more.  Truth be told, I'd probably get sick of all four of them pretty quickly if they were available all year, so they make a perfect limited edition product to come out every year for spooky season.

If you would like to do your own taste test, the Ghosts Of Voo Dew Past six pack is still available at the Dew Store as of now, but I can't imagine that it'll be available for very much longer.  If you order it, you'll get six 16 oz cans of 2019, 2020 and 2021 Voo Dew, but not an even number of each flavor.  I got two cans of Voo Dew 2019, three cans of Voo Dew 2020, and just one can of Voo Dew 2021.  A six pack will set you back $19.99, but you get free shipping, so it works out to about $3.33 cents per can.  That's a little on the expensive side, but it's not too outrageous to have as a Halloween treat.

It Is Time To Keep Your Appointment With The Wicker Man

The Wicker Man
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA

This place has truly become our happy place.  Our first show at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater in May 2021.  Fast forward seventeen months and we are fortunate enough to spend the final night of the 2022 season watching our 180th movie on the big screen under the stars in Lehighton, Pennsylvania.  Beyond that, we have made friends, met dozens of special guests who have worked and appeared in some of our favorite movies, and have truly found a community where we feel accepted.  I cannot put into words how special this place is to me and how thankful I am to call it my home away from home.

The final show of the 2022 season was a Devil's Night screening of the 1973 Christopher Lee horror classic: The Wicker Man.  Neither my wife or I have ever watched this movie before last night.  I've never seen the remake before either, which I'm told is bad to the point of being an unintentional comedy.  It wouldn't be accurate to say that I came into this screening completely blind because it's ending has become common knowledge in pop culture over the years.  For this reason, watching this movie reminded me very much of the experience that I had the first time that I saw The Planet Of The Apes... I know a snapshot of the ending, but I don't know how they got there.

The Wicker Man is a phenomenal movie and absolutely deserving of its status as one of the greatest horror movies of all time.  The atmosphere reminded me very much of Midsommar, but it's presented as the setting of a very compelling detective story that casts a Joe Friday-like policeman as the outsider instead of a group of obnoxious college students.  Sergeant Neil Howie visits the remote Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate reports of a missing young girl, but the closer he gets to her, the farther away from the truth he gets.  It's as close to a perfect film that I have ever seen; brilliant from start to finish.

I very strongly recommend this movie if you haven't seen it before, and there's no better time to check it out than on Halloween night.  From what I can tell, it's not streaming anywhere as part of a subscription package.  It can be rented to stream for as little as 99 cents, and I promise you that it will be the best value for the dollar that you will spend all year.

As the credits rolled, we all made our way toward the back of the lot to gather round The Wicker Man and watch it burn.  Rob jogged out of the projection booth with a torch and lit the wooden figure, which was stuffed with popcorn, and we all watched it burn as we said goodbye to our drive-in family for the winter and celebrated an amazing season.

 

There are some experiences in life that burn into your memory (no pun intended).  This was one of them.

With the exception of my grandparents house when I was a child, I can't think of any other place in this world that I've been able to relax and be myself and have as much fun as I do at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater.  Virgil, Jeff, Mark, Sandy, Beth, Dave, Rob, JT and everybody else that we've talked to on the staff have made us feel so welcome here, and I can't thank them enough for all of the hard work that they do in making every experience at the drive-in special for everybody in attendance.  These are truly good folks.  I am a pretty awkward dude who doesn't always find the right words, but I never feel judged here.  I've met so many of my fellow audience members that I can't even begin to count them, and even though I'm not nearly the movie expert that many of these folks are, there has never been a time where I felt like an outsider.  If any of you ever stumble across my blog, know that I appreciate all of you, and we'll see you in 2023.

Trick Or Treat

Trick R Treat / Trick Or Treat
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA

The second to last night of the 2022 season at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater is a double feature of Halloween-themed classics with similar titles: the 2007 anthology horror flick Trick 'r Treat, and the heavy metal horror themed movie from 1986, Trick Or Treat.

The poster art for this show was designed by Tom BiFulco, and it would make for an incredible Halloween decoration even if you didn't attend this show.

 

The concession building was decked out for Halloween with lights, decorations, and an awesome photo staging area featuring Sam from Trick 'r Treat.

 

I didn't realize until after we got back to the car that I'm standing directly in front of the lit jack-o-lantern that was a part of this display.

There was a car decorating contest on the lot, and a lot of folks put in a hell of a lot of work and came up with some incredible displays.  My favorite one was the Killer Klowns From Outer Space car from The Mutant Mom and her family.  She, her husband, and her daughter are three of the kindest and most talented people I've met at the drive-in (or anywhere else, for that matter).  I am envious of both their creativity and their drive to bringing their visions to life.

The Killer Klowns car hit up all of the most memorable parts from the movie, including a balloon dog, cotton candy cocoon, a pile of whipped cream from acidic pies, and even the puppet show from the back of the vehicle.  The only thing that was as impressive as their car were their costumes, including their daughter dressed as Shorty, complete with boxing gloves and ready to knock the block off of any bikers who dared to harass the Klowns.

The costume contest was projected onto the movie screen.  This is something that they've really started to perfect this season, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with the technology.  Most of my pictures came out a little blurry, but the creativity on display here is plain to see despite my lousy photography.

As always, there was a trailer reel prior to the first feature of the night, but I don't ever remember seeing this Coming Soon card from the West End Drive-In in Allentown, PA.  I think that I remember Jeff mentioning that he ran this drive-in when it was open, but I may be mistaking it for another one.

 

The first movie of the night was the 2007 film Trick 'r Treat.  I hadn't seen this film before last night, but I've heard a lot of good things about it and I was pretty familiar with the Sam character from all of the merchandise and other references that I've seen that have featured him.  The movie is an anthology with several mini-stories like Creepshow, but they're all loosely tied together as taking place on Halloween night in the town of Warren Valley, Ohio.

If I'm being completely honest, this movie was disappointing.  I didn't think it was bad, but it fell short from living up to the hype.  The Sam character is hardly in the movie at all, and the segment that he's in didn't do him justice.  Overall, the storytelling just wasn't particularly interesting.  The principal's story arc was kind of silly, and the young ladies that his story intersected with had a twist that could be seen coming a mile away.  I was expecting vampires instead of werewolves, but the results are the same.  The only one of the stories that really held my interest was when the kids tried to set up Rhonda to be scared by the wreckage of the school bus, but even that wasn't anything that blew my mind or anything.  The highest compliment that I'd give it is that it would have made a pretty good episode of Are You Afraid Of The Dark.

I can't imagine why Trick 'r Treat was given an R rating.  My takeaway was that this movie wanted to be the modern equivalent of the classic anthology horror movies and television shows of the 80's, but a heavily sanitized version that tries to walk the tightrope of trying to be edgy while catering to an over-sensitive modern audience.  Frankly, I think you could any four episodes at random of a show like Tales From The Crypt, Tales From The Darkside, Monsters, or even Amazing Stories and come up with something just as good or better.  I feel kind of bad writing this review because I didn't think it was terrible, but for as visually impactful as the Sam character is, I was left thinking that he should be featured in a better movie.

They played two vintage cartoons from original 35mm prints during intermission.  The first was a 1968 Woody Woodpecker short called One Horse Town, and the second was a Merrie Melodies cartoon from 1956 called Wideo Wabbit, featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.  I remember that they showed each of these over different nights during the Catherine & Kelli Save The World weekend, but I certainly don't mind seeing them again.  I could watch these old classic cartoons every day and never get tired of seeing them!

 

The second half of the double feature is one of the most underrated horror flicks of the 80's: the 1986 cult classic Trick Or Treat.  I've heard this movie described as being Christine, but with a rock musician instead of a car, and I can definitely see why.  It's about a metalhead high school kid named Eddie who gets picked on by the jocks.  His rock hero, Sammi Curr, was recently killed in a fire, but has come back as sort of an electric ghost after Eddie plays his last unreleased record backwards.  The movie has cameo appearances from Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmons, and it brilliantly pokes fun of the ridiculous Satanic Panic that had uptight people clutching their pearls throughout most of my childhood.  If you haven't seen it before, I highly recommend giving it a shot.

There's only one more night and one more movie remaining this season at the drive-in.  Man, this year went fast!

How You Turn My World You Precious Thing

Fantasy Friday: Labyrinth / The Witches
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
It's the final weekend of the 2022 season at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater, and they're going out with five classics, starting off with a double feature that opened many of our eyes to the world of horror and fantasy when we were children.

When tickets went on sale for this show in September, I was hopeful that the Phillies would make it into the playoffs, but I didn't think they'd to make it to the World Series.  I'm glad that I bought tickets, but had I known that this double feature would coincide with the first game of just the eighth World Series that the Phillies have reached in the team's 138 year history, I'm not sure that I would have made the same choice.  However it all worked out.  I got to watch the game on my phone during intermission and after the second movie, which ended about five minutes before JT Realmuto hit the go-ahead home run that gave the Phillies the win.

One of the challenges of having conflicting passions is that both fan groups that I associate with are on completely different ends of the spectrum.  The folks that I met up with at Joe Bob's Jamboree last year scoffed at the fact that I would be with them at the Mahoning on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, but I'd be skipping out on Friday because I already had tickets to a Phillies double header before the Jamboree was announced.  Some of them almost seemed insulted that I would even consider going to a ballgame instead of spending all four days at the drive-in.  Even now, if I'm wearing a Phillies shirt at the drive-in, I can expect at least one person to make a sarcastic comment about "sports ball".  And before you think that I'm talking smack about cinephiles, I get an equal and opposite reaction from my dad and from other Phillies fans when it comes to spending a weekend watching old movies on 35mm instead of cheering on the Fightins.  Imagine standing at Citizens Bank Park and telling people that you couldn't make it to a playoff game because you already had tickets for the drive-in to see two old movies that you could watch on DVD any time you wanted to.  Neither side seems to be able to appreciate the passion for something that they're not into.  As for me, I have loved movies and Phillies baseball in equal measure for as long as I can remember, and if that creates a few scheduling conflicts in my life from time to time, so be it.

In addition to the movies, there was a lot of fun happening on the lot last night.  There was a costume contest, a trunk-or-treat for the kids, and a car decorating contest.  There were also a few surprises on the big screen, including a pre-show cartoon screened from an original 35mm print.  It was a Mickey Mouse cartoon called Runaway Brain.  This was originally screened in the mid 90's before A King In King Arthur's Court, but it's definitely appropriate for the spooky season.  We saw it at the Mahoning last season at the Keith Coogan double feature, and I was happy to have the chance to see it again.

 

Labyrinth premiered in theaters four days before my sixth birthday.  I didn't know about it at the time, and it wasn't one of the movies that my family brought me out to the theater to see, however it became one of my favorites after it came out on home video.  David Bowie's voice in this movie has echoed in my mind since childhood, and I'm immediately brought back to my childhood every time I hear Underground or Magic Dance, or any of the other incredible songs from this film.  Once again, the Mahoning is like a time machine that has given me the opportunity to see movies that I didn't get to experience in theaters, and I got to see it as it was originally shown - from a 35mm print projected on the big screen.

Instead of showing one of their intermission reels, they screened a 35mm print of the 1938 Three Stooges short called Wee Wee Monsieur.  It featured the original stooges: Larry, Curly and Moe, and it was the 29th short to be released by the comedy team.  I'm not sure if it would be feasible, but if they ever decided to do The Three Stooges as a theme on Sunday with a marathon of original shorts from the 30's and 40's, I would be the first in line.  There are few comedies that stand the test of time in the way that they do.

The second half of the Fantasy Friday double feature was the 1990 Jim Henson Company classic, The Witches.  Regardless of the decade that they were made, scary movies that are meant for children are usually pretty watered down.  They might have a couple of nightmare-inspiring characters, but they're often delivered with a wink and a laugh.  Hocus Pocus is a good example of this.  It's a great movie, but I wasn't afraid of the Sanderson sisters, and no kids that I grew up with who saw the film back in the 90's were either.  The same can be said for spooky kids television shows, such as Are You Afraid Of The Dark, Goosebumps and Eerie Indiana.  They're all fun and I highly recommend them, but although there might be a mild scare here or there, there's no real terror here - unless you were one of those kids who wet your pants every time you heard a creek in the attic.

The Witches is the exception.  This isn't a kids movie that's dipping its toe in the spooky pool.  This is a horror movie that's shaved just enough off of the edges so that they could show it to children.  Anjelica Huston isn't a campy showgirl wearing a witches Halloween costume while she smiles and cackles for the camera.  She is an absolutely terrifying villain, and she and the other witches in the film are scary because they're presented in a way that you could believe that they actually exist, especially if you're a kid.  Their ability to blend in with their surroundings and victimize children was something that came to mind years later when I first encountered The True Knot in Stephen King's 2013 novel, Doctor Sleep.

This is another movie that I didn't get the chance to see when it was released in theaters, but I did see it with an audience quite a bit when I was a kid.  I went to Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Boynton Beach from sixth through eighth grade.  We often had movie days on the last day of school, or for the last day before an extended holiday, like Christmas break or Spring Break.  We would still go to our classes just like any other school day, but each classroom had one of those wheel carts with a television and a VCR, and each teacher had the same stack of tapes that they would play for us.  It was pretty well coordinated, because the teacher in your first class would stop the tape before the bell rang, and then we'd all go to our next class where our second period teacher would hit play on the same movie that he or she started in their first period.  Sometimes you'd miss a minute or two, and sometimes you'd have a little overlap where you'd watch a few minutes that you just saw, but it all worked out well.  When I look back in it with adult eyes, I have no idea why they didn't just let us stay in our homeroom for the whole day, but I'm sure they had their reasons.  One of the movies that they had the license to show to us in school was The Witches, so I've forever linked it in my mind with the feeling of sitting in middle school and counting down the minutes before I'd get a break from school.

We've only got two more nights at the Mahoning before the drive-in goes into hibernation for the winter, and we're going to make the most of them.

It Begins Tonight...

Said.

A Drive Insider Triple Feature

Patreon Screening
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA

Group photo taken by ellarian.photography

The final in-person Patreon screening of the 2022 season took place last night and it was a banger.  They normally screen a single feature along with trailers and other goodies on 35mm that they've acquired as a part of their collection.  This time, it was a triple feature that went on past midnight.

One of the best parts of these screenings is the free desserts that Val makes for us, but like the features on the screen, she went especially big to close out the season with a full buffet of goodies for us all to enjoy.

 

Included on the buffet were cookies that were designed to look like the Simplex E-7 projector symbol that was used for the enamel pin that was given to members this season.  There were also delicious red velvet, pumpkin and chocolate cakes with cream cheese icing., as well as honey marshmallows, hot apple cider and a bunch of candy and other goodies, with more on the way after the first feature.

If you are a Drive Insider, no explanation for the the image above is necessary.  In fact, I'm sure that you have a sound effect playing in your head right now.  If you aren't a member of our little gang, no explanation will suffice, so I'm not even going to attempt to provide one.  What I will say is that our dessert for intermission were delicious donuts that were designed especially for us.

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Somehow, I managed to avoid a sugar coma to enjoy all three features from last night's triple feature.  The night began with a monster movie from the 1950's, followed by a 70's exploitation horror comedy, and then the night closed out with a 70's Euro sexploitation film.  As always, we've been asked to not reveal the titles of the movies that show during the Patreon screenings, but I will say that they were three movies that I probably would never have gotten to watch if not for the Mahoning Drive-In Theater, let alone to experience them projected from an original 35mm print at a drive-in.

Speaking of which, the print of last night's first feature had suffered from advanced vinegar syndrome, so we got to watch the very last time that this film will ever be screened for an audience.  Call me a film nerd if you want to, but I think that's pretty special.  Imagine how many different places this print has been over the past 64 years... how many different theaters it has been screened at over six and a half decades, from traditional indoor theaters at the end of the 50's to the drive-in and grindhouse theaters that screened it in the years that followed.  It's a piece of our cultural history, but it's an artifact that can't last forever, and we got to experience the final chapter of its existence.

I Will Chill Your Brains For The Purposes Of Garnishment

Shrunken Heads
Full Moon Entertainment (1994)

I've never seen or heard of Shrunken Heads before this week, but we were scrolling through Tubi looking for something to watch when this description stopped us dead in our tracks:

 

In addition to never having heard of Shrunken Heads, I had no idea that William Shatner once worked as a horror host.  William Shatner's Full Moon Fright Night was broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2002, and I think that the only thing that's more chock full of cheesy hilarity than this movie is the segments featuring Captain Kirk and his monster bartender riffing on the film.  The conversation that these two have when the movie is over may be the most bizarre thing I have ever seen Mr. Shatner do on camera, including his performance of Rocket Man at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards. 

The movie that Mr. Shatner is hosting is unlike anything that I've ever seen before.  For the first twenty minutes or so, it feels like you're watching an episode of Goosebumps, or a kids movie from Nickelodeon or The Disney Channel.  It was a bit jarring when the first F-bomb dropped.  It then gets progressively darker and stranger, but it somehow still maintained an overall tone as a family film.  It had me wondering what audience the filmmaker was aiming for.

If you want to watch this absolute gem of a B-movie without any spoilers, stop here, go pop some popcorn, and then click on the image below to stream William Shatner's Full Moon Fright Night presents Shrunken Heads for free on Tubi.

Shrunken Heads stars Aeryk Egan as Tommy, Bo Sharon as Billy, and Darris Love as Freddy - three middle-school aged friends living in New York City.  They buy comic books from Mr. Sumatra, an old man who runs a small newsstand.  Mr. Sumatra is played by blaxploitation film icon Julius Harris in a role that has all of the best lines in the picture.  His character is a voodoo priest and a retired Haitian police officer who looks after the three boys and steals every scene that he's a part of.  Mr. Sumatra notices that the three boys are being bullied by The Vipers, a teenage street gang who work for a local mob boss.  The leader of The Vipers is an older guy named Vinnie Benedetti, who is dating a girl named Sally who is much too young for him.  I know that Vinnie is meant to be a high school kid, but he looks like he's in his early 20's and Sally looks like she's about 13 or 14 at the oldest.  It's creepy as hell, but thankfully, there are no scenes between the two that cross any lines.  Vinnie is played by A.J. Damato, and his only credit on IMDB is this film.  Sally is played by Rebecca Herbst, who went on to have a very successful television career, including a 25 year run on General Hospital that began in 1997 and continues to this day.  All of these characters are cheesy in the best ways, but the mob boss was the one that really knocked my socks off.

The opening credits included actress Meg Foster.  She played Evil Lyn in the Masters Of The Universe live-action movie, and she's had dozens of roles in action and horror flicks from the late 70's to today.  However, I know her best as Holly Thompson, the woman with the ice blue eyes who works at the local news station that Roddy Piper takes as a hostage in one of my favorite movies of all time, They Live.  In Shrunken Heads, she plays The Vipers mafia boss, Big Moe, and if I saw this movie without any credits, I wouldn't have guessed this was her if you gave me a thousand tries.  See for yourself:

Left: Holly Thomson in They Live (1988)  //  Right: Big Moe in Shrunken Heads (1994)
Both played by actress Meg Foster

Big Moe is one of the most entertaining characters I've seen in a long time.  She may be the most outrageous and over-the-top portrayal of a mafioso that I've ever seen, and that's covering a hell of a lot of ground.  Incidentally, I'm not misgendering the character.  Big Moe is referred to as a woman in the film, despite the fact that she plays the character using a male voice and with clothing and mannerisms that do not at all suggest that Big Moe is a woman.

After witnessing Vinnie bully the three boys on the street, Sally grows disgusted with her boyfriend and breaks things off with him.  Later that night, she confesses to Tommy that she always liked him.  The two become a couple, but their relationship doesn't last long.

Tommy made a lot of poor choices in the first act of this film.  First, he gets the bright idea for he and his friends to film a video of the gang committing a robbery, and then they rat the gang members out to the police right in front of them.  Seriously guys, you couldn't have just dropped by the police station later instead of showing the tape to the cops while the gang stands there watching you do it?

The gang makes bail and captures our three heroes to bring them in front of Big Moe.  She threatens them to never interfere in her business again, but she's willing to let bygones be bygones... that is until Tommy decides that it'd be a good idea to mouth off to her while they're kidnapped at their hideout and surrounded on all sides by armed criminals.

Big Moe decides to lock them up in a back room until she can think of what to do with them.  The three boys manage to find a way to escape, but Tommy again decides to take a bad situation and make it worse by stealing a couple of bags of betting slips, which finally exhausts Big Moe's patience and she orders a hit which Vinnie and The Vipers carry out.

After the wake, Mr. Sumatra breaks into the funeral home and saws each of the boys heads off.  He must have figured that the people responsible for loading the caskets onto the hearse wouldn't notice that they'd be burying three headless corpses, and he would have been correct because the subject is never brought up.

He brings the heads back to his condo where they are boiled in a cauldron and otherwise prepared to be turned into shrunken heads... but these aren't just any old shrunken heads...

...they're flying shrunken heads!  Before you think that the wackiness stops there, you should probably know that each of the boys flying shrunken heads has a different mystical power.  Tommy shoots lightning out of his forehead that has the power to incapacitate its target, or to project his memories directly into their brain.  Billy now has vampire teeth which he uses to bite and suck the blood from his enemies.  Finally, Freddie can produce a full-sized switchblade knife which he grips in his teeth.  I'm not sure if he's regurgitating this thing or if the knife materializes out of thin air.  None of his victims thought to ask these questions when they saw a flying shrunken head with a knife in his mouth hurtling toward them.

So, the boys fly through the streets of New York City to fight crime by zapping, biting, and stabbing the bad guys.  However, instead of killing the criminals outright, the shrunken head attack causes their victims to turn into zombies... but these aren't just any old zombies...

...they're community service zombies!  A news broadcast that Sally is listening to in her apartment sheds more light on the fate of those who the shrunken heads have sought their vengeance on.

"A new and frightening disease seems to be attacking local criminals throughout the city.  The mystery illness is characterized by a peculiar shuffling gait, a total loss of bowel control, and a compulsion to pick up litter and clean graffiti.  Victims exhibited an alarming drop in blood pressure, making it impossible to locate pulse or respiration... what doctors call a pseudo-walking death.  Officials from the Center of Disease Control urge the public not to panic... unless they have criminal records."

Mr. Sumatra continues to guide his shrunken heads to rid the city of its criminal element.  They are eventually aided by Sally, who shows Mr. Sumatra that Tommy's spirit is still alive by... unbuttoning her top and letting his shrunken head fly over and snuggle up to her bra, all set to a romantic score by Danny Elfman.

The creeper vibes do not end there.  While Mr. Sumatra is preparing his mission to make Vinnie and Big Moe face "capital punishment - Haitian style", he asks Sally if she is a virgin.  Since getting to first base with a flying shrunken head that shoots lightning doesn't count, she confirms that she is, but Mr. Sumatra can't let it go at that.  He's got to drive the point home by telling her that "only a female who has never had a male member inside of her body can complete this particular spell".  You are one smooth talker, Mr. Sumatra.

The much older man then asks Sally to go into his bedroom to put on a gown that's hanging in his closet.  The reason why he has a white dress that's small enough to fit a 14 year old girl in his closet is not discussed, and I'm good with that.

Despite the fact that he has given her every reason to believe that he's a predator, she trusts him and does as he asks.  Thankfully, he is not grooming this girl for anything sexual.  He's grooming her to become a voodoo priestess and the new master of the shrunken heads.  He also shows her how to cast a spell on Vinnie and Big Moe to take vengeance on them for the murder of Tommy, Billy and Freddy, which she does... and they all lived happily ever after.

So, what did I think of this film?  I think William Shatner put it best.

 

I give it five out of five shrunken heads.  If you enjoy movies like Tammy And The T-Rex, you'll love Shrunken Heads.  Check it out!