Tag Archives: Sid Haig

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: Coffy (1973)

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Poster for Coffy (1973)Coffy (1973) by #JackHill

w/ #PamGrier #BookerBradshaw #RobertDoQui #AllanArbus #SidHaig

“She had a body men would die for – and a lot of them did!”

“Coffy’ll cream ya!”

Music by #RoyAyers

#Action #Blaxploitation #Crime
#NotQuiteClassicCinema
#FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn

What can one say about Coffy (1973) that hasn’t been said before? It’s the movie that launched Pam Grier to stardom. It inspired other filmmakers. It’s been ripped off and spoofed. Depending on your point of view, it could either be the greatest Pam Grier movie (and possibly the greatest female-led Blacksploitation movie ever made), or it could be the worst. 

Yes, surprisingly enough, the movie is a bit divisive. I have friends who hated, hated, hated it. I also have friends who love it more than life itself. How can this be?

Coffy was, in fact, the first of the Big Four Pam Grier Blacksploitation Pictures that I ever saw. I talked about this a bit in my discussion of Sheba Baby (1975). Just to refresh your memory, the Big Four are:

Coffy, Foxy Brown (1974), Friday Foster (1975) and Sheba, Baby (1975). All four of the movies were named after the character that Grier played in the movie, and all four were available to rent in matching VHS boxes. I don’t think I realized that Coffy was the first one in the series. Somehow it just found its way into my hand on that day and I took it home. 

As I said back then, I enjoyed Coffy, so I started renting (and buying) all of the other films (including other movies Pam Grier was in, like The Big Doll House (1971), Women in Cages (1972) etc).

In some ways, Coffy is the grittiest of all the Pam Grier movies. It feels ultra low budget, and it feels edgy and sleazy. Depending on your point of view, this is either a good thing, or a bad thing. I tend to lean more toward the “good thing” side of the argument. Coffy is raw, and it is nasty. The opening sequence of the film lays it all out for the viewer. We get some graphic sleaze, and then we get a really graphic shotgun blast to the head. And if you didn’t know what kind of movie you were watching before that moment, you surely do now. 

This is a hard R revenge movie. No PG tastefulness here. And I guess this could be why some people find it distasteful. Others may simply be thrown by the very low budget feel of it.

Foxy Brown was apparently conceived of as a sequel to Coffy. They changed their minds at the last minute and made her a different character. But if you watch closely, you can tell she’s basically the same woman. There’s even a hospital scene. Coffy, as you may recall, is a nurse. Foxy Brown isn’t, but you can still almost see her being one. But I digress…

Jack Hill has claimed that the budget of Foxy Brown was the same as the budget for Coffy. I find this hard to believe, as Foxy Brown looks so much slicker. Just watch the credit sequence of each movie and ask your self which one looks more expensive. 

The point is, Coffy really feels rawer than all of the other movies. It feels like a quick and dirty production. And I like ’em that way. Just tell me a good story. Don’t waste my time making it look pretty.

But speaking of looking pretty… as someone on twitter remarked to me, Pam Grier looks amazing in this movie. She really does. It’s easy to see why she became a movie star and a cultural icon. Of course, it’s more than her looks. It’s her no nonsense, in your face, badass attitude. You really believe that she is physically, and mentally, able to do the things that she does to get revenge. She easily earns her place in the vigilante action hero hall of fame.

The only thing that I don’t understand is how Pam Grier didn’t make more than four of these movies. Sure, she made a lot of other movies – and some of those are among her best. But whey weren’t there five sequels to Foxy Brown or Coffy? Or a least a few more, similar movies? I think we could have used them. 

But, ultimately, I guess we have to simply be grateful for the movies we have. And Coffy is the one that got the ball rolling. And for that reason alone, it is a #NotQuiteClassicCinema classic. I’m not sure how many times I’ve watched it over the years, but I am confident when I say that I will certainly be watching it again, on some future #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn.

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: Galaxy of Terror (1981)

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I remember when Alien hit the theatres back in 1979. Ever since I first saw Star Wars (1977) I would check the movie listing in the newspaper every day. I think I mainly wanted to reassure myself that Star Wars was still playing, because I wanted to see it again (and again). But I also loved movies in general, so maybe I was legitimately interested in knowing what was new. The iconic ad for Alien, featuring the egg with green light coming out of it and the often imitated (and sometimes parodied) tag line “In Space No One Can Hear You Scream” really sparked my imagination. I wanted to see this movie but, unlike Star Wars, it was not rated as appropriate for kids. Home video was still only a futuristic dream, so, I had to wait for Alien to be shown on television. Needless to say, I enjoyed it very much.

Fast forward a couple of years, and home video exploded onto the scene. Suddenly, I could rent movies like Alien and see them uncut (as opposed to edited for television). What was even better, I could rent and watch a whole bunch of other movies, that I’d never heard of, that were like Alien. Titles like Xtro (1982), The Intruder Within (1981) Creature (1985), Alien Prey (1977), The Alien Dead (1980) and Alien Contamination (1980) were jumping off the shelves at me. But one of the most intriguing movie boxes I remember was Galaxy of Terror (1981).

I’m honestly not sure if I ever rented it back in the day. Sometimes my friends would see a movie without me, and then I would somehow never get the chance to see it. In those early days, renting movies was like going to a movie. You almost never did it alone. It was a social activity. Eventually that changed, and by the time I got to university I was renting movies by myself every day. But I digress.

All of those Alien inspired movies started to look alike after a while, and they all kind of blurred together in my memory. So, after all these years, I wasn’t sure which one Galaxy of Terror was, or if I’d ever even seen it. Last Friday I decided that it was time to find out.

I had heard a few people say that they felt that Galaxy of Terror was the best of the Alien ripoffs, and after watching it last week I’d be inclined to agree. of course, I’d have to re-watch many of the other films before I could ever truly make such a definitive statement. But I can say that I enjoyed Galaxy of Terror very much. It’s more than just an Alien ripoff. It’s more like Alien meets Forbidden Planet (1956). And considering the low, low budget, the production design is really quite amazing. 

One of the production designers, and the 2nd Unit Director, of Galaxy of Terror was James Cameron. Yes, the guy who made The Terminator (1984), Titanic (1997) and, of course, Aliens (1986) the much loved official sequel to Alien. It seems quite likely that when making (or deciding to make) Aliens, Cameron would have been influenced, and inspired, by his experience of having worked on Galaxy of Terror.

Every review that I have read of Galaxy of Terror has made reference, in a positive way, to one scene in particular; a scene that involved what could be described as a giant space worm (or maggot) molesting (or raping) one of the female crew members (played by Taaffe O’Connell, who was also in New Year’s Evil (1980), another film that I quite like). This “space worm rape scene” is quite something, and fairly unique in the annals of #NotQuiteClassicCinema. Not since John Waters gave us a scene in Multiple Maniacs (1970) in which Divine is sexually assaulted by a giant lobster has there been anything quite like it. I won’t try to describe either of these scenes in detail. Let’s just say that if they sound like something that would entertain you, then they probably will.  

Genre stars Sid Haig and Robert Englund also appear in Galaxy of Terror and they are both very good. It’s surprising how big Robert Englund’s part is, considering that he had yet to become famous as Freddy Krueger. Fans of either of these two actors should definitely check this movie out.

Galaxy of Terror (1981) made for a wonderfully nostalgic #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn, although truth be told, I’m still not sure if I’ve seen this movie before or not. Some moments were very familiar, but that could be because I saw the trailer, or very similar moments in other movies that ripped off – I mean paid homage to – Alien. Either way, I’ve seen enough movies of this type to feel great nostalgia even when watching one that I’ve never seen before. And that’t what #NotQuiteClassicCinema is all about.