Tonight’s movie is not the first self-referential horror comedy. Nor was it, unfortunately, the last. It is, however, my favorite.
The plot is simple. Barkeep Joe moonlights as a psycho killer, murdering random women he takes home. He meets his soulmate in Kate, a manicurist who moonlights as a psycho killer, murdering random men she takes home. They realize their compatibility due to a mutual hatred of grapes (although we later find out Joe likes raisins and has no idea they are dried grapes), and move in together.
The merry couple continues their separate slaughters until Kate gets jealous of the pretty girls Joe is slicing up. They solve the problem by killing together, until one day they realize it’s just not fun anymore. Their retirement would have gone off without a hitch, too, if they hadn’t tried to stuff their last victim down the garbage disposal. The sink backs up, and the plumber who arrives to fix it happens to be a serial killer himself, as well as a cannibal chef. He attempts to blackmail Joe and Kate back into a career of killing so he can have plenty of fresh bodies to cook with, and the whole thing ends in a bloody mess.
When the movie starts out, you’re led to believe that it’s gonna be just another one of those; a boring, dated slasher flick made on the cheap to take advantage of the new and booming home video market (this movie, and several others by the same crew, were distributed by Charles Band’s Wizard Video company). The lame synthesizer score fixes the flick solidly in the 80’s and leaves it there to hang, and the gore effects…well, you know.
And then, totally out of left field, it’s funny. Really, really funny. And it never stops being funny. Most movies like this, you usually get a couple good gags dispersed through 80 minutes of time-altering, poorly-written boredom. Not here, buddy. Sure, the acting is mostly fairly amateur (with special exception to Carmine Capobianco as Joe – dude never did anything but a few more flicks with Gorman Bechard, but he’s got the comedy timing of a seasoned pro), but the writing is stellar. None of the gags are throwaway. There are plenty of one-liners and set pieces (actually, the movie is mostly set pieces, because there’s no way the threadbare plot could hold up an 88 minute run-time, but those lovingly crafted jokes make the time fly by), but often the jokes build off of and compliment each other, sometimes into whole scenes of brilliantly woven silliness damn near on a level with the Marx Brothers (whose style seems to have been more than a slight influence on Bechard and Capobianco).
As the movie rolls on, you begin to realize that, although it’s hopelessly dated by the cheap synth score and hideous clothing and hairstyles, it couldn’t be any other way. If the movie had polished production values, a pretty Hollywood cast, and fancy special effects, it would suck. It’s like The Pogues and Shane MacGowan. They wrote some of the most beautifully poetic songs I’ve ever heard, but Shane couldn’t hold a tune if the fate of the universe depended on it. And yet, if their songs were sung by a pretty voice, it would sound stupid and forced. It’s the rough edges that complete the picture.
Psychos In Love is one of those movies that, seen early enough in a young cinemasochist’s life, could and likely would be a formative experience that would solidify the love for crap movies and intensify the search for that next holy grail. Personally, the movie which took that place in my life was Microwave Massacre, but six years after seeing that Jackie Vernon classic, Psychos In Love (first discovered by me my freshman year of college at the video store where I worked) had that effect all over again. It hit me like a freight train full of stage blood and cow guts, and rekindled the fire in my VCR.
When it catches you at the right time, in the right mood, a movie like this isn’t just a night well spent. It’s a beacon of hope that you haven’t seen it all – that there is more out there to be discovered that will blow your jaded mind and break through the hardened crust of your Corman-addled soul to that wide-eyed youngster who still lives in there somewhere, eternally sitting down at the start of his first all-night b-movie marathon, with a feast of junk food and a stack of videotapes in oversized boxes, filled with the thrill and promise of a bright (and grainy, and artifacted, and banned in 30+ countries) future spread out before him. Trust me, it’s not over. It’s never over.
The Moral of the Story: If a bartender offers you a glass of grape juice, decline. Politely.
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