Navigation

Mardi Gras Massacre (1978)

Dir: Jack Weis

Another of the UK 'Video Nasties' is put under scrutiny…God help me.

This gets off to a good trashy start with a mysterious suited man going into a New Orleans bar (where the barman lets the local hookers work for a cut of the action) looking for a special lady!
Walking up to a couple of 'working girls' he asks…"Out of all the ladies in this bar tonight who do you think is the most…evil"?
"Shirley" they answer, so over to wicked Shirley he goes..
"I understand that you are the most evil woman here"
"Listen honey" says sultry Shirley "I could probably take first prize in any evil contest".

So the man takes Shirley to his home where he states the obvious…"You must have noticed by now that I am very different"? Indeed.
Shirley's a sport though and lets herself be led into a red curtained back room.
There she is told to strip and lie on a black altar (or the 'unusual bed' as he describes it!)
The man then appears dressed on white/gold 'robes' (that barely cover his arse and show of his skinny legs off very nicely thank you) sporting a gold Aztec Priest mask.
Shirley thinks it's a bit of kinky role-playing and moans away to herself as the loony Priest oils her up.
Suddenly he ties her down to the altar and, to a funky electro disco beat, sacrifices Shirley by stabbing her hands/feet before slitting open her stomach, and pulling out her heart!

The local Cops, with the help of a hooker with a heart (who gives one of the Cops freebies because she obviously digs his cheesy porn moustache), try to track the killer down before he strikes again........

This rather enjoyable opening, that supplies bountiful amounts of full frontal nudity and gore with a touch of that essential 'Trash' sensibility, bodes well for things to come.
Sadly it's mostly downhill from there though.

Director/Screenwriter Weiz decides to make the dull as dishwater Cops, their plodding investigation and the laughable relationship between the hooker and the main Cop the primary focus of the movie.
The romance sub-plot is something even the other Cops find far fetched…"An ex Sgt. of Vice and a hooker, that's what I call a marriage made in heaven".
Weiz even takes time-out for a 'love in bloom' montage, scored to a soulful jazz song, as the Cop and his hooker see the New Orleans sights hand in hand!
The romance at least entertains though when it starts to fall apart when the hooker gets angry after finding out the Cop pocketed the money of one of the dead prostitutes (nice guy that he is)…
Cop: "At least I'm no hundred dollar a night hooker! A goddamn whore"!!
Hooker: "That's right pig…You ain't worth no hundred dollars a night. If you were a broad you'd be lucky to turn a 2 dollar Black trick"!
A charming one-on-one that ends with the hooker getting a good slapping! Ahh…Love.

Mention of the music brings us to the film's pick 'n' mix score by Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore which is a hodgepodge of cheesy lounge jazz, funky soul, weird bleeps and wind noises (with the word 'yes' whispered over them), disco beats and Latin grooves. Like the movie itself, it's all over the place and annoys far more than it entertains.

When it's not being padded out with 'love' the movie's being padded out with 'exotic (chuckle) dance routines at the local dives, as strippers' jiggle around in sparkly underwear to 5 guys in a haze of cigarette smoke. It sure ain't classy, but it's more fun than the Cop/hooker romance.
More dancing scenes lead to an unexpected Disco dance floor catfight that livens things up a bit, but patience does wear thin when one of the murderer's pick-ups decides to do a spot of topless ballet for him to some plinky plonky piano music.

Despite the setting (and actual location filming) the film captures nothing of the New Orleans vibe for most of it's running time as we are simply given plain grey brick walls/buildings and dark alleys.
Only a Black, tap dancing, street midget stands out (for obvious reasons really) until near the end where scenes of the Mardi Gras itself finally appear. And even those are less than energetic.

Acting wise this is one step up from an early HG Lewis film. Which is actually not a good thing, because you lose the crazy charm of really bad acting and simply get stuck with dull bad acting.

But at least the actors have some fun dialogue to play with, even if they deliver it like they were reading the back of a matchbox.
"Up your ass" is about as nice as the hooker dialogue gets, but then we have the killer's insatiable need to find wicked women; "Are you sure you're really evil"?…"Honey I'm as evil as you can get".
Deep psychological musings are also to be heard when the Cops go to an expert on sacrificial rituals to get a lead on the case; "It is in my opinion evidence of a serious sickness" says the expert after hearing about the women having their hearts cut out! The cries of 'no shit Sherlock' are to be heard loud and proud.

The psycho and his motives bare a resemblance to the crazy Cookery priest of HG Lewis's seminal "Blood Feast" only not as camped up. And as such, not as enjoyable. The killer does have one good scene of over the top creepiness though while ordering a Chinese meal (!) on the phone for his would be victim and ends the order with a sinister look back at the girl before slowly saying…"And a fortune cookie".

The sacrificial sequences are extremely exploitative and provide plenty of full frontal nudity and gore (the gutting FX are not too bad a quickie horror flick either) but are so much alike that once it's happened once the novelty definitely wears off as each death is almost exactly the same shot for shot.

And after all that weird music, bad acting, bad dancing, silly and boring sub-plots, snail's pacing, plucked out hearts, oiled breasts and pubic hair…wouldn't you know it, but .the movie ends in a very abrupt and boring fashion.
One for 'Video Nasty' completists only.