Like what happens after you eat two-week old tuna noodle casserole, I’ve come back from the depths to emerge again, messier, more liquid and determined as ever to leave a lasting impression on the carpet.
And obviously to review those drive-in flicks that Joe Bob can’t get to.
Not going to get into the details about my lengthy absence of reviews. It did not involve any jail time. It has involved psychic malfeasance, the Jamboree and a sleepless night or 11.
So basically we’re looking at a pilot for a reboot of In Search Of…
But, like Wilford Brimley after being stuck in a cabin by Kurt Russell, I’m all better now.
Suffice to say, the deities or the drive-in concession stand of life, whichever you may choose to believe in, never give you more than you can handle unless you buy too much. So that’s why you always try to finish the first tub of popcorn before the end of the previews so you are guaranteed that free refill and the coinciding stomach cramps and mass ejections the next day.
Now, you might be asking why I’m leading off with at multiple flatulence and excrement references in the first six paragraphs of this review, but that’s because I’m checking out the latest creation from Cincitucky’s own triple threat filmmaker/comedian/filmmaker Ricky Glore. You’ll remember Ricky’s All Your Friends Are Dead, the first middle-aged slasher flick that I reviewed back in 2022.
Now I am in no way saying that Ricky is excessively flatulent by working brown here – far from it. However, he’s hooked up with the nation’s premier experts on flatulence and excretion — Uncle Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Entertainment to put out his latest flick “Sweet Meats,” which is premiering on March 22 in Cincinnati at the Esquire Theater as part of the Hands Across Tromericamovie marathon series they’re doing.
Tickets are available here. And if there are no mentions of flatulence or excrement during the marathon or Lloyd’s Q&A, then my existence truly is futile and I probably shoulda stayed in bed.
Now getting back to the review, “Sweet Meats” shows what happens when a guy’s quest for country stardom collides with the cutthroat restaurant biz. Add in some bitchin’ sideburns, cannibalism and an industrial grinder and you’ve got yourself some red-meat surprise.
The flick takes place largely in flashback, since it’s framed like a storybook being told by the carriers-on of the family legacy. Glore plays the main guy, Bobby Sweet, who finds himself working in a family owned restaurant in the late 1970s but really wants to (cue twanging guitar) go country and sing. He’s an outsider stuck in the job with siblingsLaddie and Jerry and patriarch/owner Nick (Andrew Gordon) and because he’s not a blood relative, he gets the inevitable task of doing stuff like plunging a 10-pound Number Two in the men’s room.
(You knew we’d get back to the toilet humor, right?).
Nick owns the restaurant that “has way too many things on the menu and don’t do any of them well,” according to his daughter and sees Bobby as “the son he never had” even though Bobby’s definitely older than him and well, the real “son” Jerry (Timmy H. Barron) looks to be just a few yearsyounger than Nick.
Nick says he wants Bobby to own the business, but Bobby declines, saying he wants to be a country star, despite crippling stage fright and the unfortunate monicker of Boobie Sweats (the emcee misread the card).
Despite the obstacles, the faithful Jerry supports Bobby’s hopes and they both jam together periodically out behind the restaurant dumpster and get high. There’s annoying customers obsessed with food they don’t serve there, multiple melancholy musical interludes, a romantic subplot with Bobby and Laddie and a Satanic bloodsucking devil music rock band subplot, too.
And let’s not forget about the dozens of folks that get turned into hamburger and fed to customers thanks to the industrial meatgrinder Laddie acquires… that meat’s real sweet!
Best Way to Speedily Start: You get your first disemboweling by a dude in a pig mask with meat hooks less than three minutes into the movie, and then he goes to read a bedtime story to his daughter.
Best Plumbing Workaround: Bobby gets the potato masher to deal with a substantial toilet blockage and goes all Norman Bates on it.
Best Expression of Family Dysfunction: When Laddie (played by Glore regular Eileen Earnest) explains why she ended up with a boyish Scottish name to a customer — her dad wanted a son so much that when she turned out to be a girl, he didn’t change the name. Of course, she explains, when the actual son, Jerry, was born, he proved to be disappointingly dumb. “Disappointments all around,” she says.
Best Aspiration for a Florida Vacation: From Nick — “Maybe one day I won’t show up for work … I’ll be sitting in the Florida sun tanning my nuts off until they’re red as Christmas tree ornaments.”
Best Expression of the Restaurant’s Mission: Nick opposes Laddie’s suggestion to simplify things down to burgers and fries — “When they come here, they want to taste Nick … Mmmmm, what’s that? Nick in your mouth!”
Best Cameo By the Guy Who Bought the Flick: Lloyd Kaufman shows up as Lloyd Duckwood, the owner of the local vacuum cleaner emporium in a TV commercial.
Glore also wrote and directed the flick as well, so again he proves where hopes, dreams, a work ethic, a sense of humor and sleep deprivation can get you — on stage with independent film legend Lloyd and a national tour of your cannibal country music flick.
Three and a half stars. Half-star deduction because no breasts (at least intact ones — I’m sure there were some components in the meat the diner was serving). Highly recommended for fans of the MonsterVision classic “Motel Hell.”
You can check out its world premiere in Cincinnati March 22 as mentioned up top or on the Hands Across Tromerica tour, dates here:
- March 29: Eugene Art House, Eugene, OR
- April 5: SLAB Cinema, San Antonio, TX
- April 12: Gnarley’s, Golden, CO
- April 19: Alamo Cinema Grill, Winter Park, FL
- April 26: Englewood Cinema, Englewood, OH
- May 17: Gateway Film Center, Columbus, OH
- May 24: Sorg Opera House, Middletown, OH
- June 7: Memphis, TN
And by the way, BUY THIS BOOK — https://www.amazon.com/Joe-Bob-Goes-Drive-Briggs/.
If you want more of em, you gotta let Dark Horse know.
