COLOUR CORRECT MY COCK

Vagrancy Films are a small outfit who have been operating out of Canada since 2005, touring their homeland and neighbouring America in a bid to show some of the wildest, most obscure and out-there exploitation films ever on the big screen. Offering cinema presentations of original 35mm prints, accompanied by archive trailers and commercials, they’ve provided a service that’s been as close to the authentic grindhouse experience of the 1970s as you could nowadays get.

Now, seven years on from their inception, the guys behind Vagrancy Films – chiefly James Bialkowski and Jacob Windatt – have gone one step further by launching Vagrant Video, whose maiden release is this oddball compilation of trailers, infomercials and a little more besides.

As if the title isn’t a big enough hint as to the vibe these guys are going for, this shindig opens – following on from a riotous trailer for FRANKENSTEIN CREATED BIKERS – with a loud warning of "prolonged sex scenes of an extremely explicit nature" and "scenes of graphic violence" to come. Glory be!

And so, the main feature begins.

After a painfully cheap and slapstick 10-minute intro featuring the trailer compilers in a goofy mock-up of their everyday office life (complete with a brutish henchman who delivers a nubile semi-naked female unconscious to them, only to be told she can’t be used in any Vagrancy films unless the appropriate consent forms are signed – a dig at an industry contact, perhaps?!), we launch straight into the meat of the matter: the trailers themselves.

First up is a rather faded but most welcome preview for SEX ON THE RUN, starring Tony Curtis. It looks to be a very tame sex comedy but is entertaining in its own right – with Curtis looking and behaving like a middle-aged Frankie Cocozza. Better still is the trailer that follows: DAGMAR’S HOT PANTS INC "featuring the lovely ladies from FANNY HILL". This is stylishly edited and frivolously scored, while focusing on ugly middle-aged men getting their kicks with hot young Swedish fillies.

The fun continues over the course of almost two hours, Vagrancy’s compilation playing like a clumsily put-together but oddly absorbing party mix tape of random schlock. Along the way, we take in spaghetti Westerns (VIVA DJANGO [a.k.a. DJANGO, PREPARE A COFFIN]), Blaxploitation (BLACKENSTEIN), criminal canine thrillers (THE AMAZING DOBERMANS and THE DARING DOBERMANS) and even some German hardcore porn.

As you can see, there’s no real continuity running between trailers, it’s simply an assortment of clips the compilers thought would be fun to bunch together. They don’t even split their show into theme-related segments.

Furthermore, there’s a weird mixture here of trailers, the aforementioned commercials (mostly dull and of Canadian origin – anti-booze campaigns, advertisements for theatre gift certificates, that sort of thing) and even short clips from obscure films: no-budget gore films of unknown origin, or kinky Asian erotica, anyone?

Choice trailers come in the form of the wonderful COMPANEROS, the gleefully politically incorrect THE SOUL OF NIGGER CHARLIE, trashy 70s crime thriller THE ABDUCTORS, the sexy UNDER-GRADUATE GIRLS, Toho’s typically bombastic (and atrociously dubbed) THE LAST GUNFIGHT, and MGM’s Hammeresque star vehicle MARCO THE MAGNIFICENT.

Along the way, look out for more famous faces such as Orson Welles, Lee Marvin, Oliver Reed, Jack Palance, Olivia Hussey, Anthony Quinn and Franco Nero. This is probably the only place you’ll see them in close proximity to hardcore snippets randomly interspersed between trailers such as THE GODMOTHER 2 (this looks brilliant) and THE FIVE MAN ARMY.

Indeed, the whole thing kicks off with a fleeting still of a naked person bent over and with their finger stuck up their arsehole. This, and other explicit images, turn up throughout this compilation in an almost subliminal, FIGHT CLUB-type manner. If you want anything more substantially filthy, you’ll have to stick around for the second half of the show and the aforementioned German porn trailers (which between them manage to cram in blowjobs, anal sex, facial cumshots, sex-on-horseback, pissing and jizz-drinking).

While lacking the finesse of Synapse’s 42ND STREET FOREVER series, the focus and comprehensiveness of Nucleus Films’ GRINDHOUSE TRAILER CLASSICS tomes, or the novelty factor of Stephen Romano’s SHOCK FESTIVAL project, COLOUR CORRECT MY COCK succeeds on its own terms as a rough-around-the-edges fan-made mess of unfeasibly enjoyable proportions.

Check out the end credits too, where a huge ‘thank you’ list gives further indication as to where these nutters are coming from: Jess Franco, Bill Zebub, Joanne Angel, Art Ettinger and Grindhouse Releasing are just a sample of the names dropped. Better still, keep watching for a couple of amusing ‘FUCK YOU’s right near the end – one of which explains this release’s title.

COLOUR CORRECT MY COCK comes in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but is also window-boxed. The end result of this is that you get black borders on all four sides of the picture when watching on a widescreen TV.

Image quality understandably wavers incredibly throughout playback. Even though many of the trailers are sourced from 35mm stock, they do look rough for the most part – with some even looking as though they’ve been sourced from VHS. But it all adds to the sleazy, grindhouse vibe.

Audio, which is mostly English save for the occasional Asian/German clips, is mostly clean and clear. I didn’t come across any discernible audio qualms, and I’ve sat through this two-and-a-half times so far …

The screener disc reviewed offered only the film. There were no menus or bonus features to remark upon. However, I gather the retail disc also contains a light-hearted commentary track from Bialkowski and Windatt.

In a novel move, COLOUR CORRECT MY COCK is being released by Vagrant Video in the following formats: VHS only, a blu-ray and DVD combo pack, and a package that combines all three formats.

While it makes little sense and feels a little haphazardly put together, COLOUR CORRECT MY COCK is undoubtedly fun. It also does what all good mix tapes should do: offers a fair amount of giggles, reminds you how much you love some of the films you’ve neglected of late, and turns you on to a few that may have previously managed to avoid your radar.

Grab some beers and enjoy.

Review by Stuart Willis