Customer Reviews

Booby Trap / The Takers

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The admittedly promising DVD cover lured me to buying this SOMETHING WEIRD double feature. Well, it is not so explosive as the title and artwork suggests.
The first movie BOOBY TRAP starts with a troubled ex-marine buying 40 Claymore mines and blowing the soldier who illegally sold him the explosives to smithereens, just for the fun of it. Cheering, he breaks out in maniacal laughter and fires his pump action shotgun.
A really promising start, but what a pity that the rest of the film does not live up to the first minutes. From now on the story concerning the psycho ex-marine, who wants to use the Claymore mines to blow up the hippie audience visiting a rock concert, and a not very soldier-like looking military policeman trying to hunt the psycho down, drags. Sure, the story sounds interesting, but it sounds actually better than it is.It is much too talky and the action scenes are few and far between.
(Admittedly things liven up a little when it's showdown time.) Some female nudity and sex is on display, but nothing to write home about. And do not expect to see much explosives induced mayhem.
Sure, I can think of worse ways to kill my time, but the film is not essential viewing.
I liked the second feature THE TAKERS much better. E.J. and Willy are outlaw bikers. After a violent fight with another biker, an extended sex and drug session with two girls and a gas station hold up, the bikers raid the home of housewife Laura and her friend Barbie ("We're gonna have us a party with some educated social-type broads.") Much sexual encounters and drug abuse ensue, before Laura's husband (Carl MONSON, who played the ex-marine on the loose in BOOBY TRAP) suddenly returns from a business trip. As you probably guessed it is comeuppance time now...Oh, and there is a silly surprise ending, which will have you shake your head in disbelief. (In the stage world this is called "BRECHTian alienation effect", I think). Believe me, it is REALLY silly!
Aside from that THE TAKERS is very sleazy and fun entertainment indeed.
As can be expected from SWV company their DVD offers many extra features. There are 9 trailers. It must be said that the BOOBY TRAP trailers are better than the movie itself. Generally, all trailers are a bit too long and give away too much of the respective movies. I liked the BLACK ALLEY CATS and the BLACK BUNCH trailer best. Curiously, there is a trailer for a movie called YOUNG AND WILD, which appears to be a different cut of BOOBY TRAP with more explicit sex scenes.
Another extra is a short documentary about motorcycle freaks, THESE ARE THE ALIENS! It ends rather abruptly, so I guess it is only a part of a longer film. The bikers are shown in their favorite activities (boozing, smoking grass, having sex, and chatting about their bad experiences with the law). Recommended only for die-hard biker (movie) fans.
The usual black and white striptease short subject is also not missing. It is called MAGNIFICENT MONIQUE, rather old and with horrible picture quality (what else do you expect?) Despite these shortcomings I really liked it, mainly because of the top-heavy "actress".

Something Weird Video and exploitation movie-maker Harry Novak seem to be a match made in low-budget heaven. This DVD here is yet another special-edition "HARRY NOVAC proudly presents" double feature from the folks at SWV. Unlike a lot of other earlier Novak "classics"(which were intentionally on the goofy side), these two "sex-action" hybrids are a bit on the dark/violent side.

The main feature is a movie called Booby Trap which was made and released in 1973. The story is about an ex-Marine vet intent upon causing some big-time mayhem and massacre. Along the way, of course, there are topless dancers, motor home makeouts, and even a secret surveillance camera in a womens powder room(pretty nifty for 1973).

The second feature, released in 1972, is a story about two crazed bikers who terrorize a couple of young chicks whom they followed into one of the girl's home. Once inside, the bikers constantly force the girls to make out with them. The girls even begin to warm up to them after awhile. Even though all the stuff is softcore, it is still a bit more risque; probably because the sensors were a bit more laxed by the early 70's.

Special features include 7 theatrical trailers(The Black Alley Cats, Black Bunch, Erika's Hot Summer, The Loves of Cynthia, Weekend Lovers, Young and Wild!), a Booby Trap TV spot, an Outlaw Biker Short called THESE ARE THE ALIENS! as well as a stripper Short called MAGNIFICENT MONIQUE!, Harry Novak exploitation art and photos along with a soundtrack, and audio commentary by Harry Novak and someone from "Cult Movies Magazine".

Novak seems a bit more serious on this commemtary track(Booby Trap) than some others. While he still makes off-color remarks, the presence of the magazine guy seems to give Novak a bit more focus and so Novak is more detailed in his explanations. All in all though, this is another grand re-release by the folks at Something Weird.

Filmmakers often say movies are made in the editing room. Just leave a few extra minutes in or snip a couple seconds and your movie can be transformed into tightly wound tale, a plodding bore or a hopeless muddle. "Booby Trap," which offers far more plot than the usual sexploitation drive-in/grindhouse fare lovingly preserved by Something Weird Video, narrowly escapes being a plodding bore, but it sure could have spared us several of those minutes. The story revolves around a cracked ex-Marine (played by scenery-chewing Carl Monson, who directed "Please Don't Eat My Mother") who's stolen 40 land mines and a Winnebago. With a military investigator (who, with his helmet of hair and gut threatening to spill over his brown Sans-A-Belt slacks, looks more like a second-runner up to Joe Don Baker's role in "Walking Tall") on Monson's trail, other players and subplots are interwoven. There's Monson's ex-wife (played by Angela Carnon), now working as a cocktail waitress at a strip club run by sleazy gangster-types, who's being harassed by the boss' right-hand thug (Buck Kartalian). Carnon finds solace in the arms of her fiancee (Christopher Geoffries, who also was paired with Carnon in A.C. Stephen's X-rated "Drop Out Wife"), a guitar player in the club's house band and who's being hit up to join a mincing rock promoter in a scheme to steal money from the club's owner. And joining our doughy military investigator is the wealthy sister of a hippie hitchhiker Monson had sex with early in the film, then blew up. It all leads to a clumsy desert showdown at the site of an outdoor rock concert Monson has "Booby Trap"-ped with his stolen land mines.

Looking like a dirty episode of "Hawaii 5-0," "Booby Trap" is a better-than-average exploitation movie from producer Harry Novak. The acting ranges from competent (Carnon, Geoffries) to over-the-top (Monson, Kartalian). Like most Novak-produced movies, there are some sex scenes thrown in (you didn't expect Novak to waste the double-entendre title, did you?), but it's the violence that's emphasized in this one. For the all action, though, many parts of this movie drag. I never received my membership card to the attention-deficient MTV Generation, but this movie could benefit from some quick cutting. Still, I'll forgive it all for the scene in the strip club when we're treated to a dancer's act. Watching this beehive-wearing stripper, who resembles transsexual '60s actress Aleshia Brevard, is one of "Booby Trap"'s most fascinating moments. It almost rivals the stripper act in "The Curse of Her Flesh."

The second feature, "The Takers," has less story but manages to be a lot more interesting--especially if explicit sex is what you're in the market for. Two greasy bikers do acid (washed down with Bubble Up), then do two hitchhikers. Leaving the girls behind after having their fun ("You bastards!"), they hold up a gas station--committing murder in the process--then follow a suburban housewife home to hold her and her visiting friend (a lingerie model, natch) hostage. There's non-stop sex (complete with full-frontal male nudity), with the titular "Takers" only slowing down to guzzle booze or slap the women around. It all comes to an end when the husband (director Carl Monson) comes home, closing the movie in such a way that everything preceding the climactic scene becomes a total joke.

The extras include lurid trailers to sexploitation movies like "The Black Alley Cats," "The Loves of Cynthia" and "Weekend Lovers" as well as a couple short features that are mildly amusing, if a bit trying on your patience. All in all, this double feature is well worth drive-in aficionados including in their collections. Just say no to the Harry Novak's humorless commentary track on "Booby Trap."