Some of you may remember our episode covering the movie Atomic War Bride, where the guys were horrified to see an actual cow actually machine gunned by an actual fighter jet. Well, it turns out that there was a second movie on that DVD, and it, too, speaks of the horrors of potential nuclear war, as well as the abuse of animals. In this particular case, it involves an angry guy violently throwing real chickens around.
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| You'd think Colonel Sanders himself started the nuclear war. |
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| Oh, and this dog, who gets murdered, as well. Nuclear war is fucked-up. |
Deputy Dan Coulter (Glass) is on a late night patrol out in the middle of nowhere. It looks like a pretty quiet night until his dispatcher contacts him and tells him he is to set up a roadblock and stop any traffic going either way. He rushes to the location and immediately sets to work blocking the road. As he does this, an old pickup truck rolls up. He meets Jake (Roberts) and his daughter Juney (Martin), who are apparently delivering chickens somewhere in the middle of the night. (If Deputy Seamon were any kind of decent cop, he should be wondering why they are moving them so late...Probably black market chickens.) He tells Jake to pull the truck over to the side and set down some road flares to get the attention of any oncoming vehicles.
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| Is it pronounced "Shay-mon" or "Semen"? Guess which one we went with. |
Meanwhile, another car rolls up, coming the other way. Officer Seamon goes to talk to them and discovers they are Joe (Greene) and Cheryl (Morlas), a couple who are on their way to Las Vegas to gamble some of the $750,000 Joe won somehow. (It was probably mentioned, but the guys don't remember.) Officer Seamon tells them to pull over and get out of the car. They are not especially thrilled about the idea, but they do.
At some point around this time, a married couple, Sam (Winston) and Karen (Kent), and their small dog arrive and join the group. It's turning into a real hoedown in the middle of nowhere!
At the same time, Jake flags down a semi truck with two men in it. Al (Austin), the driver, pulls the truck over and goes to see the deputy to find out what the deal is. His passenger, Clint (Starr), however, stays in the truck and refuses to speak.
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| Al and Clunt: Purveyors of discount fur coats and caviar. |
When Officer Seamon takes a look at Clunt, he realizes that he is a wanted man and tells him to get out of the truck. Clunt jumps out and runs into the woods, with Officer Seamon and the small dog in pursuit. He returns moments later without Clunt, who turns out to be really good at not being found.
Everybody wants to know what's going on, but Officer Seamon has nothing to tell them. Fortunately, the radio in his police car comes on and announces that the whole area is on YELLOW ALERT! However, it does not immediately explain what that means, so Joe and Cheryl decide they want to get out of there. Deputy Seamon is having none of that, and he beats Joe down with the butt of his rifle, and then handcuffs him to the front bumper of his own car.
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| Everybody else is content to just stand around and pretend they didn't see that. |
Once again, the radio announces that the whole area is still under YELLOW ALERT, but this time offers up a little more information. It seems that there are nuclear missiles on the way, so they should all probably try to not be standing around when they arrive. Deputy Seamon suggests Al move the truck a little further down the road, and they remove all the contents so they can use the trailer as a shelter.
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| Take note of the company name on the truck. |
Everybody gets to work, including Joe, who decides that he likes being helpful much more than he likes being pistol-whipped and cuffed to cars. As the group pulls boxes from the truck, they start going through them, finding fur coats, whiskey, saki, champagne, and caviar...from a store called Discount World. Let that sink in. Form your own opinions. Try not to let it bother you too much, but keep these three words in your head while you watch the movie (which is available on YouTube): "Dollar store caviar."
During the unloading, Al takes a shine to Karen, and they sneak off to make smoochie-face. Juney has a bit of a freak-out because she is not a fan of confined spaces, and she insists to Jake that she is not going in that trailer, regardless of nukes. Also, a guy comes rolling up on his badass Vespa scooter, and introduces himself as Peter (Spruance). He joins the group in unloading the truck, but the work is interrupted when the radio announces that the whole area is now under RED ALERT! The missiles are coming and it's time to get to shelter!
Deputy Seamon makes everybody grab some mud to block off the vents in the trailer, and he sends Sam off to find Al and Karen, who, it bears repeating, is Sam's wife, which turns out to be a bad idea, because he finds them pawing each other in the tall grass. He tells them to get to the trailer, then goes back and kills himself. Dude was a total puss.
Juney again freaks out and runs into the woods, where she runs into Clunt, who decides not to murder her because she was the only one who was nice to him. As Jake gets near, Juney heads back to him and immediately rats Clunt out to the deputy. Then she and Jake decide to wander into the mountains, where they hope to find an old mine to hide in, and Peter invites himself along so they can drink from his hat.
But what will happen to them? Will they get instantly vaporized in the nuclear blast? And what about the folks in the trailer? Will the one-inch thick walls of aluminum and plywood keep them safe from radiation? Will they get along and not try to kill each other? You'll have to listen to find out!
Derek picked this flick, and he doesn't regret it one bit. It's a good movie, if a bit slow, and builds the suspense nicely. He is deeply disturbed by the chicken throwing and dog murder, but what are ya gonna do?
Larry also liked the movie, and was also very disturbed by the animal abuse. In fact, the chicken tossing was so upsetting to him that he legitimately yelled about it while they watched the movie. The clip at the top of the page is only a few seconds of it. It goes on for over a minute!
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