Weird Wednesday: "Poor Pretty Eddie"

Reviewed by Ryan & Matt:

Ryan: 4/4 rotten peels

Matt: 5/4 rotten peels

Before we get to the actual movie, we just want to say the guys down at the Alamo Drafthouse have their shit together. The atmosphere they create and the movies they show are amazing, and just a heads up, there's a Pulp Fiction quote-a-long coming up next week. How awesome is that? If you haven't experienced a movie at the drafthouse, you better get down there ASAP, no excuses.

Now, a little background: Weird Wednesday is every Wednesday night at midnight at the Ritz drafthouse and is dedicated to bringing the best of the worst B movies ever made, or as others might call them, Grindhouse films. These movies have it all: low budgets, exploitative stories, extremely graphic, poor editing, and poor directing. There are some gems out there and the drafthouse finds them!

Now to the movie:

Poor Pretty Eddie, or Redneck County Rape, or Heartbreak Motel is beautifully bad, I mean, really bad, but we expected that right? This stars Leslie Uggams as a famous American Jazz singer from the north who decides to take some time off and travel south to relax. Really? Mistake 1. On her trip, her car breaks down and she finds a motel/autoshop in the backwoods. Believable right? She then finds herself trapped in a cage of redneck hillbilly inbreds, where she is raped. Gross right? Michael Christian plays and Elvis wannabe and the main antagonizer, Shelley Winters, who had won two oscars, plays the washed up entertainer/proprioter of the backwoods motel/autoshop. Sounds like a winner right? Surprisingly, we get the hero and best performance from the somewhat mute of the film, Keno, played by Ted Cassidy. Im not sure what he did at this place, but he was awesome. Oh, and Slim Pickins plays the Sheriff!

This movie was unbelieveably disjunct. Characters were inconsistent, action was shot horrible, and edited like a two-year old with fun scissors had a go at it. I must say though, the long cut slow-mo's did hit the spot. Even with all there problems, there was still something, dare I say, special about this movie? It might just be the sleak and cool atmosphere Alamo Drafthouse creates, it might have been the burned, scratched, and popping reel that was shown, it might have been many other things, but in a weird way I actually enjoyed the movie. By no means was it any where close to being a somewhat feat of movie mediocraty, but I had fun and what more can you ask for? Here's the first 2 1/2 minutes, just to get a taste:





Looking for fun? Rent this movie, but don't expect much! If you dare to watch this movie, drop us a comment and let us know what you think!