Watch all the movies, Part 1: Black Rage

I have a habit of buying movies, the cheesier the better. But I also have this habit of never, ever watching them. I've decided to fix that this year. My plan is to watch them once a week, and write 'em up here...and then give them away to clear space on the shelf.

First up is "Black Rage", which according to IMDB is also known as "Charcoal Black." I picked this up years ago in a Value Village, or maybe Army & Navy. It's a VHS tape (ask your parents, kids) from the good folks at Front Row Entertainment.

Side note: I'm pretty certain Front Row Entertainment shot their own photo for the cover; the folks on the cover does not in any way resemble any of the actors in this film.

Other side note: This film was also released as "Charcoal Black" and, in Australia, "Catch the Black Sunshine":

The plot is simple enough: Two slave brothers, one black (played by Chauncey "Lord" Westbrook, a jazz guitarist) and one black albino named Sunshine (geddit?) (played by a Rutger Hauer lookalike, which is basically the whitest sort of person you could possibly find), find a treasure map. The overseer (played by Lurch!) tries to steal it from them. They run away, so Lurch hires a drunken, rage-filled bartender to help catch them. Hijinks ensue.

Memorable bits? Not many. The theme song, "Catch the Black Sunshine" sounds like Nina Simone in an echo chamber if you squint (ear squint?) but is apparently Mel Carter. During the chase scenes, disco kicks in -- but with a harmonica and somehow a polka feel. There's an extended scene in a backwoods moonshine joint with more insane cackling than I've ever heard outside a Russ Meyer film. (My wife's comment on this film: "It's like a low-budget Russ Meyer, but with pretensions.") At one point the runaway slaves, hungry and exhausted, spend ten minutes stealing a chicken and a bicycle, then lose both in the swamp; the music, obviously sourced from Movie-Music-4-Cheap, switches to something out of Benny Hill.

This tape (I said ASK YOUR PARENTS) has waited, stuffed in a milk crate in the corner of our bedroom, for a long, long time to be viewed in its entirety. It will now be set free. Fly free, Black Rage. Fly free.

External links:

• Review by The Cinema Snob
• Blaxploitation Pride page
• Wikipedia