Review by Tom Crites
of PANISCUS
REVUE
(WARNING: Spoilers Ahead)
Looking a little like Isaac
Hayes with AIDS, Lee (Larry McCoy) sits
in a jail cell griping about pussy. Seems
that on the outside he met some foxy white
chick at a strip joint, and after porking
the doughy tramp he just has to shoot her
husband when he pops in on the action. Sentenced
to, "forty years of hard labor for
the rest of your life," Lee would be
truly fucked if his long-haired honky buddy
Harold (Doug Draine) wasn't about to help
him break away from the work farm. They
make a slow-motion run for it, away from
the corner of a vacant lot (with a hand-lettered
sign tied to a fence indicating that this
is indeed a work farm) and through the weeds
to where Joan (Bunny Boyd) waits in the
getaway car. All to some jamming Seventies
STARSKY & HUTCH-style theme music.
First stop after a jailbreak
has got to be a gas station so they can
massacre a few helpless patrons. Then it's
off to the liquor store for some extra cash
and homicide. Some truly Desperate Hours
follow (at least it seems like that long)
as the gang invades the home of dumpy Stanley
(Ray Williams), a classless sod constantly
berated by his horny wife Ann (Mary Anne).
A suburban nightmare comes to life as the
escaped cons sneak in and tie up the family,
first wasting the cowardly boyfriend of
the couple's ripe young daughter Sue (Evadney).
As a further indignity the gang eats the
family's fried chicken dinner – without
using napkins! (Choke!)
The chintzy whitebread décor
gets to be too much for Lee, who's driven
to drink as he frets about getting away
from the place. Harold's too busy choking
down chicken to come up with a plan, and
all of their buddies are too busy gettin'
busy with their chubby gals to pick up their
phonecalls for help. Joan puts on some tunes
and starts to boogie, catching the eyes
of the family and getting such a good mood
going that Harold's moved to pour whiskey
down the throats of the captives. Sue gets
dragged into another room, and after Lee
slaps her into the mood she's ready for
love, even taking on Harold when he comes
in and drops his pants as well. Invigorated,
Lee roves through the house making a half-assed
search for cash. He's forced to settle for
a bottle of reds, which get passed out to
everyone and washed down with more liquor.
Joan's still shaking her ass, and seeing
Stan watching her Harold asks him, "Hey
old man, you like that black stuff?"
Stanley sure does!
Everyone gets real loose and
naked, pairing off to pork, and pretty soon
the party is so swinging that Harold gets
carried away, leaves his place between Sue's
thighs, and runs over to... bang Stanley
right in the ass! He rides him around for
a bit, but the fun is halted by the arrival
of a cop canvassing the neighborhood for
the escaped convicts. He's quickly handcuffed
and threatened with death, but Ann comes
to his rescue: "No, don't kill him!
I have a better idea: I want to rape him!"
Everybody agrees with that, so she starts
in on him and he doesn't mind at all. The
orgy kicks up again (for everyone except
Stan, who stands around frowning and rubbing
his sore ass) until the cop's partner bursts
in for the punchline: "Aw hell, I thought
you was in trouble!"
Groovy soundtrack, festive
mood, fried chicken, throbbingly cute Evadney,
and lots of athletic but overextended (and
rather unattractive) sex, NIGHT OF THE ANIMALS
has it all in a clumsy home movie-style
presentation. It's bad, you know, but so
bad you've just got to like it a little
bit.
