Mudhoney

June 1, 2008

Another Russ Meyer film, another band gets its name.

I have no fucking clue why the film is called ‘Mudhoney’ or what mudhoney even is. Maybe it is a play on the phrase ‘land of milk and honey’ or maybe it has something to do with products made by unsanitary bees? The film is set during the depression and depicts the conflict that occurs when a farmhand falls in love with his boss’s married niece. Her husband Sidney is a drunk piece of shit that cannot even afford the town’s $1 whore. (Inflation is a bitch, huh?) Sidney teams up with the town’s crazed preacher to stir up trouble, but the tables turn when Sidney goes on a crime spree.

I don’t know where Russ Meyer found the actors for this film, but most of them are the most fucked up thing I’ve seen this side of Gummo. The actress who played Maggie Marie, the proprietor of the whore house (and mother of said whores) was blindingly fugly. Maybe it was the lack of teeth. I wasn’t sure what was going on with the dancing farmhand and that freak in the tree.

At least there’s some skin in this one, unlike Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! I haven’t seen any other Russ Meyer stuff yet, though – I think that Pussycat’s lack of skin is the exception, not the rule.

Always a fan of films that depict religious hypocrisy, I found Mudhoney to be fairly enjoyable, if achingly slow to get started. It took me over a week to slog through the first 45 minutes of the film, but after that, I had no problem sitting down to watch the whole thing. Don’t watch this film if you have a hungover friend trying to sleep in the other room – all the yelling and ranting at the end is likely to irritate the shit out of them.