Eegah (review by Doug Smith)
If you want to watch a movie that makes you feel dirty, Eegah is perfect for you. With characters that are creepy, set design that’s depressing and acting equivalent to that of a high school play, this movie will surely make you want to run to the shower and crank the water hot enough to melt your first layer of skin off.
Arch Hall Jr. stars (well, sort of) in this sweaty jockstrap of a movie, as a kewpie-faced little whiner of a teenager named Tom Nelson. Marilyn Manning plays Roxy Miller, Tom’s love interest (eww), but it’s pretty obvious she was the mistress of Arch Hall Sr., who wrote, directed, produced and played her father (credited as William Watters). Let me just add another (eww). The title character is played by the 7’2” Richard Kiel, who surprisingly managed to get work after this. And then there’s some dude who plays a drunk guy and falls down.
The movie opens with Roxy buying something and then getting into her little Barbie-mobile of a car, in which she drives to the gas station where her boyfriend, Tom, works. They talk about going to dinner later and this is the first time during the movie that you want to take a shower, which isn’t good, because we’re only about two minutes into it. After Roxy drives off, Tom overflows one of his customers’ gas tanks. I can only hope the director wasn’t trying to make that symbolic of something.
We go from one painful scene to another. This time Roxy is driving along when she runs right into (literally) Eegah. She faints in her Barbie car, while Eegah grunts and carries a goat and a club around. Just as he’s about to club her and the car, her boyfriend drives up and scares Eegah off into the desert. Tom, being the freshly stupid jackass that he is, doesn’t happen to notice a 7-foot tall caveman sprinting off into the sand like a gazelle. Roxy explains what happens as Eegah watches from behind some bushes and even though it’s supposed to be night, birds are chirping quite happily.
At any rate, it’s time for dinner! Roxy explains that she saw a giant to her dad and some old guy who kind of looks like Stephen Hawking. The old guy doesn’t believe her, but her father is a little more willing to humor her. She argues that the Bible said there were giants and her dad agrees and references the book of Genesis. Yeah, well, the Bible also said to kill people who work on Sundays, so if we start taking it too seriously, we’re in trouble. Oh, wait, everyone who voted for George Bush again already DOES take it that seriously. Yeah, we’re in trouble…
Sorry, got off track there. The next morning, dad, daughter and boyfriend go back to the spot where the giant was sighted. They find some footprints and as they go off following them, somebody says, “watch our for snakes!” I’m not sure who, because no one’s lips were moving. They figure that the giant must live on Shadow Mountain somewhere, so dad decides to have a helicopter drop him off up there. Meanwhile, Tommy and Roxy head to the mountain on Tommy’s dune buggy. And thus ensues one of the most annoying scenes in film history. As Tommy is speeding around, Roxy is riding along going, “WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” at the top of her lungs. She sounds like a stuck pig.
After riding around for a while, and just when you think the movie couldn’t get any more obnoxious, Arch Hall Jr. sings! NOOOOO! I honestly haven’t gone through this much pain while watching a movie since Shaquille O’Neal’s “Steele” travesty. When the song ends after what seems to be an eternity, Roxy and Tommy go to sleep and pretty soon up walks good ol’ Eegah, exploring the campsite and sniffing Roxy. Just as he’s about to paw at her, Tommy’s radio goes off and Eegah runs away, leaving his club. Tommy and Roxy wake up, find the club, throw it off to the side and suddenly it’s morning and they’re driving away.
They come across dad’s camera and Roxy right away starts whining and assuming the worst. Everyone is very good at whining in this movie. They drive a little further and pretty soon they come to a spot that looks pretty tough to get through with the dune buggy, so Tommy goes for a walk to scope things out and convinces Roxy to stay behind. Dumbass. Wouldn’t you know it, soon Eegah shows up, Roxy faints and Eegah carries her off to his cave, where dad is laying around with a broken collarbone.
When Roxy comes to, Eegah proceeds to poke and paw at her. Bad touch, Eegah! Even more disturbing is the fact that Roxy is draped across her “father’s” lap in such a way that makes you realize how Marilyn Manning got the job playing Roxy. This scene goes on for a while; Roxy whines, Eegah mumbles and grunts to his dead relatives’ corpses, and every once in a while we see Tommy yelling, “Roxy! ROOOXY! Roxy! Roxy, where are you? ROXY!” in his helium induced voice.
Now we have disturbing scene number … hmm, I don’t know, I lost count … in which, Roxy shaves her dad. His face, you sickos, it’s not quite THAT disturbing! Eegah sees this and wants a shave for himself. Roxy obliges and as she’s shaving him, his tongue comes lolling out of his mouth and it looks like a huge slug squirming around his face, licking at the shaving cream and it’s just really, really wrong and … I need to go lie down for a while.
Okay, I think I’m better. But I won’t be for long, because pretty soon Eegah gets frisky. He takes Roxy outside of the cave and pretty much dry humps her. Okay, it’s disturbing enough to see a guy doing this to a resisting girl, but it’s doubly disturbing to see a Richard Kiel doing this to a Marilyn Manning. And to top it all off … at times she looks like she’s enjoying it! Wrong wrong wrong!
Just before we think we’re going to need barf bags, dad comes out of the cave, Eegah gets pissed off and Roxy falls down and knocks herself out. Tommy also stumbles across the scene and gets his whiny little ass kicked by Eegah. He only manages to save Roxy by chucking a rock into Eegah’s abdomen. The three heroes drive off on the dune buggy and Roxy actually looks sad to be leaving, even though Eegah practically raped her.
Eegah decides to chase after Roxy in town and some wackiness ensues. Eegah breaks and enters, steals, goes into a women’s restroom and finally ends up at the same party as Roxy, Tommy and dad. I won’t give away the surprise ending, but Eegah kicks ass for a little while and then gets shot. Oh, whoops, there’s the ending.
I cannot even begin to describe the sliminess of this film. There aren’t enough showers or bars of soap in the world for me after watching this. The shaving cream scene, the humping, the daughter seductively draped across her father’s lap, it all adds up to one big, dirty, filthy, deeply disturbing, and utterly unwatchable movie. If the grease trap of McDonald’s were a movie, this would be it. It gets a moldy yak turd. So rush right out and watch it immediately! Someone has to go through the pain I’ve gone through! Better yet, save yourself and watch the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” version.