Luther The Geek~ 1990, Carlton J. Albright, USA
Luther The Geek is a story about the power of forgiveness- specifically; how you should never forgive anyone. I’m sold!
The Plot~ The film opens with a brief explanation of what a geek is- and it is not really what we understand a geek to be. See, this is probably what you think a geek is:
But in Luther The Geek, THIS is a geek:
…Okay. Hmmm. Well, alright, then.
So, apparently “geek” is circus lingo for someone who bites the heads off of live chickens and drinks their blood… So, NOT the guy who went to the midnight showing of Captain America: Civil War (… That was all of us, we all did that…). At the start of this film, Luther , who is sort of our main character, is but a small child who ends up participating in some weird, angry mob/circus freak show hybrid exercise, because his parents are really, really awesome. This ends up introducing him to the taste of chicken blood, something he discovers he’s quite fond of. Wonderful. It’s unclear if Luther was totally fucked up before this happened, but it’s pretty apparent that he’s incurably insane afterward.
Next, we fast forward a few decades. Luther is now an adult man, in prison for a string of murders he committed when he was a teenager. Because he’s been such a good, solid dude all this time that he’s been locked away, his case is now up for review, and luckily for Luther, he’s got a nice lady totally going to bat for him. She makes an impassioned case to her peers; Luther has paid his debt to society, and he deserves a second chance. He committed those crimes when he was an impulsive, immature teenager, and he’s been a model prison ever since. Absent from her argument is the fact that today he communicates exclusively with chicken sounds, and that he inexplicably has terrifying metal teeth which he has fashioned into hideous, razor sharp fangs, but don’t even worry about it, model prisoner, you guys.
So, they put it up to a vote, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s Luther’s lucky day. They release him back into society, confident that he’s turned over a new leaf, and will go on to become a productive member of his community. Then he does this:
Yes sir, model prisoner.
Like, seven minutes after being released, he kills a nice old lady for no reason. To be fair, it’s not the first thing he does, that would be getting kicked out of a grocery store. The SECOND thing he does is to murder this woman in the parking lot. Do they not screen these prisoners at all? Model prisoner? Could they have been thinking about somebody else? Who talked to this guy and thought “Oh, yeah, this guys reformed. He’s good. I want him walking the streets pronto.” It would be impossible not to pick up on the fact that he is absolutely still a damn murderer.
But that’s the criminal justice system for you. Anyway, after that Luther heads off on a murder spree, and that’s basically the movie. He never speaks, he just makes “bok bok” sounds like a damn chicken, and he kills literally every person he can. It’s pretty gorey, actually, he manages to get a lot more done with just his jaws than you might expect. There’s also some nudity and a few chase sequences, but there aren’t ever any “scares,” to speak of. Luther The Geek is never trying to scare anyone, it’s a trashy gore flick, and that’s something it’s fairly forthcoming about. The goal here is for the picture to be both violent, and gross. And would you look at that, it is!
You may have noticed that this is a Troma picture, so let’s address the elephant in the room; Luther The Geek is an atypical Troma picture, and I mean that to be a mark of quality. Unlike the most well known film’s in Troma’s catalog, Luther The Geek never wants to be funny, and that’s a blessing because when Troma goes for laughs, it does it with the grossest, most vile form of poop and dick jokes ever crafted by human kind, and I got no time for that. I would lop this film in with higher quality Troma productions like Mother’s Day, they’re the kind of movies that you’ll wish Troma made more of. That being said, you’re going to notice a few telltale signs that this is a product of the house that Lloyd built- Luther The Geek is cheap, quick, and dirty. In a way it almost feels like a grittier, bloodier Charles Band picture, you really get the feeling that the plot was shaped around what the crew had available to them, rather than the other way around. Still, if I were to list off a few of the more high end Troma produced pictures on the fly, Luther The Geek would probably make the cut, and if you’re looking for something trashy and casual, this might be a good move for you.
C-
