Blood Of The Vines: Low Budget Slashers

Aah, low-budget slashers this week on Trailers From Hell.  There is nothing like pairing wine with a film that drips with Burgundy-red blood.  Are those Bordeaux stains on your smock?  Tell Chuckie to go to hell, and take his trailer with him.  Leave the bottle.

Alice, Sweet Alice got the director not only charged with obscenity but excommunicated, both in the state of New Jersey.  Who knew Jersians would be so upset over a little blood?  Brooke Shields debuts here, before gliding into a career in film’n’fashion, where the wine, bubbles and sometimes tequila flow like a fire hydrant.  Brooke now says she has a glass of water for every drink.  I knew a guy who claimed to "run a mile for every one of these," as he held up a Rob Roy.  I always imagined him running a marathon before work each day.  This film had several different titles - which is the hallmark of quality - one of which was Communion.  Is Alice, Sweet Alice an indictment of the church, child abuse, the death of the family or psychiatry?  Have fun guessing, while I focus on the wine. 

Fat Bastard's Bloody Red is a French GSM that’s really marketed for Halloween, but it works here as well.  The Spanish Alice Crianza has a slasher-style font on the label and pours up just as red.

Everyone has different hot-button phobias - clowns, spiders, Mr. Peanut.  For me it's mannequins.  Mannequins are creepy.  So are people who trespass in a room filled with mannequins.  So are people who go skinny dipping when their car breaks down after their friend was killed by mannequins.  Tourist Trap has enough "Don't go in there" moments to fuel a spoof.  Maybe there should be someone yelling that phrase outside the theater.  Forget about pairing a wine.  Just gimme a drink.  Orin Swift makes a Chardonnay called Mannequin, which comes complete with a label depicting a multitude of showroom dummies.  Creepy.

Spider Baby ups the ante on creepiness.  It reminds me that children eating spiders is one of my hot-button phobias.  The movie stars Lon Chaney, Jr., and to quote Warren Zevon, "his hair was perfect."  Not so perfect was his decision to leave a houseful of mentally defective creatures alone for a bit.  When he warns them to "behave" while he's gone, you can see the good ship U.S.S. Trouble steaming into port.  A guy in Bristol, UK had the perfect pairing when he bought a bottle of plonk that had a spider in it.  You really can't depend on getting a bug in your wine these days, so let's look for one on the label.  Australia's Spitting Spider Shiraz works for me.  Just don't have me look up any wines for clowns.  Or Mr. Peanut.



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