The Cheap Stuff

Last week, I stumbled across a great, very cheap, alternative to the Hershey's chocolate bar....
It's the Pamler Buck Bar. I noticed a display of them at the last possible second while standing in line at Walgreen's, waiting to pay for some Diet Mr. Pibb. A little sign taped to the counter reading "Chocolate Bars: 3 For One Dollar!" caught my eye. "Chocolate bars? Three for ONE DOLLAR??? Hot damn!" said I.


So, the Buck Bar is similar in size and shape to the above-mentioned Hershey's Bar, although the chocolate is of a somewhat lower quality. Really, it tastes like all other Palmer chocolate, a sampling of which can be found at most dollar stores. I loves me the Palmer. The company's products remind me of Christmas morning as a lad. I'd run downstairs to check the contents of my stocking at the chimney and find a variety of cheap, Palmer-brand chocolate eggs and Santas. To this day, I live for holiday-themed treats, and the months of October, December, and March are my favorites of the year. Halloween, Christmas, Easter -- I'm there at The Dollar Tree for each of the holidays, scooping up the goofiest theme candies and snack cakes as they become available.

Anyway, The Buck Bars come in three flavors -- milk chocolate, crispy rice, and raspberry cream. I liked the crispy ones best. Considering that they're, like, 33 cents each, I say buy these suckers while you still can!

Hey, speaking of cheap products of low quality, here's a little gem made by a film company called Low Budget Productions. These folk live up to their name!

Teenape Goes to Camp (2008)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1467137/


Netflix description:
"Writer, producer and director Chris Seaver (Filthy McNasty) puts the campiness in summer camp with this raunchy and hilarious misadventure that finds the one and only Teenape taking on the job of Camp Arawak counselor. When the delinquents of Arawak run roughshod over his friend and confidante Heather, Teenape swings into action and shows the little miscreants a thing or two about living life on the wild side."

Boy, am I glad that Netflix led me to Low Budget Productions. They're like Troma, only worse. Evidently, this guy named Chris Seaver has been cranking out no-budget, amateurish comedy-monster flicks for years now, and I never even HEARD of the dude or his work until a few weeks ago. Shame on me!

From what I've gathered, Teenape is like the mascot for LBP. He's basically just a guy in a gorilla mask who talks like someone out of a 70s blaxploitation picture. Apparently, Teenape had been the star of several films (or, should I say VIDEOS, since all of these flicks were obviously shot with a hand-held digital camera), and I gotta admit that...well...I sorta like him. I don't know anything about his beginnings, but the fella's got charisma. He's got ZAZZ. You know -- that certain razzmatazz!

Well, in this movie, Teenape is invited to serve as a camp counselor for some reason. He meets up with several other freaks and misfits for a week of promiscuity and shenanigans in the woods, and for us, that means an hour of truly vulgar jokes that could have been written by a ninth grader drunk on a shoplifted bottle of Boone's Farm. Almost every sentence that comes out of Teenape's mouth contains profanity, but that's OK, since we can't really understand most of his lines, anyway (you know, due to the mask's muffling effect). Teenape also has an insatiable appetite for sex, and the ladies (somewhat inexplicably, I might say) have no qualms about indulging him. Eventually, some kind of murder plot develops, but it barely makes any sense, and really isn't worth mentioning.

Make no mistake -- on every level, this movie is as cheap as they come. The writing is horrid; the acting is worse than amateur grade; and the production itself -- well...I could have made something like this with an old Super 8 camera. I mean, this is true blue, no-budget, God-awful filmmaking, and no intelligent adult should find anything of value in Teenape Goes to Camp.


For the above reasons, I'm ashamed to admit that...in spite of myself...I kind of enjoyed this picture (aaaaah!). It's so joyfully bad that it seems to revel in its own lack of taste, and I couldn't help but chuckle at that more than once. I even queued several additional offerings from the folks at Low Budget Productions to see what other wacky situations that crazy simian gets himself into. I'm torn here. I can't seriously recommend Teenape Goes to Camp to anyone, since it's truly bad in every way. Yet, I liked it. Eh, watch at your own risk.

2 out of 5.

b.