One of the biggest threats to natural habitats and healthy ecosystems around the world is the introduction of non-native invasive species into their realm. It could be a form of plant life like Purple Loosestrife or Kuduz or an animal or insect like the European Starling or the brown marmorated stink bug. But the result is usually the same with the invader proliferating and eventually wiping out all of the other competing species thus creating an ecological disaster. Certainly one of the strangest documentaries to concentrate on an encroaching menace is Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (1988). Directed by Mark Lewis, the film charts the introduction of the voracious and fast-breeding amphibian to Northern Queensland in Australia and its devastating effect on the continent.
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No Help Coming
Between 1984 and 1986, WVEU (Channel 69) in Atlanta dropped its VEU affiliate programming and served up a schedule of cartoons, music videos, syndicated series and low-budget feature films. Among the latter were such Crown International drive-in faves as The Stepmother (1972) and Trip with the Teacher (1975) starring Zalman King in his most wacked-out performance (and probably the reason that he gave up acting for producing). Other ‘can you believe this?’ oddities that turned up were The Baby (1973) in which a man-hating mom (Ruth Roman) raises her son to be a gurgling, helpless man-baby and The Psychopath (1975) about a deranged kid’s show host who murdered abusive parents. You never knew what was going to turn up on Channel 69 but for a film buff it was a treasure trove of marginalized cinema. It was here that I first saw The Candy Snatchers (1973), a film which in many ways is just as misanthropic, sleazy and uncompromising as Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left which came out the following year. It was actually shocking to see this movie play in a late afternoon slot where school kids could easily tune in but the simple truth is that hardly anybody watched Channel 69 making it easy for something like The Candy Snatchers to pass unnoticed by all but a few.
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