“The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell” is an amalgamation of exploitation amusement.  For fans of Roger Watkins’ “Last House on Dead End Street” we get the return of that film’s trademark character Terry Hawkins.  For fans of Jim VanBebber (“The Manson Family”), we get none other than the “Deadbeat” himself, reprising the role of the Terry Hawkins character.  “Schizophreniac” fiends also get a renewed taste of Harry Russo.  With John Giancaspro and Jim VanBebber together onscreen in a Ron Atkins film you know you’re in for some of the most frenzied insanity to ever (dis)grace the screen.

The film starts by honoring the late Roger Watkins (“For Roger”) and contains a phone message from Watkins to Atkins pertaining to a possible project that never panned out, seemly due to his death.  This will leave us forever wondering what Watkins potentially had up his sleeve…

Our story begins in a Las Vagas wasteland.  Most of the human race has been vanquished from a plague, with a mere few thousand survivors.  Lucky for us (but unlucky for everyone else) two of the survivors are a couple of the most entertaining despicable raucous racist screwballs in existence – Harry Russo and Terry Hawkins.

The introduction of VanBebber’s Terry Hawkins is the ultimate tribute to “Last House on Dead End Street.”  This sequence is executed perfectly via footage with his echoic voiceover describing his distaste for humanity and the injustices he feels have been brought upon him.  Hawkins has been freed from jail from a 19-year sentence from shooting the snuff flick from the original film.  Now out of jail he is wrestling with nightmares of shock therapy and visions of Harry Russo adorned in a similar Greek mask from Watkins’ classic.  Hawkins is now back with a rejuvenated vigor, to show the world once more what he is made of.

Russo is on his own journey.  One evening he meets John Wayne Gacy’s Pogo the Clown persona which sends him on an expedition to find the “Nigger of Cause.”  “And where do I find this Nigger of Cause?” Russo demands?  “The Nigger Brick Road” so says Pogo, paralleling “The Wizard of Oz” in a weird racist odyssey.  Meanwhile, Hawkins sees an apparition of the Wicked Witch where she has him look into her “Crystal Meth ball” where he gets a vision of Harry Russo.  The convenient thing about this whole oddball situation is that the Wicked Witch shares Russo’s and Hawkin’s sentiments toward black folk.  “I think everybody should own a nigger” she cackles to Hawkins whilst the two of them yuk it up.  Continuing, Russo trains for his path to gear himself up on the impending journey to find the “Nigger of Cause” and congregate with Terry Hawkins to ultimately fuck shit up.

Giancaspro is as amazing as ever.  He is as amusing as he was in “Schizophreniac” and “Necromaniac” and you can’t help but ask yourself how you’ve gone without him for such an onscreen hiatus.  However, when these two sociopaths get together there is even more insanity to go around, so much so that “The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell” definitely has two of the most insane characters ever to be depicted in a single film.  The Russo/Hawkins combo is chaotic lunacy at its finest.  They seem to feed off each other’s madness and VanBebber’s depiction of Hawkins is just as off-the-wall crazy as the Russo character.  When Terry and Russo are onscreen together the film is a complete mindfuck .  Their “seig heil” chant sequence saluting Hitler complete with constant maniacal laughter is truly an amazingly psychotic spectacle and perfect paradigm of their absolute madness.
 

This time around we get a deeper look inside Harry Russo, his dysfunctional home life, with his feuding mother and father.  Lawrence Buchér ("Mutilation Mile," "Death Rattle LSD") makes an appearance as Russo’s Loony Tunes father which gives us a look into how he turned into such a despicable individual.  There’s also the origin of Harry’s doll Rubberneck which is given to him by his father on his death bed.  Rubberneck returns with a new makeover -- more demonic looking in appearance, complete with a Hitler moustache.

“The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell” is a film unlike any other you will ever see and even surpasses the insanity bred in the original Schizophreniac’s.  Nothing is off limits here: religion, race, orientation or all of humanity.  A quote by W.C. Fields commences the film and best sums up the amount of racism depicted herein: “I am free of all prejudices, I hate everyone equally.”  The insane duo lives up to this quote tenfold, and with a scene from the beginning of the film Russo echoes these sentiments in his own way:  whilst raping a nun he so eloquently calls a “penguin bitch.”  After all, "all anybody's good for is fuckin' in the ass!"

Atkins Entertainment delivers the Exclusive Limited Edition of “The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell” on DVD.  The release comes in a cool blue case complete with impressive cover art and insert art by Giancaspro himself.  The release is presented in non-anamorphic widescreen but this can be amended by simply pressing the zoom button (or similar function) on your player's remote control.  The audio is presented Dolby Digital stereo 2.0.  This release is light on extra material but does contain a trailer for the film.

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 DVD SPECS:
 Aspect Ratio: Widescreen (non-anamorphic)
 Region: NTSC R1
 Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0

 SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL:
 - “The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell” trailer