Family Schlock

Bruce Campbell as Elvis Presley and Ossie Davis as John F. Kennedy in Bubba-Ho-Tep. If you show this film to the family it could lead into an interesting and highly educational discussion of these American icons.

A recent email reads, "Patrick, please take me off your mailing list. Please."

And Ken in Amenia, N.Y. asks, "Hey, are there any drill-bit killer flicks appropriate for family viewing?"

Ken, do you see that van down the street? The one with all the aerials? They're going to answer your question.

But Ken got me thinking - are there enough trashy films available to give everybody a laugh and not get too deep into your typical "half-naked killer nun armed with large power tools defeats forces of Satan at exclusive haunted prep school" scenario?

Of course there are. I give you:

• The entire Aztec Mummy series. These are all harmless fun - hell, the first three are practically the same movie - although the one with the lady wrestlers is dearest to my heart. All ages.
• Any Hammer Films production of a Dracula script with Christopher Lee. These aren't any more violent than an episode of "Hot Teenage Witches and Their Vampire Boyfriends Stopping Evil With Their Exposed Midriffs and Rippling Abs, Respectively." And a great deal spookier, and with just enough decolletage from the various village maids and touring English gentlewomen to interest a 13 year old boy (and, by default, 90 percent of the adult male heterosexual population). I'd say 12 and up.
• Bubba-Ho-Tep. How Elvis and JFK defeat an ancient - and nasty - Egyptian mummy in an East Texas nursing home. Some mild bathroom humor and a couple of creepy moments. 12 and up.
• And this bargain DVD should really grace every home's collection: Roger Corman's Creature Movies vol. I , with three pieces of entertaining dreck from the early 1960s: The Creature From the Haunted Sea, The Beast from the Haunted Cave, and the best of the bunch, The Wasp Woman (which is not about Sharon, but could be about Greenwich). All ages.

Roger Corman's The Wasp Woman: "Okay, honey! You go ahead and run for PTO president! I'll make the Belgian waffles!"