“I am a degenerate in my tastes. Freddy Krueger is my hero,” exclaims Alejandro Jodorowsky, director of Santa Sangre, in an interview with Cinefantastique. Jodorowsky, who considers himself “one of the last three artists working in the film medium,” was inspired to write the story for the film after a series of personal meetings with a Mexican mass murderer who had killed 30 women and buried them in his garden, but is now in his 60’s, out of prison, and married with children. What we get on screen is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a circus boy who witnesses his father dismember his mother. Twenty years later, he escapes from the insane asylum to be with her and function as her arms.

Jodorowsky, best known for El Topo, used his own sons to play the troubled boy and murderous adult. Pushing black comedy to the brink of insanity, Santa Sangre is an art film whose impact falls somewhere between Monty Python and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Proving that motion picture production is now within reach of anyone with $99, Spike Stewart’s Warhol Machine touts itself as the first rock video shot entirely on the Fisher-Price PXL2000 toy video camera. Quickly becoming video’s equivalent to Super 8, the tiny plastic camera uses audio cassettes to store its grainy, silent images.

The toy’s use as a concert camera is, however, yet to be proven. Unfortunately for Stewart, the bouncers in Hollywood at the Roxy’s Roches concert were oblivious to technological innovation. Refusing to believe that the PXL 2000 was not an audio recorder in disguise, they reportedly escorted Stewart to a room outside the hearing range of Maggie, Terry and Suzzy Roche, then proceeded to pound on the camera and photographer to see whose frame would crack first. Stewart, who had a photographer’s pass for the event, has been told by the authorities not to bother filing a lawsuit. The filmmaker may just have to wait until disposable video equipment becomes available before intruding again on the world of female folk.