Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘Now you’re just making fun of me.’
Not yet but that’s usually how this goes.
The everglades horrors of William Grefe are something we’ve only touched on in our review of Sting of Death
but now we’re back for Death Curse of Tartu.
‘Man, this is groovy’
We open with an explorer entering a cave, the tomb of the unknown alligator.
Ends badly for him.
We now jump ahead to another visitor, Sam Gunther and his guide Billy.
‘Okay Billy, let’s unload.’
and by ‘lets’ I mean you.
But Billy’s not staying.
‘Don’t tell me you believe those ridiculous stories of evil spirits and witch doctors that turns themselves into giant alligators and such like?’
Foreshadowing over, Sam goes on alone past the shocking skull, to set up camp.
Man I need a new kettle.
Sam is an archaeologist and…
What’s he found? That’s a rock. But digging up the rock has once again woken Tartu,
who now changes shape, and…
It’s stealing the kettle!
Sam too perishes.
When someone throws a snake at him.
So, 20 minutes in we’re back to square one with another idiot stepping up to be lead.
‘The humans brain is very mysterious sometimes it makes you see things that don’t exist and hear things that never were’
Didn’t we already do the no one believes Billy scene?
‘Hello Billy, how are you?’
Superstitious and scared. You?
Ed Tyson and his wife Julie are heading into the everglades with a group of Ed’s students to meet up with Sam.
But without a guide?
‘I didn’t spend 4 years as a navigator in the air force to end up getting lost out here in the glades’
I imagine this’ll be pretty much the same.
‘Push!’
Sorry about this, things look different when you’re on the ground.
Should we have brought boots?
They continue to follow in Sam’s footsteps.
‘It’s sounds like… dwums’
Dwums?
They find Sam’s camp.
It’s his kettle! I’d recognise it anywhere.
The kettle plays an unexpectedly major role.
They also find his rock.
‘Look at this weird writing’ ‘What luck’
The rock tells the frightening story of the witch doctor Tartu.
‘Frightening yes, but sheer nonsense’
Ed is quick to tempt fate.
‘Anyone who believes in that should believe in ghosts and goblins and wicked witches and the like’
But the absence of Sam is worrying.
‘The everglades are full of wild creatures’
In many ways it was stupid to bring my students here, then let them wander off by themselves.
‘Hey, give me a chance to breathe’
‘There’s plenty of time for breathing later’
Not for you there won’t.
‘The marshmallows are burning.’
Already? I barely even touched you,
but first, the horrifying moment that comes in all these films.
'Hows this for a drag.'
#stock music track#
Boy I hope someone kills them.
Can’t I be dead in peace?
After some more marshmallow related euphemism.
‘Come on, It’s marshmallow time.’
Yeah it is.
The teens frolic.
My Mom says I have to wear my shirt in the pool,
'What do you think of that.'
but Tartu has again taken animal form to come for them.
‘It’s a shark’
It actually is.
Tommy and Joann meet a grizzly fate.
‘I doesn’t seem possible’
he’s not wrong.
‘Sharks don’t live in fresh water’
As Cindy freaks out.
The remaining four now find their airboats have been sabotaged.
‘It looks like alligator teeth marks’
What’s happening?
‘Things exist on this planet that scientists have no answer to’
Well you’ve changed your tune!
‘The only explanation is Tartu’
Would we say ‘only’?
Johnny decides to go for help.
Joann wants to go along, but…
‘Johnny needs all his strength to get through the everglades. You’d only be an anchor around his neck’
Sorry to pick such an unflattering metaphor).
doesn’t go well for Johnny.
Couldn’t even outrun a snake and Cindy freaks out again.
#Cidy Screams#
Thank God the kettle is okay.
Hadn’t seen it for a while and I feared the worst.
Meanwhile Ed’s lightning conversion continues.
‘Then we must seek out his burial spot and destroy his body.’
We’re going on a burial hunt.
Which you’d think would be challenging but…
‘That must be it. Come on, let’s pay Mr Tartu a visit’
Please, Mr Tartu is my father.
Inside...4
Cindy’s gone again.
Leaving them locked in, but,
so she runs back,
that sounds like rock.
‘Oh please let me in!’
Let you in? You locked us in here!
‘Something’s wrong, she’s screaming’
It’s her default state I’d be worried if she wasn’t.
'What are you doing?' 'I have an idea.'
They blow their way out.
But…
This has not been a successful field trip.
Back to the tomb to destroy Tartu, but first...
Ed has to open the coffin.
Well this is just embarrassing.
‘I need something stronger’
I think that every time I look at you.
‘Maybe Tartu didn’t exist’
The feeble excuse of a man emasculated by his inability to open a box.
But now…
I loosened it for him!
I think we can assume bullets don’t work.
Just gonna keep trying, huh?
‘Reload the rifle Hurry!’
It’s our only hope.
Following a chase and a fight Tartu goes into quicksand.
Why doesn’t he change into an animal that could get out of this?
Well, we should get back. I have to write some awkward letters to parents.
Wait! What happened to the kettle? I need closure.
'Oh Johnny, how awful.'
Thanks for watching. For more students in trouble, check out my book The Werewolf of Priory Grange.
Boy that’s a tenuous link.
William Grefe based most of his films in Florida, whatever filmmakers are connected to a specific location and do they do it justice?
Let us know in the comments below, I just like the prominance the kettle is given. More character than anyone in the film.
'We can't just wait here to die, we have to get out of here.'