SLEAZOID EXPRESS is the key work by the late Bill Landis (1959-2008). Of the “Big Three” horror/exploitation film review zines, which included Michael Weldon’s PSYCHOTRONIC (1980-2006) and Rick Sullivan’s GORE GAZETTE (1980-94), SLEAZOID EXPRESS tends to be the most acclaimed, and apparently boasted “The largest circulation of anything of its particular type.”
Until recently, however, SLEAZOID was the most elusive of its “particular type,” with Landis’ most visible publications being the 1995 Kenneth Anger biography ANGER and the 2002 trade paperback summation SLEAZOID EXPRESS: A MIND-TWISTING TOUR THROUGH THE GRINDHOUSE CINEMA OF TIMES SQUARE. Having finally gained access to SLEAZOID’s initial 47 issue 1980-85 run, and read through all 197 pages of it, here are my thoughts:
SLEAZOID EXPRESS was as much a personal testament as it was a movie zine
Bill Landis was, like Weldon and Sullivan, an East Coast suburbanite harboring an all-consuming fascination with the Times Square subculture. Unlike Weldon and Sullivan, who were and apparently remained well adjusted fellows, Landis devolved into one of the urban drug addicts his younger self loved to observe. That arc was reflected in SLEAZOID EXPRESS, which began as an orderly and informative one page collection of film reviews and, as Landis’ life spun horrifically out of control, gradually morphed into a multi-page exercise in gonzo anthropology chronicling the sights, sounds and smells of pre-gentrification 42nd Street (a.k.a. the deuce)—something very few of today’s “grindhouse experts” have ever experienced.
Landis’s views were VERY idiosyncratic
Horror staples like MANIAC (1980) and THE BEYOND/SEVEN DOORS OF DEATH (1981) are summarily dismissed in the pages of SLEAZOID EXPRESS, which also contain what is very likely the worst review of THE EVIL DEAD (1981) you’ll ever read, while the blaxploitation quickie THE BIG SCORE (1983) is taken to task because “there are no ethnic slurs.” More favorable attention is bestowed upon LET ME DIE A WOMAN (1977), which headlines SLEAZOID’s premiere issue; THE KILLING OF AMERICA (1981), “one of the most terrifying, shocking films I’ve seen recently”; SATAN’S SADISTS (1969), which “takes the biker genre to a hallucinatory level”; and the little-known PINK MOTEL (1982), apparently “the only major film this year, and everything we’ve seen after it seems influenced by it.”
Landis’ idiosyncrasies extended to his use of language
He had his own very particular terminology, and self-created definitions that were even more particular. Calling a non-comedy “laughable” was a compliment in Landis’ eyes, while comparisons with FANGORIA constituted the ultimate insult (because FANGO’s editor Bob Martin, as explained in Preston Fassel’s 2021 biography LANDIS: THE STORY OF A REAL MAN ON 42nd STREET, once had a nasty run-in with Landis). Most impressive was his use of “Grindhouse,” formerly a word with very specific connotations (to the Burlesque, or “bump and grind,” theaters lining 42nd Street), as a film category, which he may well have pioneered.
Landis’ closest rival?
Rick Sullivan’s GORE GAZETTE tends to be viewed as the profane inverse of the apparently more refined SLEAZOID EXPRESS, yet Landis and Sullivan had a great deal in
common. Both were hard-headed, temperamental and possessed of a twisted East Coast wit (although Landis’ sense of humor was, frankly, no match for Sullivan’s). Their respective publications likewise weren’t as divergent as they’ve been cracked up to be, sharing highly similar xeroxed layouts and irreverent attitudes—SLEAZOID headlines like “Latino Bisexual Trash” and “Are Led Zeppelin Faggots?” could have emerged directly from Sullivan’s typewriter. Most importantly, both publications began with valiant intentions only to flame out quite spectacularly.
Expanding on the previous topic…
SLEAZOID EXPRESS is praised for its supposedly highbrow approach that incorporated gender, sexuality and other issues that serve as catnip for modern critics. In actuality, Bill Landis’ sensibilities, as indicated by the title, were gutter-oriented; a concern with “Mysoginy” only become apparent midway through SLEAZOID’s run, in an article on the allegedly shoddy treatment of women in the films of David Cronenberg, who up until then was treated with admiration by Landis (I suspect he was influenced by Robin Wood’s anti-Cronenberg screeds). SLEAZOID’s later issues evidenced a fascination with gender roles and sexual orientation, but in a cynical and mean-spirited (i.e. very Rick Sullivan-like) manner that appears to have been designed primarily to make the “nerds” in Landis’ readership (see below) uncomfortable.
That’s in addition to the many random insults Landis hurled
In the pages of SLEAZOID EXPRESS Stephen King is called an “overrated egomaniac,” while actor David Hess apparently “resembles a bloated Victor Mature. His small dick is visible under layers of flapping fat that were once muscle.” BLOODSUCKING FREAKS (1976) director Joel M. Reed is taken to task by Landis for the fact that he “keeps harassing me for my own money” and a lot of excess venom is directed at those aforementioned nerds, who are, among other things, “too cowardly to face the real reasons why they sit through BREAKFAST AT MANCHESTER MORGUE to see a breast ripped off.” Kind-hearted this periodical wasn’t.
Jimmy McDonough
A SLEAZOID EXPRESS fan turned contributor, and eventually co-editor, McDonough relished the films of Andy Milligan (whose life would eventually be chronicled by McDonough) but didn’t seem to like much else. His contributions, in fact, often amounted to elegantly worded put-downs like “Icons are falling and the flatulent sound of their blocked heads hitting the pavement is giving me a headache.” McDonough did, however, provide what is probably the best-ever description of Landis: “Bill was a walking exploitation movie.”
Mr. Sleazoid
A Landis alter-ego tasked with answering reader queries (which were most likely made up by Landis and/or McDonough). Examples of the latter include “I am 15 and was cursed with an oversized penis” and “I am a 19 year old hustler who plays around with hard drugs. What happens if there’s a bust while I’m copping?” Responding to a “16 year old girl who enjoys tripping for THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME,” Mr. Sleazoid states that “Unless you have a natural inclination for it, acid can lead to an early burnout,” advising her to instead “Sprinkle 1 to 2 lines of decent coke on a joint, and smoke I or 2.”
Joe Monday
Another Landis alter ego. Joe M. was a porn star writing about his sordid and authentic (Landis having performed in quite a bit of mid-1980s porn under the name Bobby Spector) misadventures in the final days of SLEAZOID EXPRESS, in articles like “Midnight Cowboy,” “Mixed Combo” and the novella-length ECCO: THE STORY OF A FAKE MAN ON 42nd STREET, which took up the entirety of the last issue.
SLEAZOID EXPRESS 2.0
Landis relaunched SLEAZOID EXPRESS in 1999 with Michelle Clifford, a.k.a. “Mrs. Sleazoid.” Sitting things out was Jimmy McDonough, who reportedly felt they’d “shot their wad” with the previous iteration. I’ll have to agree, despite claims of SLEAZOID 2.0 being “inarguably more polished, coherent, and critically satisfying” than its predecessor. I found the new SLEAZOID irritatingly pretentious, with a review headlined “Death Is As Transient As Orgasm” and LA GRANDE BOUFFE (1973) touted for its “oxymoronic Brechtian commentary.” If such writing constitutes polish, coherency and critical satisfaction than I prefer my SLEAZOID EXPRESS in unpolished, incoherent and critically unsatisfying form.