Booby Trap / The Takers
Booby Trap (1973, 90 min.) - It's time to kiss and go boom! A cheerfully insane ex-marine hates teenage "freaks and nuts" so much he steals 40 land mines and turns the desert site of an impending rock festival into one big Booby Trap! Headquartered in a stolen motor home, the cackling loon (played waaaay over the top by "Please Don't Eat My Mother" director Carl Monson) also blows up a hitchhiking hippie chick just for the fun of it. His anti-social activities trigger a chain reaction all the way from the military to a Sunset Strip topless bar, with the site of this intended massacre besieged by his cocktail waitress ex-wife, her shot-in-the-shoulder boyfriend, two out-for-blood mobsters, and a big sissy with stolen money. "The Takers" (1972, 78 min.) - After a breakfast of LSD and hitchhikers, The Takers--two berserk bikers--decide to go upscale when they spot suburban housewife Laura and bachelorette Barbi, follow them to Laura's home, and invite themselves in: "We're gonna have us a party with some educated social-type broads!" And party they do until Laura's hubbie (Monson again!) unexpectedly shows up to settle things with some shotgun vengeance and... well, one of the goofiest, most startling endings of any motion picture! Two demented drive-in delights from the vaults of Harry Novak, both "Booby Trap" and "The Takers" are best summed up by the lovely Miss Barbi: "Listen, honey, these two are freak outs!"