Three laughs: 3 Dev Adam

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

3 Dev Adam (1973)
Director: T. Fikret Uçak

Turkish exploitation films could be a genre on their own. They are some of the weirdest trash movies one could hope to see, yet I feel like many conisseurs of bad movies don't tend to know too much of them. Turkish Star Wars of course is a cult classic, but there are plenty of other good ones as well. What makes Turkish films special is the total disregard for copyright, good taste or any kind of grown-up logic, which makes many of the movies seem like children playing as portrayed by adults.

Case in point is the film known as Three Mighty Men, which I usually just call 3 Dev Adam. The grubby VHS-ripped film sees a Turkish version of Spider-Man start a brutal takeover of Istanbul's crime syndicates, and who gets sent to stop this lunatic but Captain America and the Mexican luchadore Santo themselves! The Turkish knockoff versions have little to do with their original counterparts, especially Spider-Man (called The Spider), whose costume is red and green, and likes to stab mafiosos with knives and put people in elaborate death traps. I think he was the model for the portrayal of Joker in The Dark Knight.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The very first scene introduces us to the brutality of Spider-Man. His goons capture a pretty girl on a beach and they bury her neck-deep in the sand. Soon, The Spider brings out a motor boat, and proceeds to shove the spinning propeller into the face of the girl. This violence is intercut with the smiling face of Spider's girlfriend, apparently telephatically surveying the scene from a completely different setting.

2. Another insane way for The Spider to execute his victims is to tie a gangster onto a pole and attaching two tennis ball tubes to his eyes. He then unleashes two vicious guinea pigs to the other side of the tube. The critters run up to the tube and apparently eat his eyes, killing him. Adios mafia.

3. The film, which is basically a game of tag with people in Halloween costumes, goes out its way to appear "mature". And by that I mean that besides the violence, there are also sex scenes and footage of strippers. It is really hard to figure out what the filmmakers were going for. During one sex scene the film cuts to some fugly puppets taking a glance at each other and cackling. And then to another, puppet, now a policeman, before cutting back to the sex. This is never explained, and the next scene is the first big fight scene between Santo, Captain America and The Spider, in which it is revealed that whenever The Spider is beaten, it is somehow a clone or some other replica and the real villain is somewhere entirily else making his getaway. Goodnight, Americanos!