An adolescent girl's family teaches her about her period. A loving satire from a 1975 sex education film for "trainables."

The advent of modern psychology brought to us the phenomenon of videos for "trainables." During the 1970s, the term "trainables" was used to describe those individuals with mild-to-moderate intellectual disabilities who, with proper training, might be able to achieve some form of self-sufficiency. Educational agencies created instructional videos based on showing repeated actions with the goal of teacher viewers how to perform basic tasks.

Using the original dialogue tracks and adding dramatic music, Lisa Hammer presents a lovingly and satirically remade video of an adolescent with Down Syndrome who is guided by her open and non-judgmental family through the rituals of monthly female hygienic maintenance.

Two insane brothers from bible-belt USA pray so hard they get a visit from their beloved Virgin Mary.
Unfortunately, "Mary" is actually an alien impostor bent on collecting human pus by the bucket-loads to fuel her spaceship, and these two lunatics are the perfect "workers-for-Jesus" to carry out her evil deeds. Included are hilarious musical numbers and lots of low-budget gore.

"Think of Busby Berkeley having a very, very bad acid trip" - Moe Works At Wal-Mart Magazine

"Director Lisa (Hammer) has certainly come up with something---I'm not sure WHAT exactly it is, but there's a streak of warped genius running throughout it....It's obvious that Lisa must've had a severe Catholic school upbringing, or some similar shock to the nervous system when she was young. And her scathing sense of humor is prevalent in every frame. Lisa incorporates several elegant, hallucinogenic sequences into the tale. And her more evil moments capture a dark, dreamlike realm that fits beautifully within the murderous scenario. A mind-boggling saga!!!" -Shock Cinema

Music by Ant Farm, Sisyphus Autopsy, the Lust Wall, Hemroid Hank, Browniehead and many more!

Maybe Sunshine is a "coming-of-middle age" story about a 40 something rock queen (Lisa Hammer, Triana Orpheus on Adult Swim's The Venture Bros.) who builds a new band from scratch after the disastrous break-up of her last band a decade earlier. She was a big deal in the 90’s, but now she is 20 years older, 40 pounds heavier, and divorced.

A collection of Hammer's "German Expressionist" style eerie, beautiful , Gothic short films about women trapped in frightening fairy tales!

"Welcome to the Elaborate Empire of Ache. Herein there are no words. There is no color. Everything you see hides behind the dust, scratches, and grain of the ages. Images flicker along to pulsating rhythms. There is nothing natural here. Movement is stilted, slowed, or speeded. Shadows abound and eye make-up is plentiful. This empire of ache originates from the cinema primeval, an extension of early
experiments in expressionism. This is film-making capable of evoking a visceral response to the seemingly simple oneiric monochrome images and overtly complex soundtrack. These are sights and sounds that don't belong to the world. These are visions that remain on the periphery of
conventional modern narrative. They have been summoned out of the darkness by the talented Lisa Hammer and the members of her Blessed Elysium Moving Film Company,). Also included is
"Not Farewell Sweet Flesh," the only full-color piece to be seen in this collection. The look of the piece is reminiscent of Italian horror films, complete with over-dubbing that sounds as if it's come from some third-party preview. The rest of the films can best be described as beautifully rendered, nightmarish fables. The real stand-out of the collection is "(The Elaborate) Empire of Ache" which has less Maya Deren and more Robert Weine. The outlandish costumes, askew sets, chiaroscuro lighting and
multi-layered music cohere to create an unsettling fantasy world." -Mike White, Cashiers Du Cinemart

"...I contacted the people at Sacrum Torch and demanded that they send me a copy of these films for my very own. Several weeks later, I was delightfully rewarded with a videotape containing most of them, called "A Night of Märchenfilme" (Now "Girls Gone Grimm") - from "märchen", the German word for fairy tale. A fitting title, chock full as it was with gnomes, fairies, evil witches, and other impish, elemental beings. And what would you expect from a company called "Blessed Elysium Productions" after the Greek word for "paradise" in classical mythology?... You will be amused, bewildered,
and not a little bit creeped out...I was charmed by the originality, the wit and the whimsy, the peculiar absurdity of the plot lines, the grotesque, bizarre, fantastic costumes, the spooky mood lighting, and the over-all effective use of the medium, a harlequinade of clownish knavery and dreadfulness on b&w super-8, artificially stressed film made to look like a relic from the Charlie Chaplin days, including
old-timey-looking title pages in place of dialogue. "Pure genius" , I said to myself, and I don't say that often." -Dagobert's Revenge

"I get really irritated by compilation tapes comprised of short films that have no business being compiled together. Thankfully, that's not the case in this decade's worth of work from Blessed Elyssium Productions' Lisa Hammer. Ranging from 1987 - 1996, this collection of six shorts shares a number of common traits. They're all shot in a flickering, scratchy black and white style reminiscent of 1920's cinema, they're all essentially silent films, and they're all, well, pretty weird. Among the highlights are "Adieux, Dames," a surreal, voyeuristic encounter of what appears to be a woman's suicide dance, and the bizarre, indescribably hallucinogenic "(The Elaborate) Empire of Ache." The centerpiece of the collection, however, is undoubtedly "Jorinda and Joringel," a Brothers Grimm fable adapted as a sexually charged gothic fantasy about a handsome prince's struggle to rescue his betrothed from the clutches of an evil witch. Come to think of it, you could add "sexually charged gothic fantasy" to the list of constants linking these films. These odd and disturbing live action films would be right at home in the creepy animated world of the Brothers Quay." - Merle Bertrand, Film Threat Magazine

The Anti-Christ is here on Earth - and he needs to find a spa! From underground gothic filmmaker Lisa Hammer - ("Pus$bucket", "The Venture Bros") comes a touching Anti-Christ coming-of-age tale.

Pox was meant to be the Anti-Christ, but his star is waning and his talk show's ratings are way down. After his producer and mentor (Clayne Crawford) is forced to replace him, Pox embarks on a journey to a day spa - his only comfort. Can his invisible alien manager and an inept doomsday cult help him take his rightful place as ruler of the universe?

A dark, groovy comedy - like "Austin Powers-meets-The-Manson-Family."

Review

Pox posits the question "What would the Anti-Christ be if he really existed and lived in the present?" The answer: he would be a famous talk show host! Alizarinkryz (that's one hell of a stage name) plays the eponymous evil character as a nelly queen hellbent on world domination and, of course, high ratings. When the film starts, though, Pox's ratings are dwindling. He is soon forced out of show business by his manager (Clayne Crawford) and sent off into the world by his lonesome. Luckily, Pox still have a few die-hard fans. Not long after his show's cancellation, he's hanging with a doomsday cult that revere him as a god and travelling through time to discover himself.

Directed by Lisa Hammer, an underground New York filmmaker known for surrealist, experimental shorts, Pox possesses more than enough ramshackle charm, unique performances and absurd, sacrilegious humor to win over midnight movie fans.

-- Robert O'Neill, TLA Video

A boy is afflicted by obsessive-compulsive disorder in a serious way. Dark and hauntingly funny, Crawley was co-directed by Lisa Hammer and Ben Edlund (The Tick).

"A disturbing look at OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Crawley succeeds in taking viewers into
the mind of someone afflicted a little more seriously than Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets.
Shot in B&W Super-8 and edited on video, the stark visuals aid in creating a horrific mood. At first I
thought the title was in reference to Aleister Crowley (Magick in Theory and Practice), but rather,
it is descriptive of the main character's mode of ambulation: skittering along, afraid to step on any
cracks as he thinks his doing so once broke his mother's back. Wonderfully off-beat."
-Cashiers du Cinemart

"Crawley is a dark comedy which draws heavily on the childhood fears of co-writers Ben Edlund and Eric
Hammer- fears ranging from killer bees to the inevitability of their parents' spontaneaous combustion."
-Film Threat Magazine

"...A hilarious sketch in which a deranged mad-man named Crawley tries to harmonize forces of strange
attraction occurring between food items on his table."
-Dagobert's Revenge