I recently opened up Decrepit Crypt of Nightmares DVD box set from Mill Creek and went searching for a movie to review for October. The movie that I picked was Dead 7, a slasher film from the year 2000.
Dead 7 — or, I should say, the version of Dead 7 that I saw — got off to a pretty bad start when the douchebag pictured below appeared on the screen.
Speaking in a low, guttural voice that I guess was supposed to sound scary, this guy introduced the movie and explained that it was about a meth dealer who tossed a deaf kid in a hole and who suffered an appropriate fate as a result. Okay great, I thought. But then the guy kept talking and, to be honest, his voice was so annoying that I have no idea what he was talking about. It reminded me a bit of that old episode of Saved By The Bell where the gang found the old radio station and Screech got to host Screech’s Mystery Theater.
However, Dead 7 should not be judged by that introduction. For one thing, I get the feeling that the introduction was tacked on by the film’s distributor, Brain Damaged Films. (In fact, the credits even state that the intro was filmed by a separate director.) And once you get past the intro, Dead 7 is actually a fairly effective slasher film.
Now, don’t get me wrong. According to the imdb, Dead 7 was made for $7,000 and it definitely looks like it was made for $7,000. This is an ultra low-budget film and it really doesn’t do anything to redefine the slasher genre. This is one of those films where a group of people do something bad in the past and then, a few months later, they die as a result. There are no great surprises but still — when taken on its own terms, Dead 7 is an effective film.
Just as the toadsucker in the intro promised, a group of meth dealers toss a deaf kid into a mine shaft and leave him to die. Three months later, the kid’s odd sister, Venus (Delia Copold) performs some sort of odd ceremony in the wilderness and soon the meth dealers and their girlfriends are all dying in various bloody ways. Can you figure out what’s happening? Of course, you can!
That said, Dead 7 definitely works. Garrett Clancy makes the best possible use of his low-budget, filming with a constantly roaming camera and using properly askew angles to keep the audience off-balance. The gore is surprisingly well-done for such a low-budget film and, while the acting won’t win any awards, all of the lowlifes are appropriately scuzzy. (Delia Copold probably gives the best performance in the film, especially when taunting the main dealer.) The film ends on a properly ironic note and, all in all, watching Dead 7 is not a bad way to waste 72 minutes in October.
Filmed in 1976 but not released until 1979, Savage Weekend is the story of a brave boom mic that takes a trip to upstate New York for the weekend and ends up witnessing a lot of decadent behavior and, eventually, a few gruesome murders. Sadly, the brave little boom mic apparently has no social skills because everyone pretends like they don’t see it, even though it shows up a few dozen times, always floating at the top of the screen.
It’s also the story of Otis (William Sanderson), a local redneck (I’ve never been to upstate New York but I still find it amusing how movies always portray it as being a step away from Deliverance country) who spends his time talking to his father’s gravestone. Apparently, when Otis was younger, he found out his girlfriend was cheating on him so he branded her with an H. Why an H? Because, we’re told, Otis doesn’t know how to spell whore.
Well, okay then…
Actually, if you’ve watched any number of these type of films, you’ll immediately recognize William Sanderson. Sanderson played a countless number of backwoods weirdos and he always did a pretty good job. (He also played the poignantly sympathetic J.F. Sebastian in Blade Runner.) Interestingly enough, in real life, Sanderson has a law degree.
Savage Weekend, incidentally, has a brilliant opening. After running through the woods, a woman finds herself cornered by Otis. As Otis approaches her, he gives her a strange little half-smile. It’s super creepy and scary and the rest of the film never lives up to it.
That said, Savage Weekend is an interesting film, even if it’s not a particularly good one. I’m not sure if it’s intentional or if it’s a happy byproduct of the filmmaker’s general incompetence but Savage Weekend has a truly surreal feel to it. It moves at a deliberate, almost dream-like pace. Characters appear and then vanish for lengthy periods of time. Plot points are raised and then abandoned. As a result of an inconsistent script, much is hinted at without ever being truly revealed. It makes for a very odd viewing experience.
Plotwise, it’s your standard slasher film. A group of people find themselves in an isolated location and are picked off, one-by-one, by a masked killer. Whereas most slasher films feature teenage victims, Savage Weekend is distinguished by the fact that all of the victims are adults and they’re all way too old and successful to justify continually making the type of stupid decisions necessary for a slasher movie to work. Two of them, Robert (Jim Doerr) and Jay (Devin Goldenberg), are stockbrokers. Marie (Marilyn Hamlin) is the ex-wife of the Governor of New York’s press secretary. (At one point, someone mentions that the governor was corrupt and apparently committed suicide. It’s one of those plot points that comes out of nowhere.) Meanwhile, Marie’s sister, Shirley (Caitlin O’Heany), is accompanied by her best friend, Nicky (Christopher Allport). Nicky is flamboyantly gay and, shortly after being introduced, he single-handedly beats up three rednecks and then dramatically announced, “I was raised in the Bronx!”
Since the first murder doesn’t take place until an hour into the film, we spend more time than usual getting to know our victims but none of them behave in any sort of consistent manner, which adds to the film’s dreamlike feel. Nicky clutches a barbed wire fence while watching Shirley fool around with Jay. Marie appears to be on the verge of touching herself while listening to the story about Otis branding his girlfriend. Later, a good deal of screen time is devoted to Marie and another redneck milking a cow, with the camera zooming in on the milk shooting out of the udders. While being stalked by the killer, Nicky puts on makeup while a lingerie-clad Shirley dances through the house while tango music plays on the soundtrack.
It all just feels very odd and strangely paced, as if huge chunks of the script were either not filmed or left on the editing room floor. But that oddness (along with the boom mic) is exactly what makes Savage Weekend an interesting movie.
Hi there! Well, I’m on vacation for the next two weeks so this latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse Trailers deals with the crazy things that can happen as a result of being on the road!
It’s Sunday and that means that it’s time for another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film trailers! In honor of Black Mass, these trailers are all mob-related!
Say what you will about the overall quality of the 1966 horror-comedy, The Undertaker And His Pals, it has an absolutely brilliant opening shot. One man on a motorcycle drives around in a circle in a parking lot. He’s wearing a leather jacket and his features are hidden underneath a white helmet. Soon, another man wearing a leather jacket and white helmet rides up on another motorcycle. And again, they circle the parking lot. And then, they’re joined by a third identically dressed man on yet another motorcycle and the three of them circle the parking lot before then driving off into the city. The night is dark, the city streets are otherwise deserted, and the entire scene is tinted an otherworldly yellow. It’s a truly creepy scene and, for those first few moments of the film, those three faceless riders are truly frightening. If you ever watch The Undertaker and His Pals, be sure to appreciate that opening scene because nothing else in the film matches it.
It turns out that our three motorcycle riders are up to no good. Two of them own a restaurant and, because they’re too cheap to actually order fresh meat, they kill people and serve them up as the special of the day. The third one is the local undertaker. Business has apparently been struggling so he’s started killing people so that he can get paid to provide them a funeral. Apparently, half of each corpse is turned into lunch meat while the other half is put in a cheap, wooden casket at Shady Rest Funeral Parlor.
Now, here’s what makes The Undertaker and His Pal such a strange movie. The murders are graphic and gory (and I imagine they were quite extreme for 1966) but the rest of the movie is an over-the-top comedy, full of bad puns and slapstick. At the start of the film, while the latest victim is being stabbed to death, the camera continually cuts to a photograph of her sailor boyfriend, looking more and more upset with each cut. Later, the undertaker accidentally steps on a skateboard and we watch as he uncontrollably careens into the middle of the street while everyone else in the film points and laughs. When the undertaker finally falls off the skateboard, we even hear a waa waa on the soundtrack. After the undertaker has his accident, the owner of the diner accidentally insults a customer and literally gets a custard pie thrown in his face. (And again, we hear that waa waa.)
And then there’s the names! The film’s first victim is named Sally Lamb. The next day, the special at the diner is literally “Leg of Lamb.” When an administrative assistant named Ann Poultry complains about the poor quality of her leg of lamb and threatens to call the health department, the next day’s special is “Breast of Chicken.”
Ann worked for and was dating a detective named Harry Glass (James Westmoreland, appearing here under the name Rad Fulton). After her death, Harry is … well, Harry really doesn’t seem to care. Harry is the film’s nominal hero but he really doesn’t do anything. In fact, he is remarkably stupid. Though he claims that he’s trying to solve his girlfriend’s murder, he seems to spend most of his time unknowingly eating her down at the diner.
The Undertaker and His Pals is weird and yet strangely watchable. Of course, it helps that the film is only 66 minutes long and that the acting so cartoonish (and, I think, intentionally so) that it’s impossible to take the movie seriously. (If the film was, in any way, believable, it would be almost unbearably grim and misogynistic.) Fortunately, the film ends with clips of the entire cast coming back to life and laughing, letting us know that no one was intentionally harmed or traumatized and apparently, everyone had a great time making The Undertaker and His Pals.
I imagine the film was made to capitalize on the success of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s similarly over the top Blood Feast.Ultimately, The Undertaker and His Pals works best as a weird time capsule of what was shocking in 1966.
Just in case you needed proof that I will literally watch and review anything, here’s a few thoughts on an extremely obscure Greek thriller, which was first released in 1976. As often happened with exploitation films in the 70s, this movie was released under several different names. It’s original Greek title was To koritsi vomva. Apparently, in England, it was known as The Para Psychics, which is truly a hideous title. I prefer the American title, Death Has Blue Eyes.
So, maybe you’re wondering how exactly it was that I ended up watching a totally unknown (and unsung) Greek thriller that was filmed long before I was even born. The trailer for Death Has Blue Eyes was included on the first volume of 42nd Street Forever, an amazingly fun and entertaining compilation of grindhouse movie trailers. (I imagine that I’m not alone in counting 42nd Street Forever as my introduction to the anything goes aesthetic of the grindhouse.)
Check out the trailer below!
I have to admit that this trailer became something of an obsession of mine. Some of it, of course, was the music. And some of it was because every second of the trailer screamed out “low-budget 1970s.” But, beyond that, I loved this trailer because it contained so many scenes and yet it still told me absolutely nothing about the film. Seeing as how there were very little information about Death Has Blue Eyes online, I would watch the trailer and I would try to figure out how all of the random scenes fit together.
I could tell, of course, that the film was an action movie. It was also obvious that the film featured a woman with psychic powers and that she could apparently blow up tents and kill men in bowling alley. Just as obviously, the two men — one dark-haired and one blonde — were trying to protect her from an evil organization.
But, beyond that, I found myself obsessing on the odd scenes of the two men and the woman on the beach. Why, I asked myself, were they on that beach? And why, in a few shots, did both the woman and the blonde guy have such dark circles under their eyes? Why was their skin so much more pasty and white on the beach than it was in the rest of the trailer? Why was the blonde guy laughing like a maniac as the tide came in? Why did the dark-haired guy appear to look so shocked when he saw the blonde guy and the woman dancing? Why were they dancing on the beach in the first place? And why, while the mysterious woman looked on with a mournful expression, were the two men fighting in the ocean?
Could it be, I wondered, that the three of them were dead? And maybe the beach was purgatory? Perhaps that explained why the blonde guy was laughing. Maybe he had been killed after opening that briefcase full of money. Maybe he was laughing at the fact that, as soon as he became rich, he lost his life and found himself on Purgatory Beach. All that trouble to get all the money and here was betrayed, dead, and in purgatory. No wonder he couldn’t stop laughing.
And what about that briefcase full of money? Obviously, this was a heist film. The two men must have been friends until they both fell in love with the same psychic woman. And then, after the heist and the fireworks show, the two men turned against each other. They fought. They died. And they ended up in purgatory.
Yes, I thought to myself, that had to be it!
And, as soon as I figured that out, I knew that I had to see Death Has Blue Eyes. I mean, how often do you get to see a film that so perfectly combines film noir with Catholic theology as the trailer for Death Has Blue Eyes? Death Has Blue Eyes was obviously a forgotten classic, waiting for one brave red-headed film blogger to defend it! And if that film blogger has mismatched eyes and loved to dance, all the better!
Unfortunately, it was not easy to see Death Has Blue Eyes. There’s a few old (and expensive) VHS copies floating around but the film has never been released on DVD or Blu-Ray. (I am lucky enough to have an old VHS player, as all good lovers of film and history should!) However, a year ago, someone was good enough to upload Death Has Blue Eyes to YouTube and I finally got to see it!
And all I can say is that my version is sooooo much better.
I was right about the film being an action film that featured two guys protecting a blonde with psychic powers. But I was totally wrong about purgatory. In fact, when I saw how the beach scenes were actually used in he film, I got angry because my version was so much better!
Anyway, as for the film, it tells the story of Bob (Peter Winter) and Ches (Hristos Nomikos), who are two con artists who make a living by seducing older women and pretending to be guests at expensive hotels. After Ches’s latest cougar victim kicks them out of her home, they find themselves homeless. But then, they’re hired to serve as bodyguards for Christine (Maria Aliferi). Christine is a powerful psychic who witnessed a political assassination. Because she can read minds, she knows both who the assassin was and who he was working for!
The rest of the film is basically a nonstop collection of car chases, exploding tents, and random assassins. (What’s odd is that Christine can blow people up by merely looking at them and yet, she still needs bodyguards.) It doesn’t make a bit of sense and the two “heroes” are incredibly unlikable but, because it’s such a product of its time, the film is oddly watchable. It’s terrible and there’s no purgatory but it’s still probably the only film ever made about two gigolos hired to protect a blonde with ESP from a bunch of motorcycle-riding assassins.
That said, I still think my version of the film is better!
Check out some footage below, along with listening to a bit of the film’s score. As I said, it’s all very 70s.
Last night, the Late Night Movie Crew and I watched the 1943 film, Revenge of the Zombies.
Revenge of the Zombies deals with the mysterious Dr. von Aldermann (John Carradine), who has a house on the Louisiana bayous and who is involved in weird, 1940s-style scientific experiments. As is evident from his name (but not particularly from Carradine’s disinterested performance), von Aldermann is from Germany and his experiments are designed to create an army of zombies who will destroy American from within for the benefit for the Third Reich. This is a pretty big deal and von Aldermann isn’t particularly subtle about his schemes but, as the film’s begins, nobody has figured out what’s going on.
I guess you can get away with anything on the bayous.
Von Aldermann’s wife Lila (Veda Ann Borg) has recently died but, thanks to the mad scientist, she’s still walking around Louisiana and leading an army of zombies. Lila’s brother (Robert Lowery) shows up with a private investigator (Mauritz Hugo) and yet another mad scientist (Barry Macollum) and they eventually figure out that something weird is happening. With the help of von Aldermann’s secretary (Gale Storm), they try to thwart von Aldermann’s plans and keep the world safe for democracy.
There are a few good points about Revenge of the Zombies. For one thing, the film is only 61 minutes long so the suffering is short. As with any low-budget John Carradine horror film, Revenge of the Zombies is fun to watch with a group of snarky friends. Historically, this film is significant for being one of the first zombie movies. It’s always interesting to see how non-threatening zombies were in the days before George Romero and The Walking Dead.
And then there’s the character of Jeff (Mantan Moreland), who is a chauffeur and who provides most of the film’s comic relief. It’s always difficult for contemporary audiences to deal with the racial attitudes displayed in the films and literature of the past. On the one hand, Jeff is written as a complete and total stereotype and, as you listen to his dialogue, you’re painfully aware of the fact that the goal was to get audiences to laugh at him as opposed to with him. On the other hand, Moreland is literally the only actor in the film who actually gives a good performance. Even when delivering the most cringe-worthy of dialogue, Moreland does so with a conviction and commitment that holds your interest. As you watch Revenge of the Zombies, you really don’t care what happens to most of the bland and interchangeable characters. But you really do want Jeff to survive.
And, ultimately, you do take some comfort in that. Moreland was given a role that, as written, was very demeaning but, in the end, Jeff is the only character that you care about.
As for the rest of Revenge of the Zombies, it’s short, it’s pretty bad but it’s not terrible, and you can watch it below!
Through the Shattered Lens 