DREAM STALKER/DEATH BY LOVE -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 4/4/17

 

In THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, Clint Eastwood tells us: "In this world, there are two kinds of people, my friend.  Those with loaded guns...and those who dig."  Well, he was half right.  There ARE two kinds of people in the world: those who think shot-on-video movies from the 80s and 90s are unwatchable crap, and those who'd sooner watch one of them than anything that won an Academy Award this year. 

I fall into the latter camp--not completely, perhaps, but mainly--which is why I regarded Intervision Picture Corp.'s new DREAM STALKER/DEATH BY LOVE double-feature DVD with a sort of giddy delight instead of flinging it away with a cry of "ICK!" as some less adventurous individuals might be compelled to do.

Granted, these SOV features are a diverse lot which vary wildly in quality from the above-average (PHOBE:XENOPHOBIC EXPERIMENTS) to somewhere in-between (SLEDGEHAMMER, the first-ever SOV movie) to the downright pathetic (I'm looking at you, THINGS).

But however relatively good or bad they may be, they all share one thing in common--the fact that they're such a renegade, "outsider" form of cinema automatically makes them instantly interesting to a lot of people.

In the case of DREAM STALKER (1991), director Christopher Mills does a competent job with a cast that's unpolished but earnest, and comes up with something that resembles an actual movie.  Some of the photography, in fact, is actually rather nice, especially a gorgeous shot of a car crossing Golden Gate Bridge in the rain. Some of the sound, unfortunately, is the pits. (I'm looking at you, leaf-blower scene.)

Scriptwise, there's some perversely amusing dialogue and a glorious mess of a plot about a budding supermodel named Brittney Marin (Valerie Williams) whose dirt-bike-racing, mullet-sporting boyfriend Ricky (Mark Dias) gets killed shortly after their engagement. 

The increasingly troubled Brittney discovers, through the help of the eccentric Dr. Frisk, that her nightmares about Ricky (in which he tries to run her over with his bike before dragging her down kicking and screaming into his grave) have taken on telekinetic properties.

What even he doesn't know, however, is that when Brittney is asleep, Dead Ricky is able to return to this world, kill anyone who bothers or shows any romantic interest in her, and, in a twist on the old "dream lover" fantasy, make some really yucky nocturnal mookie with her. 

By this time, Ricky's looking a little icky, thanks to a nifty makeup job that makes him look like Two-Face only worse.  He hasn't lost his sick sense of humor, though, bemoaning the breakage of his condom in the zombie rape scene and giving a hapless mortuary worker some serious guff for cheaping out on his burial. 

In desperation, Brittney leaves her hot older-Pat-Benetar-looking mom behind and flees to their vacation cabin in the woods, only to find that it's now right next to a camp for "troubled teens" who are all in their 20s and 30s.  These insufferable post-juvenile delinquents could all use a good Jasoning, but after the chicks beat up on poor Brittney and the dudes try to molest her (by now, this movie has elements of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, FRIDAY THE 13TH, and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE comin' at ya) they're all prime fodder for Dead Ricky to wade into just as soon as Brittney goes night-night.

Love-starved Brittney finally drives old Rottin' Rick right over the edge when she shows interest in a handsome new neighbor, Greg (John Tyler).  A nice softcore sex scene with brief nudity (bookending the earlier one between Brittney and a pre-dead Rick) sets up the raucous finale in which everybody gets seriously Rick Rolled, with plenty of blood and gore effects. 

All things considered, DREAM STALKER may very well be regarded as a classic of its kind.  The horror scenes are generally well-staged, the drama is pleasingly goofy, and SOV fans should find it as restful and invigorating as a good night's sleep. 


The same can pretty much be said for the follow-up, DEATH BY LOVE (1990), which, while not quite as over-the-top as the previous feature, is still one of the better SOV flicks that I've seen. 

Producer-writer-director Alan Grant stars as Joel Falk, a well-known sculptor who's quite a fit, bronzed figure of a man himself.  At least, enough to attract the interest of several equally attractive young women who, unfortunately, tend to turn up dead after hooking up with him.  And not only dead, but drained of blood, with ugly gashes on their throats.

But is Joel the killer?  Or is it the mysterious, unidentified man (Frank McGill) who's always spying on him from afar?  Every time Joel hooks up with a woman, this guy's peering through a window or hedge, seemingly up to no good. 

So...is he the killer, and if so, why does he seem intent on murdering every woman that Joel shows romantic interest in?  

Like DREAM STALKER, this is a decent-looking enough feature to have been shot on video, and it's about as well-directed.  Since it was shot in Dallas, Texas, almost everyone has a thick Texas accent, which, as a Texan myself, I find to be a definite plus.  The acting, as usual, is much more enthusiastic than refined, and in general the movie is technically adequate and more. 

Whether he's killing these women without being aware of it, or his unknown stalker is disposing of them himself for some ungodly reason, Joel earns our sympathy early on thanks partly to Grant's earnest performance.  McGill comes into his own later as his character makes his way to the fore and the mystery surrounding him is revealed. 

This revelation, in fact, turns out to be a dandy of a twist, which I'd be loathe to expound upon here lest I give it away. Suffice it to say, the second half of the story gets a lot livelier and involves some nifty monster makeup.  Also of interest are the copious amounts of lovingly-shot softcore sex scenes throughout much of the running time, accompanied by the requisite smokey jazz music. 

With the help of a couple of likable police detectives, DEATH BY LOVE builds to a suitably intense climax that viewers should find satisfying.  (Be sure to stay through the closing credits for the final sting.) Together with DREAM STALKER, this double-feature DVD from Intervision should prove quite a tasty treat for shot-on-video connoisseurs who just can't get enough of that funky stuff.

Special Features:

Remembering Ricky: With Actor Mark Dias
Dirtbike Dreams: Executive Producer Tom Naygrow
Alan Grant Remembers Death By Love Via Video Skype
Yvonne Aric and Brad Bishop Remember Death By Love Via Video Skype
English subtitles

Release date: 4/11/17

DREAM STALKER/DEATH BY LOVE -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE BURNING MOON -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 2/19/12

 

If you're looking for a pic to put next to the definition of "splatter" in your dictionary, there's a charnel house full of choice moments to choose from in THE BURNING MOON (1997), one of the goriest horror flicks I've seen since H.G. Lewis bought his first bottle of ketchup.  And while the first few minutes of this low-budget, shot-on-video German indy didn't exactly have me tingling with anticipation, it wasn't long before the earnest and surprisingly accomplished effort started to win me over in a big way.

We first meet writer-director Olaf Ittenbach as sullen slacker Peter, a drug-addled leech who'd rather shoot up and rumble with his gang than babysit his cute widdle kid sister.  His job interview sequence is pretty amusing--the interviewer has to remind him of the office's "no smoking" policy as he's rolling a joint--and the gang fight scene later on is nicely chaotic. 

After mainlining some "H" and imagining the moon as a huge, roiling ball of fire, Peter barges into his sister's room and insists upon telling her some horrific bedtime stories.  The first, "Julia's Love", begins with a nice girl named Julia (the cute Beate Neumeyer) enjoying her blind date with a nice guy named Cliff (Bernd Muggenthaler) until a radio news reporter's description of a recently-escaped psycho killer matches Cliff right down to his license number.  She flees his car at the first opportunity but makes the grave mistake of leaving her wallet behind.

What you think will happen next happens next, leading to one grisly and graphic killing after another as Julia's family is reduced in number one by one while she's upstairs.  Here, we get our first good look at Ittenbach's knack for devising convincing and sometimes flabbergasting practical gore effects and then shooting them in creative fashion.  Limbs are hacked off, throats are slashed, heads roll, and one person finds out why a machete definitely doesn't make a good toothpick.  When Julia finally discovers something's amiss, the segment rushes headlong to its exciting bloodbath finale. 

Since li'l sis hasn't quite drifted off to dreamland yet, Peter then proceeds to regail her with his next brain-boggling bedtime tale, "The Purity."  In this one, a series of murders in a small village has everyone blaming a mild-mannered farmer named Justus (André Stryi), although the real culprit is twisted priest Ralf (Rudolf Höß), a sweetly-beaming nutcase whose pious exterior hides the soul of an underworld denizen.  Ralf believes that death is purifying for the soul, and gleefully proceeds to purify several of his fellow villagers by raping, shooting (squibs abound), and throat-slashing (a startling effect). 

As if this weren't enough, the segment ends with one of the innocent Justus' persecutors taking a trip to Olaf Ittenbach's version of Hell, which turns out to be a stomach-churning free-for-all of gore, gore, and more gore.  For about fifteen straight minutes, the screen is filled with some of the most gruesome splatter effects you'll ever see this side of a Tom Savini fever dream. 

It's amazing that the director was able to pull off some of this stuff on such a low budget, it's so well done.  In addition to a veritable ocean of entrails and body parts, we witness a power drill to the teeth, eyeballs plucked out, faces pulled off, and--in what is probably the film's piece de resistance--a guy's legs pulled apart until his body literally splits up the middle.  In other words, it's party time for gorehounds. 

While THE BURNING MOON does look as cheaply-made as it is, Ittenbach's direction and staging are surprisingly sophisticated at times--you can tell that there's a genuinely talented filmmaker at work here, making the best of his limited resources with a good deal of creativity and enthusiasm.  His cast range from adequate to above-average, with Rudolf Höß as Ralf turning in a particularly strong performance and Ittenbach himself not bad as Peter.  Beate Neumeyer makes a winsome Julia in the first story segment while her co-star Bernd Muggenthaler plays the role of Cliff with just the right combination of feigned normalcy and giddy insanity. 

The DVD from Intervision is full-screen with Dolby 2.0 sound (in the original German) and English subtitles.  Extras include trailers for this and two other Intervision features, plus the 47-minute documentary "The Making of 'The Burning Moon'" which is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how to put an effective horror movie together on a shoestring.

One of the best of the obscure cinematic curios that Intervision has released so far, THE BURNING MOON ("Uncut, Uncensored, Unconscionable" the box proclaims) rises above its modest budget to provide a wealth of well-rendered shocks to the hardy souls who appreciate this sort of thing.  More sensitive viewers, beware.  Gorehounds, rejoice.

THE BURNING MOON -- DVD Review by Porfle

BAD MOVIE POLICE DOUBLE FEATURE: ZOMBIE COP & MAXIMUM IMPACT -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/15/09

 

 

Tempe Entertainment hits bad movie fans with their worst shot once again with BAD MOVIE POLICE DOUBLE FEATURE, the fourth in their BMP series which has previously offered such non-hits as GALAXY OF THE DINOSAURS, CHICKBOXER, and HUMANOIDS FROM ATLANTIS. This time we get a double-dose of disaster with a couple of quirky quickies, ZOMBIE COP and MAXIMUM IMPACT, which, depending on your tolerance for no-budget shot-on-video schlock, should have you either giddy with delight or scrambling for the "eject" button.

The two films, which were originally shot in the early 90s with a combined budget of around $5,000, really aren't that bad, and re-releasing them under the "Bad Movie Police" banner seems to be simply a way of making them more appealing by playing up their camp value. Heck, any time someone can take such a small budget and limited resources and manage to make something that resembles an actual movie that is even mildly entertaining, I have to give them credit.

The first film is ZOMBIE COP, which tells the story of two cops, Gill (Michael Kemper) and Stevens (Ken Jarosz), who track down an evil voodoo master named Doctor Death (James Black). Gill and Dr. Death manage to shoot each other, but before he dies Death puts a voodoo curse on Gill which will cause him to rise from the grave and stalk the earth as a zombie.

Gill makes his way to Stevens' apartment and, after a brief "Oh my god, you're supposed to be dead!" exchange, Stevens lends Gill an old cop uniform and some gauze to wrap around his head to make him less conspicuous (!!!) and before you know it, Zombie Cop is on the beat! The partners then go on the prowl for Dr. Death, who has also risen from the grave and is planning to turn a bunch of schoolkids into zombies or something.

Michael Kemper actually looks pretty cool in his Zombie Cop getup and seems to enjoy playing the role, especially when blasting bad guys with his pump shotgun or reciting his catchphrase: "Your rights have been waived!" There's plenty of no-frills action along the way, including a lengthy car chase which is pretty impressive considering that most movies this cheap wouldn't even attempt something like that.

Some of the comedy relief is pretty lame--the towel-headed convenience store clerk who is constantly being robbed, a character inspired by Apu of "The Simpsons", doesn't generate much hilarity--but Dr. Death's panicky, inept henchman Buddy (Bill Morrison) is amusing.

And I really liked this throwaway gag from a TV news report: "Meanwhile in Hollywood news, the proposed new 'Frankie Kroger' movie, that would feature 'One Day At A Time' star Bonnie Franklin as Kroger's mom, has been canned. When asked why, studio officials report that Ms. Franklin's appearance on the screen was...just too scary for the kids."

The second feature in our double-bill is the generically-titled MAXIMUM IMPACT, which also stars Ken Jarosz and James Black. Jarosz is insurance salesman Jerry Handley, who is attending a conference in Cleveland, and Black plays Mr. Huntsacker, an underworld flesh peddler who will be providing the "entertainment." Jerry declines such indulgences, since he's engaged to be married in a month to his fiancee' Jan (Jo Norcia), but his childhood buddy Phil (Scott Emerman) is rarin' to go.

Unfortunately, Phil arrives just as Mr. Huntsacker is looking for someone to star in a snuff film that has been commissioned by a millionaire sicko, and ends up with a gun barrel in his mouth. Jerry witnesses the deed and rescues Tonya (Christine Morrison) who was tricked into doing it. The perturbed Mr. Huntsacker sends a hit squad to Jerry's house and the dirty rats execute Jan right there in front of the Christmas tree. Jerry, who seems to have undergone some kind of extensive military training in the past and happens to have an arsenal full of automatic weapons and grenade launchers in his basement, goes into full-scale revenge mode, with entertaining results.

MAXIMUM IMPACT is a low-fi version of the typical Hollywood action-revenge flick and manages to be pretty entertaining. Ken Jarosz is an okay lead, while James Black delivers the kind of performance that would lead to a successful acting career in films and TV series such as SOLDIER and "Six Feet Under." Bill Morrison returns as Mr. Huntsacker's scarfaced trigger man George, and Michael Cagnoli is pretty amusing as his bumbling toady Bernie. Considering that the budget on this movie was a little over $2,000, it delivers a fair amount of action and suspense along the way.

Both films were directed by Lance Randas and feature many of the same cast and crew. Each one features a lively commentary track with producer J.R. Bookwalter and various other participants. The picture and sound have been newly-remastered for DVD, and if the 90-minute running time listed on IMDb for ZOMBIE COP is correct, it looks as though they've been trimmed a bit, too, since each film here runs barely longer than an hour.

If you demand high production values in your cinematic entertainment, and stories that don't fall apart if you take them seriously, then by all means steer clear of this DVD. Otherwise, you should have a lot of fun with this latest entry in the BAD MOVIE POLICE series. It takes me back to the old days of watching cheapo double-features in my local grungy movie theater, but without the sticky floors.

BAD MOVIE POLICE DOUBLE FEATURE: ZOMBIE COP & MAXIMUM IMPACT -- DVD Review by Porfle

FRANKY AND HIS PALS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted 6/27/20


There are movie lovers who love bad movies--we all know about them. And then there are those hardy souls who take it a whole 'nother step farther than a simple fondness for such films as PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and MANOS: HANDS OF FATE. These are the people who love bad shot-on-video movies from back in the days of VCRs and camcorders.

Yes, I'm talking about the obscure, murky, mind-numbing video relics of which our subject for today, FRANKY AND HIS PALS (Intervision, 1991), is a prime example. For most people, trying to watch such barrel-scraping stuff would be an insufferable ordeal. For others, it's a special kind of fun that can't really be logically explained.

Suffice it to say, this story of five "classic" monsters (more or less) who happen upon a treasure map and then try to find a cache of hidden gold, is only as good as you imagine it to be. If this is your cup of weak tea, you'll have a ball. If not, you may have a cow just trying to get away from it.

It all begins with the monsters, who have been trapped in a cave for years by a landslide, escaping thanks to the extreme flatulence of gassy monster Franky blowing a boulder away from the entrance.

The others include Drak, Wolfie, Mummy and the parasitic smart-aleck reptile who lives in his tummy, and Humper the lecherous hunchback.  If Drak sounds familiar to you, it's because the actor playing him seems to be attempting to channel Christopher Lloyd. (A helpful disclaimer during the closing credits assures us that "celebrity voice are simulated.")

When Humper produces the treasure map during a poker game, they set off on foot for the small backwoods town where the hotel containing the gold is located. Here, they search for the hidden riches under tables, in books, behind shelves--wherever a fortune in gold wouldn't be in a million years--while a costume party-slash-dance taking place in the hotel keeps them from attracting too much undue attention.

This sets up filmmaker Gerald Cormier (BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD) to give us a parade of bad jokes and vignettes that make "Hee Haw" look like A NIGHT AT THE OPERA. Humper makes good on his name by descending upon every female derriere in sight, while Wolfie hooks up with a gay guy in a tutu named Clover and Mummy can't get anywhere with the ladies because his scaly alter-ego keeps making offensive quips and getting him slapped.

Drak avails himself of an available neck here and there, delivering what is probably the movie's funniest line after one particularly good snack ("Mmm...type O, vintage '65. A very good year!") It all comes to an explosive finale when Franky discovers an entire pot of chili beans cooking on the stove and gulps them down.

The monster makeup is passable when the camera isn't too close to it. Performances are about as good as one might expect, while, surprisingly, the technical aspects actually display a certain rudimentary level of professionalism that lifts this effort above most other shot-on-video fare. 

Serving as backdrop during all the fart and pee-pee jokes, naughty sex scenes, and a climactic bikini contest are some of the worst rock and rap songs one could possibly hope to never hear. Somehow, though, it would spoil much of the fun if they were actually good.

Rounding things off are a peripheral subplot about a mad scientist with a time machine and a couple of black gravediggers whose dialogue is of the "Are you jivin' me?" variety.

The DVD from Intervision is in full frame with English captions. Extras include an interview with actor Eric "Big Franky" Weathersbee, an interview with actor/FX artist Keith "Humper" Lack, an interview with actor Shawn "Clover" West, interviews with members of the "Franky and His Pals" party band, and a "Radio Beach" music video by same.

A disclaimer informs us that the original materials have been lost, and that this DVD print comes from the only surviving element which is a commercial copy of the film. Thus, FRANKY AND HIS PALS looks exactly the way it should look--as though you'd just rented it on VHS from some hole-in-the-wall video store in 1991. I wouldn't have it any other way.


Limited Edition, Hand-Numbered DVD/Limited to 1000 Copies
 

FRANKY AND HIS PALS -- DVD Review by Porfle