[Archive]: Deatherman (2012)

From https://i0.wp.com/terriblemoviesforterriblepeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/deatherman_thumb25255B325255D.jpg?resize=396%2C396

Director: Bobby Keller

Screenplay: Bobby Keller

Cast: Dominique Capone as Holley Cooper; Gena Comandy as Tessa Carpenter; Mike Gavern as Dan Anders; Jenni Grasso as Buffy Winters; John Kasper as Dalton Law; Bobby Keller         as Coyote; Jim Keller as Mumbo Chef; Allison LaRussa as Leech

[Preferably, I would like my reviews to be published within some reasonably time soon after viewing each film/media I cover. Unfortunately, in the case of this review, I had written out a version on paper but never typed the document up for publishing, which is entirely against my usual method for creating content for the blog. Desiring to begin including old material on said blog as "Archive" material, and not wanting to waste a review from early 2019, I publish this review now. Due to the nature of what happened, with only those notes available, I apologise for the lack of my usual practice of improving and adding to the material in the midst of creating a typed digital copy. Barring correcting any potential grammar and spelling mistakes, alongside [bracketed text] clears up confusion content, this is entirely the notes typed up so the time spent writing them, and viewing this extremely obscure no-budget film, wasn't wasted.]

It pains me to say this, considering there were moments that amused me, but sometimes your resources can be too small to fully create an interesting work. Deatherman, a throwback to eighties and nineties shot-on-video cinema likewise shot-on-video, and under sixty minutes, does feel flimsy even in knowledge that you can have very little to work with. Improvising is a virtue, but a bar scene that feels like three actors in a room, unless you can add an enthusiastic energy in spite of this, is going to lack mood and drag at any cost of production.

Ostensibly, one weatherman learns that a new female colleague is joining [their station]. A sexist, both dismissing her ability to became a weather reporter and hitting on her, his comeuppance is soon imminent. She and two female friends, who all knew each other in psychotherapy, dispose of the body, only for acid rain to resurrect him, jokes on the loose logic [of this actually being able to work only taking place when its already become] a revenge tale. It's silly, just for the title pun and could've easily been ridiculous. Honestly, the real joy is to be found not in the story, a horror comedy whose lack of structure and unused resources strips the energy out, but in the humour provided by enthusiastic non actors. [The premise is average], as you are following a completely unlikable character, the Deatherman, who cannot be stopped and (barring some gore) throttles most his victims, [the film] only a few times [springing to some life] like with an umbrella [related murder and little else].

Instead it's Marvin, a one scene one joke character for a fake news channel commercial, screeching about his magic shop over a fake news screen and telling his grandmother to go fuck herself [who is of reward], or one of the female lead's friends once wanting to marry a box of cereal. Arguably Deatherman, a film really only an acquired taste[,] grows into something legitimately fun because, contrary to the plot, there's a tiny cast of characters doing incredibly silly things or having some comic timing. Such as the restaurant chef, a guy not even in a chef's costume and a chef's hat, muttering like a madman, bashing vegetables to death with a knife, and repeating words like "Caesar Salad) over and over again. If anything, it's a great case study of how cinema is not about narratives but the importance of the likes of mood and character, great narratives birthed through these too.

By itself, Deatherman wouldn't suffice even for fans of SOV cinema, long patches that are sluggish or compare badly to more ambitious and weird shot-on-video films this was a tribute too. These one joke characters, not to forget a drug dealer who's a fan of the weatherman who even rings him, have a spark of fun which is an absolute blessing; legitimately so, as there's a glee in this silliness [in vast contrast to the problems with the film's structure].

From https://assets.mubi.com/images/film/
183909/image-w1280.jpg?1507919744