Blood Diner (1987)

 

Director: Jackie Kong

Screenplay: Michael Sonye

Cast: Rick Burks as Michael Tutman; Carl Crew as George Tutman; Roger Dauer as Mark Shepard; LaNette La France as Sheba Jackson; Lisa Elaina as Connie Stanton; Max Morris as Chief Miller; Drew Godderis as Anwar; Bob Loya as Stan Saldin

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #192 / An Abstract List Candidate

 

Note: All of the mutilations, bodily dismemberments and cannibal rituals were performed by seasoned professionals. Please do not attempt any of these stunts at home. Thank you.

Blood Diner is a paradox. A horror comedy which has content you would not be able to get away with today, between laments about not having a "schlong" from a brain in a jar to the inexplicable Nazi rockabilly band, but this is also a production co-produced and helmed by Jackie Kong, a female Asian-American director who was only in her twenties making this, which she managed to complete on a tiny budget with the financers biting at her heels.

It was meant to be Blood Feast 2, one of the other producers and screenwriter Michael Sonye fans of the original Blood Feast (1963), a film by exploitation legend Herschell Gordon Lewis where, trying to find something to sell to audiences when he was sick of making nudie cuties, he created the splatter genre of Grand Guignol gore films, selling fake blood and animal organs as props being splashed across the screen as the main spectacle. This production had the rights to Blood Feast in fact, and it was because it was not deemed a way to sell the film that this supposed sequel became Blood Diner instead. It is, then to go on a little tangent, now part of a curious history which involves the actual sequel, Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat (2002), which Blood Diner is closer to in tone but is much more lavishly put together even on its own low budget, and the serious attempt at remaking the film in 2017. It is aptly a curious family to belong to considering Blood Diner itself is a deeply strange and kooky work to begin with.

Our film's prologue introduces the narrative. Botching his attempt to summon the Lumerian goddess Sheetar during his massacre of the Happy Times All-Girls Glee Club, ("...armed with a meat cleaver in one hand and his genitals in the other..."), Anwar (Drew Godderis) passes on the rite to summon the goddess through a blood feast to his two nephews as children before the cops gun him down. Thankfully, twenty years later, the nephews Michael Tutman (Rick Burks) and George Tutman (Carl Crew) will continue on in his goal, but not before bringing him back from the dead. For whatever occult reasons, the brain is still pink and tender in his twenty plus year body buried in a grave, so Anwar can continue as a brain in a jar with eyes and an ability to still project a voice. The goal to resurrect Sheetar involves building a new body for her from "degraded" women, preparing a blood feast of human body parts, and have a virginal sacrifice; luckily, running a vegetarian health food cafe, the brothers have plenty of access to the people they need and, hiding the corpses into their food as a secret recipe, they have managed to gain more customers to pick from for the next course.

Logic is not to be found in this intentionally absurd world, where a nightclub bouncer gets his head squished under a bouncing low-rider and no one bats an eyelid. This is not a film wishing to be taken seriously as well as being a film, even in the context of the eighties horror boom, with a surprising amount of adult content then other productions, from the amount of cussing from characters to the nudity to the gore, even a nude aerobics sequence which ends with topless women being gunned down by one of the brothers with a Uzi wearing a Ronald Reagan mask. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) were not naturally impressed with such a film, released unrated, though Blood Diner wears its absurdity proudly on its sleeve as a way to disarm and amplify this content further. This is likely as much why the film is as bizarre as it is, and a real one-off, that it is clearly made with irony, but actually managed to jump the usual bar into something dumbfounding to witness.

And that is without Jackie Kong becoming involved, who has her own style despite tragically only making four films in the eighties, and not helming anything in the nineties or the 2000s. Kong's debut The Being (1983), shot in Idaho about a monster terrorising the locals, was a more straightforward film but still showed her taste in eccentricity, and one of her most successful films Night Patrol (1984) was a broad absurd comedy about cops with Linda Blair. As interview material showed¹, for all the film's weird ideas in the script, its luridness and a death involving a woman's head being battered into a giant puff ball head, Kong added her own along the way whilst making it fully comedic, such as a rival vegetarian cafe owner only having one customer, a talking mannequin, until you realise he is a ventriloquist and that he talks to himself out of loneliness.

Helping the film considerably is that, even on a low budget, there is production value carefully put together with a style to the film's tone. Alongside the original score by the prolific jazz and rock keyboardist Don Preston, the production was lucky enough to access licensed doo-wop songs, adding to the tone. Kong as a director, alongside locations filmed in Hollywood, has scenes full of background detail and extras to add character to the world. Blood Diner is fascinating in that, alongside bustling with this sense of being fully fleshed out, that it is a concoction between fifties music, is based on an early sixties film and is made in the late eighties, a concoction of colour and a bold visual palette especially if you see the film as intended and have cinematographer Jurg Walther's work not seen in bootlegged form as was the case for years.

Some of the performances are shaky, but this is also a film where everyone is meant to be broad and exaggerated, goofiness in the police chief's tone of voice to someone scratching the side of their face at a crime scene with a loaded gun. Considering the "broad" acting of Blood Feast, especially Mal Arnold as Fuad Ramses, Blood Diner was not lowering the bar with some of its more idiosyncratic dialogue performances. In fact, that is neither a slight to Blood Feast either, as Herschell Gordon Lewis famously did not view his work as art, but still enjoyed himself and made sure his films were entertaining; Blood Feast was the first, and whilst deserving its legacy, the later films by Lewis would get closer to the campier tone that Blood Diner reached to and turned up to eleven.

That comparison to Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat feels perfectly apt, that an odd little film in itself whilst this is batshit weird at the best of times. One which has a character who is a brain in the jar like a fifties sci-fi film. One where Sheetar has stomach dentata. One where, for a tangent, one of the brothers for no real plot reason has decided to compete in an open invitation to wrestle pro-wrestler Little Jimmy Hitler. Yes, they hired an actual wrestler for the film and gave him both Hitler's trademark moustache and a red arm band. This is one of the jokes which may not play today or at least not outside of this film making it just weird. It is not the last time Nazis appear in the film for no discernible reason, as inexplicably a rockabilly band are dressed like Hitler whilst their lead singer is dressed as a Roman with a giant pompadour. And yes, wrestling itself has had Nazi characters and managed to be far more tasteless than this, which at least managed to be so goofball it disarms it a little bit².

And Blood Diner builds, and neither does it have flat bland scenes in between these moments to deflate it. It does not diminish in terms of escalation, to the point that, also adding this to her film and not part of the script, you suddenly have zombies and limb eating in the chaotic finale just because, alongside the general carnage and funkiness of the entire experience. The only negative to this entire film is that Jackie Kong did not helm a film for decades after the eighties, considering how young she was making this, and with a thoughtful head on her shoulders, she could have had an extensive filmography of genre films like this. Whether gender bias in the industry was involved, or even how the decline of exploitation films effected genre filmmaking into the nineties even if straight-to-video existed, this was an unfortunate result for such a bizarre yet technically accomplished horror film.

 

Abstract Spectrum: Eccentric/Psychotronic/Surreal/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

 

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1) Killer Cuisine: The Making of 'Blood Diner' (2016) covers a great deal in an hour and was included on the Vestron Blu-Ray release made available in the United States and the United Kingdom.

2) One that can be potentially defended was Karl Von Hess (birth name Frank Faketty), who played a Nazi sympathizer deliberately created as a heel to be booed in the fifties, just after World War II when he was an active member of the United States Navy during it. Karl Von Hess played the character so well he would even be assaulted by wrestling fans, which back when pro wrestling was considered fully real could involve actual violence including being shot at or stabbed, which adds an additional risk.

More debatable is Kevin Bean, who in 2018 gained controversy for playing Blitzkrieg "The German Juggernaut", an attempt also at a detestable heel he played over the years unfortunately in a time period where this would be more complicated, alongside the that he is also an elementary school teacher, something which led to him being investigated even if he kept his job.

One time it did not even get into the ring was when in World Wrestling Entertainment, one of the biggest companies, in 2004 when former WWE writer Dan Madigan effectively destroyed his career then by pitching to owner Vince McMahon to have wrestler Jon Heidenreich return as a Nazi stormtrooper named Baron Von Bava, who had been cryogenically frozen before being revived by Paul Heyman, a former wrestling promoter/commentator and at that time a character who managed villain wrestlers. Baring in mind that Heyman was Jewish, a son of a Holocaust survivor, which did not help, Madigan managed to make McMahon speechless and leave for the whole day. Considering, around this time, McMahon allowed a notoriously tasteless angle to actual broadcast around this period called the "Katie Vick" arch, in which his real life son-in-law and a wrestler simulated necrophilia with a mannequin on mainstream television, it says a lot that a line could actually be crossed.

Limbo (1999)

Director: Tina Krause

Screenplay: Tina Krause

Cast: Barron; Suze Daufler; Sean Farrell; Vincent Hager; Jessica Krause; Tina Krause; Mike Lisa; Susan McAnnich; Mike Sand

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #191 / An Abstract List Candidate

 

E=MC² Hammer

Dug up and rediscovered by the American Genre Film Archive and Bleeding Skull, I will add context to Limbo as I go on, as my experience with this film as much is based upon this knowledge as much as the content. What I will say immediately though it that this is a rare shot-on-video film by a female director, Tina Krause was more prolific as a horror Scream Queen even into the currently, including working with W.A.V.E Productions, a company who filmed scripts sent in by their audience which could lead to a lot of fetishes. It is also a film partially originating, literally, from Krause around that era as an actress accidentally ingesting drug laced cake, carrying over her own hallucinogenic experience to Limbo¹.

Limbo, openly, is a one-off which will be difficult for many to appreciate. After a prologue where two people are running at night through the streets, you are thrown into an audio visual barrage which begins at a bar, completely alien to what is usually expected from a shot-on-video film from before, namely a narrative work on a micro-budget. Instead, at the beginning you see this film go in a different direction - cuts to chauvinist bar patrons, where gender politics is a common concern throughout; erratic sound design and the layering of it; eeriness, especially when the film freezes to a long pan past a pool table and its players; and film reel sounds that cut to footage of a stone statue but also a man writhing near a white wall.

In the midst of this is Katherine. She is a haunted woman and those around her are haunted by what is pursuing her. A man only she can see in the bar tells her she has nowhere to hide anymore. It is, plot wise, very difficult to discern as Krause was more interesting in making an "Art House Symphonic" production, actually sold as a vampire film just to be able to push the production ahead even on a micro-budget. What the plot in its few slithers are is vague, but you can see Katherine as a figure from the afterlife, chased by it or once part of, even maiming or killing bystanders deliberately or unintentionally along the way.

The film has its flaws. It is not necessarily the non-linear structure, closer to an art piece than a plotted narrative, and certainly evoking the infamous Nine Inch Nails project Broken (1993), a promotional video that was never released which was a fake snuff film intertwined with music videos for songs. Most of the issues here are in knowledge Limbo took two years to make, on a micro budget, largely filmed in an old abandoned tobacco factory Krause squatted and lived in for ten years, even having to chase out drug dealers mid-shooting with a 2x4 with a nail stuck in it. A film which, for a first time director with some ambition, has to be admired even if with flaws. For me, the only egregious issue in production quality is the sound design, a cacophony between inaudible dialogue and noise which betrays the film, tragic as well because the music throughout is eclectic and memorable, such as a gothic blues rock song that is impactful in a seduction scene which leads to Katherine clearly being a dangerous figure without her realising.

What it is is an art piece and a haze dream smashed together. Krause shows some inspired visual motifs throughout alongside the lo-fi homemade quality, like televisions spiralling within televisions as the camera turns in canted shots, contrasted by material which feels improvised like a digression in a women's bathroom in the bar, feeling closer to behind-the-scenes footage as one of the cast compares herself to Neve Campbell. It is a mood piece whose plot is honestly difficult to describe. It has enough to stand out; there is also a lot that vastly contrasts the kind of films Krause worked in, closer to performance art and underground culture in tone, such as a hellish sequence for Katherine with phosphorescent body paint covered dancers in a darkened room. A lot of the film is drawing on the kind of imagery in other more cohesive horror films, such as the mental asylum sequences with writhing patients likely shot in her tobacco factory home, which Krause makes more weirder and scarier, even if still over-the-top, because of the film looking more homemade and due to time having made the surviving videotape master grimy.

It does come from the heart. It is definitely a bizarre viewing experience, a fever dream on VHS which spits you out at the other end rather than be watched by a viewer. It also has personal details which mean more, including a lot about sexism, of male bar patrons who are ogling the female customers, to one drunk pervert kicked out for molesting the female staff. Sadly, this aspect came out into even making the film, as Krause even had to promote it under the alias "Stephen Krause"to get anyway with this. Particularly with what works here, she is interesting behind the camera. Seeing the later short The Answering Machine (2001) is further evidence of this - a series of answering machine messages between a man and a woman, no one onscreen but just with shots of two phones as a date planned turns sour when just selecting where to eat - and how she could have progressed in her filmmaking.

Limbo is, again, also one of the few of this realm directed by a woman at this time, one of the only other exceptions in the micro budget world being Phobe: The Xenophobic Experiments (1995) by Erica Benedikty, a Canadian cult sci-fi film. Limbo whilst a mess at times is, among a mass of SOV films which can be utter messes too, one with a distinct dark edge and a lot of aspirations. For all that betrays it, a scene of conversation in the public difficult to hear because of the wind, there are also really grotesque but effective moments such as a near nude woman, in a ballerina pose in an open doorway, possibly an actual dancer, having her guts removed. Throughout it does evoke the dark edgy period post-Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails, but it is also very evocative at the same time, something I have not actually seen in these types of films from the decades before in terms of inspiration. The film is an anomaly even in terms of when it was made, adding a greater appreciation. The late nineties into the Millennium was my childhood, and how odd it is at the time I was growing up, with films like Idle Hands (1999) with Seth Green, the pop punk and the nu metal of the new decade, and other such pop culture, this film came and went too in the midst of all this. I was ten when Limbo barely came out, and preserved on a fuzzy transfer, it is strange to see a work completely alien to my childhood memories but definitely of that era, a Goth near-Millennial art genre film in its own erratic pocket.

Abstract Spectrum: Hazy/Mindbender/Non-Linear/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

 

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1) There will be many references, from the AGFA Blu-Ray release's extras, of the Fantastic Fest Q&A when this film was premiered in 2019 with the director. Rather than just keep tagging this at the bottom, just be aware the really candid and evocative behind-the-scenes gossip in the review is all from Krause's own testimony in this questions and answer session after the film was screened.

Reptilicus (1961)

 

Director: Poul Bang and Sidney W. Pink

Screenplay: Ib Melchior and Sidney W. Pink

Cast: Bent Mejding as Svend Viltorft; Asbjørn Andersen as Prof. Otto Martens (as Asbjorn Andersen); Povl Wøldike as Dr. Peter Dalby (as Poul Wildaker); Ann Smyrner as Lise Martens; Mimi Heinrich as Karen Martens; Dirch Passer as Petersen; Marlies Behrens as Connie Miller (American version); Carl Ottosen as Gen. Mark Grayson; Ole Wisborg as Capt. Einer Brandt

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #190

 

No, he has three eyes and a moustache.

It is an early warning sign when you find blood, meat and fossil stuck on your mining drill, thus beginning a film which is held as infamous. It is curious in context that, with Japan (especially Toho) developing a legacy of monster films from the fifties to this film's birth, and the United States with their own in the previous decade too, a Danish production attempted to join in.

It is a film whose production is fascinating. This was a Danish-American co-production to be precise, between American International Pictures and the Danish Saga Studio, with the added curiosity that they had the original Danish version, than remade this effectively for the English language market. To American International Pictures's credit, when it came to this, they did not hide the Danish origins, even getting the same actors if they could speak English to replay themselves. Certainly, this is a curiosity, as Denmark is the least expected place for a giant lizard attack to transpire within. That said, uncovering a frozen tail of an unknown giant species, no one expects Reptilicus, especially when even a defrosted tail can regenerate into a full sized version that runs amok.

How much do we actually know about Danish cinema anyway whilst on this subject? That came to mind in terms of horror, the only big examples commonly known being Haxan (1922), a film of Benjamin Christensen, and Lars von Trier's genre output, who is an outlier himself and between them. Even in terms of Danish cinema, which like many countries is not as known as much as it should, it is an irony that more people might have see what is perceived as a Danish Godzilla rip-off than anything else, which even has the creature spit green avid in comparison to Godzilla's radioactive breath, especially after it was included in Mystery Science Theatre 3000. That there are two versions, the English language version more likely to be available (and what I saw), this is even more peculiar as an irony.

Certainly Reptilicus the beast is quite a grotesque creation - a tail, when a scientist accidentally sleeps on the job and leaves it to thaw, begins to heal and became a giant reptile close to a bastardised version of a Chinese dragon, gangly and (made from whatever the production had for the puppet) failing around in spasms as a mad monstrosity and smashing model buildings. Truthfully, when you get to the finale, the final thirty or so minutes when the Danish scientists, and an American general who originally was invited there, have to stop the creature the film loses its momentum. Bizarrely, I was much more interested in this world's set-up than the monsters. The world populated by Peterson the goofy caretaker, who prats around by the electric eel tank, and warns you why never to put your own food under the microscope to scrutinise whilst eating it. A disgruntled American general who grows happier going around Copenhagen, only to become a trigger happy figure who the scientists have to convince to search for non-bomb related solutions to Reptilicus, or Sven the meek ladies' man, a miner who finds himself in the middle of the main scientist's two daughters whilst gaining angst because he helped this beast appear by finding its remains.

I also suspect Reptilicus was funded for the Copenhagen tourist board as, established to go relax after arriving in the country ratty and annoyed he is even there, the scenes of the US general lead to footage of all the sights of this Scandinavian country, from its tourist attractions to an early sixties music club, all quaint and a time capsule of the country just into this decade. All the more striking for a Reptilicus to spew green acid slime over, or to have a Danish beach, evoking beach films, being interrupted by navy ships dropping bombs into the sea; some horror tropes, no matter how cliché and gauche nowadays in the future, gain new light if you imagine them in the least expected of places, and a monster film in any Scandinavian country, let alone Denmark, would have been fascinating as here.

Again, when the film becomes pure action, soldiers trying to stop the beast, it does become generic, scenes that pass of fleeing crowds and useless gunfire from soldiers which blur together for me. Far more interesting are the early attacks, where there is still plot building, entirely because of its cheese, be it devoured cows or crude early green screen to show a patriarch of an idyllic Danish countryside rural home being attacked and shown swallowed by the monster puppet. That cheese has been used to brush irony onto Reptilicus, but it is charming because of this, a curiosity that plays like other monster films American International Pictures may have released. Not the best, and really not a film I can discern a greater richness with, but even its existence amuses me and has a fondness, definitely felt of its culture even if now there is the enticing thought of seeing the Danish language release.

Kuso (2017)

 

Director: Steve

Screenplay: Steve, David Firth and Zack Fox

Cast: Iesha Coston as Missy; Oumi Zumi as Kenneth; David Firth as Royal); The Buttress as B; Zack Fox as Manuel; Hannibal Buress as Kazo; Tim Heidecker as Phil; Donnell Rawlings as Mazu; Diana Terranova as Pepper; George Clinton as Doctor Clinton; Shane Carpenter as Charlie; Sandra R. Kisling as Michelle; Mali Matsuda as Angel; Regan Farquhar as News Pirate

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #189 / An Abstract Film Candidate

 

[Warning: Not because everything in this film is offensive but, with full spoiler warnings, there is stuff here even in these descriptions too weird for some people to even picture.]

 

The sun cries while eating ice cream.

Around the time I first saw Kuso, I had watched Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019). Now, an introduction like this, referencing a document about the representation of African Americans in horror cinema, is always in danger of digging one's own grave. As a white Englishman, especially digging one's grave. Horror Noire was nonetheless disappointing as, with many documentaries in general, they feel slight when a book, can cover more with the vastness of their pages. Horror Noire, adapted from a non-fiction text, was disappointing in that with the chance to allow African American commentators (actors in horror cinema, directors, academics and even bloggers) it felt slight. It did touch films in need of more comment, such as Bill Gunn's Ganja & Hess (1973), but it felt like we had barely scratched the surface of a bigger idea, not digging out obscurer figures or modern day creators who might not sell such a documentary. Whilst I completely understand why you devote a huge amount of only eighty or so minutes to Jordan Peele's Get Out (2017), as that was a monumentous film out of nowhere in American horror cinema, it did raise one concern for me merely for appealing to the mainstream when it comes to depicting minority voices.

One I can feel comfortable asking, even as a white Englishman, which is a concern that since the mainstream means homogenised for myself, sanding the edges off individuality whether it can appear to everyone or not still, if the goal is just all populist mainstream voices to represent minorities in cinema, the people who are not white cis-gendered heterosexual filmmakers, the idea for all voices getting to make films will still be compromised. Horror likewise needs its idiosyncratic voices as much as more representation for all, even if the films resulting from it are like today's subject, likely to baffle and mortify even die-hard horror fans with its body liquids, perverse sexual content and freakishness.  This long prologue is needed as, step forward musician and music producer Steven "Flying Lotus" Ellison making his film making debut here, he commented in an interview that he made a film as divisive, weird and bold as Kuso with mind to what film, if he got to make one, he actually wanted to make. To quote his own words than reinterpret them "I don’t want to make a fucking period drama [...] I don’t want to make a fucking hood movie. [...] I was like, ‘Lemme make something for the young ratchet-ass 16-year-old kid who like horror films and give them something to latch on to.’¹”

Kicking off with a news broadcast being hijacked by a jazz rap news report about the inevitability of the new world, where the ultimate earthquake hits Los Angeles and a disease leaves everyone with pocks or boils, you immediately get the energy of something unpredictable and unique. Immediately in a film where people steal scenes, you have off-the-bat rapper Regan "Busdriver" Farquhar as someone I had never heard of until this film performs a bravado jazz rap. From here, Kuso is effectively an anthology film, where Ellison is not going to pull his punches, under the directorial name "Steve", as the first narrative we are introduced to, in a work where they tangle together in a web, has a brother and sister having a kinky incestuous relationship, kissing in bed as goo smears between their lips followed by eroticised strangulation she performs on him.

The title itself is a Japanese colloquialism for “shit,” which in itself should be a warning and an apt title for describing what is to be witnessed. When this film first premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, it got a reaction of surprise, repulsion, some walk-outs and dumbfoundedness. Rather than attempt write coherent paragraphs to a work intentionally structured with very tangled structures and whiplash turns, it is better to just write out all my notes, scribbled through the film, and elaborate on this in detail:

 

There are photo collage animation sequences. It is reminiscent to the 2010s era work by micro budget director Joe Castro in their grotesque nature, an obscure choice but apt as I have covered him quite a bit, but with actual photographs and illustrative sources.

 

This is not an unexpected tangent for Steve in his career either, as one his album You're Dead (2014), to match its theme, explicitly dabbled with the Japanese ero-guro aesthetic by hiring manga author/illustrator Shintaro Kago to design the LP illustrations. The tone and humour can probably be explained by the fact, alongside co-writers of segments, his early career included producing much of the bumper music on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block.

 

For the second segment, most would presume the weird fish things that look liked defrosted chickens in a woodland river are the key plot point, especially as there is a man watching one transfixed to the point he starts getting an erection. Instead, it is about a boy (played by an actor of short stature) who feeds his own poo to a strange tongued mouth rock in the woods.

 

Another is a woman eating her way out through concrete to her child underground. Reminiscent of Shinya Tsukamoto's Haze (2005), where the director-writer-star is trapped underground where there are death traps. Haze did not lead to its protagonist, falling down a hole, briefly appearing in a sitcom called Socks where your legs are fused together with another person.

 

Even the tangents are weird, minute digressions like old game show footage remixed where a competitor has either to resuscitate a dead child or drink a jug of spit donated by farmers, an unexpectedly British moment of twisted moment of this mostly American project, a likely collaborator for this to be mentioned later on in this review.

 

TV faced fur people watching television with a human woman opens another segment, arguing about the quality of a film whilst smoking weed and admitting to their female roommate her parents are in another dimension as farmers (or likely dead).

 

Said female lead, with these transdimensional roommates, was someone I only recognised when she has a music video scene later involving male genital mutilation and I recognised her rapping voice. Then I only realised she was The Buttress, a New Jersey artist who uses horror and occult imagery for her music. Throughout Kuso, Steve's film like his music is full of distinct guest stars in front of and even behind the camera.

 

I will get to others as I go along, but prominently for the scripts, Steve alongside Zack Fox has David Firth write as well as have act in vocal only performances. He is of note as, born near myself in the county of Derbyshire, Firth came to prominent in the mid-2000s by the time YouTube came to be with the web animated series Salad Fingers (2005), about a green alien-like man with a fondness for licking rusty pipes, only to continue on in his animation to the current day.

 

Also worth noting are all the composers involved. Not surprisingly Steve himself works on his own film, but so does a few others. To my surprise, this includes Aphex Twin, the legendary British musician, and Akira Yamaoka, famously known in video gaming circles for his soundtracks to the Silent Hill franchise of horror games. The music altogether is appropriate for the film, striking in its mood building.

 

Also among the cast is Tim Heidecker, of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, as the Buttress' stalker turned potential love interest after a one night stand, who is introduced sticking his head out the toilet with a turd on his head expressing how that night it felt like he was with a dog corpse. Considering his willingness to do a bare arse shot later on, with what can only be described as a David Cronenberg approved sex doll monstrosity, he among many deserve credit for their willingness to be put into these situations.

 

Kuso's fragmentary nature, segments intercutting into each other with fragments, is a style that is distinct. Some will find this unfocused, and it is why this review has had to devolve into a lengthy list to quantify it all. It does leave a layer of unpredictability however, unsure what in God's name is going to transpire especially as by this point in terms of being the viewer, Kuso after feeling eccentric but not dumbfounding me manging to push me over that line with the "1-88-Rat-Fuck!" fake ad. It can only be described as a phone sex advertisement, shot-on-video, which actually gets into consensual tentacle porn with two very actresses writhing with a prop Cthulian horror. This was when Kuso finally started getting into territory that even surprised me.

 

None so much as this ad leads to another segment, an abortion clinic which also consults men for sexual dysfunction issues. By this point, there is an inherent sense (deliberate) of unpredictability and improvisation, such as a patient feeding his money into a talking blow-up doll, an absurdity to laugh at as well as feel on edge from.

 

Returning back to the prologue of the review, Steve in another interview talked of how difficult it was to find African American actors to star in Kuso². One figure, who is a scene stealer in his one moment, is African American adult star Lexington Steele, who is utterly charismatic as a suited man talking in surreal cryptic phrases ("His dick becomes a dog toy") and does not look embarrassed even if his attempt at a disappearing trick with a smoke bomb does not work to hide him at all. Even in a film like this which will have likely been viewed as just puerile and distasteful, I now want to see more films with Lexington Steele where he gets to act. Even the fact that he played Nick Fury in an Avengers porn parody, even if it is not a good one, is interesting now because this shows he could actually do a decent Samuel L. Jackson pastiche.

 

Said patient is the "man who is scared of tits", and speaking of fascinating casting choices, the man he is meeting to cure him is George Clinton, the founder of the legendary funk bands Parliament and Funkadelic. It is meaningful that this legend is here...even if he is the host to the real doctor, a giant insect living in Clinton's anus called Mr. Quiggle tempted out by electronic beats, distributing hallucinatory juice to said patient in a moment William S. Burroughs might have written about in his heroine influenced Naked Lunch typing.

 

Contrasting this, as a result of the hallucinogenic juice, is a Vaporwave Hell, an equivalent of the necropolis of spirals that end Junji Ito's manga Uzumaki only not made from spirals here but from breasts, of early 2000s CGI, breast towers, floating breast whales, multi-headed figures and God knows what else. This moment did break me on both viewings even if I admired it.

 

At this point, just listing all the content, alongside even watching the film, took me by surprise but it is easy to just dismiss this as a mass of perverse hallucination as a film. All of the film is exceptionally well made, which adds to this film being as striking and twisted as it is. At one point, with motifs of video games, sound effects from the Mortal Kombat videogames are used for a foetus being pulled out, which might be the most offensive scene for some. Yet it is here for me on the first viewing, felt further earlier in the film on the second viewing, how much of the film for its dark comedy is also exceedingly sombre and ill-at-ease too. It is surprisingly melancholic at times, beginning with the first animated sequence being a man recounting helping his father remove an "owie" from his mother in DIY surgery, a darkness pervading the material.

 

A lot of the film also is about family and absence of it. The segment which feeding poo into a hole is still about an absent father, likely one killed and being fed to the son. There are also continuous shots to family photographs around the characters' home, even if deformed. Of how this taps into the fear of the ultimate earthquake that hits LA but also California, leading to Arizona Bay. Of Steve himself, taking a role, as a police officer, an authority figure that for him is one who just elicits ill-ease for African-Americans. Many curious undercurrents are to be found even in this perverse film, and that intrigues.

So much so that the final sequence has a weirdly emotional and even happy ending to it. Said scene is still one of the fucking weirdest threesome sequence I have ever witnessed, between brother and sister and a talking boil on her neck which happens to have a British accent (David Firth again on vocal duties). That they go as far as involving a prop fake penis shown on screen going into a mouthed orifice just cements Kuso wanting to push the bar so high few films could ever leap high enough now to reach it.

But...returning to that initial paragraph to start this review, seeing African-American music producer Steven Ellison deciding, of all the films he could have made, to instead push for this unique creation is itself a true statement of one's individual voice. He made it not as Flying Lotus either, which is meaningful, as is the fact he was in film school before he even turned to music, deciding with Kuso, even if you the viewer were to find the film without merit, with the desire to deliberately break from the teachings to make something entirely of his own without lack of confidence or concern whether this was the right way to make the film or not³. Even if he never made another film, the speech here is uncensored, inventive and truly idiosyncratic. Neither does this feel gross for the sake of it, for it is too artistically distinct and weird to be, a lot of itself instead very sickly funny and artistically inspired. It is, in its nature, something I have to write this comically long, profane detailed review for as a way to salute him for even making the film.  

Abstract Spectrum: Grotesque/Non-Linear/Surreal/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): High

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1) Full interview HERE.

2) Interview for The Guardian.

3) From the No Film School interview.

Verotika (2019)

 

Director: Glenn Danzig

Screenplay: Glenn Danzig

Cast: Ashley Wisdom as Dajette; Scotch Hopkins as the Albino Spider; Paul Vandervort as Francois; Rachel Alig as the Mystery Girl; Sean Kanan as Sgt. Anders; Alice Haig as Drukija; Kayden Kross as Morella; Natalia Borowsky as Sheska

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #188

 

Monsieur, you have no eyes. "Fuck" is my speciality.

I was immediately intrigued when the idea of Glenn Danzig had directed a film was brought up in the horror community. He is not the only person from the world of heavy metal to have made a horror film even, but he makes sense to have; the man who has been proclaimed by many of us fans Heavy Metal Elvis just because of his vocal style, let alone actually releasing an album of Elvis covers in 2020, is most well known for the first version of the Misfits, the legendary punk band, before his singles career under the band Danzig also became iconic. He has always had an interest in horror and macabre, Verotika based on a line of comic books from his comics company Verotik, a medium he has dabbled in for decades now. This is the first time he has managed to have a full length project in the moving images medium actually be completed. Some may be aware of the time of Satanika, another of his comics under his Verotik company, which he managed to commission a three minute animated pilot for from the Japanese animation studio Madhouse, which is a pretty big deal as Madhouse were then a big and famous anime production company. That, even though it did get a VHS release, was only a couple of minutes long and never expanded upon.

Here however he directed the film himself, with his own resources, only from the premiere at Cinepocalypse film festival in Chicago, Illinois for Verotika to gain notoriety which was also enticing to me. Even something notorious would have been a success as, personally, it is better to leave a lasting impression than be predictable but dull. As a horror anthology with three parts, what you initially get is a lurid heavy metal album cover as an aesthetic, presenting by a female host Morella (Kayden Kross) who introduces herself by gouging a victim's eyes out with her fingers, suggesting this is going to be (hopefully and with fingers crossed) memorable.

If we were only talking about the first segment The Albino Spider of Dajette, it would have been notorious still, either about Danzig having just made a short film, or if the rest of the movie had been like this opening segment, but it would have be a compelling one which appealed to my surrealist tastes. This is not mocking his work either as Dajette was utterly compelling for how weird it was. It is clear as well, take or leave, he has a style from the get-go even if he has to work with a very small budget, where everything including the aesthetic is broad to an extreme. Here, for example of this, you have a female protagonist with bright pink hair, a hyper exaggerated physical figure, matched by other actresses through even just this segment, and a thick accent, in a world of other exaggerated performances which is clearly meant to be France, as everyone has an accent, but exists in its own world.

There is a notion I will argue that a piece of art can redeem itself of any technical or artistic issues if it can create a streak of legitimate surrealism from itself. You do not ignore the problems, but as was the idea of the Surrealists, unintentional surrealism was just as compelling, and I wonder how Andre Breton would have reacted to The Albino Spider of Dajette. It cannot be skipped around that, from the first few minutes, when Dajette (Ashley Wisdom) is making out with a man, the reason that moment suddenly collapses is that it is revealed she has eyes growing out of her breasts, which is never directly connected to the plot and is legitimately surreal. You could contemplate an entire biological logic gap to how having literal four eyes on one's body would work, with two different sets of vision, or how, with Dajette quite a full figured person who wears a lot of tight shirts, how she has not scratched her other eyes and made then sore continually due to having fabric rubbed into her eyes. Instead, the plot manages to get odder than this and you have other concerns to pay attention to.

Saddened by her rejection, Dajette weeps and a tear lands on a nearby albino spider. The spider, rather than this becoming a charming fairy tale motif, becomes an albino man-spider humanoid of full size, with four arms, who when she dreams becomes "The Strangler", throttling women around the city. All of this is frenzied, almost random material which layers on itself, driven by instinct for what is striking. An obvious CGI spider turns into actor Scotch Hopkins in full costume, with two additional fake arms with his own, also with a French accent and thankfully deciding to chew the scenery in his scenes. In general, this short stands out, not only for this, but also for the attempt at creating a French set world with little resources, with everyone speaking English in accents, where every woman is wearing a fetish outfit, and with the soundtrack is full of French language music. Danzig helped compose the original score, as it would have been blasphemy if he had not, but for this segment you also have an eclectic mix for the tone; the French pop is actually good, whilst the French metal/hardcore was ridiculous, adding to the already perplexing emotional rollercoaster seeing the segment for the first time.

We could have done without the wannabe male rapists in the porn theatre set, but thankfully, Dajette stays entirely without in the place of Danzig's mind like automatic writing. You can argue with concerns, as throughout, about his fixation of female eroticism by way of a male gaze circa the nineties, where I can imagine the comic book cover with the exaggerated appearance. It is an entire era I missed as I was too young, and have yet to explore, but I think of illustrations for the likes of Witchblade, which have harsh colours, female figures with revealing curves, and depending if Rob Liefeld was involved, many pouches to rival Batman's utility belt. Particularly when men get older, Danzig in his sixties making this film, it does become a greater issue whether erotic desire and depicting it can be tackled without it becoming creepy or juvenile, especially when this is ridiculous rather than sexy. But, when I heard about Verotika's instant infamy, this was what I was hoping for if it was not actually a secret gem. The problem, as this review goes on, is entirely with the other two segments.

Also, let us turn that initial concern on its head - is Danzig's view of women fetishishtic and sexist? - with a concern of collateral damage caused by the women throughout this film, actors to even American adult film star Kayden Kross as the host, and that they have as much voice to be considered for even making this film. This was probably coming to mind as, for the second segment Change of Face, Danzig does indulge in a five minute strip club sequence which likely involved real erotic dancers being hired. As long as there is no exploitation and female participants were paid, we should separate between the female actresses willing to wear skimpy costumes or being naked from the issues of how their images are portrayed, least we throw the baby out with the bathwater. This subject is definitely worthy of having as, for every female participant be they a model or a straight-to-DVD Scream Queen or an adult film star, they need to be thought about in contrast to the likes of this hyper sexualised film.

And if you look into these figures, whatever you think of the gaze and their performances, this film includes many fascinating working women. Adult film actresses like Kross are always interesting in that, for all the problematic issues with the adult film industry, the irony was never lost the women were the figures more likely to become icons in that career and also, especially in the modern era, be more openly aware of this in their promotion of their rights and pro-sex ideas. Dajette has Tonya Kay, a burlesque headliner and actress; Courtney Stodden, in the second segment as a victim, is a former beauty pageant competitor who is a singer, actress and reality television star; the last segment even has Caroline Williams in a tiny role as a peasant I completely missed, iconic for me for playing the lead in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II (1986). I am sure you can dig into everyone's careers, even figures new to cinema, and I have barely covered some of the faces in Verotika, a reminder that, actually, we need to be a lot more careful when we raise concerns of an objectifying gaze when, for anyone happy to be onscreen, these are still human beings with lives¹.

Particularly as there is not a lot to really work with for this segment, as we might roll our eyes at Danzig having that strip club scene, set to some of his own music, but there is the bigger concern of how this segment starts to malaise that creeps into Verotika. Some of the absurdity is there, that our lead is a face stealer who has hair Elvira would be proud of, working as a mysterious masked dancer at work and stealing other women's faces in her off time, but this shows the real problem Verotika has in that it starts to wind down and drag along. Throughout there are many stilted pauses, which keep the tone of before to proceedings, but it however has not a lot of story nor energy either, still with an ending but not standing out at all.

The sense of entropy fully plagues the final and third segment Drukija Contessa of Blood. Under a different name, this is a Countess Báthory tale. The legend of Elizabeth Báthory is of a Hungarian countess who is one of the most prolific female murderers in history, killing numerous girls and young women between 1590 and 1610, including the notion part of her folklore that she bathed in their blood as a way to keep her youth. This is very well worn territory for cinema already, between Hammer Studio making Countess Dracula (1970) to Juraj Jakubisko's Bathory: Countess of Blood (2008), a revisionist period drama which offers the idea that Báthory was an innocent woman railroaded with gossip of these crimes made up to use against her. This is also territory, for the erotic transgressive tone Danzig is looking for, Walerian Borowczyk tackled in his own anthology Immoral Tales (1973), so the musician-director is in a precarious position for comparison.

In contrast to Borowczyk's lavish adaptation, Danzig's does require a castle that looks likely like it is made from CGI in the far background, but considering how many straight-to-DVD fantasy and medieval films exists, he is thankfully able to find outdoor locations and costumes to get the tone right. A greater concern for me is that there is no trajectory for what is transpiring, no story and not much else but scenes of virgins being tortured and nude erotic blood baths. I did smirk when it was pronounced "wirgins" at least once, which would have made young Udo Kier from the Blood for Dracula (1974) era proud, but there is also no actual ending either, which is the bigger surprise. I do not remember Borowczyk's having an actual ending either, or not of importance to him whether Báthory was punished or not in favour of the aesthetic and transgressive mode. The real Báthory, according the story, only got caught when she targeted fellow nobles' daughters, thus showing class bias even back centuries ago, but here Verotika ends with an anti-climax which adds to the film the sensation of a deflated balloon.

The greater problem was that, rather than the compelling car crash, this feels unfinished. That first segment is ridiculous but that would have been compelling by itself or for an entire film in tone. The rest however shows that, subjective tastes over artistry, the biggest disappointments in life are those where you have no sense of reaction or even a vicarious pleasure, merely a sense of wasted time. This is even more disappointing as, with actual pain having to write the review, I like Glenn Danzig as a musician, so there is the added sense that with an emotional attachment to a person, beyond a distant celebrity, these emotions hurt more. You want, even on a micro budget, "Dirty Black Summer" or "How the Gods Kill" the song as horror films, even the absurdity of that Satanika animated teaser. You get in the first three quarters, so best watch it over and over again instead.

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1) And so the male actors aren't left out, yes, with the knowledge of pro wrestling, there is even an abrupt cameo by Sean "X-Pac" Waltman as the guy at the club reception booth that caught me off guard.

Soulmate (2013)

 

Director: Axelle Carolyn

Screenplay: Axelle Carolyn

Cast: Anna Walton as Audrey; Tom Wisdom as Douglas; Tanya Myers as Theresa; Nick Brimble as Dr Zellaby; Emma Cleasby as Alex; Guy Armitage as Tristan

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #185-7

[Include bonus reviews of The Last Post (2011) and The Halloween Kid (2011) by Axelle Carolyn]

 

[Trigger Warning for Subject Matter Discussed about Suicide Themes]

It is best to look at Soulmate in comparison to two short films also by director and former actress Axelle Carolyn, making these effectively three reviews for the price of one. The Last Post (2011) is closer to a supernatural drama and is quite an effecting piece emotionally. An elderly woman (Jean Marsh) in her room in a care home has visions of a uniformed figure that no one can see, her female nurse presuming as anyone that this is the onset to dementia or another psychological issue. Far from this, this is connected to how she took part during one of the World War in writing to random male soldiers on the front as someone to help them through the scenario, falling in love with a figure she was never able to meet. It is a beautiful little short, a supernatural romantic drama rather than horror as death approaches but she has no fear of it.  This, as a set up for Soulmate, suggests a director-writer in Carolyn who is much more interesting the emotional drama of a scenario.

Also showing, however, her love for the genre, The Halloween Kid (2011) is a short for all the family as charmingly put together. It is a whimsical tale, narrative by Derek Jacobi of all people, it follows a young boy who can see monsters and ghosts but is not benefitted by it most of the year, as he gets into trouble at school for listening to the biology room skeleton tell jokes to him, and gets into trouble with his mother, played by the lead of Soulmate Anna Walton. Thankfully, in contrast to The Last Post's stark look with its colourful seasonal aesthetic, Halloween is the boy's favourite time of the year where he can escape from all this.

These shorts really give an idea that Carolyn was going to horror as a female director with a different tone to her style. Soulmate was the same, though sadly we cannot go further without the fact, realising this, that the film had an unfortunate run in with the British Board of Film Classification. It should not shadow the film's existence or its virtues, but as this is recounted for the review, the version covered for this review is the British release version which was affected by this. Soulmate's lead character Audrey (Anna Walton) is a traumatised musician who lost her boyfriend in a car crash, having had an attempt at committing suicide and afterwards leaving care without her family knowing to travel to Wales, renting a cottage in the countryside to exorcise her trauma. Tonally Soulmate tackles the subject very seriously, but it also involved a scene involving a very realistic suicide attempt by the slashing of the wrists that the BBFC felt even had to be censored, not just getting an 18 certificate, meaning only eighteen year olds could access the film for themselves, but 16 seconds of the images being censored entirely. The director-writer, feeling that the film would negate the importance of that sequence if censored, a two minute opening sequence of the suicide attempt, decided to remove the two minute or so scene entirely for the British release¹.

As a result this review of Soulmate has to begin with a literal phantom, as the version I saw unlike the International version, which is uncut, is left with the speculation on whether that sequence adds or detracts from the final result. Soulmate itself, regardless, is admirable as horror in terms of slow burn character drama. Baring some jolts, mostly from the use of the score once or twice, Soulmate never delves into anything in that direction. Instead the film progresses when, very early in, she encounters the ghost of the cottage's former owner Douglas (Tom Wisdom), who develop an attachment to each other because, having lost his former fiancée in a car crash and having killed himself with a pistol thirty years previous, they come together with an emotional bond of traumatised figures. Audrey however is a living person who is helped by this counsellor in her temporary home, whilst Douglas is a ghost stuck in the house unable to leave, whose inability to move on and having died with violent emotion will mean he is becoming obsessed with her.

The best way to describe Soulmate, which is also its best virtue, is that if the two short films by Axelle Carolyn are tiny little short pieces, like two or so page pieces if they were fiction, this is a short story adaptive into a feature length film. No fat and entirely focused with an intimate nature to the film, helped considerably by the location shooting in Wales; the rural countryside in British storytelling, especially horror and supernatural tales, has always been evocative and this is the same. Notably this is not the countryside as an ominous place however, but an isolated one with an isolated small town community where the drama comes from the ghosts of the past and emotions of the living. That most of the exterior shots are filmed in the day, and there are only a few locations used, the horror is less the wilderness but, as the plot begins, the locations adding atmosphere of a world completely cut off from the urban landscape and forcing contemplation from the characters.

Soulmate focuses entirely on its narrative, not a film which deviates in tangents. What cannot be denied is that Carolyn tackles the subject matter of grief and mental illness with nuisance, which makes the entire ghost of the BBFC controversy throw shade on the film classificatory being over cautious, a reminder that whilst they have become a beacon of free speech into the 2000s and 2010s, they still exhibit moments of deeply ill-advised choices, more nowadays a sense of an over-protectiveness that does not realise how a viewer for these type of controversial films are more self aware and  introspective about what they are watching than they presumed. There is a right mindedness to tackling depression and suicide to be found here. There is a lot more to this drama too which shows this. Early on, unlike some protagonists, Audrey actually goes to Dr Zellaby (Nick Brimble), one of the people who lets out the cottage alongside his wife, wondering if her anti-depressant medication causes hallucinations or not when she keeps seeing Douglas. When she accepts Douglas is real, bond and even learn that the longer they are together he can slowly start to be able to touch and move objects, the film even gets into the gendered biases of hysteria and how Zellaby plays the sceptical man who finds the female protagonist's beliefs in the supernatural absurd. This is furthered as the only other character who is his wife Theresa (Tanya Myers), who is aware of Douglas, knowledgeable on ghosts, but having a complicated past to Douglas romantically, meaning she has a bias in play too in her warnings to Audrey.

In fact the film can be argued to have a sad ending, with greater weight, that even if Audrey ends the story safe in a hospital with her family, said family still are going to patronise her and that, due to factors which break logic, she has only managed to escape a mental health clinic or prison due to them in the nasty aftermath. It is as much a tale of a woman being unable to be understood in her own life, trying to recover on her own two feet, through her music rather than pills. If the person who was helping her had not crossed the line into possessiveness and his own biases, even as a ghost, this could have easily been a drama with a happy conclusion. The irony that the BBFC felt one realistic scene of a wrist slashing was still inappropriate for a British audience in the early 2010s, not the old problematic era of censorship in the eighties and nineties, adds a perverse irony as they come off like anyone who do not understand Audrey's attempt to overcome her depression at all and are patronising.

It is, as a result, a very simple tale but provided with layers. Like those two short films, Soulmate can be appreciated for its leanings into more intimate drama. It is, with a shame, Axelle Carolyn has not really worked as much afterwards into the rest of the 2010s. It is inexplicable, be it an actual bias against female directors or not, that the only other project throughout the 2010s from Carolyn was a segment in the anthology film Tales of Halloween (2015). Hopefully this will change into the 2020s.

 

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1) HERE

Deatherman (2012)

 

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

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #184

 

 

Ah! Help me! Caesar salad!

This was originally an Archive review, due to the only writing I had being merely a fragment. Thankfully, for Halloween 2020, the dead aptly rose from the videotape grave and returned, allowing us a proper review this time. Whether this is the same opinion as last time, it will however come with better reflection.

Over a black screen with VHS-era early computer text showing the credits, I immediately think that "well the music is good". Deatherman, a throwback to eighties and nineties shot-on-video cinema and under sixty minutes, does feel the burden of a production just trying its hardest with very little. It is a film that is an acquired taste, and does have a bit of a conflict in terms of where the audience emotions should lay, but aside from that, I cannot look down on this at all.

Ostensibly, a male weatherman learns that a new female colleague Holley is joining their station, wishing to become a meteorologist too. We establish this homemade production with homemade news channel footage done with green screen, not hiding its origins, as it is shot in people's homes and public space, nor that, to compensate, there is a greater sense of absurdity, such an advert for "Melvin's Magic Shop", consisting of someone screaming about the magic shop or that he is even wearing gloves for no reason.

Our weatherman is not a nice protagonist, a sexist pig who is dismissive of Holley's ability to become a weather reporter and hitting on her, his comeuppance soon imminent. This is admittedly where the film does get confusing with what you are meant to feel, as it is going to be a splatter film but our soon-to-be-titular Deatherman is not a nice person, trying to seduce her whilst drunk which does not age well even by the end of the 2010s when this was made in 2012. She, having had a history of mental health problems, is just as conflicting as the supposedly sympathetic figure when she does decide to stab him to death. He had not even cross the point beyond just being a drunken and patronising pig to an actual threat, all involving a retractable knife prop and Holley smearing blood on her face.

She and two female friends, who all knew each other in psychotherapy, come together. Tessa who is a bar tender and seemingly has instant connections to body bag access for some inexplicable reason, and Buffy, who once wanted to marry a box of cereal, all three dealing with the body even if they forget to even have a shovel with them at first. In any other film, this would be the three female protagonists accidentally killing someone, but still being the heroes when that threat returns, though this film goes in an entirely different direction. In this case, as well, a nuclear plant incident leads to irradiated acid rain that resurrects him. How this actually works is one of the better jokes, as even characters question our now titular Deatherman about this to his annoyance.

After that, this is just a series of scenes of our titular figure killing off people we have encountered in the establishing sequence. The film does feel flimsy even in knowledge that you can have very little to work with, but does surprise what you can do if you try. You can still hire a bar when it is not open to do a scene at a bar, even if you only have only a couple of actors. The woodlands, where the body is initially buried, have always been the place many micro-budget films have used because there is no concern for permits. A lot of the film is scored to dead air and wind when the music is not there, which does strip away the artifice we find even in low budget horror films. The fact there are a lot of tattoos on the female cast, not deliberately for their characters but their real life beyond this film, is even something which reveals the artifice of a lot of horror films, as that is something you do not actually get in a lot of larger budgeted horror films, even in spite of the fact many men and women nowadays do actually have tattoos on their body and that would be considered to have more verisimilitude. This is the kind of detail which makes SOV and micro-budget cinema fascinating as historical signifiers.

The film is silly, as much for its title pun, a horror comedy whose conflicted notion of who you are supposed to be attached to is arguably even avoided as a concern due to how homemade and improvised it all is. Even following a completely unlikable character, the Deatherman, who cannot be stopped and (barring some gore) throttles most his victims, its atmosphere is entirely from the knowledge it is a production by horror fans, fans of SOV cinema, making their own very low budget shot-on-video production which cannot hide this fact. It has to work around these limitations even for its more outlandish moments, like impalement with an umbrella, or how a scene of someone being dragged into an arcade cabinet is pulled off, which has to be done by cutting away out of an actual arcade to the Deatherman actor in an empty cabinet shell, use of a fake Halloween rubber severed arm for a limb rip-off, and an empty basement room to shot someone going into that cabinet.

Instead of a plot being of concern, it is Marvin, that one scene one joke character for the fake news channel commercial, screeching about his magic shop over a fake news screen and telling his grandmother to go fuck herself, or Buffy as a literal cereal lover who are of interest. Or the moments which are absolutely random and never returned to, like Buffy's introduction of her talking to a plush dog toy, only for the toy to start moving and breathing when she is out of the room in a moment which is actually surreal. It is in wondering why so many films, high or low, are obsessed with shots looking through up the trees at the sky in woodland environments, or the TV show a character is briefly watching, consisting of a Santa plastic ornament falling down the stairs, a show that would be fascinating just to witness for wondering what the hell is meant to transpire after the commercial break.

Director-writer Bobby Keller actually becomes one of the people who steal the film as Coyote, a wannabe pimp-drug dealer, with his female sex worker named Leech, who he plays with a broad comedic voice and is decked out in a red shirt, green t-shirt underneath, a hat, and Christmas patterned red trousers that look like pyjamas. Deatherman, a film really only an acquired taste, grows into something fun because, contrary to the plot, there is a tiny cast of characters like him doing incredibly silly things or having some comic timing which are more interest, a sense of everyone just having fun. His (I presume blood relative) Jim Keller, in just a chef's hat and a black t-shirt with John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) emblazoned onto it, steals the entire film as "Mumbo Chef", not even attempting an actual character, but a figure muttering like a madman, bashing vegetables to death with a knife, and repeating phrases like "Caesar Salad" or "I'm a chef, chef, chef..." over and over again.

If anything, this is a great case study of how cinema, whilst is a great art form, is as much part of human beings just trying to create even something fun for each other on tiny resources. Long patches are sluggish or compare badly to the more ambitious and bizarre spectacles of shot-on-video cinema this was a tribute too, but it cannot be denied there is a spark of fun in knowledge of its origins, and having my own personal taste in this type of cinema where I do not concern myself with the limitations. Knowledge of how absurd the film is can be cemented in the end credits, with a titular theme for a film called Deatherman being performed by a death metal band named Esophagus, or that in the film's messy tone, it ends on two joke previews for future films, one of which is Deatherman in Space, consisting of the actor against a green screen shot shouting that he is now in space. Knowing sillier, like leprechauns, have been shot into space for horror cinema with more resources, this film is probably more self aware of itself in a healthy way than most.