Hayes’s work was at its best and most distinctive when he was working in a mode of thrift-store surrealism. Dream No Evil and Baby Rosemary are both distinctly unsettling films more because of the bizarre tone, acting, and locations than anything specifically genre-related in their narratives. Those films truly do proceed with the logic of dreams and nightmares, suddenly shifting in tone from creepy to weirdly humorous and inexplicable without notice. Sweet Trash includes a few scenes that drift into this nightmare world, but for the most part it plays more like a straightforward crime drama. The dialogue and acting calls to mind Matt Cimber’s Single Room Furnished, a film that feels very much like stereotypical 50s or 60s American theater about life on the skids. Hayes had apparently tried to make a career as a playwright before moving into film, and it shows.
The Hang Up, on the other hand, is very much a straight psychological drama about a cop who finally goes over the edge. Aside from an early trip to a “sex club” in the basement of a large mansion, there’s nothing overtly surreal in the movie. It’s competently made but not terribly distinctive, and its lead character is unfortunately both morally repellant and not all that interesting. He’s just a bitter, judgmental middle-aged guy who, for whatever reason, suddenly finds himself willing to risk everything for a young prostitute. The Hang Up is a grim, interesting curiosity, and for fans of Hayes’s other films, it’s required viewing.
Vinegar Syndrome has given Sweet Trash and The Hang Up both 2K restorations from their 35mm negatives, so they both look great. The disc also includes original theatrical trailers for each film. This is unquestionably the best presentation these films have ever received on home video in any format. Here’s hoping more of Hayes’s films are on deck for future VS releases — he was a unique filmmaker whose work deserves to be rediscovered by a wider audience.
Deadly Prey (1987) and Deadliest Prey (2013)
Originally published on Film Monthly 17 November 2015
To say that David A. Prior’s Deadly Prey is a cult classic is to be guilty of gross understatement. Originally released directly to video in 1987, the film has gathered a passionate cult following who discovered the film on VHS all over the world. This process reached a peak with some theatrical screenings of the film over the last few years, and the production of a genuine sequel entitled Deadliest Prey which reunited Prior with the original film’s stars Ted Prior, David Campbell, and Fritz Matthews 27 years later. The film has even been used as the namesake for a Chicago gallery that displays hand-painted movie posters from Ghana. Now for the first time, Deadly Prey hits Blu-ray and DVD from Olive Films and Slasher Video, with the sequel also hitting home video on the same day. Anyone who is already a fan probably has both on preorder, but what should the uninitiated expect?
In Deadly Prey, psychotic Colonel Hogan (David Campbell) trains an army of mercenaries for wealthy businessman Don Michealson (Troy Donahue). Hogan’s training consists of sending some of his men into a nearby city and kidnapping random people, then setting them loose in the wilderness surrounding his camp and letting the trainees hunt them down. One day, they kidnap Mike Danton (Ted Prior) while he’s taking out the garbage (wearing only his cut-off jean shorts), and that turns out to be a big mistake. Danton served under Hogan in Vietnam, and Hogan trained Danton to be the ultimate killing machine. As Danton slaughters the trainees, Hogan figures out the only way he has a chance against his former student is to fight dirty. Even so, Danton may have some help from an unexpected place. But can one man really survive against a whole army?
Deadly Prey starts off running and never really stops. The plot and characterization are incidental to the action: Danton punching, kicking, stabbing, shooting, and blowing up the bad guys. Many, many bad guys. Most of them armed with machine guns and grenades, which they seem curiously bad at using. Several times, Danton is under fire from a line of men with guns unloading toward him and he easily escapes into the forest. This gives many of the action scenes the feeling of a bunch of kids playing army; it seems impossible that at no point do any of the mercenaries angrily whine “Hey, I got you!” as Danton runs into the woods. The story in general feels that way, too. This is a world of good guys and bad guys, and Campbell clearly enjoys playing the ruthless Hogan. It’s a shame but not a surprise that this juvenile mindset carries over into the film’s treatment of its female characters, one a villain and one whose only real purpose is to get fridged in order to fuel Danton’s fury. This would be a lot more offensive if the whole movie and all the characters in it weren’t so cartoonishly ridiculous, but it does stand out as a weirdly mean-spirited moment in an otherwise very goofy movie. Deadly Prey strips the 80s action formula down to the bone and explodes in jean shorts and mulleted rage, providing nothing but the cheapest thrills. In short, it absolutely deserves its reputation as a cult classic.
Deadliest Prey picks up twenty-five years later as Hogan is being released from jail for the crimes he committed in the first movie. He already has a new HQ and an army of recruits waiting for him on the outside thanks to a pair of investors and a new right-hand lady, Sophia (Tara Kleinpeter). Now married with a young son, Danton is once again kidnapped while taking out the garbage, but this time there’s a twist: Hogan has installed webcams throughout the forest, and viewers online can watch as he fights for his life. This catches the attention of three bored gamers (Zack Carlson, Dimitri Simakis, and Suki-Rose Otter) who hack into Hogan’s system, figure out where Danton is, and drive out to help him. Meanwhile, Danton tears through the army of mercenaries pretty much exactly the same way he did in the first movie, only this time the explosions are considerably more impressive. In fact, aside from the side plot with the three hackers, Deadliest Prey is very close to being an Evil Dead 2-style remake of the first film, hitting the same story beats but pitched as almost a straightforward comedy.
That change can be fatal to this kind of movie (see the later Andy Sidaris L.E.T.H.A.L. Ladies films for an instructive example of this), but in this case the cast is clearly having a blast and the tone is even goofier than the first time around. It helps that the tone never quite veers into direct self-parody, and that writer/director David A. Prior has a much better handle on the technical side of filmmaking that prevents Deadliest Prey from having the kind of unintentionally humorous effect of something like Birdemic. There are numerous direct call-backs to the first film, which will make it even more ridiculous to anyone who has seen it, but any new viewer should quickly figure out what’s going on here with little difficulty. Just like before, there are bad guys and good guys, and most of the movie is the bad guys walking around in the trees until the good guy comes and shoots them, stabs them, snaps their neck, etc. etc. If it doesn’t feel nearly as crazy as the first one, it’s probably due to the fact that the element of surprise is missing. We know what to expect from a sequel to Deadly Prey, but it’s not necessarily a complaint that Deadliest Prey delivers more or less exactly on those expectations. It’s probably going to be more of a fun footnote in the legacy of Deadly Prey than a cult classic in its own right, but it’s still a lot of fun.
Olive Films released Deadly Prey and Deadliest Prey on Blu-ray and DVD on 17 November 2015. Special features for Deadly Prey include a photo gallery, excerpts of the film dubbed into other languages, the film’s trailer, a reel of outtakes, and an interview with makeup effects artist Jack Hojohn. It’s worth noting that the trailer, outtakes, and dubbed excerpts are all transferred from what looks to be a well-worn video tape. They’re interesting to have, but they look rough. It’s also worth noting that there was no available source material to create a true HD master for the Blu-ray, as the film was sourced from a PAL Beta SP tape. If you’re on the fence as to whether to get the Blu-ray or the DVD, be aware that there is probably no appreciable difference in image quality between the two. Honestly, it’s somewhat puzzling that Olive Films and Slasher Video released the film on Blu-ray at all. Special features on Deadliest Prey include “Deadly Prey: 27 Years Later” interviews with write
r/director David A. Prior and stars Ted Prior, David Campbell, and Fritz Matthews. This film was shot on RED digital cinema cameras, and thus has a true HD transfer for the Blu-ray presentation. Both are worthwhile purchases for any fan of crazy, low-budget action.
Death Walks Twice: Two Films by Luciano Ercoli: Death Walks in High Heels (1971) and Death Walks at Midnight (1972)
Originally published 8 April 2016
Giallo, that peculiarly Italian strain of mystery and horror that flourished in the 1960s and 1970s, has seen a huge resurgence in popularity among cult films fans over the last decade. DVD helped bring many of the best of these films to audiences in the States who may have never had a chance to see them otherwise except in low-quality bootlegs or in butchered English dubs. One small home video imprint that made a big splash among Giallo fans was NoShame, who gave a number of Italian exploitation films their proper debuts on English-friendly DVD in the early 2000s and whose catalog titles often fetch a tidy sum on the secondhand market. Arrow Video has recently picked up where NoShame left off with lavish editions of some of the best of that company’s catalog, including a new set that gives a significant upgrade to one particularly sought-after NoShame release: Luciano Ercoli’s Death Walks in High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight. Released by NoShame as “Luciano Ercoli’s The Death Box,” Arrow has given the films a dual-format Blu-ray/DVD release packed with special features under the title “Death Walks Twice: Two Films by Luciano Ercoli.”
In addition to sharing directors and partial titles, these two films both star Susan Scott (born Nieves Navarro). In Death Walks in High Heels Scott plays a dancer living in Paris whose father, a jeweler, has been murdered. She flees to London but someone follows, leaving a bloody trail in their wake. In Death Walks at Midnight, Scott plays a model who witnesses a murder from the window of her apartment but has difficulty convincing anyone of the crime because she was high at the time. Unfortunately for her, even though almost everyone else has a hard time believing her, the murderer is all too aware of what she saw and is closing in on her. Both films are prototypical Giallo, packed with beautiful people doing awful things and being dispatched in a number of gruesome and imaginative ways while the story twists and turns improbably. Both feature excellent scores, although the score for Death Walks in High Heels has a slight edge thanks to legendary composer Stelvio Cipriani. However, Death Walks at Midnight features a killer with a distinctive spiked glove, helping set it apart from its contemporaries a bit more. Fans of the style will want to pick up this set immediately, and for newcomers these are a great place to start.
Both films are presented in gorgeous new 2K transfers from the films’ original negatives, and Arrow has packed this set with features that would shame most Criterion releases. It comes in a beautiful package with reversible covers that includes the films on Blu-ray and DVD as well as a copiously illustrated 60-page book featuring Danny Shipka (Perverse Titillation: The Exploitation Cinema of Italy, Spain and France), Troy Howarth (So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films) and Leonard Jacobs. The discs themselves offer a wealth of information: both films have feature-length commentary tracks by film critic Tim Lucas (whose book All the Colors of the Dark is the definitive word on Mario Bava) and introductions by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi. Death Walks on High Heels includes English and Italian trailers as well as an archival interview with Ercoli and Scott, an interview with Cipriani, and an interview with Gastaldi about the film and the Giallo genre in general. Death Walks at Midnight includes an alternate, extended “TV cut” of the film running 105 minutes as well as another interview with Gastaldi and a visual essay by Michael Mackenzie about the collaboration of Ercoli and Scott.
It’s honestly almost unbelievable that Arrow has given these films such loving care. Arrow has made a reputation among cult film fans for exactly this sort of presentation, but they have been outdoing themselves regularly lately. Any fan of these two films who has the previous NoShame release will find this more than a worthy upgrade, and anyone who wants to see them for the first time can hardly do better than this definitive edition. Arrow will soon be releasing a pair of horror/Giallo films from director Emilio Miraglia that NoShame originally released with a collectible doll of “The Red Queen” from The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. While Arrow may not be interested in matching that particular bit of ephemera, fans should be breathlessly anticipating whatever else they might have in store.
Deep Roots (1978) and Starlet Nights (1982)
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 21 February 2014
Vinegar Syndrome’s last 70s hardcore double feature was an East Coast affair, but their latest Peekarama disc takes a look at what was happening on the other side of the country around the same time. This disc features two films directed by “Lisa Barr,” the directorial pseudonym of actor/filmmaker Joseph Bardo. Bardo acted in films for Ray Dennis Steckler including The Thrill Killers, Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters and Body Fever. Behind the camera, he worked on Earl Barton’s Trip with the Teacher (starring Zalman King) and was cinematographer on Bud Townsend’s Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy.
The poster for Deep Roots, the first film of this double feature, claims the film is “Deeper Than THROAT, More Powerful Than ROOTS!” You certainly can’t fault Bardo for lack of ambition! Unsurprisingly, Deep Roots falls much closer to Deep Throat than Roots on the cinematic spectrum. Billy (Jesse Chacan) decides to leave his reservation, where he has “deep roots,” and find out how other people live. His approach to this mission is to drive his motorcycle to Los Angeles and have sex with a lot of women. The focus of the film changes a bit after the introduction of Joan (Anita Sands), a young woman who is about to be married to her longtime boyfriend Dave and is worried that she’s missed out on sexual experiences with other people. Billy is happy to help her out, and their parallel erotic adventures begin. That’s pretty much it as far as the story here goes.
What Deep Roots really brings to the table is a few unique sex scenes and Liz Renay (John Waters’s Desperate Living) in a prominent supporting role apparently playing herself. As for the first, the first scene with Billy and Joan involves the pair painting each other’s bodies as extensive foreplay before transitioning into an extremely messy (and colorful) sex scene. Later, she seduces a hair stylist who gives her pubic hair an extensive cut and blow-dry. Still, Joan’s finest moment is the scene in which Liz Renay tries to teach her a striptease. She looks lost and desperately uncoordinated, but seems to really be having a great time.
The film climaxes with a swingers’ costume party that brings Billy and Joan back together, along with “Fifty Beautiful People” (as they are credited) and a highly annoying guy doing a Groucho Marx impersonation. After the orgy, Billy inexplicably returns to the reservation, explaining to the camera: “You know, you really shouldn’t leave where you belong.” The audience can only assume Groucho drove him to it.
Starlet Nights, the second film on the disc, is a very confused modern take on “Snow White” starring Lesllie Bovee (star of Kemal Horulu’s Lustful Feelings, which appeared on a previous Vinegar Syndrome Drive-In Collection disc) as the wicked stepmother Joyce, trying to convince her husband that his daughter Snow White (Candy Nichols) is not as innocent as he believes. That’s giving the film a lot of leeway on storyline, and calling it a “loose adaptation” would be generous. Most of the traditional names and concepts are in place, but mostly this is just Joyce’s show. She has sex with “fantasies” who come out of her bedroom mirror (Jesse Chacan of Deep Roots as a “Genii” and Tyler Horne, cycling through celebrity impersonations), spikes an apple with aphrodisiac and beds her agent’s secretary Mrs. Sneazy (Monique LeBare) to convince her to give the apple to Snow, and then throws an orgy to prove to her father she’s a whore. This is a busy day!
Joyce’s plan backfires when film and television producer Aron Grumpy (Rick Roberts) shows up at the party and runs into Snow before he leaves. Snow, insatiable from the apple aphrodisiac, show
s Grumpy a very good time and he gives her a leading role in his new television series “Charlie’s Devils.” Starlet Nights relies on pop culture references for easy jokes: for example, when Joyce storms into Happy’s office to berate him for letting Snow White get the part in “Charlie’s Devils,” he informs her that Grumpy has decided to instead cast Joyce in Francis Ford Cappuccino’s The Godmother.
Things don’t go so well for Snow on the set of the show, though. After shooting her second scene with John Bashful (Scott James), she eats an apple and ends up in the hospital. Meanwhile, Joyce and her maid seduce Grumpy again and she ends up with a three-picture deal. “Hollywood!” Joyce exclaims to the camera. “This is my fucking town, and I love it!”
Aside from bad celebrity impersonations and pop culture references, Starlet Nights unfortunately relies on gay stereotypes for much of its humor. Joyce’s “Fantasy” gives her the apple doing a limp-wristed, lisping dialogue, and Joyce’s interior decorator and Snow White’s stylist at the television studio are both ridiculous caricatures. These characterizations stick out as particularly odd given the relative restraint Deep Roots shows towards its main character’s ethnicity—other than Joan mentioning she’s “never had an Indian before” and Billy’s old-Hollywood “Indian” outfit at the costume party, it’s hardly mentioned at all. Making its gay male characters the butt of cheap jokes is perhaps not out of place for adult films of the era, but it’s disappointing nonetheless.
This Peekarama release offers an interesting West Coast contrast to the first release in the series, although it’s not quite as strong a double feature Deep Roots is certainly worth a look for Liz Renay’s appearance alone (“I’ll be there with bells on—and sequins and tassels and my tits hangin’ out!”). While Lesllie Bovee gives a very enthusiastic performance as the wicked stepmother in Starlet Nights, the film tries too hard to be “funny” and overshoots into “shrill.” Both films are presented in widescreen, scanned in 2k from 35mm archival prints, and while both prints had clearly seen a lot of action, there’s no doubt these films look the best they possibly can. As per usual for Vinegar Syndrome, as a time capsule of West Coast porno feature filmmaking of the era, this is well worth checking out.
The Unrepentant Cinephile Page 80