October Horrorshow: Death Row Diner

Shot on video horror flicks can generally be sorted into two camps. One, those made in Hollywood, but outside the studio system; and two, regional cinema. The main difference between the two is that the regional movies, made by filmmakers such as Tim Ritter, J.R. Bookwalter, and the Polonia brothers, are true outsider art, unconcerned with the way things are supposed to be done while making a movie, while those sprouted from the Los Angeles area have things like unionized crew, professional editing, etc. What both of these broad categorizations have in common is that the movies are objectively bad, no matter where they come from.

Death Row Diner, from 1988, is one of those Hollywood independent SOV horror flicks. Two of its stars, John Henry Richardson and Michelle Bauer, have extensive filmographies outside of SOV horror, and a viewer can tell there was something of a production behind this movie, even if the budget looks like it had about four figures in it.

Written by James Golff, Salvatore Richichi, and B. Dennis Wood (who goes by D3 these days), and directed by Wood, Death Row Diner is both horror story and industry insider flick. The movie follows John Content as Otis Wilcox, a studio exec who was put to death for killing his wife way back in the ’40s. But, there was a wrinkle. On the night of his execution, Otis never got his last meal.

Fast forward forty years, and Wilcox’s company is still making pictures, but is now controlled by egomaniacal filmmaker Bill Weston (Richardson), sleazy money man Tony Milano (among the many characters with no cast member attached to the name), and Otis’s granddaughter, Julia (Bauer). Weston married Julia for the company, Death Row Diner VHS boxand the two have an explosive relationship. Weston comes up with the idea to film a prison flick in the very prison where Otis was put to death, just to needle Julia. That turns out to be a terrible idea, as Otis comes back from the dead looking for that last meal, and satiates his hunger with Weston’s cast and crew.

There’s a lot of b-movie inside baseball in this flick. Most of the crew of Weston’s movie that Otis preys on are the actual crew Wood used. When the property master gets killed by Otis, one can be sure that after the cameras stopped rolling, he was storing away the props. When the hair stylist gets choked to death by Otis, she probably went right back to her chair to touch Michelle Bauer up for the next scene.

This feels like a movie made by b-movie filmmakers and crew for b-movie filmmakers and crew. There are inside jokes and references that viewers will miss, and also a bizarre sense of acceptance. Everyone seems to know this is the type of flick they will always end up working on, so might as well poke fun at it.

There is much black humor to this movie, and a lot of intentional comedy that misses the mark. Well, making a movie is hard. And making an SOV horror flick that’s actually good is even harder.

Most of this movie is very tough to watch. The minimum acceptable quality is lacking. Things only pick up towards the end when Otis starts his rampage in earnest. If there’s one thing bloody mayhem can cure, it’s extended scenes of b-movie actors improvising.

Attacking this movie for objective quality is something of a waste of time, though. It was never meant to be good. Anything worth watching is by accident. However, it does seem as if cast and crew had some fun while making it. Nothing about the movie is forced, and even though the cast couldn’t act their way out of a wet paper bag, there is chemistry. The happy-go-lucky part of me fantasizes that these are all friends in the b-movie industry who got together to make a shitty movie with a gallows sense of humor about their careers in Hollywood. Making it bloody and gory is just a plus.

Subtext does not equal watchability, though. Getting the joke can’t compensate for just how god awful stretches of this movie were, technically and from a storytelling standpoint. It may not be all that fair, but Death Row Diner sinks way down in the Watchability Index, landing with a thud at #439, displacing Haunting on Fraternity Row. As with most SOV horror flicks, one has to be into the genre to get anything out of it.

Genres and stuff:
Tags , , , , , , , , ,
Some of those responsible:
, , , , , , , , , ,