Tag: 1989 in Film

Deep Blood, aka Sangue negli abissi

Deep Blood movie posterAccording to the internet, so it must be true, Raffaele Donato, whose work in film had been very limited, decided one day that he would like to direct a movie. As it happened, Joe D’Amato was looking for someone to helm a cheap sharksploitation flick, the only requirement being fluency in English. Donato leapt at the chance, but after filming a single scene, decided life in the director’s chair was not for him. No worries, as the prolific D’Amato was ready to step in and finish beating this dog of a movie to within an inch of its life.

The result was Deep Blood (Italian: Blood in the abyss), a Jaws ripoff whose greatest danger to characters was stock footage.

From a screenplay by George Nelson Ott (possibly an alias for D’Amato, as this is his only credit on IMDb), Deep Blood tells the tale of an oceanside community terrorized by a killer great white shark.

The first we see of the shark is rank, amateurish, manipulative filmmaking. A mother, her son, and their tiny dog visit the beach for a dip in the ocean. We know one of these three is going to get eaten. Which is it to be? The shot switches to and fro. It’s not frantic, but it’s meant to keep the audience guessing. Will this movie kill a child? A mother? It surely won’t kill the dog, as, in the hierarchy of film murder, dogs elicit the most groans. It kills the mom, and the plot, what there is of it, is off and running.

Four local, college-aged youths with uninteresting backstories are reuniting in town for vacation, and the shark attack has upended things. When one of them, John (John K. Brune), is eaten in a cloud of blood and no gore, Miki (Frank Baroni), leads the effort to exact revenge on the creature. A whole bunch of character drama is placed in his way. The sheriff (could be Tony Bernard, could be Tom Bernard, could be Tody Bernard — the credits are unclear) doesn’t believe him. The responsible adults in town join in the sheriff’s skepticism. Yet, Miki perseveres against authority and town bullies alike to get us to denouement. Continue reading “Deep Blood, aka Sangue negli abissi”

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

See that subtitle? The one that reads ‘Jason Takes Manhattan?’ There’s a lot of promise in a subtitle like that. New York City is a big place. It’s an assault on the senses like nowhere else in the country. It’s loud; it’s packed full of smells, strange, pleasant, and offensive; no matter where you are in the city, there is always something worth looking at. It’s a city that begs to be experienced every day one is there. It’s also an expensive place to film, so when writer/director Rob Hedden had his Friday the 13th sequel greenlit by the studio, they told him there could only be two days of filming in the Big Apple.

So, that subtitle? It would have been more accurate if it had read ‘Jason Takes a Pleasure Cruise’ or ‘Jason Visits the Alleys of Vancouver.’ Hedden was crushed by the studio’s decision, but soldiered on, delivering a movie that he knew disappointed fans, because it disappointed himself just as much. That’s the bad news. The good news is, after a string of films with loosely-connected plot threads and uninteresting premises, the Friday the 13th franchise returns to a more basic slasher formula, and one that works better. Continue reading “Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan”

The Dead Next Door

Many creative people hail from the rusted industrial corpse of Akron, Ohio. Some of them even get famous. Musicians, mostly. But, when it comes to filmmakers, there is one name, and one name, only, associated with Akron. And it’s not Jim Jarmusch, despite what the list of people from Akron on Wikipedia would suggest. This filmmaker has not only made more movies than Jarmusch (who I like as a filmmaker, by the way), but made many of them in his good ole hometown. His name is J.R. Bookwalter.

His first feature, released in 1989, is the classic low-budget, ultra-gory Dead Next Door. Produced, written, and directed by Bookwalter, production began in the summer of 1985 when Bookwalter pitched Sam Raimi on the film. Raimi, gaining an executive producer credit, agreed to pony up the cash, and shooting began in spring of 1986 after some fits and starts. More problems cropped up, as often happens in productions like this, but the majority of the film was in the can by that autumn. 1987 and 1988 were for reshoots, more tinkering, and editing. Finally, sweet release on video in November of 1989. That’s a labor of love, folks. Continue reading “The Dead Next Door”

The Church, aka La Chiesa

After the success of Demons 2, director Lamberto Bava and producer Dario Argento had begun to collaborate on another project. But, while Bava wanted to do another entry in the Demons series, Argento did not, leading to Bava saying his farewells and Argento bringing in Michele Soavi, who had directed the second unit on a number of Argento’s films. A screenplay for the film passed through no less than eight hands, including Soavi’s. The location changed from a plane to a volcanic island and, finally, to a Gothic cathedral in the heart of a modern European city. Thus, we have The Church, from 1989. Continue reading “The Church, aka La Chiesa”

Video Demons Do Psychotown, aka Bloodbath in Psycho Town

Video Demons do Psychotown movie posterWhat a pair of titles. Video Demons Do Psychotown and Bloodbath in Psycho Town. Both are great titles for a sleazy drive-in horror flick featuring the three ‘B’s’ — Blood, Breasts, and Beasts. Well, there are two of those, which doesn’t make this flick a total bust, but viewers have been subjected to that all-too common feature of shitty filmmaking: the misleading title. Titles like that above promise something extreme, something visceral, something that satisfies the basest desires of the depraved horror movie fan. But, in truth, this flick is just cheap.

Distributed by Troma, mass purveyors of trash cinema, Video Demons comes to us via writer/director Alessandro De Gaetano.

Released in 1989, Video Demons follows student filmmakers Eric and Karen (Ron Arragon and Donna Baltron) as they set off into rural Indiana to make a documentary movie about a town full of psychics, hence the ‘Psychotown’[sic] of the title. Continue reading “Video Demons Do Psychotown, aka Bloodbath in Psycho Town”

Driving Force, or, Dance of the Tow Trucks

Regular readers of Shitty Movie Sundays will know that there is something of a cottage industry in Mad Max ripoffs. Mostly, these flicks aren’t ripping off the first Mad Max film, but the second, where filmmaker George Miller refined the look and feel of his post-apocalyptic vision. Driving Force, from 1989, is a Mad Max ripoff, but it hews closer to the original film, which was dystopian rather than post-apocalyptic, and throws in a little of Peter Weir’s The Cars That Ate Paris for good measure.

It’s sometime in the near future. The United States hasn’t collapsed, but it does appear to be on its last legs. The middle class is gone, with society divided between the rich few and the many poor. Picture in one’s head a third world country, and one gets an idea of this film’s setting. Continue reading “Driving Force, or, Dance of the Tow Trucks”

Slipstream

Slipstream, the 1989 movie from producer Gary Kurtz, is a rare film. It must be, since this is one of the few times I mention the producer of a film before I mention a director, screenwriter, or star. So, why the top billing for Mr. Kurtz?

It’s because this movie ruined him as a big time Hollywood producer. Kurtz produced Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. He produced two of the most important films in blockbuster history, having an effect on studio films that still reverberates to this day. Then, creative conflicts with George Lucas led to a split, and Kurtz went his own way. Continue reading “Slipstream”

Redneck Zombies

According to Lloyd Kaufman, so some of it is probably true, Pericles Lewnes and George Scott wandered into the offices of Troma one day in the late 1980s with a finished movie they wanted Troma to distribute. Kaufman and his business partner Michael Herz agreed, on the condition that Lewnes take on unpaid work at Troma to work off the money Kaufman was sure this movie would lose for the company. And, thus, Redneck Zombies was unleashed upon the world.

Directed by Lewnes from a screenplay that has to be a pseudonym for either he or Scott, Fester Smellman, Redneck Zombies is one of the more ambitious efforts, gore-wise, that has been featured in It Came from the Camcorder. In tone, it fits right into the Troma stable, as Lewnes was very much a fan of their work. As the title implies, this movie is about zombies, who happen to be rednecks. Continue reading “Redneck Zombies”

Things

Things 1989 VHS boxIn doing research for this year’s Horrorshow, I’ve found that many flicks featured on SOV horror lists on the tubes are not, in fact, shot on videotape. Usually, they are movies that were made for the home video market, never intended for theatrical release, but were shot on cheap film stock. Such is the case with Things, the 1989 flick from producers and writers Barry J. Gillis and Andrew Jordan, with direction by Jordan. It was transferred to video for release, but was shot for the most part on super 8.

I can’t mince words. Things is a contender for worst movie ever made. Everything about the film is the lowest of low rent. Color, lighting, dialogue, plot, acting, special effects, music — it all lives in the darkest, deepest levels of incompetence. Yet, it is not a film hostile to viewers. It has a charm that’s lacking in something like Birdemic. This is an inept film made by earnest filmmakers. While it is bad, it is also worth appreciating the hard work from those involved. They gave us something to be laughed at and mocked, yes, but the enjoyment of a bad movie is not all schadenfreude.

The film follows three men, in what was probably Andrew Jordan’s apartment at the time of filming, as they drink lots of beer, wander around the house a bit, and occasionally fight off the be-teethed things of the title. Where did the things come from? Doug (Doug Bunston) and his wife, Susan (Patricia Sadler) have been trying for a baby, and enlist the services of Dr. Lucas (Jan W. Pachul). Rather than deliver a healthy baby, the things claw their way out of her abdomen and go on a tear through the home. Continue reading “Things”

Violent Shit

Violent Shit VHS boxThere have been some movies featured on Missile Test that have not lived up to their title, or that have had titles that are outright deceptive (I’m looking at you, Chain Gang Women). No worries with Violent Shit. The title promises violent shit, and that’s just what viewers will get. In fact, the title undersells what’s in the movie.

Hailing from West Germany, Violent Shit sprang forth from the mind of writer, director, producer, and special effects technician Andreas Schnaas. In his early twenties at the time of filming, Schnaas roped in his friends for a few weekends of shooting in and around Hamburg in 1989. The result is a bloody disgusting SOV horror flick that never would have made it past the traditional censors. The gore in this movie is not that realistic, but it contains imagery that’s nasty enough to make one’s stomach turn. For instance, one of the first victims in this film has his penis cut off in graphic fashion, and I rank that as the third-most disturbing moment in the film. One of the characters had a death that is right up there with the real-life killing of Mary Jane Kelly at the hands of Jack the Ripper. (Read the description of her post-mortem to get an idea of how this scene plays out.) Continue reading “Violent Shit”