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STUDIO: Camp Records UK
MSRP: $14.98
RATED: NOT RATED
RUNNING TIME: 210 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Commentary with director Tim Ritter
• Commentary with Asbestos Felt, Joel Wynkoop and R.M. Hoopes
• Blinded By the Blood Documentary
• Killing Spree Investor Reel 1986
• Killing Spree Video Test Shoot 1987
The Pitch
Watch the template for made-for-video horror get set (a horror the likes of which isn’t rivaled by any material in the film itself)!
The Humans
Asbestos Felt, Courtney Lercara, Raymond Carbone, Joel D. Wynkoop and Rachel Rutz
"HILARY SWANK HUNGERS."
The Nutshell
Tom Russo (Felt) is a pretty possessive guy. He refuses to let his wife enter the work force despite their having just bought a new home; instead, he heaps the punishment upon himself and works longer shifts at the air hangar to keep them afloat financially. However, this is taking a mental toll on Tom’s psyche as he begins to dream of his wife having infidelities with a certain best friend of his that begins to push him over the edge. Reading her diary which reveals numerous intimate encounters with the work staff that seem to constantly be showing up at his house to fix odds and ends finally sends Tom over the edge and on the titular killing spree that claims the running time’s considerable body count.
"Hey, these lightbulbs aren’t just energy efficient: they add a certain ambiance to my bloodlust dream sequences."
The Lowdown
In the day and age of Youtube and a myriad of websites springing up that truly has democratized the process of creative film/video making in the world, its hard to be impressed by a gnarly lo-fi splatter flick with very little in the way of redeeming qualities. But when taken in the context of the era in which it sprung from, Tim Ritter’s independent splatter efforts that resulted in international distribution and a little bit of 1980’s horror infamy have to be looked at with a begrudging respect.
There’s an endearing lack of polish to the entire film that goes all the way from the direction to the acting to the effects. The acting is uniformly awful (special kudos to Asbestos Felt* for apparently providing the template from which Michael Madsen based his Sin City performance) and stilted, with eye lines apparently being thought of as something the makeup artists had to deal with, not the director. The editing in dialogue scenes is as smooth as Eric Stoltz’s face in Mask, with there sometimes being a second of dead air between shots, really allowing for one to get into the Harold Pinter-esque speech cadences of the characters (like when he throws the head at the guy after saying “How about some head?”). Despite the front cover pimping this as a 9 on the gore scale, I would be more inclined to compliment the filmmakers on making a splatter film where the gore very rarely makes an appearance in the finished product**. And when it does, it’s underwhelming for the most part (while a scene in which a man rips open a man’s midsection with a chainsaw and then electrocutes him through his exposed innards sounds pretty goddamned great in description, this film manages to make such a scene completely uninspired).
High kicks are the best way to rid your house of asbestos.
However, credit must go to Tim Ritter, and not just for getting his name placed in front of the title of his film (which is absurdly great), but for actually building upon each violent act and then finally letting loose in the final moments of the film. Even if the final sequence feels as though its from a different genre of film entirely, the majority of the effort in terms of gore makeup seemed to have been saved for a grand finale, and not blowing your load right from the word go has to be commended in a day and age where a majority of films peter out in their climax and denouement as they’ve already given us everything they’ve got before their story has reached its end. That isn’t to say that this movie’s ending isn’t incoherent shit, because it is. But good on them for making it incoherent shit that crescendos. In fact the very final shot encapsulates the film fully: its supposed to be a jump scare but the music cue is so wretched that there’s no one who could possibly be taken by surprise with it, and it also defies logic and seems to exist only because somebody thought it would look reasonably cool. And I guess what better reason to make a film with your friends than to dream up shit you think would look cool?
His first alternative to wearing a tool belt proved to be unwieldy.
At the end of the day, this is a film where you just tip your cap to the filmmakers for having the moxie to pull off the filming, even if the end product is a little more than lacking. It’s a testament to the passion of filmmakers in the pre-digital era when they would have to work a little harder to create cohesive gore effects or just simply make a feature length film, let alone find distribution and gain some level of notoriety for what they were doing. So even though I can’t recommend Killing Spree to anyone excepting the most undiscerning of gorehounds out there, it must be considered a victory for amateur filmmakers everywhere that a picture like this is being remembered with a loving DVD release a couple of decades after the fact.
The Package
The cover art is actually quite nicely played on Camp’s part as they manage to make an appealing case for watching the movie (crazed bearded man) whilst evoking a definitively grindhouse vibe with the scratched and faded touches added to the image. Despite being shot on film the video is of a home video quality and the audio was recorded inside of a hobo’s ass, apparently. And if you’re a fan of this film (which I suppose is possible), this DVD has a substantial amount of supplements that actually help contextualize the film, if not exactly make a compelling argument for it being anything other than a steaming plate of Casper Van Dien. There are two commentaries on the disc: one being loud and obnoxious featuring Asbestos Felt and others and the other being informative and reflective with writer/director Tim Ritter. You pick the one you want to listen to. There’s a spate of trailers for Camp Motion Pictures horror catalogue and one assumes that the trailers are of a higher quality than the finished product. Then there’s a nice handful of behind-the-scenes materials that help flesh out the historical niche this little slasher flick has carved (omigoddiduseewatididthere) out for itself. The investor reel is interesting just to see Ritter’s tactic for trying to drum up investors in the film, touting the success of his previous foray into the gorehound domain, Truth or Dare. The video test is less interesting, you get the idea of the SFX from the main documentary and raw footage always tends to run overlong unless you’re dealing with abnormally interesting or witty filmmakers/cast members.
oogity boogity.
The big bonus here is the ‘Blinded by the Blood’ making of documentary, that manages to be quite comprehensive. There’s a heavy amount of behind-the-scenes footage (even allowing for the director to show himself in a somewhat poor light in a couple of instances) including some newscasts where the casting call and shooting of the film were mentioned. It helps to contextualize this film in the era it was shot in and show how it was somewhat trailblazing in its pursuit of the immediate direct-to-video market which has become a cash boon for some lower-end distributors in our current day and age. The extras are nice enough for me to boost the film’s final score a bit, but this still isn’t appointment viewing.
5.8 out of 10
*More names need to adhere to this noun-verb structure, by the way.1
**An early dream sequence in which a woman engulfs a man’s head (SEXUAL SYMBOLISM) is probably the most unusual and interesting of all of the effects in the film, but it isn’t gore, so I don’t count it as such.
1Although technically it could also be looked at as noun-noun, but I digress.