By Richard Winters
My Rating: 4 out of 10
4-Word Review: Vet. stalks war buddies.
Gene (Greg Mullavey) is a Vietnam Vet. who’s come home after the war, but finding it hard to readjust to civilian life. He’s plagued by memories of not only the war, but some of the crimes that he and his comrades did while over there including the annihilation of a village and gang rape of a woman. He decides that the only answer is to seek out dark justice by visiting with his old buddies one-by-one in their homes and then using the opportunity to kill them when the time is right. Gene’s wife Laura (Meredith McRae) is aware of her husband’s tormented dreams, but not his homicidal plans. She works with Dr. MacLaine (Greg Morris), a psychiatrist, to track Gene down in order to stop his madness and get him the mental help that he needs.
In 1969, Paul Leder, whose attempt at an acting career had stalled, decided to take a stab at directing, which initially didn’t fare any better. His first feature, where he had Mullavey also star, was the absurdist comedy Marigold Man, about a guy named Harry who dreams of planting marigolds from coast to coast, which quickly fell into obscurity. He then hit on the idea of doing a horror film, which he felt, if done right, could do well under the low budget constraints. His first feature, which also had Mullavey in a supporting part, was I Dismember Mama, that fared a bit better than the comedy and enough to gain a cult following. Leder then reverted back to doing two comedies including the notorious Ape, an attempted parody of King Kong, that became a big embarrassment before eventually returning back to horror with this film.
On the surface it’s not bad given the limitations. It’s obviously inspired by Bob Clark’s Dead of Night, that had come out 5 years earlier and had a similar theme of a war vet. unable to get the horrors of what he went through out his mind. That one won some critical acclaim and a cult audience while this one fell through the cracks. For Paul Leder standards though it’s surprisingly watchable. Mullavey gives an effective performance where you sympathize with the man and his torment even as he goes through with his killings. The flashback sequences have a haunting quality and the film is, if anything, adequately gritty.
The killings though are where things get off-kilter. A few of them are disturbing like when he ties up one of his old buddies, while also shooting him in the arm, and then forces him to watch the rape of his wife before killing them both. Some of the others though fail to have the same dark punch. In one instance all he does his hand his old war friend a bottle of pills and tells him to swallow them, which isn’t exactly tense, while another moment has him helping to deliver a woman’s baby. There’s also a scene where Mullavey ties up his victim and then has the man’s arm poked with a syringe where he slowly bleeds to death, but horror movies work better when we see the action of him attacking the other man and just cutting away to him already tied-up misses the potential for excitement.
McRae, who at the time was Mullavey’s real-life wife, gives a poor performance particularly her anemic sounding crying. The use of music is bad too. During the killings it reflects the pounding score you’d expect in a horror flick, but in-between it has a melodic quality that you’d hear in a breezy comedy. The editing, which was also done by Leder, is choppy and too many slow parts in-between the violence. The film, which has a few interesting moments, fails to hold interest all the way through. It’s too talky with a lot of extraneous dialogue that could’ve been cut out. Having the only sound being the voices that Mullavey hears inside his head would’ve worked better.
My Rating: 4 out of 10
Released: December 10, 1976
Runtime: 1 Hour 13 Minutes
Rated R
Director: Paul Leder
Studio: Cinema Producers Center
Available: DVD-R (dvdlady.com)
