Blood Massacre

Blood Massacre Directed By Don Dohler, Starring George Stover (1991).

First off I have to ask, who the fuck is Don Dohler? Blood Massacre opens in a smoke encrusted dive where they drink Schaffer beer and all the women have acne. The awkward tone is set by a great Pat Benetar ripoff song. The film quality is in league with the "Mr. Robbie" short (grainy, dark and nauseating). I don't know who Dohler is but I like him already!

Hey, who put a wig and eyebrows on a bloated sack of Corn Beef?

   A pudgy maniac named Rizzo who looks like "Radar" from MASH has a grudge against everybody. As he stabs a hooker--there's some loud thumping and chocolate syrup looking blood! It made me think of Serial Mom (the blood is not like in the horror movies, it's brown)! Don't worry the splatter effects get a lot wetter and meaty toward the end! Speaking of John Waters, Rizzo is played by George Stover, who you've seen in various bit parts through out the eyeliner mustachioed one's career (he was the priest that reads last rights as Divine in led into the gas chamber in Female Trouble).

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   Don is kind of like Robert Rodriguez, a one man wrecking crew, only with zero money and no star power. He's a great trashy film maker, I've just become aware of thru Chas Balun's VHS catalog (there's endless inspiration and value in that raggedy stapled pamphlet)! How could I have been a cult movie addict this long and not come across this director (I'm glad I discovered his work now and plan on checking out more)!

Everytime I try to get to third base you push me away

   Rizzo (Stover), the sloppy maniac from the opening has his own social club of inept criminals. They drive around in a shitty car, I love the realism these lowlives bring to the film. It's stuffed full of scummy charm. 

   Look out Retro VHS tape heads because there's an amazing robbery scene at a video store! Jimmy, one of the criminals wears a Kim Carnes t-shirt and shoots the brains out of a women's skull, which land on the poster of Endless Love.

I hope you choke on my brains Brooke Shields

   Jimmy (James DiAngelo) and Rizzo were in Nam together and mention how "Death was in season" back then, the tubby psycho seems to hate even his own kind. They mention Vietnam a lot, but this shouldn't be considered a Namsploit (even though there is a hilariously clumsy montage at the end with Riz). The tubby slob has a flashback in the forrest with a fast zoom in camera shot that steals a little bit from Evil Dead. When Riz gets trapped and hung upside down, he reminds me of Bill from King of the Hill. 

I will not "Be Kind or Fucking Rewind!"

   They end up at a house where a girl in a leotard is working out late at night with a boombox. It starts to teeter toward "Last House" territory when they meet a strange family (who have ideas about trapping criminals when they least suspect it).

   During the robbery scene and a fight they play this track that sounds like a classic NES game. 

   Monica (Lisa DeFuso), one of the other criminals who looks like a mall rat, puts down the stew cooked by the family they are holding hostage by saying "you should have buried that recipe with the family." We later find out why the stew tastes so vile!

the secret ingredient is goose sweat

   Dohler attempts a gratuitous shower scene with Liz the daughter (that basically shows nothing). She's a complete freak and bites Rizzo, the fat galoot on the neck. They make out and smear blood on each other, it's fucking disgusting! I was more prepared for a massacre not a vampire freakout!

   The first sign the dumb criminals figure anything out about the crackpot family it's too late! The ending was a really nice surprise and thanks to this film I may just have to check out more by Don D! 

The man behind the Muck

   Don Dohler, a schlocky filmmaker from Baltimore, created a magazine called Cinemagic and Wild which was a Mad Magazine style publication in the 60's and 70's. Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman sent their early works to Wild magazine.

   According to The Baltimore Sun, Dohler was inspired to start his film career with Alien Factor after almost getting killed in a hold up at his government job. I love his style and will track down more of his films, he's got this cryptic, ugly, trashy, horrid technique that I absolutely adore. Sadly Dohler died of cancer in 2006, he was a talented guy who took what cheap elements he had and threw them together in the funnest way possible on the same level as Ed Wood or Ray Dennis Steckler. One of his movies called Fiend was on the Video Nasty list (oh boy have I been burned by those Brits lately) and Night Beast was referenced on 30 Rock (by way of Judah Friedlander's trucker hat).  

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