555

Reviewed by Michael Hauss

Directed by: Wally Koz. Starring Mara Lynn Bastian, Charles Fuller, Greg (Don't call me Jack) Kerouac and Greg (Don't call me Craig T.) Nelson

Video box tagline: Shot in Blood-Vivid Video for your Viewing Pleasure (or Blood covered Shitty-o .Ed)

I love the 80’s! I bought my first VCR in I believe 1983, with my wages I made working at a shithole retail department store called Richway’s in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and as fucked as my memory is today, I even remember the first video tape I rented was TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. But that’s not why we are here brothers and sisters, we are here today to spread the gutter love of a rotten little film called 555 (1988).

CALL NOW

The movie is about a dude who goes around killing people dressed as a damn hippie and the police who are trying to figure out the identity of the killer and stop him. In their investigation the police uncover that a series of crimes happen every five years in May, the fifth month for five consecutive days (Thus the title). I have only seen this film for the first time for reviewing purposes here recently, and was mildly surprised that the flick was not as down right terrible as I had always heard it was, bad yes, horrible yes, unwatchable no. Now the reason I had never viewed this film until recently was that it was one of those number of shot-on-video films that were so abundant in the late 1980’s and honestly I loathed these film for many years. And this film on any media format was hard to find. My standards have been lowering and lowering for years now and as my nuts dry up and turn to dust, my need for porn has turned to a need for low rent 1980’s horror films, where my mummified mind can find dumification and drift in and out of these shit on video tapes.

just thinking of those dusty mummy nuts is making me hot! 

The video is really an awkward, totally amateur effort that boasts two of the ugliest lead characters  ever, in Sargent Connor (who looks like a unibrowed meth addicted Mel Gibson) and the girl reporter Susan Rather (think an uglier version of that singer Susan Boyle, if that's possible), who is the type of gal who would do anything for a story, so she’s boning the District Attorney Kennedy and after finding out that he is only using her she turns her homely horny ass towards the old wrinkly nut-sacked Colonel Wayne and screws him for his exclusive story, it was Wayne who discovered the first set of victims, a man and a woman who were decapitated and mutilated. The colonel had told the police that he heard a scream and went to investigate and after finding the dead bodies had seen one of the most horrifying things this hardened military man had ever witnessed, he saw a man the likes of he hadn't seen in twenty-five years or so, this dude was a 60’s fucking hippie, a god damn son-of-a bitch hippie with long hair, beard, flowered shirt, bell-bottom jeans and to top it all he was wearing beads! 

Sergeant Connor, Detective Haller, and District attorney Kennedy were all in the office when Wayne made his startling revelation that it was a dirty fucking hippie, the D.A. tells the colonel that “no one dresses like that anymore,” no one believes the colonel’s story because no hippies were around by the eighties, they had all died off like the dinosaurs when the Beatles had broken up. Well, soon after more shagging people are killed and the dead women are sexually penetrated by the killer. 

Sergeant Connor who plays the deranged meth addicted Mel Gibson, is ready to go bad cop, even rogue cop at any minute, like the real Mel did in Lethal Weapon and its twenty-two sequels and during his last relationship. The Sergeant has a hard on for Colonel Wayne and thinks that he is the murderer, but after bringing him in, can’t hold him because of a lack of evidence. Is Wayne guilty or is it someone else, possibly the loose nut Conner or any of the other ensemble cast? I won’t tell, so that means you have to suffer through this crap.

Spoiler Alert, I die

The reporter Susan Rather is played by Mara Lynn Bastian and has a bit of a breast exposing scene when she’s seducing the Colonel. When she and the old geriatric fuck, Colonel Wayne are swapping spit my queasy stomach started flip flopping, that scene I can say was honestly the most repulsive and terrifying part of the whole movie! The film was very slow, pace wise, and had long static dialogue sequences plus the kills and gore while decent enough, were done at such a slow constructed pace that it’s like someone had taken some ludes and filmed the scenes. Man, (maybe it was the Hippie?) and it didn’t help that in one scene a woman who is being slashed up breaks into a quick chuckle. Compared to many other SOV films from the era, this one is watchable and has enough gore to fit firmly into the Chas Balun Deep Red catalog. (they even sold copies, check out the ad at the bottom).

NO REFUNDS!

As far as I can ascertain none of the cast or crew ever were involved in the making of another motion picture (figure that, will ya?). The film clocks in at a mind ripping 80 minutes and has set pieces with virtually no action and continuous badly lit day and night scenes. I found this film while looking about the wonderful selection from Vinegar Syndrome on their Exploitation TV app. The original video release of this film commands huge money on Ebay, a King Video/Slaughterhouse video release vhs sells for around the $300 mark, probably about as much as this thing cost to make.

So while blaming all the murders on a hippie was a stoke of genius, and the dude with the unibrow and the looks of a meth addicted Mel Gibson was a classic bit of casting, the film ultimately just takes too long to get from scene to scene and especially from beginning to end.

WATCH HERE ON VS' STREAMING AP (EXPLOITATION TV).

Deep Red ad, CHEAP!