Death Screams (1981)

On a late summer evening somewhere deep in the heart of Dixie, an ominous full moon shines upon the railroad tracks below. Away, away, we look as the camera follows the tracks, over a railroad bridge, and then drops down below, where we find a couple making out on a motorcycle. And though the position they’re currently trying wouldn’t even work on a king-size bed, the couple seems bound and determined to try while balancing on the handlebars.

But this amorous mood is abruptly broken, however, when Ted (Sprinkle) gets his own *ahem* ‘handlebar’ stuck in his zipper, bringing these festivities to a screeching halt. (Ouch!) Meanwhile, as he disengages without doing anymore damage, Angie (Miller) laments her disappointment over how Ted refuses to use the "L" word in terms of their relationship.

Now, to get her off this touchy subject, with his wardrobe malfunction sorted, and ready to try again, Ted points out the Midnight Special is almost due and, if they time things out just right, he promises her a sexual climax she’ll never forget due to the excessive vibrations when the lengthy freight train rumbles overhead.

Here, they hear a whistle blowing, meaning the train is right on time. And sure enough, as the Midnight Special roars by above them, rattling the trestle to its foundation, we pan back down and hear the couple going at it, hot and heavy, over the noise. But we soon realize what we’re hearing are not sounds of pleasure but sounds of distress!

We then (sort of) focus to see the couple’s heads are now tied together, facing each other. We also hear someone stabbing them repeatedly. (I think.) And judging from the copious amounts of blood coming out of their mouths, the killer is almost done. (Maybe.) Then, after the train clears the bridge, the killer dumps both the bodies and the bike into the river. (Can confirm.) 

And as the bloody corpses tumble in the current, the opening them cranks up and the credits roll over the top of them, leaving the viewer to try and sort out what in the hell just happened?! (Oh, we will be dissecting this mess of a scene later. Trust me.)

Anyhoo, next morning, Sheriff Avery (Hicks) heads to the local grocery store to talk with the owner. Seems Ted was an employee there and his folks are worried because he and Angie didn’t come home last night.

Alas, his boss hasn't seen them, but he does say to let Ted know he’s been fired the second he does find him. But when Lily (Kiger), another employee, drops a case of RC Cola on the floor, after chastising her inherent clumsiness, the owner tells Avery to forget about the whole firing thing and to beg Ted to get back to work as soon as possible. On the way out, Avery rousts a youngster who was trying to steal some porn from the magazine rack. (Man, that Avery is one bad mother-humper.)

Switching venues to the local baseball field, where the last game of the summer season has just come to an end, we spot someone lurking in the trees. Meanwhile, after everyone else clears out, Coach Neal Marshall (Tucker) and his two assistants, Bob and Kathy (Rector, Savio), take inventory of the equipment before locking it up for the year. When several items turn up missing, they have a pretty good idea of who’s behind it -- Crazy Casey.

Right on cue, Casey (Manship), the designated local simpleton / village idiot, bolts out of those trees and runs off. But the sympathetic trio just let him go, and Neal offers to buy Bob and Kathy a drink to celebrate the end of another successful season.

At the diner, over a pitcher of beer, we find out that Bob and Kathy are high school seniors (-- making them minors?), and both are having reservations about leaving their small town for college. Here, Neal tries his best to encourage them, saying all will be fine, as he orders another pitcher from Ramona (Chase), who gives Neal the goo-goo rather thickly to hammer home that, yes, she will be our designated “town slut.”

From the kitchen, Jackson (Lenthall) yells at his overly flirtatious waitress to get her ass back to work. Already upset over Ramona’s refusal to work the next day, when the big carnival opens, one of the busiest days of the year, Jackson gets so mad he calls the woman several naughty names.

Later, while walking Kathy home, Bob asks if she'd like to go to that carnival with him. Told she has to work at one of the carnival booths, he says that's not a problem and just offers to help her run the booth instead. She accepts. Meanwhile, the bodies of Ted and Angie continue to wash down the river. Amazingly, they haven’t separated at all -- and I point out that they were no longer tied together when the killer dumped the bodies.

Across town, after closing up the grocery store, Lily cuts through several back-lots near the railroad tracks to get home. Somewhere, an owl hoots, a dog barks in the distance, and Lily gets a bad case of the jitters. And by the time she crosses the tracks, she’s convinced that someone is following her.

Turns out there is; but it’s just Casey, who silently watches as a freight train -- let's call it the Lewton Express, somehow, manages to sneak up on Lily and blow by her a few scant feet away. When she screams in surprise, Casey is so amused by the whole scene he claps vigorously.

Pressing on -- and are you sure this is a short-cut? -- Lily makes it the rest of the way home without incident, where she finds Grandma Edna (Tryon) in the kitchen peeling apples. They share the news of the day, with Tom and Angie’s disappearance the hot-topic of discussion. With Lily convinced they’re just off making whoopee somewhere, Edna is disgusted because people didn’t do that kind of thing when she was a kid. But when her granddaughter says that’s a load of bullshit, Edna doesn't argue.

Next, we get our first payload of backstory: seems Lily isn’t happy with her life. Most of her friends are long gone, while she stayed behind in this little town. She used to date a guy named Matt, who’s now off at medical school; but Edna wasn’t too fond of him and thinks her granddaughter can do better.

Back at the diner, in what passes for an action scene, Ramona answers the phone. It's for Jackson, but he's disappeared. Checking out back she accidentally lets the cat out. (I assume the cat is at the diner to catch mice in the kitchen? That’s comforting. Hunh, and I thought the little black pellets were seasoning...) 

After gathering up the feline fugitive, Ramona shuts the door -- just as the killer takes a swipe at her with a machete, who only manages to hit the screen door. Unaware of how close she just came to dying, Ramona tells the caller Jackson is gone. (Omigod. Something ALMOST happened.)

The next day, the carnival is in full swing and we catch up with all our characters frolicking therein: Casey is having trouble getting on a moving carousel; and when Neal tries to help, Casey gets scared and runs off again; Lily and Edna find Bob and Kathy making out at their booth; and then we round out our cannon fodder -- sorry, the rest of the cast -- with some real winners:

Ramona has got her hooks in Tom (Gamble), and they walk the midway with Walker and Sheila (Brown, Boston), Sandy (Kay), and Diddle. (Kohler) -- our malignant comedy relief for the rest of the film.

Sneaking behind a tent, they all share a stick of the marijuana. When Sheriff Avery smells the smoke and investigates, they spot him in time for Walker to eat the reefer, destroying the evidence. But Avery rousts them anyway, where we find out there’s some nasty history between him and Ramona as he warns them all to behave. A warning that comes off as more of a threat in an “or else” sense.

We then take a few moments to go back to the river and spy on those bodies, still merrily floating along, segueing us over to Lily and Edna, who join Agnes (Lyman) at the quilting booth. Agnes is Casey’s mom. Here, more of the already convoluted plot gets dumped when she reveals Neal is Casey’s hero and how her son idolizes him. 

Meanwhile, Neal gets some free brownies from Sara (Alley), ignoring her clumsy sexual advances, before he moves on to the quilting booth, where he strikes up a conversation with Lily. They hit it off. (More like the film really wants us to think they did.)

A few tents over, when the larger group of potheads meet up with Bob and Kathy at the food area, Sheila masterminds one last party down by the river before they all split up this fall; they also conspire to head to the cemetery first and tell ghost stories or something ... Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention; I was too busy watching Sandy perform fellatio on her banana. The little scene stealer.

Later, when Bob and Kathy invite Neal to the party, he in turn asks Lily to come, too. She declines, but does agree to go to the movies with him some time. A couple of booths down, the scorned Sara watches all this with disgust. Apparently, she hasn’t taken Neal's rejection very well, storms off, and, after securing a can of whipped cream, trashes Neal’s car. 

When Casey spies her doing this, he goes into some kind of shambolic fit -- and I'll pause to also point out that Casey had earlier come out of the Chamber of Horrors with a nasty facial twitch, as if unable to process what he just encountered.

Once the act of vandalism is completed, Sara retreats further into the parking lot and watches as Neal finds his trashed car. Then she sneaks away, across an open field, and stops at a water fountain for a quick drink. Home free, she strikes a sexy pose on some rocks and relaxes -- until the air is cut with a loud thwack!

Here, Sara jumps up with a start, an arrow stuck in the middle of her back. Does she scream for help? No. Does she head back for the crowd for help? Nope. Does she not make a sound and retreat to the old carousel in the adjoining park, climb on a horse, and whimper? Yep. *sigh*

And as the carousel starts moving, the killer sneaks up behind his victim, sticks a plastic bag over her head and secures it until she suffocates -- and that mercifully brings this puzzling little interlude to an end and finally gives us an excuse to break away and try to explain this over-convoluted mess…

Now, having seen Death Screams (1982) once before, I was a little trepidatious putting the disc into my Blu-ray player. Why? Well, my first encounter with the film was under it’s alternate VHS title of House of Death -- and not the super-cool Video Gems version but the lame-o Virgin Vision box, which I initially screened and reviewed some 20-years ago, way, way back in 2002 on the MotherShip; which, for the record, I kinda hated, branding it with the Dreaded 18th Amendment as part of 3B Theater’s highly convoluted ratings system.

Thus and lo, I was a little nervous that my trusty ancient mariner of a VCR might’ve warned his fancier cousin what was coming on this revisit and it might spit the disc back out at me. And with good cause, too.

However, the player proved cooperative, and honestly, the improvement in quality of the recent Arrow Video release of Death Screams (alias Night Screams, alias House of Death) was a quantum leap in improvement visually, banishing the virulent VHS murk that marred all the night scenes -- you can actually clearly see what is happening during the pants-on-fire climax instead of just amorphous blobs of somebody doing something to somebody else in the inky void. (I remember having to light blast the hell out of all the vid-caps captured back in the days of yore.) 

So while a significant and much appreciated upgrade optically, it’s just too bad that the shitty, meandering plot of Death Screams still gets in the way of everything else. And whose fault was that? Well, like everything else, it kinda started at the top and then trickled down from there.

After graduating from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Charles E. Ison, barely 23, teamed up with Jim Owens and produced the musical variety special A Flower Out of Place (1977). Featuring the likes of Johnny Cash, Linda Ronstadt, Richard Pryor, Carl Perkins, Foster Brooks and Roy Clark, the hook was they were all filmed while performing in front of 2000 inmates at the Tennessee State Prison in 1974 -- sort of a follow up to Cash’s performances at Folsom Prison in 1968, San Quentin in ‘69, and the Österåker Prison in Sweden in ‘72. A soundtrack album featuring the varied artists was released as Behind Prison Walls in ‘74, and the edited filmed version went into syndicated circulation around ‘77.

From there, Ison would split time between Nashville, Tennessee, and Los Angeles, California, where he helped Sid and Marty Krofft launch another musical variety series, Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters (1980-1982) for NBC. The Kroffts were no strangers to this kind of variety show, having helmed similar showcases for Donnie and Marie (1975-1979) and the ill-fated Brady Bunch Variety Hour (1976), The Bay City Rollers Show (1978-1979), and Pink Lady and Jeff (1980).

It was also around this time that Ison first met Earl Owensby about possibly joining him on a business venture: building a fully functioning movie studio in Owensby’s native North Carolina. Now, while Owensby would eventually come to be known as the Dixie DeMille or the Redneck Roger Corman, he wasn’t quite there yet. In the supplemental features on that Arrow disc for Death Screams, Ison said Owensby gave him a tour of the property in question, where he spotted “six cinder blocks stacked on top of each other but not much else” and declined to buy in.

Undaunted, Owensby was determined to realize his vision. The illegitimate son of a legendary moonshiner, who died in a fiery car crash while fleeing from Federal Revenuers on a lonesome Tennessee back road (-- allegedly), Owensby had been making movies locally since 1974.

Inspired by Phil Karlson’s Walking Tall (1973), a regionally produced Hicksploitation classic, Owensby would finance, produce, direct, write, edit, and star in Challenge (1974), which sees a US senatorial candidate, Frank Challenge (Owensby), wipe out the mobsters who killed his family. And while critics found it “violent and tacky, with the production values of a vintage porn loop,” the film proved enough of a hit for Owensby to do it again -- The Brass Ring (1975), and again -- Death Driver (1976), aaaaaaand again -- Seabo (1978).

Owensby would also star as a werewolf -- Wolfman (1979), and as an ersatz Elvis Presley in Living Legend (1980), which, to my eye, kinda makes him less a Dixie DeMille and more of a Peckerwood Paul Naschy. Either way, his films made millions and he funneled those profits into making EO Studios a reality.

Earl Owensby

Which is why, about 45-miles west of Charlotte, North Carolina, you’d discover that pile of concrete had expanded to 67-acres filled with six sound stages, production facilities with full editing suites, warehouses, a 15,000-square-foot cyclorama stage, a private runway, a 16-unit motel to billet cast and crew, and a 7,200-square-foot A-framed house, where the boss lived and surveyed his newly minted kingdom.

And over the years since it opened, Owensby was able to entice several productions to North Carolina (-- a right to work state), including Edward Mann’s Hooch (1977), a kooky tale of moonshiners; and later, James Cameron filmed The Abyss (1989) at an abandoned nuclear power plant that Owensby added to his facilities and converted into a giant water tank. He even lured Ison back to shoot his first feature, Carnauba (alias Rare Breed, 1984), which was based on an alleged true story concerning a wealthy Texas rancher Ison was friends with, whose prized stallion was stolen (horse-napped?) for ransom while it was stalled in Italy for … reasons.

In the film version, the rancher’s daughter (future Playboy Playmate Tracy Vaccaro) stows away with the horse when it gets shipped abroad, gets mixed up in a romance and the ransom plot, leading to a chase and shoot-out with the hills of North Carolina subbing in for the Italian Alps.

Production on Carnauba would begin in January, 1981, but it wouldn’t see a release until 1984. Meanwhile, Jimmy Huston’s Final Exam (1981), a Teenage Slasher / Boner Comedy hybrid (-- which kinda failed at both), was also shooting at EO Studios and nearby Limestone College right before Ison’s horse film went into production. And after the logistical nightmare of Carnauba, Ison, ready for something different, thought what Huston did looked easy and fun with lots of pretty girls to ogle; and thus, decided he would make one of them-there Slasher movies, too.

The Los Angeles Times (June 5, 1981).

For the script, Ison turned to another friend, Paul Elliot; an odd choice since Elliot’s only other experience was writing for the syndicated Dolly Parton variety show, Dolly (1976-1977). Still, in the making of featurette, Elliot claimed he was a huge fan of horror films and wanted to base Death Screams on Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians (alias Ten Little Niggers, alias And Then There Were None), which was first published in 1939.

Christie’s book had already been adapted both officially and unofficially multiple times before, starting with And Then There Were None (1945), then Ten Little Indians (1965), complete with a Whodunit Break, where the film would pause for sixty seconds to give audiences time to figure out whodunit, and yet again as And Then There Were None (2015), a more recent TV-adaptation by the BBC.

In both the novel and the film adaptations, as things unfold, everyone was a suspect until they were killed off; and the killer “technically” died before the big reveal on why Mr. U.N. Owen (unknown) killed everybody else; and Elliot wanted to capture the essence of that mystery. This was all good in theory, but in execution? Well, maybe not so much.

Botching this execution from the director’s chair was David Nelson. Now, David Nelson was, of course, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson’s other son. Thus, David and his little brother, Ricky Nelson, had grown up in front of the whole nation on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet -- first on the radio (1944-1954) -- though the boys didn’t join the show until 1949; then a feature film, Here Comes the Nelsons (1952); and finally a TV-sitcom of the same name (1952-1966).

 The Nelsons: Ricky, Harriet, Ozzie, David.

But while Ricky followed the old man’s footsteps musically and became a pop star / teen idol with hits like “Poor Little Fool,” “Travelin’ Man,” and “Hello, Mary Lou,” his older brother would slide into the production side of the family business; and starting with the episode The Girl at the Ski Lodge (S11.E15, 1963), David Nelson would direct eight more episodes of the family TV-show, which finally came to an end in 1966.

Nelson would also co-direct the feature Childish Things (1969) with John Derek, about an alcoholic ex-GI who works for the mob until he finds Jesus, which starred Derek’s then wife Linda Evans. In the 1970s, he continued directing with Easy to Be Free (1973), a documentary about his brother out on tour, and several episodes of Ozzie’s Girls (1973), a spin-off from the original show, and one episode of Adam-12 (Ladies’ Night, S7.E16, 1975).

David Nelson

It’s unclear how he got onto Ison’s radar to direct Carnauba but the producer decided to keep him around for Death Screams, too. As for Nelson’s directing style, the best word I can think of is perfunctory, with lots of mid-range shots of people exchanging dialogue and then moving off camera again and again and again, just like his old sit-com. And some of his set-ups and story choices were very confusing as they occurred, and then even more so in hindsight. Yeah, this is one of those movies that really likes to show how people get all the way from point A to point B.

A lot of these choices and compromises I will assume can be blamed on the budget (-- estimated to be somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000). But one need look no further than that opening segment and murder-set-piece to see where this film’s brain was at. 

The Arizona Daily Star (October 14, 1982).

In Elliot’s original script, it called for the couple to be making out in a car near a railroad bridge. They hear a noise. The girl freaks out but the guy assures it’s just their friends screwing with them. The noise sounds off again, only this time the guy rolls down his window, points into the darkness, and yells for whoever it is out there trying to scare them to knock it the hell off. Then, to everyone’s surprise, his hand is promptly lopped off by the killer’s machete.

Here, the boy retreats into the car, blood spraying everywhere from the ravaged stump, including all-over the girl, who joins in on the screaming. Then, a hand reaches in and pulls the guy out by the hair through the window, which is also cut off. His head, I mean. The killer then discards this prize, opens the car door, and, with bloody machete in hand (of sickle or whatever), closes in on the frantic girl, whose escalating screams melt away to the opening title card of -- DEATH SCREAMS! Roll credits.

A little derivative, sure, but it sounds exciting -- at least on paper. Now, apparently, there wasn’t enough money to pay Elliot to be on set during filming, but he was consulted by phone on all the constant changes Nelson was making to his script on the fly. Believe me, no one was more surprised or confused than Elliot when told they were subbing in a motorcycle for a car in his establishing sequence because, and I quote Elliot, “Motorcycles were now the ‘in thing.’”

Also, to save time and presumably money, the planned dismemberment was out and a more cost-effective strangulation was in. According to Worth Keeter, a catch-all roustabout at EO Studios, who was assigned special makeup-effects duties on Death Screams (-- and more on him in a bit), he originally envisioned the couple being garroted with wire, which would cut into the skin and bleed profusely. Again, this was nixed for time and budgetary reasons; and instead, Nelson just had him essentially tie the actors’ heads together with something to be strangled simultaneously by the unseen killer. I think. Maybe.

Yeah, even with the upgrade in visual quality it’s still hard to parse just what exactly happened on screen thanks to some bad staging, sloppy editing, and the cacophony of misleading sounds. Again, we aren’t sure if the couple has been restrained and dumped on the tracks to be run over by the train, are restrained and being hacked to pieces, or restrained and beset upon by a knot of rabid badgers. Who knows? What I do know, given the visual and audio information we got, I would’ve never guessed they’d been strangled to death -- let alone the logistics needed for one person to strangle them both at the same time.

Also of note, behind the scenes stills show a third possible alternate take on their murder; a more elaborate death scene involving the couple making out in the water before they get killed by a machete wielding madman. Obviously, it didn’t work. It’s all very confusing.

Alas, and fair warning, this kinda blundering from the jump sets the tone for the entire movie that follows in a ‘proceed at your own risk from there’ sense. For it only gets worse from there, Fellow Programs. Well, not really ‘worse’ per se because something has to actually happen before it can get worse. And nothing really happens to ‘get worse’ in Death Screams for the next 40-minutes and change except character introductions -- and there are a lot to keep track of -- and scenes that are best described as showing off some “local color” to kill two or three reels of film.

Sure, there are a few near misses for a few characters from the not-very-persistent killer, who seems to give up both easily and a lot. Thus, there is no sense of voyeurism from the killer watching their potential victims, meaning no sense of urgency or danger in any of it. No rhythm. No style. Again, just … perfunctory.

Then things finally do “get worse” with the death of Sara. While watching that scene unfold, it’s easy to sniff-out and presume that this was most probably an insert, shot later, because, without it, nothing would've happened for over an hour after the opening murders. (Not an exaggeration.) It’s the only possible rational conclusion to explain the character’s counter-intuitive behavior.

Remember, Sara was shot in the back with an arrow, in the bright light of day, in a wide open field, next to a crowded carnival. And instead of screaming or running to safety for help, she silently runs in the opposite direction, toward an old carousel in an empty park.

Turns out I was only half right. See, once again, Nelson deviated from Elliot’s script. Originally, after being jilted by Neal and trashing his car, Sara gets abducted by the killer and is bundled into the Haunted House attraction, where she’s placed in a mock-up of a guillotine, whose blade is sharp enough to decapitate her when it falls. In the script, this decapitation is witnessed by poor Casey, explaining his even stranger behavior when he leaves the Haunted House after seeing this (-- a reaction scene that’s still in the film, mind you).

This elaborate death scene was shot -- there’s several screen grabs of it included in the supplemental materials on the Arrow Disc, including one of Sharon Alley’s decapitated head in a basket; but in editing it was decided the sequence exonerated Casey as a suspect too early. And so, the notoriously nonsensical scene was shot later; but not to punch things up as I first thought, but as a substitute for another death scene. And by then, the carnival was long gone, dictating Sara’s illogical movements away from the apparent safety of the crowd because the crowd simply was no longer there.

And so, to recap, in our body count movie, 40-minutes have elapsed after the opening deaths before the next killing occurred. Now brace yourselves, because it will be another 25-minutes before the next body falls. Death Screams total run time? 88-minutes. Which leaves about 20 minutes for the climax, where everyone else we’ve met dies. And that is ah-lot of people.

But we ain’t there yet as we first catch up with a despondent Casey, who’s in his room playing with some toy trains. Worried because Casey didn’t seem too thrilled about his day at the carnival, Agnes coaxes a confession that her son saw Sara "hurt" Coach Neal and wanted to stop her. With that revelation, Agnes’s concern grows exponentially as she, calmly as she can, asks if Casey hurt Sara in that "special way" they’ve talked about before in retaliation. When Casey says he’d never do that, a relieved mother gives her son a consoling and grateful hug.

Meanwhile, even though she already told Neal no, Bob and Kathy finally convince Lily to come to the river party. But before she goes, Lily and Edna have another talk, where more of the endless, bottomless chasm of back-plot comes to the front:

Apparently, Edna’s worried about Lily. And so worried is she, that her gramma would rather have Lily get back together with Dr. Matt McBrainfart than hook-up with that Neal character. Seems Neal's mother was the town prostitute. However, Lily points out that her own mother wasn't much better in the town's eyes, having had an illegitimate baby (-- for the record, her mother died during childbirth). 

Edna hadn't realized Lily knew the truth about her past, and how no one knows who her dad really was. She had concocted a story that her dad died, too, but Lily knew the pictures of him were fake. With no more secrets to hide, the two women reconcile the past with a long hug before Lily goes upstairs to change for the party, while Edna heads into the kitchen -- and yes, I believe we're supposed to notice the huge honkin' meat cleaver hanging on the wall. Thank you, movie.

Meanwhile, Neal is getting cleaned up for the party, too. And through the distorted glass of the shower door, we spy someone entering the bathroom. This silent intruder then throws the glass door open, giving Neal quite a fright; but it's only Ramona. Her hot-wires crossed, Ramona thinks Neal wants to sleep with her. He denies this by sticking her in the shower and turning on the cold water.

Storming out of the house, a soggy Ramona runs right into Sheriff Avery, who laughs at her current soggy condition, and who just can’t believe she’s having this much trouble getting laid. Their conversation gets even nastier from there, nearly coming to blows, as this black hole of a narrative belches up more back-fodder about a car wreck involving Casey and Ramona; and how Casey’s brain damage might have happened as a result of that car wreck; and how Casey might be Avery’s illegitimate son; but again, the movie is not very clear on any of these points.

A little later, Avery gets a frantic call from Agnes, saying Casey has disappeared. Later still, Neal heads to his garage, when suddenly, he hears something up in the rafters. No one answers his call but a soccer ball drops from the loft and bounces into the darkness. 

Assuming it's Casey, Neal heads up the ladder to help him down; but when he reaches the top, there is a brief scuffle in the darkness; and then we get a brief glimpse of a bloody machete and the sound of several direct hits.

At the river party, as a bonfire burns brightly, Tom can’t quite figure out why Ramona is in such a bad mood; Walker and Sheila make out; and poor Sandy isn’t very happy because the only available guy left is Diddle, who’s drunk and doing bad impressions. Then, when no one else will go swimming with her, Sandy declares the party a bust and stomps off to swim alone -- well, to go skinny-dipping alone to be more precise; thus fulfilling our nudity quotient for the film. 

And after a little splashing around, Sandy floats on her back, letting the current gently sweep her down into the shallows, where she runs right into the bodies of Ted and Angie! (Wait. So the river runs in one big circle? Yeah, but. No. But. GAH!)

After a good scream, Sandy swims for the nearest bank; but the bloody machete swings into action, cutting her throat open, and then another body joins Ted and Angie’s silent journey toward the sea. Or to loop around again. Or whatever.

Moving on … Back around the bonfire -- and out of ear-shot, apparently -- the others stop necking long enough to realize Sandy’s been gone too long and start looking for her. But instead of finding her, they run into Bob, Kathy and Lily. And after a little more searching, they figure Sandy just walked home.

Meanwhile, Avery’s search for Casey has turned up nothing. At the diner, he finds out Jackson is still missing, too, and then heads to Neal’s house. Finding the house locked, he hears something in the garage and investigates.

Neal’s car is still there, and the strange noises continue -- a dripping sound -- and then he spots something on the windshield. Smearing his fingers in it, the Sheriff realizes it’s blood just as a headless body plummets from the rafters onto the hood. 

Meanwhile, back at the river, everyone has paired up again, leaving Lily as the odd girl out. Since Neal hasn’t shown up yet (-- and odds are he ain’t gonna), she decides to head home until the others talk her into coming to the cemetery with them. They leave a note saying where they went, just in case Neal does show, then all pile into Walker’s pick-up, which transports them to what appears to be the Edward D. Wood Jr. Memorial Cemetery.

There, the group forms a semi-circle in front of a large tombstone, light some candles, and elect Lily to tell the first ghost story. And while she tells the old urban legend about the psycho who kills the family dog and licks a girl's hand from underneath her bed, someone darts between headstones and trees, slowly making their way toward them. Then, just as Lily reaches the climax of her tale, a storm breaks from out of nowhere and a torrential rain starts to fall.

Retreating to the old abandoned Reynolds place -- and please-o-please-o-please let this finally be the House of Death! -- they manage to get a fire going in the fireplace and dry off. But while waiting out the rain, Diddle announces he has to make water and fertilizer. Well, the only facilities available are an old two-seater outhouse out back. And when Diddle leaves to relieve himself -- and please-o-please let this cretin be the next victim! -- Tom hits upon the idea to play a prank on the prankster by scaring him mid-poop.

Thus and so, as Diddle enters the outhouse, rousts out a raccoon, and settles in, back in the house Tom announces the rain has stopped. He then herds everyone outside to hassle their friend. 

But as the men line-up the women in front of the outhouse door, turns out the joke was on them the whole time. For when they open the door, they find Diddle strung up by the ankles with his throat slashed open!

Now, after the panic stricken knot of potential victims retreats back into the house, Walker and Sheila run off to get his truck. But in his panic, Walker quickly out-distances the girl by a large margin. And when he jumps into the truck and puts the keys in the ignition, he doesn't realize someone's in the truck with him.

Okay. Time. The. [Expletive deleted]. Out: How could he not see him inside there?!? There's nowhere to hide! Wait. Why am I so angry? Something is finally happening. People are finally getting killed in earnest. Why am I still talking? There’s more people to be culled! Move along. Nothing else to read here.

So, next to go, and get this: When Sheila runs out of the woods and spies Walker in the idling truck, sliding in beside him, she bumps into his shoulder -- causing Walker's dismembered head to fall off! The girl then screams away as the killer seizes her, drags her outside, and starts whacking away with that machete. (Echoing what the opening scene was supposed to be.)

Back at the house, an impatient Tom tells Bob to stay with the women while he goes to see what’s holding Walker and Sheila up. He makes it to the truck but spots his friends’ decapitated heads lying on the ground. 

And while retreating back through the cemetery, he accidentally falls into an open grave, where, while moving to pull himself out, the killer's machete comes down and lops off both of his hands at the wrist. (Man that thing must be sharp.) Then, Tom falls back into the grave -- while his hands still twitch above!

Meanwhile, back at the house, again, it’s quiet. Too quiet. And when Bob tries to sneak a look outside, he barely manages to dodge the killer's machete. With the door slammed shut, the killer tries to break through the boarded up windows next. Inside, while trying to retreat upstairs, Ramona falls through some rotted floorboards and gets stuck halfway between floors. 

As Bob and the others try to pull her free, Ramona starts screaming -- louder and louder, until the pulling gets a lot easier because the killer has somehow gotten below them and chopped her in half!

With the killer now inside the house, those that are left manage to make it up the rickety stairs and hole-up in a bedroom. And though Bob tries to hold the door shut as the killer reduces it to kindling with the machete, he takes several deep lacerations to his back. Before he's killed, Kathy pulls Bob away from the door. And when the killer finally kicks his way in, Lily's eyes grow wide with recognition:

It’s Neal. Yes, Neal, because of course it is, leaving us to ponder if the body Avery found was Casey? Or Jackson? Or Elvis? Or maybe the Frito Bandito, perhaps? 

Regardless, Neal has apparently gone completely cuckoo for Coco Puffs. He calls Lily a whore, just like his mother, and then we get a brief flashback, where we spy young Neal watching his mom doll-up before performing as a stripper in some burlesque show. And somehow, this turned him into a homicidal maniac because … sure. Why not.

Taking several swipes at Lily with his machete, Neal misses badly and busts out a window. Grabbing a chunk of the broken glass, Lily stabs him in the throat. 

Outside, Avery arrives on scene and, with his pistol drawn, circles around to the side and finds the cellar entrance -- Aha! So that’s how the killer got in the basement to chop Ramona in half.

Upstairs, a bleeding Neal takes another lunge at Lily, misses again, only this time his momentum takes him through the broken window, where he plummets to the ground and crashes through the cellar door in front of the Sheriff. 

Pulling back some shattered boards, Avery finds Neal still kicking and empties his revolver into the killer’s head-- that explodes in a sea of tomato paste!!! And all of that, Fellow Programs, from the discovery of Diddle in the outhouse to Neal-go-boom, took place in the last ten minutes of the film. The last. Ten. Minutes.

When the State Police arrive, they start picking up the pieces and cleaning up. And while Bob is loaded onto an ambulance, Kathy asks Avery, "Why?" His answer, "I don’t know."

Me neither.

You know, I've always been told that you should never assume anything because, if you do, it will make an "ass" out of "u" and "me." So with most films, I try not to assume anything. But when the creators assume the audience can piece their films together past the plot-holes, inconsistencies, and quantum leaps of plot-logic, then you are a powerless victim of these assumptions. Therefore, the film has made an ass out of you.

Death Screams assumes a lot.

The Fresno Bee (October 21, 1982).

Again, we can’t put the whole blame on Elliot as his script wound up being the barest of chicken-wire frameworks for Nelson to hang his version of events on. In an interview with Joseph Henson (Hysteria Lives, March 4, 2011), actor Curt Rector (Bob) had this to say: 

“My memory is that there were constant script changes, both additions and deletions. So far as I know, the film was always intended to be a vehicle for Susan Kiger and the rest of us were just there to dress-up the story. At least that seemed to be the way the producer saw it, but the character as they wrote it for her just wasn’t all that interesting, really.”

Susan Lynn Kiger was a native of Pasadena, California. She pursued a modeling career and dabbled in acting, which netted her a role in Alexander Newman’s Deadly Love (alias Hot Nasties, 1976), an X-Rated Adult Film with some Horror trappings and a healthy dose of necrophilia, where a lonely mortician makes a deal with the Devil to bring a beautiful corpse back to life to be his wife -- and to accomplish this, he has to constantly have sex with the deceased until she revives. Wow.

In her defense, Kiger’s barely in it, showing up briefly as an extra in a Satanic orgy in one of the film’s even more asinine “subplots.” But this would give her the dubious distinction of being the first Playmate of the Month (January, 1977) to have appeared in a hardcore film. But old Hef didn’t seem to mind, as Kiger would appear on three more covers of Playboy (March, 1977, November, 1977, and April, 1978).

What followed after that was a few appearances on the small screen in episodes of CHiPs (Down Time, S2.E13, 1978), Starsky and Hutch (Targets without a Badge, S4.E18, 1979) and Vega$ (Macho Murders, S2.E8, 1979). Kiger’s first legit feature would be a bit part for our old pal, Andy Sidaris, in Seven (1979), and she would later co-star with fellow Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten in William Sach’s slice of softcore Sci-Fi silliness, Galaxina (1980), before capping off the Xaviera Hollander trilogy with The Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood (1980), which loosely followed The Happy Hooker (1975) and The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977).

She would also do a couple of features for Greydon Clark, who did the likes of Black Shampoo (1976), Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977), and Joysticks (1983). Kiger would appear as one of the cadre of buxom female agents in Angels Revenge (alias Angels’ Brigade, 1979), who take on a consortium of vintage Nick at Nite irregulars (Jim Backus, Jack Palance, Alan Hale Jr.) and wipe out a group of neo-nazis and bust up a drug-ring. And then Kiger returned in Clark’s The Return (1980), a tale of UFOs, alien abductions, and cattle mutilations that was headlined by Cybil Shepherd, Jan-Micheal Vincent and Martin Landau.

But for a whole generation who grew up on HBO in the 1980s, we will always and forever remember Kiger as co-ed Honey Shayne in Gerald Sindell’s H.O.T.S. (1979), where she was once again joined by several other Playboy Playmates, including Sandy Johnson and Pamela Byrant. Inspired by Animal House (1979), this softcore spoof on the old slobs vs snobs tropes sees Honey and several other freshmen rebel against a snotty Sorority by forming their own, who then effort to *ahem* “steal” all the men on campus, in a biblical sense, which leads to a wet t-shirt contest and a concluding all-female topless football game. And oddly enough, Danny Bonaduce was there, summing it all up. Weird.

Thus, good girl Lily Carpenter would allow Kiger to stretch her legs a bit in Death Screams, acting wise. And she acquits herself admirably as the likable Final Girl, who’s switch to the dark side by wearing a tight halter-top without a bra was apparently enough to trigger Neal’s final homicidal outburst, which doesn’t really work at all. And not helping matters was a total lack of chemistry between Kiger and Martin Tucker (Neal). Mostly his fault and not hers.

Said Rector, “The whole business with [Lily] and [Neal] becoming interested in each other just never seemed to work particularly well, and I think that may have made it seem like it was less important to the main plot line then it was supposed to be. I can’t remember why the killer was a killer, but I don’t recall that it was an especially compelling reason.”

No. It really wasn’t. And the half-assed flashback during the climactic revelation did little to clarify things. And to exonerate screenwriter Elliot even further, originally it was supposed to be revealed that Neal was raised in a whorehouse and sexually molested by his mother and her fellow prostitutes, which led to a lot of repressed memories and sexual hang-ups.

Thus, without that reveal, there is no real through line to follow on the killer’s development or motivations. There’s a few nuggets here and there that reveal his mother’s chosen profession, how he came from “bad people,” but that’s about it. I mean, if we play by the film’s loose explanation on his psychosis, how Ramona survived her attempt to seduce Neal in the shower is nigh inexplicable. Don't forget (-- and don't worry if you have because I barely remembered), he tried to kill Ramona once already. I mean, with his fragile mental-twigs, he should have snapped and killed her on the spot, wet or dry, right?

So instead, the film just becomes preoccupied with making poor Casey the prime suspect, all in service of a fizzling “big twist” on the killer’s identity. (#JusticeforCasey). “I was the prime suspect until it’s revealed near the end that Coach Neal was the killer all along,” Hanns Manship (Casey) told Henson (Hysteria Lives, March 4, 2011). He also attempted to clarify who that was in the garage with Neal, and whose body Avery eventually discovered there.

Said Manship, “I was killed in the garage (up in the attic area). The Sheriff climbed up a ladder and then my body fell down on the car hood. Some of that footage may have been cut but the final edit was pretty vague for the audience.” And if Casey really was Avery’s illegitimate son, this might explain that bit of overkill and the emptying of his revolver into Neal’s head. Again, this is all up to audience conjecture.

“However direct the story-line may have been in the original script, which I never saw, it definitely got watered down in the shooting,” said Rector, who also had a theory on why things meandered so far off track, which also kinda lets Nelson off the hook a bit, too. “It sometimes seemed like the script was being altered and scenes added as different female members of the cast caught the producer’s eye. In general, [Ison] was a lot more interested in the ladies of the cast than he was in any of us boys. (Or the plot, says I.) The girls got lots of attention and the guys (and the audience) were pretty much left to figure out whatever we could as we went along.”

According to The Asheville Citizen-Times (March 12, 1981), shooting on Death Screams commenced on March 1, 1981, with a scheduled 12-week window of production from start to finish. Several sources later maintained that Nelson ran a tight ship but maintained a happy set all around during principal photography, who endeared himself to the cast and crew with an efficiency that resulted in no long shooting days or nights. Still, filming was not without its mishaps.

During the production, Nelson suffered a broken foot while filming at the carnival but finished the day of shooting before getting it attended to. And turns out the raccoon used in the outhouse scene was feral and a bit bitey, who managed to nip nearly everyone in the cast that wasn’t forewarned and tried to pet it. And according to Keeter, one of his assistants accidentally got a face full of fake blood and gore when a massive squib detonated too early.

This occurred during Tom’s death after he fell in the open grave. To pull the effect off, Keeter made up actor Josh Gamble with a pair of prosthetic stumps rigged to pump blood. Using forced perspective and sleight of hand, it’s the assistant’s hands we see gripping the edge of the grave, who was ducked down in front of the actor. So when the killer chops them off with the machete, Gamble falls back into the grave, his stumps spraying, while his hidden double’s hands remained in place, squirting blood and twitching. But as they set up the shot, before he ducked down into place, the hand squibs went off prematurely right in his face.

But the film’s biggest gaffe occurred while filming Diddle’s death in the outhouse -- well, it’s aftermath, when his body is discovered. Said Rector, “The crew rigged up a stout hook and came up with some padded ropes to tie John Kohler’s feet together. And the idea was they’d string him up inside the outhouse, drench him in blood, and then the rest of our little Scooby Doo gang would come looking for John, creep up on the outhouse door as the suspense mounted, and then whip open the door to find him hanging there upside down drenched in blood and dead. Very creepy.”

But once the inverted actor was secured and slathered in a “proprietary mixture” of fake blood, which found every nook, cranny, and orifice of the actor’s body as gravity creeped and oozed it along, that feral racoon came into play as it was supposed to come out of the outhouse first -- only it refused to cooperate.

“We do what seems like dozens of takes of this and something is always wrong,” said Rector. “The raccoon doesn’t run through, or the door sticks, or the girls aren’t satisfied with the quality of their screams, someone falls down when they aren’t supposed to or something. By now, we aren’t even making it all the way to opening the door of the outhouse. It’s getting late, everyone is hungry, we’ve been working a long time, and although it’s a non-union shoot so no meal penalties or anything, the director, David Nelson, wants to get us fed; so now we’re short-circuiting the turn-around time between takes to try and get a good one before we go eat. Over and over we go skittering across the grass, slipping around in the dew and trying not to knock each other down, but we never manage to get a take. Finally, David says, ‘Screw it, let’s go eat.’”

So they all left the location to regroup where they were serving food. And it takes about a half hour before anyone realizes Kohler is missing. “We all look at each other and with dawning comprehension realize that no one ever got him out of the outhouse,” said Rector, who joined the frantic mob that hustled back to retrieve him. “We pop open the door and start getting John down from the hook. By now, his feet are numb and the goopy fake blood has glued his eyes shut, filled up his nose and sinuses, cemented his shirt to his chest, and his hair is standing straight up, glued by gravity into an extravagant Mohawk. We were all, except John, laughing so hard we could hardly get him down from the hook.”

Though he would sneeze-up dye-colored corn syrup for the rest of the shoot, Kohler held no grudges over this mishap and agreed to be strung up again because they still needed to get the shot. Said Rector, “The crew unanimously conferred upon him the title, ‘John Kohler: Stunt Jew.’ John delighted in that title and actually had business cards made up with that name on them.”

Now, aside from the extended carnival sequences, the vast majority of Death Screams takes place and was filmed at night. And I would like to give some props and apologize to cinematographer Darrell Cathcart, who was another Owensby regular. Here (-- and in Final Exam), Cathcart eschewed any filters and actually shot Night for Night on all of these scenes. And after watching the Arrow disc, you can see how well the scenes were actually lit.

Again, one of my biggest beefs on my original encounter with the film -- and many others like Rituals (1977), Prom Night (1980) and Humongous (1982) -- was how you couldn’t see anything and wrongly placed the blame on the technicians who filmed it. Of course, this was wrong and I’m an idiot. It wasn’t their fault, I was just watching a shitty VHS transfer. Hell, all of Owensby’s films look very professional, these guys knew what they were doing, but their efforts were often betrayed by the quality of the scripts they were shooting and the hubris of the producers.

And while filming was loose and a friendly affair, things took a turn when the shooting wrapped. According to several sources, Nelson was immediately relieved of duties once the cameras stopped rolling; and he was shut-out of the post-production phase on Death Screams altogether, because either the money ran out or Ison wanted to take over and focus on the things he was interested in, which, we’ve already firmly established, had nothing to do with resolving the film’s central mystery. (On the filmmakers’ commentary track, Ison points out multiple ex-wives that got bit parts, including the gal running the Kissing Booth.)

And since they strayed so far off the script, this lack of continuity of care was only going to exacerbate things even further. Said Manship, “Here’s the problem with much of the confusion, as I understood it. David Nelson was not very involved in the final editing of the film and told me later he was disappointed that the film had been edited and put together without him. His disappointment only makes sense. The director and creative mind that filmed Death Screams knew how the pieces were designed to be put together. Without his involvement, it became a guessing game. The film ended up with a lot of confusing cuts, continuity problems, and thus created many questions for the audience.”

It sure did! And what I really found to be baffling was, if you remove the killing spree, what you have left is a really bad hatchet job of Peyton Place (1957) -- or some southern-fried potboiler. A lot of time and effort were spent on capturing worthless details and convoluted backstory that prove basically irrelevant -- as clues or false leads.

The score for Death Screams was composed by Dee Martin. Martin was a jazz musician and was playing a gig in a LA nightclub when he caught the ear of Clint Eastwood, who hired him to work on the scores for several of his Malpaso films, including Play Misty for Me (1971), High Plains Drifter (1973), and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974). Martin also wrote a score for the Eastwood and Clyde the orangutan vehicle, Every Which Way but Loose (1978), but it was scrapped at the last second for a more conventional country and western soundtrack.

From there, Martin jumped ship and signed on with Ison and Owensby for Death Screams. His score for the film is quite good but feels out of place given the subject matter of the film, adding even more dissonance instead of helping to glue things together, something the film desperately needed.

But on top of even the killer’s muddled motivation, the most confusing thing about Death Screams was the erratic and highly improbable course of the river that those two bodies were dumped in. It’s never really established where these first killings took place, but the victims were from the same small town, meaning that’s likely where they were dumped. Not helping matters is how multiple shots of the bodies floating downstream proved to be the editor's favorite transition insert between scenes as we kept going back and checking on their progress.  

Time and distance have no meaning here. That, or the river runs in one big concentric circle or the killer retrieved them and moved the bodies so they would eventually be discovered by Sandy, right before she gets killed and joins them in the water. Might help explain that wetsuit Neal was wearing. That’s me shrugging right now.

And spare a thought for poor Penny Miller and the stuntman who replaced future TV weatherman, Larry Sprinkle, on this postmortem aquatic sojourn. (I’ll assume the production couldn’t afford the use of one dummy, let alone two.) Filming in early March, the water was extremely cold. And spare another thought for Jody Kay, who also spent time in the freezing water and had the ignominious honor of having the closing credits run over her naked dead body.

Of course, with Nelson’s dismissal, that also brings into question as to who shot the later insert involving Sara’s death. My money would be on Worth Keeter.

Keeter was a protege of J.G. Patterson Jr., who worked with Herschell Gordon Lewis after his break-up with Dave Friedman, producing, directing second unit, or providing make-up effects on the likes of Moonshine Mountain (1964), The Gruesome Twosome (1967), and She-Devils on Wheels (1968). Also of note, Death Scream’s editor, Jerry Whittington, who was tasked with sorting out this intractable mess, also got his start with Lewis, handling the sound-effects mixing for Two-Thousand Maniacs (1964).

Anyhoo, Patterson would then strike out on his own with The Body Shop (alias Dr. Gore, 1972), where a mad scientist (Patterson) lures women to his lab so he can chop them up for parts in an effort to resurrect his late wife.

The Body Shop would be Keeter’s first experience working on a film, where he picked up on all the old school tricks to pull off the gore with offal, animal organs, and a ton of fake blood, meaning odds were good he was using Lewis’ patented Barfred formula of corn syrup, red food dye, and the anti-diuretic, Kaopectate. And after providing the make-up effects for Patterson on Axe (1977), Keeter went to work for Owensby, where he wrote, directed, co-produced, and provided the make-up effects for Wolfman.

Keeter would also direct Living Legend and Lady Grey (1980) for Owensby, and would do the same for several of EO Studio’s attempts to get 3D films back in vogue with Dogs of Hell (1983), Hot Heir (1984), and Tales of the Third Dimension (1984). Keeter was also responsible for the utter insanity of the misadventures of secret agent Duncan Jax and his tank-driving baboon sidekick in Unmasking the Idol (1986) and Order of the Black Eagle (1987). After that, Keeter would spend the majority of his career filming anglicized-inserts for imported Japanese tokusatsu shows like The Power Rangers, V.R. Troopers, Kamen Rider and Big Bad Beetleborgs.

And now that we can actually see it, Keeter’s work in Death Screams comes off pretty well and extremely clever, considering the budget restraints and shifting script. The discovery of the decapitated heads by the truck immediately springs to mind, where Monica Boston (Sheila) is buried up to her neck to pull this off; and the overkill on the detonating head at the end was a pretty hilarious punctuation on the entire film.

The gag where Ramona falls through the stairs and gets hacked in half was probably his best effort and the results were pretty gruesome. (The majority of the guts falling out of the fake torso were chicken innards.) In the filmmakers’ commentary, as that scene occurred, Keeter claims you were supposed to hear a chainsaw coming from the cellar -- only we don’t. Where that would’ve come from? Who can say. But, believe me, that is the least of this film’s sins and concerns.

Which brings us back to that insert and Sara’s death. It’s idiotic in context, but on its own the scene is well shot and edited together, and concludes with a striking visual as the asphyxiated Sara slowly circles away from the camera on the merry-go-round. (I will assume an exhausted budget dictated the method of her demise.) And when you compare the craft of that scene with everything else, it kinda makes you wish whoever actually did shoot it had shot the whole thing.

Jennifer Chase (left), Worth Keeter (right.)

And that might be one of the film’s greatest sins: wasting a pretty good cast of mostly amateur actors. Aside from the majority of them being way too old to be playing teenagers -- with the notable exception of Andria Savio (Kathy), who was barely seventeen, meaning several actionable felonies were committed against her in context of the film, the cast is fairly likable and do their best to make this nonsense work. But the film has nothing for them to do except wait around to be killed -- and the movie makes us wait an awfully long time.

Kiger is solid, but this would be her last role in anything until briefly resurfacing twenty years later for the Playboy Playmate Pajama Party (1999). I recognized Kay from her role as the doomed love interest in The One Armed Executioner (1981). William Hicks (Sheriff Avery) was another Owensby regular, starring in everything from Challenge to Order of the Black Eagle. And while the majority of the cast would go on to appear in Dogs of Hell, that would be about it for the lot of them.

Sharon Alley

Among those ‘one and dones’ was Sharon Alley (Sara), who stuck around during post-production and picked up several skills, leading to a long career behind the scenes as a camera operator, pulling focus on the likes of The Principal (1987), Talk Radio (1988), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), and a ton of concert films and music videos for Pink Floyd, Michael Bolton, and Bruce Springsteen.

Once the film was finished, it did manage a limited theatrical run, with evidence of showings in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona and California in 1982. And the film would resurface briefly in 1983 at a couple of drive-ins in North and South Carolina. It would see two releases on VHS with Video Gems in 1986 as both Death Screams and later as House of Death, and then released as House of Death in 1988 by Virgin Vision. And now Arrow Video has released a limited edition Blu ray that is once again chock full of all kinds of wonderful extras, including a fairly hilarious TV-spot where producer Ison gets his Hitchcock on.

 Charles Ison

With its brief theatrical run, there wasn’t much in the way of critical reviews, but the few that I did find weren’t very complimentary and leaned into downright scathing. “Assembly line horror films are the canned sausages of the movie industry -- they stink, and Death Screams is a real weiner,” reported Arthur Cabasos (The Abilene Reporter-News, May 23, 1982).

Added J.A. Conner (The Santa Cruz Sentinel, October 22, 1982), “It’s easy to see why Ozzie Nelson liked Ricky best because David is obviously making a desperate plea for help with this rancid home movie of a film. As the bodies are piling up we’re left trying to figure out who the killer is: the coach; the retarded kid; the spurned lover; the redneck jock; the guy sitting in the front row? Nelson matches the lack of gore with an equal lack of skin. Thus, the biggest threat with Death Screams is the possibility of choking on your popcorn while snoring.``

And, well, he’s not wrong.

Look, I don't have a problem if a film doesn’t spell things out for the audience. In fact, I find that kind of dumbing-down insulting. No. I like it when the filmmakers make you pay attention. To me, that’s good filmmaking and storytelling. Basic stuff. But you have to play fair. Here, we have an unreasonable facsimile of a Slasher movie that is way too occupied by the pretty eye candy, the bloated flotsam, the inanely immaterial, and totally irrelevant machinations of everything BUT the mystery. And so, by the time you get to that final righteous bloodbath, odds are good you will miss it because you've either given up and moved on or were, indeed, lulled to sleep.

And though my initial reaction to the film has softened considerably with the restoration efforts and a second viewing, my honest advice would still be to just fast forward to the last twenty minutes and start when Sandy breaks off from the group and goes for a swim. It makes for quite the mini-movie from there. But if you do decide to watch the whole thing, I’m happy to report that I no longer consider Death Screams a colossal waste of time like I did back in ‘02. It’s just a waste of about an hour of your life with a nice, gruesome little treat at the end.

Originally posted on February 21, 2002, at 3B Theater.

The Asheville Times (May 14, 1983).

Death Screams (1982) ABA Productions :: United Film Distribution Company / P: Charles Ison, Ernest Bouskos / AP: Parrish Todd / D: David Nelson / W: Paul C. Elliott / C: Darrell Cathcart / E: Jerry Whittington / M: Dee Barton / S: Susan Kiger, Martin Tucker, William T. Hicks, Jennifer Chase, Jody Kay, John Kohler, Andria Savio, Curt Rector, Josh Gamble, Hanns Manship, Helene Tryon, Mary Fran Lyman, Monica Boston, Mike Brown, Sharon Alley, Larry Sprinkle, Penny Miller