Internet horror critics gush shades that are decidedly more red than purple in DEAD HUNT, the final film from Baltimore cult filmmaker Don Dohler.
Teague (who almost missed out on the film despite being hand-picked by King himself on the strength of his earlier effort ALLIGATOR) offers a wealth of stories in his feature commen- tary. He notes that it was King who advised against recreating the downbeat finale of his novel, knowing full well that it would cause the movie to fail; and he identifies his personal recreation and perfection of a “jump and scream” moment he failed to pull off in the aforementioned ALLI- GATOR, among other anecdotes. Much of the same ground is cov- ered in “Dog Days,” a three-part, 42m “making of” featurette, but here you also get the contempo- rary reminiscences of Wallace, Pintauro, de Bont, producer Daniel H. Blatt and King biogra- pher/VW’s own Douglas E. Winter. The 1.85:1 image and original mono soundtrack are impeccably reproduced with no unnecessary tweaking. Trail- ers for other Lionsgate releases
(but not the feature at hand) round out a package worthy of the anniversary it celebrates.
DEAD HUNT
2006, Timewarp Films, DD-2.0/MA/LB/+, $20.00, 84m 59s, DVD-R By John Charles
This digital video revamp of THEATRE OF BLOOD proved to be the swansong for its co-direc- tor/editor, Maryland cult film mainstay Don Dohler. A group of internet horror movie reviewers (including co-director Joe Ripple, who had to take a role when the original actor didn’t bother to show up after the first day of shooting) and an obnoxious scream queen (Leanna Chamish) invited to a pre-convention party by website HorrorDVDzone quickly find themselves stalked by a killer, who uses various methods and tableaux seen in popular genre films. The idea of having a group of horror-savvy
characters front and center is no longer fresh but still intrigu- ing. Alas, these so-called ex- perts display no more smarts than their counterparts in the worst slasher movies. The Ital- ian-horror-obsessed killer also does not even know the correct pronunciation of “giallo” (!) and Edward Lionheart would have arched an eyebrow at the de- cidedly unimaginative demises he metes out here. Surprises are few and most of the perfor- mances are lacking, but DEAD HUNT is a bit more accom- plished technically than previ- ous Timewarp productions and is watchable enough. As Dohler’s final credit, it is not an embar- rassment, but unlikely to be looked back on with the kind of affection accorded to his earliest homemade 16mm productions. The non-anamorphic 1.78:1 image looks mildly hazy and grainy, but zooms up adequately on 16:9 displays, and the 2.0 ste- reo mix is sufficiently dynamic,
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