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The PackageIf
and when anyone ever gets around to compiling a critical study of
straight-to-video exploitation cinema, 1992’s DEAD BOYZ CANT FLY (sic)
will doubtless be a stand-out. It’s
far from a neglected masterpiece, but is
attention-getting with all its shooting, stabbing, dental torture (way more
unpleasant than MARATHON MAN), makeshift hang rope, live wires used to
jump-start a stopped heart, etc. Naturally,
the movie’s makers and distributors were careful to coat the proceedings in a
bogus veil of social responsibility. The
VCI video cover laughably dubs it “a
damning indictment of today’s tidal wave of violent crime” (while
simultaneously touting the presence of Penthouse
Pet of the year Sheila Kennedy) and a pre-end credits blurb states: “This
year, in |
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The StoryThree
psychotic white guys, led by the deranged cross-dresser goose, form a gang of
sorts, causing isolated acts of mayhem throughout NYC and leaving their mark, a
Z, at the crime scenes. When one of
the three is made fun of by a guy and his ‘ho at an employment agency located
in a high rise, the scumbag takes his revenge: he rapes and stabs the ‘ho in
her apartment building elevator and then tells Goose they should shake down the
offending high rise. Goose and his
minions show up at the place the next day and promptly turn it into a
slaughterhouse. First
they crash an upper-floor dentist’s office, shooting one employee,
humiliating the pretty secretary and torturing the head dentist with his own
drill and forceps. Next the psychos
head for a nearby doctor’s office where they give an attractive patient an
unwanted gynecological exam before beating her to death.
A Vietnam Vet janitor is lurking nearby, who is severely battered and
left for dead by Goose. The
deadly trio ends up in a nondescript office with a dozen or so employees,
nearly all of whom are killed in various gruesome ways, including a suicidal
office worker who gets hung from the rafters.
But that ‘Nam Vet janitor is still lurking about, being down but far
from out. |
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The DirectionIt
takes this film a while to hit its stride, but once it does (i.e.
once the mayhem gets underway!) it becomes a surprisingly assured exercise in
gory excess that grows wilder as it advances--an early rape/murder in an
elevator is actually one of the film’s quieter moments!
Credit must go to screenwriter Anne Wolff, who keeps the brutality
steadily escalating in imaginative, consistently unpredictable and always
unflinching fashion. Not that any
of the nastiness, copious though it is, is ever very disturbing, as director
Howard Franklin (actually Cecil Howard, a longtime exploitation movie vet)
gives the proceedings an appropriately campy, self-aware veneer characterized
by uniformly overwrought performances and wide-angle lenses (along with
occasional show-offy visual flourishes, such as a slow zoom back from a NYC
cityscape seen through a window). These
tendencies are distracting in the introductory scenes, but work smashingly once
the blood begins to flow. As
might be expected, the gore effects are cut-rate at best (the moviemakers
evidently saved their money for a climactic throat-slashing, as it’s the most
elaborate effect in the film) and the script sometimes falters.
A subplot involving a detective duo is plain superfluous, especially
considering the roles are played by two of the worst actors you‘ll ever see!
The graveyard-set happy ending is likewise unnecessary, as the preceding
scene, involving a shocking accident and an unforgettable screaming mouth
close-up, would have made for a far more memorable fade out. Overall
DEAD BOYZ CANT FLY will be viewed as, variously, corrupt and irresponsible,
tacky and unpolished, totally out of its mind or just good blood-thirsty fun.
I choose all of the above! |
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Vital StatisticsDEAD
BOYZ CANT FLY
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