GHOST TOWN (1988)

GHOST TOWN (1988)

Label: Scream Factory
Release Date: July 28th 2015
Region Code: A
Duration: 85 Minutes
Rating: R
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)Director: Richard Governor, Mac Ahlberg

Cast: Franc Luz, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Penelope Windust, Bruce Glover, Catherine Hickland

Synopsis: A dusty ghost town, seemingly abandoned, holds the lives of its original inhabitants in an animated netherworld for 100 years…

When a modern-day sheriff's deputy is lured to a desolate, spooky ghost town in search of a missing woman, he comes face-to-face with a malevolent spirit from the town's past. The spell of death and suffering over the undead townspeople must end to set them free from eternal pain. The horrors of a possessed outlaw, in a time-suspended dimension are only the setting for a frightening battle for the mind, nerves and flesh.

I am always pleased to see something from Empire Pictures coming to Blu-ray, there's just so much 80's awesomeness wrapped-up in my memories of the defunct distribution company, from the ghastly fun of  Re-animator (1985) and Ghoulies (1985) on through to the sci-fi action of Robot Jox (1990). This is one I remember seeing on the VHS shelves as a youth though I never got around to watching it back in the day, The reason being I sort of hated Westerns, at the time I thought those monochrome John Ford and John Wayne movies were boring, though I have since come around to violent Spaghetti Westerns and the dusty gunslingers of Sam Peckinpah, so I came into this one with a bit of enthusiasm. 

The movie begins with a would-be bride named Kate (Catherine Hickland, Witchery) cruising down a dirt road at high speed in her red sport scar. Apparently having just skipped out on her own wedding with few regrets, she tosses her bridal veil to the wind with a smile and some laughter. The gleeful smile doesn't last long when she takes an ill advised detour which ends with her being carried away by an eerie dust storm, to the sound of galloping hoof beats. Hours later the local Sheriff discovers her abandoned car on the roadside and calls in Deputy Langley (Franc Luz, The Nest) to investigate, as he does so the eerie dust storm returns and a gunslinger dressed in black riding a black horse emerges from the dust storm and fires a few rounds at Langer before riding off into the desert. 

With his car car now immobilized by the man-in-black the deputy sets off on foot through the desert in search of the missing woman, along the way he discovers the skeletal remains of a sheriff from a nearby ghost town, the corpse comes to life momentarily and tells the deputy that only he can save his town from certain damnation. 

A short time later Langley happens upon the very same ghost town, made up of a rustic collection of dilapidated saloons and brothels that are populated by handful of ghosts from the Old West. There's a blind gambler (Bruce Glover), a helpful bar wench (Penelope Windust), a blacksmith (Zitto Kazaan) and the dreaded man-in-black, a cursed undead gunslinger named Devlin (Jimmy F. Skaggs) who keeps the inhabitants of the dusty ghost town under his thumb with the help of his his outlaw gang of ghosts baddies. 

It's fun watch but it does start off a bit on the slow side with a languid pace, though  the atmospheric cinematography highlights plenty of big sky and open desert vistas, a film I believe was shot right here in Tucson at Old Tucson Studios where many classic Western TV shows and movies were filmed, which translates to a very fine looking set with loads of small flourishes, you get the genuine feeling of an old timey Western town, it looks lived in and then some, not like indie Westerns today that look like fresh-milled lumber bought at the local Home Depot. 

The ghosts are dressed in appropriate period garb and Devlin looks pretty menacing as the undead gunslinger with a zombified gunshot wound to the face that adds a lot of character to his face, but he's sort of a one-note baddie, but it works for the movie. Hickland doesn't get much to do, she's definitely a pretty standard damsel in distress, and Lutz is just okay as the modern lawman thrown back in time, he's just as one-note as the baddie, but again it works well enough for the movie that it is. It should also be noted that actress Laura Schaefer (Catacombs) is kind enough to showcase her wonderful breasts for moment for which we should all be thankful pigs for. 

Ghost Town (1988) is a low-budget western-horror hybrid with some atmospheric visuals and a fun premise with god production values, it starts off a bit on the slow side but once things get underway this is a spirited shoot 'em up and a fun watch, recommended. 

Audio/Video: Ghost Town arrives on Blu-ray with a 1080p HD transfer from Scream Factory framed in the 1.78;1 widescreen aspect ratio. This release marks the debut of the film on any modern digital format - it never even had a DVD release that I am aware of. The source material seems to have been in good shape with only minor print damage and some white speckling. The HD won't make your eyes bug out in disbelief but it is an attractively shot film and the HD upgrade looks quite nice, shot by cinematographer Mac Ahlberg (Robot Jox, From Beyond) the film has a nice dusty atmosphere about it that suits the Western tinged ghost story. The image can appears bit soft at times but overall the HD transfer is very nice with strong color reproduction, natural looking skin tones and decent black levels. The English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo track is good and clean, a well-balanced mix of dialogue, score and effects sounds, there are optional English subtitles provided. 

Unfortunately, there are no extras produced for the disc, not a single damn thing, not even a trailer. The production had a somewhat stories history with the director walking off set just a few weeks after production started, leaving the cinematographer Mac Ahlberg to finish the film. It would Ahlberg's last film he would direct, with his earlier films having been a string of low budget porn and softcore fare -- all things considered he did a pretty bang-up job finishing the film. Additionally composer Harvey Cohen (Batman: The Animated Series) was contracted to produce the score but most of his original score was replaced with pre-existing music for some reason, so it seems there could have maybe been a few choice behind-the-scenes nuggets that the cast and crew could have shared. What we do get is a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring the very cool original theatrical poster art and the familiar VHS artwork. Given that there are no extras on the disc whatsoever I think this might have made more sense (from a buyer's perspective) as one of the Scream Factory Double Feature Blu-ray editions, maybe paired with the Full Moon Entertainment science fiction-western hybrid Oblivion, but I am just happy to have in in HD no matter how we got it. 

In the end it's great to see this one come to a digital home video format for the first time ever by way of scream Factory with good picture quality and sound, however, a few extras would have been appreciated as we gt absolutely nothing -- this is as bare bones as you can get. If you have a soft spot for Western-horror hybrids I think you will have a lot of fun with his one, just don't expect some lost 80s classic, it's not quite that. 2.5/5

NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (1995)

NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (1995)  

Label: Olive Films

Region Code: A

Rating: R

Duration: 85 Minutes 

Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 

Video: HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Jeff Burr
Cast: Stephen Root, Bruce Glover, Gary Lockwood,John Hawkes, Dirk Blocker, Martine Beswick, Dirk Blocker, Elizabeth Barondes


When the local troublemaker of a small agricultural community accidentally disturbs the crypt of a long buried warlock the spirit magic man is released. Taking the corporeal form of a scarecrow who immediately sets about wreaking his vengeance on the village whose forefathers betrayed him decades earlier. 

At the top of the film Claire Goodman (Elizabeth Barondes, Not of this Earth), the estranged daughter of the Mayor (Gary Lockwood, 2001: A Space Odyssey), one of four brothers who seem to own the town, we have the priest Uncle Thaddeus (Bruce Glover, Chinatown), the farmer Uncle George (Dirk Blocker, Poltergeist) and the sheriff Uncle Frank (Stephen Root, Office Space). Of course we have to have a love interest for the Mayor's daughter, enter Dillon (prolific TV actor John Mese) as the construction foreman for the Mayor who winds up in her bed pretty damn fast, all you had to do was talk some trash about her blowhard father, because it's just that easy gentlemen. 

A killer scarecrow movie is still pretty fertile ground to mine these days, there are not too awful many but here were definitely a few prior to this one, including the seminal TV terror Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) and the thriller (1988), so even at the time it was not an original idea but it is quite a bit of fun. Shot in the mid '90s the film feels very '90s with director Jeff Burr at the helm, one dimensional characters played by a cast of somewhat limited ability, s a cool scarecrow design for our iller and a bunch of fantastic practical in-camera special effects that should please the gore fans, there are a few pretty awful CGI morphing shots but for the most part they keep it old school cheap thrills, some of which are executed quite nicely.

One of the first kills is a character being thrashed to death by a threshing machine in a barn, which brought to mind Wes Craven's Deadly Blessing (1981), a few others cannot help but conjure the TV terror Dark Night of the Scarecrow, most of these scarecrow films owe that one quite a debt. A lot of the effects have to do with something getting under the skin of the victims, usually straw, sometime tendril type roots the burst out and drag the victim screaming beneath the ground, just on a fun effects driven level this one is a lot of fun. 

The scarecrow does bust out a few groan inducing one-liners in the vein of later era Freddy Krueger but it's kept to a minimum, aside from some wooden performances from a few of the younger cast members this one doesn't stray too far into the realms of camp, thankfully. I loved the design of the scarecrow, a one-eyed (button) menace wrapped in stitched burlap and tattered clothing, with a slightly too affected vocal effect that makes it hard to decipher just what he says from time to time, but it's a small complaint in an otherwise entertaining b-movie. 

Back to the cast I was surprised to see bona fide Bond Girl Martine Beswick (From Russia with Love) in the role of the preacher's wife, I was less surprised to see that the priest's daughter had been singled out for onscreen nudity, the very cute Cristi Harris (Demons 2) with her perky breasts definitely spices up the screen and her ensuing death is one of the best! Stephen Root is always brings something more to the screen, this is a serious turn as a straight-faced sheriff who wants to put an end to the string of murders plaguing his formerly quiet town, he's not threatening to burn down the office over a stapler but he does the job.. 

The story itself is nothing special, a typical small town setting with some shady business dealing, a weak love story and at the kernel of the film, the story of a vengeful warlock having his vengeance, what saves the film is a brisk pace and some quality deaths. There are a few flashback sequences that tell the back story of the warlock, shot is sepia tone they depict one of the most unattractive orgy scenes ever committed to film, these shots are pretty grainy but not near grainy enough to obscure what's transpiring, you've done something wrong when I d not want to see the orgy!

Audio/Video: Night of the Scarecrow arrives on Blu-ray from Olive Films with an AVC encode presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and the source material is in pretty good shape, with some heavy grain in the darker scenes and occasional dirt and debris. Colors are sold and nicely saturated but the image quality varies from scene to scene, which I would attribute to the source material and the low-budget nature of the film, none of which ruined my experience. The DTS HD Master Audio 2.0 does a decent job exporting score and dialogue creating a nicely balanced stereo presentation, the unremarkable synth score adding only a modicum of atmosphere to the proceedings. 

Special Features: Bonus content on the disc begins with a very informative commentary from director Jeff Burr moderated by Daniel Griffith of Ballyhoo Motion Pictures. Burr is loaded with technical and behind-the-scenes commentary and it makes for a fascinating listen as he speaks about producers forcing the awful '90s digital special effects on the film, there's never a lull in the conversation and if you are a Jeff Burr fan there's a lot there to enjoy. 

Additionally there's a vintage featurette with participation from special effects man David Miller, Elizabeth Barondes, John Mese, Gary Lockwood, John Hawkes, Christi Harris plus an 8-minute still gallery with some of Jim Manzie's score and commentary from director Jeff Burr. 

Verdict: Night of the Scarecrow (1995) is a fun bit of murderous scarecrow business with some decent kills and plenty of cheap horror thrills, a b-movie that makes for a decent Friday night viewing with a bowl of buttery popcorn and some tasty brews.