Death on Demand (2008, dir: Adam Matalon; cast: Jerry
Broome, Suzannah Lawson Matalon, Bridget Megan Clark, Daphne
Ciccarelle, Hilary Greer, Elisabeth Jamison, Dan Falcone, Terron
Jones)
In
Death on Demand,
a mountain climber goes crazy and massacres his entire family, then
hangs himself. This prologue is nicely rendered in eerie, pastel
greenish-yellow hues. It's the only scene in the film that's nicely
shot.
Fast-forward 20
years. A sleazy producer creates a Halloween night webcast starring three
young couples who go on a scavenger hunt in the dead mass murderer's
decrepit house. Of course, the mass murderer's ghost returns and the
body count mounts. (Yes, the story is lifted from
Halloween:
Resurrection.)
This film has some
really bad acting. Mostly mugging for the camera, and fake Jerry
Springer type catfights, and guys oogling at nekkid girls' breasts.
Yes, there is a
fair amount of soft-core porn in this film. One of the couples is lesbian, sort of. One
member of this couple is a flaky, bimbo type lesbian (the sort you
might see in male porn films featuring "lesbians"). The other "lesbian"
is not a lesbian at all, but a working porn star whom the sleazy
producer hired to pretend to be a lesbian. She gets bonus pay
for every contestant that she seduces.
The gore is
extremely graphic. Some extended shots of the killer extracting muscle
tissue, and pulling out organ after organ, from his screaming victims.
There's also some "comic relief" when one guy uses a Viagra type pill
to obtain a huge erection -- only to have the killer tear off his
looooong penis.
This is a really
stupid film. I'm guessing the filmmaker set it on Halloween night so
as to inject some atmosphere into the proceedings, but there isn't much atmosphere. You can't
even tell it's supposed to be Halloween night, apart from a cheap string
of Jack O'Lantern lights in the video control room. And some
of the horny webcast viewers watching at home are in costume.
If you don't
require good acting, characterization, logic, or atmosphere, just
plenty of graphic violence and nudie shots, then this is the film for
you.
Review copyright by Thomas
M. Sipos
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