(1983)
1.5
Robert Firsching
John Carr directed this compellingly bizarre independent horror film which was later re-edited to half an hour for inclusion in the slapdash anthology Night Train to Terror. In its complete form, the film rivals such legendary turkeys as Plan 9 From Outer Space and Zombie! vs. Mardi Gras for sheer, unadulterated awfulness, reason alone for its inclusion in any bad-film cultist's collection. The frequently nude Meridith Haze stars as Gretta, a popcorn girl at a carnival who is lured into the porno film business by the sleazy Mr. Youngmeyer. A medical student named Glen (Rick Barnes) sees one of Gretta's films and tracks her down through an S & M store to a chic nightclub where she is playing the piano bottomless. Youngmeyer warns Glen that Gretta inhabits the fourth dimension, but he dates her anyway, and soon ends up being dragged to the Death Wish Club, where he meets a group of suicidal weirdos who play games involving poisons and a lethal winged beetle in order to achieve the ultimate high of death. Glen is repulsed by the group, but Gretta overdoses and dies, apparently returning from the grave as "Charlie," a male member of the nightclub band. The rest of the jaw-dropping plot has Glen -- who has decided that Gretta isn't really dead or reincarnated as a man but merely out of her mind -- trying to restore his beloved to her former state. This involves such ridiculous scenes as Glen and "Charlie" cruising for women together and Glen breaking up a planned wedding between Gretta/Charlie and a male transvestite. Before too long, the desperately confused Glen (and the even more befuddled viewer) ends up back at the Death Wish Club, attempting to penetrate its insane and possibly Satanic secrets. There's an oddball electrocution scene involving a stoned Hendrix look-alike, some midgets, and ample nudity and violence, but the entire exercise smacks of something which Carr (later an editor on TV's The Andy Dick Show) and writer Phillip Yordan might have cooked up after ingesting far too many chemicals. Surely destined for cult status, this rediscovered gem of delirious excess is required viewing for cult devotees.
Death Wish Club on AllMovie
Death Wish Club (1983)
