year: 1978
runtime: 73′
director: Tony Malanowksi
cast: Jeff Canfield, Gae Schmitt,
Rebecca Bach, Phil Davis,
Tony Malanowski, Steve Sandkuhler
writers: Tony Malanowski,
Rebecca Bach, Gae Schmitt
cinematography: Jeff Canfield
music: Jim Ball
OOP in the USA
When I was talking about Curse of the Cannibal Confederates some years ago I could hardly suspect that film to be its director’s Tony Malanowski’s more commercial (aka containing zombies) remake of his earth-shattering first movie, Night of Horror.
Fortunately, Stephen Thrower’s wonderful book “Nightmare USA” cured me of my ignorance, and now, finally, the time has come to for me to take a look at Malanowski’s debut.
So, there’s this guy, sitting with his back to the camera in the bar of his hobby cellar until another guy arrives, who will sometimes turn his face far enough in the direction of the camera that we will be able to see it in profile. They begin to mumble to each other, half of their dialogue impenetrable, the other half unfortunately not – there’s something about guy one being in a band. Or something. We are allowed to experience the dullness and emptiness of their lives for quite a while, until guy number one begins to tell his friend a true story (which a block o’ text appearing before the movie promised to be entertaining; you can never trust those darn lying text blocks). Some months ago, following the death of his dad (stepdad?), guy number one packed his half-brother and two girls into a caravan, drove around in it and drove around in it and drove around in it until he fell in love with one of the girls – named Colleen – for the terrible things she did to a Poe poem. Then they drove around some more. Days and days of real-time driving later, Colleen saw the ghost of a dead confederate soldier.
