krakenslayer
02-Aug-2010, 04:20 PM
You may or may not have heard of this film, but since I have never seen any mention of it on these forums, I thought I'd post a thread about it. Who knows, perhaps someone out there even owns a dusty copy!
Dead End is an extremely dark comedy made in 1985 by writer/director Emerson Bixby. It was shot on a low budget and, from the very few reviews available online, is notable for being particularly violent and exceedingly gruesome.
The plot, so far as I can tell, involves an object that crashes to Earth near a small town, an event that is followed by a series of mysterious violent incidents. A reckless film crew shows up, hoping to document what they think is a UFO crash, before the government arrives to cover it up. The quickly discover the object was, in fact, a military bio-weapons satellite carrying a micro-organism that has wiped out the local population and re-activated their nervous systems, turning them into violent, flesh eating zombies. The film plays out as footage recorded by the film-makers, and plot unfolds kind of like a cross between Diary of the Dead, Cannibal Holocaust and Dead Rising, with the crew attempting to stay alive while getting plenty of juicy, sensationalistic material for their documentary. From what I can gather, the climax sees the crew trying to escape from the town as it is stormed/bombarded by the army.
At face value, this all seems like an obvious inspiration for George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. However, I find it pretty unlikely, as Bixby's film is considered, at least temporarily, lost - more on that in a minute.
The zombies in the film are interesting in that, despite initially appearing like standard Romero shamblers, their behaviour is bizarre and disturbing, beyond simply eating flesh. One scene involves a mail-man zombie who wanders one block endlessly, like a stuck record, stuffing rocks and severed body parts into mailboxes, while another zed drags the rotting corpse of a dead dog around the streets, stopping at every fire hydrant he passes. There is one particularly gross-out scene that involves the crew filming a zombie baby forcing its way back into its dead mother. The film also features many horror, sci-fi and cult movie in-jokes.
Although it is almost certain that numerous copies of the film still exist on videocassette (a reasonable number of people claim to have seen it on video "years ago"), not one of the many people now searching for this "forgotten gem" seems to be able to locate a copy. It's not available from any internet store, never appears on eBay, nor does it feature in the catalogues of online DVD-R bootleggers, and video search companies seem unable to track it down. Nevertheless, the film is not one of those hoax titles like Indian Fetish Cult (a made up movie that was added to IMDB as a prank, supposedly starring Amy Yip and banned in dozens of countries, despite never existing), this movie does exist, or at least did: it is mentioned in Fab Press's excellently-researched Nightmare USA, the director is a known quantity who has worked on several films before and since, and fans have even managed to make contact with him in their search (he no longer has the original tapes, and has himself been trying to hunt down a copy of the movie for his own collection). According to him, it sadly never made it out of the underground, as it was self-financed and self-distributed via those horror mail-order companies in the back of Fangoria. By all accounts, though, it is a far, far more entertaining and well-made film than its inauspicious release would suggest. For better or worse, I just hope I get to see it for myself before I die.
Bah... why am I always attracted to the most bizarre, hard to find movies? :p
Don't suppose any of this rings any bells for anyone?
Dead End is an extremely dark comedy made in 1985 by writer/director Emerson Bixby. It was shot on a low budget and, from the very few reviews available online, is notable for being particularly violent and exceedingly gruesome.
The plot, so far as I can tell, involves an object that crashes to Earth near a small town, an event that is followed by a series of mysterious violent incidents. A reckless film crew shows up, hoping to document what they think is a UFO crash, before the government arrives to cover it up. The quickly discover the object was, in fact, a military bio-weapons satellite carrying a micro-organism that has wiped out the local population and re-activated their nervous systems, turning them into violent, flesh eating zombies. The film plays out as footage recorded by the film-makers, and plot unfolds kind of like a cross between Diary of the Dead, Cannibal Holocaust and Dead Rising, with the crew attempting to stay alive while getting plenty of juicy, sensationalistic material for their documentary. From what I can gather, the climax sees the crew trying to escape from the town as it is stormed/bombarded by the army.
At face value, this all seems like an obvious inspiration for George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. However, I find it pretty unlikely, as Bixby's film is considered, at least temporarily, lost - more on that in a minute.
The zombies in the film are interesting in that, despite initially appearing like standard Romero shamblers, their behaviour is bizarre and disturbing, beyond simply eating flesh. One scene involves a mail-man zombie who wanders one block endlessly, like a stuck record, stuffing rocks and severed body parts into mailboxes, while another zed drags the rotting corpse of a dead dog around the streets, stopping at every fire hydrant he passes. There is one particularly gross-out scene that involves the crew filming a zombie baby forcing its way back into its dead mother. The film also features many horror, sci-fi and cult movie in-jokes.
Although it is almost certain that numerous copies of the film still exist on videocassette (a reasonable number of people claim to have seen it on video "years ago"), not one of the many people now searching for this "forgotten gem" seems to be able to locate a copy. It's not available from any internet store, never appears on eBay, nor does it feature in the catalogues of online DVD-R bootleggers, and video search companies seem unable to track it down. Nevertheless, the film is not one of those hoax titles like Indian Fetish Cult (a made up movie that was added to IMDB as a prank, supposedly starring Amy Yip and banned in dozens of countries, despite never existing), this movie does exist, or at least did: it is mentioned in Fab Press's excellently-researched Nightmare USA, the director is a known quantity who has worked on several films before and since, and fans have even managed to make contact with him in their search (he no longer has the original tapes, and has himself been trying to hunt down a copy of the movie for his own collection). According to him, it sadly never made it out of the underground, as it was self-financed and self-distributed via those horror mail-order companies in the back of Fangoria. By all accounts, though, it is a far, far more entertaining and well-made film than its inauspicious release would suggest. For better or worse, I just hope I get to see it for myself before I die.
Bah... why am I always attracted to the most bizarre, hard to find movies? :p
Don't suppose any of this rings any bells for anyone?