Viddying the Nasties | Delirium (Maris, 1979)
This review contains mild spoilers.
I’m reading the back cover of my Severin Blu-ray, and there’s a blurb from some publication or website I don’t recognize claiming that this is the “first psycho-killer movie to exploit the graphic nature of the its murders”, which is the kind of claim that I suspect holds up only if you haven’t seen any movies made before this one. But credit where credit is due, there are at least a few gruesome murders in this, including one by spear and another where an actor’s hand is lopped off. The person doing the murdering is a PTSD-stricken Vietnam vet, who another blurb on the back of the Blu-ray describes as a “cracked-out Seth McFarlane”, but I think he looks more like Nathan Fielder myself. Given their comic sensibilities, I’d wager Fielder is a bit more deranged than McFarlane, but neither strikes me as likely to go on a killing spree.
But the movie doesn’t stop there. It turns out this Vietnam vet was part of an underground vigilante group of Vietnam vets hired to kill criminals the justice system failed to convict. The group is run by a bald hardass type played by Barron Winchester, whose name sounds like the upper class villain in a spaghetti western and whose presence brings to mind an even flintier James Tolkan. Winchester plays most of his scenes wearing sunglasses, even when indoors. I wear transition lenses, and anytime I step indoors when it’s been sunny outside, I’m blind as a bat for a minute, so I gotta respect his commitment to the bit. But the sunglasses are also an astute bit of costuming, as they make him look much meaner, and also hide the fact that he’s kinda weird looking when he takes them off. Out to stop him are a pair of detectives and the friend of the first victim, who frankly does more to solve the case than any of the cops. She also wears a cute floral dress late in the movie, although I personally would have used this fabric to make a Hawaiian shirt. Also, one of the detectives ends up dating her, and the other one is bizarrely enthusiastic about the relationship. I guess it’s nice when your friends are happy for you.
I was seeing a lot of less than stellar ratings of this from my Letterboxd circle, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. This is a low budget regional production, and the best thing you can say about it is how well made it is. This apparently was an effort to salvage an unfinished movie, but the end result holds together surprisingly well. Certainly the budget shows, but some smart use of locations (some of the St. Louis locations were later used in Escape From New York, although they look less hellish here) hides the lack of production value. (Fun fact: the hand-chopping scene was improvised after the director found an extra who was born without a hand.) And when the movie pivots from slasher to action thriller, the action elements feel sturdier than one might expect. The climactic shootout is fairly coherent, if not exactly stylish.
If anything, the relative slickness of the movie takes some of the sting out of the murders, which don’t have the pungency they might have achieved in a more slapdash production. But this isn’t quite as grimy as its reputation as a Video Nasty might suggest. Politically, it’s quite a bit less reactionary than the average vigilante thriller, suggesting that extrajudicial killings might be a bad idea, while also sympathizing with the plight of Vietnam vets. There is a disarmingly poignant moment in the climax when the villain flashes back to an aborted rescue during the war. And with a handful of pretty good performances, from the discount James Tolkan, the two cops and the plucky friend, I found the proceedings surprisingly involving.
