Killing Spree (1988) — Triskaidekafiles

KILLING SPREE

WRITER: Tim Ritter

DIRECTOR: Tim Ritter

STARRING: Asbestos Felt as Tom Russo
Courtney Lercara as Leeza Russo
Raymond Carbone as Ben Seltzer
Bruce Paquette as Delivery Man
Joel D. Wynkoop as TV Repairman
Kieran Turner as Lawn Man
Alan Brown as Electrician
Cloe Pavel as Mrs. Palmer

QUICK CUT: A woman keeps inviting friends over to meet her husband.

THE MORGUE

Tom - An overly jealous man, with rage issues. But with a history of an ex-wife who cheated on him, I can understand how we got here.

Leeza - Tom’s wife, who decided to quit her job and be a good housewife. She loves Tom, would do anything for him, but she might have some secrets he would not be happy to find out.

You know I’m always here for bleeding titles!

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! I hope this post finds you well. I hope this review of a pretty dark movie, gives you a smile with my jokes. I am, in my heart, an entertainer. And all I can do right now is hope that I can bring some laughs this week.

Every year around this time for the last few years, I have looked at the first few films by Tim Ritter in the "Truth or Dare?" series. This year, I decided to take a break while sticking to the works of Ritter, but focus on another movie of his, Killing Spree. It's got a lot of the same themes, so we're not drifting too far off the map.

We open up on our main character, Tom Russo...huh...nah, moving on...as he arrives home for dinner, has a brief encounter with the nosy neighbour, Mrs. Palmer.

On top of that, his 'best friend' Ben, whom he actually can't stand, is joining them for dinner. And he's that typical friend who is just a Bit Much. And he has a new girlfriend that is at LEAST half his age. Considering she just turned 18, it might even be a third.

The green eyed monster sees what it expects to see.

Tom 'catches' his wife and friend having overly friendly conversation, and jealousy rears its head. You can tell Tom has trust issues, and this will be an ongoing theme. Understandable though, since he does say his last wife cheated on him. Understandable yes, but still in the realm of ‘cooll motive, still murder’.

Later that night, Tom finds his wife, almost naked, riding atop Ben on the kitchen table. He stands there with a knife, yelling for them to stop it, but Leeza won't be satisfied by just one man.

Ben says she gives great head, and then she is nothing but lips, sucking down on his head. Fortunately, Tom wakes up from the nightmare.

Meanwhile, Tom soon finds out he is taking a massive pay cut at work, and will have to get a second job. Leeza tries to suggest getting a job of her own, but he doesn't want her to do that. It is just not Tom’s week.

As she goes out to see a friend of hers, Tom stays home to sulk, flipping through magazines, and finds his wife's diary. He violates her privacy, and reads about how she made mad, passionate love with Ben. Well...maybe it wasn't ALL a dream after all!

Wouldn't you know it? As if on cue, Ben arrives with his high school senior girlfriend, Angel, to try and score some drugs.

Tom goes to check, following Angel who also ducked upstairs. He pokes his head over the upstairs balcony to taunt his friend, and reveals he chopped off Angel's head. A head which is quickly used as a projectile to knock out Ben, and we are soon disposing of the bodies.

Later, Tom heads off to work, leaving Leeza to deal with the electrician coming by later to install a fan. And if you've ever seen a porn, you can probably guess where this goes. These exploits are also written down, and soon discovered by Tom.

While he reads, we get a long montage of happy memories as Tom wanders around town, killing time.

Mike Strauber is just off to the left crying on rocks.

Later, Leeza heads off for more tennis with Marsha, and Tom stays home because he's 'sick'. When in actuality, he's hacking up fan blades, bolting machetes to them, and reattaching them to the fan. Now THAT is sick!!

He contacts the electrician and says there's something still wrong, and can anyone come out to look? Um...what guarantee do you have it will be the SAME guy who boned your wife, dude?

The right electrician does come by though, checks out the work, and is a bit baffled by the setup. But he gets a good close look at it, when Tom hoists him up and scalps him good.

Hey man, this isn't a standard installation, we don't cover this…

Russo cleans up, ditching the body in the attic, and they settle in for the night. The tv burns out though, so...it's time to call the tv repairman! Gee, I wonder what Leeza will do...

After she bangs the repairman, she writes it all down again, takes a shower, and that's when a deliveryman arrives. And she offers to have the deliveryman come in while she gets the money, and gets dressed, since she's wandering around in a towel.

LOOK OKAY WE GET IT. SHE FUCKS A LOT.

She later heads out to the back yard to get some sun, and some young stud comes by to mow the lawn and OH COME ON ALREADY!

Tom comes home, and boy does he have a LOT of reading to get done!! And he throws a FIT, with mild amazement that she can fit in so much screwing.

He is upset, demands that Leeza goes away to her mom, so he can 'focus on work' and get that sorted out. Uhh huh.

A man who goes out seeking revenge should dig two graves…or in Tom’s case, eight.

The tv repairman comes by with the tv, and Tom challenges him to a karate fight, since he boasted so much about his fighting prowess to seduce Leeza.

Spoiler: Tom gets his ass kicked.

But he then takes a bottle, smashes it over the man's head, and brings him up to the attic and uses a chainsaw to gut the man. He then pulls the intestines, hooks them up to the tv, and uses it to further electrocute the guy for good measure.

Continuing the ironic punishments segment, the lawnmower shows up and gets shoved into a hole in the ground, and sliced up with his own mower.

Unbeknownst to Tom though, the nosy Mrs. Palmer has heard the screams, and spies on things as he mows down the competition.

The deliveryman is next, naturally, and when he arrives, Tom is working on the roof. While the guy is distracted, Tom drops a screwdriver from the great height, and it pierces his skull clear through to the brain. And just to be safe, he shoves the body into a barrel and sets it on fire.

But like before, while he is setting fire to Screwdriver Head, the least favourite Rob Zombie villain, Mrs. Palmer shows up.

She goes on and on, demanding to have her husband taken out to stay silent, but Tom has other ideas.

Meanwhile, Leeza is meeting with someone from a romance magazine, trying to sell some of her experiences. I am sure this will have zero impact on the plot.

At this point, you should suss out EXACTLY what has happened, but it gets spelled out more clearly later. I actually feel like pulling the reveal now is a bit too soon.

Back at home, Tom is laughing maniacally, wondering whom his wife will force him to muuurder next, and a portrait of her begins to bleed. And here we are, in a third movie by Tim Ritter, about a man who has a wife that cheated on them, and goes on an ahem killing spree. Also, T.R. Who hurt you, Tim??

Suddenly, there comes a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at his condo door. Tis some visitor, he muttered, surely this and nothing more.

Quoth the raven…Hey Tom, you son of a bitch!

That's right, Ben is back, but this time in zombie form! And he and Angel can't rest until they have had their revenge! Revenge which apparently involves the severed head of Angel gnawing on Tom's groin

Huh. That is two back to back movies with violent crotch attacks. Weird coincidence...

The two fight a bit, Ben loses an arm, but then beats Tom with it, before he runs off to hide in the bedroom.

Outside, more bodies start climbing out of their graves, and the tv repairman tosses aside a sign he found in his, that notes there was toxic waste dumped there. That's as good an explanation as we're gonna get, folks.

Unbeknownst to anyone though, Leeza shows up and interrupts the Zombie Jamboree, but is quickly grabbed and dragged inside.

Tom eventually hears the screams, and rushes to save his wife, so there's that at least.

Leeza and Tom rush upstairs to hide in the attic, and Tom explains that he killed all the people she screwed, and this is where she tells him they were only stories she made up, to sell, and based on people she met in her day to day life. And I wish this is where that whole penny dropped. It's too much of a non reveal this way.

But yeah, Tom just found out he murdered half a dozen innocent people. And Mrs. Palme

ANYways, speaking of reveals, Tom remembers he left another body in the attic, and the electrician is PISSED.

Which is too bad for the rest, because they are hilariously arguing over who gets the right to kill Tom first.

But that's when Ben has the brilliant idea that the real person to blame is Leeza for writing his stories, and the best revenge will be by forcing Tom to kill Leeza, and condemning him...to live.

Unsurprisingly, Tom agrees to save himself, and they let the couple out of the attic. They get lead down to the living room, so Tom can do it in front of them all.

They sit down, Tom picks up the hacksaw, and just as he is about to kill Leeza...he turns the blade on himself, and slices deep into his own neck, finding some bit of redemption, saving Leeza's life, and giving the zombies sorta what they want all at once...so yay?

So the zombies crawl back off to the hole they crawled out of, returning to whatever afterlife they have left, leaving Leeza to grieve and probably be super confused.

Oh, and just to have one more weird moment of WTFery, when Leeza finally looks up from her hands and stops crying...she sees Tom has disappeared. And then bursts out of the porch to grab at the camera. Dun dun DUNNNN!

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It’s a bit rough, but about what I expect from 80s indie no budget cinema.

Audio: It sounds decent enough, probably better here than the video. And some decent movies!

Body Count: A pretty high percentage of a medium sized cast.

1 - Tom hacks off girl's head about 22 minutes in.
2 - ...and then beats his best friend to death with it.
3 - Electrician gets his head scalped.
4 - TV repairman gets chainsawed in the guts
5 - Lawnmower man gets mowed down.
6 - Pink hat guy gets screwdriver through the skull.
7 - Granny takes an axe to the face.
8 - Tom takes his own life to appease the zombies.

Best Corpse: Oh, this movie has so many wonderful deaths. But ripping out Granny Garbage’s jaw with a claw hammer, and then turning her face into hamburger was preeeetty awesome.

Blood Type - A: LOTS of blood. SO much. I love how much we got here. I’ve felt deprived. And for this level of movie, some pretty wild and wonderful makeup effects to boot.

Sex Appeal: Lots of sexy situations.

Drink Up! every time Tom kills someone.

Movie Review: There are some rough edges here. And the new cut on this DVD/Blu is maybe a BIT on the long side, but the story is there. I love the twist of what’s really going on. It’s such a good “Oh shit” idea, that totally works. And the last twenty minutes going absolutely bonkers wild with toxic zombies? Really elevate the movie into something unique. It’s rough, but made with solid intent, and they more or less hit the mark. Four out of five electrified intestines.

Entertainment Value: Asbestos Felt is a treat. He throws himself into this role, he owns it, and is a delight to watch. I don’t buy that’s a real name, but he’s actually not a bad actor. He’s believable enough in this, and you even can see the moments where you get why Leeza likes him. He’s generally a nice guy, who just snaps one day. But even with all that, he knows when to chew scenery, make a meal out of a few scenes, and again, those effects are great. As long as the movie drags on at times, the kills and the zombies make it worthwhile, if only just. Your mileage may vary. Each suitor is a colourful and interesting character that stand out. Just…for a movie that we’ve seen a few variations of by the same guy already, this actually stands out, and it may be a bit dark, but is weirdly enjoyable. Four out of five pink hats.