• Directed by Dan Golden
• Written by Duane Whitaker
• Starring
  • Maria Ford
  • Rick Dean
  • Lance August
  • Nikki Fritz

And the first question you ask is, Hey! What’s Nathan doing reviewing a T&A movie? That’s Oh the Humanity’s job!

Well, this may officially be a T&A movie; it may star Maria Ford, and be produced by New Horizons; but it is also an incredible little thriller, almost a one-set play (although any theater which would try to stage it is braver than any I’ve ever been in). Thanks to Joe Bob Briggs himself for convincing me, in one of his old columns, to give it a try.

The plot: It’s near the end of the night at Zipper’s Clown Palace, a small but seedy strip club, and Christina (Maria Ford) is dancing for an obvious devotee — a stuttering nerd named Carey. Just after last call, a blind guy walks in (Rick Dean). He banters, he babbles, and he sheds his glasses and pulls a gun.

He’s not after money; he’s not after sex, so much. He’s after control, and power, and cruelty. He’s God in this little world, and he’s going to enjoy it.

I was stunned by Dean’s performance. If you remember him at all, it’s because of roles in such movies as Carnosaur 2 and 3 (as different characters), or Manhunt with Don “The Dragon” Wilson — in fact, practically everything he’s ever done has been for Roger Corman, and he’s usually relegated to playing the annoying punk, or the annoying good-guy supporting character.

Well, he’s still abrasive here, but wow — what a performance! Long extemporaneous monologues from his character’s chemically imbalanced brain role easily from his tongue. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he wrote this script himself as a personal showpiece.

Maria Ford also delivered beyond expectations. I have to admit, I haven’t been a fan; I encountered her first (or at least, noticed her name first) in the vampire action movie Night Hunter, and all that taught me is that she does a crummy French accent; I saw her in Alien Terminator, which didn’t really give anyone a good script; and I caught her in the remake of Wasp Woman, where she was kinda useless. (I also had misgivings about her being a stripper — if you’ve seen many of her movies, you’ve probably seen her breasts, and I gotta admit, they ain’t great.) In fact, months ago when I first read a review of Some Nudity Required which quoted her whining about not being able to get any good roles, my reaction was, “It’s ‘cuz you can’t act for beans, girl!” Thanks to Joe Bob, I now stand corrected, and actually regard her as an actress of some skill. (I still don’t give her breasts a very high rating, though.)

While not as brutal a movie as, say, Dead Boyz Can’t Fly (nothing American could be quite that cruel), this was a gripping and intense little movie. I recommend it, as long as you can get something with that title in the house without ridicule.

Some interesting notes:

The director, Dan Golden, also directed Terminal Virus, which I recently reviewed. Not only are there several people who are in the casts of both movies, but the pseudo-porno flick that James Brolin shows the prospective procreators in Terminal Virus shows up again here.

I don’t want to give Golden too much credit for this movie, though, because it’s very much a screenwriter’s movie. The script was by Duane Whitaker, who also wrote From Dusk Till Dawn 2.

See it.