When I was about ten or so, the first video store I remember frequenting closed its doors forever. On my last visit, I was able to grab some free posters. Many of the posters, I have held onto, including the one for Destroyer. I never put it up on the wall though because I have never seen the movie, and I didn’t want to be rocking a poster for a film I’ve never watched. (Despite the fact that the poster, which features a sweaty Lyle Alzado holding a jackhammer with the tagline, “3,000 volts couldn’t kill him… it just gave him a buzz!” is freaking awesome.) I mean, I’m a man of principles, after all. Flash forward thirty-three years later to me stumbling upon Destroyer on Tubi. Right then and there I figured it was high-time I finally checked it out.
As it turns out, I should probably get a frame for that poster ASAP because this movie is a lot of fun.
There were a rash of prison/electric chair themed horror movies in the ‘80s. In addition to Destroyer, we had Prison, Shocker, and The Horror Show. This one is a little different than those films as it revolves around a film crew shooting a horror movie in a prison, so there’s a Return to Horror High kind of thing going on too.
The film in production, Death House Dolls, is directed by none other than Anthony Perkins (!) and written by Clayton Rohner, whose girlfriend (Deborah Foreman) is the stunt double for the bitchy leading lady (Lannie Garrett). The prison they’re filming in has a sordid history. Months earlier, a psychotic serial killer (Alzado) was executed in the electric chair. Before long, the wild-eyed Alzado is stalking the corridors of the prison looking to make mincemeat out of the film crew.
The colorful cast ensures Destroyer’s place among the best Electric Chair Killer movies of all time. Perkins is a lot of fun as the exasperated director. He’s particularly memorable when he’s butting heads with Garrett and saying things like, “Cecil B. De-fuckin’-Mille!” Foreman and Rohner have a lot of chemistry (which is natural seeing how were also in April Fool’s Day together). What makes their scenes work is that they feel like a genuine couple, complete with their own offbeat quirks, which prevents them from seemingly like just another pair of potential victims who are sleepwalking through another horror movie. (I especially liked the fact that they pretty much have matching pompadour hairdos.) Alzado makes for a fine villain as he does the crazed psycho thing fairly well. The scene where he goes to town on a cop with the jackhammer is pretty great. It’s a shame he passed away so early because he really shows great potential in this movie.
The cast helps keep Destroyer afloat, even when it starts to drag during the stalk n’ slash finale. These scenes contain about a 50/50 mix of action and horror, and I have to believe that director Robert Kirk (in his only feature length directing effort) would’ve been wise to keep the car crashes and stunt work to a minimum as the horror-centric sequences are a lot more successful and atmospheric. Some of the editing is a bit awkward in this stretch of the picture too. With some tighter pacing in the third act, it would’ve made for a crackling good eighty-four-minute movie, but it nevertheless remains an entertaining one at ninety-four.
Besides, any movie that gives you the joy of seeing Norman Bates directing a shower scene is worthy in my book.
AKA: Shadow of Death. AKA: The Edison Effect.
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