A skull-crab monster helps a naked woman escape the clutches of a cannibalistic serial killer. She then agrees to go to Hell on a quest to find the devil’s horns. (When’s the last time you heard a plot description start off like this?) She dies pretty fast, so it’s then up to Debbie (Jeanin Lake) a naked blonde who gets accidentally dropped into Hell by her guardian angel, to finish the job.
Made for peanuts, and shot in black and white on Super 8, Debbie Does Damnation is sort of a mini marvel. Produced by the unlikely pair of Donald G. (Roller Blade) Jackson and composer Robert O. Ragland (who did the music for many Charles Bronson movies), it features some great (and not so great) stop-motion special effects. Parts reminded me of Eraserhead, Basket Case, and Tetsuo the Iron Man. Of course, any movie you can say that about is bound to be uneven as hell.
And yes, the plot is fractured, and the whole thing looks piecemeal, but that’s kind of the charm. All this is admittedly fun for a while. However, I started to mentally check out during the second half when the overreliance on poorly choreographed sword fights threatens to sink it. (The sword fights with naked chicks are okay though.) Thankfully, it clocks in at a brief fifty minutes, which is about the expiration date for this sort of thing. Even then, it still feels overlong in some places.
One and done starlet Jeanin Lake is quite good as Debbie. The most fun though comes from seeing Michael Sonye (AKA: Dukey Flyswatter from Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama) and perennial tough guy William (Darker Than Amber) Smith popping up in supporting roles. Say what you will about the movie, but it contains the only scene in cinema history where the lead singer of Haunted Garage decapitates Conan the Barbarian’s dad, so it has that going for it.
I can’t say Debbie Does Damnation is “good” exactly because it’s way too patchy. I can say that I certainly admire the chutzpah that went into the making of it. Sometimes chutzpah is all you need. Sometimes.
Writer/director Eric Brummer went straight into directing porn after this.
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