Directed by Brett Piper
Review by David Carter


Released by Shock-O-Rama
Running Time: 320 minutes
Rating: Various
Color format: Color
Audio/Subtitles: 2.0 Stereo English
Region Code: 1, NTSC
Aspect Ratio: Widescreen & 4 x 3
16:9 Enhanced: Yes, varies
Special Features: Full color booklets, shorts, featurettes, interviews, commentaries & more
Trailer Online: Yes

Short Version: Brett Piper’s greatest hits

Brett Piper may be a horror movie veteran but he certainly isn’t a household name; in fact, most people probably aren’t familiar with the first twenty years of his career. Piper spent many years in the most unsung job in horror film production: special effects. I say “unsung” because, let’s face it, even though special effects are often one of the most important parts of the horror film, I’d wager that most casual viewers and even some die-hard fans would be hard-pressed to name a special effects artist that wasn’t Tom Savini. Similarly to Don Glut, Piper got his start making his own home movies and eventually parlayed that into a career on the big screen, working on Sam Sherman’s late-nite TV classic RAIDERS OF THE LIVING DEAD. Piper made a few films in the nineties but his star began rising when he hooked up with Shock-O-Rama in 2003 and made a string of direct-to-DVD horror hits, now available in a single set called the SHOCK-O-RAMA HORROR COLLECTION.

Piper’s first film with Shock-O-Rama was 2003’s SCREAMING DEAD. The film concerns domineering art photographer Roger Neale and his latest project, photographing three young models in an abandoned insane asylum. His assistant Maura and real estate agent Sam are along to make sure that Neale doesn’t go too far with the girls – but that’s exactly what happens as soon as they take their eyes off of him. Already frightened by the stories of the horrible torture that took place there, the girls become positively terrified after Neale begins psychologically abusing them and treating them like inmates. He finally goes too far and accidentally summons Jacob Rossiter, the long-dead, sadistic former owner of the asylum. Jacob’s ghost is pleased to see that some new victims have been dropped into his lap and Sam will have to figure out how to defeat the supernatural sadist to save the girls’ lives.

SCREAMING DEAD is built around an interesting concept, one that’s original but familiar at the same time. Things are helped immensely by good performances from the entire cast, particularly Joseph Farrell as Roger and Rob Monkiewicz as Sam. Tension is sustained well throughout the film, but, as we’ll see with all of Piper’s films, that tension is sustained for far too long. SCREAMING DEAD is long on promise and short on payoff – we spend almost 90% of the film’s running time waiting for Jacob to show up. Once he does, he’s only there briefly and is defeated in a hastily-conceived manner. Viewers looking to see some gore will have to wade through seventy minutes of little action to get to it. Don’t get me wrong, everything is very well-done, but those going in expecting the wall-to-wall splatterfest implied by the name SCREAMING DEAD will be disappointed.

Piper returned the next year with BITE ME!, a comedy-horror tribute to classic sci-fi. Ralph is determined to keep his nightclub “the Go-go-saurus” out of the hands of the scheming Teresa by any means necessary, including selling drugs. A novice in the world of drug pushing, Ralph’s first foray into the life gets off to a rocky start when his shipment shows up lighter than expected and, to make matters worse, infested with mutant bugs. The little green bugs are soon terrorizing Ralph’s dancers and patrons so he hires Buzz, an eccentric exterminator, to handle the problem. Buzz quickly realizes he’s in over his head as the bugs grow when he shoots them with pesticide. Further complicating things, crazed DEA agent Myles McCarthy has traced the pot shipment to the club and does everything he can to stop Buzz, Ralph, and the girls from dealing with the bug problem.

BITE ME! is a fun little film that can be enjoyed even if you don’t get all of the references and homage to 50s’ sci-fi films. The film is infinitely better paced than SCREAMING DEAD as the bugs appear and begin to wreak havoc early on and the film has some good laughs to buffer the time in between monster attacks. Again we have some strong performances, this time courtesy of Julian Wells’ scenery-chewing Teresa and Misty Mundae flexing her comedy skills as Crystal, the gun-toting dancer. There are no surprises as to where the film is going at any point, but you’ll still enjoy the ride to the inevitable conclusion. With the exception of SHOCK-O-RAMA, BITE ME! is the best example of Piper’s special effects abilities in the collection and you’ll likely be impressed by the mix of computer-generated and traditional effects on display.

The next film in the collection, SHOCK-O-RAMA, is Piper’s best work to date and one of the better films to ever appear on the Shock-O-Rama label. Rebecca Raven is the flagship star for a B-movie company who has grown tired of acting in their flesh-heavy horror films. After seeing a preview of her latest film, Rebecca goes to voice her complaints her producer, Frank, who promptly fires her. To add insult to injury, the studio owns the name “Rebecca Raven” and gives it to a younger, more buxom replacement. Needing a break, Rebecca goes on vacation to a remote farmhouse but runs into trouble almost immediately. A bloodthirsty zombie has risen from the grave and starts terrorizing her in a manner very reminiscent of one of her low-budget movie roles.

Meanwhile, the new Rebecca is arrested and Frank must find a new star. To begin his search, Frank watches a B-movie called “Mechanoid” in which miniature aliens crash land in a junkyard and cause trouble for a bickering ex-couple. Still searching for his new Rebecca, Frank then watches the sexy thriller “Lonely Are the Brain.” Beautiful young women have their dreams monitored by the strange Dr. Carruthers, who has an ulterior motive that none of them can imagine. Back at the farmhouse, Rebecca has successfully fought off the undead once again (for real this time) and decides that she’s ready to take on Frank and get her job back.

SHOCK-O-RAMA uses an interesting variation on the horror anthology format by having the vignettes take the form of movies, complete with credits. The technique is put to good use and fits in with the overall film far better than the standard anthology format of character’s telling stories to one another. “Mechanoid” and “Lonely Are the Brain” are clever parodies of traditional B-movies and of Pop Cinema’s output as well. Both featurettes contain some impressive special effects, particularly the art deco dream sequence in “Lonely” and the junkyard robot of “Mechanoid.” Unlike some anthologies, the films were shot specifically for SHOCK-O-RAMA, so there is no difference in quality between the shorts and the main film. Despite having no link to the framing story via plot, the segments are linked to the overall theme of B-movie satire, the film’s main focus.

Though well done, both of the vignettes are overshadowed by quality of the framing story. Rebecca Raven is played by Misty Mundae, whose performance is not only excellent but also admirable for her ability to poke fun of herself through some pretty blatant self-deprecating satire. Rebecca/Misty rants about her inability to stay clothed in her films and the scariness of her fan base, and takes some particularly clever jabs at her relationship with Pop Cinema. Of all of Mundae’s many roles as scream queen and sex object, this is far and away her most likeable and best performance.

The collection wraps things up with Piper’s latest, BACTERIUM. A group of paintballing teens stumble upon an abandoned house in the woods. Thinking that their friends are waiting inside to ambush them, Jiggs and Beth enter the house and are promptly attacked by a man in a haz-mat suit. While hot-tempered Beth is taken to the basement and deloused, Jiggs regains consciousness and finds his girlfriend Brooke hiding after being shot at by armed men patrolling the area around the house. Beth gets the upper hand on her captor and the three friends begin to question him about what’s happening to them. He is Dr. Boskovic and he’s isolated himself in the house to work on a cure for a deadly bio-weapon that he engineered for the government. The organism will destroy all life on Earth if it escapes, but the teens decide they’d rather not listen to him and refuse to let him continue his work.

Meanwhile, the government is coming up with a strategy to contain the creature. They send in a pair of scientists who, unfortunately, arrive just in time to see the organism escape and begin replicating itself in the confines of the laboratory. The government’s plan includes total destruction of the entire city the house is in, so Jiggs, Beth, and Brooke have to come up with a plan to escape from the creature and the government agents if they want to survive.

The horror genre might not exist without stupid teenagers, but the ones on display in BACTERIUM are among the dumbest to ever appear in the genre. I’m speaking in particular of Beth, a “tough girl” archetype. Beth is so determined to prove her mettle that she walks into a hail of gunfire, stating she “wanted to see if they could hit me.” This act is so removed from the realm of logical thinking that it shocks the viewer out of the movie with its stunning ignorance. People don’t behave like that, even in the movies, so the contrived nature of Beth’s character is almost insulting to the audience, more so when the other characters act as if it is normal. That is BACTERIUM’s only grievous error, save for the fact that it is a bit too talky for a horror film. Piper is again paying homage to classic sci-fi in the sense that more time is spent discussing how to deal with the monster than is dedicated to actually showing it.

SHOCK-O-RAMA HORROR COLLECTION is being released the same time as Pop Cinema’s LATE-NITE TV COLLECTION, another four-pack of films. The one main advantage that this collection has over its companion is that the films haven’t been changed at all from their original single-disc releases. That means you’ll get all of the bonus features you would have gotten if you purchased these films separately; a huge enticement for collectors. Additionally, the films are packaged on individual discs, so there are none of the compression issues that can sometimes hamper image quality on combo discs. Piper’s output is hit-or-miss sometimes but it is always entertaining. If you don’t have any of these films, SHOCK-O-RAMA is worth the price of the set on its own and you’ll get three other decent films as a bonus.