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Dreamstalker/Death By Love (1991) - DVD Review

4 beersDevil worshipping and zombie rapes.  Oh my!  When did SOV titles get so risqué?!  The answer, of course, is ALWAYS!  Hell, yes!

“I don’t want to see any doctor named FRISK, ” proclaims fashion model, Brittany (Valerie Williams) in Dream Stalker, a shot on video horror film from 1991.  The cheaply-made slasher flick, about a motorbike-riding zombie who endlessly haunts his girlfriend and those around her, casts its wickedly ridiculous spell over its gore-friendly audience thanks to a trippy nature that is somehow NOT overruled by its inept dialogue, its point and shoot camera stylings, and the poor performances from its cast of amateurs.   

With one ridiculously death sequence set-up after another, Death Stalker succeeds in being a 4-beer can skullcrusher thanks to its inanity and trippy rip-off mechanics.  Indeed, it is Nightmare on Elm Street by motorbike.   But it goes further than that, dipping into bad taste as a zombie humps a young woman, pausing only to announce that the condom broke, before continuing. 

Full of characters with altering accents and really bad hairdos, Dream Stalker gives us the mysterious path in the afterlife as the super-mulleted corpse of Dead Ricky (Mark Dias) goes after his still living girlfriend with the same bad taste he had when he was alive.  And I can’t stop laughing.  You won’t either. 

It is cultish shenanigans run amuck as this low-budget VHS release tries to out maneuver Hollywood by offering really horrible jokes, a severe lack of continuity, and a series of off-the-wall stunts - including a motorboat's choking exhaust and a man who only wanted to take a dump in the woods and winds up rolling down a small hill that is suggested to be the size of Mount Shasta.  But then again, it could all be a dream...

Directed by Christopher Mills, this dream-within-a-dream feels more like a happy accident by a group of high college co-eds who had no idea what they were doing with a camcorder.  That is, of course, the charm of these two releases, the second on this disc being the Dallas-shot, Death By Love, a notoriously awful film worthy of a separate release. 

Written, produced, directed by, and starring Alan Grant as a devil worshipping artist who is convinced his BFF is offing all his girlfriends immediately after he sleeps with them, Death By Love is yet another fine example of a really crappy movie.  It too is shot on video and features, along with a healthy selection of female flesh, hilarious continuity issues of its own ilk.  Vanity projects couldn’t get more horrible than right here.  Get the glasses chilled.  I’ll poor the beer.  We’re going to need it to slog through this one.

My dear lord, did the beginning of the 90s ever suck or what?  If you look at the fashion and the cheaply made hip-hop music guiding these low rent, lo-fi slashers, you can form no other opinion of the year.  Big hair; shoulder pads; jean jackets; and really clean jeans.  And, as a survivor, I have to say that I agree.  Yeah, for a couple of years it absolutely did suck to be around.  It was a gigantic ball of confusion and, as made evident by the DVD twofer offering of Dream Stalker and Death By Love, as the decade began we had no idea where to go or what to do with ourselves. 

These two shot on video slashers see new life on DVD thanks to Intervision Picture Corporation.  You can score your own copy over at Severin Films’ official store.

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[tab title="DVD Review"]

Dreamstalker/Death By Love (1991) - DVD Review

DVD

Blu-ray Details:

Home Video Distributor: Severin Films
Available on DVD
- October 11, 2016
Discs: DVD Disc; single disc
Region Encoding: Locked to Region A

Presented by Intervision, the 1.33:1 full screen image is as pretty shitty as you can imagine.  Colors are never bright.  The contrast is never clear and the picture is one big ball of fuzzed out pixels.  Nothing is crisp and the black levels bleed like the fake blood flicked at the screen in all the death scenes.  The sound is presented in an effective Dolby Digital Mono soundtrack.  Seeing as how this is the first SOV DVD release from Intervision, more will probably be on the way.

Supplements:

Commentary:

  • No

Special Features:

Because the audio is so bad on these releases, audiences get the choice of watching it with English subtitles.  Trust me, you are going to need those subtitles turned on.  The other supplemental items feature Skype interviews with cast and crew.  AWESOME.

  • Remembering Ricky: With Actor Mark Dias
  • Dirtbike Dreams: Executive Producer Tom Naygrow
  • Alan Grant Remembers Death By Love Via Video Skype
  • Yvonne Aric and Brad Bishop Remember Death By Love Via Video Skype

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Dreamstalker/Death By Love (1991) - DVD Review

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