Death 4 Told (2004)

I've got a dirty little secret.

In fact, I've got the same dirty little secret that thousands of other movie geeks have, just in varying degrees.

(deep breath)

I was in a movie.

Okay, maybe not a movie, but in a direct-to-video movie.

Okay, maybe not direct-to-video, but direct to DVD. One format.

I was in a movie so cheap it couldn't even afford to be on VHS.

You know how it is: you have a friend that has a friend that has a dream. My friend Andrew Jones, who is an accomplished blogger and writer in his own respect, had a friend named Bo Buckley, and Bo had a dream that started when he created little panoramic haunted house exhibits to make a low-budget horror movie to get his foot in the door in Hollywood and follow the same tried-and-true path trod by Sam Raimi, Joel and Ethan Coen and Harold P. Warren. Well maybe not Sam and the Coens....

So, Bo gathered together some money, some friends, shot a movie and crossed his fingers.

And I think he may have written a script, time permitting.

Maybe I'm being too hard on this right off the bat. After all, I'm way too close to the situation to be objective and, in all honesty, I've seen what devastation was wrought after the mushroom cloud settled. It'll be difficult, but I'll try to make myself a disembodied entity on this....

...you know, on second thought, no I won't. This is important to me. I have to keep my integrity in this: I review bad movies and, even if I were the one who wrote, produced, directed and headlined this thing, I'd be telling you that this movie, Death 4 Told, has all the appeal of a BP executive at an oceanographer's convention.

If this were a horror convention, I would hear the razz of the Bronx cheers and feel the pain of the brick bats, and I'd know in my heart of hearts that I deserved it.

I could have said no when approached for a part. I could have passed on an opportunity to commit to a role in this film. I could have walked away free and clear, but no: I was a starry-eyed fledgling actor wannabe who wanted fame and fortune and got neither. I got $50, free room and lodging in the seediest hotel north of the Mason-Dixon line and a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

But that experience is another post for another time. Right now, let's dig into this.

Anthologies have a long regal standing in the world of horror films. Many studios stood by them (Hammer, Amicus) and there were innumerable variations of the story collection field of film-making. Some of them good (Tales from the Crypt, Creepshow), some of them bad (House of the Dead, Creepshow 3) and some of them...okay, I'll say it: and some of them being my film.

Yes, I'll admit to Death 4 Told. I won't deny it 3 times before the cock crows. This is my albatross and I shall dissect it like any good reviewer would, knowing full well that I'll lose all of the fame and standing I once had in Hollywood.

May the Lumiere Brothers have mercy on my soul.

Let me start right off with the title itself. Death 4 Told. I know, it's supposed to denote the amount of stories in the film itself (in fact, its tag line says "Four Wicked Tales of Terror". So you know it's gonna be good...don't you?). But looking at it, the title comes across as leetspeak and I, for one, hate leetspeak; it's better suited for text messages, chat rooms and computer nerds. I guess I should be grateful I wasn't in a movie called D34th 4 T07d. That'd just be silly.

Oh, did I say FOUR wicked tales of terror? Funny story: when I got in on the ground floor of this pyramid scheme, there were only three wicked tales of terror, not four. It seems as filming progressed and three segments were completed, Bo got the idea that it could be longer and so decided to write one more story to add a little more oomph to the project and, thanks to connections, added some big name stars (well, as big as could be afforded, since at one time Bruce Campbell's name was bandied about until cooler heads prevailed) and really send this flick over the edge into classic territory.

Good thinking. I'm sure it worked out well for them...

Wait! What am I saying?! I was there! I saw how this turned out!!

Okay, okay...whew. The best way for me to dig into this is section by section. So let's get to it.

BEGINNING CREDITS - A favorite way to begin a scary movie is with disjointed pictures and scenes of scary ambiguity spliced in at random intervals, backed by a suitably creepy score. Bo and company do that here, but they also give you screen credits so small and so jumpy that it takes a leap of faith to see who did what in this film! Maybe they were trying to protect the guilty. And the music? Sounds like someone tapping different lower-register notes on an out-of-tune piano. Hmm....Not to worry; there'll be more issues with what you hear in the background.

A DOLL'S HOUSE - A writer and his wife rent a house in a small town for him to work on his next novel. However, there is something about the house that won't let him focus...it may not let him live!

Okay; this segment serves as all setup, no payoff. It's like an unfinished Stephen King short story that never got past the outline.

The music score and soundtrack don't help - so many times they will drown out huge chunks of dialogue so that not only will you not hear what's said, you'll miss key plot explanations as well! Good job, sound guy.

If you should find yourself (by some unforeseen happenstance) watching this segment, ask yourself this: why doesn't the writer try to draw a story experience out of this situation? He should just stay in the house and note every last detail he sees and experiences - that is, if he's serious about writing a new book. Most writers would give their eye teeth for an atmosphere like this to draw inspiration from.

And the MacGuffin itself...let's just say that the lack of a budget really hurts this one.

However, the crazy drunk named Pete could have had a couple more scenes (INSERT SELF-SERVING COMMENTARY HERE).

FOLKLORE - A group of vacationing college friends run over a strange animal in the woods and, only marginally aware of local Indian lore, learn that some legends aren't to be ignored.

They tried to make this more of a character study except that these characters are so obnoxious, annoying, bone-headed and shrill that the last thing anyone would want to do is study them.

And since there were only a stuffed wolf and a severed hand for special effects, character study is what we're left with, which quickly degenerates into one of those off-screen action/aftermath-shown-later things.

Unfortunately, in spite of a few glimmers of actual talent here and there, these actors never get a chance to do anything except whine, scream, and/or insult each other. So much for character study. Even a "jump scene" doesn't help matters.

THE WORLD'S MOST HAUNTED - A camera crew goes to an asylum in a small town to set up for a remote broadcast of one of those haunted house/reality shows, only to discover they don't need to rig up fake ghosts after all.

This is probably the most ambitious of the stories, content-wise, and everyone does a good-enough job; there's even some decent shocks. They even use a stunt man! But this, like the stories before, suffers from time constraints and limitations of budget that limit the potential to make this story what it could have been.

And the most unforgivable thing: during the exposition of the history of the asylum, an echo box is employed that makes that entire segment of story completely unintelligible (during the first showing to cast and crew, the main thing I heard in the audience during this segment was, "WHAT???".

THE PSYCHIC - Here we go; the monster at the end of the book. This is the added segment, the oomph! A foreign-accented card-reader (Margot FREAKIN' Kidder!) finds that the cards and predictions she culls from them not only are coming true, but predict violent futures for their subjects.

A lot of times when a segment is added to a film like this, it's because its producers realize what a do-or-die situation their project is in and so film a little "insurance", if you will, by getting "name stars" in it (like the aforementioned Kidder, Tom "More Famous For His Makeup" Savini, that blonde who played the daughter on TV's "Roseanne" and one of those guys who was on Howard Stern's radio show), upping the special effects quotient (there's some more blood and splatter here than in any of the other segments), a little of that popular nudity the kids love so much (female frontal and a three-way mooning) and actual crowd scenes!

The problem is that everyone and everything is undermined by unimaginatively setting up, presenting and executing (so to speak) so many of the scenes that it doesn't really matter what happens or what is to become of any of the characters (you want to know what happens to Kidder's character - LOOK ON THE BACK OF THE FLIPPIN' DVD BOX!!!!) - you'll still feel like you took a trip to visit some of your favorite relatives only to discover they weren't even at home.

Put all of this together, and what do you have? Nothing when you compare it to 1945's Dead of Night, 1972's Asylum, 1963's Black Sabbath or even 2001's Strange Frequency. At least some modicum of imagination, style, color and real thorough scares came through in those; a couple of them even added some laughs to the mix. When stacked up against even the lesser-known of such anthologies, Death 4 Told is in trouble because of one simple fact....

It doesn't give you what you want.

You want scares? You get none. You want atmosphere? You get none. You want consistent filming? You get none. You want creative storytelling? You get none. You want entertainment in its most basic form? You get....

Hold on, hold on...I think I may have to concede on the last point. If you get together a group of friends that want to have their own at-home "Mystery Science Theater 3000" party, THIS is the film to use. It will give every single person that watches it the comedic powers of Joel Hodgson, Mike Nelson, Trace Beaulieu and the entire Best Brains corporation et al. Riffing will come naturally as this thing progresses until, once the unreadable end credits come up, you will realize that there in your living room with your friends you have had the only fun that can come from watching Death 4 Told.

Like I said, I probably have been far too hard on a film that I, at one time, defended to my dying breath because I felt I owed it to Bo Buckley.

He was a friend who gave me a break and thought I was worth casting in his film. I will always be grateful for him giving me this opportunity.

You know something, though; this film was a test reel, an example of rushed-through filming that was slapped together as a calling card to proverbial "bigger-and-better" things for its makers.

For the most part - THAT worked: Fearmakers Productions is running strong to this day and has a whole slew of works to their credit. Bo is still working steady as a producer and writer, Margot Kidder has had many more roles since (even in 2009's Halloween II), Tom Savini works steady in front of the camera, a handful of the lesser-known actors are even busy in film and TV, if a tad under the radar of Hollywood's sweeping range.

And me...?

Well, I went into this knowing full well that I would never have a future in film. This was a lark, something to do just to say "hey, I was in a film!". At the time, of course, I treated the situation with the utmost seriousness. After all, art is art. One day, I felt, I would be telling stories to my friends and anyone else who would listen, feeling akin to Ian McKellen talking about Richard III.

It turns out I ended up more like Jack Benny talking about The Horn Blows at Midnight.

So if you get that analogy, you know full well what I mean.