Back in the early ’90s, when it came to SOV productions released direct-to-VHS, writer-director Dennis Devine (2020’s Camp Blood 8 and 2019’s The Haunting of La Llorona) was a name you could trust to give you the goods. Problem was, his stuff was impossible to find on video store shelves—surely not at a Blockbuster, but shockingly, not at many, if any, mom ‘n pops. As was the case with most of the ‘80s-’90s SOV canons—even after Christopher Lewis, with Blood Cult, proved you could successfully distribute movies shot direct on 3/4” tape direct to retail-rental outlets—you had to buy Devine’s works via mail order via ads in the back of Famous Monsters. (Well, not Famous Monsters; that was a bit too slick, as I recall. But it was one of those pulpy, black & white horror mags from back in the day.)

So, being a sucker for and a collector of rock ‘n’ roll-oriented films of any genre—including horror—and the fact that all of the pulpy, underground critics raved about Dead Girls—I sent in my little grocery store money order to Something Weird Video (I think it was them; it was one of the those mail-order film studios-distributors). And as is the case with most, if not all, Dennis Devine productions (several of which I picked up over time; to date, he’s directed 31 and wrote 23 films), Dead Girls was a pretty decent flick that lent to replays over succeeding Halloweens. That is, until—as is the case with all mail-order film studios procuring low-grade VHS tapes in multi-packed, shrink-wrapped bricks and churning out copies via high-speed dubbing machines—my copy of Dead Girls caught a bad case of the molds. (And the mold grew . . . and spread to and took out Alice Cooper’s Monster Dog cataloged next to it; why that cataloging? I don’t recall the reasoning that paired the two. I think I was just messy-lazy in my alphabettin’.)

If only Dow came up with a video tape cleaner!

So, why am I waxing nostalgically sad over an admittedly obscure ‘80s (well, ’90s) SOV? Well, we have to blame Sammy P, B&S About Movies Chief Cook and Bottle Washer (again, I am just the fry cook, grease bit scrubber, and dumpster pad cleaner around ‘ere) for reviewing ALL of the Scream movies (in one week; the last week of August/first week of September) and yeath proclaiming all review slots for the month of October be forth dedicated to Slasher Movies—so say we all (moan) from under our cloak and cowls (and fedoras, hee hee). And since fans of the horror blockbuster Scream, which itself is a mock-slasher parody-homage, will recognize the plotline similarity to Dead Girls, which was completed several years prior to the later, 1996 Wes Craven hit, we’re reviewing it. So thanks, Mr. P! (For the uninitiated: Scream had deaths according to horror movies; Dead Girls had kills by songs.)

Yeah, I love it when the analog stars align at B&S About Movies and inspire a review. I wonder if Dennis Devine will drop us a pissy note in our “Feedback” section, decrying us for “how dare” we review their masterpieceshite without “permission” forthwith. . . . Nah, Double D’s not a maniacal, “Oscar bound” auteur. And his stuff isn’t shite. Oops, I’m getting pissy and off point, again. DOWN BOY! Good boy. . . . (Sorry, I’m letting those thin-skinned, self-financed via Kickstarer “next Tarantinos” of the digital age get to me.)

Who da frack are these girls? That’s not Diana, Angela Eads, Kay, and Angela Scaglione . . . wait, is it? Curse you, art department!

So, anyway . . . the Dead Girls are a female death metal band . . . but their low-grade rock is neither “death” nor “metal” and reminds of the Cycle Sluts from Hell . . . remember CSFH’s freak, ‘90s metal-parody hit “I Wish You Were a Beer” . . . and its members Queen Vixen, She-Fire of Ice, Honey 1%’er, and Venus Penis Crusher . . . only the Dead Girls aren’t that good . . . where’s Gord Kirchin’s gag-studio project Piledriver (music newly featured in Girls Just Want to Have Blood) when you need ‘em?

Anyway, I digress . . . the Dead Girls come complete with the “evil aliases” of—an idea that, I bet Brian Warner, aka Marilyn Manson, swiped (just kiddin’ Manson, had to work your aliases-band into the review)—Lucy Lethal, Randy Rot (the male “pussy” of the group on drums; brother of lead singer Ms. Lethal), Bertha Beirut, Nancy Napalm and Cindi Slain. Their collective shticks, which we learn through journalistic expositional babble (ugh): Cindi Slain (aka ex-magician-illusionist Susie Striker) is into self-eviseration, Bertha Beirut likes to strangle herself on stage with the American flag, and Nancy Nepalm is the para-military “Lemmy” of the group; a “weapons expert” who adorns herself in camo and “live” ammo-bullet belts and jaggling explosives as she slings a custom “machine gun guitar” (on loan from mid-’80s Alice Cooper guitarist Kane Roberts).

Of course, “death rock” is “on the way out” (don’t tell that to King Diamond and Cronos of Venom), with their manager urging them into a more “commercial” Into the Pandemonium-to-Cold Lake Celtic Frost fuckover as he sends the girls into the “Cherry Orchards” (no pun intended, I swear!) and be the friggin’ the Go-Go’s with friggin’ Wall of Voodoo covers. Do you remember when the record executives eviscerated Motley Crue’s collective gunny sacks and went from Shout at the Devil bondage leathers to day-glow the Bangles biker pastels, stopped singing about Satan and gave us songs about girls and friggin’ motorcycles and doctors and “going home” ad nauseam, ala Poison? Yeah, like that . . . all the world needs another “Clowns,” by golly! Or maybe we’ll get lucky and Artie the manager (Brian Chin, who became a voice actor then became an animation storyboard artist) will turn them into Vixen and rock us with “Edge of a Broken Heart” or Lita Ford with “Kiss Me Deadly,” perhaps? Nah, Artie’s a dipshite who thinks touring the warzones of Russian-occupied Yugoslavia is a smart career move.

As was the case with the dippy-dopey Champaign, Illinois, new-wave poppers the Names not finding any success until they transformed themselves into a low-rent Kiss-cum-Phantom of the friggin’ Opera (not) “metal” band the Clowns slicing up mannequins in Terror on Tour (Am I the only one who remembers “Lonely” and the Queensryche-ish album Transcendence from the phantom half-masked Crimson Glory hailing from the metal wilds of Tampa, Florida?), the gals of the Dead Girls weren’t finding much success with their dippy-dopey, new-wave synth-droning, so they went (not) death “metal,” complete with images of death that were devised as a marketing gimmick to sell records—no one was supposed to take them seriously, so says lead lyricist, sweet Gina Verilli, aka Bertha Beirut. (Now, I know this is sexist, but I got those boilin’ hormones—actress Diana Karanikas (as Gina) is the most heart weeping, prefect mix of “hot” and “cute” to ever bless the screen. And she friggin’ quit the biz after this film. Heartbreaking. Also quitting, after doing Things II for Devine: Angela Eads as Dana/Lucy Lethal; is it just me, or does she look like the perpetual Lifetime damsel-in-distress Alexandra Paul of Christine fame? Just sayin’.)

Anyway, the (coke) mirror, that is, “image” cracks when a group of teenagers, led by Gina’s sister Brooke (sexy/creepy Ilene B. Singer in her only film role; why did everyone quit the biz after this movie) commit a mass suicide to the soundtrack of the Dead Girls. Uh, oh. Career over? Nay, it’s time to hop into the Mystery Machine, Shaggy! We need recuperate Sam Raimi-style in the not-so Norwegian Wood. (Speaking of the Beatles . . . and death rock, did you ever hear Coroner’s cover of the Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” well, you just did.)

Hmmmm . . . seems someone in the Dead Girls band camp paid attention to the James Vance and Ray Belknap Judas Priest “subliminal suicides” of 1986 (which became an hour-long PBS segment, Dream Deceivers in 1992) and the three Ozzy Osbourne heavy metal suicide trials of 1985 to 1990. (Dream Deceivers is on You Tube; you can find Ozzy trial clips HERE and HERE.)

Anyway . . . yeppers, it’s more dopey rockers of the Blood Tracks and Monster Dog variety driving right into the mayhem as they head off to a secluded country retreat for rest and relaxation—and for Gina to take care of her sole-surviving sister, much to the chagrin of her bible thumpin’ aunt who cared for them after their parents died in a car crash. (That’s gratitude; Auntie takes you in, gives you room and board; you form a death metal band in spite; while little sis has metal posters on the walls.) Oh, and get this: Gina has E.S.P abilities, so she foresees all this coming . . . but still goes to the wooden retreat (fuck, not Spine, again?) . . . where, in a Friday the 13^th twist, a psychotic fan—cloaked in a black cape, fedora, and skull mask (the “Scream” part) goes “Billy Eye Harper” and unfurls the Rocktober Blood, murdering managers, boyfriends, fans, and musicians in short order, using the lyrics as a “how to” guide.

Although the script indicates lyrics to songs such as “Drown Your Sorrows,” “Nail Gun Murders,” “Hangman,” “Angel of Death” and “You’ve Got to Kill Yourself,” none of the songs appear in the film, nor does the band perform on screen. So, while we’re denied the “death metal,” what sets this Devine production heads and shoulders heads above most (well, all other) SOVs is that make-up wizard Gabe Bartolos, who also worked on the Basket Case and Leprechaun film series, handles the special effects and gives us a film that is as fun as—and significantly better than, but not as revered as, the rock ‘n’ horror, “No False Metal” classics that are Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare and Shock ‘Em Dead. All in all, Devine’s go-to scribe, Steve Jarvis (Things II and a dozen other Devine productions), gives us decent film noirish twists, double crosses, dream-within-dream fuck yous, floppin’ red herrings (bitchy aunts, pussy-whipped uncles, creepy preachers in need of an eyebrow trim, Christian ex-boyfriends, mentally-challenged caretakers, Yugoslavian reporters, graduates from the Josef Mengele School of Nursing, pseudo-lesbian uber fans, beefcake bodyguards, Ms. Lethal and Mr. Rot are into incest and bondage), and you-didn’t-see-that-coming moments to keep you entertained.

Now, remember in our review of Spine, when I mentioned a fellow con-freak discussion where I “learned” that star Janus Blythe was “in the running” for the Janet-role on ABC-TV’s Three’s Company and “lost out” on the part of Lynn Starling in Rocktober Blood? Well, in a con-conversation about Dead Girls: I also “learned” that the reason you never heard from any of these actresses ever again—sans one, maybe two, Dennis Devine flicks—is that all of these actresses were actually incognito adult film stars, you know, like Michelle Bauer (Beverly Hills Vamp! Witch Academy! Evil Toons! Sorority Babes in the Slime Bowl-o-Rama!), who aka’d as adult star Pia Snow, and Linnea Quigley, who aka’d as adult star Jessie Dalton (Linnea’s out with two new ones: The Good Things Devils Do and Clownado). As with the Janus Blythe rumor: I can’t confirm these assumed adult identities, if any, of the cast of Dead Girls.

And since we’re dredging up all of these old movies, let’s talk The Redeemer (aka The Redeemer: Son of Satan, aka VHS Class Reunion Massacre; You Tube/trailer)*. You’ll recall that masked killer dispatched victims wearing . . . a skull mask under a cape and cowl (sans fedora). So, while horror connoisseurs call out Wes Craven for “pinching” Dead Girls, can we call out the Dennis Devine-Steve Jarvis-Gabe Bartolos collective borrowing the skull mask idea from Constantine S. Gochis (Cochis shot it in ’75 and released it in ’78, so it predates Carpenter’s Halloween)? Just sayin’.

And major kudos to the gang at The VHS Apocalypse over on You Tube for taking the time to rip those faux hard-rock ditties of the SOV-era and uploading them. Here’s the Dead Girls end-credits tune “You’re Gonna Kill Yourself” to enjoy.

And alright! You Tube comes through in the clutch! I haven’t watched Dead Girls in years (f-you, mold.) But I am now with a very nice, clean VHS-rip courtesy of The Burial Ground 5. (BG5’s got 1974’s Corpse Eaters? 1988’s Brainsucker? Yes! Now, that’s a motherf-in’ Halloween double-feature right there!)

And now . . . while we are on the subject of obscure tunes from obscure films—in this case, 1989’s Twister—that no one has heard or seen sidebar: Bless you, William Gibson You Tube, for VHS-ripping Crispin Glover’s “band” the Uncalled Four and their downer-rocker “Dance Etiquette (Daddy’s So Mean)” off the film’s end credits. But here’s the scene where it was featured. (Crispin, what in the hell did your daddy, Bruce, do to you? Just kiddin’. Let’s get a beer!)

The schlub writer sucking up for acting work sidebar: Mr. Devine, I act. And I have a reel. Could I be in one of your movies? (Did you think I wrote this review out of the goodness of my heart? Nope. Pure sucking up for acting work!)

* Be sure to join B&S About Movies, in conjunction with Drive-In Asylum, every Saturday Night at 8 PM U.S. EST with your hosts Bill Van Ryn—of Groovy Doom— and Sam Panico for the Groovy Doom Saturday Night Double-Feature Watch Party as they roll two “theme” movies every week and discuss them in a live stream/chat. They recently screened The Redeemer with Beyond the Door.

And, finally, don’t forget to visit our recent “Drive-In Friday” tribute to the works of Dennis Devine.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Announcement: On October 20, 2020, SRC Cinema — the reissues studio that gives you “Awesome underground movies you need to see, now!” — announced their acquiring Snuff Kill from Doug Ulrich for a Blu-ray release, complete in an all-new capture from the original SVHS master that’s also filled with new extras. First rolling out in a limited-edition, the Blu went into a wider release in later-2021. You can read the press release on their site. You can also visit the studio on Facebook.

Don’t forget: American Genre Film Archive released Darkest Soul on Blu-ray in 2020 as part of their Blu-ray release of Scary Tales.

Meanwhile: Vinegar Syndrome issued their own Blu-ray of Scary Tales. There are no Blus — but we are hopeful — for Ulrich’s 7 Sins of the Vampire, but DVDs of that title abound at Amazon and Walmart — yes, at Wallyworld! — for the taking.

So, once again — as with Calamity of Snakes, Delirium, and UFO: Target Earth — we review a bygone and forgotten VHS oddity just for the hell of it — and we come to discover its receiving a hard digital reissue. We really need to keep ourselves in the loop, more.

This is the one time when the grainy, washed-out, 3/4″ tape production values of SOV films works to the advantage of its subject matter, in this case: a grimy, underground snuff film. And this film wastes no time in getting to the “snuff”: a woman tied and blindfolded to a chair has a knife’s tip navigate her body — then she’s repeatly stabbed. And we haven’t even got to the hung-by-the-ankles head explosion, the torso-leg separation by chainsaw, and the not-so-garden variety decapitation. This isn’t a film for the weak: it’s bloody, the nudity is bountiful, and the psychobabble as to the “why” is plot piffle. (And, as I recall, there’s a bit of coprophilia involved; if not in this film, it was one of the Shock-o-Rama banner’s other titles. So, you’ve been warned.)

Yeah, Snuff Kill has already exceeded the sleaze and gore shock content of the Holy Grail of the SOV/Big Box plains, Spine, which was made with the sole purpose of taking John Carpenter’s Halloween to its next grimy, logical step — and failed.

But not Snuff Kill, baby.

It’s dark. It’s mean. This film tricks you — courtesy of its lack of the usual SOV camp — into believing you’re watching “real kills” and not Karo-n-food colored special effects. Are there acting and production faux pas? Are some of the SFXs a bit off-the-mark? Sure. This is a zero-budgeted SOV, after all. But for what is, essentially, a bunch of high school friends getting together on the weekends to make a movie, it’s a commendable effort.

The noirish tailspin of Doug, a struggling filmmaker who settles as a struggling wedding videographer, begins when, instead of going to the movies to see a horror flick, his squeeze decides they should go to metal concert. And Doug, loving both horror flicks and metal, does as his lady doth request (you know, just another pussy-whipped, bloody-metal lover like myself and Sam, the B&S Movies boss).

Doug comes to realize that the band he and his wife just watched — its members adorned in monk habits who slit their throats on stage — is fronted by his old high school buddy, Ralis (writer-director Al Dargo). And Ralis enlists his old camera-totin’ friend to make the ultimate gore flick scored with the music of his band. Doug (the not bad Mark Williams in his only film role) is, at first, fascinated by the “realistic” gore that Ralis creates; he soon comes to realize the “kills” are real. Of course, as with any film noir protagonist, Doug is repulsed and fascinated his friend’s exploits and becomes his reluctant, murdering accomplice.

Sigh. Thanks for the memories of the good ‘ol days of hitting the ol’ mom-and-pop video store sandwiched between a quickie market and Punjabi eatery with a gym on the corner bay next door to an insurance agency; a dinky-cheesy outlet stocked with way too many titles under the Shock-O-Rama banner (the owner was stocking the shelves more for himself than his clientele, obviously). The label also distributed Doug Ulrich and Al Dargo’s first two SOV entries: the even harder-to-find (than Snuff Kill) Scary Tales (1993) and Darkest Souls (1994) (as of October 2021, we’ve since reviewed both).The music of the film is provided by (very cool-named) Thee Enigma Jar and Doug and Al’s band Surefire.

Yeah! There’s an age-restricted, sign-in upload on You Tube for Snuff Kill! And bless the analog lords, ye uploader loves their SOV horror! There’s several SOV titles on the Letterboxd Funtime TY page that will interest you, along with Doug Ulrich and Al Dargo’s debut feature, Scary Tales. Yes! This is going to be one awesome October, baby!

Trailers/Clips for Screen Kill: we found two, HERE and HERE.

From the I Did Not Know that Files: Doug and Al returned in 2013 with another SOV blood-boiler, 7 Sins of the Vampire, copies of which you can purchase through Amazon and Best Buy (here’s a clip).

Need more SOVs? During the last two weeks of January 2023, we rolled out another, all “SOV Week” of reviews. Be sure to click through on the SOV tag at the end of this review to populate our ever-growing catalog of SOV films (including a second take on the Screen Kill version). You’ll also discover other SOVs namedropped within our other Ulrich-Dargo reviews via these clickable images, below.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.