DAY 23 — DEPT. OF INDUSTRY & LABOR: A story based on doing a job. Speaking of jobs, your psycho-gig ain’t finished yet, there’s still 8 days to go!

How obscure and hard-to-find is this second SOV entry on the joint resume of Doug Ulrich and Al Darago: this is the only image of the original VHS we could find — our thanks to the Letterboxd user who uploaded and preserved it.

Sigh . . the memories are flooding back . . . hitting the ol’ mom-and-pop video store (one of many that I member-haunted) 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 (an SOV honeyhole!) with way too many titles under the Shock-O-Rama banner, as the owner was stocking the shelves more for himself — god bless him — than his clientele, obviously. That store also carried Doug Ulrich and Al Darago’s first SOV entry, Scary Tales (1993), Snuff Kill (1997), and this, their second effort, Darkest Souls.

If you haven’t guessed from the cover: we’re dealing with grave robbing. Tommy and Mark are your typical slacker-losers who want the riches without the work. So they’re fired from gigs and job-hoping a lot, to finally bottom-out — literally — as grave diggers. As they come to realize they’re digging holes for rich people dripping in jewels, they resort to grave robbing. And like the tagline says: they find their “treasure.”

So, if I had to rate them: Snuff Kill is the best of the trio; as I said in my review of that film: it has the best acting and the film’s lead, Mark Williams, is effective. Then Scary Tales. Then Darkest Soul, which isn’t as O.T.T as Snuff Kill — and what film is — but it’s a well-written film that’s only undone by the script playing against-a-budget and has a nice Coscarelli-Morningside vibe. Then, again: I’m a guy who does tombstone rubbings and road tripped graveyards in my carefree days, so I dig stories about grave diggers. I enjoy the progression of the Doug Ulrich and Al Darago trilogy, as you watch them grow as filmmakers. Thus, Snuff Kill became their tour de force as result of all the things they learned from Scary Tales and Darkest Soul: Snuff Kill has the gooey gore of Scary Tales and the fleshed out story of Darkest Soul.

I have to admit that I lost touch with my inner SOV as I aged-out of the ’90s and home video outlets became gift shops and insurance offices — and even 501c3 bible-bangin’ outlets. Thus, I wasn’t aware that Doug and Al made a comeback of sorts with 7 Sins of the Vampire (2013), a film I discovered as I gathered my thoughts for my last October review of Snuff Kill.

The AGFA – American Genre Film Archive has released Darkest Soul on Blu-ray in 2020 as part of their Blu-ray release of Scary Tales. I’m a purest: I’ll always go for the VHS before a DVD or Blu. But it’s near impossible to find VHS copies — outside of grey or retro-repacks — of the original tapes. I still have Snuff Kill, lost Scary Tales to the blue screen of death, and only rented-and-watched Darkest Soul a few times — and never came across an errant cut-out-bin copy. So, thanks to the AFGA, you can get, not only Darkest Soul, but also Scary Tales, on one convenient disc. And it’s great to go home again — even if it’s a digital cheat, so for that AFGA and Vinegar Syndrome, we bow before your pseudo-VCR altars in eternal thanks.

Now, how about a Doug Ulrich and Al Darago four-pack? And — reissue-shingle executives — can I write the liner notes? Hey, I always go the shameless groveling route.

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

DAY 12 — CAMPFIRES & FLASHLIGHTS: One where a character tells a scary story and then . . . flashback.

As part of our annual “Slasher Month” last October, we reviewed Snuff Kill (1997), the third film — and best known and distributed film — from homegrown Baltimore SOV filmmakers Doug Ulrich and Al Darago (Ulrich also came to work with our SOV forefather-hero, Don Dohler, on 2001’s The Alien Factor 2). Now it’s time to take a look at their debut film, the anthology Scary Tales that, while released in 1993, had a long-in-development on-off shooting schedule that began in the mid-’80s. As with Snuff Kill — in which Al Darago portrayed the rocker-slasher Ralis — he and Doug Ulrich provide the film’s original tunes (“Destined to Love,” “She’s a Good Time,” “Let It Go,” and “I’m in Love”) as well as take care of all of the other film disciplines.

As the film opens, we meet a hooded, faceless storyteller with glowing eyes who weaves three tales from an ancient text to a group of ghostly, silhouetted children: “Satan’s Necklace” concerns an evil piece of jewelry that possesses its owner’s soul. In “Sliced in Cold Blood” a man loses his sanity upon discovering his wife’s infidelity. Then things come very close to our current techno-reality in “Level 21,” as a man loses his soul — literally — to a PC-based video game.

Amid the expected muddy-to-distorted audio, Spirit Halloween-effects, and accepted non-thespin’, we get an inventive against-the-budget human-transformation-to-vicious, man-eating demon, lots of heads split-open or decap, a knife out through the mouth, demons breath fire flumes, and in the final Tron-inspired tale (but closer to the lower-budget “The Bishop of Battle” segment starring Emilio Estevez in the 1983 Universal-produced omnibus, Nightmares; even more so to Charles Band’s 1984 tech-manteau The Dungeonmaster with Jeffrey Bryon sucked into a netherworld overlorded by Richard Moll), we get a gaggle of netherworld dwarfs and ninjas in an ambitious against-the-budget Dungeons & Dragons playing field. Remember the computer non-effects in Jerry Sangiuliano’s tech-slasher Brain Twisters? Well, it’s like that, and not the least bit “Tron.” But that’s okay because this movie splatters to the side of bountiful, which is why we rented home video SOVs in the first place.

Look, if you’re expecting a celluloid-perfect homage to the ’70s Amicus anthologies that inspired Ulrich and Darago’s debut film, then just keep on walkin’ past the crypt and go watch George Romero’s Creepshow. In the end, this is The Night of the Living Dead-era fun, as we’re living vicariously through Doug Ulrich and Al Darago, two guys just like us, who, instead of watching, reading and writing about films, they went out and made them. (And watch Scary Tales instead of the yawn-inducing Creepshow 2. Yes, I am saying team Ulrich-Darago’s film is more entertaining than a George Romero comic-book based sequel.)

You have to give team Ulrich-Darago their props as — unlike most SOV auteurs, who only managed one film — our SOV duo from Baltimore made four, including Darkest Soul, the aforementioned Snuff Kill, and 7 Sins of the Vampire, in quick, back-to-back succession. The only other SOV’ers to pull off multiple films as quickly was Christopher Lewis with Blood Cult, The Ripper, and Revenge . . . well, because of Blood Cult’s rep as the first mail-order SOV, Lewis is the best known. But there’s the crowned king that is Dennis Devine of Fatal Images and Dead Girls fame that’s still making them, albeit digitally these days (his latest is 2020’s Camp Blood 8). And porn-funded British SOV purveyor Cliff Twemlow (with his directing-partner, David Kent-Watson) knocked out six film in quick succession in the wake of his SOV pinnacle, GBH. Jeff Hathcock made his debut with Victims! in 1985 and during the next seven years pumped out three more: Night Ripper!, Streets of Death, and Fertilize the Blaspheming Bombsell. Yeah, you’ll SOV-drop fellow Baltimorite Don Dohler with his ’80s shoestring trio of The Alien Factor, Fiend, and Nightbeast released between 1978 to 1982 — but while they have that SOV-couch change stank on ’em, those were shot on film.

In the lesser-accomplished SOV canons are Leland Thomas of Bits and Pieces, John Henry Johnson of Curse of the Blue Lights, Georgia’s William J. Oates of Evil in the Woods, Alaska’s Blair Murphy of Jugular Wine, the SOV-tag team of Bill Leslie and Terry Lofton of Nail Gun Massacre, sci-fi space-jockey William J. Murray of Primal Scream, porn purveyor Justin Simmonds of Spine, Brixton Academy owner Alan Briggs of Suffer, Little Children, Brian Evans of Tainted , and Canuxploitationer Andrew Jordan of Things fame — each who pulled off one film. Nick Kimaz of the ambitiously-failed Space Chase managed two (1988’s Rage of Vengeance), while the equally ambitious-better Philip J. Cook of Beyond the Rising Moon pulled off three (Invader and Despiser in quick succession), while SOV apoc’er Armand Garzarian did two with Games of Survival and Prison Planet, and then made three more, and still sits behind the lens for other filmmakers.

However, of all of those films and their makers, we’ll always pencil-in Doug Ulrich and Al Darago on the top of our SOV lists courtesy of their Wiseauian heart and tenacity to release their quartet of films in quick succession — while showing improvements in their storytelling and effects skills along the way. Sure Tim Ritter of the SOV classics Truth or Dare and Killing Spree and Donald Farmer of Demon Queen and Scream Dream are still makin’ movies into 2021 and should be at the top of the list for their still growing, extensive resumes . . . well, I don’t know . . . I just dig what Doug and Al loaded into the SOV canons. I like ’em, so sue me . . . plus: we haven’t gotten around to reviewing Ritter or Farmer flicks on the site — at least not yet. Too many films, so little time. And as we ramble n’ praddle our SOV love, there’s a caveat: Not all were shot-on-video. Some of these VHS oddities (such as Truth or Dare) critically lumped in the SOV category were shot on 16 mm and released on video — and if it’s released in a direct-to-video format for exclusive, off-the-beaten Blockbuster Video path distribution at mom ‘n pop video stores, then it’s an SOV. Got it?

You can learn about the new Blu-Ray release of Scary Tales at Vinegar Syndrome. But we found a VHS rip on the very cool You Tube home to all things SOV, with the fine folks at Letterboxd Funtime. Oh, our review of 7 Sins of the Vampire is on the way, as part of our October 2021 “Slasher Month,” so search for it in the coming days . . . whoop, there it is!

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

DAY 9: SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL: One with a misunderstood freak/mutant/abomination, etc., (or in this case: a fatherless child with farm implements).

Oy, this movie . . . this friggin’ movie! Just like a Wim Vink joint, such as Half Past Midnight, a Jim Larsen joint takes its punches for being repetitive and plotless, with its “awfulness” compounded by its scant-to-no dialog and added-in-post victim screams that come replete with bad acting and well, bad everything that a film should not be.

Frackin’ balderdash: Nigel the Psychopath is a thing that should be.

For as our cherished (well, my) Doug Ulrich and Al Darago Karo Consortium for Better Film product line foretold in Snuff Kill: a Larsen bowel movement is a burst of pure offal ridiculousness squeezed out by an-off-the-Ritalin energy. Yeah, that’s right: move it on over, Mr. Dennis Divine, for there’s a new, pulpy monster mag back pages SOV-auteur in the john, er, town.

Yeah, just plop it right over ‘ere, Jimbo: our VCRs have been trained on a steady diet of the fibrous intestinal cleaners of Jean Rollin, Jess Franco, and Bruno Mattei for a very long time. We can handle the raison d’etre Sean S. Cunningham stank for the one hour serving you’re dishing . . . or is that squatting? Hey, if we can clench our cheeks on Joel Reed’s Gamma 693, we can pass this tape worm without the vasoline assist, no problemo.

Okay, so . . . the pesky plot, or lack there of: Our misunderstood ‘lil devil on this 9th day in the month of our Scarecrow is Nigel: a gas mask-adorned psycho who frolics among the SOV backyards of America as he lives by the edict: heaven is a place where everyone is a lot happier. But not just anyone, mind you: get the adults the frack out of here, for Nigel stalks the local playground and kills children death-porn style — with a weedwacker (well, a sickle/rake thingy) — along with the occasion broomstick impaling and staple gun dispatching. Heads are split open, neck are garroted-by-tree, faces are stomped, and arms and legs are loped off in quick succession in between fight scenes that make ol’ Dolemite himself, Rudy Ray Moore, look like Bruce Lee.

Oh, hell yes, and jumpin’ Jehoshaphats, Nigel the Psychopath is a film that breaks all the rules, not just the crafts of filmmaking and thespin’, but of good taste and common sense that jangles the five sense. Ye must embrace the inept editing and the muddy-to-blaring music that goes from acoustic guitars to reggae to rock. Accept and suspend all logic as Larsen’s gang of shemps* out-Raimi a Sam Raimi production with a commitment to the shot-on-video cause. Pair ‘er up with Cards of Death and Lazarus the Legend and analog yourself into a snowy-screened stupor.

In the end, for me: Nigel the Psychopath isn’t so much a fluid narrative, but a documentary — a documentary chronicling Jim Larsen and his friends having the best ’80s summers, ever, as they lived the dream of making their own slasher movie. So, yeah, uh, okay . . . Nigel the Psychopath may not be the best movie (for me, it is), but it’s full of the heart that lacks in wannabe, SOV-masquerading junk like the Canadian slop that is Blue Murder. And the Larsen love comes in spurts!

Thanks to writer and director Jim Larsen interacting with his fans via the wonders of the web, we’ve come to know that, while we toss his slasher opus on our SOV woodpiles, it was actually shot on Super 8 mm film and VHS video between the years of 1986 to 1989. There are also three versions on YouTube to chose from: the original super 8 film short, the VHS-version, Nigel the Psychopath At Large, and Nigel the Psychopath: 33rd Anniversary Director’s Cut (that runs a wee-longer, at 70-minutes). Pick one or pick ’em all and watch the insanity for yourself, courtesy of Jim’s very active You Tube portal.

What’s that? You want to know more about the man, the myth, the “real” warped mind of Jim Larsen? Well, he’s on the web at themindofjimlarsen.com via WordPress. He tells his version of events concerning Nigel the Psychopath with his own page dedicated to the film. Read it!

* Dude, if we have to explain “shempin'” to you, we know ye not. Turn in your B&S About Movies membership card.

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