I rented this DVD for one reason--it was written, directed and produced by Ted Mikels--one of the worst film makers in history. I enjoy a good laugh and some of his other awful films, such as THE ASTRO-ZOMBIES, GIRL IN GOLD BOOTS and THE CORPSE GRINDERS, have given many moments of unintended hilarity! This is his first film and he did everything but act in it!
The film begins with some crazed guy killing another out in the forest. He thinks he was alone, but a ranger who witnessed it is given away by his two-way radio--setting the killer off in hot pursuit. At the same time, there is a raging forest fire headed their way. Will the killer or the flames catch this innocent man or will he make it back to safety? Watch and find out--as I won't reveal any more about the plot--though there were some twists and turns and new characters that I didn't expect.
For a Mikels film, this is pretty normal and interesting. The drama is nice and tense and the story works pretty well. The worst part about his writing and direction were some of the dialog and characters from a subplot involving some kooky young people, but it wasn't that bad--and a few of their scenes were rather sexy. Considering this is his first film, you'd THINK they'd get better...this was NOT to be the case!! One negative thing about the film you are bound to notice, however, is the use of some stock footage of rangers on maneuvers. It's grainy and obviously not shot for the film--this alone made me curious why I saw one reviewer give the film a 10. Any time grainy stock footage is used, I automatically drop the film a point or two--more if they use it inappropriately or too often (such as in the film MIDWAY where planes change types in mid-flight or even change colors!). Here in STRIKE ME DEADLY, some of the stock footage has white lines going across the picture and is clearly poor quality while others of the fire are pretty good---and I couldn't expect Mikels to burn down an entire forest just to make it look good in the film! But his overuse of the footage was annoying and unnecessary--much of the footage did nothing to advance the story.
By the way, the killer looked familiar to me. I found that he was Steve Ihnat and I HAD previously seen him play "Lord Garth" on an old episode of "Star Trek: TOS" ("Whom Gods Destroy"). Sadly, Ihnat died very young and was a good actor--and you'd never suspect from his accent that he was Czechoslovakian.
Also, the DVD has an extra where Mikels himself talks about making the film. I loved his mustache and he seemed like a pretty cool old guy. In fact, this short is more interesting than the feature! There are many neat old facts about the film and one thing shocked me. The stock footage I talked about above was actually NOT stock footage but footage Mikels himself took with a tiny home-style movie camera--probably 8mm or 16mm at the most. The rest of the film, made with a more professional 35mm camera was done at a much later time. Mikels said in this short that he thinks blowing up the smaller millimeter film and using it with the 35mm worked well--I think he's very mistaken--this footage did NOT integrate well into STRIKE ME DEADLY.
The film begins with some crazed guy killing another out in the forest. He thinks he was alone, but a ranger who witnessed it is given away by his two-way radio--setting the killer off in hot pursuit. At the same time, there is a raging forest fire headed their way. Will the killer or the flames catch this innocent man or will he make it back to safety? Watch and find out--as I won't reveal any more about the plot--though there were some twists and turns and new characters that I didn't expect.
For a Mikels film, this is pretty normal and interesting. The drama is nice and tense and the story works pretty well. The worst part about his writing and direction were some of the dialog and characters from a subplot involving some kooky young people, but it wasn't that bad--and a few of their scenes were rather sexy. Considering this is his first film, you'd THINK they'd get better...this was NOT to be the case!! One negative thing about the film you are bound to notice, however, is the use of some stock footage of rangers on maneuvers. It's grainy and obviously not shot for the film--this alone made me curious why I saw one reviewer give the film a 10. Any time grainy stock footage is used, I automatically drop the film a point or two--more if they use it inappropriately or too often (such as in the film MIDWAY where planes change types in mid-flight or even change colors!). Here in STRIKE ME DEADLY, some of the stock footage has white lines going across the picture and is clearly poor quality while others of the fire are pretty good---and I couldn't expect Mikels to burn down an entire forest just to make it look good in the film! But his overuse of the footage was annoying and unnecessary--much of the footage did nothing to advance the story.
By the way, the killer looked familiar to me. I found that he was Steve Ihnat and I HAD previously seen him play "Lord Garth" on an old episode of "Star Trek: TOS" ("Whom Gods Destroy"). Sadly, Ihnat died very young and was a good actor--and you'd never suspect from his accent that he was Czechoslovakian.
Also, the DVD has an extra where Mikels himself talks about making the film. I loved his mustache and he seemed like a pretty cool old guy. In fact, this short is more interesting than the feature! There are many neat old facts about the film and one thing shocked me. The stock footage I talked about above was actually NOT stock footage but footage Mikels himself took with a tiny home-style movie camera--probably 8mm or 16mm at the most. The rest of the film, made with a more professional 35mm camera was done at a much later time. Mikels said in this short that he thinks blowing up the smaller millimeter film and using it with the 35mm worked well--I think he's very mistaken--this footage did NOT integrate well into STRIKE ME DEADLY.
