Midnight Skater – “Skate . . . Or Die!” Dude! A sampling from Tempe Video’s Splatter Rampage stable, this unrated 2003 feature from Speed Freak Productions bills itself as a “Horror / Cult” film. And from just a few moments of the trailer you can tell that these kids are dead set on achieving this distinction by attempting to outdo Troma in the bad taste department. Not to mention the areas of bad acting, bad writing, bad FX, bad jokes . . .
A lone hooded skater rolls his way across a deserted college campus late at night. ‘Spraypainting’ some unseen message across a wall (permission to film on campus will stretch only so far, hey?) he pushes on, past a house where some goob and his date are watching a horror movie. We’re brought inside for a bit of small talk, and all of a sudden Joe College turns into some kind of serial killer. Ketchup splatters curtains and credits roll, and as they do we’re taken on a tour through the college lanes.
Introducing Fatty and Skinny (Stacy Silvers and Ed Bishop, listed in the credits as Dealer 1 and Dealer 2), Speed Freak’s answer to Jay and Silent Bob. These charismatic individuals, who might well be nicknamed Ratboy and Walrus, hang out on campus dealing the designer drug “Z” to students. Their low-level dopefiend mentality very adequately reflects the mindset of the other characters (and perhaps the filmmakers as well?), and will come into play again and again throughout the picture.
Elsewhere other assorted geeks and greasers convene to bemoan the state of their student union, beset as it is by the vandalism of the Midnight Skater. The gang decides that what they need to do is split up into nighttime watch patrols and try to catch the Midnight Skater in action and hand him over to the police. Or at least get a picture of him. Meanwhile our young serial killer, Richard (Cory Maidens), has been stalking a slinkly little coed, and sneaking into her room he quickly strangles her to death. “Well,” he says, “might as well hit it while it’s still warm.” Which he proceeds to do in the crudest of fashions (“Ooh yeah . . . that’s some good dead pussy!”), even utilizing the dead girl’s severed arm: “That’s the best sex I ever had with a dead body whose arm was cut off that I was using to smack myself in the ass.”
Later on, as the Scooby Doo Crew mounts a ridiculously ineffectual hunt for the Midnight Skater, Richie catches up to Tim (Tom Cosma), the college’s resident pharmacologist responsible for manufacturing the thousands of doses of Z that Ratboy and Walrus have been unloading. Richie doesn’t give much of a shit about that however, what he’s concerned about is the fact that Tim’s been caging blowjobs from Richie’s fat girlfriend Heather. In a contrived and rather cornball sequence Tim allows Richie to tape him up, then suffers a revenge castration (“My penis! It’s GONE!”) before having his head crushed with a big rock.
Tim’s screams interrupt Danny (Andy Campbell) getting his fudge packed by Alvin (Ezra Haidet), and rushing outside he meets up with Annie (Roza Haidet) just in time to be menaced by a “zombie.” Earlier (after much shit-talking and the murder of a pizza delivery boy) it had been shown that the withdrawal from Z is a fairly severe one, as victims who can’t get another fix put on lousy goth clown makeup, puke candy green slime, and, yes, chase after dope and human flesh. And as the source of Z has now been cut off for good, the sickness quickly spreads and zombies begin popping up all over campus. Even Ratboy and Walrus fall victim to the disease, and as their attempts to find a replacement supplier meet with no success both Ratboy and Heather fall victim to Walrus’ dope-hungry zombified rage.
And through it all rides the Midnight Skater, seen just often enough to be eagerly blamed by the Scooby Doo Crew for the drug and zombie explosion. With Z-heads attacking and eating one another at an alarming rate the Doo Crew sets out on another one of their half-assed Midnight Skater hunts, vowing to catch the little bastard this time. But the pasty-faced creeps are everywhere, shuffling along in their sweatshirts in search of food, and pretty soon jocko Pete (director Luke Campbell) and his duck’s ass haircut become yet another greasy meal for the ghouls. Everybody scatters, and as Richie’s out satisfying his constant thirst for blood at the same time it’s a toss-up as to who will get whom first.
When Alvin comes across Danny’s body and finds his roomate Richard’s sweatshirt nearby, he swears revenge for his lover and childhood playmate. Garbing himself in the appropriately ridiculous costume of The Purple Ninja, complete with paper clip chainmail, and arming himself with a samurai sword, Alvin sets out to find Richard. Which he does, right in the midst of the Scooby Doo Crew finding themselves in the midst of a crowd of zombies and . . . well there’s a whole lot of ketchup-spewing goin’ on as the various characters and subplots converge in the weakest of fashions.
It’s all too ridiculous for words. In fact, it made me want to punch myself in the balls for watching it all the way through. Playing out like a gang of inebriated college kids’ foray into the splatter film (a result that actually looks like it was filmed by high schoolers), this gag zombie movie was probably loved by their roommates but received showers of beer cans from everyone else. As I nearly did when I attempted to screen this for some friends – I was more roundly cursed than if I’d wandered in and drunkenly pissed in their child’s bed. Worse than being a time waster, this thing is a real party killer; people left the room or simply fell asleep in sheer abhorrence at the cinematic incompetence unfolding before them. The next day I was still unforgiven.
Poor shot-on-video quality lighting and sound levels, amateur city college-level acting by obnoxious zit-faced actors, bland characters who are two-dimensional even when scripted as being desperately over-the-top, painfully bad lines, laughably over-the-top murder scenes . . . the recurrent motifs of cheap beer and overflowing trashcans say it all. In fact, many of the scenes seem crafted purely to annoy – such as any scene in which an actor appears. Particularly obnoxious are Alvin and Danny’s pizza orgy, and the fruity, lisping, hentai-watching, inflatable sheep-fucking, D&D player Alvin’s little underwear dance, but there are really too many to count. While it’s good to see a truly cooperative effort come to fruition (actors produced and wrote, there are a couple of sibling teams appearing onscreen together, etc.), it would have been good to see the time, money, and camaraderie put to better use. Like, oh, I don’t know, building a shooting gallery?
The soundtrack is actually pretty cool however, and features CD Truth, Sexual Tension, Kill the Hippie, Lords of the Highway, Dexter Chumley Attack, and The Pirates Who Carve Out Your Eyes and Piss In Your Eye Sockets. (One of them does a passably amped-up Bad Posture impression.)
The Midnight Skater DVD comes with a number of extras, and while there was no way in hell I was going to sit through this thing again just to hear the “Feature Commentary” by the Campbell brothers I did take a look at some of the deleted and blissfully shortened scenes. And it was kind of funny hearing the commentators talk about ‘linking plot points’ as they explained why these scenes were deemed unnecessary. (“Worst fucking thing ever.”) At least some of the lousy acting is explained during this segment, as Cory Maidens admits, “As you may have noticed by watching the movie, I was incredibly intoxicated during most of the filming.” (Apparently no shots were deleted due to violent content however; all the gooey low-budget gore is pure uncut cheese.) And after all of that, the most telling question of all is asked: “Don’t you feel like a sucker?”
Another “bonus” is the short film “The Stranger,” “a romantic comedy . . . with horror undertones” by Bob Hawkins and Matt Kelly. Shot in old-timey style, in silent B&W with a ragtime piano accompaniment, the thing defies description. I kinda liked it though, at least it was brief.
Also included are trailers for Demon Summer and Splatter Rampage Wrestling. The latter actually looks pretty entertaining in a violently retarded backyard wrestling kind of way, played out as it is by something called the “World Rastling Coalition.” That film was unavailable for screening, but look for an upcoming review of Speed Freak’s more “mature” effort Demon Summer soon.
-Crites
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
