DEADLY RUN

Directed by Mark Bender and Donald Farmer
Written by Joe Gillis
Director of Photography - Peter Weyrauch

Bobby Wilson - Danny Fendley
Barbara - Amy Bush
Joe - Davis Jacob Ryder

I'm starting to see a trend. Donald Farmer makes movies that I ordinarily wouldn't like, but find myself watching with total fixation. Last month it was VAMPIRE OF NOTRE DAME, a pretty sleazy Misty Mundae vehicle where she succumbs to the domineering whims of Tina Krause. I still feel guilty about being turned on by that movie's perverse depravity. Misty on all fours eating custard doggy style is a pretty humiliating image, but at the same time there's a glistening voyeuristic sexiness that was never touched upon when Dad gave me "The Talk" all those years ago.

Farmer hits some of the same perverse notes in DEADLY RUN, a shot-on-film effort starring a former cast member of IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, Danny Fendley. Storywise, Farmer isn't giving the audience anything new with this retread on THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. You have the hunter and his prey. What makes the movie unique is that it's completely told from the point of view of Bobby Wilson, the hunter. Again, Farmer reaches down into the blackest depths of the human soul and paints a picture of a man colored by rape, torture, murder, and arrogance.

Wilson has been taking his hunting trips for years. A wealthy businessman, Wilson owns a mountain range where plays his game. The game starts out simple enough. He goes to a bar. Picks up an attractive woman. Goes back to her place. Beats, then rapes her. The next day he flies her out to his mountain getaway where he gives her a 30 minute headstart before hunting her down and blowing her head off.

I guess we all have our hobbies, eh?

We are never told why or when Bobby starts playing his games. One day the cops just wise up and start connecting years and years worth of dots. Even when arrested, Bobby sees everything as part of the fun. I"m not revealing too much when I say that he will come out on top. Bobby is used to winning and won't be outsmarted by anyone. He's a man who has worked hard all his life and achieved community status and solid business reputation. If it weren't for his games, he would be the perfect role model.

I mentioned an arrest before. In the standard cat and mouse movies it's always an intended victim who gets away only to come back and issue the killers comeuppance. Not so in DEADLY RUN. One thing I can say about Farmer is that he is willing to push his story in different directions. He might rely heavily on pat dialogue to do the pushing, but at least it's moving. He throws every cliched b-movie ending at Bobby, who easily overcomes them all. It almost becomes a parody of the conventions tradition b-movies hold over themselves.

There's no traditional arc for the story to follow. It's rare that this sight-free method of storytelling ever works. Without some sort of growth, an audience can feel cheated. It's like a bus ride that only goes around block, eventually you end up exactly where you started. The passengers don't go anywhere and their time has been wasted, eventually they're going to start asking for their money back. But story isn't not the point of DEADLY RUN. It's a character study. A one-note character study of a one-note individual fueled without reason to do horrible acts. But I liked it. I liked it for it's simplicity. It's a straight-arrow examination at what one person can do to another just for kicks. For me, that's the most frightening thing of all.

Sure DEADLY RUN can be trashy, but it's fun trash. It's a movie oddly out of it's time. It would seem more at home on the drive-in screens back in the early 1980's, when the drive-in was heaving it's last breath. It was a time when exploitation was giving way to corporate numbers, and only a few filmmakers were holding out. Filmmakers like John Waters and David Lynch, both of whom would eventually succumb to Hollywood. I think Farmer is just waiting his turn, he just bidding his time and happily wallowing in the mud.

That image alone kinda makes DEADLY RUN all that much more disturbing.

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