DEL FERRAR

Written, Directed, and Edited by Ellsworth Hall
Produced by Ed Hopf Jr.
Director's of Photography - Ellsworth Hall and Ed Hopf Jr.

Del Ferrar - Scott Hadera
Evil Warden - Conrad Brooks

I can suspend by disbelief for just about anything, but Conrad Brooks as an evil jail warden is just too much. With rolled-up newspapers in each hand, the harmless guy couldn't intimidate a puppy. He's just too nice a guy.

Nice guy or not, he's got a gig playing the heavy in DEL FERRAR, a film from Ellsworth Hall. Scott Hadera is the title character, a bowtie-wearing, Andy-Dick-haircut-sporting G-man sent to the warden's South American island, which is ruled with the help of alien mutants hell bent on taking over the planet. Only Del Ferrar and his Team Ferrar can save the day.

I can't lie to you, this movie is every bit as corny as it sounds. Ellsworth sent this to me after reading my review for Brook's JEN-GAL, THE BEAST FROM THE EAST, a true masterpiece in bad cinema if there ever was one. I gave JEN-GAL a favorable review, which I still stand by. Of all the amateur b-movies to come along, JEN-GAL was one of the few to truly feel like an Ed Wood film.

DEL FERRAR doesn't have the same level of unwatchable charm as JEN-GAL, which really does it in. The result is sub-par amateur filmmaking that will never make it to bad movie night. It's the kind of movie you watch only because it feels good when you stop, with JEN-GAL the pain lasted for days. DEL FERRAR is brain candy for all the Corky's of the world, JEN-GAL would have caused them to rise up and kill the rest of us. DEL FERRAR is a good-hearted bad movie, but it's never as bad as it could have been.

It's unfair to compare DEL FERRAR to JEN-GAL, the film should be judged on its own merits. For starters, the acting is as wooden as a Georgia pine forest. When it comes to directing stiffs, Hall could have taken some pointers from the city morgue. The camera work is as dry the Sahara, the sets are basement-like in their originality, and the dialogue is as trite as spilled milk.

So where does the film fail? Its movie's tongue is planted firmly in its cheek. Great bad cinema never knows that it's bad. Ed Wood thought he was making good films, so did Conrad Brooks. Hall isn't as delusional, he realizes it's all in fun. That's where our fun is lost.