OVER YOUR DEAD BODY

Staring:
Rock Savage
The Mod Mutilator
Marvin Kennedy
Don Woods
Frank Vassallo
Laura Sennett

As I stated in my review for Ryan Cavaline's EVIL TALES 3, it's almost impossible for me to review any short film compilation after viewing Jason Santo's BENT series. Those movies are so well-produced that everything else almost certainly can't compare. Looking past filmmaking basics such as lighting, sound, and acting, the notion of a fully developed and well-rounded story still remains the true core of any solid movie and is something many short filmmakers either don't understand or don't care about.

I've been following the work of Rock Savage and his group of cohorts for years. For the most part, I enjoy his movies. "Retro noir straight from the pulp novels" is how I once described Rock's work, and he rarely produces anything outside of genre confines. Think of a mod James Bond visited by Universal Studios famous monsters on a weekly bases. Rock's shorts aren't meant to be taken as anything more than what they are, a hobbyist having fun with his friends on the weekend.

As a filmmaker, Rock's style is crude and rudimentary, and that's especially true of his latest project, OVER YOUR DEAD BODY. Coverage is not really taken into consideration. Shots are generally done in master format, either medium or wide. Close-ups are far and few between. Dialogue serves only to move the plot along. Characters are archetypes painted in the broadest possible fashion. These are all the elements b-movie critics love, they provide the necessary ammunition one needs to completely rip apart any movie. Too bad most of those gentleman fail to see the big picture and can't see what's going on below the surface.

To Rock's credit, he's always been a politically motivated filmmaker. Even when detailing the exploits of masked wrestlers, demons, and supernatural hitmen, he never fails to fuel the stories with his Republican sensibilities. Like every auteur, from Hitchcock to Goddard, Rock's movies are an extension of himself and how he percieves the world. In the conventional sense, he might not be the most professional moviemaker out there, but he's always true to himself.

The opening segment to OVER YOuR DEAD BODY, "The Mask of the Mutilator," finds Rock and his gang taking on the Talliban. Made post 9-11, and feeling extremely xenophobic, "The Mask of the Mutilator" finds the Savage Film Group's most popular character, The Mod Mutilator, a cross between Mexican icon Santo and American 1980's superstar Dusty Rhodes, defending his visage against dopey middle easterners from the Three Stooges school of espionage. The ending, involving a man in an ape suit, comes from left field and makes little sense given the context of the story, but I'm sure one could make an argument for it involving guerilla warfare.

The second story, "The Curse of the Zodiac Killer," hits especially close to home after the Beltway Sniper incident. Rock is on the trail of a killer who died years before. Where Rock attacked military terrorism with "Mask", he now tears into "media terrorism" and the need for the press to exploit any sensationalist slant from the slightest news pieces. Like "Mask," "Zodiac Killer" also suffers from an ending that could have been fleshed out more throughly.

"Governor of the Living Dead", staring new Savage Film Group character Doctor Anubus: Master of the Mystic Arts (equal parts Doctor Strange and a gun-packing Chow Yun-Fat), deals with a Bill Clinton-like politician bent on turning the public into flesh-craving slaves willing to re-elect him into office no matter how many times he's caught with disembodied heads giving him oral gratification. Of all the shorts on OVER YOUR DEAD BODY, this one feels the loosest and most fully developed. It's like the group spent more time putting this one together.

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY reflects 20 years of the Savage Film Group. 20 years of Rock getting his friends together to create characters and stories to pass the time. But in 20 years you would think Rock would take the time to grow as a moviemaker and hone his craft. Having fun only gets you so far.

www.savagefilmgroup.com