Delirium — Delirium(Blu Ray)

From the late 1970s, Delirium is a haphazard crossbreed between cop thriller, proto-slasher, and namploitation flick. It features some really nasty and sleazed killings, though some equally fairly pedestrian 70’s cop action, with some simmering namploitation undertones. The film is one of the few Video Nasty films I’d yet to see, so when I saw this new Severin Blu Ray release- I was most keen to see it. And while the film is far from a lost masterpiece- if you like mean spirited and sexualized slashers, you’ll enjoy what we have here well enough.

Delirium (aka Psycho Puppet) appeared in the year 1979. It was filmed in and around St Louis, been the first feature-length by Peter Maris- who directed/ co-wrote the film. In total he directed fifteen films- these went from the post-nuke action of Land of Doom (1986), onto hostage thriller of Hangfire(1991), through to the Independence Day rip-off of Alien Species (1991), and the redneck stalking in the wildness of The Survivor (2006). Delirium is a competingly enough shot debut film, though the switches in tone between lulling cop action and sleazed brutality feel a little clumsy at times.
 
After some dark and murky credits of someone dropping a body off a city bridge, the film kicks off with Secretary Susan (Debi Chaney) coming back to her apartment after a night out. As she gets in, she calls for her girlfriend who she has just spent most of the night with- then suddenly screams, as she sees her impaled on the back of a door with a spear poking out from between her uncovered breasts. Fairly soon two rather bland and middle-aged detectives turn up, and it seems the killer was at Susan’s work the day before- so the cops go to interview her decidedly shifty boss, and from here we find out he’s involved in a vigilante cell- so it’s up to the rather dull pair to uncover what’s going on.
 

The proto-slasher elements come from Charlie (Nick Panouzis)- the silent, though largely unthreatening killer who killed Susan’s flatmate.  He goes on a rural killing spree- we sees him drowning and strangling a skinny-dipping female hitchhiker, pushing a fork through the neck of a hapless female farm worker, stalking a soapy and naked woman with a hatchet, and brutal back hack & limb lop off. The namploitation elements come from Charlie’s nam flashback, and also the vigilante cell is run by the shaved-headed, cigar-smoking, and shade wearing Paul (Turk Cekovsky) who also severed in nam, but is rather unbalanced, to say the least.
 
The film slides in at around the one hour & twenty-eight-minute mark, and it’s fair to say at points it does rather lull/ drift in its investigation elements. Though then of course we have the slasher & namploitation tropes- which keep you held in/ interested in the whole thing. Overall, I’d say elements of Delirium were certainly ahead of their time, hinting at the likes of nasty and mean-spirited slasher fare like Maniac- so for that, it certainly has its worth, it’s just a pity the cop side of things is more than a little bland/ dull.

This new Blu Ray is region free and is apparently the worldwide disc premiere. The new scan comes from the original 35MM print of the film, and this looks good. On the extras front, we get two separate onscreen interviews- the first is with director Peter Maris, and this runs at 20.24. He starts off talking about how he relocated from his homeland of Greece to St Louis, going on to do a film making course. He discusses how the film was funded by local money, with local actors/ friends taking the parts. He talks about the film was originally filmed in 16mm, chats about the underground train station/ dungeon location- which apparently was haunted & had also been used in Escape From New York. Moving on he talks about the cast- relating that the films mortician was really a mortician, and the man who has his arm loped off had a missing arm in reality. So, a worthy interview. The other interview is with special effects artist Bob Shelley, and this runs 16.34
 

In finishing I would say if your are either a video nasty completist or a fan of the more sleazed and brutal side of the proto-slasher genre-then Delirium will be of interest, as it certainly has its moments of scuzzy & sleazy violence, which made it's addition to the video nasty list very justified