Evil Town — Evil Town(Blu Ray)

From Vinegar Syndrome- those seekers of prime exploitation oddness & retro sleaze here’s Evil Town- a puzzling, at times delirious blend of creepy town chillier, hammy mad doctor action, and unapologetic ‘n’ leering sleaze. Here we get a Blu ray presentation of the film that features a new 2K scan, a few extras, a doubled sided glossy poster- and another great & arty slip sleeve ltd to 2,500 hand numbered copies.

Evil Town is very much a Frankenstein monsters like blend of  the 1970’s & 1980’s- bringing together footage from the mid 70’s  and the mid 80’s, with a unbalancing soundtrack to fit- that moves from trippy & throbbing early electronica, crappy disco, shrill female new wave, and very 80’s blend of smooth jazz horns, synths &  beats. The film originally started life in the mid-1970s as Dr. Shagetz- helmed by various directors, apparently it got ltd theatrical release under the name of Evil Town in 1977- but flopped, and seeming is now no longer available in its original cuts. Then in the early 1980’s producer Mardi Rustam( Psychic Killer, Eaten Alive, Pet, Lash of Lust , and Please don’t eat the babies) brought the film- added in his own newly filmed elements, soundtrack, along of course with the often fairly crazed editing, which leaves one head spinning & reeling.

The opens in fine hybrid form- as we see a 70’s family rolling up at rural small town’s garage, they get tricked- then kidnapped by a dithering old man- then sudden we switch to the 1980s as we see a pair of seriously sleazy grange workers- both bolding & mustached, talking about abducting girls. As we move through the film, we first see a series 80’s footage- this primally focuses in on the garage workers who are abducting young females, for pleasure in their backroom- with one very prolonged, and frankly uncomfortable scene where we see a large breasted & topless women been dragged, tired, and then leered over by the pair. This is joined by the often jarringly edited in 1970’s part- which sees a group of semi-hippy teens  breaking down, and a mad elderly doctor collection people in a deserted hospital for his experiments.

As we move through Evil Town we dart back & forth between the two decades. We go from uneasy & grim 70’s footage-which goes from interactions between the towns creepy denizens & the young visitors, as well as the sinisterly stilted Doctor (Dean Jagger) ranting in his blunt New York accent about his experiments. Onto the 1980’s stuff- which moves between seriously dumb female teen banter about sex, sleazed encounters between the garage men & the young women, and crappy fighting/ action set pieces.  The editing is done, in an often very jarring & confusing way- so things will switch seemingly in the middle of a scene, then we’re left to figure out whom we’re with now, and in what period- which really adds to the whole oddness of the picture. On the whole, I found Evil Town  really enjoyable, at times unbalancing slice of exploitation cheesecake- which nicely switches between dumb campiness, sleazy unease & small town creepiness.

As we’ve come to expect from Vinegar Syndrome, the new 2k print is great - and they’ve perfectly managed to blend together the 70’s & 80’s elements- all making it even more unbalancing. The sound side of things is great too, and this really enhances the variation of the score- so much so it would be great to see a release of the soundtrack. Extras wise we get an around the ten-minute comparison between Evil Town, and Rustam’s other 80’s low budget cheese feast Evils Of The Night( also available on Vinegar Syndrome). Next we get a thirty minute audio interview with Larry Spiegel- one of the 1970’s directors of the film- this goes from discussing his begins in TV shows & commercials, going onto discuss how he got involved in Evil Town, it’s production, it’s funding, and his thoughts on the re-cut 1980’s version of the film- in all this is most interesting, giving one a nice insight into Z budget film & it’s funding in the 1970s.

Once again Vinegar Syndrome managers to dig up & resurrected another fine exploration oddity with Evil Town-  the film gets a great new print, and the poster is a neat extra- oh and see if you can try, and hook one of the slipcases as they feature the films two different poster artwork- one with the mad doctor, his syringe, and a screaming women. And one with flesh ripped hand coming out of rumble- with glossy texts on a thick card matt cover. Head here  to get hold of a copy