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Released by: Saturn's Core Audio & Video
Released on: December 31, 2024
Director: Sal Longo & Gary Whitson
Cast: Tina Krause, Deana Demko, Sal Longo, Laura Giglio, Dawn Murphy
Year: 1995
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Fatal Delusion - Movie Review:
Fatal Delusion (1995) is a W.A.V.E. Productions shot-on-video cheapie about deranged middle-aged Vietnam vet David Kates (director Sal Longo, Dead North) who suffered some sort of psychological trauma during the war, which causes him to seek out long-haired brunettes whom he kills and disembowels. After a couple of grisly murders he is caught and sent to prison, where prison psychiatrist Dr. Woods, who after being charmed by the misogynist murderer, arranges for him to be inexplicably relocated to a minimum security facility. Kates however is playing a game of three-dimensional chess, I guess, and after drafting a vacation itinerary for the shrink, who takes a vacation shortly after, bafflingly using the killer's vacation itinerary to guide his cross-country trip, Kates manages to escape the minimum security facility after strangling a nurse (Laura Giglio, An Ex-Hooker's Christmas Carol) to death. Afterward he intercepts the shrink, who is following his itinerary apparently like clockwork, in the woods, killing him and assuming his identity. After faking his own death by suicide in a way that apparently needs to body to confirm, he then masquerades as the psychologist, not to flee, but to get inside the police department's investigation. He offers his assistance in capturing the escaped serial killer who’s been gruesomely dismembering local women, assisting officers Fred (Gary Whitson) and Nancy (Michelle Caporaletti, Play Dead), who find out too late that they are working shoulder-to-shoulder with the very serial killer they seek!
This SOV slasher is pretty cheap-looking, even by the usual low-rent standards of the notorious W.A.V.E. Productions, utilizing sparsely decorated corners of rooms shot with a tight framings, meant to be police stations, strip clubs, fancy diners and whatnot, including murder scenes shot in the hallways and courtyards of NJ’s Chiller Theatre and Baltimore’s Fanex conventions back in 1994. I also love how a Vicious Lips movie poster keeps showing up in different scenes, someone loved that poster, as it shows up at a video store scene, where I also spotted a Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except! poster, and again in one of the victim's houses during the finale.
The film also features the first ever on film appearances from SOV scream queens Tina Krause (Bad Biology), who shows up in three different kill scenes, as well as Deana Demko (Sorority Slaughter), and supporting appearances by Dawn Murphy (Backwoods Marcy), Clancy McCauley (Dead North), and Michelle Caporaletti (Hung Jury), with most of the actress appearing nude at at least semi-nude in shower scenes, sex scenes, or random gratuitous scenes of women undressing and being spied upon by the killer.
It's not shot with much pizazz, mostly flat, static shot, the acting is amateur, which I expected going in, and the gore is very disappointing. It's mean-spirited for sure, and some of the physicality of the violence is decent with Kates struggling to subdue and strangle his victims, stabbing them and sometimes performing an impromptu liver-ectomy in a bathtub, before flushing the organs down the toilet. There's also a serious lack of any blood, what we do get is minimal and not on-line with how these murders would play out by any means, especially the chainsaw attack during the finale. I found it pretty weak overall, the whole idea of the killer masquerading as a psychologist investigating his own crimes is a bit beyond believability, and Longo's acting and directing abilities certainly don't allow the film to properly convey the idea that his character would be capable of pulling it off - though now that I think about it, the acting from the cops certainly would make me think a killer could infiltrate their ranks without notice.
Fatal Delusions - Blu-ray Review:
Fatal Delusion (1995) gets a region-free Blu-ray from Saturn's Core Audio & Video presented in 1080i in the original 1.33:1 fullscreen presentation. This is advertised as being sourced from the original SVHS master tapes, and it looks like what it is, an tape-based SD image - it's murky in the darker scenes, soft, and dupey, very much like what an SOV cheapie shot and edited on video tape should look like. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo with optional English subtitles. The track is limited by the source, but I found dialogue exchanges were always intelligible, and the score come through fine, but never rising above it's SOV source limitations, with some light hiss embedded on the track.
Extras are plentiful, starting with an Audio Commentary with W.A.V.E. founder Gary Whitson and actress Laura Giglio moderated by Ross Snyder of Saturn’s Core. Topics discussed include the genesis of the film, the discovery of Tina Krause and shooting the opening scene at Fairleigh Dickinson University during a the Chiller '94 horror-con, anecdotes about shooting various scenes, identifying the various actors and W.A.V,E. regulars as they show-up onscreen, and the differences between shooting a more elaborate slasher film versus the custom jobs they did, and the use of BBQ sauce as blood, which was spicy and proved uncomfortable for the actress, and plenty more. It's a fun group track with plenty of humor about it. We get a second Audio Commentary with Richard Mogg, Author of Analog Nightmares: The Shot on Video Horror Films of 1982-1995, who goes in-depth on the cast and crew credits, including the discovery of Tina Krause and her three death scenes in the flick. I actually liked watching the film better with the commentaries, the participants love for this SOV flick is pretty contagious, and while I didn't care for the actual flick I loved these commentaries, both of which are informative but also quite humorous.
In the 10-min No Delusions - a new interview with actress Deana Demko she speaks about growing up in PA, being a horror kid who was not well-liked at school, developing her style of sculpting after attempting painting, being discovered by Gary Longo from W.A.V.E at a horror-con, shooting her liver ripping hotel bathroom scene, and then going onto shoot 50-60 films with W.A.V.E. Productions, and her thoughts on being called a "Scream Queen".
We also get a 9-min Early 1994 Archival Interview with actress Tina Krause discussing the upcoming film “The Shrink” which later became Fatal Delusion, this coming from a clip from the Splatter Chatter Video Magazine hosted by Dave Castiglione. The segment also features a montage of her film work.
Also included is an 11-min Extended Tina Krause Death Sequence, featuring more footage of her treadmill workout turned violent death. That's not all, we also get two more W.A.V.E. productions featuring the same cast as Fatal Delusions, by way of the 84-min Virgin Sacrifices (1996), which is Gary Whitson’s demonic sacrifice / mud-wrestling flick, wherein a college professor must sacrifice women to a gurgling pit of evil mud to resurrect his decapitated pal. We also get the 42-min The Hypnotic Spy (1997), which is a custom-made spy short that was so ramshackle and awful it made me appreciate Fatal Delusion just a bit more. The last of the extras is a 9-min Archival Tina Krause Hair-Brushing Custom Short featuring Krause topless while brushing her hair. The single-disc release arrives on a clear keepcase with a Reversible Wrap featuring photography by Michael Enoches.
Fatal Delusion - The Final Word:
It's the rare SOV horror flick that doesn't actually bore me to tears to be honest, and Fatal Delusion is no exception - this was a pretty dull watch, and at over 100 minutes in length it outlived it's welcome early on. It's got the basement level production value of a neighborhood kids first attempt at making a horror flick on a camcorder in his mom's backyard, the acting is weak, the kills are uninspired, and the absence of any real gore really sunk this one for me. If you're a bottom-feeding lover of no-fi schlock and no-budget slashers though you might find some thrills to be had, there's plenty of nudity at least, but for me this was a chore to get through. That said, Saturn's Core Audio & Video have put together a solid Blu-ray presentation for the flick, it looks and sounds as good as the source material will allow, and it's chock full of additional W.A.V.E. Productions material, and new and archival interviews, which are sure to please aficionados of W.A.V.E Productions particular brand of no-budget horror and exploitation.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized FATAL DELUSIONS Blu-ray screen caps!
