DEAR GOD NO!

The Impalers are a hardcore crew of hippy bikers terrorising middle-America during the 1970s with their spree of heavy drinking, drug-taking, rape and thrill-killing. They have two philosophies: "bang life in the ass", and "no witnesses".

Their reign of terror appears to have no real pattern other than getting pissed/high and fucking up those who happen to be in their vicinity at the time.

Consequently, they’ve been consigned to the swamplands by Larry (Billy Ratliff), a sort of unofficial Godfather who oversees all of the outlaw biker gangs in the area from the relative comfort of his backwoods bar.

The Impalers, led by bearded cool dude Jett (Jett Bryant), decide to pay Larry a visit and find him snorting cocaine lined on his desk in the shape of a Swastika, while flanked by two topless babes brandishing Richard Nixon masks and machine guns. Let’s hand it to Larry: this man knows how to live the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.

The meeting goes awry when Larry unwisely opts to insult his two sons, who just happen to now be Jett’s henchmen. They go ape and stab the old fool to death – but not before he has time to alert his army of gun-toting hotties by pressing a hidden alarm button.

By the time The Impalers have escaped the club, there are only five survivors left. Following a further altercation involving a couple of local cops, they need somewhere to hide out – and fast.

Which brings us to the ebullient Dr Marco (Paul McComiskey), who lives in the heart of the nearby woods with his reclusive daughter Evelyn (Olivia LaCroix). He’s hid himself away to concentrate on his studies into unearthing the secret of the missing link.

And, as he tells his two favourite under-graduates Todd (Heath Street) and heavily pregnant Laura (Rachelle Lynn) when they visit for the weekend, he believes he’s made a real breakthrough – in the form of the discovery of an 8-and-a-half-foot "mutation" …

So, when Jett and his fellow Impalers (what’s left of them) learn from a local kid that the rich doctor’s cabin would be a great place to indulge in a spot of home invasion, you can imagine the kind of shenanigans that are going to follow.

If you can’t, you’re going to have to, as the above synopsis takes you up to the halfway point of the film and I have a strict policy against divulging any further!

Suffice it to say, writer-director James Bickert’s DEAR GOD NO! is another attempt to recreate the mood and aesthetics of 1970s grindhouse cinema. As such, viewers should expect a lot of expletives, a fair ladling of the red stuff and some of the finest natural boobies to have graced the screen in some time.

Where Bickert gets things right is in his tight pacing, and the little nuances that nod amusingly to his source of inspiration: audio that frequently goes out of synch with characters’ lips; a couple of elongated sequences (the early club dance, the later psychedelic trip scene) which are there to pad out the running time and/or provide a musical platform for soundtrack providers The Forty Fives (a mix of surf, rock and hillbilly goodness); a total reliance on practical FX work for the righteous gore; a welcome decision to film entirely on Super 16mm Fuji film and equipment, and resist the temptation to deliberately scratch it to high Heaven in the post-production stage.

The story is kept simple in order to accommodate regular bouts of exploitation content such as gratuitous nudity and splashy, gore-soaked violence. Bickert certainly has a lot of ideas to share, from visual gags to little background quirks and habits attributable to each character.

But this "let’s make a film in the 70s grindhouse mould" shtick is becoming a little tired; it’s a totally saturated marketplace. In the last few years we’ve had PLANET TERROR, MACHETE, HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, DEATH PROOF, DUST UP, FATHER’S DAY … there are loads more too, all with similar illustrative cover art, and all offering an abundance of "cool" characters who – here’s the thing – were never present in the films of the 70s.

In fairness, DEAR GOD NO! (crap title aside) gets it more right than most, eschewing the smugness of the majority of said similar films and truly does aim to discomfit viewers during its second half with authentic-style unpredictability and madness (for me, certain scenes evoked the likes of FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE, NIGHT OF THE DEMON, LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET, STONE …). It does get fucking disturbed, no doubt about it.

Bickert’s film gets its introduction to the UK’s domestic market courtesy of a 2-disc Special Edition DVD release from Monster Pictures.

Disc 1 presents the main feature in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The transfer benefits from anamorphic enhancement and is a fairly sharp proposition, considering the shooting materials used.

Colours are accurate although overall contrast is at times somewhat faint. Again, this seems inherent of the film being shot on Super-16mm. Grain is fine, details are acute and thankfully Bickert stays true to his aim of keeping the film free of any unnaturally ‘distressed’ look.

English 2.0 audio is clean and hiss-free throughout. Although, in keeping with the low-budget 70s aesthetics, some dialogue does come across a tad muffled in that ‘filmed live without the aid of a boom mic’ manner. It’s not problematic.

The disc opens to a static main menu page. From there, a static scene-selection menu allows access to the film via 8 chapters.

Extras on disc 1 include two game audio commentary tracks (a jovial, story-fuelled one from Bickert and composer Richard Davis; a secondary one from actors Bryant, Madeline Brumby and Shane Morton). Both offer good value for money.

The film’s original 2-minute theatrical trailer also makes a 16x9 appearance, as does an odd – and noisy – 24-second Easter Egg which can be located on the main menu screen.

Over on disc 2, the fun begins with a UK Exclusive: the "Grindhouse cut" of the film. This has a more battered, archive look to it but is essentially the same film.

From there, we get menus pretty similar to disc 1 (static; 8 chapters) and a further host of welcome bonus features:

The film’s ‘redband’ (unrated) US trailer, which runs for 2 minutes and doesn’t really do the main feature many favours in terms of tone.

A ‘Behind The Scenes Gag Reel’ is window-boxed, 10 minutes in length and occasionally entertaining.

It’s hard to deny that a 7-minute posters and stills gallery reel isn’t comprehensive, while the following 1-minute feature – "Zombie Parody" – can more easily be dismissed as fun but rubbish. It’s basically an online ad for the main feature, as is the ultra-gory 51-second "Torture Porn Parody" clip that comes next.

"Vlog the Magnificent at the DEAR GOD NO! World Premiere" is a badly framed but highly enjoyable 8-minute video diary account of the film’s premiere. It’s tongue in cheek and all the better for it.

BLARRG is an 11-minute animated short that opens with a warning of "nudity, bad voice acting, and references to films you have probably never heard of". This is David Anthony’s brainchild but features Bickert and Bryant as guests. The animation is in the style of ‘Beavis & Butthead’, but fucked up to look vintage. And the content is as insane as it is obscene.

We also get an 85-second preview trailer of FRANKENSTEIN CREATED BIKERS, Bickert’s forthcoming sequel to DEAR GOD NO!.

Want another Easter Egg? You’ll find a slightly more serious, substantial one (4 minutes) on disc 2 – again, it’s on the main menu page.

There’s no doubt about it: Monster Pictures are providing an impressive set over the course of these two discs. But there is an unfortunate caveat. The BBFC deemed that 94 seconds of cuts were required to disc 1’s ‘original cut’, to lessen the impact of a pivotal scene of sexual violence. Worse still, they apparently insisted on a further 3 seconds being excised from the "Grindhouse cut" (or the disc containing it) to remove the sight of penetration. You know, just in case any of us impressionable Brits decided to go spastic and repeat any acts of grisly rape-murder we may witness being simulated by so-so actors on screen.

Actually, having seen the trailer for FRANKENSTEIN CREATED BIKERS recently on the opening of the COLOUR CORRECT MY COCK DVD, I’m wondering if the scene of penetration that was removed from disc 2 of this release by the BBFC comes from this trailer …? Certainly, the one that opened that trailer is absent here (but it was little more than a subliminal flash).

Also included in this set is a highly enjoyable 12-page booklet containing luscious colour photographs along with some excellent film notes from Bickert.

I actually enjoyed DEAR GOD NO! a lot, and Monster Pictures’ release is a great one that’s only compromised by BBFC interference. I still recommend it, and would love to see what Bickert could achieve if he were to move away from the over-populated ‘retro-grindhouse’ sub-genre.

Review by Stuart Willis