Deadbeat at Dawn (1988)

Deadbeat at Dawn (1988)
Written and directed by Jim Vanbebber


How do these movies sneak by me?

1988 film student Jim Vanbebber and friends set out to make an independent horror film. Instead, we were blessed by this terrific riff on trailer trash action classics, such as Taxi Driver, Walking Tall and Rolling Thunder. This, even though its about 15 years too late, is what exploitation movies are about!

Vanbebber plays Goose, leader of the Ravens who are at war with another local gang called the Spiders. But as Goose gets closer to his girlfriend Christy, he hesitantly leaves the Ravens, and tries to clean up his life by selling the rest of the drugs he has in his possession.

The Spiders exact revenge and kill his girlfriend, a particularly brutal scene. Goose becomes a lone man, and plans his revenge.

The film is simple. A revenge drama, how many of those have we seen? I’ve seen a lot. But this flick left a pretty damn good impression on me.

First of all, this has budget limitations out its ass, but its so inventive in masking it. And I can’t believe Vanbebber is not a household name. He not only acts top notch in this film, pulling of a compassionate yet immoral character in Goose, but serves as writer and director, and also stunt coordinator for the entire film. And the fight scenes are awesome.

What I like most about this film is its downbeat nature. The characters we feel sympathy for are not main characters; every body in the picture is a menace to society. Goose becomes a sympathetic character only when his girlfriend is killed and when he goes to his schizoid father for help, another fairly moving scene. And the down right nastiness of the violence, it is brutal in this flick. Wounds gush blood, guys scream really loud, and he’s got fucking nun chucks! Like Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste, this is a movie that makes me want to grab a camera and point and shoot, its inspiring, and I love films like this. Its not a pretentious art school film and it fits nicely in midnight movie rama party. This deserves its cult status, but it should be more successful.

I guarantee Tarantino saw this in his video store days, I totally saw him watching this and riffing off the quotes in Reservior Dogs… I mean, this movie does tell you “ to be cool” and asks, ‘are you cool?’

Highly recommended. The Dvd is available from Dark Sky and includes Vanbebber’s short films, plus this is also available in a box set with his passion project ‘Manson Family’ another warped exploitation flick.

Check it out!