Tom Savini's Housecall is by far the best of the three short films in George A. Romero Presents Deadtime Stories Volume 1, due for release on Region 1 DVD on Tuesday, July 12. It's stylish and cool, with a nicely foreboding tone, and a fresh approach to its subject matter, all qualities that are sadly missing from the first two shorts on the disc.
I'm kindly disposed toward anything George A. Romero does, mainly because Dawn of the Dead frightened me like few other movies ever have. The man deserves respect for his accomplishments in the horror field, even if his recent input hasn't lived up to what he did in the past. Creepshow, one of his more mainstream efforts, with a black comic edge, was a throughly enjoyable anthology flick, and so hearing that he was somehow involved with a new anthology series of short films raised my hopes.
The connective tissue is Jeff Monahan, an undercover narcotics police officer turned actor turned writer, producer, and director, who wrote all three episodes. His association with Romero dates back at least as far as his appearance in Two Evil Eyes in 1990; he also appeared in The Dark Half.
Made for Showcase Entertainment, as best I can tell, in 2009, the original version of George A. Romero Presents Deadtime Stories Volume 1 featured three episodes in one movie, none of which are included in the new DVD from Millennium Media.
Instead, the DVD features two episodes from the original version of George A. Romero Presents Deadtime Stories Volume 2, plus one episode, the aforementioned Housecall, dating back to 2004 and evidently intended as the first episode of a direct-to-video horror anthology series; it's original title was Tom Savini's Chill Factor.
As I said, Monahan wrote all three episodes, and, other than Housecall, they're intriguing ideas that fail in their execution. Valley of the Shadow, directed by Monahan, follows a woman on an expedition to a forest, supposedly in another country, where she and her party search for something that isn't specified. Silent natives signal their displeasure with violent attacks. It's sluggish, poorly acted, and unsurprising; it becomes laughably bad near the end.
Wet, directed by Michael Fischa, is slightly better, mostly due to the presence of Nick Mancuso as an antiques dealer who warns an alcoholic beachcomber, played by Monahan, that the treasure he found buried in the sand is far more dangerous than it looks. The beachcomber doesn't listen and pays the price, but he's not the only one. The episode is sabotaged by Monahan, who's far less interesting as an actor than Mancuso, and the direction, which, like the first episode, moves like a sea slug on land, and is about as fascinating to watch.
Housecall saves the day from its first images, extreme close-ups of an old country doctor (Bingo O'Malley) and a middle-aged mother (Maryanne Nagel) worried about her teenage son Jimmy (Jason Hoehnen), who has been acting strangely lately. The opening moments grab your attention, and what follows certainly delivers. The doctor pays a visit late at night to assuage the woman's fears; the boy, tied to his bed by his request, raves about being bitten by a powerful creature. His mother relates what he's told her through a series of flashbacks, leading to a neat conclusion.
As director, Savini has a good sense about how to pace the story, and mixes his shot selection nicely. It's given an old-timey feel, which belies what must have been a tiny budget, and makes sparing, effective use of make-up and special effects. Three strong performances round out the package. Housecall was previously available separately as a Region 1 DVD, which is now out of print.
Romero serves as an executive producer and provides a few corny lines of introduction and conclusion to each episode. It's nice that he's willing to help out a friend; if all three episodes were as good as Housecall, it would be easy to recommend a purchase, but, as it is, it's worth a rental only.
Total running time is 76 minutes. The video transfers on the DVD look spotlessly clean and sharply colored. Audio, presented in DD 5.1, sounds fine, but nothing that will test your system. A second audio track is available in DD 2.0. English SDH and Spanish subtitles are provided. Seven trailers are included: Shadows and Lies, Blitz, Elephant White, Sacrifice, Trust, and the two Deadtime Stories volumes.