Deadly Manor

It would take a few more years for horror to become overtly self-aware (specifically with 1996's Scream), but 1990's Deadly Manor rather comically serves the same purpose.  Set on a backwoods estate where six paired twenty-somethings and a mysterious hitchhiker hide out from an impending rainstorm, director Jose Larraz serves up a feedback-loop of inane dialogue, endless corridors and jumbled backstories.  Genre fans will get a mellow buzz from all the expected clichés, but woe to the horror aficionado who tries to take this one seriously.  Deadly Manor is as pre-fabricated for group mockery as anything that ever turned up on MST3K. 

While exploring the aforementioned mansion, our victims realize that a masked figure is slitting throats and leaving bodies in unexpected places; like the pair of vacant coffins in the cellar...or the crashed car staged like a monument in the backyard.  There seems to be a method to the killer's madness - saved for a convenient flashback in the third act - one that has waited years for its brutal culmination!

Larraz is of course better known for his dream-logic nightmares Vampyres and Symptoms, both existing in a foggy ambiguity of the supernatural and psychotic.  His latter-day straightforward thrillers - like this and 1988's Edge of the Axe- were strictly work for hire.  And on a technical level, Deadly Manor works just fine.  Structurally it's a hot mess, with characters knocked off on a whim (and out of order of narrative importance), nearly bloodless kill scenes and zero scares.  The script dangles potential points of interest throughout but buries them under dialogue like "Maybe I should check on Helen?", "What was that noise" and "Wood and condoms, what else to '90s kids need?"   The worst crime is that Larraz doesn't even acknowledge the stupidity of it all; it's up to the audience to add all the nudging and winking. 

Don't worry, Jose, we've got your back.

Arrow Video's Blu-ray special edition comes close to fulfilling fans' dreams of a late-career box set (rights to 1987's Rest in Pieces are rumored be with another company), delivering a superb 2K restoration that looks great in even the darkest scenes.  Extras include new interviews with producer Brian Smedley-Aston and actress Jennifer Delora plus an archival snippet from Larraz himself.  The commentary from authors Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan is light and appreciative with some comprehensive facts about the director's career to fill the dull spaces.  Trailers, images, a BD-ROM shooting script and collector's booklet wrap things up nicely.

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