Killers / The Convent

For those old enough to have lived through the hair-metal to grunge changeover, there was a lot of griping about how the new generation just didn’t know how to have fun anymore.  Flannel, feedback and self-pity were a poor substitute for the live-for-today, gratuitous charm of the previous good time rock n’ rollers.  It’s a valid argument and one that can also be applied to cinema at the time: glossy ‘80s action heroes shooting their way through music video warehouses finally gave way to self-referential hitmen whose banter was the only thing on their highlight reel.


But director Mike Mendez seems to want to have it both ways.  In Killers, a late-to-the-game riff on Tarantino’s post-modern serial killer craze, he reimagines the Menendez Brothers (here they’re the James Boys) as gun-toting celebrities who choose the wrong house to break into.  That’s because the Ryan family, despite their Leave it to Beaver wholesome appearance, are themselves a gang of bloodthirsty psychos with a dungeon full of previous victims to prove it.  Oh, and a deformed gender-neutral relative named Bob who just wants to cuddle.

 

Killers packs way too many storylines into its intentionally over-the-top script (written by co-star Dave Larsen).  But Mendez directs it all with all the gloss of a late ’80 cop thriller – think Stallone’s Cobra but with even morestage lighting -  and a joei di vire that’s irresistibly contagious.  Bad Mickey Rourke impressions, Coppola-esque editing and the best use of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida since Manhunter, Mendez’s film is a go-for-broke shrimp boil of post-modern references and gun fetishism.  You can laugh at it or laugh with it.  Either way, it’s a hell of a good time.

 

Back in the saddle for The Convent (2000), Mendez delivers the same cinematic energy with less satire and more satanism.  College kids break into the local convent for a pledge prank and wind up unleashing the spirits of devil-worshiping clergy biding their time since 1960.  As the body count rises, the original badass orphan (played by Adrienne Barbeau) gets back on her hog to put the demons back in their place.


 

An obvious mashup of Night of the Demons, Evil Dead and Argento’s Demon franchise, at least Mendez steals from the best, crafting a crowd-pleasing, gross-out horror spoof that was pretty much extinct at the turn of the millennium.  There’s plenty of shot guns, squibs and exploding heads, but it’s the comedy and camaraderie that make this one a cut above.  That, and the cool blacklight demon make-up along with a memorable cameo from Coolio. 

 

Synapse Films has released each title separately: Killers in a restored unrated director’s cut Blu-ray and The Convent in a spiffy 4K Ultra-HD + Blu-ray two-disc set.  Extras on the first film include an audio commentary, alternate ending (sans cannibals) and linter notes.  The Convent, besides the aforementioned new 4K remaster of the uncut version mastered in Doby Vision and 5.1 stereo (which looks and sounds terrific), includes two commentary tracks, a video location tour, vintage “Making Of”, vintage EPK, deleted scene, gore outtakes, stills, trailers and a killer set of liner notes from Corey Danna.

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