Délirium

PSYCHO PUPPET is certainly trying to be something though just what that is remains unclear. Today the film is best known for something other than any of its attributes -- It was infamously included on the list of "Video Nasty" films banned in the UK in the early 1980s. Looking at it now one wonders what all the fuss was about, or if the people who issued the verdict against it even watched the damn movie.

The premise is not without interest: Vietnam vets pre-programmed to kill are recruited as part of a Star Chamber like urban vigilante squad passing judgment on the criminals slipping through the cracks of the criminal justice system. The murdered criminals are passed off as suicides with nobody any the wiser, until one of the vets flips out and goes on a general killing spree.

Its here that the Brits found their problem as the Psycho Puppet of question takes off after exclusively buxom blond bombshells who obediently strip right down for the camera. The film is sleazy, voyeuristic, tacky, cheaply made, with dialog that makes a Sears catalog sound smooth. The sexualized nature of the killing scenes is completely out of proportion to anything else in the film, and exist only to provide a lurid thrill. There is nothing to be learned from the story and no profound thought is advanced by its telling.

And yet there is something compelling about this inept, nasty little movie. Mostly offbeat locations & some bizarre casting choices, showing us an underside of St. Louis that is highly unflattering. The film exists in an uneasy juxtaposition between a tacky disco culture and a run down dilapidated post-industrial urban ruin that has no aspiration to glamor or sophistication. Its late 1970s polyesterized look makes the film look unhealthy, like it needs to get some sunlight & start eating more fresh vegetables. It looks scuzzy.

Standout role is the weird bald guy, a twisted Vietnam vet with a mad hatter's view of American justice. He's a great villain while the film allows him to be one but sadly everything falls apart in the last fifteen minutes leading to a protracted gunfight that undoes any originality that came before it. The film I kept thinking about while watching it was the first Dirty Harry sequel MAGNUM FORCE, which also featured a post-industrial urban wasteland in its climax with nihilistic violence mixed with lurid exploitation.

The main difference being that PSYCHO PUPPET wasn't made with any artfulness or sense of craft and exists only as a bleak reminder of how stupid people can be when they get into positions of power. Whoever banned this movie from Britain obviously never saw it since there's very little to get worked up about in it. Those seeking it out for a joyride of vicarious thrills will be disappointed and anyone looking for a message will come up empty. It's a curious, cold, cruel little movie, existing as a footnote. Which may sound pretty dismal, but its a pretty dismal movie and at least it'll remembered for something.

5/10

For many, many years I had a certain fascination with this movie. I saw its video cover reproduced in a magazine called 'Halls of Horror' way back in the early 80's. The artwork showed a bald man in sun glasses firing a pistol, a woman screaming and a disembodied hand clutching a bloodied hatchet; the tag-line said 'they shall have murder wherever they go…'. I don't know, it may not sound like much now but at the time this strange and slightly lurid poster fascinated me. When I soon after discovered that this film had made it on to the notorious video nasty list my interest just grew even stronger. Looking back on it now and having finally seen Delirium I think I can better understand the pull of that video cover and it's actually reflected in the film itself. The poster is really somewhat odd in that it mixes genre iconography – its part horror, part action-thriller. And in essence that's what the movie itself is too. It combines genres in a somewhat unusual way. It's kind of a slasher mixed in with a vigilante flick, with a dash of post-Vietnam exploitation thrown in for good measure. This crazy mish-mash of styles is one of the things that makes Delirium interesting.

The story revolves around a secret group of Vietnam vets who are hired by businessmen to administer extreme justice to criminals who escape the law. One of the group goes on a serial killing rampage murdering a series of young women.

It isn't really very surprising that this one made the video nasty list. It's not exactly overly graphically violent but it has a pretty clear streak of misogyny running through it. The killer essentially goes around killing young hot women in some scenes that are pretty lurid. It does have to be said though that the psychopath is killed off a little too early, seeing as he is probably the most interesting part of the story. The vigilante side of the narrative makes up the rest of the movie. The head honcho turns out to be that bald man from the video cover I saw all those years ago. Quite bizarrely, the most disturbing moment from the scenes involving this underground group is scored by the soundtrack to the quiz show Mastermind. You can't help but expect Magnus Magnusson to pop around the corner and say 'your specialist subject is vigilante justice and misogynistic violence'. But of course he does not and it remains a deeply strange viewing experience for audiences from the UK to witness.

This isn't a movie with a very good reputation. Admittedly it's technically raw and clunky. But it's also kind of unusual and agreeably sleazy. It's pretty entertaining all things considered.

A secret society of vigilante businessmen hire ex-military man Eric Stem (Barron Winchester) to bring justice to criminals who have been set free thanks to loopholes in the law. When one of Stern's men, an impotent Vietnam veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress, flips out and begins to murder innocent people (primarily attractive, semi-naked or completely naked young women), the group's illicit activities attract the unwanted attention of the police.

Boasting a volatile combination of vigilantism and misogynistic violence, it's not surprising that director Peter Maris's Delirium (AKA Psycho Puppet) was given a hard time during the Video Nasty era; in these more tolerant, less Draconian days, however, the film's insalubrious content—some graphic gore and gratuitous female nudity—is unlikely to be an issue with any but the most joyless of fascist zealots, people who thankfully no longer wield the social clout that they used to.

If anything, the one element that is most likely to raise an eyebrow (in the UK, at least) is the film's strange use of BBC's 'Mastermind' theme music during its most dramatic moments; it's hard to take matters seriously when it sounds as though Magnus Magnusson might pop up at any moment to put the film's characters through a gruelling two minutes of quick-fire questions on their specialist subject.

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for the brief but impressive spear through the chest, all the unnecessary but very welcome nekkidness, and the juicy war wounds in the Vietnam flashbacks.

Man, you gotta love the swinging 70's! The villain of this movie goes to a "job interview" and manages (despite being very creepy-looking and apparently mute) to pick up a secretary, who takes him back to her place for sex, but after he proves impotent he stabs her to death. He then steals a car and picks up a leggy, hot-pants clad female hitch-hiker, but even after he nearly kills them both driving like a maniac, they still end up going skinny-dipping together and he strangles her in the surf. He next meets a young farm girl, but even though he is trespassing on her property, she is more interested in flirting with him than calling the police, and she gets a pitchfork in the neck for her troubles. Then he actually goes into a house where a woman is taking a bath, and he probably would have done great with her too, but he kind of blows it by taking a butcher knife to her delivery boy. The investigating officer meanwhile seems far more interested in making dates with the pretty roommate of the first victim than he is in solving the case. Fortunately, the girl whose case he IS trying to crack is still working as a secretary at the office where the killer had his "interview" and she stumbles upon a connection between this out-of-control "psycho puppet", her boss, and shadowy organization of Vietnam vet vigilantes who may be behind the mysterious "suicides" of a number of criminals who had gotten off on technicalities--at which point this movies turns from a cheap "Halloween" knock-off to something that anticipates the later (and much better) Michael Douglas film "The Star Chamber".

This is one of the movies that was banned in Britain in the 1980's as a "video nasty", but was so unremarkable in its native America that it is virtually forgotten today (and not even available on DVD). I'm not sure exactly sure what about this upset the Brits. There's some gore effects, but they're not that impressive. There is a lot of nudity, and the mixture of nudity and violence often got the hackles of the British censors up. This movie is also kind of misogynistic in that ALL the women are pretty much brain-dead and about as sexually discriminating as rabid alley cats in heat. (I especially like the first victim who is "going to tell everybody" that a guy she just met hours earlier and doesn't know from Adam "can't get it up"). But frankly its notoriety on the other side of the pond really gives this movie a lot more credit than it probably deserves.

More than the earlier "Halloween" or the later "The Star Chamber" this really reminded me of another late 70's film called "Killer's Delight" (aka "The Dark Ride"). That, however, is a much better movie, and it IS available on DVD, so if you're thinking about watching this, see that one instead. This is kind of "nasty" I guess, but mostly it's pretty forgettable.

Delirium starts off with an impotent Vietnam veteran called Charlie going on a murder spree, killing mainly young women. Just to keep the viewer interested two victims happen to be naked. But then the plot goes from horror/slasher to a thriller about a secret group of businessmen who carry out vigilante murders. Charlie had been part of this group but has gone off the rails. The police investigation takes up much of the running time and it does slow the movie down quite a lot, not helped by having a cast of mainly bad actors. The movie features a number of Vietnam flashbacks, they are ether obviously not filmed in Asia or stock footage is used. Combat Shock (1984) meets a gone wrong The Exterminator (1980). The body count is sufficient, some of the kills are fairly brutal but none are exceptionally gory. Delirium found itself banned in the UK as a Video Nasty, thankfully it is now available uncut and on Blu-ray. I would have rated it 5/10 but have scored it an extra point due to the inclusion of a track called Approaching Menace on the soundtrack, viewers in the UK should instantly recognise it as the theme tune to BBC's quiz show "Mastermind". I found this rather amusing. Shot on 16mm but blown up to 35mm Delirium is a low budget trash movie, if that's your thing or if you are interested in Video Nasties then I would recommend it, otherwise give it a miss.