Revisiting old films that you thought were average isn't necessarily a good thing. They sometimes get worse. Championed by the Fangoria camp (in Gorezone they labeled it "the scariest film since Texas CHAINSAW"
um, no), LUTHER THE GEEK inexplicably developed a cult following as an "intense" horror picture. Actually, it is just an average stalk and slash
uh, bite film that briefly sets itself aside from the pack by featuring a killer who clucks like a chicken. Yes, clucks like a chicken. To the filmmaker's credit, at least they didn't make the killer sound like a duck a la THE NEW YORK RIPPER. That would just be silly.
Narrative logic is completely abandoned in LUTHER THE GEEK. I'm not saying that slasher films are abound with reason, but at least in HALLOWEEN Michael Myers escaped. Luther is actually paroled after a lengthy scene where people argue he is reformed, even though he clucks like a chicken and has razor dentures (which he apparently fashioned in prison). It is the kind of film where a couple sees a bashed in door and the girl dismisses it by saying, "Oh, my mom must have forgotten her keys. She forgets a lot of things since my dad died." The kind of film where the hysterical mother runs into a cop looking for Luther and tells him, "The killer is in my house!" So what does he do? He grabs her and literally drags her back to the house and says, "Just show me where he is and I'll do the rest." Why not call back up?
It is too bad the film is filled with such horrible action and dialogue because the Luther character is actually pretty interesting. Most of the credit goes to Ed Terry, a dead ringer for Tom Noonan in MANHUNTER, who gives the clucking Luther a genuine air of menace. In the hands of a right director, LUTHER THE GEEK could be on the same level as SONNY BOY or SANTA SANGRE and be a true cinematic oddity. But Albright is not that director and merely places the fascinating character of Luther in tedious slasher trappings.
