User reviews

I had always heard about Scalps as people say it's Fred Olen Ray's best horror flick. Well if this is his best, I'd hate to see the rest! The film starts off a little dull, but starts to get better as the group make their way into the mountains. The atmosphere is quite creepy in a low-budget kind of way and reminded me slightly of The Evil Dead, plus the location is similar to The Hills Have Eyes. I love the shot of the rotting skeleton when the car goes past, but no one sees it.

Once they have set up camp, the group hear mysterious drumming, see strange faces in campfires, and so on. There are some hilarious lines such as "I broke a fingernail!", and also when the girl says that the drumming is coming from hell. The scalping scene is probably the highlight of the film, and is brilliantly done - it really surprised me. When the girls throat is cut, she writhes around in agony and it looks realistic. Also the part where he removes her scalp is really cool. There's another good gore scene when a mans head is chopped off, but it's not quite as impressive.

Overall, Scalps is worth a watch if you can tolerate low budget horror. It's nothing amazing, but does have a low budget charm about it.

If you want a fine example of 'bare bones (horror) film-making', "Scalps" is just as fine as any example. Not that it's a fine film, mind you. Everything about it, is rudimentary. Like if it was made by a brute. It looks like the editing was done with an axe, first having the film chopped to pieces and then glued together with Pattex super-glue. The camera work is limited to pointing it where the actor is when he speaks his lines (or when he does something). The audio work was limited to making sure it was at least recorded. This makes up for background noises being very inconsistent during simple conversations, when the camera switches angles. In an attempt to cover up the sloppy sound, you get many scenes where the musical score continues to play throughout several scenes where it doesn't even belong. While this becomes ridiculous too often, the score itself does have its moments. It's minimalistic and electronic, and at times manages to enhance the desert landscapes with an ominous atmosphere.

Essentially, "Scalps" plays out like mixing an ordinary slasher flick with an "Evil Dead"-ish 'vengeful spirits'-theme, set in a desert à la "The Hills Have Eyes" (at one point it even seems Fred copied the exact same 'passing through a tunnel with a car'-scene from the first "Evil Dead"). A group of young archaeologists set out to excavate an Indian burial ground. We all know you should stay away from such sites when you're starring in a horror movie. One directed by Fred Olen Ray, no less, so thankfully that also means naked boobs and gore... The boobs at display are fine, the attempted rape-scene too (yes, the spirits they awaken are not only angry, but also horny). The gore at display, while being raw and not of a high technical standard, is pretty cool too (heads being decapitated & scalped, throats being cut,...). It's bloody but very basic, yet not without charm. You can include not-so-effective 'possessed' make-up effects in the gamma, and one, incredibly puzzling appearance of a ghostly demon dude with an animatronic lion's head. A great source of incomprehensible laughter, but afterwards I learned that this was test-footage Fred never intended to edit into the movie. His producers decided otherwise. Another highlight in the SFX department is the exploding ghostly Indian head. Its evil, floating influence is felt & seen numerous times throughout the movie (not sure if that was intended either), but at one point it makes the stupid mistake to appear amidst a crispy campfire. Boom! Bye bye, ghostly Indian head. Good stuff.

The film's pace is pretty damn slow; obviously, as we're dealing with an early 80's slasher here. The performances aren't very convincing, as to be expected, but the young cast does manage to say things with a straight face. And that in itself is an accomplishment, as most of the dialogues are clichéd-driven, moronic drap. However, one girl manages to utter the most memorable line from the whole film: "Defiling the graves of the dead will only anger their souls!". Upon hearing it, it spontaneously evokes the viewer's urge to repeat it with a more firm, low-pitched, threatening voice. And so we did. Hilarity ensued.

I think that sums up about everything there is to say about Fred Olen Ray's "Scalps". He does try to make a serious-toned supernatural slasher, but delivers an inept piece of bare bones film-making. It's notable for the rudimentary gore effects and the occasionally atmospheric soundtrack. But, as so it goes with most of his other 80's horror/sci-fi outings, it's advisable to watch it with friends. That way you can have more fun with the 'bad movie qualities' it has. Make this film better, and share the laughter. And then go right ahead and watch his honest-to-god "Alien" cash-in "Deep Space" too. By then (1988), Fred had already learned to pick up the pace of a film, understood that his films needed more slimy tentacles & grotesque monster action and very well gained the budgetary means to hire The Great Charles Napier ("I've got a mouth that can open sideways too!") to spear-head the cast. It's the one film that proudly managed to put him on my B-movie map in my early days. If you really need to see one Fred Olen Ray film, then watch "Deep Space".

Six young archeologists set off to the desert to find sacred Indian artifacts. One of the six becomes the spiritual embodiment of the infamous Black Claw and begins to murder(including scalping one) his friends. Though warned by an old Indian that shakes a lot, these kids cannot be stopped in their desire to drive down the road of motion picture obscurity. This film has next to no budget which compliments its acting, directorial, and other creative talents. Director Fred Olen Ray directed this early work, and although the film has so many problems, one can appreciate Ray's appreciation of the classic horror tradition. He gives meaningless roles to the serial Superman Kirk Alyn as a befuddled professor who sees the POINT-lessness of digging up sacred Native American artifacts in the end, a brief and purposeless cameo to Mr. Sci-fi himself, Forry Ackerman, and a small role to Carroll Borland from Mark of the Vampire fame. The six stars(being very judicious with that appellation)appear to be right out of a high school play. The only plusses any of them have is that the ladies, especially the gal playing Ellen Corman, have wonderful visual assets. The special effects are a big joke as nothing looks real or scary in any way. A puppet is occasionally popping up here and there to show us the disembodied spirit of Black Claw. Night and day readily change. One moment the players are at a campfire in blackness, another moment on a rock as the sun falls, and then back to the darkness all in the same evening. Black Claw is one hell of an Indian if he can manipulate time and space to make that happen! This film falls in the so bad it's entertaining category. I wasn't scalped after seeing it, but I probably lost a few more hairs!

I'm not trying to be a dick, but I have no idea why I've seen so many good reviews of this retarded film. There is really almost NOTHING going for it. I saw a few people post about the "soundtrack"...It's the same damn music looped over, and over, and over, and over (get the point?) for the first 30 minutes of the film. It actually becomes comical at one point - then it becomes really annoying. SCALPS isn't even in the "So Bad It's Good" category...It belongs in the same category as LUCKER: THE NECROPHAGOUS as an "It's So Boring I'm Half-Asleep" film. I'm not gonna spend too much time on this mess of a film...so here goes...

A bunch of dumbass's dig around on some Indian land - a bunch of boring stuff happens, then there are a few decent kill scenes. THE END...

I like schlock and goofy films, but I don't think anything happened of any interest in the first fifty minutes of this film. No, I take that back, there's some weird guy in a lion (tiger, leopard, whatever...) outfit that I never really understood in the beginning, and some old guy cuts his own throat with a knife because he's "possessed" or some such sh!t...after that you have a bunch of boring nonsense about guys with bad beards and girls with bad hair hanging out in the desert somewhere. When things FINALLY start to happen, there are actually 2 or 3 "decent" (and by decent, I mean there's at least some blood, and an above-average throat-slashing...)kill scenes, and I think all of one set of tits in a scene that is so dark, that even if they DO look good, you can barely see them. This one was just way too dull for my taste and can only recommend this to real Z-grade schlock fans or people that might wanna pull a MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000-style commentary through the film. 3/10

When you see the name Forrest J Ackerman and Fred Olen ray then you know that you are in the Drive-in atmosphere. And let me say, that's exactly what we are looking at. It's made in the middle of the slasher heydays but it isn't really a slasher. Why Fred gives away the decapitation in the beginning is still an unsolved question because it almost the best part of this flick. What's weirder is the fact that before the begin credits you have only a score combined with the images. Once they start talking you're in for bad sound and bad editing. Some parts were filmed without extra light which gives you too dark images. Some parts of this flick is filmed on bad reel, other parts are better, it's just like they used different reels to add it on the DVD. The effects are sometimes ridiculous like the pop up of the Indian ghost with white eyes but others are done well. The scalping is done really good and the beheading is also okay. But overall you have to take a lot of talking before the movie really starts going. It reminded me a bit of the story of Evil Dead, here they use some Indian sticks to wake up old spirits and they get possessed by them killing their friends. This is a pure example of what Drive-in is all about. It's watchable still today if you're looking for old horrors but don't expect too much of it.

This movie does have some lighting problems and editing probs, but it is still a great horror movie. Anyone that is a true genre fan should see this movie. It really does have a nice creepy atmosphere and who cares if the make up and effects aren't up to Hollywood standards, this is true 80's horror. The acting is great, the music is great, there is some great gore scenes and a very convincing rape scene. I dont know why this movie has such a low rating, this movie is definately worth the price of the rental and the time to watch it. SEEK IT OUT!!!!!!!!

"Scalps" is a bloody Native American slasher with a nice supernatural angle.Six archeology students head to the desert to search for Native American artifacts.Despite the warnings of DJ,the students disturb the ancient Indian burial ground and unleash the vengeful spirit of Black Claw.After possessing Randy,Black Claw hunts down the others with an arsenal of stone-age weapons.Despite its crude cinematography and editing "Scalps" is an overlooked slasher with some nasty bits of gore.The throat slashing and scalping sequence truly made me squirm in my seat.A combination of desert landscapes and sinister soundtrack gives "Scalps" a raw and nihilistic atmosphere of fear and despair.Unofficial sequel "Demon Warrior" was made in 1988.

A group of college archaeologist students travel into the California desert to dig up Native American artifacts. Despite the warnings of town drunk Billy Ironwing, the group trespasses into a burial ground and accidentally unleashes the spirit of Indian shaman Black Claw, who possesses one of them and begins killing. I've had this Fred Olen Ray horror flick for over a decade, but never watched it until last night. It is certainly limited, but good fun thanks to some gory special effects (including a scalping that rivals MANIAC) and some goofy stuff (why is the shaman shown wearing jeans in the early bits). Fred certainly got better technically over time, but this still proves to be better than the stuff he is cranking out now (those horrible BIKINI T&A movies). The final credit promises a SCALPS II: THE RETURN OF D.J., but we never got it. C'mon, Fred, don't let us down! We need that before you stop making films.

This is not a high calibre Slasher movie by any means, it's a very cheesy movie that tries its best to compete with some of the better horror movies of its time, but falls quite flat due to its tedious padded out pacing & questionable acting, that's poor even by this genre's standards, yet quite amusing at the same time with almost no conversation between these actors coming across at all natural, but the characters are quite likeable & a bit more fleshed out than being the usual cannon fodder.

The plot is pretty basic - a group of college kids go out to the desert to dig for ancient Indian artifacts deep in the desert mountains. But before long one of them becomes possessed by an evil spirit and starts picking off the teens one by one.

Yet there is a certain charm to the whole thing that does boast a decent yet eerie atmosphere, thanks to its setting in the desert with a very amateur guerrilla style filmmaking vibe to this movie and sometimes that can work & in this case, it kinda does, despite its shortcomings. Also the splatter & gore during its final third was worth the sluggish pace (almost).

Overall this is not that great of a movie & I really wanted to like this more, with its strange editing choices & boring pace, it does pay off towards the end, you just need patience to get there.

The best way to describe Scalps is as a missed opportunity. The premise is scary enough. College kids go to remote desert location to look for indian artifacts, come under attack from evil black magic and strange creatures(who are not explained in any way) and an evil indian sorceror.

This movie is utter pants. All the scenes shot at night are virtually impossible to watch, you literally cannot see anything, and the sound quality is very poor. It could be argued that this is just my copy of the movie, but then how do you explain the totally incoherent narrative? It makes no sense whatsoever. Where did the monsters come from? Why are they attacking the kids? Why did the people in town know about this if no one returns alive?

At the end of the day I think that this makes the film virtually unwatchable, and not endearing like The Beyond of Lost highway as the questions raised by those films are not suppossed to be answered.

A fairly predictable and grisly horror film about a group of young archeologists excavating forbidden Indian land. Poor film quality and plot line, but what you would expect from an 80s b-flick.

You know, whatever. Fred Olen Ray has built an industry around his name based on bringing what he contends are awful films to the masses, reveling in the awfulness like a Smart Aleck kid who's snickering at some private joke -- If we don't get it that's because we aren't hip enough, an attitude that makes my liver twitch. I have never been in on the joke: Horror movies are inherently ridiculous to begin with ("The Satanic Rites of Dracula", anyone??) so the idea of deliberately starting out to make something silly and have it masquerade as a horror film misses the point.

This one isn't *THAT* bad, an exercise in Injun Horror telling the tale of a group of rather dis-likable idiots who go dig up forbidden tribal burial grounds at the behest of a wayward Professor without really even thinking twice about it. If you ask me, they got what they had coming to them, so the film is just a Freak Show where one is waiting to see how horribly & graphically the dimwits would be killed. And of course whether or not the girls would remove their shirts, which they do but not for very long. As for the censoring mentioned by other viewers, well, by 2005 we've seen girls without skin peeling their eyeballs off. Watching one of them have a fake skullcap sliced from her noggin may have been a huge deal to home video companies in 1985, but now is about as revolting as seeing an Alien pop out of some guy's stomach. Been there/done that.

Everyone knows how the plot goes: You just don't disturb burial grounds in general no matter what ideology or cultural background the dead people may have subscribed to, or you DIE. On that consideration the film delivers. But what I found interesting about this film was it's pre-political correctness sensibilities. It's an exploitation film, using the idea of a savage Injun warrior's long dead soul possessing the body of a dork who then goes on a killing rampage to avenge the desecration. For that matter it could have been the long dead soul of an insurance claims adjuster or maybe a nuclear arms inspector. That Mr. Ray chose to base the films on Injun hokum shows the distanced sensibilities of 1982 when nobody thought twice about making light of Native American cultures & using their traditions as the basis for entertainment. There is one really super cool shot in the film where the killer pops up from behind a truck to smack one of the guys upside the head, but if you think about the underlying racism of the image it sort of spoils the fun. If the whole movie wasn't so stupid it would be offensive.

What I really object to about the film, though, is it's attitude. The low budget is no excuse: This film has the cultural sensitivity of a Three Stooges short, using stuff like tomahawks, freaky Injun chanting ceremonies and the atrocity of scalping for plot points. I might cut Fred some slack if he didn't seem so pleased with his results and content to let low budget considerations make excuse for the fact that this movie has about seven brain cells in it's head. A fellow commenter stated that it would be nifty to remake this film for the iPod generation and I contend that you can't. At least not without adding positive Native American characters and helping the viewers understand why digging up their burial grounds is a bad idea. If they lack the basic human decency to know that instinctively we cannot help them. But these days you have to explain everything since kids are on the cell phones all day at school and don't learn anything like that on purpose. Most of them, anyway.

But there is a better example of the whole Injun Horror sub-genre made at about the same time & for as little money and less fuss: A film called GHOST DANCE from 1984 which is just as gory & horrifying but never feels exploitational, cheap or slack jawed for one second. It explores the Native American customs and traditions from which it gets the thrills & chills, and managed to do so without one goggle eyed rubber masked paleface made up to look like a totem pole & waving a tomahawk. C'mon ...

3/10

A professor of archaeology (played by '40s Superman star Kirk Alyn, in his last ever screen appearance) sends six of his college students on a field trip to the desert where they desecrate an ancient native American burial ground, much to the annoyance of an ugly Indian spirit called Black Claw, who possesses one of the group and proceeds to kill off the rest.

Director Fred Olen Ray blames the distributors for ruining Scalps by messing around with the editing; but even if this wasn't the case, I still very much doubt that the film would have been much cop, given its predictable plot, lousy pacing, lack of scares, and crappy performances from a cast of nobodies (apart from Alyn, the only other recognisable name is renowned monster movie aficionado Forrest J. Ackerman, who is clearly there to plug his latest book, Mr Monster's Movie Gold).

A few semi-decent gore effects—including a slashed throat, a grisly scalping, and a juicy decapitation—make the second half of the film marginally more interesting than the uneventful first half.

3.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 4 for IMDb thanks to the hilariously bad animatronic lion-man, which was apparently one of the things added by the distributors against Olen Ray's wishes.

So, it's about six people where they go to the Californian wasteland to dig up around in an Indian burial ground for artifacts, and then they unleash the evil spirit. The spirit possesses one of the group and begins slaughtering them one by one. The plot sounds similar to The Evil Dead, right? It also reminded me on The Hills Have Eyes because of the location. Since The Evil Dead is successful low-budget horror film and well done, but is Scalps also good? No, it's not at all! It has a bad editing, ugly cinematography, terrible makeup, bad acting and ridiculously bad dialogues and lines. I didn't care for any character, they weren't memorable. I liked the ending though, it was a bit creepy. The plot is interesting, but this movie could have been MUCH better.

I'm fine with it that it's really a bad movie, but it's somehow enjoyable and I could give it a 5/10, but it's way slow for filming while driving etc., so I gave it a 4/10.

Still I have yet to see a Fred Olen Ray movie that is half decent. In this movie only its second half is somewhat half decent but as a whole this still remains a quite bad and really poorly done film.

Fred Olen Ray just can't direct. He has no talent for it and his movie are just always a mess. His movies are just so bad, that they aren't even funny or enjoyable to watch and I'm used to seeing some very bad movies, so you can take my word for it.

But having said that, this was probably the first Fred Olen Ray that I didn't hate to watch. It's first half is still absolutely horrible but the movie somewhat redeems itself with its second half, in which finally some stuff is happening.

That is really the biggest problem. For the longest time there isn't happening anything. It's some bad build up, that in fact is only just some time filler, or else the movie would had even been a whole lot shorter than its mere 80 minutes of running time. Besides, it's all done so very bad, with some bad acting, horrible editing and silly characters and dialog, that also just aren't very interesting, combined all with the clueless directing by Fred Olen Ray.

But once the action and horror kicks in, the movie becomes a far more pleasant one. Some moments and its concept does actually work out quite well. It makes it obvious that this could had been a somewhat decent horror flick, with perhaps some more money and some more talent involved. A slasher featuring some Indian ghost. Now doesn't that just sound like a potentially good and interesting concept for a genre movie like this one? Unfortunately the execution of it all is really lacking, as a whole.

I didn't hated it but it's still some bad stuff all.

4/10

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Digging the pile of low budget horror, I happened to find this piece of pure gold that shines even today. I knew Fred Olen Ray for an actor but with this one, Ray totally grabbed me in. I now salute him for his directorial abilities that gave us this masterpiece. The year is 1983 and like many others who praise the glory of the golden age of untamed slashers, most precisely the early 80s, I am going to sing my praises for 'Scalps'. Despite being a B flick, 'Scalps' is heavy on atmosphere and gore. The atmosphere is creepy and the nostalgic tune that plays during the run time is fairly engaging and makes one feel desolate. It goes along seamlessly with the striking visuals of the desert. People will say that deserts offer no scope for the urban horror where we usually have a killer who wears a mean nifty hat, muffler and a drenched raincoat, murdering the hapless victims to secure their body parts as the trophies of victory. NO! This one is surely different and a twist of supernatural combined with some good locations and a fully functional storyline make 'Scalps' unique among the other entries. The director drags us to the desert locale and shows the enormous amount of horror that is trapped there. Analyze 'Scalps' in the light of Wes Craven's classic 'The Hills Have Eyes' or Alexander Aja's remake of the same film, and you'll certainly understand my point. Deserts are cruel locations and those who have been pampered in the cities will have to learn to live again from the very scratch. Well here our actors aren't just freaked out by the tortures of nature, there is 'something' very strange in the air that's manipulating some of them to murder others and that 'something' doesn't just cease to exist as it has remained there for more than a century.

'Scalps' begins with an old man with a shovel heading towards the Californian desert. Perhaps a gold digger, the old man falls prey to a possessed Indian artifact that somehow kills him. Now there is a team of 6 archaeologists. They decide to go to the Californian wasteland to dig up a few Indian artifacts. The project guide and museum curator Professor Machen (Kirk Alyn) is assigned a task to submit the inventory of historical artifacts he has in his museum and fails to join the others. As the Californian law prohibits the archaeologists to dig anything from an ancient Indian burial ground (aboriginal heritage), Machen asks the team members to dig the area secretively without letting anyone know. He also advises them to tell others that they are officially going on a field trip. Now a nostalgic and disturbing tune begins to play as we find the team members looking out at the silent dark brown hills that hold a sinister enigma within. We come across some striking visuals from the desert. The wasteland is vast and spooky, the hills seem to be looking at the unfortunate victims-to-be and the vegetation speaks a lot about its lowly and mean nature that doesn't have anything to offer to the detoured individuals. The members embark onto their journey and finally reach near the burial ground. One of the team members DJ (Jo-Ann Robinson) receives a psychic vision and tells her mates that they are in great danger. She tells them that they are in the domain of Black Claw, the infamous native Indian black magician who was buried there a century ago. She further tells that by digging the burial grounds, the team has earned the wrath and curse of Black Claw. Unable to deduce her visions, the others take her for a daydreamer. Unfortunately the mystery deepens for everyone when they hear drums playing several feet under the ground. They also hear tribal ceremonial music and vocals. A team member Randy (Richard Hench) along with his girlfriend decides to find the source of music and gets closer to the burial ground where he and his girlfriend witness a ceremonial fire that has no heat. The ceremonial fire belongs to the Black Claw, who possesses Randy. Randy goes on a killing spree and begins to murder the other team members with neolithic tools. How the others race against time to save their necks forms the rest of the story.

'Scalps' has ample gore and a few squirmy murder scenes, so it may be a fortune cookie for the gore freaks. The murder scenes are disturbing and dark. Some of the scenes are shot in dark but that's the point Ray wants to make. They couldn't have brought the dark and abysmal side of the desert (both natural and supernatural) so brilliantly If they had used artificial lighting. 'Scalps' is interesting and has some amount of hypnotic quality as well. 'Scalps' has a genuinely creepy and hypnotic score that will live with you for a very long time. Also the tribal music that plays near the burial ground is hypnotic. The visuals are such that they would throw you in the early 80s and you'll be forced to recall those olden days when things used to be so raw, natural and wild. The only drawback here is the editing. Viewers may find it difficult to understand why the day randomly switches to morning, evening and night. Overall 'Scalps' has a strong message behind it. It simply negates the concept of 'The White Man's Burden' showing that there is still something far more advanced than the White Men or the civilized world has ever witnessed. 'Scalps' has impressed me every time I have watched it, so I give it 8/10 for the horror, gore, atmosphere, dark humor and plot.

Another vengeful Native American possession flick (no, not a slasher flick) from the early eighties. This time it's a group of students off to excavate a Native Indian burial ground. Not a good idea in any film.

Scalps has it all, bad acting, bad dialogue, bad editing, a soundtrack that ranges from effective subtle creepiness, to being downright annoying. It's as if the producers gave someone a synthesizer and a four track recorder and said "okay, go nuts on my film!". Most of the actors look like they just finished filming shampoo commercials, their hair SO perfectly not sun-damaged for being in the desert days at a time. One of the actors' hair actually gets a stylist shout-out at the end of the film! Probably the only redeeming aspect of the film is the gore, which is pretty above b-movie grade. The film starts with a decapitation(!), with quick shots of a monstrous Native Indian face, (these badly edited cuts continue throughout) which will figure prominently in the latter part of the film. Again, this film is far from good, but it does have an odd watchability about it.

Let's hope there's not a sequel...