Death Valley
**
The awkward discomfort that comes with stepdads and stepsons is here as expected while Hicks tries with all she can muster to help ease them into a proper relationship. LeMat and Hicks grew up together in Arizona; Hicks went to New York to see if a career might be possible, desiring to return, but not before a marriage to a professor fizzles and a child is born into this failure.
If I’m not mistaken, the first time I watched Death Valley was on TNT’s Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs. I watched it maybe a year or so ago, wasn’t that spellbound by it, but after watching A Christmas Story on Christmas Day, thought it would be fun to see a slasher flick with the kid prior to his success in the next film.
Stephen McHattie really looks fresh-faced, a handsome buck, quite a contrast to his gruff, roughly-hewn features of today—a fan of the actor, he sure seems to have lived quite a life over the years and they wear on his characters in today’s genre films.
Wilford Brimley is as likable as his Midwestern local rural characters often are, but his sheriff is an absolute numbskull who defies proper law enforcement etiquette, actually going to the possible accomplice of a serial killer to chat him up about a necklace found by Billingsley at the soon-abandoned and burned motor-home where the murders (in the film) took place. Brimley even tells McHattie that the boy found it, pretty much setting up the kid to be hunted and possibly killed. It’s a head scratcher because Brimley so obviously is a detriment to his investigation; he seems to show he knows who the killer is, yet throws caution to the wind to confront McHattie about it. McHattie is a waiter at some Death Valley restaurant; this is how he’s introduced. His necklace exactly like the one found at the motor home, Billingsley, LeMat, and Hicks stop off to get a bite to eat and just so happen to be served by McHattie. All of this nonsense is used as a story device to set the plot in motion and produce the required suspense, because in order for us to be under its grip, the child’s (and his mother/stepfather’s) life must in peril. This is what Death Valley goes for. Early on, Billingsley is in the motor home, investigating it, almost opening the door to the room holding the dead bodies, LeMat intruding upon him in the nick of time.
My major indifference towards Death Valley comes at its
sheer predictability. There’s no doubt the outcome. Because the film is so
entrenched in its plot about almost-certain-stepdad and stepson gradually
finding common ground and a growing friendship despite the typical road bumps—as
mom’s all smiles after being quite nervous on how her son would adapt to the
man in her life for a while—the idea that McHattie would be able to annihilate
the little chap and his family is hard to swallow. The result of McHattie’s
pursuit of the kid, his mom and LeMat trying to protect him, is never in
question.
While I did say that the film has little surprise, there’s a
twist involving “those no-good Patterson boys” which might be good for a slight
kick in the pants, but I have seen the *twins* device used so regularly in the
slasher genre that the shock of it is shopworn.
At its core, this is a battle of two films. The slasher film is an intruder on the family film. It feels weird when we see a guy groping/fondling a hot girl wearing one of those boobs-strap thingees—that is an accessory just, holding her rack in place but can easily be removed; in fact, I’d be concerned, if I was her, that an accident would pop those puppies out, with just a nice tug or pull, off this accessory would go—and then later little Billingsley and LeMat discuss (well, LeMat does the talking; in fact, LeMat is always doing the talking…) Hicks and a life as a family, hoping the prospects of a hospitable union can be in the works. The tug-of-war really, to me, is rather contributive to its unevenness. The finale just kind of lands with a thud, “The end.” The trio are all hugs, the killer vanquished, and the film never quite satisfying. I think as a piece of nostalgia, Death Valley will always have a place in the hearts of many. Since I didn’t grow up with it myself, it really never cast its spell. I just found it rather average except for a strong cast.
McHattie really equips himself well as the charismatic serial killer, even attempting to shoot Billingsley while fooling him into thinking he’s the character Black Bart in a faux saloon mimicking the Old West. Hicks, LeMat, and Billingsley come right out of a Hallmark movie. McHattie has a great scene where, after slitting the babysitter’s throat, he enters the hotel room of Billingsley, mocks the kid after little Peter barricades himself behind the locked bathroom door (he scratches his chin, listens to the ringing phone (LeMat calling out of worry), and calmly talks about the kid answering it). He’s a smooth operator who has the idiotic Brimley flying right into the spider web, taking out the portly sheriff because he knows too much. After tapping a bit he goes in depth on how he’ll take the bathroom door down, as if the host of a home improvement show; it’s this behavior, so evil he’d chat up a kid knowing the little tyke is scared for his life, that defines how McHattie can leave quite a disturbing mark within a rather unimpressive thriller. He takes a concoction of powders and perfumes into the face, thanks to a resourceful Billingsley, successfully cleans himself off, and without cracking from his resolve follows after the kid, not in too big a hurry, very reserved and in firm grasp of the task at hand.
Oh, and not to top himself with the bathroom door taunting bit, McHattie drives his car knowing Billingsley is hiding in the backseat, singing, his right hand draped over the seat, further poking fun at the kid while he quivers in fear. These are really good scenes, I have to say, that often almost counterbalance the family drama.
Just a mention, while there is some sliced-throat gore, the
film incorporates the “blood knife” gag which, because we have been privy to
how the movie-making magic special effects process works, isn’t as potent as it
might have been during its heyday. The film works in the convenient “overheard
conversation” bit where LeMat listens in on some hubbub between local barflies
who talk of five murders in two years, which motivates him into action, and, of
course, he will come to the rescue, Hicks by his side, momentarily subdued by
switchblade McHattie, eventually using a car to get the better of the killer.
Fun Stuff
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| I had one of these when I was a kid! |
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| Marquee sighting! |
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