Death Row Diner
This is a low low budget movie shot on videotape. Yes, there was a time in the 80s when it was thought by some that maybe with the advent of video, movies could be shot on a shoestring budget and people would accept the quality that video offered. They were wrong. You would think that the technology would now exist to be able to get film quality onto some kind of video tape or digital medium.
The video label for this movie is Camp Video, the company who released Fred Olen Ray's Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers on video, and that movie is mentioned in this movie a number of times. Here's the plot: back in the Hollywood heydays, the head of a big movie studio is put to death in the electric chair for a crime he didn't commit. The prison officials refused to give Otis his last meal, and he was extremely hungry. Now it is the present, and the granddaughter of the executed executive is acting in a cheap movie whose location is the very same prison where her grandfather was put to death. Yes, it's one of those shooting-a-movie-within-a-movie films. The executed grandfather comes back to life as a flesh eating zombie and starts killing and eating the crew on the movie shoot. All because he was hungry when he was put to death.
A lot of people probably wouldn't make it too far into this movie before they shut it off and cursed themselves for their poor selection at the video rental place. However, this movie has some things going for it. It stars Jay Richardson, who I think is hilarious, ad-libbing his way through the movie. The other star is Michelle Bauer. She doesn't just have a supporting role as some bimbette (a term actually used in this movie!) but is the actual costar. She is the lead actress in the movie that is being shot in the prison and is also the wife of Jay Richardson, the director of the movie shoot. Michelle and Jay don't get along, though, and Michelle can't keep her hands off some of the other actors in the movie. The back and forth between Jay and Michelle is a scream! Here's an example of one heated exchange:
MB: I'd like to see you finish this schlock movie without
your lead actress!
JR: Actress huh? Since when can your tits memorize lines, huh? That's the only talent that you have baby.
MB: That's right, and they're all mine. I'd like to see you try and sell any of these films without them! You're last movie without me died a pig's death!
Unfortunately, Michelle doesn't actually display those movie selling breasts, but she does wear some see-through lingerie and gets bound and gagged to a chair once. The banter between Jay and Michelle is well worth watching the movie for. There are many many really funny lines, like this one, which Michelle says amorously to an extra on the movie who is in zombie make-up: "There's something about a zombie that turns a woman's head."
I've always said that the main reason that I like Michelle Bauer so much is that it looks like she's having the time of her life. At the end of this movie, they show outtakes of the movie, and it shows a couple of times where someone says a line, or something happens, and she starts laughing uncontrollably, thus, proving my contention that she is having a great time. There are a number of movies that she is in where it looks like she's perpetually on the verge of busting out laughing. Most people wouldn't enjoy this purposefully campy movie, but I really enjoyed it, so I'll have to give it a 4.