Scalps

Scalps (1983)

Well this is a strange little movie that I guess is kind of a slasher movie combined with a really crappy ghost story. The movie follows a group of college students that head out into the desert to illegally collect Indian artifacts. They stumble on into the wrong area and stir up the spirit of an angry Indian shaman/warrior named Black Claw. He possesses one of them and goes on a killing spree, after of course sabotaging their van so they can’t leave. The movie finishes up with a very predictable and silly ending involving yet another possession.

Scalps isn’t a very good movie at all. The movie starts off pretty cool with a killing right away, but then it slows down to a crawl. It takes far too long getting the college students to the desert and in harms way. What passes for character development is boring and senseless. There are a couple of sections of the movie that seem to only exist to get Forrest Ackerman a chance at a cameo. Just in case you weren’t aware that it was a cameo one of the characters comments on the monster themed book he is carrying telling him something like, “those things will rot your mind.” Ha-ha that was freaking hilarious. As uninspired and inane as the plot and dialogue is the acting might even be worse. The cast stumbles thru some of their lines and god help them when they have to express some emotion. This is the only appearance that I can find for most of the cast, and the rest mostly just show up in a variety of director Fred Olen Ray’s other movies. Not too surprising.

So lets talk about some technical stuff. The movie uses a ton of day for night shots that look terrible. The filter or gel they used just didn’t cut it. Other scenes that they might have shot at night are so damn dark that it is almost impossible to see what is happening. The sound also leaves a bit to be desired with the dialogue distorted and way too loud in some scenes. While in others it is difficult to hear what is being said. If you can’t tell this was a very frustrating movie to watch. Most of the deaths are tame and off screen. There is a nifty gag in the beginning with an old man slitting his own throat, but then it goes downhill from there.

Director Fred Olen Ray hasn’t made the greatest movies that I’ve ever seen, but most of the time they have something going for them that makes watching them fun. Not here with Scalps, which is just a miserable experience. In fact the only reason that I’m giving it the 1 star that I plan on is because of the gag at the beginning and the fun, if not too obvious cameo with Forrest Ackerman. But please don’t take the 1 star as a recommendation that anyone ever sit thru this movie. Not recommended.

1 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer