My review was written in June 1988 after watching the film on Republic Pictures video cassette.
A direct-to-video feature film, "Dead Man Walking" is a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi adventure that lays on the satire a bit much. It marks the mainstream film debut for filmmakers Gregory Brown and Walter Gernert, previously working in documentaries and as The Dark Brothers in the Adult film and video field.
Story is set in 2004, ten years after a plague virus annihilates half the U. S. population. (Repeated references make it clear that the AIDS epidemic is being treated metaphorically here.) Wings Hauser, well cast, starts as devil-may-care John Luger, one of the zero men, who has only one or two years left to live due to the plague.
He is hired by Chaz (Jeffrey Combs, star of "Re-Animator") to trek after a trio of nutty prison escapees (Brion James with orange hair, Sy Richardson and Joseph d'Angelo) who have kidnapped young Lelia (Pamela Ludwig), daughter of Chaz' boss. Enemy of the piece is the new world power Unitus, which is working on creating housing projects in which to quarantine the contaminated people.
Scripters John Weidner and Rick Marx have trouble keeping the pot boiling in the film's road movie format that features too many confrontations, but satirical dialog (often delivered in the form of update tv newscasts) is effective. Acting, especially by Hauser and James, is fine. Rushed happy ending, which phones in Hauser's fate, does not satisfy.
A direct-to-video feature film, "Dead Man Walking" is a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi adventure that lays on the satire a bit much. It marks the mainstream film debut for filmmakers Gregory Brown and Walter Gernert, previously working in documentaries and as The Dark Brothers in the Adult film and video field.
Story is set in 2004, ten years after a plague virus annihilates half the U. S. population. (Repeated references make it clear that the AIDS epidemic is being treated metaphorically here.) Wings Hauser, well cast, starts as devil-may-care John Luger, one of the zero men, who has only one or two years left to live due to the plague.
He is hired by Chaz (Jeffrey Combs, star of "Re-Animator") to trek after a trio of nutty prison escapees (Brion James with orange hair, Sy Richardson and Joseph d'Angelo) who have kidnapped young Lelia (Pamela Ludwig), daughter of Chaz' boss. Enemy of the piece is the new world power Unitus, which is working on creating housing projects in which to quarantine the contaminated people.
Scripters John Weidner and Rick Marx have trouble keeping the pot boiling in the film's road movie format that features too many confrontations, but satirical dialog (often delivered in the form of update tv newscasts) is effective. Acting, especially by Hauser and James, is fine. Rushed happy ending, which phones in Hauser's fate, does not satisfy.