Death Wish Club (1984) User Reviews

That Was an Odd One....

[CMRKeyboadist · 6/10 · 27 January 2007]

I first saw some footage of this movie through the Philip Yordan film Night Train to Terror. Night Train to Terror is an anthology of three short stories that are actually full length films, just trimmed down to fit in a short stories film. Death Wish Club is the second story in the movie and it caught my interest with the excessive amount of nudity and gore. So, I tracked an old VHS copy of the movie down and to my disappointment, much off what was shown in Night Train to Terror was cut out of the version I have, but, I was still left with a very bizarre movie.

The movie is about a woman named Gretta, a bizarre type of gal who is a porno actress and a nightclub musician. When she gets wrapped up with a nice college kid she introduces him to an underground club. A club of people that like to play many forms of Russian Roulette.

That is the basic story to the movie but there is so much more going on in this movie that the main storyline becomes secondary. Gretta has split personalities, one of which she thinks she is a fish... The whole death club is bizarre and is never fully explained as to why they are so suicidal. Matter of fact, this movie has more plot holes in it then I can count!

If you are into really weird type of character films this is one to check out. Kind of reminds me of a really drugged up version of a David Lynch film. 6/10

Death Wish Club

[Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki · 5/10 · 26 June 2013]

Like some other reviewers here, I too was first introduced to this little oddity as part of the trainwreck of an anthology, Night Train To Terror. Now, I've finally been able to watch the full length version of it, titled The Death Wish Club.

A hot little girl musician working at a carny is corrupted and turned into a porn star. A college pre-med student sees her flicks, meets her, bangs her, which angers her corrupter, who wants her all to himself. This leads to games comparable to Russian roulette, played at a "Death Club." One of the games has the participants sitting in desks that look like they were taken from my old junior high school, while they're shocked with electric charges, with the voltage gradually increased. The scene culminates with a Richard Pryor lookalike (named Prince Flubutu!) saying "Excuse me while I smoke", while smoke appears around him as he's electrocuted.

Some good sex scenes with Merideth Haze's character, including one surreal sequence of her completely nude, on a red swing, against a plan blue backdrop; another of her nude in the bathtub, playing with an oversized, plastic fish; and having sex with a guy in a gorilla costume. Each more puzzling than the previous.

When it is over with, you won't even care, or want to know, what it was about, you'll either be laughing at its incomprehensibility, or wanting to watch the surreal nudity again. It doesn't quite reach the same levels of madness and insanity as Night Train To Terror, but it is still worth a look for fans of awful cinema.

Weird and wonderful

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 16 October 2021]

Also known as The Dark Side to Love.

Also known as Gretta.

Also known as Erskine Caldwell's Gretta.

Also known as Carnival of Fools.

Also known as The Case of Gretta Connors, which is part of...Night Train to Terror.

Of the three stories within that film, The Nightmare Never Ends and this one were actually fully complete movies* that may be better in their chopped down form, but let me tell you, this movie is completely beyond insane for so many reasons that don't make it into Night Train.

It's also based on Erskine Caldwell's book Gretta, but when I say loosely, I mean loosely.

Pre-med student Glen Marshall falls for Gretta (Meridith Haze, who is great in this movie and I wished had done more than just this role) the first time that he sees her in an adult film. He starts to hunt her down, not knowing that she's a woman kept by George Youngmeyer**, her Hollywood producer sugar daddy pimp husband after he bought her back when she was selling popcorn at the carnival.

Well, Glen gets her. She thinks that she's a mermaid and won't leave the bathtub, so Youngmeyer asks Glen to visit, make love to her in front of him and then he's allowed to take her home.

But Glen gets more than he bargained for as Gretta is a sexual beast that is only happy when a man is making love to her. Otherwise, she's selling your TV set, bringing in a piano and parading in front of your mother naked. She is not the kind of girl you take home as they used to say. She's a fantasy woman for Glen but removed from the fantasy male gaze of pornography she remains the fantasy male gaze pornography object which is perfect in ten-minute onanistic blasts - pun intended - but potentially exhausting in real life.

Other than her sex addiction, Greta is only turned on by the adrenaline that comes from putting herself in near-death situations, along with a club of others who have survived death. This coterie has some real maniacs, including Federico Libuse, Contessa Pacelli and Prince Flubutu, who we are led to believe is Jimi Hendrix.

After surviving the deadly sting of a claymation Tanzanian winged beetle, Glen decides that no sex is worth all of this. He tries to get back with his normal former girl and back to his normal life but she tells him that there's no way that he can ever be free from Gretta.

I mean, Youngmeyer did warn him that Gretta lives "in the fourth dimension."

There's a new problem, though. Gretta has overdosed and Youngmeyer takes him to her funeral. Lost, he makes his way back to the club where he first saw her playing piano and it turns out that Gretta is still there, but now she has become a he, the piano playing noir tough guy Charlie White. She hasn't left the suicide club either, as now Glen has to survive a homemade electric chair and is forced at gunpoint to get in a sleeping bag and be in the path of a deadly multi-ton wrecking ball.

So can our protagonist get the man he's in love with to be the woman he's alternatively afraid of and sexually attracted to again? Will he have to break into her wedding The Graduate style and do some kung fu? Why is Gretta glad that Chopin is dead?

There's even an ending that speaks to Yordan's theories on love. Or whatever he saw it as.

Death Wish Club is an astounding piece of moviemaking. It's very David Lynch without trying to be, which is the best kind of film, a movie that's near occult-level weird because the people making it were all very damaged or just had no clue how humanity behaves because they came here from a parallel planet where this is how men meet women.

This is the kind of movie that I love.

*Scream Your Head Off was unfinished, but later was put together as Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars and man, it's crazy as it gets.

**I love the theory that The Bloody Pit of Horror advances that this character is pretty much writer Phillip Yordan, who may have never fallen out of love with Cat People actress Simone Simon and just treated the rest of his wives like Youngmeyer, who believes that "one-sided love is the only emotion." Yordan was quoted as saying that he married his first three wives "...and supported them in a lifestyle none of them experienced before they met me. That's all I had to offer." For more about Yordan, check out our piece on another of his absolutely bonkers films, Savage Journey.

Gruesome and original

[KHayes666 · 6/10 · 14 July 2005]

I first saw parts of this movie on the Night Train to Terror collection and this seemed to be the only one worth watching by itself. After I found the bootleg, Death Wish Club is truly bizarre but watchable.

A rich no goodnik named George Youngmeyer (J Martin Sellets) goes to a carnival and hits on a popcorn vendor named Gretta (Meredith Haze. George proceeds to put her in pornos. During a college re-union frat party, pre-med joe schmoe (Rick Barnes) named Glenn takes a liking to her and goes to meet with her. After he gets in her pants, soon George catches them and makes them join a secret society whose purpose is to put their lives on the line for the entertainment of the group.

The idea of a guy hitting on a carny is kind of weird but that was probably the most normal thing to happen the rest of the movie. Lola the drag queen gets beat up, Contessa gets a wrecking ball sinus infection and my favorite, a Jimi Hendrix lookalike fries (exscuse me while I smoke) I wish this movie actually came out for it wasn't that bad compared to other crap that came out during the time period.

6 out of 10

Curious regional feature

[PeterBradford · 7/10 · 9 June 2019]

I saw this under the title GRETTA as a DVD extra on the NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR disc. The feature-length GRETTA has a very different tone to it than the segment in NIGHT TRAIN. Meredeth Haze (in her only film credit) gives an incredible performance as Gretta. She's mesmerizing. It's easy to see why Glenn, played by Rick Barnes, is so taken by her. Barnes is a good actor, but 15 years too old for a part where he is referred to as a college boy. Worth seeing.

Wild girls walking down the street

[Count_Elvis_III · 8/10 · 9 June 2011]

As an avid fan of exploitation films I picked up Steven Thrower's "Nightmare USA" as soon as it came out. For those of you not in the know, "Nightmare USA" is THE book for American exploitation horror films made between 1970 and 1985 and is full of reviews and interviews highlighting many forgotten classics. As with any good film guide, "Nightmare USA" came complete with a checklist of all the films that the parameters of the book covers. And as a movie geek, I am going to try and watch ALL those films one day. I know I'm never going to do it, but it's been fun hunting down all these rare films. As I watch more and more of these films, the quality has begun to decline as I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel more and more. Still, occasionally a film does surprise you, like this number from 1983, "Death Wish Club". Now, this film is best known for being used a few years later in "Night Train to Terror", which I have yet to see, but I think it should be known in its own right. This film is a totally bizarre assault on sanity, so I don't want to spoil anything by trying and explain the plot, but let's just say that it you dig weird and offbeat films that often make very little sense, you'll dig this. In addition to its weirdness this film also contains some tasty nudity and some very cool scenes that involve a club for really sick people. Overall a solid and enjoyable offering, fans of oddball cinema will want to check it out. Now keep in mind its horror elements are very subdued, but the other elements work well, so it's actually not a big loss as long as you go into it knowing what to expect.

Great tongue in cheek

[norm-91 · 10/10 · 12 August 2005]

This film is acted and directed with just the right amount of tongue in cheek satire. I love watching it, especially the character of Mary Contrary. Paul Keefer, the actor playing this role stands out and really makes the film. A lot of films are just badly made and that is what makes them cult classics. However, this film is intentionally made to look and feel campy. John Carr does a terrific job of directing. However, the real star of the film, is (I hate to repeat myself) Paul Keefer as Mary Contrary. Every time he is in a scene, I just can't stop laughing. The one character that stands out however, like a sore thumb is William C Moore as Federico Lebuse. He tries too hard to act with a foreign accent and doesn't even come close to doing it with any type of ability. He isn't funny. He isn't clever. He isn't appealing. He just isn't an actor. In spite of his horrible job of acting and dragging the film down, it is a delightful film and a must see for anyone who appreciates fun comedy.

A Bizarre,Complex, and Strange Film

[chagood2001 · 10/10 · 28 December 2000]

From King of Kings writer Phillip Yordon comes this strange and Haunting film about a young girl(played in Superb Fashion by Merideth Haze) who becomes entangled with a handsome stranger, a bizarre "Death Club", and a strange millionaire who wants her only for himself. This film never got to play in theatres(it went straight to video in 1985.) Yet somehow it grows on you. if your a fan of Mr. Yordon's work I recommend Cataclysm,Scream Your Head Off,Bloody Wednsday, and the downright frightful Night Train To Terror. Maybe someday Anchor Bay will release all these titles on DVD as "The Phillip Yordon Collection". Until then give it another look.

Cramfabulant!

[Freebasedog · 10/10 · 4 December 2003]

This movie is such an amazing achievement that I am struggling with what to say about it. No review or plot summary can ever even touch on the layered brilliance of this holy grail. As you may notice, I have had to invent the word 'cramfabulant' just to attempt to describe the emotional cocktail in which I was bathing while watching this cramfabulant film. Don't believe the poor star rating, or anyone who tries to explain this complex display of cramfabulessance. It simply needs to be experienced. But if I had to best describe it without mentioning the insanely amazing story, it would be something like "Imagine David Lynch directing the script of a low I.Q. first time screenwriting mental patient while both of them abused unapproved prescription meds in a closed garage full of open paint cans."

An odd and interesting obscurity

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 20 November 2014]

Straight-laced pre-med student Glen Marshall (a solid and likable performance by Rick Barnes) gets in way over his head after he meets and falls for the kooky and uninhibited Greta (a delightfully brash and beguiling portrayal by fetching brunette Merideth Haze), a porn actress who also plays piano at a seedy nightclub. Glen finds himself drawn into a dangerous netherworld involving blue movies, multiple personalities, and a strange group of rich jaded folks who regularly engage in inventive variants on Russian roulette for sick kicks.

Director John Carr relates the compellingly bizarre story at a steady pace, presents a fascinating exploration of a freaky and seamy subculture, and tops everything off with amusing bits of quirky humor (the running gag about the voyeuristic elderly couple is a total hoot!). Philip Yordan's offbeat and original script makes a poignant point on the great lengths and risks one is willing to make to save someone that you love. This movie further benefits from a neat array of colorful idiosyncratic characters: J. Martin Sellers as decadent millionaire George Youngmeyer, Toni Covington as the wicked Contessa Pacelli, William Charles as the suavely sinister Federico Libuse, and Norm Keefer as fey homosexual Mary Contrary. Moreover, this picture's very strangeness gives it a singularly haunting and hypnotic quality. The sharp cinematography and Jaime Mendoza-Nava's melodic score are both up to snuff. Worth a watch for fans of outré fringe cinema fare.