Gunblast

Okay - I've seen some pretty bad euro imports 70's trash - But, this takes the cake. Released in the US on MOGUL VIDEO - Features a show stealing performance from Ruxen Meyer's super vixen Uschi Digard - Otherwise completely devoid of any drama or funny bmovie charm. Worthless! - The acting is not just awful - they're not even trying. Steve Millard the director actually managed to pop off a few of these films. Amazing considering how bad it is. A spurred lover hires and sleeps with a hit man hired to kill her exboyfriend. Takes place on the Texas Mexico border. For some reason every now and then they cut to a Border town sex show peep show place. This is were Uschi Digard shows off her talent. Right after that is when you turn it off.

"Gunblast" looked like a worthless piece of low-budget amateur trash straight from the moment I held the dusty old VHS-copy in my hands, but I picked it up anyway, because of the name of the writer/director. Nick Millard also made "Criminally Insane" (a.k.a. "Crazy Fat Ethel") a decade before this, and that just happens to be one of the most imaginative and bonkers amateur horror-video ever accomplished. Alas, "Gunblast" is everything that "Criminally Insane" is not: hopelessly boring, uninspired, bloodless, and insufferably bottom-of-the-barrel. After half an hour of pointless non-events, like a guy aimlessly wandering around in a studio, an idiotic gunfight, and Uschi playing with her muschi in a very unsexy way, I turned it off. Life is simply too short to waste any time on rubbish like this.

The plot focuses on Marland Proctor's Winchester; an ex cop hired by the mafia to find a maniac with a Mac 10 who keeps stealing their money. In an unconnected subplot, a young man learns how to cheat at craps.

This is one of Nick's best looking SOV film, as well as his best action film. The main issue is how random the plot is and how everything feels unconnected. There is a scene in which a stripper talks at someone with no sound at all, and it turns out our Mac 10 maniac was watching her! But with no cross cutting to him.

The sound is also bad and makes dialogue hard to hear. But for Millard afficianados, it's a must see.

"Gunblast" starts of with a big surprise. Rather than the usual librairy music, Nick Millard uses a flamenco soundtrack that's actually pleasant to listen to and even fits the overall tone and setting of the story. I'm assuming he paid the artist (Anita Sheer), which is quite unique. Millard doesn't want to pay anyone for anything. I've seen this man play two or three roles in several of his movies. Why pay your neighbour twenty bucks if you can just put on a hat or cover your face? Seeing Millard make an expense that wasn't absolutely necessary is intriguing, and it definitely adds to the movie's overall atmosphere.

I've stated many times before that I like how you always see the same people in every Nick Millard movie. Watching his movies in like going to a reunion, every time you wonder what everybody is up to and who has put on weight. Whenever I hear Albert Eskinazi's monotone delivery, I feel like I'm coming home. Now let me crap all over that and say the real star of this movie is someone I've never seen before. Geraldo (actor's name unknown, a common problem in Millard movies) steals every scene he's in. He just shows up randomly, taunts people in the most casual, suave way possible and then kills them. The bar scene with Millard himself (his only role, amazingly) is so pointless and so awesome. You're a God amongst men Geraldo, why haven't you done anything else?

Another staple of Nick Millard movies is the random stock footage from his own adult movies. I've got to say this is the lowpoint of "Gunblast". Our main guy (Marland Proctor) goes to a strip club and sees a performer that's laying down on the floor, looking very bored while fondling her breasts. Is she okay? Do we need to call an ambulance? Marland isn't into it either, probably because he's not in the same place. Hell, he's not even in the same decade for that matter. Later on we also see a stock footage woman apply make-up for what feels like seventeen hours. These cuts are just the worst, surely Millard had better footage than this laying around.

If you're wondering why I haven't talked much about the story: there isn't much of it really, even to Millard standards. A Mexican governor (Ray Myles, performing under the name 'Ramon Milas') is also a heroin smuggler, Marland and the lady from "Mac 10" try to rob and/or kill him. There's not much development, just a lot of driving, eating beans and looking at nudie magazines. Compared to his other action movies, there's a lot less going on. By the time the movie reaches its predictable conclusion, it's tough not to doze of. We needed way less filler and way more Geraldo.

P. S.: I've seen Albert Eskinazi in like fifteen movies, and this is the first one that actually mentions his name in the credits! Man, why does Millard hate making credits so damn much? Does that even cost anything?

Nick Millard made a few very watchable no-budget films during the 70s and 80s...this one, however, is just plain awful. From the looks of it, it was possibly an unfinished project, as the video release looks like a piecemeal of crude footage haphazardly scrapped together into something which somewhat resembles a movie. Story seems to have noir-ish aspirations, as a femme fatale non-extraordinaire lures an aging ex-con to Mexico to intercept a mega-volume heroin delivery. Sparks fly between the two, and a rather unappealing romance ensues. "Highlights" include some bloodless gun violence, and the laziest stripper on Earth who doesn't even stand up, reclining drowsily on some pillows and playing with her left boob for what feels like an hour.

This almost-non-movie is loaded with lengthy filler crap, like our lead man pacing pensively around his dingy flat, dubiously shaking his head, eating a can of Beanie-Weenie, and looking at a copy of Playboy. Equally irritating, a ceaseless barrage of badly recorded flamenco music which is often entirely inappropriate for the on screen action.

Technically deplorable exercise in tedium should be of no concern to anyone other than the most unyielding Uschi Digard fanatics.

1.5/10...may it linger in perpetual obscurity until the end of time.