Strike Me Deadly

Strike Me Deadly (1963)

** (out of 4)

Low-budget thriller has a man murdering someone in what appears to be cold blood. What he doesn't realize is that a local park ranger spotted the action so he must chase him down and try to kill the only witness. The man makes it back to his girlfriend's cabin but the killer bursts in on them and it becomes a hostage situation.

Ted V. Mikels made his directorial debut with this film and for the most part I'd probably call it his best looking movie. I say that because the director actually works quite well with the low-budget and makes the film seems like it was shot on something higher. Usually, with his low-budgets, you can tell that the film's lack much money but that's not really the case here.

The first twenty-minutes or so are certainly the highlight as we see the killer chasing the witness and there's some nice editing here that builds some good suspense. I'd also argue that the final fifteen-minutes were quite good as well. The problem is everything in the middle as we get a flashback that tells a subplot and this here got pretty boring pretty quickly.

I'd also say that the performances are rather weak and there's not enough going on during the middle section to really help the overall film. WIth that said, it is well-made and features some great footage of an actual wildfire that helps things.