Gory greetings horroryearbook alumni! Welcome to another exciting edition of IT CAME FROM THE MAILBOX, a column where your old pal Brain Hammer reviews whatever random crap the good folks at horroryearbook decide to throw my way.

Barnholtz Entertainment was nice enough to send along a screener copy of DRIFTER: HENRY LEE LUCAS – the latest direct to dvd serial killer epic from writer/director Michael Feifer. Feifer has been a busy man in the last few years, cranking out a string of grisly straight to dvd serial killer bio-pics including Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck, Ed Gein: Butcher Of Plainfield, Boston Strangler: The Untold Story, B.T.K., and Ted Bundy: Legacy Of Evil. You can check out my review of Ted Bundy: Legacy Of Evil here.

Prolific serial killer and/or pathological liar Henry Lee Lucas and his right hand man Ottis Toole get the Feifer treatment this time around. Lucas is notorious for having confessed to as many as 600 murders between 1975 and 1983 before changing his mind and recanting his story. Some Texas lawmen who worked on the “Lucas Task Force” remain stubbornly convinced that Henry is responsible for at least 350 murders, but the evidence and police work is dubious at best.

It appears that Henry and Ottis both enjoyed living in the media spotlight as world famous serial killer superstars and happily confessed to any unsolved crime that the police would accuse them of. Henry in particular confessed to several murders that he could not possibly have committed because work and hospital records proved he was in a different state at the time. But who cares about that pesky evidence stuff? Henry was more than happy to proclaim himself the “king of murder” and the police were equally happy to clear unsolved crimes from their desks. At one point Lucas was averaging at least one new murder confession per week, and hundreds of murder cases across multiple states were closed based on the strength of his confessions.

All of this “justice” came to a crashing end when Henry decided to change his story and declare that he wasn’t a serial killer at all and that he was only in fact responsible for two deaths – those of his mother (which he had been convicted for several years before) and his teenage lover Becky. This new story conveniently leaves out the murder of an elderly woman for which Lucas was originally arrested, and does little to clear up the confusion about his crimes. Just to make things more confusing, Henry would later recant THAT story and claim that he had only killed his mother. Regardless if Henry Lee Lucas actually killed 3 or 300 people, his legacy as one of the most notorious yet celebrated criminals in American history remains intact.

And this bizarre legacy is exactly what makes Henry Lee Lucas perfect subject matter for a serial killer flick. To date, this is the third film I’ve seen that attempts to tell the twisted story. This time around former Bold & The Beautiful star and current VH1 dating show dumbass Antonio Sabato Jr plays Henry Lee Lucas. DRIFTER in many ways is very similar to the other serial killer bio-pics that Fiefer has done in the past. It starts out with scenes of Henry in action, both killing and confessing, and then shifts to scenes that show Henry as a youth and offer some explanation as to how to became such a monster. I thought the scenes that portrayed Henry’s fucked up childhood were the best part of the movie and represented the only aspect of Henry’s life that hadn’t already been examined in either Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer or Confessions Of A Serial Killer. Like a lot of serial killers, Henry grew up under the oppression of his horribly abusive mother who enjoyed sending him to school dressed up like a little girl and even shot his beloved pet mule!

It makes some sense that Henry’s first (and last?) victim was his mother, whom he killed as a teen during an drunken argument. Henry claims the murder of his mother was a mistake, and the film presents an accurate depiction of Henry’s story. After Henry was later released from an overcrowded prison for good behavior he began drifting from state to state, working a series of dead end jobs along the way and often driving his old piece of shit cars non-stop for days on end until they would break down. Somewhere along the way, Henry meets his eventual partner in crime Ottis Toole and the two quickly become the Batman & Robin of serial murder.

First things first, Antonio Sabato Jr is an absolute miscast as Henry Lee Lucas. He’s not a bad actor by any means, but he looks entirely wrong for the part and also sounds NOTHING like Lucas. Antonio claims to have spent hours perfecting the accent, but it sounds like a bunch of incoherent mumbling to me. The biggest problem I had with Antonio in this role is the fact that he’s clearly a big buttery Italian stud muffin and he has no business trying to play a scuzzy roadhog like Lucas. The makeup department does a nice job giving Antonio Lucas’s trademark dead eyed stare, but the filmmakers then foolishly decide to throw away the effects work by having Antonio wear shades half of the movie.

The other biggest problem I had with this movie was the casting of Ottis Toole and his niece Becky. The guy who plays Ottis is your standard angry hulking redneck, and he doesn’t do a damn thing to make the character accurate or even semi-interesting to watch. The real life Ottis Toole was a faggot who liked to dress up like a woman and blow truck drivers for a ride. He was Henry’s LOVER and on more than one occasion killed women in a rage when Henry would reject his advances. None of this is even passingly brought up in DRIFTER. I wonder why repeated scenes of women being murdered and their corpses being violated is acceptable, but at the same time Fiefer shies away from showing scenes of his actors being gay for each other. Then there’s Becky. The real life Becky Powell was a semi-retarded twelve year girl. For some reason, all three of the flicks that have told this story always cast Becky as being some sort of sassy or sexy twenty-something. I find these sort of inaccuracies to be highly offensive for some reason. Like the filmmakers, I have no problem with the depiction of violent death but unlike the filmmakers I see no reason to sugar coat elements of the story that might be “too much” for an audience to handle.

That’s ultimately why this flick fails. It tries to have it both ways. On one hand it attempts to tell the story of Henry Lee Lucas with a fair amount of accuracy, and on the other hand it changes the crucial and interesting details to make the film a more politically correct sort of police thriller. Fuck that. Cop shows on network tv have more balls with what they present than this flick does. Michael Fiefer has a decent amount of talent as a writer and director but I think he needs to stop with the serial killer flicks because he just can’t seem to do them properly. A quick look at IMDB tells me that Fiefer’s next project is called “The Dog Who Saved Christmas,” and with a title like that it could easily be the scariest thing he has done to date. Except for casting Kane Hodder as Ed Gein of course. Now that was some TRULY scary shit!

DRIFTER: HENRY LEE LUCAS is currently available on dvd from Barnholtz/Lionsgate Entertainment. The bonus features include director’s commentary, stills gallery, and Spanish subtitles. Not Brain Hammer approved, but perhaps worth a rental for die hard serial killer enthusiasts.

ULLI LOMMEL’S NIGHT STALKER! That title alone should send shivers down the spine of any horror fan. Not because of the night stalker of course, the words “Ulli Lommel” are the real offenders. For those of you who lucky enough NOT to know who Ulli Lommel is, he is a hack horror director that has been shitting out some truly wretched pieces of direct to video garbage over the last few decades. I actually enjoyed some of his 80′s efforts such as The Boogeyman and The Devonsville Terror, and I never really had much of an issue with the guy until his annoying internet drones began flooding the horroryearbook message boards with spam topics proclaiming his greatness or asking “which Ulli Lommel film is your favorite?” That’s like asking which strain of HPV is your favorite. Gee, I like the kind that gives my girlfriend abnormal pap smears the best.

As some of you sharper readers might have guessed, this is Ulli Lommel’s pathetic attempt to tell the tale of Richard Ramirez. Ramirez of course was dubbed “The Night Stalker” by the press because he always committed his brutal crimes under the cover of darkness. Richard was a troubled lad who moved to Los Angeles to get closer to the two great loves in his life – drugs and Satan. Richard’s carnal crime spree only lasted about one year, but quickly became known as one of the most bloodthirsty and savage in American history. After being captured by an angry mob that nearly killed him, Richard Ramirez was eventually convicted in 1989 for 13 murders, 5 attempted murders, and 11 sexual assaults. Incredibly, Ramirez is STILL sitting on death row almost 20 years later waiting for his chance to finally meet the devil face to face.

Sounds like the perfect story to base a horror flick on right? Well so far I’ve seen three attempts, and all three were terrible! The other flicks were so bad I don’t even feel like naming them, but incredibly Ulli Lommel somehow manages to top them and made arguably the worst serial killer flick that I have ever seen. This flick reeks of bargain basement cheapness. The whole thing looks like it was shot with a camcorder and the editing appears to have been done with a machete. The lead actor who plays Richard Ramirez is absolutely fucking terrible. He appears to have based his performance off of Brandon Lee’s Crow instead of the Night Stalker. All this dude does the whole movie is suck on lollipops (seriously, every fucking scene!), sit around pouting and looking “disturbed” (more like constipated), and lull the viewer into unconsciousness with his mind numbingly boring voice over narration.

Did you know that Richard Ramirez was introduced to drugs and the devil by a pair of sexy lesbians who randomly see him on the street and decide that he is the most gorgeous man they had ever seen? Neither did I. To call this movie a piece of shit would be a severe understatement. I’m not going to waste any more of my precious few remaining brain cells discussing this one because it’s just not worth it. This is the type of trash that gives serial killers a bad name. Ulli Lommel’s NIGHT STALKER is now available on dvd from North American Motion Pictures. Buy it only if you need a cheap beer coaster or if someone you hate is having a birthday.

KEEP THE BLOOD FLOWING!!!