The Florida gore film has a long, rich history. Created in the early 60's by Herschell Gordon Lewis, and continued on by others with such epics as Blood Freak and Blood Stalkers. It wasn't until the mid-80's until a bright young filmmaker by the name of Tim Ritter would try his hand at the gore film. I mean, it's more of a slasher, I guess, but it is really gory, and shot in Florida, so, just go with it. Tim Ritter already had a few movies under his belt. One of which being a poor man's Halloween called Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness. Quality wise, a better movie than the one we're going to discuss. Ritter's fourth film, Killing Spree, was to be a fun, stupid gorefest. A movie which epitomizes the 80's B-Horror flick. And one of my all-time personal favorites.

https://www.stomptokyo.com/otf/Killing-Spree/Spree3.JPG Killing Spree revolves around a subject that would linger on in Tim Ritter's films for years to come. Cheating wives, and the damage it does. Namely, the damage it can do to a man's mental state. Tom Russo, a scrawny, scruffy airplane repairman, keeps his wife on a short leash. It's not that he doesn't trust Leeza, but his last marriage ended badly, as his wife made a fool of him with her cheating ways. So, he's just being cautions by not letting the wife work. It's really all those men out there he doesn't trust. But Leeza has picked up a little hobbie in her spare time that Tom is about to discover. Writing. Leeza writes about a woman who cheats on her husband with anyone and everyone she can. Leaving out no details. One details Tom probably wished he hadn't picked up on is that the woman in these stories is Leeza herself. Tom's been reading her diary. Made a fool of once again, Tom goes off and has a nervous breakdown and hangs out at the beach for a while where he kicks some guy's ass for no reason. But then decides to go on home and carry on, and act as if nothing has happened. But doing a very bad job at it. Not unlike Asbestos Felt's performance

As Tom sneaks a peak at the wife's stories from time to time, he finds out Leeza has spread her legs for the TV repairman, for the delivery man, and even for the lawn man. Tom is now boiling, and soon tracks them all down, and makes them all his victims, with some of the most creative and gruesome kills in Florida gore film history. Tom doesn't look all that bright, but when he puts his mind to it, he can really make shit happen. We witness scenes of retribution such as Tom lifting a guy up into fan blades which have been replaced with machetes, and he even managed to kill his elderly best friend by throwing the severed head of his teenage girlfriend at him. I have no idea how that works, but it sure was funny. Tom kills and kills, seemingly with no real game plan. Things soon take an unexpected turn which might just make Tom rethink everything. Or not. Tom has pretty much lost his mind at this point. And the movie itself seems to be going in a similar direction.

Killing Spree is 80's camp at its finest. A movie up there with the likes of Return Of The Living Dead, as far as fun 80's Horror goes. Good enough to be taken seriously, but really stupid at the same time. In all the best ways, of course. One thing I've always said about Tim Ritter is that the man is way too talented to limit himself to such low-budget movies. Especially the micro-budget stuff that was to come. It works out great for me, because low-budget movies is what I love. But it's still a shame the man never had much money to throw around, because even the lower budgeted ones he did are all really damn good. But no money, no noteriey. That's just the way it goes in the movie biz. The highlight of course, is the now legendary Asbestos Felt. With his hysterical performance as a jealous husband on a rampage. A performance seemingly taken less and less seriously as the movie goes on. And I have no idea how true this is, but when listening to the Sub Rosa dvd commentary for this, Asbestos Felt did confess to co-star, Joel D. Wynkoop, that he was pretty drunk in just about every scene he appeared in. So, keep that little tidbit in

This would end up being Tim Ritter's last film using actual film. And as the 90's rolled arouund, he would descend into the already dying world of shot on vhs Horror, which does say something about his love for the genre. Ritter would go on to make sequels to his earlier film, Truth Or Dare?, another slasher called Creep, and a hilarious dark comedy/mockumentary called Dirty Cop No Donut, a mean-spirited parody of the tv show, Cops. So, in 1987, Tim Ritter was just getting started. It took a while for Killing Spree to aquire an audience, and even longer to aquire the cult following it eventually gained. But someday, when Tim Ritter's fans look back on his career with fondness, I have no doubt it will be the this cheesy gorefest they think of first. 7/10