User Reviews

Friends and I stumbled onto this title because we A) heard it was shot at the University of Illinois B)Was just awful C)had lots of helicopter shots and needless violence. Delivery- yes. As far as I can tell, all shooting was on the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign campus, as we could spot many public places in the scenes which have changed dramatically. Notably the chase in the parking garage, walking on a bridge which are the Presidential Towers (a local student housing), and the drug lord's mansion (the Japan House, a Japanese Cultural Center). For the most parts, it's a surprisingly good (at keeping suspense) for a low budget. Tire squeals on dirt, and fighting over $200 just adds to the fun. I specifically got the feeling that a large amount of the budget was supplied to destroy a car and use a helicopter, which many of the scenes reflect. If you have a case of beer and sadistic disposition- go for it.

Surely one of the most obscure, low-budget films to receive a major label home video release (thanks, Sony), it's not even clear what the original title of this film was. There's a disclaimer in front of the feature which indicates that the title has been changed for the video release, but the title card for the film consists of the single word 'Shot'. So was this released to theatres as Shot, or as something else all together? We're not likely to find out any time soon. Death Shot starts off with a low rent drug transaction gone bad: one gang of hairy thugs accuses another gang of shorting them $200 (!) and end up getting caps popped in their collective asses. The jaunty blues-funk score of Area Code 615 then commences, supplying us with a clue of where this feature might have been shot: most likely Tennessee, from whence the band sprang in the late 1960s. Wherever it is, it looks COLD, with snow either falling or on the ground throughout the entire film. There's also lots of violence, as a pair of hairy, not-by-the-books cops chase after the motley drug lords who spend their time hanging out at the Mr. Quick fast food establishment when they're not pushing dope on the local kids. It all adds up to a gritty good time for admirers of regional cinema and fast-paced crime dramas. I'd love to learn more about this feature, but I suspect the DVD commentary is still pretty far in the future. Postscript: according to the credit crawl, Death Shot was filmed in East Central Illinois.

Renegade detectives Ross and Wilson decide to take down major drug kingpin Blasi. Writer/director Mitch Brown keeps the entertaining story moving along at a speedy clip, maintains a hard cynical tone throughout, stages the exciting car chases and shoot outs with flair and skill, and makes nice use out of such practical locations as an open field, a train yard, and a parking garage. Richard C. Watt and Chuck Russell are appropriately scruffy as the maverick cops on the case while Frank Himes makes for a pleasingly nasty villain. The aerial photography provides an impressive sense of scope. Considering that this movie was made for a modest fifteen thousand dollars, it's competently put together and manages to milk a lot of production value with its minimal resources. A cool little flick.

Of all the crummy movies I've seen in my lifetime, I was sure that even IMDb might have missed this one, but, lo and behold......

I am a huge fan of substandard film, mostly in the action and horror genres, and I first saw 'Death Shot' (or simply 'SHOT' in the actual credits) back in 1987 very early into my quest for crappy film. My friend and I just couldn't resist the cheesy artwork on the box depicting some dirt-bag with a headband and an assault rifle. The date on the box said 1987, so we figured we'd just stumbled across another direct-to-home-video, shot-on-home-video, laughable piece of junk..... In reality, it turned out to be much worse. This film was shot in 1973 and then dug out of a cellar somewhere and re-hashed for the home video market of the 1980s. The box artwork I mentioned didn't even depict an actual character in the movie, and not once was an assault rifle fired or even brandished for that matter. In fact, the characters pretty much fire snub-nosed revolvers that 'snap' suspiciously like caps....

It is really impossible to describe an actual plot. For the most part, scenes toggle between a group of greasy looking 'criminals'-- who are supposed to be bad-ass drug dealers, but pretty much behave like schoolyard bullies -- and the equally grubby cop duo who try to track down the criminals while engaging in some questionable behavior of their own (i.e. sleeping with junkies, shooting suspects, getting drunk...) Other random characters come and go during the film with little or no explanation as to who they are or how they tie in to the events. There are a few woefully done action sequences that should induce some laughter, but it's the dialogue that'll ultimately have you rolling.

A couple of scenes that really stand out: 1) The 'head' bad dude (I don't recall his name) wanders into a Mr. Quick restaurant to confront a client who is delinquent on some payments, then intimidates the Peter Frampton wannabe by stomping on his watch and tearing up a picture of his girlfriend, and then lets out a clichéd 'bad guy' laugh after breaking a wine bottle over the dude's head. 2) Shortly before the scene above, the three baddies bump into some dweeb named Mickey and allow him to join their gang after they make fun of his clothes and tear his frisbee in half. The verbal exchanges in this scene are so preposterous they have to be seen and heard to be believed. 3) The bad guys threaten to throw one of their pushers off of a rooftop because he supposedly short-changed them. Of course, the guy accidentally falls off the roof (one of the worst looking dummy falls in history), and one of the bad dudes remarks about how cool it was to see him splatter.

There are several other rotten scenes to enjoy, but the movie does have a number of slow spots, and the overall dreary atmosphere and bad sound might make it hard for some people to sit through. But for fans of fetid film like myself, this is a gem. The only problem now is that it may be nearly impossible to find, as I'm sure this one was ultimately discarded from most stores that carried it once DVDs took over as the mainstream format, and I highly doubt 'SHOT' will be on DVD anytime soon....

1.5 out of 10 for 'film' buffs.

8 out of 10 for lovers of crapola.