Death Row (2007, USA)
As far as low budget horror films go, this one by the Quiroz Brothers is not so bad. As far as low budget death row horror films go, it is not about a death row, per se, and the term ‘horror’ doesn’t exactly fit, either. But it is decidedly, indisputably, inescapably low budget.
In 2006 California reached its peak prisoner population (the first three sources I looked at variously put the figure at 163,000, 170,000 and 175,000). Odd time, then, to be leaving prisons unoccupied, but this film, made that year, features an abandoned, newish – and indeed spotless – prison… into which eight medium security prisoners from San Quentin are transferred to do some community work. They are to be supervised by four guards.
The slight problem is that a vengeful unnamed man (let’s call him La Rosa, because that’s what he seems to answer to at one point) gets there first. La Rosa (Elias Castillo) chloroforms a rookie guard, Evans, kills him, puts on his uniform and assumes his identity. Then, for the remainder of the film, he successively lures all of the prisoners and all of the guards into different parts of the empty prison and chloroforms them, stabs them, cuts their throats or shoots them (or a combination of all of the above). There’s not a huge amount of tension because no-one twigs that he is not who he claims to be, or believes anything other than that one of the eight prisoners, Graves, has gone berserk and is systematically knocking everyone off.
La Rosa, it transpires, was bullied by prisoners and guards alike when he was a dorky new fish at San Quentin five years earlier; raped, beaten, extorted, humiliated. He knows one of the eight, Carl Thornton (Joe Estevez), (“I asked for your help, remember?”), but how he knew that Thornton and the others were going to turn up at the prison, (and how he managed to break into it) remain mysteries – possibly the biggest thriller elements of the movie.
There are plenty of correctional bloopers to keep one entertained [my favourites: Evans being asked to do a ’round’ of the empty, unused prison, and checking all the toilet cubicles (for what, exactly?); the multitude of unlocked doors (never a great look in a prison); and another guard shooting his handgun into the ceiling to bring bickering prisoners to order]… quite aside from other bits of unintended humour, such as one prisoner stabbing another in the hand with a plastic knife over a food dispute (and the issue ending there), Thornton very furtively removing a paper clip from his shoe while in a cell with nobody in a position to watch him, and the guards barking orders and calling the inmates ‘scumbags’ – having seemingly forgotten that they are dealing with eight prisoners on a work detail.
But the acting is an improvement on many similar ventures (Castillo, in particular, is at times excellent), and at least the prison looks like a prison. That’s a start!
c
You can view it on YouTube.
Posted on February 18th, 2018 at 12:37 pm. Updated on February 18th, 2018 at 12:41 pm.
#490 in the Top 500 |
22 Responses to “Death Row (2007, USA)”
… [Trackback]
[…] Find More to that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] There you will find 53049 additional Info to that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Info on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Find More Information here on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Find More on on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Here you will find 78803 more Info to that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Information on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] There you will find 94715 additional Information on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Information on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Information on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Read More Information here on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] There you can find 76796 more Information to that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] There you can find 64870 additional Info on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Info to that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Find More here to that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Read More on on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Read More Information here on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Information to that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Read More Info here to that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Find More here to that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Here you can find 28678 additional Information to that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Find More here on that Topic: prisonmovies.net/death-row-2007-usa […]
Leave a comment