Deadly Daphne's Revenge

I'm not overly keen on slating anything that the magnificent Vinegar Syndrome spew forth to the Earth but I am massively disappointed in this release, although the company have put their usual stellar efforts into the transfer itself (other than some visible print damage in some sections).  I think my dissatisfaction is more to do with the inherent fact that the film is seriously mis-marketed, most likely because it exists in its own netherworld of virtual pointlessness.  There is one brief second of creepiness when you glimpse the titular Daphne, and that is emblazoned across the cover (see below) - i.e. pretty much the only thing worth seeing in this film is on the cover of the box.

A group of rednecks on a hunting trip pick up a teenage hitchhiker, but instead of dropping her off at her destination they take her to their hunting lodge.  After one of the group befriends her and the two get it together, she's raped by a couple of the others no sooner the love interest is out of the room.  Days later she's pressing charges against the whole group, and thus ensues the wrangles between solicitors, victim, and perpetrators.  Later still the prime mover behind the sordid moves is hiring someone to bump off the girl, but then she drops the charges and so he has to rush to call the whole assassination attempt off.  Somewhere behind this whole social mess wanders the ex-girlfriend of the main badboy, who's escaped from an institution for the purposes of revenge.

So is it about a rape victim's attempts to bring her attackers to justice, or is it about a scorned ex out to bump off her not-so-nice boyfriend?  The hybrid approach suggests that even the film-makers weren't sure, and the whole scorned-ex subplot feels like it was tacked on.  The irony being that the handful of minutes that this takes up (a snippet at the intro, one or two cursory references along the way, and the finale) are the basis for the title and poster/cover.  Released in 1987 while looking like it was shot in the seventies, the movie itself was filmed under a different title I believe (possibly The Bigamist although later it was known as The Hunting Season), again suggesting the producers didn't know what to do with it.  I'm not sure why it was ever filmed at all, however, Troma appear to be involved so some viewers may shout 'enough said' to wake themselves up.

I'm certainly all for boutique labels exhuming the obscure, particularly if they were once lost gems, but I'm truly struggling with this one.  What begins as a possibly cool exercise in exploitation cinema soon pummels you into boredom with sheer eventlessness.  Hell, VS even gave it one of their premium slipcases!  The film was scanned at 2K and, as I mentioned above, looks mostly excellent.  Mono 48 KHz audio is in good shape (you can even listen to a music-separated track if you truly want to play with your sanity), and the discs (Blu-ray plus DVD in the pack) come with a barrel-scraping interview (with an actress who played a desk clerk, barely able to remember anything about the film) plus plenty of promotional stills, an alternate opening, and reversible cover.  The fact that it's a limited slipcase edition from a generally fantastic label might make this marginally collectible, but I'd be amazed if the film itself has, or acquires, many fans.  Thank the Lord that director Richard Gardner never went on to shoot anything else, otherwise VS would probably have bestowed the insomniac world with that too...  Now let's hope my recent Black Friday package (a welcome package nonetheless) contains some significantly better material than this!