Last Gasp (1995).
“Jumpin’ Jesus, what the hell is goin’ on here?”
Directed by Scott McGinnis
Written by Pierce Milestone
Starring Joanna Pacula, Robert Patrick, face paint, and oversized clothes
1. (The Stage)
A real estate developer named Leslie Chase gets stuck in a difficult situation when a Totec Indian tribe gets mad that he’s developing on their land. Instead of asking them to leave nicely, he murders them all with shotguns. Unfortunately, when he murders the chief, something happens and he becomes possessed with the same murderous rage with a penchant for slashing Achilles tendons and a taste for human flesh.
A while later, Nora Weeks’s husband Julian goes missing near the development. She hires a private detective to figure out where he went, and they both run into Mr. Chase in the process.
2. (The Good)
You get to see Robert Patrick chew the screen and look directly into the camera multiple times, so that’s a plus. Joanna Pacula is great as the female lead, she’s definitely acting way harder than she needed to.
There’s not really much in terms of gore, but there is quite a bit of nudity. It doesn’t all make sense (take the couple that jaunts off into a cornfield to bang just feet from a perfectly good truck), but it’s well done. There’s a particular scene in which Robert Patrick bangs Mimi Craven, yes, Wes Craven’s ex-wife, that’s very well done. We never see Leslie Chase become a cannibal, but we sure as hell watch him eat Mimi (if you know what I’m sayin’)!
There’s one scene that’s so wildly out of place that I almost fell out of my chair laughing. See, Nora is distraught that her husband, Julian has gone missing. So distraught, that we get to see a flashback of them banging. It switches to a very “Dawson’s Creek”-esque music track during this scene in which we see way more of Julian that Nora. It felt like it belonged in another film entirely.
3. (The Bad)
Robert Patrick needed a better agent in the 90’s. After what could have been an absolute star-making turn as the T-1000 in Terminator 2, he was cast in the worst, bottom of the barrel films up until 1997’s Copland, and yes, Last Gasp is one of those turds. He’s great it in as a suave real estate developer who sometimes puts on face paint and kills people, but they try to paint him as sympathetic at one point and it just doesn’t work. Look, we don’t care that he doesn’t want to go on these murder hunts to kill people, you know why? Because he helped murder an entire tribe of Indians. He’s also apparently extra stupid, because he’s invested a very large amount of money to build on land that he didn’t know was inhabited. Surely a little bit of research would have uncovered that minor fact.
There’s also no explanation of any of the supernatural elements of the curse, but there are a shitload of questions. Why does the soul jump from body to body? Why does Robert Patrick need to toss face paint and Indian gear on before he goes wild? And why are the police in that area absolutely worthless?
This feels like a TNT made-for-TV film, but with tits. Lots of tight shots, dark cinematography, editing that doesn’t exactly line up, stupid music, an ending “twist” that you’ll see coming from a country mile, and characters that you won’t really give a shit about. I almost forgot everything that happened the minute I turned this film off.
4. (The Ugly)
That poor old lady. She was trying to help, and ended up getting her throat eaten out. Off screen, of course.
I couldn’t help but think about how Nora got the short end of the stick once the film was over. Her whole life is ruined, and for what?
5. (The End)
This was another dud for me. I get that some people probably have an attachment to it from when they were younger, but it just felt like a disappointing film from all aspects. It’s drab, lacks any kind of…bite, and aside from Robert Patrick and Joanna Pacula, no one is pulling their weight.
The only true extra from Vinegar Syndrome is some outtakes (other than the trailer). As usual, the picture looks nice, as it was newly scanned and restored from it’s 35mm negative.
