Concord, California-based
Dark Entity Music will be releasing Aussie-born writer/director Mark Savage’s
unhinged crime thriller, Stressed to Kill, on Blu-ray this
coming Apr. 10. It will be released
under the company’s SGL Entertainment label, with MVD Entertainment Group
guiding the sales and distribution effort.
Bill Oberst Jr. is one of
the busiest character actors in films these days as he is able to blend his
natural acting talent with a “great face.”
When you are the great-grandson of Lon Chaney, having a “great face” is
a family honor and a mark of distinction.
When he is the lead, his
films often garner awards and genre-fan raves — Circus of the Dead, Deadly
Revisions and Coyote are just a few examples. With Stressed to Kill, Oberst stars as Bill
Johnson, a seeming milquetoast man, who
is on the road to recovery from a massive heart attack brought on by stress. It’s not hard to pinpoint the stress points
in his life — his wife Vera (Sonia Curtis) being chief among them.
During a follow-up visit
with his doctor (Tom Parnell), our hero is given some medical advice that he
takes to heart … “Eliminate stress from your life.” He does just that, if you cross Bill’s path
and stress him out after this bit of advice from his doctor, he zaps you with a
poison dart. Problem solved!
His best buddy, Stan (Marshal
Hilton — The Bunnyman Massacre, The Raking, etc.), is taken back by
Bill’s solution, but he will eventually come around to seeing the advantages of
having an unhinged serial killer as a best friend.
Another “fan” who takes
notice of Bill’s work as the “Dartman” killer is Detective Paul Jordan (played
by Armand Assante), who has his own crew of street-justice killers (court can
be such a waste of time). He is so
ramped up in his mission that he makes Bill seem like a reasonable guy, who is
just working out stress issues.
Filmmaker Mark Savage’s Stressed
to Kill becomes a delightful cat-and-mouse game between Jordan and
Bill, with Stan knowing full well that he too will be six-feet under if the two
of them can’t come up with a very clever plan to get Jordan — who is torn
between making Bill a member of his crew or turning him in — off their back. After
all, he is stressing Bill out and the doctor said, “Eliminate stress from your
life.”
Bonus goodies for this
nifty blend of horror and black comedy include deleted scenes and two
commentary options. The first features
filmmaker/producer Mark Savage (Sensitive New Age Killer, Defenceless: A
Blood Symphony, etc.) and the second with cinematographer David
Richardson (winner of Best Cinematography at the 2016 Melbourne Underground
Film Festival for his work here).
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