Dead Dicks Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.0

Dead Dicks Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson August 9, 2020

Note: DEAD DICKS contains a little male frontal nudity. Viewer discretion is advised.

Dead Dicks is an absurd horror/sci-fi/black comedy that never finds the right tone. It tries to deal with depression and mental illness with forthright honesty but goes off in oddball directions that betray its original and noble intentions. The film opens in a kitchen where a young man, Richie (Heston Horwin), wraps a bag over himself. (The filmmakers' attempt to show asphyxiation is unconvincing.) Someone at the other side of the kitchen enters to grab a TV dinner from the microwave as Richie gasps his last breath. The action shifts to a video chat between Becca (Jillian Harris), an applicant to a prominent nursing science graduate program, and Professor Martinez (Leyda Aleyli), one of the grad program committee members at Conn-Gerber University. Becca has worked long and hard to achieve her first big break. She listens to Dr. Martinez tell her the great news that she's been accepted into the grad program. Becca is initially delighted but surprised to learn that she has only a week to get ready before school starts in earnest. Becca has been working a while as a bartender and on this evening, she's trying to reach her brother Richie, who left a long and somber voicemail about his melancholic condition. She asks Mel (Kristina Sandev), her super, if she can take a long break and go check on Richie at his apartment. When she arrives to his third-floor flat and opens one of the doors, she's shocked to see Richie hanging from a rod. But she's even more shocked to turn around and see another Richie in the full nude eating from a cereal bowl! Richie shows Becca another corpse of himself lying in the bathtub. His explanation is that every time he dies, a massive hole in his bedroom wall (carved like a vulva or a vaginal portal) makes a carbon copy of himself as part of a cycle of rebirth.

When Richie's alive, he works at home as an artist but cranks up his music very loud, much to the dismay of Matt (Matt Keyes, X-Men: Dark Phoenix), his irritated neighbor directly below him. Richie's ampped up the music repeatedly so Matt has called the property manager to come visit Richie in a day or two. Becca has the revolting task of severing and dismembering Richie's corpses, placing them in garbage bags, and tossing them into a dumpster before Matt or the property manager come by.

Dead Dicks has effective moments of intimate family drama as Richie and Becca share their feelings about their pasts and their parents. But the movie aimlessly segues into perverse humor as a way to inject levity into the story. The film is co-writers/directors Chris Bavota Lee Paula Springer entry into Cronenbergian body horror and a clue is in the university that accepts Becca. Unscramble the letters in Conn-Gerber and one produces an anagram of Cronenberg. The problem is that Bavota and Springer's script doesn't have the smarts or intelligence of a typical Cronenberg screenplay. The movie was made on a shoestring budget so expert scripting is integral to making the dialogue and scenes flow and work seamlessly within this confined setting. It doesn't.

The movie portrays Becca as a lifelong caregiver to Richie and that's all sweet and generous but at some point, she has to move on with her life. Both Richie and Becca plummet to the lower depths and deserve a script that will raise at least one of them out of this morass. It's depressing that the narrative makes each of them so pathetic. Why doesn't Richie encourage Becca to pursue her professional dreams after all she's done for him? And why can't Becca be more assertive in stating those? These questions boggled me and led to a frustrating viewing.

Dead Dicks Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dead Dicks appears in its original exhibition ratio of 2.39:1 on this BD-25 courtesy of Artsploitation Films. The feature is competently rendered, although keep in mind that much the movie takes place in a cramped apartment with white walls, dim lights, and flat compositions. Compare those screenshots with the illuminated light on the bottles in the barroom (Screenshot #3). There are no compressional artifacts, although the image can appear soft. The MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer receives an average video bitrate of 25665 kbps.

Artsploitation provides seventeen chapters for the 83-minute feature.

Dead Dicks Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Artsploitation supplies a Dolby Digital Audio 5.1 Surround (448 kbps) and a downmixed Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (448 kbps). Dialogue moved sporadically around the front channels, failing to settle in the center channel with any consistency. Spoken words are generally discernible. There's decent separation along the audio spectrum. Score, ambience, and sound f/x display good distinction at times. There are no lossless tracks, which is disappointing.

Optional English subtitles are displayed in light yellow with a readable font.

Dead Dicks Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Writers/Directors Chris Bavota and Lee Paula Springer - the Montreal-based filmmakers cover various topics about making Dead Dicks in this screen-specific chat. In English, not subtitled.

• 4 Video Diaries with Directors Chris Bavota & Lee Paula Springer (17:31, 1080p) - these four mini-featurettes depict Bavota and Springer discussing the challenges of micro-budgeted indie filmmaking, dealing with the frustrating business aspects of the industry, casting, and the daily grind of filming. In English, not subtitled.

• FX Featurette (2 min., 1080p) - this is a very fast featurette on applying the makeup to actor Matt Keyes and some of the gore effects. In English, not subtitled.

• Bonus Trailers - previews for four titles in Artsploitation's catalog, which include Bloody Knuckles, The Dead Ones, Snowflake and Welcome to the Circle. The trailer for Dead Dicks is absent.

Dead Dicks Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Dead Dicks had its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival and received a lot of play on the festival circuit in the US and UK. Unfortunately, it's too bad that something wasn't done to make this dreck a good or even better indie film. The filmmakers set out to make a faithful depiction about one's bouts with mental illness and suicidal tendencies but the narrative gets sidetracked and can't sustain a focus on the two principals. The movie really doesn't go anywhere. I couldn't disagree more with where the character arc of Becca goes and it's frankly underdeveloped. Despite the directors' attempt to inject crass humor to offset the gravity of Richie's mental and physical distress, Dead Dicks presents mostly a miserable experience. Artsploitation Films delivers a solid transfer but scattershot audio. The commentary and mini-featurettes are informative. I'd only advise a RENTAL to the most devoted fans of body horror.