This is an updated version of a review that was originally published in Bleeding Skull! A 1990s Trash-Horror Odyssey.
Do you remember Gushers? It was a “fruit snack” with a syrupy, red-flavored center. The second you bit down, a tidal wave of synthetic, viscous goo crashed and flooded every nook and cranny of your mouth. You could conceivably drown just by eating a Gusher. The commercials showed kids chomping on a Gusher and their cheeks exploding from the inside. Their heads would whip around in a fruit-flavored frenzy and turn into the flavor they just ate. One kid turned into a coconut. Another turned into a watermelon: “That’s heavy, man!”
I wasn’t allowed to have Gushers growing up, but one time I was babysitting and the family had three boxes of Gushers in their pantry. Three! It was a come-to-Jesus moment. The kids and I gushed our heads off, and then I realized my mistake when the kids were bouncing all over the house in sugar-fueled fits. They turned into epic, gaping assholes, more so than usual.
Premutos: Lord of the Living Dead is the cinematic equivalent of 300 boxes of Strawberry Blast Gushers that you shove into your mouth all at once. You get to eat them all by yourself and not share with your friends or your asshole babysitting charges. This film is one epic explosion after another of sickly red goo in the best, most entertaining, most delicious way possible. This is a movie that spent its budget on raw beef and organ meats and gallons of homemade blood. This is a movie that doesn’t fear explosives, firecrackers, or chainsaws. This is a movie that doesn’t fear staining the carpet, the couch, the walls, or anyone’s skin. This is a movie that read all the books and magazines about DIY special effects and executed every stunt, only after taking a bunch of steroids, homemade meth, and bath salts. Premutos is one of the juiciest, goriest, squishiest, stickiest, slimiest, chunkiest, and slipperiest films ever committed to 16mm film. And it makes absolutely no sense.
The year is 1023. There is fire. There is brimstone. There is a voice that promises the reincarnation of evil. Violence, disease, death, and sin will ensue. Then a sword beheads a woman. The neck erupts with blood.
Now the year is 1942. A man named Rudolf is unearthing a grave. He finds an ancient “unholy book” that describes the resurrection of the “anti-God,” Premutos. Rudolf follows a recipe in the book to make a potion. Unfortunately, one of the pages is missing so the formula is only half-finished, but who cares. He tests it out on his dead wife. She comes back, but she’s not the same. Something is different. She sounds like a dying rooster getting picked apart by vultures with strep throat. The wife’s head literally explodes. The potion didn’t work. Or did it? Soon people are transformed into gruesome beasts.
Now the year is now. A teenager who is definitely not in his late 20s is whining about his soccer shorts. Where are they? Who took them? His sister gets dressed up in a dominatrix outfit, but the brother is unimpressed. He really needs his soccer shorts. They’ve shrunk in the dryer. He’s having a bad morning.
He heads to soccer practice where a ball gets kicked right into his balls. His nads. His jewels. His sac. Nards. Nuggets. Grapes. Coin purse. It’s really one of the greatest crotch-shots of our lifetimes. The guy gets rushed to the hospital where the doctor just can’t believe how much bleeding there is. It’s a mess down there! At some point the kid finds the potion from 1942 and puts it on his rocks, or what’s left of them. Suddenly he gets transported back in time where he faces unending upheaval and violence. Meanwhile, his family has a dinner party.
That’s the gist of the story, and I’m not really sure if that’s what actually happens. And I don’t care. Premutos is a movie that’s less about plot, characters, story, or even words, and more about the experience. It’s a feast for the eyes; everything is just laid out before you like the most decadent buffet. Everything you want is there: head explosions, decapitations, impalements, and gunshot wounds. Heads get turned inside out, bodies get pulled apart, and chests get ripped open. When you watch Premutos, all you have to do is take it all in and let the bloody madness wash all over you. There’s no need to fight it and try to make sense of it all. All you have to do is enjoy.
Premutos took months, possibly years to finish. There are scenes where people are roaming around in a field in the summer and another where people are getting hacked to death in a wintery forest. This is clearly months of hard work and filming. The ambition is clear in the devilish details; the special effects are truly unparalleled. Director Olaf Ittenbach (The Burning Moon), who also did the effects, didn’t just slap some make-up on the actors and let the camera run. No, he did his homework and carefully put together stunts. Then he shot scene after scene after scene of gory, gushing deaths. And he used every single scene. No death went to waste here. But Premutos never feels like it’s grossing you out just for the sake of grossing you out. It’s not torture porn, and it’s not too emotionally abusive. It’s just good old-fashioned, juicy horror, and there’s something refreshingly innocent and sincere about that. While the film certainly draws inspiration from Evil Dead, Dead Alive, and all the Italian greats, there’s an extra layer of inventiveness and fun—the German is dubbed in English by J.R. Bookwalter and friends, who obviously did not have a script or any idea of what the movie was about. Like Dracula (The Dirty Old Man) the dubbing takes on a personality of its own and adds a level of entertainment that pushes the movie from greatest to even more greatest.
In case you’re curious, the credits show the final body count: 139.
