Vinegar Syndrome takes us "where only the dead survive" with their Blu-ray of the patchwork oddity EVIL TOWN as part of the Vinegar Syndrome Archive Blu-ray/DVD combo line.

The town of "Smalltown" has been beset by a series of recent disappearances of campers and motorists who wind up as test subjects for medical experiments. While the not so lucky end up being abducted by a pair of auto garage workers (TAKE IT OUT IN TRADE's Michael Donovan O'Donnell and THE FIRST NUDIE MUSICAL's Greg Finley) who set aside pretty ladies for their own entertainment, camper couples Chris (James Keach, SMOKEY AND THE HOTWIRE GANG) and Julie (Michele Marsh) and Mike (Robert Walker Jr., THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR) and Linda (Doria Cook-Nelson, THE SWARM) break down in town and must accept the hospitality of kindly Lyle Phelps (Dabbs Greer, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) and his wife Mildred (Lurene Tuttle, PSYCHO) while mechanic Earl (E.J. André, MAGIC) keeps finding things wrong with their camper extending their stay in a town of only old people who seem nevertheless spry and covetous of their young company. The only overt threat seems to be the lurking presence of a possible escapee from the nearby clinic, but Chris starts to become suspicious of their hosts and the particular interest in his status as a medical student taken by the sinister Doctor Schaeffer (Dean Jagger, VANISHING POINT).

Hiding behind the striking but otherwise generic artwork of the 1980s video cover EVIL TOWN ("Where only the dead survive") is another bizarre example of patchwork filmmaking by producer/director Mardi Rustam who had previously reworked a film called PLEASE DON'T EAT THE BABIES into ISLAND FURY utilizing the original film as flashback material, and later show new footage featuring softcore footage of porn stars to goose up his limp sci-fi slasher EVILS OF THE NIGHT (with the television version representing the original and more coherent cut of the film). EVIL TOWN started out as a troubled seventies production called GOD DAMN DR. SHAGETZ started in the mid-seventies by Curtis Hanson (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL) but not finished until 1977 by Larry Spiegel (SPREE). The film went unreleased in its original form and was later purchased by Rustam in the mid-eighties by which time a number of the veteran cast were already dead. Rustam retooled the film with new footage featuring Schaeffer's associate head nurse Dorothy (Jillian Kesner, FIRECRACKER) who receives the subjects brought by mechanics O'Donnell and Finley who were also part of the new footage along with a handful of stripped and groped starlets. Even without seeing the original film, one can see why Rustam felt the need to beef it up for home video however clumsy the execution even though the emphasis on young victims muddies the original film's schism between the young and the old (the film also features American film and TV old-timers Regis Toomey, Margo Farrar, Hope Summers, and Ricahrd Hale). Although the new footage is rather tame, it still seems crass next to the too-slow-burn original 1970s footage in which the threats seem seriously understated and the revelations too dependent on Jagger's explanation (with his line readings hampered by a recent stroke and his own very singular way of pronouncing "pituitary"). While the photography of the two sets of footage – HOMEBODIES' Isidore Mankofsky for the original footage and Bill Manning (SADIE) for the new footage – do not look too dissimilar and the eighties fashions and hairstyles do not clash too much with the actors in the earlier footage, the mix of original score by Charles Bernstein (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) and new synth work by Michael Linn (NIGHT SCREAMS) is particularly jarring during the 1970s footage. In its incarnation as EVIL TOWN, the film is more of a curiosity than an entertainment.

Transferred from a 2K scan of the original 35mm camera negative materials – the negative for DR. SHAGETZ having been reedited with the new footage – Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer looks fantastic given the patchwork nature of the assemblage. The 1970s footage is grainier than the eighties footage – shot with finer-grained film and sharper lenses – but colors remain vivid in the greenery and the wardrobe. The DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 soundtrack is more consistent with the synth music and some effects during the new footage having more presence the bits of the original mix from the seventies footage where the new score has not been slathered over. Optional English SDH subtitles do a good job with the film dialogue but mangle the song lyrics ("the page is aflame" becomes "the portrait is lame").