Dumb Distraction Halloween 2005: In case you haven't heard... I love Halloween. You don't have to be thankful for anything... don't have to buy flowers for your good-for-nothing girlfriend... there's no need to make resolutions you're not going to keep... at it's best it Halloween season can even hold it's own against Christmas. When you think about it, it's really the least commercial of all the major holidays... the biggest purchase you're responsible for is an extra-large bag of candy corns.

Plus, it's a really great excuse for me to wallow in a month long orgy of horror movies. This Halloween, Dumb Distraction is your source for daily reviews of great horror movies. I've got a lot of good stuff lined up fron all ends of the horror spectrum... obscure foreign horror, classics from my childhood, direct to video zombie movies, high-brow thrillers and gorefests... Don't miss it!

Cardiac Arrest (1980)

Directed by: Murray Mintz
Starring: Robert Behling, Garry Goodrow, Michael Paul Chan

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Clancy Higgins: That girl you brought in wasn't a drug overdose. She was a murder victim. So, we're pretty interested in this.

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When a horror movie from the 80's has a poster as good as the one for Cardiac Arrest, it's almost a sure bet that the movie's no good. I'm a sucker for a good horror poster though, hence today's review.

San Francisco is in the grip of a serial killer called 'The Missing Heart Murderer.' See, what the guy does is... oh you figured it out already? Well, in another part of the city there's a lady who needs a heart transplant. She gets an anonymous call telling her that she can be moved to the top of the transplant list. You see, the caller... oh, you figured out that one too?

You're not alone. The movie's entire plot is revealed in the first few minutes of the film. Unfortunately for us, there's 87 more minutes for first-time director Murray Mintz and his cast of amateur actors to fill. They do it by following around Detectives Wong & Higgins as they try to track down the killer before he can strike again. Toss in some a few false leads, a couple cases of mistaken identity, and a series of vague clues and you've got yourself a movie.

I said Mintz used amateur actors, but that's not all together fair... its just that none of the main characters in this movie had prior major speaking roles. The guy who played Higgins (Garry Goodrow) spent his career playing characters with names like Henpecked Husband, Trainer, Various, Magician, Hotel Clerk, Drunk Swinger, Happy Prisoner... get the picture?

And the guy who played Detective Wong, Michael Paul Chan, this actually was his 1st movie. He went on to play the Stereotypical Asian Guy in dozens of movies throughout the 80's & 90's. His next 6 roles were as follows (wish I were making this up): Asian Gang Member #2, Ching, Mr. Wang (Goonies), Vectrocon Security Guard, and Waiter at Chinese Restaurant. And, in a random movie connection, Chan also played the role of Chinese Premier in Megiddo, a Christian End of the World movie directed by the guy who made yesterday's movie, Brian Trenchard-Smith. Small world huh?

Chan also has a lengthy TV resume, appearing in shows like Baretta, TJ Hooker, CHiPs, MacGuyver, Max Headroom, The Wonder Years, Party of Five, Crossing Jordan & Arrested Development (as Judge Lionel Ping). The guy's working, so I guess he can't complain. Where else is JAG going to find someone to play Ambassador Sonsiri, Thailand?

Back to this movie... the downside to having actors who've never had speaking roles before (is there an upside?) is that they have trouble delivering lines without pausing or stumbling over what they're supposed to say. You get the sense that early on Mintz decided to let the actors go off script in the hope it would sound more natural. It doesn't, but it does give this movie some of the oddest dialogue I've heard recently.

At one point the two cops are tailing a suspect. As they drive around you hear this snippet of conversation:

Higgins: My wife and I figured out that to keep your spending down you oughta do all your shopping on one day. You make a list and do it all at once.
Wang: You figured that out huh?

Or how about this gem when one of the cops tries to delicately break some bad news to a man who'd just been mugged:
Tommy, I don't want to scare you. You read about the heart murders right? We think you're next.

In case you haven't figured it out, this wasn't as scary a movie as the poster would like you to believe. In fact, I've screencapped the scariest thing you'll see in the entire movie.

If you can get past this, you'll be OK

The movie also features one of Fred Ward's earliest roles. It's short, but significant. Interestingly, Ward recently reteamed with Chan for 2003's Masked and Anonymous. Ward was Drunk and Chan was Guard. Bet that was some reunion.

Don't worry Fred... everybody's gotta start somewhere

Anyway, in case you can't tell by the fact that I spent 2/3 of the review talking about other movies, Cardiac Arrest isn't a great movie. Nevertheless... we will forge on!

- Micah