Dear God No! Review on DVD from Big World Pictures!
Oh yes indeed, a good spunky gritty bikersploitation flick is always a welcome sight for my ruined and scarred eyes (my peepers have seen a lot of demented films since the age of 8 — 40 years worth!) The genre is one of my personal favourites, being my family’s affiliation and history with bikers and Hells Angels (long time readers know). Biker movies are so much fun anyway. Trash to the max, usually, and standardly over-the-top. A handful of years ago I reviewed the epic cheese fest, Werewolves on Wheels (see review here), and even further back, one of the greatest that cinema has offered, The Northville Cemetery Massacre (see review here), plus let’s not forget a nifty Midnight Movies MGM double bill (see review here) in 2020. It comes to my attention that, as much as I claim to love this kind of film so much, I’m a lil bit bare bones on the output for Severed Cinema.
So it’s about time we don our colours (stinking of piss, shit, and so much more) and grasp a chain in our hand (beer in the other) for a well overdue trip down a road somewhere as we go on a fresh run. Dear God No! Let’s get right in with some funky early ‘70s-style garage rock which sounds wonderfully authentic to our ears. We’re metal heads and we know our metal ‘n’ rock history and we vibe off the simple sounds of fuzz and stuff. There are crackling streaks plus lines on the screen for a bit, old grubby theatre style, which is a mandatory staple in these kinds of recreation flicks.
This time ‘round the feel and setting is greatly presented without being comical. It’s the 1970s for our story. The Impalers are a biker gang, their club patch happens to be a woman spiked between her leg’s ala Cannibal Holocaust. Their leader, Jett is big, brutish, and owning a wide beard like my own — but his has less grey. He and the gang are surrounded by the freshly violated and slaughtered corpses of nuns whilst the drunken bikers chill in a field. One of them punt kicks a cadaver just for the laughs.
On their way to their next naughty crime, a member of the chapter rides over a corpse, stopping for a while to chug the wheels, thus mutilation and gore is a given. We cut off to a woman and her son driving. She stops for her kid to take a piss; the bikers pass as she waits. You expect one of them to rape or pillage her, but nope cause it’s the introduction of a nifty subplot. A huge unseen beast approaches and kills her. Yep, we got a sasquatch on the loose! Cue the credits and the music… oh the music is perfect. Me and Willow we’re vibing, heads nodding. We’re metal heads as I stated above, and, as any true metal head knows, it all begins from the roots as music became so beautifully diverse and heavy in the ‘70s. Dear God No! captures the feeling plus the emotional lift in a bottle to blast it out. It’s spot on. I could, for once, forgive breaking the fourth wall (my pet hate as readers know) as this time, the bikers spit and give finger salutes to the camera, this adds to the aura of campiness. Already we were loving this movie.
Speaking of Sasquatch, there’s a doctor, with a German accent (lol) who is sinister. He knows something of the creature. Way too much, you sense. He lives alongside Edna, his nervous quiet daughter. A girl who seldom has spoken since her mom died. Their waiting on visitors, two students who are researching the same subject as he is seemingly obsessed with. Are we actually in the 1970’s? Yes, because we enter a strip club where the topless women gyrate while wearing Richard Nixon masks. Unsettling stuff. I immediately recalled the video to Killer Mike’s tune, Big Beast, the uncut version. If you don’t know, have a look. The track was a clever ruse, make it bragging rap violence, get people to check the album. Guess what? A very deep set of lyrics on the other tunes — edutainment, as KRS-ONE said. I digress, hang on…
Anyway, again it’s the music, and now the lighting that shows a lot of preparation has gone into this. Dear God No! and it’s maker is a Tarantino’s Tarantino. Tarantino sees this Tarantino and wishes he was as Tarantino as him! As the girls dance, Jett and his close entourage meet up with the pops of two of his gang, who seems to have a big say on what goes down in biker town. He isn’t impressed by their hobbies which include violence, rape, and killing. They’re going too far. Meanwhile, a duo of the chapter does the bar mat shot followed by something else altogether, a glass of bourbon with a used tampon within. In my youth, hanging out of my arse in clubs and pubs, aside from chugging dregs out of glasses, I did a few mat shots. Never the other thing though.
“Only reason you’re all still alive is that two of yer are kin!” the meeting goes on. He then begins insulting the two guys in question with choice family ditties like how he should have poked a coat hanger up their momma. This gets more bonding until the lads have had enough and kill him. Thus begins a blood splattered gunfight between the bikers and the strippers who all handle weapons pretty well. “You can see the blood packets,” chuckled Willow, “It’s so bad it’s awesome! They don’t care!”
As the film progresses, the plot thickens as we find that wildlife in the area has been acting all “…weird like…” Also, two cops are killed, a clerk is shot by Spider because he was basically too intelligent. “Can’t I even take a shit in peace??!!” yells Jett at one point as shots are fired and he’s sat on the toilet.
Dr. Marco explains to his students about his research, this is getting deeper still. It’s not at all just about the creature which is on the loose. Did we expect a simple down to earth bigfoot tale? Turns out there’s something in their cellar locked away.
Sooner rather than later, all the worlds collide, the Impalers home invade the good doctor, down to a few insults his guests threw at them earlier in the movie. They torment the pregnant student girl (as Jimbo asks when about to penetrate her, does it count as a gang bang?) makes Edna strip slowly, and all get dragged into the ongoing madness.
Dear God No! has ample gore, trippy drugs, boobies, a killer soundtrack and a hilarious script. As Willow said, “Bitches, guns ‘n’ bikes, what’s not too like?” It’s perfect trash, done to the classic formulas of yesteryear. Yeah, the title is screamed at one point, of course. James Bickert is a sleaze lord. The almighty of low-down dirty flicks. He also has a role in this. We have yet to see the sequel, Frankenstein Created Bikers (which stars Laurence Harvey, whom I interviewed not long back). As for stars, Jett Bryant, as Jett (huh) is the man. The fuckin’ man! We have the pleasure of his performance which shines like a bearded star. He brings life to the witty lines, and a laid-back reaction to the bizarre twists and turns. Also, he’s a vocalist. Madeline Brumby as Edna really cranks up the damaged girl and the confident woman that follows. Brilliant. Her erotic dance in front of Jett may have a few viewers hitting rewind once or twice, y’ know. Not me, though. I’m a happy, nearly married weirdo.
Gunshots, decapitation, clawed to death bodies, beheadings, and a show stopping gut stabbing. There’s enough of the crimson juicy business for all to see. Dear God No! must be seen fully uncut to experience the incredible bad taste on show, that is mandatory! Fun game, look out for and spot the obsolete film refences within. One involves a bottle of wine.
The extras are a pure downer though. We didn’t bother Easter Egg hunting but seeing what else was on show. I’m glad that we didn’t. The world premiere part was especially short and ultra sucky. Amazing artwork by The Dude Designs, Thomas (Tom) Hodge, by the way.
Directed by: James Bickert
Written by: James Bickert
Produced by: James Bickert, Dusty Booze, Jett Bryant and many more
Cinematography by: Jonathan Hilton, Dave Osbourne
Editing by: James Bickert, Jackson Nash, Rusty Stache
Music by: Richard Davis, The Forty Fives, Brian G Malone
Special Effects by: Nick Morgan
Cast: Jett Bryant, Madeline Brumby, Nick Morgan, Shane Morton, James Bickert, Johnny Collins, Dusty Booze, Paul McComisky, Rachelle Lynn, Parker Honeycutt, Jim Stacy
Year: 2011
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 22min
Studio: Big World Pictures
DVD SPECS:
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Region: NTSC R0
Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL:
– Behind the scenes
– Art and stills slideshow
– Director and composer commentary
– Trailer
– Zombie promo
– Torture porn promo
– Vlog the Magnificent
– Easter Eggs
