‘Dead Girls Don’t Tango’ DVD Review
Stars: Karen Black, Kevin Lloyd, Christine Burke, Robyn Hussa, Roger Galloway, Toni Covington, Joseph Campanella, David Burnell Smith, Jim Flynn | Written by Philip Yordan | Directed by John Carr
Jack is a young wanderer with a turbulent past who arrives at La Paloma, the cinema of his Aunt Ruth, the closest relative he has since the death of his mother, in the hope of a bed for a few nights. But in the city there is a serial killer who dances tango with his victims before strangling them and police start to suspect that Jack is in some way involved with the murders. His aunt and Julie, a girl who got a job in the cinema thanks to him, also begin to doubt his innocence…
Do you know what I like about the current state of physical media? All the boutique labels that have emerged, all fighting for the attention of film fans and all scouring film vaults across the globe for some of the most obscure little-seen genre fare they can find. Case in point, Dead Girls Don’t Tango.
The film is written by Philip Yordan, whose writing credits go all the way back to 1942 and include the likes of El Cid and Battle of the Bulge in the 1960s and more famously for horror fans the VHS era staple The Unholy in 1988. However which of his credits are “real” and which are merely fronts for other writers is debatable – you see, according to reports, Yordan was often credited as a writer on films penned by blacklisted screenwriters (for example instead of Ben Maddow on The Naked Jungle). Dead Girls Don’t Tango is actually one of a series of films Jordan wrote for director John Carr, whose own career spanned from the 60s to this, his final film. Though Carr is actually credited on a 1994 film, Too Bad about Jack, however it seems that is merely a retitle/re-edit of the film much like their other 1992 release, Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars, is a retitle/re-edit of Scream Your Head Off (a film which also appears in this movie, as a movie showing at the cinema Jack works in).
Speaking of re-editing, the duo of Yordan and Carr were behind a trio of obscure genre films, Death Wish Club, Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars and this film; yet Yordan and Carr are probably known more for another horror movie… Night Train to Terror, an anthology film which is made up of segments from other movies, including a couple of the aforementioned Yordan/Carr films and scenes from the Yordan-penned Cataclysm (1980), edited together with a new wraparound sequence.
Carr’s final film is credited as being made in 1992 (as is the re-edited Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars – though that film was shot much earlier and released under the title Scream Your Head Off, and not “officially” completed by Carr until 1992), however Carr actually began filming Dead Girls Don’t Tango in 1989 and it really shows – the film feels very much like a product of the direct to VHS era of mom and pop “shot on video” style filmmaking, even if it looks like there was more budget behind this film! However, unlike a lot of those direct-to-VHS titles, Dead Girls Don’t Tango did make it to DVD, back in 2006 in fact, just as Blu-ray launched.
Thankfully Tetrovideo have resurrected and restored Dead Girls Don’t Tango for a brand-new DVD release, giving this overwrought American-lensed Giallo a new lease of life – for that’s what Dead Girls Don’t Tango is, a Giallo wrapped up in the skin of a pulpy detective/mystery thriller – with the suspicious Jack front and centre of the film. Is he the killer? Why did he lie to the police about a crime he saw being committed? Carr even borrows the tropes and cliches of the gloved killer from the likes of Argento’s Deep Red, though bizarrely sans gloves, for this film! And much like Giallo’s, the soundtrack for this film is as over the top and overripe as many an Italian genre film.
Much like the soundtrack, Dead Girls Don’t Tango gets crazier and just as overwrought as it goes on, until eventually the film loses the plot altogether. In the best way possible of course! For like a lot of similar 80s genre fare, Dead Girl’s Don’t Tango is a cheesy slice of greatness wrapped up in the trappings of the era – and as such your mileage may vary with this one (Me? I loved it!).
Dead Girls Don’t Tango is out now as a limited edition Mediabook DVD from Tetrovideo.
