Starring Carmine Capobianco, Debi Thibeault, Cecelia Wilde, Robert Suttile, Lum Chang Pang, Danny Noyes, Herb Klinger, Wally Gribauskas, Peach Gribauskas, LeeAnne Baker, Michael Citriniti
Directed by Gorman Bechard
Expectations: Low, but it has a funny title, so who knows?
On the general scale:
On the B-movie scale:
The ’80s were a special time for film. Low-budget cinema came to a real prominence thanks to the home video market, paving the way for fun, depraved movies like this. Psychos in Love was the labor of love of director Gorman Bechard, who shot the film when he had free weekends on the ends of film from other productions (a common cost-saving method when low-budget stuff was still shot on film). The film’s star Carmine Capobianco also co-wrote the film, composed the film’s music and helped out on the FX duties. The methods of production remind me greatly of another filmmaker’s 1987 shot-on-free-weekends film, Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste, but Psychos in Love unfortunately didn’t lead Bechard to ascend to quite Peter Jackson heights. Based on the quality of the filmmaking on display here, he should at least be something of a known quantity in the industry, instead of a largely unknown filmmaker with a few other credits to his name (two of which I’ll eventually visit on my trek through the Empire/Full Moon catalog).
So what is Psychos in Love about, you ask? Well… psychos in love, of course! Joe is a strip club owner who kills random women on the side, and Kate is a manicurist who murders random men on the side. They both hate grapes too, so naturally they get along famously and begin a serious relationship. To say any more would betray the film, as plot and narrative aren’t exactly the strong point of Psychos in Love. It’s not that what’s here is bad, it’s just very light on story. There’s a point where it feels like a traditional narrative could have naturally grown out of the introduction of a third killer, but instead of a genuine plot, it becomes merely a single scene later in the film that’s nothing more than funny.