FILM GUTTER REVIEWS - DEBBIE DOES DAMNATION (1999)

DEBBIE DOES DAMNATION (1999)
Dir. Eric Brummer, 63 mins

If you’re a fan of utter B-movies and exploitation films, then the odds are you will get a kick out of this one, and while I’m not a great lover of the form this kept me entertained –  admittedly sometimes for the right reasons and sometimes for the wrong ones. ​

Before you even get into what a film is about, or who stars in it, or who the director is, you of course have the title. And in some cases a great title simply trumps everything else – as was the case with Debbie Does Damnation. Knowing sum total of zero about this movie before starting, I launched into it only to find that it is yet another black and white movie – what are the odds? Why do all the black and white offerings seem to have gathered together lately? Of course it’s not bad thing in its own right, but would the device – and everything else besides – work for Debbie Does Damnation?

The story begins not with Debbie at all, but with a naked young woman tied to an altar. And despite me saying that, I should clarify this film is not a porn film – although there’s no shying away from the fact there’s plenty of nudity throughout. When our captive escapes, it becomes quickly apparent that she is wandering through Hell – but don’t feel any need to get attached to this initial character. DDD is no doubt very limited on the budget front, because Hell looks rather more like a suburban house done up to be dark and grimy, although some of the imagery in the opening scene (and indeed throughout) is pretty disturbing in spite of that. Debbie is out next arrival to the bowels of the underworld, and she lasts rather longer, managing to escape the clutches of her captor and set off on a bizarre and slightly confusing mission in the very heart of a struggle for ultimate power over Hell. She is tasked with retrieving the horns of the devil, with one each being held by the respective leaders of two factions fighting for control of the underworld.

There’s no doubt DDD feels like a labour of love, and something that all involved appear to be having fun with. The story probably sounds significantly darker than it actually comes across, and there are numerous things that make that the case – some of the fight scenes look really amateurish, the visuals can be bleak and shocking but can also veer into the absurd, and probably most egregious of all is the awful dub – with the film being shot in Super 8 the dialogue was evidently added later, and performed by rather too few actors and leaning for laughs that don’t always land. There are also numerous elements of Claymation, which I’m still on the fence about – they look decent in and of themselves, but when someone ‘real’ in the movie dies we often cut to a Claymation death, which does jolt me a bit. A fully Claymation movie from this team would certainly be of interest based on this offering though.

Ultimately there’s enough here that was fun, and there were some impressive visuals given the very limited budget (I’ve seen $1000 dollars quoted in a few places) but DDD is certainly not with its flaws. If you’re a fan of utter B-movies and exploitation films, then the odds are you will get a kick out of this one, and while I’m not a great lover of the form this kept me entertained –  admittedly sometimes for the right reasons and sometimes for the wrong ones. I’d also slightly pick holes in the runtime here – while it is 63 minutes of a fashion, the main feature finishes at about 48 minutes and the rest seems to be behind the scenes footage, so it’s a push to even say this would take up an hour of your time ultimately.

RATING: 5.5/10. While critically there’s plenty to pick at, and this one is unlikely to live long in the memory, Debbie Does Damnation in many ways serves up exactly what you might expect given its title. I enjoyed it fine, despite its many flaws, and I couldn’t put you off if you want to switch your brain off for an hour and enjoy a few chuckles at a slightly silly, sometimes dark and often pretty imaginative little film curio.

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