Dead Boyz Can't Fly (1992) User Reviews

Worth a peek

[leif-king_of_nerds · 26 May 2000]

For those who like independent movies, this one can be a good choice. Lot of action, no special effects, and one "hero" (as in almost every north-american action movies).

The guy with his throat cut can walk and speak for ten minutes without dying! This is fabulous! Hehehehehe

Memories... a God damn awful film.

[insomniac_rod · 1/10 · 4 January 2007]

I get mad every time I think about this trash. I watched it on late, late cable years ago and it was a horrible experience.

First, it has NOTHING to do with Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece "A CLOCKWORK ORANGE" I don't know why the producers and distributors of this crap compared both films. This film is sick in boredom, terribly directed, the plot is non existent, and the acting is just as horrible as the title!!! The director does not know a thing about film making! Terrible film, it shouldn't even be considered as a morbid flick. There is no excuses for this trash, it should be banned worldwide. It's almost impossible to find this disgusting film, but if you do find it just ignore it. DO NOT WATCH IT, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Crap stands out compared to this film.

I will give it a second chance when I find it because as far as I know, it isn't available on DVD. Last time I watched it was probably around 2000.

Bury it! And be sure it won't resurrect in the next 3 days.

Memorable

[davidalso-1 · 1/10 · 7 December 2008]

Ever since seeing it when first released I have waited to find a worse film. The only value in having witnessed this atrocity is the retelling of the experience. It is a good thing to be able to say, "This is the worst movie I have ever seen."

Now IMDb is asking me to fill in at least 10 lines of text in order to meet the minimum requirement of review length. Unlike Dead Boyz Can't Fly, however, I know when to leave well enough alone. It's unfortunate that the solution to whatever problem the IMDb people are trying to avoid happens to infringe on the finer qualities of a succinct and pithy piece of writing.

The movie is as bad as its title!

[darad · 1/10 · 24 April 1999]

It's a fact that all unknown movies aren't all bad. Normally you settle for these videos when the popular titles are gone. One night while in my local video rental outlet I settled for "Dead Boyz Can't Fly" because reviews touted it as the "Clockwork Orange for the 90's," one of my favorites, I thought it might be another "Warriors." What I saw was a movie that had no plot, no talent and apparently no budget. The whole movie looked like it was filmed in an abandoned government office building. It starts with a preachy Vietnam War Veteran, who you anticipate being the movie's hero. He crosses paths with "the gang," who wants nothing but trouble, fresh on a path of destruction and mayhem. Not only does our "hero" lose his final battle but no one else are matches against the Boys either. Luckily for the audience, the drugs finally kick in and the gangs' leader becomes a part of the pavement below, a crash symbolizing the awful story line. There were worst things I could have been doing instead of watching this movie like having a root canal or a cyst removed.

Warning! Danger! Hazardous!

[banky65 · 1/10 · 22 January 2003]

The cover exclaimed "A Clockwork Orange for the 90's". I wish. I wish it was banned like Clockwork (Note: Clockword Orange was banned on video in Australia for quite some time because Kubrick received death threats if he released it on video) Anyway back to the dreadful film. This would have to be the most pathetic excuse of a film that I have ever laid my eyes on. It is sick, depressing, incoherent, and just plain old insultinig on anyone who sees it. Saying that, I urge you to see it, not because it's so bad it's funny, I wish it was like that, but it's so bad that it's woeful. I can't even explain the story.

Better Than Its' Title

[DKiller · 10/10 · 26 March 2000]

Dead Boyz Can't Fly is a film that breaks the mold and harkens back to a day and age when exploitation films were dirty and cruel affairs. Films like this (Combat Shock and Satan's Sadists are other examples) that wallow in nihilism, hopelessness, and anger are tough going. However, this also gives them a meaning and crude energy.

Dead Boyz Can't Fly is the story of three goons, seemingly soulless and heartless, who have the sheer need and lust to inflict pain and suffering. This doesn't bode well for the art dealer who laughed at one of the goon's artwork, or anyone else who stands in their way.

As stated before, the brutality and anger of this film is shocking. Once you realise that the producer/director (himself a victim of a crime similar to the one in this movie) is using the violence as a means of catharsis, it seems natural. In short, Dead Boyz Can't Fly is perfect for the viewer who loved films like Last House On The Left or Fight For Your Life. Check it out.

And what about the Yo-Yo Man?

[joelmortel · 9/10 · 5 August 2005]

O.K. I know. I'm giving a so good score to this movie. And, i must admit, it has nothing to do with A Clockwork Orange. But, one thing is sure, Dead Boyz.. is probably one of the most singular movies in the world! Nothing has sense and the ending is both genius and stupid.

I'm really surprised that nobody noticed the hilarious Yo-Yo Man investigation. And is it possible to find something more ridiculous than the opening sequence with the mannequin and the wig..? and we're not talking about the crappy background music.

I've got no doubt about it, this movie has to be seen once in a life! I'm sure it can cure deep depression!

strange experience, not such a bad film

[chillroom-1 · 6/10 · 27 October 2006]

I probably shouldn't be writing in about this film, because I'm in it so I should be biased about it. But I'm fairly proud that I appear in this oddball movie because when I finally saw it I really enjoyed it.

Dead Boys was shot under the title Neon Red in Brooklyn and Manhattan in late summer 1988. A friend of mine (Matt Mitler -- you really need to see his movie Cracking Up) had auditioned for it and he called me and told me there was a part I could do in it, so I called for an audition myself. The director's office was in the same Times Square building that Geraldo was doing his then talk show and the elevator had a full-length mirror in it (so Geraldo could check himself out while going to the soundstage). Since I'm not really an actor (at the time I was a playwright and stage director) I didn't even have a head shot with me. I just told the folks that I was recommended to audition. The production staff looked at me funny but I read for the part of the suicidal attorney and they liked me, called me back where I met Howard the director and they videotaped my second reading and cast me. This was a surprise to me but I was glad to do it. At the time I was working as First AD on another low budget production and when I learned Neon Red was still looking for a lead actor to play the Nam vet janitor I recommended David John, who was starring in the other film I was working on. They cast David on my recommendation -- he was a great guy and I really enjoyed working with him.

The shoot was three weeks, extremely low budget. Pay was ridiculous and very non-union -- I got $50 a day! Still I got a great kick out of working on Neon Red. The cast and crew were fun and young and energetic. Brad Friedman, who played Goose the lead psycho, was a terrific and charismatic hardworking actor who had done some stage stuff with Robert Wilson. We were shooting the hostage scenes in the "tallest building in Brooklyn" (as we were told).

I was lucky enough to have my suicide scene be the first sequence shot for the film, so we spent some eight hours shooting it from every angle over and over again. It took forever but we all pretty satisfied when we moved on. But I mostly recall the final day of the shoot in that building -- it was an eighteen hour day because we HAD to finish shooting that day there, we had no more time. So the whole climax had to be shot in that very short time and it was totally rushed and improvised. My character was hanged but the scaffolding that was brought in was too tall for the room we were in and so they suspended a bar and when I dropped I was holding myself by my hands on the bar and they kept a tight closeup of my face. Then they shot my feet dangling and I kicked one of my shoes off -- which wasn't in the script and which got applause from the crew. In that final 18-hour day the only craft service we had was cold pizza! Like I say, LOW budget.

Still when I finally saw Dead Boys Cant Fly in 1995, two years after the film finally was released on video, I expected to see a real piece of crap and instead found a disturbing, unrelenting and mean film with some unsubtle humor and a surprisingly decent ending. I've been in a few other films, but none of them are as interesting as this thing. It's not a bad way to spend 90 minutes, as long as you're not too squeamish.

My name I believe is spelled correctly in the film -- Bennett Theissen -- but in the database and in most references to the film my last name has become Thiessen. So when I found my death scene listed on the Cinemorgue website, along with a photo of me being hanged, it's under "Thiessen." It'd be nice if that was corrected but it doesn't bother me too much.

Early 90's direct-to-vid action trash at its unapologetically sleazy best

[Woodyanders · 9/10 · 13 January 2006]

Brad Friedman as volatile tortured Catholic oedipal wreck transvestite Goose, Jason Stein as reserved, laconic, deranged "yo-yo" serial killer Buzz, and Daniel J. Johnson as fidgety, sniveling, weak-kneed wimp Jojo are undoubtedly the foulest, most slimy and disgusting bunch of vicious degenerate punks to ever sneer across the screen since the repulsive Krug Stillo gang in "The Last House on the Left." This lethal anti-social trio terrorize a handful of snobby New York City white collar yuppie office workers (three of 'em are played by distaff direct-to-vid exploitation pic perennials Ruth Corrine Collins, Jennifer Delora and Delia Sheppard) working late hours during a holiday. Only the building's grubby, bitter, shell-shocked loner 'Nam vet janitor (moodily essayed by David John) has both the necessary guts and ability to fight back.

Director Howard Winters opts for a commendably fearless and go-for-broke nasty approach to relating the rough story. Winters doesn't hold back on the right raw stuff, delivering a mighty potent gut punch of a sleazeball suspense thriller which gleefully goes against the stuffy, uptight, killjoy grain of reprehensibly touchy-feely 90's political correctness: Among the unsparingly ghastly carnage found herein are graphically unpleasant 'Nam flashbacks, rape, shootings, stabbings, degradation, both physical and psychological abuse, strippers struttin' their stuff, snarly taunting dialogue ("I'm a sociopath, lady!," Goose hollers at one cowering victim), a helpless elderly dentist having his gold teeth ripped out by Goose, and a righteously violent, grimly ironic turn-the-tables grand finale, all of which give this admirably harsh gut-ripper a mean, scuzzy, resolutely amoral and unnerving edge that's gloriously reminiscent of 70's drive-in movie sludge like "Fight for Your Life" and "I Spit on Your Grave." A great, gritty, deeply cynical and corrosive little stinkweed unsung exploitation movie gem.

Plain and Simple Trash

[tcm0624 · 28 June 2001]

Please, for the love of God, if it's not already too late, don't watch this movie.

Lots of senseless violence, most of it totally unmotivated. Those who found a message, a plot, or even one decent scene are looking very hard and using a large part of their imagination.

I would have turned it off halfway through, but I wanted to be fair about criticizing it.

Plain and Simple Trash

[tcm0624 · 28 June 2001]

Please, for the love of God, if it's not already too late, don't watch this movie.

Lots of senseless violence, most of it totally unmotivated. Those who found a message, a plot, or even one decent scene are looking very hard and using a large part of their imagination.

I would have turned it off halfway through, but I wanted to be fair about criticizing it.