Delirium

Delirium (1979)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Peter Maris

Starring: Turk Cekovsky, Debi Chaney, Terry Tenbroek, Bob Winters, Barron Winchester 

From: Delirium Associates/Worldwide Productions

How ironic for the plot of this film that a key supporting actor resembles Matt Gaetz*! I hate to bring up American politics as this can lead to trouble but that’s the crux of the plot to Delirium. I looked at the Eternal Family platform to see what they were playing on one of their 24/7 streaming channels. This had just begun. As the movie’s also available on Arrow’s platform, I went there to see it in full.

This regional filmmaking oddity (Missouri, in this case) concerns a Vietnam vet named Charlie that starts killing women, as two horndog police detectives-who like calling women “broads”-investigate. As the plot descriptions everywhere let the cat out of the bag, I’ll do the same. Charlie was hired by a secret organization which involves businessmen who wish to “clean up the streets” so ex-soldiers are tasked with targeting criminals that the legal system didn’t convict. At least such things couldn’t happen in real life… unfortunately for those vigilantes, Charlie has PTSD from ‘Nam and escaped from a mental health facility.

Yeah, this is low-budget to the max (there are ‘Nam flashbacks, where “Vietnam” is obviously the woods of Missouri, the acting is as uneven as you’d expect) yet how unique the plot was still intrigued. This mix of police procedural-styled after a 70’s cop TV show, to borrow a phrase-proto-slasher, and conspiracy thriller leans on the police procedural yet I eventually warmed up to those detectives—their behavior was just emblematic of the era. If it sounds like an uncompleted film was grafted onto a completely different new film… allegedly this was exactly the case.

The film went in some unexpected directions & always fascinated me, from the opening set at night with the city lights in the background, to the squibs, to the two cars exploding, to an astounding 1970’s flowery couch. There’s also the sleazy elements for some… topless women and a bit of gore. This landing on the infamous Video Nasty list is a little baffling as none of the gore was that gruesome.

A motion picture like Delirium will be more to my tastes than it will for many on Letterboxd. At least some will think of it no better than cheap, boring nonsense. Thankfully, this curio worked for me.

* For those not from the United States, Gaetz is a former member of Congress who resigned in disgrace due to allegations of heinous behavior made against him. He wasn’t convicted in a court of law but the Ethics Committee for Congress found evidence of this. Gaetz now has a radio show on a far-right platform.