Anchor Bay Entertainment’s first release in their new line
of rarities dubbed ‘Undiscovered’ or ‘UnDISCovered’ that weren’t able to secure
theatrical distribution was New York based indie filmmaker-actor Dean Dempsey’s
2015 microbudget saga Candy Apple which told of a troubled homeless
father and starving artist son surviving the Big Apple so to speak. Enmeshed within the barfly lifestyle full of
a mixture of characters with bisexual leanings, struggling with drug and/or
boozing addictions just trying to make it through another day, it was an
inspired little gem that gave viewers an inkling of the mid-2010s scrappy New
York bar scene. The acting was
amateurish but with an element of real world streetwise truth, particularly in its
lead character Texas Trash. It also showed
Dempsey occasionally out on a limb as an actor and storyteller not afraid to humiliate
himself.
Three years later, however, Dean Dempsey is back with Deadman’s
Barstool, a kind of whodunit neo-noir ensemble comedy dwelling more or less
within the same world as Candy Apple only this time the results are spotty
if not meandering. Probably the most
distracting element of the piece itself is Dean Dempsey as a detective trying
to piece together the murder of a sleazy televangelist. In a movie with a fairly realistic murder
sequence, I didn’t buy Dempsey in the part nor was I invested in whatever
pathos he may have had as a character. Whereas
Candy Apple drew you into its mixture of quirk and grime, Deadman’s
Barstool just kind of bores you out of it and feels more like a dress rehearsal
than a fully realized or lived-in world with previously endearing caricatures
now coming off as annoying. I
wholeheartedly recommend giving Candy Apple a spin while also
recommending leaving Deadman’s Barstool on the shelf.
When a renowned but secretly alcoholic televangelist known
as John the Preacher (Brad Calcaterra) turns up dead, the prime suspect points
to his wife Mary (Leticia Castillo) who was already in the midst of a meager
divorce settlement. However when her
husband’s mistress Ginny (Jasmine Poulton) shows up, alongside a couple of
scheming gay characters who pose as fortune tellers when they aren’t whiling
away their time at the local bar occasionally visited upon by a local idiot,
everyone becomes a suspect in Dean Dempsey’s attempt to mix barfly boozing with
neo-noir. Whereas the coming-of-age
freeform approach to a slummy world somehow worked beautifully in Candy
Apple, running at seventy-eight minutes Deadman’s Barstool unfortunately
just kind of misfires. It’s the same
universe and subset of characters more or less but in trying to create a kind
of Rashomon effect story mixed with quirk it, again, irritates more than
it enthralls.
Released alongside the far better and more interesting debut
film Candy Apple, yes Deadman’s Barstool is worthy of an UnDISCovered
blu-ray disc release so you can act now by not buying it. I’m excited for the UnDISCovered label in the
same way I am for Smodcastle Cinema which has been actively unearthing and
publishing rare if not completely unreleased titles but sometimes even
filmmakers I’ve liked make mistakes. I’m
all for the further development of Dean Dempsey’s career and still recommend Candy
Apple as an offbeat slice of New York life struggling with addiction and
really wanted to like Deadman’s Barstool. By all accounts I should’ve as it is more of
the same world, but putting it into the neo-noir format may have worked against
it. Again, the core problem stems from
Dean Dempsey just not being there yet as an actor portraying a lush sleuth on
top of a murder mystery involving a celebrity televangelist. Bless his future endeavors as well as more
forthcoming UnDISCovered releases in, yes, an interesting new boutique label
but my friendly recommendation is to skip this one.
--Andrew Kotwicki
