Luther the Geek (1990)

Director:

Carlton J. Albright

Writer:

Carlton J. Albright (writer)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

A movie with a fowl bite!

Plot:

As a young child Luther The Geek or "The Freak" witnesses a band of men goading a geek (a man who bites...

Plot Keywords:

Chicken | Geek | Blood | Clucking | Spreadeagle

Cast

Edward Terry	...	The Freak
Joan Roth	...	Hilary
Stacy Haiduk	...	Beth
Thomas Mills	...	Rob
Jerry Clarke	...	Trooper (as J. Joseph Clarke)
Tom Brittingham	...	Geek
Carlton Williams	...	Little Luther
'Chicken' Klabunde	...	Carnival Woman
Gil Rogers	...	Walsh
Karen Maurise	...	Mrs. Butler
Jerome Borgos	...	Chairman
Michael Boyle	...	Board Member 4
David Pavlosky	...	Jason
Robert Caraballo	...	Cook
Nat KT	...	Teenage Clerk

Runtime:

80 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-18 | Australia:R

Filming Locations:

Iowa, USA

Trivia:

The farm in the film belonged to director Carlton J. Albright's mother-in-law.

Movie Connections:

References Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

Good character stuck in a bad film

Revisiting old films that you thought were average isn't necessarily a good thing. They sometimes get worse. Championed by the Fangoria camp (in Gorezone they labeled it "the scariest film since Texas CHAINSAW"…um, no), LUTHER THE GEEK inexplicably developed a cult following as an "intense" horror picture. Actually, it is just an average stalk and slash…uh, bite film that briefly sets itself aside from the pack by featuring a killer who clucks like a chicken. Yes, clucks like a chicken. To the filmmaker's credit, at least they didn't make the killer sound like a duck a la THE NEW YORK RIPPER. That would just be silly.

Narrative logic is completely abandoned in LUTHER THE GEEK. I'm not saying that slasher films are abound with reason, but at least in HALLOWEEN Michael Myers escaped. Luther is actually paroled after a lengthy scene where people argue he is reformed, even though he clucks like a chicken and has razor dentures (which he apparently fashioned in prison). It is the kind of film where a couple sees a bashed in door and the girl dismisses it by saying, "Oh, my mom must have forgotten her keys. She forgets a lot of things since my dad died." The kind of film where the hysterical mother runs into a cop looking for Luther and tells him, "The killer is in my house!" So what does he do? He grabs her and literally drags her back to the house and says, "Just show me where he is and I'll do the rest." Why not call back up?

It is too bad the film is filled with such horrible action and dialogue because the Luther character is actually pretty interesting. Most of the credit goes to Ed Terry, a dead ringer for Tom Noonan in MANHUNTER, who gives the clucking Luther a genuine air of menace. In the hands of a right director, LUTHER THE GEEK could be on the same level as SONNY BOY or SANTA SANGRE and be a true cinematic oddity. But Albright is not that director and merely places the fascinating character of Luther in tedious slasher trappings.