DEATH RINK (2019)

Studio:      Wild Eye Releasing
Director:    Daniel Zubiate
Writer:      Daniel Zubiate
Producer:  Daniel Zubiate, Alan Humphrey, Trisha Pecore, Ian Troy
Stars:     Katherine McCune, Robert Posey, Caedmon Holland, Kim Johnson, Meg Smith, Amanda Courtney, Alan Humphrey, Ian Troy

Review Score:

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Summary:

A masked murderer stalks the staff of a roller rink where a young boy tragically died decades earlier.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

After closing to the public for the night, Roller King manager Rachel hangs out at the rink with her young employees Daley, French, Wendy, Cara, and Alicia. Rachel sends security guard Mike home, but two teenagers jump him in the parking lot.

Rachel tells her staff about Timothy McQuery, a six-year-old boy who tragically died in 1985 when the rink was known as Skateway. While his babysitter was distracted, Timothy suffered an epileptic seizure from the rink’s flashing lights and was subsequently trampled to death.

As the night goes on, a murderer disguised in a hoodie and a chrome alien mask strangles Alicia with a payphone cord. The killer also slashes Cara’s throat with a pizza cutter, crushes Daley’s head under a traffic cone, and stabs Wendy to death.

Rachel identifies herself to French as the killer. Rachel explains that she was the babysitter who was supposed to be watching Timothy McQuery when he died and she came back to shut down the roller rink once and for all.

Having recovered from his earlier attack, Mike returns to rescue French by strangling Rachel with a chain. Rachel recovers and kills Mike after French goes outside. When French returns, Rachel prepares to stab him from behind.

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Review:

As a critic, I’m not entirely sure what to do with “Death Rink.” As a viewer, I know exactly what to do. Turn it off before it burns my eyes, demand a refund, and drop any and all available copies directly into a bottomless hole where they have no hope of harming another innocent moviegoer ever again.

Seriously though, how should a critic calibrate evaluation criteria for “Death Rink?” Allow me to explain the dilemma.

The first clue that “Death Rink” exists in a unique realm of bad B-movies is that it comes from Wild Eye Releasing. After the unnoticed deaths of Brain Damage Films and Midnight Releasing, Wild Eye inherited the dubious distinction of being arguably the lowest level distributor in VOD horror. Every now and again, Wild Eye still surprises with a quirky piece of weirdness such as “President Wolfman” (review here). On the whole however, their catalog’s quality is heavy on the wrong seat of the good/bad seesaw, with some titles being so bargain basement, Wild Eye will seemingly put out anything that everyone else is unwilling to touch.

Case in point: One of the worst films I’ve ever reviewed was “Paranormal Sex Tape” (review here), another Wild Eye release. The movie was gibberish in film form produced, directed, and written by ‘Dick Van Dark.’ Disguising his/her identity under a pseudonym turned out to be the only sensible decision this purported filmmaker made. “Paranormal Sex Tape” was such a slop bucket of random footage, blurry clips, and absentee audio that I speculated Mr. Van Dark possibly never intended to make a narrative feature. Maybe, “someone saw this collection of crap with a modest amount of nudity and a makeshift monster, acquired it for a nickel, and figured that even selling one DVD at $9.99 turns a profit.” In other words, maybe everyone involved took what little they could get because they didn’t care one way or another what happened to the “film.”

Now, “Death Rink” isn’t as awful as all that, although it too barely has a story in only the loosest possible sense of that term. Yet once again I wonder, how sincere is “Death Rink” really supposed to be?

Benefit of the doubt says writer/director Daniel Zubiate certainly understands he can’t compete with big boys like “Spiral: From the Book of Saw” or “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.” But between “Amityville Whatever” and Shudder’s latest arthouse acquisition, where on the spectrum of DTV indie horror does Zubiate intend for his film to fall? It doesn’t do anyone any good for me to sit here savaging “Death Rink” like I’m Pauline Kael covering “The Exorcist” only for someone who helped make it to respond, “No sh*t Sherlock, what do you expect from a small group of friends with $800 who only wanted something fun to do on weekends?” So do I lightly handle “Death Rink” like a niche lark that gave some amateur upstarts a chance to dress up for an Albuquerque film festival? Or do I afford no slack whatsoever and treat it like I would any other lo-fi feature? What does Daniel Zubiate expect for his little film?

I mean, the performers have to know big Hollywood breaks aren’t in their futures at least, right? Several of them have IMDB headshots, most don’t, but none of them have serious credits of any kind. Greenhorns in every regard, they look like neighbors, cousins, cashiers, or any other average faces who happened to have an hour free to appear onscreen.

Keeping with the topic of how things appear, the fake blood looks like orange Hi-C, except even more watery. Mercifully, we don’t see much of it. That’s because we don’t see much of anything at all. Although a security guard gets clunked off camera at the 13-minute mark, the first murder doesn’t occur until 45 minutes into a 75-minute runtime. The rest of the movie is literally, and I’m using the word “literally” correctly, a roller rink staff talking. They sit and talk. They stand and talk. Sometimes they do odd jobs like sweep a floor and talk. Their chitchat is literally, and I am again using that word correctly, inconsequential nonsense about girls the guys want to bang, girls the guys have already banged, and stuff I can’t even remember even though I finished watching the film only a few minutes ago. Oh, and they smoke a teabag for a cheap high because that’s a thing apparently.

I thought “Death Rink,” which was titled “Skateway Massacre” when it premiered in 2019, might be good for some throwback goofs. I grew up in the ‘80s and remember the music, mirror balls, and row of arcade games from my summer vacation roller rink vividly. “Death Rink” doesn’t come close to capturing real roller rink vibes despite being shot inside one. Skating occurs for a hot minute, then the rink shows up in a scant few background shots. Most scenes are set at countertops, against walls, or in nondescript offices and storage rooms. Everyone could easily be working in a widget factory since the setting rarely capitalizes on its ambiance.

I’m a craft beer connoisseur who, when pandemics aren’t causing problems, enjoys patronizing microbreweries to try new drinks. That hobby can get expensive, so I’ve taken up equating prices of things to how much I’ll pay for a beer. For instance, I find it funny that I’ll hem and haw over a $5 sale price on a PlayStation game I’m interested in, yet I rarely blink at paying $9 for a tantalizing barleywine that catches my eye at a bar. I try to get myself thinking, “One less beer that’ll only last 15 minutes could be two games that’ll last you 50 hours.”

A similar thought occurred with “Death Rink.” Did I really want to pay $3.99 (I also find it funny that there are HD options for $1 more when enhanced visual fidelity would be a detriment to any shot-on-the-cheap eyesore) to rent a movie that appeared to have been born in a backyard, and might never have had serious intentions in the first place? “Eh, it’s only half a beer,” I reasoned. “How much buyer’s remorse could I possibly have for that price?” More than one might think, it turns out. If I had it to do over again, I’d rather have half of a beer than 75 minutes of “Death Rink.”

Review Score: 20

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