Over the years Fred Olen Ray has carved out a name for himself in B-movie filmmaking with over thirty films to his credit, a burgeoning DVD company with Retromedia, and more respect than, say, Albert Pyun.

That brings us to Scalps one of his earlier movies and for the longest time obscure and hard to find. Now Ray's gone and released it on disc in it's "uncut" form (even though he himself admits it's more of a "restored" version than "uncut").

The story is pretty simple as a group of archeology students head out to an ancient Indian burial ground to dig for artifacts (despite the numerous warnings from the locals) only for them to start getting killed off in bloody ways when one of them is possessed by a vengeful Native spirit. When the movie opens with a beheading you know its got promise, but unforunately it really doesn't get moving until the final third and up until then we're stuck getting quick glimpses of later events while the story meanders along.

But when the blood flows it does fairly well with a handful of decent gore deaths (the scalping and neck twist jump instantly to mind) and despite feeling cheap, amateurish, and poorly made it still manages to be mostly watchable. Plus how can you go wrong when they show a lousy looking man-lion and its curling lip and when a character asks where all the chanting and drum noises they hear are coming from one character proclaims, "from Hell".

If you're into junky low-budget horror flicks or if you're a fan of Ray's work then you should check Scalps out - it's not great, but it's an alright way to kill 79 minutes of your day. (Chris Hartley, 11/10/04)

Directed By: Fred Olen Ray.
Written By: Fred Olen Ray.

Starring: Kirk Alyn, Jo Ann Robinson, Richard Hench, Roger Maycock.