Fresh Kill

From the independent City Lights Home Video production stable, Fresh Kill is one of a handful of shot on video features released direct to the home video market in the latter part of the 1980s. Written and directed by City Lights’ co-producer Joseph Merhi, this low-budget actioner set in a grimy, crime-infested, dog-eat-dog Los Angeles delivers the full suite of low budget tropes: over acting, wince inducing dialogue, continuity errors, flat cinematography and awful ersatz 80s muzak.

The simplistic storyline kicks off with the meek Allen (Flint Keller) moving from Chicago to Hollywood in order to try his luck as an actor. Instead he ends up chopping meat in a butcher’s shop. One night, whilst he’s waiting for a midnight meat delivery, distressed young blonde Leona (Patricia Parks) rushes into the shop, hiding from two male Hispanic pursuers; after a brief friendly dialogue, she leaves. Later that evening the two men — now holding Leona at gunpoint — burst into the shop demanding to know the whereabouts of a sum of money. A fight breaks out; in the tumult Allen accidentally kills one of the men with a long knife, whilst Leona cuts the other down with a meat cleaver to the face!

The pair runs from the scene and takes refuge at Leona’s mother’s house. It transpires that the brother of one of the murdered men is Manny (Robert Zdar; Maniac Cop): ex-girlfriend of Leona and local drug king. She’s also stolen $2 million in drug money from him and has it stashed it away. The enraged Manny wants both of them dead and the cash returned. Leona and Allen take flight, with Manny and his flunkies in hot pursuit — brutally snuffing out anyone who has come into contact or related to the pair.

The once tame Allen becomes battle-hardened, but for Leona, the final straw comes when she is almost fatally wounded in a gunfight. After recovering, she surrenders to Manny to try to reason with him to stop the bloodshed, but it’s all in vain. Meanwhile, Allen decides to take the initiative: purchasing some weaponry and recruiting two friends for one final bloody battle at Manny’s own residence.