TubiTV diving lead me to find they have Jim Van Bebber's scuzzy low-budget action film
Deadbeat at Dawn, which makes it easier for me to recommend to people (I already have a copy of the Blu-Ray from Arrow Video, which comes with extras including some of Van Bebber's short films, including
Into the Black, an extra scuzzy 35-minute Super 8 action film/fever dream that's a bit of a percussor to
Deadbeat). Deadbeat, set in the decaying urban wasteland of Dayton, Ohio was directed by Van Bebber at the time a Wright State University film student who left after a year and went full guerilla with the making of the movie, using some of his financial assistance to fund the movie, paying fines out of his own pocket, working with two fellow film students who were still attending and had access to equipment, and putting himself in harm's way repeatedly. The film has a lo-fi, gory, raw, vicious conviction and intensity that sets it apart from other low-budget action films. Van Bebber plays Goose, leader of a street gang called the Ravens, who decides to quit after his fortune-telling, witchy girlfriend begs him to get out of the gang life. Unfortunately, two members of the Ravens' rival gang, the Spiders, break into her apartment and beat her to death with a golf club. Goose spirals after discovering this into a binge of drugs and booze, but later ends up on a violent and gory rampage of revenge. Of special note is the Spider responsible the girlfriend's death, a hood called Bone Crusher (Marc Pitman), an unhinged, druggie murder freak who alarms his own cohorts with declarations like
"I hate people, man! I don't care! I don't give a shit!" before huffing another popper.
