Death Valley (1982) - Imprint Films Limited Edition

In 1982, the slasher film was still sneered at by most major studios. Critics wrote them off as irredeemable trash. A lucky few made it through the Hollywood system, but others, like Death Valley, had to toe the line with some standardized ideals. So, you have a sort of tweener film that’s not quite a slasher and not quite a giallo, but it has elements of both in order to make the grisly goings-on more palatable for critics and audiences alike.

Death Valley, directed by Dick Richards and starring Peter Billingsley (Ralphie from A Christmas Story), is an intriguing, minor entry into the slasher genre. In it, little Billy (Billingsley) travels with his mom from New York City to the terrifying desert of Arizona. His mom and dad are getting divorced and he’s meeting his mom’s new boyfriend, Mike, for the first time. The two do not get along at first. It’s not an open animosity, but an awkwardness. They don’t know each other yet. Billy misses his dad and Mike (Paul Le Mat) is frustrated in trying, and failing, to get the young boy to like him.

Billy’s mom, Sally (Catherine Hicks), knows they’ll hit it off eventually, they just need some time. With some gentle nudging, the three of them travel Arizona, up through the deserts of Nevada and California, to eventually reach their destination of Death Valley. They stop at tourist towns, engage with the locals, get into mock Wild West gun battles and each passing day grow more and more comfortable with each other.

Little do they know that there’s a killer following their every move.

Billy comes close to death, unbeknownst to him, again and again, or comes close to discovering the remnants of another one of the killer’s victims. And, through blind luck, will stumble out of danger just as quickly as he’d entered it. Sometimes this has an unintentional tinge of humor to it—the killer levels a revolver at Billy and fires, a bullet whizzing mere inches from his face, and Billy is ecstatic, thinking it’s a part of a Wild West show. These sequences with an inept killer being accidentally outwitted by a plucky, lucky child have a real "coyote vs roadrunner" feel to them.

The old Hitchcockian definition of “suspense” is to imagine a group of people having a conversation at a table. The camera tilts under the table and we see that there’s a bomb ready to go off. None of the characters know, but we do. That, the example states, is suspense. Richards has taken that and run away with it, because for the vast majority of the film, no one knows that they’re in any danger, until the very end. Effectiveness is a mixed bag—sometimes the director wrings a lot of suspense out of certain sequences. Other times, it can be just plain goofy.

However, the most bewildering creative decision the film makes is in the identity of the killer. Combining the Giallo film aesthetic with its southwest background (a yee-hawlo, if you will), the true identity of the killer remains a mystery until the end, when all is revealed to the audience. There are red herrings to throw the audience off the trail, but when we finally learn the truth, it’s supposed to be a real “ah-ha” moment. The ultimate reveal, I believe, was meant to be a twist, but it’s not very surprising.

As hard as I’ve been on Death Valley, more often than not, it’s successful in its mission to entertain. Production-wise, the technical skill behind the camera is much better than it needs to be, and that skill is evident at every turn. Death Valley looks and sounds fantastic. The skill in front of the camera is just as evident, too, with the cast treating this light little thriller with just the right amount of gravity. Death Valley isn’t the most remarkable entry in the genre, but it’s quite solid in what it sets out to do. It invites us to turn off our brains for a brisk 88 minutes and be manipulated by a macabre story full of twists and turns.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Death Valley is printed onto a single Blu-ray disc, housed in a standard case with a rigid slipcover. The slipcover and case feature different artwork, with the rigid slipcover containing original artwork from the film’s initial release. The interior case has a still from the film printed on the reverse side.

Death Valley is a good-looking film with a very attractive 1080p HD transfer for this disc’s release. There are no notes regarding the video transfer, so I’m unsure if there was any restoration process required for its video presentation, whether from some interpositive or the film’s original camera negative. The film was shot on 35mm by cinematographer Stephen H. Burum, who has also lensed some of Brian DePalma’s more extravagant pictures like Carlito’s Way and The Untouchables. While the camerawork here is nowhere near as intricate, Burum gets some great atmosphere out of its desert scenery, particularly in nighttime sequences, with brilliant blue hues and long, threatening shadows. Scenes set during the day are no slouch, either, as the film is saturated in deep, vibrant colors. While overall Death Valley is a surprisingly sleek-looking film, there is some film grain apparent in shots with one primary color, like the desert sky or the white, stucco wall of a cheap motel.

Imprint Films’ Blu-ray release of Death Valley comes with two sound mixes: A 5.1 DTS-HD MA surround mix, and a 2.0 LPCM stereo mix. For the purpose of this review, I did toggle back and forth between the two and there’s not a tremendous difference. The 5.1 surround mix does a great job at replicating the film’s original front-heavy sound design, with very infrequent sound effects making their way to the rears. Even Dana Kaproff is confined to the front of the soundstage. The 5.1 mix basically clarifies the stereo mix, through the use of its dedicated center channel. Dialogue sounds clearer and other effects sound sharper.

Whether or not you have a proper 5.1 setup and home, or you’re just using your TV’s speakers, both mixes are top-notch. Though dialogue clarity is sharper on the 5.1 mix, it’s still audible and favored on the stereo mix, it just sounds a bit muffled. And the surround mix, though 90% front-heavy, does feel a bit fuller and wider. Dana Kaproff’s score features strongly throughout both mixes. In the film’s quieter moments, the orchestral music sounds bittersweet and tinged with an irony to its pleasant melodics, not unlike the theme to The Amityville Horror. The more suspenseful bits benefit from discordant percussions that sound raw and animalistic.

There aren’t a ton of features to make your way through on this disc, but the features that are there are quite good. The audio commentary, from the film’s director, provides his insights into the film’s production history. There is a video essay from film historian Jarret Grahan on the history of the slasher genre and where Death Valley falls into it. There is also an interview with the film’s composer, Dana Kaproff.

• Audio Commentary - From director Dick Richards
• Sliced & Spliced: The Rise of the Slasher Subgenre and Fall of the Studio Slasher Film (HD 32:02) - Video essay by film historian Jarret Gahan (2024)
• Strings & Screams (HD 12:33) - Interview with composer Dana Kaproff (2024)
• Theatrical Trailer/TV Spot

Death Valley is, to me, a comfort food slasher movie. The stakes are low, the violence isn’t extreme, and everything feels predictable to the point of formulism. The production values, however, are all quite good, with excellent cinematography and music, which this Blu-ray release does well by. If nothing else for the sheer gimmick of seeing Ralphie from A Christmas Story transplanted to the desert and terrorized by a crazed killer, Imprint Films’ release of Death Valley is Recommended.