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9 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Extremely underrated slasher from Fred Olen Ray..., 10 August 2005

Author: Luisito Joaquín González (RareSlashersRated) from Spain

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Looking back that whole video-nasty thing was really just a big anti climax. Kind of like sharing a bed with Angelina Jolie and finding out that she'd just given her vow to a nunnery. In the UK, films like Pranks and Madhouse were reputed to be so vile and depraved that the thought of sitting through one of them felt like stealing your next door neighbor's car and going banger racing round the neighborhood. But when they finally hit shelves some twenty years later it was like, "Oh was that really what all the fuss was about?" That's why it's nice to come across a title that someway lives up to its exaggerated reputation. Scalps certainly delivers on the gore score and includes one or two grisly scenes that somewhat exceed the expectations of the shoestring budget. The Grim Reaper and Mystery in Rome also boasted extreme gore scenarios, but still couldn't lift themselves above mediocrity. I hoped that Scalps could support the bloody stuff with a few decent shocks and surprises.

Six bizarrely spaced out anthropology students head out to the Californian Desert to dig up Indian artifacts. Despite a crazy Ralph-style ominous warning from an old Indian named Billy Iron Wing, they continue their journey deep into the vastly uninhabited wasteland. Whilst digging in the blistering sun, the troupe unwittingly evoke the wraith of Black Claw, the spirit of an evil renegade who died one hundred years earlier. Before long he has possessed one of the gang members and begins to slaughter the rest of them one by one. Stranded in the remote wilderness, the remaining students realize that they have to fight to survive the Renegade's murderous intentions…

Fred Olen Ray tells us on the very informative DVD commentary track that the original distributors of Scalps took the liberty of editing the movie themselves in an attempt to make it more appealing for the commercial market. Unfortunately, what they did was pretty much make a mish-mash of a film that would have probably been a damn site more intelligible if they had just released it as the director had originally intended. That explains why we see images of the killer roaming the hills before he has even taken possession of the body that he uses to stalk his victims. Despite these unintentional blunders, Olen Ray's slasher entry is actually a worthwhile addition to anyone's horror collection. Yes it's easy to mock the amateurish dramatics, unfocused photography and choppy editing. I'm very sure that any intelligent film critique could quite rightly rip the production standards to shreds. But when you consider the fact that this is probably THE most poorly-financed of the early eighties genre additions, then you have to give credit for the fact that it actually manages to do what many bigger budgeted efforts from the time couldn't come close to. Because for all its shoestring and money skimping short cuts, you just cannot deny that Scalps is still one hell of an unsettling movie experience.

The director wisely chose to mimic John Carpenter's method of creating an eerie soundtrack and keeping it playing continuously throughout the runtime. It helped to build a credibly creepy and extremely desolate feeling that remains morbid right up until the closing credits. The pace is slow in places, but you're always aware that something is going to happen soon, and when the shocks finally arrive they certainly live up to the grim reputation. The notorious rape sequence feels all the more mean spirited because the victim then has her throat messily slashed before being scalped moments later. There's also a pretty effective decapitation that shows a plausible flair for the macabre from the director. Not many horror films can create the gloomy and isolated feeling that Scalps carries so effortlessly, and that's why this movie in its uncut form is so severely underrated.

Unfortunately, all this credibility doesn't come without it's fair share of problems. The lighting is no less than awful in places. One minute the characters will be sitting round and a camp fire in total darkness and then the next scene will look like it was filmed at around 6 o'clock in the evening. It's obvious that any early eighties miniscule slasher production isn't going to have the best lighting rig in Hollywood. But when it boils down to a handful of candles and two flashlights, questions seriously do need to be asked. Perhaps Olen Ray would've done better to shoot all the action in the afternoon light, instead of trying to outgrow his finances. As I said earlier, the acting is as block-like as an antique timber yard and some of the camera operators look to have turned up on set after a 24-hour private meeting with Jim Bean and Jack Daniels. It's also worth noting that the bemusing tag lines on most VHS releases make this sound like some type of Zombie flick. Don't be fooled. This is 100% stalk and slash and it looks like the person responsible for the cover blurb didn't even bother watching the movie.

But despite the above blemishes, Scalps is still mean and creepy enough to earn a decent 6/10 star rating. It may well be cheap, nasty and ever so poorly produced. But when you consider the fact that drivel like Hospital Massacre cost almost three times as much to make, then you have to say that this is a pretty decent chunk of slasher memorabilia. It certainly has the potential to be updated and remade, there just hasn't been enough crazy Indian killers! Certainly worth a look…

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Topless babes, 13 March 2005

Author: TheatreX from Louisville, KY

Fred Olen Ray has had a rather checkered career, and I guess he's the mastermind or owner of Retro Media, which does put out some decent (depending on your perspective) old horror flicks. Scalps is actually one of his better films but this is pretty low budget and this restored version contains bits and pieces that were censored that are obviously spliced back in. I have a "double feature" VHS with The Slayer & while it's been some time since I watched it, it was still obvious to me which scenes were "new" since the quality is a bit poor. Still though it's a good film with a decent atmosphere of dread that stays with you throughout. And yes, there's a few topless babes, as in the tops of their heads go missing. College students doing illegal Indian artifact digging are the grist for the mill here, and one by one they fall victim to this evil Indian spirit that practiced black magic. A truly charming film that's a must for most horror fans, and while it's pretty low-budget it still beats most of Ray's later works (with the exception of Hollywood Chain Saw Hookers).

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Scalps...Not a Cure for Hair Loss, 13 March 2001
Author: BaronBl00d (baronbl00d@aol.com) from NC

Six young archeologists set off to the desert to find sacred Indian artifacts. One of the six becomes the spiritual embodiment of the infamous Black Claw and begins to murder(including scalping one) his friends. Though warned by an old Indian that shakes a lot, these kids cannot be stopped in their desire to drive down the road of motion picture obscurity. This film has next to no budget which compliments its acting, directorial, and other creative talents. Director Fred Olen Ray directed this early work, and although the film has so many problems, one can appreciate Ray's appreciation of the classic horror tradition. He gives meaningless roles to the serial Superman Kirk Alyn as a befuddled professor who sees the POINT-lessness of digging up sacred Native American artifacts in the end, a brief and purposeless cameo to Mr. Sci-fi himself, Forry Ackerman, and a small role to Carroll Borland from Mark of the Vampire fame. The six stars(being very judicious with that appellation)appear to be right out of a high school play. The only plusses any of them have is that the ladies, especially the gal playing Ellen Corman, have wonderful visual assets. The special effects are a big joke as nothing looks real or scary in any way. A puppet is occasionally popping up here and there to show us the disembodied spirit of Black Claw. Night and day readily change. One moment the players are at a campfire in blackness, another moment on a rock as the sun falls, and then back to the darkness all in the same evening. Black Claw is one hell of an Indian if he can manipulate time and space to make that happen! This film falls in the so bad it's entertaining category. I wasn't scalped after seeing it, but I probably lost a few more hairs!

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Must See Horror, 7 September 2003

Author: D_R_A_C_U_L_A1 from CANADA

This movie does have some lighting problems and editing probs, but it is still a great horror movie. Anyone that is a true genre fan should see this movie. It really does have a nice creepy atmosphere and who cares if the make up and effects aren't up to Hollywood standards, this is true 80's horror. The acting is great, the music is great, there is some great gore scenes and a very convincing rape scene. I dont know why this movie has such a low rating, this movie is definately worth the price of the rental and the time to watch it. SEEK IT OUT!!!!!!!!

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Perhaps Fred Olen Ray's best film?, 4 August 2008

Author: HumanoidOfFlesh from Chyby, Poland

"Scalps" is a bloody Native American slasher with a nice supernatural angle.Six archeology students head to the desert to search for Native American artifacts.Despite the warnings of DJ,the students disturb the ancient Indian burial ground and unleash the vengeful spirit of Black Claw.After possessing Randy,Black Claw hunts down the others with an arsenal of stone-age weapons.Despite its crude cinematography and editing "Scalps" is an overlooked slasher with some nasty bits of gore.The throat slashing and scalping sequence truly made me squirm in my seat.A combination of desert landscapes and sinister soundtrack gives "Scalps" a raw and nihilistic atmosphere of fear and despair.Unofficial sequel "Demon Warrior" was made in 1988.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
A haircut anyone??, 9 July 2004
Author: lrc81 from Lisbon, Portugal

The movie starts with a guys head being chopped off, this happens in the very first scene so i guess it's a reminder of the movies R certification. Some students go on a expedition or as their teacher prefer to call it a field-trip. Close to their destination the car breaks downs and they go to a near by gas station, there they come across an native-American old man that warns them about the hills, about the killings that went on in the past. As you can expect, they aren't concerned with the warnings and continue their search for artifacts at what they now know to be an native-American burial ground. After a successful afternoon collecting artifacts, one of the guys is possessed by an native-American spirit, that gradually transforms him physically... let the scalping begin.

i found the gory scenes by far the best aspect of the movie. the location is also nice, reminding me of movies such as the "hills have eyes", the hot, dry california desert helps create some tension, the vulnerability of the open spaces. there's not much acting going on but the actors did a reasonable job. a good way to spend 80 minutes, if you're a horror fan.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Oct. 12, 1492- Never Forget!!!!!!, 19 March 2009

Author: Count_Elvis from the castle of freaks, Tryansalabamia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Fred Olen Ray is fairly well known amongst horror/ exploitation/ bad movie buffs, but I hadn't seen any of his movies. Not that I had been avoiding them, and several of them looked like something I might enjoy, I just hadn't crossed paths with them. Well, I decided to rectify that and watch "Scalps", his take on the early 80's slasher genre, which is generally considered to be one of his better films. I was not impressed.

It brings in some fairly unusual elements for the genre, a group of Archeology students go on a dig on the site where a bunch of Indians were massacred. As often the case with these movies the ground is cured and the students begin to die one by one.

There really isn't much to get excited about with "Scalps". I'm typically a big fan of "so bad it's good" type films, but this one was just bad. First off, even though this film is well known for its gore and nudity neither element is anything to write home about. In fairness there are a few good kill scenes but none of them are particularly spectacular. The much talked about nudity is really reserved to one scene. And then there are the students. I mean are these bozos the best the Archeology department has to offer? I mean good God, I thought Political Science students were bad, but these morons really take the cake. They're all annoying, which brings us to another big problem with the movie, for a long time nothing happens. Apart from the two deaths that opened the movie there aren't any deaths until almost an hour into the movie. That's quite a feat for a movie that has a runtime of less than 80 minuets! The flip side to that is that we have a lot of murders packed into a short time period, but because none of the murders are really that impressive, the pay off is pretty low. It's also poorly edited, written and acted to boot. And I mean the acting is really bad, even by the already lousy standards of the slasher genre. Now, I don't want to be a complete downer, there are a few elements I like about "Scalps". One is the make up on the Indian killer; it's well done and looks pretty cool. Furthermore "Scalps" also boasts a solid rapes scene that should manage to shock some more sensitive viewers, its well done and pretty mean. There is also an unexpectedly nihilistic ending that I won't spoil here, but let's just say it far bleaker than what we're use to with these types of films. Overall, this is still a pretty unspectacular and overrated effort from Fred Olen Ray.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
"And they became part of the land.", 19 October 2008
Author: Backlash007 from Kentucky

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

~Spoiler~

I had recently discovered Scalps by sifting through the pages of Horrorhound and checking out their underrated slasher films section. Scalps is the only one I hadn't seen and thought I might want to give it a go. I did have some qualms, well, one qualm: Fred Olen Ray. Ray makes bad movies. Some of those are good bad movies, but many of them are BAD bad movies. I have to say that Scalps is one of the BAD bad ones. I don't see anything underrated about it. The story is simple: college kids go on an archaeological dig on an Indian burial ground and unleash a vengeful spirit that dispenses with the group one by one. The acting is horrible, the lighting is non-existent, and the effects are laughable. This is not one of Ray's fun movies. For fun, I'll stick with Evil Toons, but I'll keep an eye out for Scalps II: The Return of D.J.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Decent entry, if not overtly spectacular, 23 December 2007
Author: slayrrr666 (slayrrr666@yahoo.com) from Los Angeles, Ca

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"Scalps" is a pretty decent, if overall unspectacular slasher.

**SPOILERS**

Heading out to the desert, archeology students D.J., (Jo-Ann Robinson) Randy, (Richard Hench) Kershaw Ellerbe, (Roger Maycock) Ben Murphy, (Frank McDonald) Louise Landon, (Carol Sue Flockhart) and Ellen Corman, (Barbara Magnusson) prepare for a field trip assignment. Using local maps, they try to locate a burial ground that contained Native American remains for them to study. Finding the proposed site to study, they come across an old Indian legend concerning the movement of artifacts and bones from their graves would unleash the spirit of a warrior from it's resting place. As they manage to get the bones out of the ground, they suddenly find a series of strange events befall them and come to the realization that the stories were right and are now being stalking by a maniacal killer, who could be one of the students possessed.

The Good News: This one here does have a couple of rather nice areas that work. One of the main ones is that this one decides to forgo the usual matter of having it be an Indian burial ground and instead uses the storyline of making the artifacts removed from their land bring about the curse. That offers up a little amount of ingenuity, and makes for some really tense moments when the group begins digging up the grounds knowing full well that it will lead to them getting killed off. Those are quite fun and do have some nice amounts of tension to them. The kills themselves aren't terrible and do offer up some pretty gory moments. One is whacked in the head with a tomahawk, another has an arrow shot into their eye at close range, another has their throat slit before being scalped, all done in extreme close-up and another has a slew of arrows shot into their back and legs, among others. These here do spill a lot more blood than expected, which allows them to have some appeal to the gore-hounds out there. The final half-hour, which is where ninety-five percent of the action takes place, is a lot of fun. It's fast-paced, contains all the best scenes and kills, and is something that allows for plenty of fun to be had. The other good part is all of the pop-up scare tactics where the head of a deformed Indian head appears out of nowhere to offer up a few nice scenes. The fire-pit is the best one, since it's the best out-of-nowhere gag among them, and really works nicely. These here make the film watchable.

The Bad News: This one isn't that bad, but it does have a couple of rather important flaws to it. The first one is the fact that this one takes so long to get going. After the opening murder, this one takes until the forty-five minute mark to knock off another, and that is just way too long for the film. That leaves unending scenes of them complaining to no end about the seriousness of what they're doing and how it will come back to hurt them. Those scenes are just irritating, no less as the heroine is the one complaining about it, and rather than trying to take the obvious route or reasoning with the others, this one decides to have them focus on just ranting out a long series of statements that are supposed to get the viewer to side with the heroine, as they're arguing for the right cause, but this is done in such the wrong way that it finally gets too much and those scenes are annoying to watch and just make the film a chore to sit through when they're on. Those also hurt the film due to it's length, as this one could've really been stretched out a little longer. The fact that it doesn't even make eighty minutes is something of concern, as there's a little more that could've been done to make the film a little longer without it feeling stretched out at all. The confusing way it ends is something else, and when viewed, it will be obvious what is being criticized since it's easy to spot and makes for a rather head-scratching moment. These few areas here are what keep the film down.

The Final Verdict: While this one isn't that terrible as far as slashers go, the incredibly long period of time in between activity is what hurts this one the most. See this one only if you're a hardcore slasher fanatic or have a need to see trashy films, otherwise there's much better ones out there to see rather than this one.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Brief Nudity and Rape

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Not bad, 28 July 2006

Author: Tikkin from United Kingdom

I had always heard about Scalps as people say it's Fred Olen Ray's best horror flick. Well if this is his best, I'd hate to see the rest! The film starts off a little dull, but starts to get better as the group make their way into the mountains. The atmosphere is quite creepy in a low-budget kind of way and reminded me slightly of The Evil Dead, plus the location is similar to The Hills Have Eyes. I love the shot of the rotting skeleton when the car goes past, but no one sees it.

Once they have set up camp, the group hear mysterious drumming, see strange faces in campfires, and so on. There are some hilarious lines such as "I broke a fingernail!", and also when the girl says that the drumming is coming from hell. The scalping scene is probably the highlight of the film, and is brilliantly done - it really surprised me. When the girls throat is cut, she writhes around in agony and it looks realistic. Also the part where he removes her scalp is really cool. There's another good gore scene when a mans head is chopped off, but it's not quite as impressive.

Overall, Scalps is worth a watch if you can tolerate low budget horror. It's nothing amazing, but does have a low budget charm about it.

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