EDITOR'S NOTE: Vultures was on the CBS Late Movie on March 19 and August 20, 1986.
When Ramon (Jim Bailey) begins to get close to death, he summons his relatives to his bedside to discuss his will and testament. But then the killings begin, wiping out everyone in the will.
Directed and written by Paul Leder (My Friends Need Killing, I Dismember Mama, A*P*E*), Vultures sets itself up like any murder mystery, but how it's made points to just how incredibly strange it is.
First off, nearly every murder is incredibly bloody, making this feel more like a slasher than a staid Agatha Christie affair. Then, it has a cast of some of my favorites, including Aldo Ray, Yvonne DeCarlo and Stuart Whitman. And is that Carmen Zapata from the Sister Act movies? Meredith MacRae from Petticoat Junction (and Leder's My Friends Need Killing)? Greg Mullavey from Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman? And Maria Perschy from The People Who Own the Dark, The Ghost Galleon and Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll? How did that happen?
Yet the strangest and most wonderful thing is that this has an "Introducing Jim Bailey" credit.
Bailey is more than one role in this movie, playing several male and female roles beyond just Ramon. He's also Richard Garcia, the psychic Esperanza, Virginia Garcia, Olivia Mann and a female impersonator in this. Bailey is a versatile performer and often played Vegas, doing impressions of Garland and Streisand. According to this great interview with Daily Grindhouse, Bailey became "one of the go-to performers for male-to-female characters in Hollywood." He's Cleopatra, the lover of Anthony Geary's Serenghetti in Penitentiary III and also shows up in episodes of Night Couty and Ally Mcbeal as well as in the cast of another strange movie I'm fascinated by, The Surrogate, where you can witness him do his Bette Davis act.
The black sheep of the family, Carl (Stuart Whitman), is the main suspect. There are two gory knife attacks -- Aldo Ray doesn't even make it long past the credits, which video blur out the original title, Vultures In Paradise -- and a car gets blown up real good. There are twists and turns, but it makes sense that this aired on the CBS Late Movie, because it really does feel like a TV movie. And I mean that in the best of ways, but also a TV movie that has a drag performer not just as a sideshow act but as a crucial and memorable part of the cast in six different roles.
This is one odd movie and I would not have found it without my friend the CBS Late Movie. It's the kind of movie that I needed to watch in 2023 and not back in 1986 when it aired, because it had to find me.
David DeCoteau wrote a great remembrance of Leder on one of my favorite sites, The Schlock Pit, and revealed that his movie Dreamaniac was shot in the same house as this movie, which was owned by Bill Norton (Big Bad Mama, Day of the Animals).
When Ramon (Jim Bailey) begins to get close to death, he summons his relatives to his bedside to discuss his will and testament. But then the killings begin, wiping out everyone in the will.
Directed and written by Paul Leder (My Friends Need Killing, I Dismember Mama, A*P*E*), Vultures sets itself up like any murder mystery, but how it's made points to just how incredibly strange it is.
First off, nearly every murder is incredibly bloody, making this feel more like a slasher than a staid Agatha Christie affair. Then, it has a cast of some of my favorites, including Aldo Ray, Yvonne DeCarlo and Stuart Whitman. And is that Carmen Zapata from the Sister Act movies? Meredith MacRae from Petticoat Junction (and Leder's My Friends Need Killing)? Greg Mullavey from Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman? And Maria Perschy from The People Who Own the Dark, The Ghost Galleon and Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll? How did that happen?
Yet the strangest and most wonderful thing is that this has an "Introducing Jim Bailey" credit.
Bailey is more than one role in this movie, playing several male and female roles beyond just Ramon. He's also Richard Garcia, the psychic Esperanza, Virginia Garcia, Olivia Mann and a female impersonator in this. Bailey is a versatile performer and often played Vegas, doing impressions of Garland and Streisand. According to this great interview with Daily Grindhouse, Bailey became "one of the go-to performers for male-to-female characters in Hollywood." He's Cleopatra, the lover of Anthony Geary's Serenghetti in Penitentiary III and also shows up in episodes of Night Couty and Ally Mcbeal as well as in the cast of another strange movie I'm fascinated by, The Surrogate, where you can witness him do his Bette Davis act.
The black sheep of the family, Carl (Stuart Whitman), is the main suspect. There are two gory knife attacks -- Aldo Ray doesn't even make it long past the credits, which video blur out the original title, Vultures In Paradise -- and a car gets blown up real good. There are twists and turns, but it makes sense that this aired on the CBS Late Movie, because it really does feel like a TV movie. And I mean that in the best of ways, but also a TV movie that has a drag performer not just as a sideshow act but as a crucial and memorable part of the cast in six different roles.
This is one odd movie and I would not have found it without my friend the CBS Late Movie. It's the kind of movie that I needed to watch in 2023 and not back in 1986 when it aired, because it had to find me.
David DeCoteau wrote a great remembrance of Leder on one of my favorite sites, The Schlock Pit, and revealed that his movie Dreamaniac was shot in the same house as this movie, which was owned by Bill Norton (Big Bad Mama, Day of the Animals).
