At Blood On The Beach this past weekend, the first table I saw was for Darkstone Entertainment. So, I went over to say hi to everyone and during my visit I picked up a copy of Deceptors. I had never even heard of it before, but John Johnson is doing big things lately (Plan 9 and Fear Fighter) and I figured it would be cool to see some of his earlier work. Deceptors was released in 2005. We all know that John Johnson is a great director and his work has received a lot of attention, especially lately. But, my biggest note about Deceptors is that Johnson is actually a pretty good actor too! He played one of the leads and I thought, “Ok, John!”
Deceptors is a Ghostbusters spoof where a team a con artists trick citizens into believing they are being haunted by an evil presence. They show up, “solve the problem,” and collect the couple grand pay check! Everything is working out fine until a routine call ends with them releasing several actual ghouls from another plane of existance…and they’re all evil, of course. Now The Deceptors have to kill the ghouls and send them back to where they came from before they destroy the world. Oh, and did I mention they have to save a princess too? You’ll find comedy, horror, gore, and lots of sex in Deceptors!
Obviously, John Johnson is the director of this flick and he stars in it, but he also created the story which was then flushed out by Brian Cartwright and Lincoln L. Lilley. Johnson is joined on-screen by David Simmons, Russell Bradley Fenton, Elizabeth Domin, and many others.
So what did I think of Deceptors as a whole? It was pretty good! For whatever reason it reminded me a lot of Ninjas vs. Vampires. If you’ve ever seen that indie film, it’s genius too. Deceptors had a lot of comedy that was actually funny and not trying to be funny. Although, it did have a lot of intentional cheese that was well received and helped add to the comedy within this movie. I was expecting more gore than what I got, but this film made up for it with the great special FX. There was a lot of CGI work, which didn’t look too out-of-place. A lot of times indie films use CGI effects and it is just so clear they were added cheaply in post production (IE: SyFy Channel stuff), but the CGI in Deceptors was executed in a way that made them look like PART of the film and not just LAYERED on the film. I thought that was important to mention because not a lot of indie films can capture that technique.
Deceptors is a pretty fun ride. And it’s left open-ended with the possibility of a sequel. I hope that happens in the future. Go pick up Deceptors if you ever get a chance. I promise it’ll be worth the price of purchase! Although, I would consider it more of an action-comedy than outright horror.
