Das Mac D. Massaker

Miles better than some of the other movies of the 1980s and 1990s Philip Yordan was responsible for, but still pretty shoddy and odd.

It starts off with a text scroll and voice-over explaining how the world isn't safe anymore, and how a bunch of people came to be killed in a coffee shop. We then see the bodies in the coffee shop. We then see the events leading up to that massacre.

Harry is a strange man working in a garage. It's unclear if he is retarded or what exactly, since his behavior from scene to scene isn't entirely consistent. He's taken a car engine apart neatly and completely, but he can't figure out how to put even two pieces back together again (evidently he's usually very good at it). He's fired and his brother is called to come help him. Harry later walks into a church, singing along as he walks down the center aisle, naked. He's hospitalized where he proves to be very hostile with the Doctor there, but is released for lack of space and funding.

Harry's older brother sets him up in an abandoned hotel he owns that still has electricity and plumbing. How much of what follows is real is unclear, since Harry seems to have very vivid hallucinations. Some punks who've snuck into the hotel give him trouble. Harry imagines he sees a bellhop and some of the former tenants of the hotel (shades of The Shining). He talks to his teddy bear, and hears it talking back to him (I was reminded of the boy in 1981's The Pit). He evidently has an ex-wife as well (she's in several scenes), or maybe she isn't real, I'm really not sure. He receives outpatient treatment from the Doctor who discharged him. He has some fantasies about he he can't separate from reality.

Your average neighborhood coffee shop is the scene of a massacre; then, the story shifts to one Raymond Elmendorf (as Harry Curtis). Mr. Elmendorf is employed as an automobile mechanic; but, he can't "make things fit anymore." Unable to repair a car, the newly unemployed Elmendorf attends a church service in the buff. Society doesn't appreciate his public exhibition, and Elmendorf is locked up. He begins to see sexy psychiatrist Pamela Baker (as Dr. Johnson)…

The best scenes occur after Elmendorf is released as an outpatient, and moves into an eerily photographed apartment building (with his madness). He is terrified by monsters from the Id, and punks from the street. Gilhuis/Ryan do some psycho creepy stuff. Jeff O'Haco (as Animal) has a nice pool hall scene. Wife Teresa Mae Allen (as Elaine) has a sexy scene (which turns ugly, of course).

If "Bloody Wednesday" was supposed to show how this man could massacre people in a coffee shop, it misfires.

So reads the tagline for this bizarre thriller, scripted and produced by Academy Award winner Philip Yordan. Raymond Elmendorf stars as Harry, a mechanic who is slowly losing touch with reality. After showing up at church naked, Harry is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Although deemed a danger to society, he is quickly released due to the overcrowding and moves into a large abandoned hotel. Once inside, Harry suffers torment from figures both real (local street thugs) and imaginary (the hotel's dead occupants). All of this leads him to his breaking point so he decks himself out with firepower and heads to a local diner.

No doubt inspired by the 1984 McDonald's massacre in California by James Huberty, BLOODY Wednesday attempts to offer the reasons lurking behind random killing sprees. Unfortunately, it falls back on a series of cinematic psychological clichés, happy to portray Harry as an unprovoked nut/loner who has frequent dialogues with ghosts and his teddy bear (!). Harry may be a Vietnam vet (several moments of war sounds on the soundtrack allude to this), but it is never made clear. The film also offers some criticism of the mental health industry and the police but little time or attention is given to either.

The most interesting aspect of BLOODY Wednesday is the alternating between real life and Harry's dream world. One is never quite sure what is happening to Harry is genuine or his imagination. Regrettably, the film lacks the budget, actors and direction to pull this off. Lead Raymond Elmendorf is passable as the tormented Harry, with the rest of the cast being made up of unknowns. The best performance is by Jeff O'Haco (who played one of the Libyans in BACK TO THE FUTURE) as gang leader Animal. This is director Mark G. Gilhuis' only feature (possibly a pseudonym?). Screenwriter Philip Yordan had an amazingly eclectic career, probably the only man to have won an Oscar and work on NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR.

As it is based on a true story , they really wasted the opportunity to make a great horror film. The actors are real amateurs with no talent in acting and also the quality of sound and visual effects really suck for a late 80's movie.

Like the sound of the snake attacking harry in bedroom is childishly made by some guy's mouth which's strange, and they even didn't bother record the sounds of actors and actresses and lazily did a dubbing on the film!!

Anyway a remake could be a great chance to make a great hell of a movie for any director if taken... " ThisisJimik " Jamal Kianifar.

I am nostalgic for the 80s and the days of going to neighborhood video stores, or even to neighborhood 7-11s, to rent VHS tapes for home viewing. One way of appeasing this nostalgia is to watch 80s movies now that I didn't catch back then, and "Bloody Wednesday" was one of these so I found it on You Tube.

A California mechanic begins acting very weird and "can no longer work." After walking naked and singing into a church, he gets hospitalized, but is released to his brother's custody. His brother puts him up in an old empty hotel he's in charge of, and things get weirder and weirder until the final acts of violence.

This movie tells you what's going to happen from its opening scene so there can be no "spoilers" here. But it really has nothing to do with the "McDonald's Massacre" in southern California in the early 80s. Repeated online descriptions say it does, but these are simply wrong. The character here bears zero resemblance to James Huberty of the real-life massacre, and this movie is more a low-budget, urban aping of "The Shining" than it is about any real-life massacre.

The guy's hallucinations here are unrealistic and deeply involved in a way that I've never heard of hallucinations being with real patients. They are much more detailed fantasies than hallucinations, and most people know what their private fantasies are and do not believe them to be real. Our character here does, and this does not always make for a plausible viewing experience.

Confusing matters further is the fact that there are apparent REAL threats against our character in the form of three punks with a stupid grudge against him. In a sequence more bizarre than any of his fantasies, our guy ends up in an extended conversation with one punk about everything including the meaning of life!

All this may have worked better if done in a different style. As it is, with our guy fumbling between fantasy and reality while distracting action sequences are thrown in, it seems a muddle.

I think the guy's talking teddy bear is a good character and should have been developed more. Instead, there are distractions with hallucinated butlers and possibly hallucinated private eyes looking for long-stashed treasures and such. Most of the stuff with the punks is another snooze, and endless sequences of our guy trying to seduce his female psychiatrist (!!) just go nowhere as well.

Even the final massacre is done oddly, with several people conveniently jumping out on cue to get shot. The end that our shooter comes to is different from real-life Huberty's. The general racial make-up of the victims is different. Huberty's was an attack on a popular fast-food joint. Here we have an attack on a small family restaurant. Huberty called for psychiatric help before his crimes but was put on a callers' waiting list. Our man here has steady psychiatric attention that does him no good. Huberty never separated from his family and was living with them the day of the McDonald's Massacre. Our man here is long abandoned by his wife. Huberty let legitimate concerns about the government become driving obsessions. Our guy here is totally apolitical. And on and on go the complete differences.

Our guy here is hard to sympathize with as he acts child-like and confused one moment, but arrogantly sure of his sanity and dismissive of others the next. Hey, he just forgot to put his clothes on before going to church, what's the big deal?! Such is a guy who is not exactly going to pull at your heartstrings.

Nonetheless, this movie succeeds in some ways as an 80s oddity complete with a Casio-driven score. It is worth a look for 80s video fans in spite of its flaws, and enjoyable in some ways for fans of the strange, especially fans of the low-budget strange. All others need not apply.