Dr. Butcher MD (Medical Deviate) was a big disappointment...and kind of the perfect title to start this regular column with. Based on the amazing cover art and colorful taglines decorating the front cover I expected to be spending 93 minutes with a "depraved, sadistic rapist" and "bloodthirsty, homicidal killer" who, despite his flaws, at least offers the convenience of making house calls. That is to say, he's willing to rape and kill you in the comfort of your own home or apartment, damn the hour and personal expense. How many depraved, sadistic, bloodthirsty, homicidal physicians with a degree in medical deviation can you honesty say offer that service?

The movie opens with an establishing shot so dark it's impossible to see anything. What it successfully establishes is that it's night time, somewhere outside. Some dark gray structures lined up in a row eventually become recognizable as tombstones. A close-up of one reads "Snuff Maximus." Then Snuff's stone begins to...totter. I wouldn't say shake. It totters like a see-saw or a wooden rocking horse. A hand emerges from the soil beneath the grave and soon there's a Michael Jackson video's share of the undead loitering about. The ominous music suggests these creatures are dangerous, but there's nobody around to chase: it's more like a poorly-lit zombie fashion show. Finally a newspaper flies into frame with the headline "Terror Grips City!" sprawled across the front page. (I hope that, if the zombies see this, it doesn't ruin their social get-together.)

Next we are magically transported to a hospital, and the first scene proper is set in the morgue - a great start to this particular movie, as we're already aware that some sort of medical deviation is going to take place, and what better place for it to happen than at a morgue at night? Silhouetted in the doorway is a man holding what is unmistakably a surgeon's bag. He walks into the room full of fresh corpses, snaps the bag open and puts on a pair of plastic gloves (insanity need not be insanitary.) Nothing seedy about this: just your friendly neighborhood medical doctor putting in some late hours, and I'm sure the dead bodies don't mind. He uncovers a cadaver, removes a saw from his satchel, and proceeds to very unprofessionally hack off the poor corpse's hand! Even with the dead guy's consent this would be considered disreputable! This guy isn't a medical doctor - he's a medical deviate!

So we gotta assume this is the man himself, the fabled physician whose deviate visage graces the cover of the video box. What's he up to? Where's that hand going? Will it later be the subject of some grating pun? Is this guy building some kind of Frankenstein's monster in the basement of the hospital right under the unsuspecting noses of nurses and colleagues? And will he, as the box would have us believe, start branching out into the nearby urban neighborhood paying house calls on potential donors? The possibilities hinted at in this opening scene are absolutely titillating.

[Sorry I've got to pause here momentarily: feel free to skip to the next paragraph as this is merely an aside. I'm writing this at the Walter Reed hospital, where my dad is currently having an operation. And I'm not shitting you here: the second I finished that last paragraph, a middle-aged man with only one hand sat down directly across from me. He doesn't even have a prosthesis, he's just clearly missing one hand. If that isn't the creepiest shit that happens to me this week, I'm in for some freaky goddamn shit.]

So anyway I'm less than five minutes into the movie, and based on the opening scene here's the plot I'm imagining: Dr. Ignatius Hurvel Butcher MD (along with his assistant, resident aneSLEAZYologist Malcolm Practice) is abusing hospital facilities and his privileges as a practitioner to experiment with re-animation. He's got the severed hand laid out on a slab all jiggered up to electric wires, the fingers wiggling around of their own accord. This kind of thing wouldn't even be too bad were he merely depraved and sadistic - but unfortunately this guy's also bloodthirsty and homicidal, not a good combination for a licenced healer with a degree in deviation willing to put in the extra hours for house calls. Due to his madness he's going to misinterpret his Hippocratic Oath: whatever houses he visits, it's not going to be for the benefit of the sick, and will probably lead to a lot of intentional injustice, mischief and sexual relations (be they free or slaves.) He's going to have a pretty liberal translation of "do no harm" is what I'm saying...

(continued on page 2 of "Video Oddities #1: Dr. Butcher")

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