The Eternal Youth of Bad Cinema
There are movies that take years to make because of artistry. Apocalypse Now, The Irishman, Boyhood. Then there’s Evil Town, a Frankenstein’s monster of a horror film stitched together from the rotting limbs of four directors, two decades of lawsuits, and one producer who went to prison for fraud.
The result is less “eternal youth” and more “eternal boredom,” a film so incoherent you wonder if the editors assembled it blindfolded with oven mitts. But through all the tedium, scandal, and courtroom drama, one thing glimmers like a neon beer sign in a dive bar: Playboy Playmate Lynda Wiesmeier, baring it all in gratuitous nude scenes spliced in years after the rest of the cast had gone home. Without her, Evil Town would be nothing but cinematic embalming fluid. With her, it becomes at least a morbid curiosity—like rubbernecking at a car crash where the only survivors are silicone and peroxide.
Plot? If You Can Call It That
The story, such as it is, revolves around a mad scientist harvesting pituitary glands from unsuspecting victims to brew a youth serum. Instead of Botox or kale smoothies, this guy turns his townspeople into zombies so he can stay spry. The entire town is in on the scheme, because of course they are. If you drove into this town, you wouldn’t just stop for gas—you’d wind up lobotomized and juiced like an orange at Jamba Juice.
Our supposed heroes, played by James Keach, Robert Walker Jr., and Michele Marsh, wander around trying to piece together why everyone in town acts like they’re auditioning for Children of the Corn: The Retirement Years. Dean Jagger shows up too, delivering his last screen performance with the dignity of a man who probably muttered, “This wasn’t in the contract,” right before the cameras rolled.
But don’t worry if you get lost in the narrative; the filmmakers did too. The movie changes tone and focus so often you can practically hear the reel changes where a new director took over. It’s less a film and more a cinematic relay race, except every runner is drunk, blindfolded, and headed in the wrong direction.
Four Directors, No Vision
Imagine Evil Town as a car with four steering wheels. Curtis Hanson (yes, the future Oscar-winning director of L.A. Confidential) started the project in 1973 under the title And God Bless Grandma and Grandpa. He wisely removed his name when the producers hijacked the footage, and the film was rechristened God Bless Dr. Shagetz. Yes, Shagetz. Nothing screams “menace” like a villain named after a Yiddish swear your grandmother would scold you for.
Then came years of litigation, fraud, re-shoots, and finally Mardi Rustam—who must have looked at the mangled corpse of the film and thought, “You know what this needs? A topless Playboy Playmate.” Enter Lynda Wiesmeier, who was shoehorned into twenty minutes of new footage that has the narrative consistency of duct-taping a Hustler centerfold to a church bulletin.
By 1987, the film was finally released as Evil Town, although “released” is generous. It limped into a few theaters, then stumbled straight to VHS where it belonged.
Lynda Wiesmeier: The Town’s Only Redeeming Feature
Let’s be brutally honest: the only reason anyone remembers Evil Town is Lynda Wiesmeier. Her nude scenes are so aggressively shoehorned into the film that they feel like commercials for a different movie spliced in mid-scene. One minute you’re watching James Keach scratch his head over zombie villagers, the next minute Wiesmeier is peeling off her clothes like she’s lost a bet. Continuity? Cohesion? Forget it. The editors knew what they were selling, and it wasn’t Dean Jagger’s monologues.
Wiesmeier was a Playmate of the Month in 1982, and here she does what exploitation cinema always demands: she gets naked, looks stunning, and saves the audience from changing the channel. She’s the cinematic equivalent of a neon “Open” sign in a strip mall: you may not like the store, but at least you know it’s alive.
Her presence is the one thing that elevates Evil Town from being utterly unwatchable. She gives the movie what it otherwise lacks: a pulse. That her nude scenes are completely unrelated to the main story only makes them more precious.
Dean Jagger’s Swan Song (Unfortunately)
Dean Jagger, an Oscar-winning actor, deserved better. This was his last film, and instead of bowing out with grace, he’s saddled with the role of Dr. Schaeffer (formerly Dr. Shagetz, but apparently even the filmmakers realized how ridiculous that sounded). He mutters pseudo-scientific nonsense about eternal youth while looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. The irony of having an elderly actor play a mad scientist obsessed with youth in a movie that took 14 years to complete is almost too on-the-nose.
His performance isn’t bad—it’s just tragic, because it’s framed by chaos. Watching him is like spotting a Shakespearean actor who wandered onto the set of a porno by mistake.
The Lawsuits Were More Interesting
Producer Peter S. Traynor financed the film by scamming doctors into tax-shelter investments. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission eventually nailed him for fraud, and he served time in prison. Honestly, the court transcripts are probably more gripping than the movie itself. Imagine a boardroom full of angry physicians realizing they’ve invested in a movie called God Bless Dr. Shagetz. That’s true horror.
The Editing Room Massacre
By the time Mardi Rustam finished cobbling together the film in 1985, it ran just under 90 minutes. The editing tries valiantly to stitch together footage shot over a decade apart, with actors aging and changing hairstyles between shots. Characters disappear, reappear, or get replaced entirely by nudity. It’s like watching a jigsaw puzzle assembled with pieces from three different boxes and then spray-painted to match.
The musical score doesn’t help. Michael Linn provides a soundtrack that sounds like leftover soap opera cues played on a Casio keyboard. It never matches the tone on screen, but then again, neither does anything else.
Final Thoughts: Why Bother?
So, should you watch Evil Town? Strictly speaking, no. It’s a patchwork disaster, an insult to the intelligence of even the most forgiving horror fans. But—and this is a significant “but”—it is worth a look for historical curiosity, cult-movie masochism, and, most importantly, the nude scenes with Lynda Wiesmeier.
Without her, this film is cinematic embalming fluid poured into a VHS cassette. With her, it becomes a slightly more bearable exercise in exploitation, an unintentional time capsule of 1980s low-budget horror.
