So, it's about six people where they go to the Californian wasteland to dig up around in an Indian burial ground for artifacts, and then they unleash the evil spirit. The spirit possesses one of the group and begins slaughtering them one by one. The plot sounds similar to The Evil Dead, right? It also reminded me on The Hills Have Eyes because of the location. Since The Evil Dead is successful low-budget horror film and well done, but is Scalps also good? No, it's not at all! It has a bad editing, ugly cinematography, terrible makeup, bad acting and ridiculously bad dialogues and lines. I didn't care for any character, they weren't memorable. I liked the ending though, it was a bit creepy. The plot is interesting, but this movie could have been MUCH better.I'm fine with it that it's really a bad movie, but it's somehow enjoyable and I could give it a 5/10, but it's way slow for filming while driving etc., so I gave it a 4/10.

I think I've got Fred Olen Ray's schtick down now. After watching however so many of his movies, I think this is his approach: to take a completely trite excuse for a story that anyone who has ever seen a horror movie could recite in their sleep and then suck it of any of the life and possibility of interest it ever could have had. His movies are usually short, barely clocking in at over an hour, and that entire first hour will be "characters" wandering around doing absolutely nothing of interest and certainly nothing that will invest them with a personality, or give you any reason whatsoever to care about them at all. After he has lulled you to sleep better than your grandmother could when you were six months old, he'll start deploying with the actual "horror" movie stuff, ie. gore, but as I said, you'll be asleep or perhaps even comatose by this point.In the first hour of a Fred Olen Ray movie, he carefully constructs as many barriers between you and caring about his movie as he can. In the last ten or fifteen minutes, he throws the things you probably watched the movie hoping to see at you, ie. the blood and guts, but you probably gave up at barrier 3 or 4 and have long since stopped paying attention to the movie and started doing something else."Scalps" has a few extra barriers between you and it, aside from its most sturdy, ie. the tedium of it. These are the picture quality and the sound. The movie looks like it was filmed through mud. You can barely make out what you are seeing, anyway, so even if it wasn't boring and pointless, you wouldn't be able to see it.The sound was obviously all recorded in post production, making it stick out like a sore thumb and sound entirely unnatural and distracting throughout the entire movie. It makes you want to watch the characters lips at the beginning at least, knowing it's probably totally out of sync, but then you realise that you can't really see their lips - remember? The movie was filmed through mud.The plot is something to do with college students (I guess) going to stay in an Indian burial ground. They wander around doing nothing and saying nothing of interest for an hour until they are killed in a variety of admittedly gruesome ways. One is clubbed from behind by something that looks like a topless Dame Edna Everidge. In the movie's most noteworthy scene of violence, a woman is, indeed, actually scalped, so at least there was a reason for the title other than the racist exploitation of Native American myths the movie engages in.The scalping scene may not look all that realistic, but it must have cost some actual money. If they could afford to do that, why couldn't they have come up with a plot for this mess, a boom mic, and a camera lens that wasn't covered in sludge?

Still I have yet to see a Fred Olen Ray movie that is half decent. In this movie only its second half is somewhat half decent but as a whole this still remains a quite bad and really poorly done film.Fred Olen Ray just can't direct. He has no talent for it and his movie are just always a mess. His movies are just so bad, that they aren't even funny or enjoyable to watch and I'm used to seeing some very bad movies, so you can take my word for it.But having said that, this was probably the first Fred Olen Ray that I didn't hate to watch. It's first half is still absolutely horrible but the movie somewhat redeems itself with its second half, in which finally some stuff is happening.That is really the biggest problem. For the longest time there isn't happening anything. It's some bad build up, that in fact is only just some time filler, or else the movie would had even been a whole lot shorter than its mere 80 minutes of running time. Besides, it's all done so very bad, with some bad acting, horrible editing and silly characters and dialog, that also just aren't very interesting, combined all with the clueless directing by Fred Olen Ray.But once the action and horror kicks in, the movie becomes a far more pleasant one. Some moments and its concept does actually work out quite well. It makes it obvious that this could had been a somewhat decent horror flick, with perhaps some more money and some more talent involved. A slasher featuring some Indian ghost. Now doesn't that just sound like a potentially good and interesting concept for a genre movie like this one? Unfortunately the execution of it all is really lacking, as a whole.I didn't hated it but it's still some bad stuff all.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

"Scalps" is a bloody Native American slasher with a nice supernatural angle.Six archeology students head to the desert to search for Native American artifacts.Despite the warnings of DJ,the students disturb the ancient Indian burial ground and unleash the vengeful spirit of Black Claw.After possessing Randy,Black Claw hunts down the others with an arsenal of stone-age weapons.Despite its crude cinematography and editing "Scalps" is an overlooked slasher with some nasty bits of gore.The throat slashing and scalping sequence truly made me squirm in my seat.A combination of desert landscapes and sinister soundtrack gives "Scalps" a raw and nihilistic atmosphere of fear and despair.Unofficial sequel "Demon Warrior" was made in 1988.