Product Details

• Actors: Christie MacFadyen, Matthew Harrison
• Directors: Matthew Harrison
• Format: Color, Director's Cut, Letterboxed, NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Film Crash
• VHS Release Date: July 1, 2001
• Run Time: 88 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005MOMC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #565,586 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Marjorie Kaufman, New York Times

"Dark and twisted."

Product Description

Film Crash

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fianlly, a true independent film!, November 6, 2001

By 

Don't fold til you're old (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spare Me [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Brilliant direction and screenwriting meet a talented cast and what a ride they take us on. A wonderful film handled perfectly. Harrison's eye is laser-like it its ability to suck the truth out of his unique characters. An impressive piece of late 20th American Cinema. Bravo!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Westerns Spoofed As Bowling Parody Strikes, July 29, 2001

By 

Matthew Harrison (Santa Monica, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spare Me [VHS] (VHS Tape)

With comic panache and a bold visual style that belies the film's no-budget origins, the exquisite SPARE ME twists conventions of the Western and thriller genres within its parallel universe of bowling monomania. Unlike most one note spoofs, though, New York director Matthew Harrison's first feature is sure-footed, sustaining interest and laughs.

The movie's beginning is pure tongue-in-cheek Western, as a mysterious stranger from Akron slouches into town. Stopping in a Pro Shop (the movie's equivalent to a saloon), the disgraced pro bowler Theo Skinner, who has been put on 100 year suspension for bashing the head of a victorious opponent with his bowling ball, asks where he can find the legendary Buzz Fazeli. The stage seems set for a classic showdown between young gunslinger and old. But once he finds the philosophical former champ, Theo reveals that he's the son Buzz never knew he had, and he's hoping Buzz can help him get back on the circuit. The old bowler, grown fat and cynical, won't commit himself just yet.

Something is rotten down in the lanes. Theo finds out that the local kingpin is the slimy Miles Kastle, for whom Buzz runs an illicit dwarf-bowling spectacle after hours. Theo first resists, then succumbs to the charms of Sheila, Kastle's rebellious daughter who compulsively mutilates Barbie and Ken dolls. But the Kastle family saga doesn't stop there, as Sheila's lunatic brother Junior - who's way to fond of his sister - has just escaped from the asylum and won't be happy to find she has a boyfriend.

The cast is ably led by actor Lawton Paseka, who looks like Ricky Nelson gone to seed. Christie MacFadyen is terrific as Sheila, and Mark Alfred is a hoot as Buzz. There are plenty of striking bowling puns by screenwriter Christopher Grimm.