Warner Home Video | Review by Louis Fowler
Everyone loves pizza. If you don’t, you might as well be a communist. But do we really love our pizza delivery guy? How do we know exactly what evil lurks in the heart of the pizza guy? That’s the premise of the ultra-low budget (shot for $6000), ultra-effective thriller DELIVERY.
Montgomery Goth is a lonely, depressed pizza guy with a very traumatic past. He witnessed his dad kill himself and has recurring nightmares of the event, but that’s only a small slice of what he’s got going on: he’s extremely overweight, unkempt and constantly put-upon, with everyone he comes upon either shitting on him or referring to him as lard-ass, fat-ass or something along those lines. Even in the face of all this, he manages to fall in love with a similarly depressed artist, but when a series of events destroy this newfound feeling and warp Monty’s already-fragile worldview, he starts a pepperoni-fueled reign of terror all over town, hold the anchovies.
This could have been a typical slasher flick, but director Jose Zambrano Cassella instead delivers a real moving character study of a man pushed the brink of loneliness and emerging with a new identity of completely reasonable total madness. Monty, as played by Matthew Nelson, is an incredibly sympathetic character, one that I found myself siding with and understanding throughout the whole movie. When he starts his rampage, at no time do you feel that it’s not justified – the cock-teasing sorority girls, the testosterone-asshole frat boys, the prick boos, even the bitch at the junkyard that towed his car – every single one of them get what they deserve, and you actually hope that Monty gets away with it in the end. As a fat guy myself, I have been in Monty’s shoes and felt the way he did. I still, honestly, sometimes do. It’s funny how people never realize the monsters they create until it’s too late, as this movie manages to demonstrate with stylistic aplomb.
It’s also a great example of the current crop of talented, ultra-low budget filmmakers who are actually crafting real films with a real passion that shows on the screen, regardless of their lack of studio backing. Director Cassella, had a supremely low budget, yet didn’t throw another batch of shuffling zombies on the screen, or have Monty torture some chick for two hours – he made a real film, with a real script and most importantly, a real reason for existing.
Let’s hope that his name is added soon to the list of second-generation Splat Packers.
When it comes down to it, DELIVERY delivers, with an extra side of crazy bread to boot. Don’t forget to tip.
