Killer Wolf: Len Kabasinski – A Legend Of Cult Cinema

Article by Mark Longden

Len Kabasinski had a childhood much like many of us – grew up loving genre movies (for him, kung-fu and sci-fi, and sci-fi-kung-fu), but unlike many of us, when he grew up he had the drive and determination to parlay that into a filmmaking career which has now lasted over a decade and gone from strength to strength.

His first film was a little gem called “Swamp Zombies!!!” (yes, three exclamation marks) While it looks a lot like the legions of other no-budget forests-based horror movies that we’ve been subjected to in recent years, it’s differentiated by two things that would become Kabasinski trademarks – oddball casting and excellent fight scenes. The latter can be explained by his being a nationally ranked martial artist and knowing lots of people who can fight well on camera; but the former is probably the first reason I became a fan, and that’s the casting of pro wrestlers. In this movie alone we get Brian “The Blue Meanie” Heffron, Jasmine St Claire, and Dan Severn; in later movies we see Lanny Poffo, aka “The Genius”, aka Macho Man Randy Savage’s brother.“Swamp Zombies!!!” is a heck of a lot of fun, though. There’s a strong feeling running through it of a deep love for genre movies, and a respect for their cliches and oddities, that’s also run through the rest of his output. You need very little description other than the title – like, I bet whatever mental image you have right now is about 75% accurate on the finished product.

I’m not going to be telling you about all his movies, as that would be exhausting for me and you. If you want to watch his output, the majority of it is available to stream for a low price from https://killerwolffilms.vhx.tv/ I have favourites, but there’s at least something to recommend in almost everything. 2006’s “Curse Of The Wolf”, for example, has a strong following among Kabasinski-ites, even though this reviewer didn’t love it.

“Fist Of The Vampire”, from 2007, is a belter, chock full of action (it’s partially about an underground fight league, one of the great staples of low-budget cinema), with some decent performances too. It’s the first of his movies where I wished he had a larger budget – more on that later – because his ideas are almost too big for what he can afford.

My personal favourite, and the movie that tells you quite a bit about Kabasinski, is 2009’s “Apocalypse Female Warriors”. This is the tale of three women and the guy they sort of pick up, trying to navigate their way across the post-apocalyptic landscape to get to the safety of the only remaining city, at least partly so they can get drunk and laid. The effects are better, the pacing is better, the performances are better, he’s more confident with the camera, and while it’s still a micro-budget b-movie with a lot of the action taking place in the woods, if you’re a fan of strange cinema, you’ll love this. But it’s not just that it’s a good film. Several years later, Len listened to criticism of it – it was slightly too long, a few scenes didn’t work, some of the effects weren’t amazing – and in a fairly unprecedented move, re-edited it and re-released it under a different name (its original title was “Warriors of the Apocalypse”). The new version, clocking in a little over 75 minutes, is a lean mean slice of modern grindhouse.

One of the things I’ve noticed about Len is his lack of ego. If he does something that doesn’t quite work (like overuse of Dutch angles, for instance) he wants to have this pointed out so his next movie can be stronger. Take 2011’s “Ninja: Prophecy Of Death”, another grindhouse-esque gem, featuring a strong performance from Brian Anthony, a Kabasinski regular. Heck, he even gives himself a great role in this, as Anthony’s co-tracker Colt, and the scene where he takes on a house full of evil ninja is brilliant. What’s perhaps most surprising is the huge number of post-production delays, to the point where it was almost going to be shelved; the only way we consumers can notice is a few bits where some ADRed sound would have been handy but wasn’t financially available.

Released late last year was “Angel Of Reckoning”, a good old fashioned revenge flick, with a female soldier back in town for a holiday, who encounters drug gangs and sleazy pornographers and has to kick a bunch of ass. And next up is “Hellcat’s Revenge”, which I’m really looking forward to. Fans of seeing his sense of humour can check out his association with Red Letter Media, including a few interviews and a segment of a fake movie called “Horse Ninja”.

So that’s Len Kabasinski, a man who’s prepared to work a great deal harder than you or I and has a decade of often excellent b-movies, made on weekends and breaks from work, to show for it. If you’re at We Are Movie Geeks for the excellent reviews of big-budget studio fare, then there might not be a lot for you here, but if you’re one of those people who’s prepared to dig a little deeper, then you might really enjoy his work.

I write reviews for another site, and one of our projects is to review every movie made by the SyFy Channel. I’ve seen hundreds, movies that look entirely competent but often have not a single thing to recommend them. Given that SyFy is only interested in having something original to fill a couple of hours, I wish they’d behave more like Roger Corman and give work to interesting new directors. Even the relatively tiny budgets for those movies would represent a huge increase for a director like Len, and he’d really struggle to make something as bad as the worst of their output.

Read Mark Longden’s previous ‘Legend Of Cult Cinema’ article on Andy Sidaris HERE

Girls, Guns and G-Strings: ANDY SIDARIS – A Legend Of Cult Cinema