A Wickedly Low-Budget Tale of Lust and Lies

Read Time:5 Minute, 49 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Deadman's Barstool
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Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Dark Comedy
Year Released: 2018, Anchor Bay Entertainment DVD 2025
Runtime: 1h 20m
Director(s): Dean Dempsey
Writer(s): Dean Dempsey, Greg Mania
Cast: Jasmine Poulton, Victoria Beltran, Becca Blackwell, Leticia Castillo
Where to Watch: available October 28, 2025, order your copy here: www.thecultvault.com, www.mvdshop.com, or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: DEADMAN’S BARSTOOL is a queer-tinged cocktail of noir, satire, and charisma—served straight up with a splash of sleaze. Written and directed by Dean Dempsey, co-written with Greg Mania, the film was made in 2018 but now finds new life through Anchor Bay’s Blu-ray reissue. It’s a murder-mystery that plays like a warped sermon about lust, power, and the hypocrisy of modern faith, filtered through a lens that reveres John Waters, early Todd Haynes, and the chaotic, anything-goes spirit of downtown New York’s underground art scene. For all its rough edges and microbudget limitations, there’s something magnetic about the film’s boldness—it’s the kind of noir that feels too alive, too sly to moralize, and too aware of its own absurdity to take itself too seriously.

At its core, the film follows Mary (Leticia Castillo), the embittered wife of a flamboyant televangelist known as “John the Preacher,” whose televised gospel empire hides more greed than grace. When she realizes her impending divorce will leave her with little to live on, she makes a deal with Ginny (Jasmine Poulton), her husband’s mistress, to rob him of his fortune. The setup sounds like pulp fiction 101, but Dempsey’s tone walks a strange, satisfying tightrope between noir fatalism and excess. The twist? The preacher winds up dead before anyone gets the chance to rob him, and from there, everything unravels—cops, cons, and culprits caught in a cocktail of confusion.

What makes DEADMAN’S BARSTOOL work isn’t the exactness of its mystery, but the feverish energy of its world. The film doesn’t pretend to be realistic. It’s a place where morality has been auctioned off for entertainment, where faith is performance art, and where greed becomes its own religion (although, now that I think about it…). The cinematography reflects that same uneasy pulse—soft, grimy digital textures drenched in colored light, like a fever dream inside a dive bar.

The performances match that tone. Poulton delivers a standout turn as Ginny, a femme fatale in a world too absurd to recognize how tragic she really is. Victoria Beltran and Becca Blackwell bring their own eccentricities to supporting roles that make the film feel populated with living caricatures—half-lost souls, half punchlines. Dempsey himself even appears as a detective whose ethics are as crooked as his grin. This isn’t a world of morality—it’s a world where righteousness has been commodified and broadcast to the highest bidder.

Dempsey and Greg Mania’s script is packed with quips and contradictions, equal parts screwball and sin. Beneath the humor lies a surprisingly sharp commentary on performative devotion and the kind of self-righteous American greed that hides under the banner of faith. “John the Preacher” is the sort of televangelist who could headline a stadium and still convince his flock he’s humble. His death exposes how little difference there is between a church sermon and a con. The women who conspire against him may be opportunists, but in Dempsey’s world, everyone’s selling salvation—the only question is who’s buying.

The Blu-ray release treats the film like the strange, underappreciated gem it is. The audio mix gives the dialogue clarity without losing the grit, while the high-definition transfer maintains the intimate digital roughness that defines the aesthetic. It’s not a visual overhaul—it’s preservation. For a film born out of guerrilla filmmaking and New York’s queer performance scene, too much shine would have been a betrayal.

The film’s biggest strength is its tone: unapologetically cynical but gleefully aware of its own absurdity. Dempsey never preaches. He lets the contradictions stand unvarnished, and the result is oddly liberating. The audience isn’t asked to sympathize with anyone, yet it’s hard not to recognize human truths amid the wreckage. Mary and Ginny aren’t heroes, but they’re products of a system built on hypocrisy—a system where power and faith coexist only through exploitation.

If there’s a fault to be found, it’s that the energy sometimes exceeds the narrative. Scenes occasionally drag or feel improvised past their breaking point. The mystery aspect—who killed John the Preacher—is less about deduction than about how lies metastasize. The film’s editing embraces chaos, cutting between confessionals, backroom deals, and cocktail bars like a fever dream of deceit. What lingers after the credits isn’t the murder itself—it’s the atmosphere. The smoky glow of a bar where everyone has sinned but no one repents. The laughter that feels one drink away from tears. The idea that even in ruin, people keep performing because it’s all they know. Dempsey’s world isn’t built on redemption—it’s built on reinvention. It’s a messy, sincere, and surprisingly poignant portrait of desperation disguised as faith, delivered through underground comedy and a low-budget backbone. This isn’t a sermon—it’s a confession told over the last drink of the night, equal parts funny and devastating.

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[photo courtesy of ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]

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