Featured Lousy Director: Worth keeter III

A first glance on the career of Worth Keeter finds, almost to the letter, a classic pattern of the maturation of a director through the ranks of the industry, of the kind previously undertaken by the likes of Francis Ford Coppola: From some minor crew position in fringe low budget filmmaking, to a maverick low budget producer, to independent low budget filmmaking with more control over product, to bigger budgeted mainstream B-movies with some name stars, and into mainstream filmmaking. But Keeter never made it to the big time. A star vehicle for Pamela Anderson Lee is as big as he got. In his recent film he seems to have physically gone back to fringe - from Hollywood back to his native Carolinas. So where did he go wrong? The answer lies, perhaps, in what is filling the various progress marks of his classically patterned career. His maverick producer, for instance, is turkeydom legend Earl Owensby, who is a far cry from Coppola’s Corman. And likewise, all of his other career marks have been several classes below the parallel career of the likes of Coppola. In fact, even compared to people who never made it into Hollywood mainstream, and despite directing such esteemed B-movie names like Sybil Danning, Robert Davi, Wings Hauser,
Bo Hopkins and Jack Scalia, he has failed to leave any lasting impression.

Biographical info on Keeter was almost impossible to unearth, at least from my resources (which include the net, several CD-ROM's, and a vast library of books on film.). Phil Hardy, in his Encyclopedia of Horror Films’ entry on WOLFMAN, mentions he was 22 when he made it, which puts his birth year at 1956 or 1957. The fact the first eight films he was involved in (over a period of twelve years) were made in the Carolinas (seven in the North) suggests his nativity. The fact that his last film is from 1997 suggests he is still active. And the fact that he had several non productive spells, in which he did not direct films, but during which he has scattered ‘miscellaneous crew’ credits suggests either that he had non filmic activities, or that he apprenticed in the crews of films the full credits of which have not been catalogued in the searchable indexes (the IMDB and the BFI CD-ROM). More than these facts and logical suggestions I simply do not know. As suggested earlier, Keeter began his career serving in the crew of a fringe low budgeter. That film was the obscure THE AXE (aka: CALIFORNIA AXE MASSACRE, THE AXE MURDERS and LISA, LISA), shot in 1977 in Charlotte, NC by one Frederick R. Friedel. The film, reportedly (by Phil Hardy and the reviewers for Variety and the Monthly Film Bulletin) displayed artistic tendencies that could not be fulfilled on its student film budget, which resulted in shelving the film until into the early to mid 80’s horror boom, when it finally saw the light of day. Unfortunately, its gore quotient was reportedly too low for the film, despite the existence of a chicken beheading, an axing, a throat razoring, a body "chopping upping" and one cigar burning on human flesh. This statement by the various reviewer casts shady light on the make up department of the film up. The make up for the film was handled by one Worth Keeter. However, this film seems to have consisted enough of a resume to land Keeter with a directorial debut in 1978, for maverick Shelby, NC producer Earl Owensby. Keeter proceeded to make three more films for Owensby, before the failure of the relatively ambitious 3D killer pooches opus DOGS OF HELL (aka ROTTWEILER) drove him into his first dry spell in 1982. He reemerged in 1986, as executive producer of TV’s adventure yarn FLORIDA STRAITS) and as director of the first of two Carolina shot James Bondish yarns featuring a super secret agent with a Baboon for a side kick and comic relief. The second came in 1988, followed a year later by his last independent film, TRAPPER COUNTY WAR. In that same year, Keeter has "gone Hollywood". Somehow he landed a post as assistant director to legendary Hong Kong director Tsui Hark, when the latter came to shoot his ill fated Jet Li vehicle WONG FEI HUNG in the US. That year he was also invited, by voluptuous B-queen Sybil Danning, to direct his first Hollywood film, a star vehicle for her, which she produced from her own story. He proceeded into the world of B-sexual thrillers at Promark Entertainment Group, first as "creative advisor" of TOTAL EXPOSURE in 1991, getting to helm his own entry in this sub-genre a year later. This film, evidently, earned him a signing for his biggest budgeted mainstream effort, the first feature star vehicle for the also well endowed (although much less naturally so than Danning) Pamela Anderson Lee. That same year (1993) he also directed an episode in producer Haim Saban’s horrendous TV series POWER RANGERS, and probably helmed a feature titled DANGEROUS AFFAIR (according to Maitland McDonagh’s usually well researched FILMMAKING ON THE FRINGE. I have not been able to find mention of the film in any other resource.). That seems to have been the peak of his career. He continued to work with Saban in 1995 on an obscure thing called MASKED RIDER, and in 1997 returned to North Carolina, although reinforced by name actors C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Rubin and Judge Reinhold, for LAST LIVES. This most recent film of his seems to boast the most original premise of any of his films, being a yarn about a groom searching for his bride who was kidnapped on their wedding night by a telepathic terrorist from a parallel universe!!!

Read on