A group of powerful politicians and businessmen have teamed up with a group of Vietnam vets to clean up the streets of St. Louis. They’ve got a good thing going until one of their (more than) slightly unhinged soldiers loses his shit and goes on a killing spree. As the cops and an overly inquisitive office assistant start putting things together, the group must resort to murder in order to silence those who have gotten close enough to expose their scheme.

While the cast is certainly doing their best and the kills are suitably bloody, Delirium isn’t good enough to be great and isn’t bad enough to be funny. I have never been a fan of Vietnam flashbacks in low budget actioners and this one lays them on pretty thick to pad out the story.  This film is certainly watchable, and I admire the filmmakers’ ambitions for sure, I just didn’t care about what was happening onscreen. The library music mixed with David Williams’s synthesizer score are my favorite parts of Delirium.

Greek born director Peter Maris continued to rock the schlock throughout his career with films that at least sound more interesting than this like Land of Doom (1986) and Alien Species (1996). I don’t want to be “that guy” but I think this film’s unfortunate -or fortunate, depending on your perspective- appearance on the Video Nasty list of banned films in the UK might be one of the only reasons that this one is remembered at all. All of that being said, Delirium is a scrappy, trashy, and gritty little beast that may not have worked for me, buy you might dig it. My theory is that this could be a favorite of Peter Maris himself.

Severin’s Blu-ray of Delirium has a consistent look to it which is important because of its 16mm blown up to 35mm origins. So, the picture isn’t exactly sharp, but it looks nice. There’s an interview with director Maris who talks about how filming monkeys humping in the zoo helped him get interested in filmmaking. I’m not making that up. There’s also an interview with special effects artist Bob Shelley. He has a lot of behind-the-scenes details on Delirium, which is surprising since he has well over 150 credits in film and TV to his name. Lastly, there’s a trailer for Delirium on the disc.