William Shatner is sleazy serial killer conman Matt Stone. His hobbies include seducing older women, stealing their money and murdering them in cold blood. Plus he’s a smooth operator the whole time he’s doing it. His next target is widowed MILF Ann whose daughter immediately distrusts Matt. He just exudes a kind of slimy false sense of sincerity that only the most desperate and lonely have trouble spotting. While Matt is insinuating himself into Ann’s life, his old prison buddy Karate Pete (played by Harold Sakata a.k.a. Odd Job from James Bond) wants to horn in on Matt’s rob-and-kill scheme. Now Matt has not only a nosy brat to deal with but a greedy partner too… What’s a homicidal maniac to do?

Impulse might be my favorite William Grefe (Mako: Jaws of Death, Stanley, Death Curse of Tartu) movie due in large part to Shatner’s over-the-top, scenery-chewing role. Shatner is just so good as a gross, insane thief psychopath posing as a gigolo that I’d put this among his most entertaining performances (and the man’s filmography is a veritable cavalcade of ridiculousness). The rest of the cast is less than impressive but Shatner is such a dynamic presence in every scene he’s in that everyone else can’t help but pale in comparison. Another thing to note about Shatner is just how good he is at playing villains. I think people forget this side of him given he made his career from playing guys like the bold Captain Kirk and the righteous T.J. Hooker. But for my money, an all-time career best for Shatner is his absolutely despicable, insidious character Adam Cramer in Roger Corman’s social drama The Intruder. Impulse is a consistently engaging film that really doesn’t drag at any point, drumming up lots of thrills for your money’s worth.

While the video tranfer is a far cry from reference quality, Grindhouse Releasing has done a pretty solid job with the materials found. With the original negative long gone, they had to use a combination of 35mm elements and while the transfer does appear somewhat faded and damaged at times, it’s pretty clear this is an issue with the source and not the mastering. Regardless, it’s still a solid image in general and I can’t fault them for trying. On the audio front we have a solid but fairly unremarkable 2.0 stereo track in both English and French.

If you have even a vague, passing understanding of Grindhouse Releasing, you know that this company is known for consistently delivering releases that are absolutely STACKED with extras. Impulse not only maintains this pattern but delivers what is quite possibly their most stacked release yet! It purports to have over 15 hours of special features and that seems like a conservative estimate. First off, the disc includes two additional feature-length films directed by William Grefe, and crazily enough, the back of the box doesn’t even mention they are included! The Devil’s Sisters is a ’60s sexploitation roughie that Grefe filmed early in his career and is actually a pretty interesting flick if you dig this kind of primo Something Weird territory. Not only is this film that isn’t mentioned on the back of the package included, but Grefe has recorded a full-length audio commentary for it as well as several additional interview featurettes on different aspects of the film. One thing to note with The Devil’s Sisters is that it wasn’t completed, so Grefe pops in to describe how it would’ve ended based on the script. The other FULL-LENGTH MOVIE NOT EVEN MENTIONED ON THE PACKAGING is The Godmothers from 1973. This is a pretty doofy mob comedy about brothers who get in too deep flirting with a rather homely mob boss’s daughter and cross-dress to hide from her. With the likes of Mickey Rooney and Billy Barty involved, this one is chock-a-block with wacky shenanigans and wears pretty thin by the end. Still, I reiterate, this is an unadvertised bonus feature which is still pretty damned amazing. Moving on to the extras for the movie we’re actually here for, we have a feature length audio commentary by director Grefe for the film, and Grefe seems to have a near photographic memory for details surrounding the production of his movies. He is able to conjure up almost constant scene-specific anecdotes and even recalls conversations from the time period nearly word-for-word. Grefe is fairly old at this point and his voice is a little gravely but once you get used to it, it’s perfectly easy to understand. Also included is a 15-minute Making of with some behind-the-scenes footage and short interviews with cast and crew as well as a feature called “Shatner Saves Sakata” comprised of footage that shows a scene in the film where Matt Stone hangs Karate Pete from a noose. In reality due to the misplacement of the rigging holding up Sakata, he actually started being strangled by the rope and once Shatner noticed, he gave Sakata a bear hug and lifted him up to keep him from choking to death. The clip also has commentary from both Grefe and Shatner talking about the situation. Also included is a panel-style interview filmed after a 40th anniversary screening of Impulse in Tampa. And this was all on the first disc!

Moving onto the second disc, we have a TON Grefe-related content. It’s obvious that Grefe was an open, hands-on part of the production of this disc. In interviews alone, we have close to 2.5 hours of Grefe giving various anecdotes around the production of the film and other interesting stories from this general time period. We also get interviews with other cast and crew from Impulse like Doug Hobart, who has been involved with many of Grefe’s productions, usually playing victims and/or monsters. Plus this disc has two hefty extras featuring William Shatner. One has director C. Courtney Joyner interviewing Shatner and the other is an hour-long interview and Q&A appearance at Beyond Fest. If you’ve never seen Shatner in interviews, buckle up because he is a delight. Very boisterous, charismatic and funny, the 1.5 hours you spend with him go by very quickly. Also included is an indie filmmaking seminar that William Grefe produced in 2012 that offer lots of practical advice for indy filmmakers. This particular extra runs close to six hours! Additionally we have several Shatner/Grefe-related industral short films included. Watch Shatner tour a Bacardi distillery and discuss financing motion pictures! We also get one with Lauren Bacall discussing investing in the film industry. The Bacardi one is the only one with some entertainment value but it’s still cool to have these included. We also get several fairly recently-produced short films that involve Grefe (a couple he directs and a couple he stars in). They’re all very low budget shot-on-video efforts but have their charms. “Underwood” is able to conjure up some creepy atmosphere with very little and “A Cask of Amontillado” has a great one-liner that made me laugh out loud with Grefe screaming “You Hit Like John Waters!” in the middle of a fight with another low-budget indie horror director. If you dig stills galleries, this one has a bunch of those too along with trailers for other Grindhouse Releasing films.

Holy moly, that’s a lot of extras, folks! Plus when the film itself is this fun and features a totally unhinged, sleazy Shatner, this is pretty much a “can’t miss” package.