Perhaps one of Larry Cohen’s lesser-known movies, the 1990 thriller The Ambulance is finally making its way to Blu-ray in a limited-edition release of only 2,000 copies from Eureka Classics.
Marvel Comics artist Joshua (a lively Eric Roberts, sporting one hell of a mullet) plucks up the courage to talk to Cheryl on the streets of New York, when she suddenly falls ill. An older model ambulance (think Ecto-1) arrives to pick her up and rush her off to the hospital. Joshua does the rounds of the hospitals to find out how Cheryl is, but can’t find her anywhere, probably because she’s been abducted by a mad doctor who wants to cure her type-1 diabetes before killing her.
As Joshua tries to find out exactly what has happened to his dream woman, more disappearances occur, including Cheryl’s roommate, piquing the interest of Lieutenant Frank Spencer (played not by Michael Crawford, but a gum-and-scenery-chewing James Earl Jones). Spencer suspects that Joshua is heavily involved, but not in an innocent way.
The ambulance attendants and their synonymous vehicle pop up here and there, trying their best to stop Joshua and anyone else helping him from leaking their nefarious intentions, as Joshua does his best to stop them and convince others that he’s not insane or the kidnapper himself.
The Ambulance is a decent enough thriller, incorporating a fun giallo-style colour palette, building some good tension before letting it all go nuts in a bananas denouement. There is a fun Stan Lee cameo where he doesn’t actually say Excelsior!, and the seedy underbelly of New York is used well.
The extras coming with this release are interesting. A very good transfer of the main feature is as expected, but there is a lovely looking slipcase with brand new artwork from John Dunn, a booklet with an essay on the film from genre film expert Liam Hathaway, the usual audio commentaries, and a previously unseen interview with Cohen himself about the film, among others.
A fun release with a typically hammy Roberts performance, there is still some life left in this criminally unseen film. With this being such a limited release, make an emergency visit to order this as soon as possible!
