Is this all you've got, Michele? For my second film in Project Terrible, I have a generic slasher film with no identity of its own. It doesn't have a unique killer- he's just a guy with an axe. Is it goofy- not really. Is it full of interesting characters in a unique scenario- hell no! No,
Butchered is just about every slasher film ever made between 1980 and 1989. It doesn't even have the post-modern irony of something like
Scream. The real question is this- is the movie Terrible? To see if
The Girl Who Loves Horror got her revenge for
Five Across the Eyes, you'll just have to read on...
Our film begins with Carl the Butcher escaping from a prison transport. They don't have the budget to show the car crash, but they can imply it. After wasting five minutes, he grabs a woman and...wastes five more minutes cross-cutting between the Credits, this...
...and random shots of the woman being tortured. Is she important? No. She did allow them to cover her blood and use a body double for her breasts, so that's something...
Over twenty minutes into the movie, our heroes finally get established and go off to an island for one last hurrah before leaving for college/the Army. One of them brings two skanks with them as well, because...well, they're skanks.
After some more filler, our heroes party some more and split up. This allows the group to be whittled down a bit. With a main cast of only nine people, this can't take long.
For no clear reason, the Butcher goes to the island as well and gets to work. It sure was nice of him to take time away from
Prison Break to be here, huh?
On the plus side, they use realistic lighting for most of the final part of the film. On the negative side, it's clearly because they can't afford it.
With our cast down to only two people now, it all comes down to the Deus Ex Machina in the form of our hero's brother to save the day in his boat. Our heroes get in the boat...and just leave. Seriously, that's it!
Random 'It's Not Over' Ending that makes no sense. Why end with anything other than a cliche? The End.
Well, at least it's not long. The plot of this movie is so amazingly-uninspired. Let's break down the stock elements, shall we? Generic killer- check. Uninspired characters (Jock, Cheerleader, Skanks, etc.)- check. Ending that has been done 8,003 times- check. Are there good elements here? Some of the acting is alright and a couple of the characters feel real. The problem lies in the execution. While I certainly felt for some of the characters, their back-story was mostly there to pad out the film's run-time. What is the resolution of the drama involving the black couple's upcoming long-distance relationship? Nothing- they both die. Even the Final Guy and Girl don't get much better. After all the talk of them being apart, they toss in one line to say that they aren't now. How does the killer find them, considering he has no personal connection to them, a lot of time has passed and they're in a private school...in a different state? Oh right- these endings almost never make sense, so why should this one? If you like slasher films that are less than 70 minutes long, this is your movie. If you like movies that aren't a little Terrible, this is not. Take us away, random fog...
Next up, The Girl Who Loves Horror gets one more chance to torture me in my bonus review. On the plus side, it's not
Taintlight. Stay tuned...
Ugh, just the overt cliches are enough to make me believe that this really is terrible and definitely not worth watching myself. Douchebags and skanks getting killed? How many times have we seen that crap?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review. It was a tough film to make on a budget of $8,000 bucks, but we managed to pull it off and get it into Wal-Mart all across the country. You hit a lot of great points, and even though your review is pretty negative I can agree. If you only knew the back stories of getting this film made you would be patting us on the back vs. crushing the film. It was a crazy roller coaster ride behind the scenes in 40 degree weather.....yes bikinis on an island in 40 degree weather. We had crazy scheduling problems, but hey if I had a million bucks it would have been 1000 times better and I would have had a ton of gore ;)
ReplyDeleteWe shot the film in 2007 and it didn't get released until 2010. We have all grown as film makers.
Thanks again!
Shaun O'Rourke
Co-Producer BUTCHERED
I hold no ill will towards people trying to get a film made. I did it myself, but didn't exactly get that far.
ReplyDeleteThe film does look like more than $8,000 was spent on it, I will grant you that.
Here's the thing: whether you had $8,000 or $8,000,000, the film is still generic and doesn't feel inspired.
If you've done more since and it is better, good for you. I'm certainly willing to give your stuff a look.