Tag Archives: rip-off central

March Match: Half-Star City

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There are only seven slasher flicks I’d give five out of five stars to and conversely only nine that are so bereft of merit that I only afforded them a dismal half-a-star, some of which necessitate some more extensive explanations (Ax ‘Em, for instance) but for March’s face-off, here are four such horrors (in the other sense) that there’s really little to say about besides whatever the opposite to superlatives is…

bagmanTHE BAGMAN

0.5 Stars  2002/15/81m

“Your past will ALWAYS come back to haunt you.”

Director: Rae Fitzgerald / Writer: Beverly Beaton / Cast: Stephanie Beaton, Paul Zanone, Wil Matthew, Katrina McCullough, Alonzo F. Jones, Mikul Robins, Lorelei Shannon.

Body Count: 8

Dire-logue: “You can’t intimidate me by yelling!”

A group of friends are tormented by a sack-headed loon who was ‘drowned’ by one of them when they were kids. Dreadful shot-on-video production quality and largely inaudible dialogue – despite most of it being shouted by the cast of sub-amateurs. Horror regular Beaton is the only one who stands a chance but the ridiculous suicide ending does nothing for her career options. Harrowingly atrocious.

carnageroadCARNAGE ROAD

0.5 Stars  2000/15/70m

“The legend of Quiltface!”

Director: Massimiliano Cerchi / Writers: Massimiliano Cerchi & John Polinia / Cast: Dean Paul, Molinee Dawn, Sean Wing, Melissa Brown, Mike Paulie, Mack Hail.

Body Count: 6

Dire-logue: “My mom says I’m toothily challenged. She says when I get my braces I could be a model.”

If Carnage Road were a physical experience, it would surely be a wisdom tooth extraction with simultaneous rectal surgery. With no anaesthetic. And blind surgeons. For this is truly painful viewing at its most antagonistically awful.

What scraps of story there are concern a quartet of photography students who need some extra credit, which shouldn’t be a surprise as, between them, they have only one camera, which looks like it was issued in the 50s. They drive out to the desert but end up just taking commemorative shots of one another stood in front of bits of junk and sand. A+

The driver of their minivan warns them of a local maniac known as Quiltface – Eiderdownhead was already taken – and they all laugh at him, but not before a phenomenal shot where said killer is stood approximately ten feet away from the group in broad daylight with nothing in between them and they still fail to notice… When they finally do realise he’s stalking them, they jog away at snail’s pace until one girl falls over and sits there until he can catch up and struggle with her! Another one dies from an inch-deep cut to the hip.

The only trace of originality in Carnage Road is that elects a final boy, one who miraculously survived a machete blow to the head earlier in a film where a small cut to your hip can be fatal. He spends the final twenty minutes squealing in a high-pitched voice before the predictable closing. Worse than The Bagman? Mmm…could be!

Blurb-of-shame: Mack Hail directed and starred in Mr Ice Cream Man and Switch Killer.

catcherTHE CATCHER

0.5 Stars  1998/18/77m

“Three strikes you’re dead!”

Directors / Writers: Yvette Hoffman & Guy Crawford / Cast: David Heavener, Monique Parent, Joe Estevez, Sean Dillingham, Lesslie Garrett, Paul Moncrief, James Patterson, Harley Harkins, Jeff Sorenson, Mike Kepple.

Body Count: 9

A baseball slasher flick sounds interesting, right? Fool! Think again. A young boy beats his nasty dad to death with a baseball bat and, X years later after the last game of the season, a catcher-masked psycho starts to off the members of the losing team.

The weirdest element of this cheapo film is that it sets itself up to be a mystery and then bows out with ‘and the legends were TRUE, Johnny MacIntosh did come back for revenge!’ Estevez is the dead-dad who appears only to him to spur on his killing.

A godawful cast and some of the worst editing going contribute additional nails to the coffin of this film, which also features a bizarre butt-fuck metaphor with a guy taped to a table while the killer literally shoves a bat up his arse! The characters are so dumb they surrender their weapons to try and reason with the zombie-like killer and considering their profession, can anyone run slower than these folks and why is their blood black!?

Blurb-of-shame: Joe Estevez was also in Sigma Die!, Scar and Axe Giant.

funnymanFUNNY MAN

0.5 Stars  1994/18/89m

“A cut above the rest.”

Director / Writer: Simon Sprackling / Cast: Tim James, Benny Young, Christopher Lee, Matthew Devitt, Pauline Black, Ingrid Lacey, Rhona Cameron, Chris Walker, George Morton.

Body Count: 8

Christopher Lee – what the fuck is he doing here? – loses his eerie mansion to a selfish record company producer in a poker game. He moves his family in and they manage to summon up a jester-demon who toys with and tears them apart before a group of freaky hitchhikers stop by.

Less a slasher film than a pastiche of gory vignettes centring on the doomed weirdos – amongst whom there is a Jamaican ‘Psychic Commando’ and a Velma-from-Scooby Doo a-like – and the wisecracking jester with his variety of regional English accents and to-camera asides, which kill off any suspense and much is stolen from the more comedic Elm Street entries but without an ounce of the subtlety, just misguided attempts at making the text so unbelievably surreal its funny, all of which fail miserably, rendering it one of the worst horror films in existence.

Blurbs-of-shame: Lee was also in Mask of Murder and Sleepy Hollow.

Worst of the lot? Oh God, it’s so hard to choose, they’re all so awful but I think Funny Man barely fit together a coherent plot so it can be burnt at the stake this time. At least the other films were considerate enough to be really quite short.

Valley of the Cheapjack Franchises: CAMP BLOOD

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Camp Crystal Lake was known as Camp Blood by the locals, ‘cos of all the, y’know, DEATH. A film called Camp Blood peaked my interest over a decade ago when browsing the bottom shelf of the horror section. It’s time to avoid that section no more once again as I save you from suffering through another stack o’ shite slash…

campbloodCAMP BLOOD

1 Stars 1999/18/73m

“Wide open with nowhere to run.”

Director/Writer: Brad Sykes / Cast: Jennifer Ritchkoff, Michael Taylor, Tim Young, Bethany Zolt, Courtney Taylor, Joe Hagerty.

Body Count: 11

If I’d made this film, I’d forgive you for calling it a pile of shit. I would, honestly. Whether Brad Sykes would forgive you – or indeed me – is another matter…

The title alone informs us that this is going to rip off Friday the 13th to some extent, but there’s also some Blair Witch in there too. Within two minutes we’re privy to some gratuitous nudity and the obligatory slashing that occurs everytime somebody disrobes in the woods. Try it and see!

Four city folk drive out into the woods to spend the weekend at Camp Blackwood but are, of course, stalked and slain by a clown-masked, machete-toting loon. Every predictable element is tossed into this shit salad: the insane old man who declares them to be doomed, a crappy legend that’s about as frightening as goldfish (but still manages to necessitate dialogue such as “I just can’t stop thinking about that story…”), characters who jog as slowly as possible away from the looming killer, cell phones fail, walking near a twig means you’ve sprained your ankle and therefore you can’t walk… It’s unrelenting.

By far the worst thing occurs when the final girl escapes and is accused of being behind it all and the other actors who played her now-dead friends don new roles as cops and nurses etc with barely any attempt to alter their appearances. Jason wept…

*

campblood2CAMP BLOOD 2

2000/18/75m  1 Stars

“It’s not over!”

Director/Writer: Brad Sykes / Cast: Jennifer Ritchkoff. Garett Clancy, Missy Hansen, Mark Overholt, Jane Johnson, Timothy Patrick, Ken X, Lisa Marie Bolick, Courtney Burr.

Body Count: 9

Dire-logue: “Sometimes it feels like I’m dead too.”

Before torture-porn there was torture-quality. As if one of these films wasn’t bad enough, the same ‘production’ team return for another helping of the same with absolutely no lessons learnt from their previous outing.

One year after surviving the Camp Blackwood slayings, a director with as little talent as Brad Sykes invites sole survivor / prime suspect Tricia – who has been locked away in an asylum that has an inch-thick wooden door to keep her confined – to be the ‘technical advisor’ on his screen immortalisation of the events according to her statement.

Without any explanation whatsoever, the doctors just let her leave without a chaperone, an electronic tag or a T-shirt that says “Hi there! If I go mental and try to kill you, return me to Loonsville Asylum!”

So she goes along on the shoot and another clown-masked nutter, who’s already done away with some horny teens, comes a stalkin’. Tricia, three actors and the entire crew of three become the victims of more dreadful killing, including machete in the mouth and a person who dies from a severed hand.

More attempted in-jokes – one character is named Adrienne Palmer – and a rushed open ending, in which the killer survives first degree burns that don’t even singe their hair and multiple machete slashes and then gives the clown mask to Tricia who wanders off into the woods with it. That’s the freakin’ end!

There is a third movie, which is called Within the Woods. I point blank refuse.

Blurbs-of-interest: Courtney Taylor played Mary Lou Maloney in Prom Night III, hence one of the characters is called Mary Lou. Tim Young was in Scarecrow, the other cheapjack franchise!

“Ei hän vapauttaa elokuva on yhteensä crap?”

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skeletoncrewSKELETON CREW

1.5 Stars  2009/91m

“There’s no sequel for you.”

Directors: Tero Molin & Tommi Lepola / Writer: Tero Molin / Cast: Rita Suomalanien, Steve Porter, Anna Alkiomaa, Jonathan Rankle, Jani Lahtien, Ville Arasalo, David Yoken, Riikka Niemi, John Lenick.

Body Count: 9

Dire-logue: “Somehow we’re inside a film – a horror film. That’s why things have gone like they have.”

By my recollection, this is the first slasher flick to come out of Finland – land of computers, logs and Lordi. I didn’t know this going in. In fact for some reason I thought it was going to be set on an oil rig. Imagine my disappointment surprise glee lack of any real reaction when I figured out it was set in an abandoned mental asylum…

After the longest ever opening scene, in which a couple survive a car crash and seek help at said institution – we’re talking about 25 minutes or so where about three significant things occur, the rest is just the girl walking very slowly up and down corridors – someone yells “cut!” Hark, it’s another horror film about the making of a horror film.

Scream 3, Cut, Return to Horror High, Slaughter Studios, Scared, Urban Legends: Final Cut… This has been done so many times. What can they possibly do any different? Answer: be in Finland. End.

The film, directed by a Brit-wannabe Hollywood player (who says he wants the film to be the next Saw or Hostel), is called Silent Creek, about a true case where a doctor was killing patients and filming the deaths. Slowly – very slowly – director dude becomes obsessed with snuff films after the crew locate a hidden room with previously unfound reels living in it and decides that his film requires a change of tone.

While most European slasher films tend to add something culturally distracting into the mix, Skeleton Crew merely apes its American contemporaries. Nothing unexpected happens unless you count the sound guy being inexplicably frazzled by a lighting rig and an ending that really makes no sense. What’s left is token lesbianism (why the hell is it now in every DTV film?), seen-’em-all-before slayings and clunky dire-logue. The title of this post translates as “doesn’t he know the film is total crap?” which is what frazzled-sound guy mutters to a buddy early on.

Before his death, sound guy opts out of following the others to safety once the killing has been discovered. Does he vacate? No. He goes to the kitchen and gets drunk, handily debilitating himself in time for the killer’s arrival. And where do the other cast members go? Where did the mental patient and the hulking nurse from the prologue vanish to?

I wanted to find some merit in Skeleton Crew beyond it’s acceptable production values but I’m getting a little pissed with all this same-old hat. While it’s not a horrid film there’s simply nothing remotely original about it beyond it’s geographical origin. Cold Prey may have had a standard plot but it worked its arse off to squeeze every little bit of tension out of it. Skeleton Crew is just cheap and lazy, which is effectively worse than being crap but endearing.

When a subtle title just won’t cut it…

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lakedeadLAKE DEAD

1.5 Stars  2007/87m

“Beneath the calmest surface lies the deepest nightmare.”

Director: George Bessudo / Writer: Daniel P. Coughlin / Cast: Kelsey Crane, Jim Devoti, Kelsey Wedeen, James C. Burns, Pat McNeely, Vanessa Viola, Alex Quinn, Tara Gerard, Malea Richardson, Dan Woods, Christian Stokes, Trevor Torseth.

Body Count: 8

Part of the second ‘After Dark’ horror festival, the cleverly named Lake Dead is what you get if you rip-off Wrong Turn, stir in some Simon Says, add a clove of Wolf Creek and toss with two-parts remake of The Hills Have Eyes, but make sure you suck out everything that’s interesting and clever in those films and replace it with stupid torture porn shit.

A trio of sisters, Brielle, Kelly and Sam (the latter is adopted), inherit a rundown lakeside motel after the grisly death of a grandpa they never knew they had. The vulgar Sam goes ahead to check it out and is attacked by a couple of inbreds who skewer her ankles together with a steel pole, weight her and toss her into the lake. Their surname is Lake too, and they now have a place by a lake! Isn’t that the coolest, most coincidentally amazing plot device y’ever did encounter?

A couple of days later, her goody-goody siblings arrive with a gaggle of friends in tow, all of whom serve no purpose but to have sex with each other and (if female) be raped and then slaughtered, bar Brielle’s hunky boy-toy Ben. The surviving trio soon learn that the killers are all part of their family remove and now they want the sisters back home with the happy clan to continue the lineage.

lakedead2

Crooked cops, loon inbred brothers (called Kane and Abel – groan) friendly old grannies who turn out to be psychos… we’ve seen it all before and a squillion times better in the Texas Chainsaw remakes. Lake Dead only succeeds in establishing itself as an ugly pretender – a runt of a film, much like the homicidal brothers in the film. All of the pretty young girls are tortured and raped while the guys are far less in number and done away with quickly or off-screen. The requisite teen sex-a-thon sees the girl buck naked while the guy retains all his clothes!

Additionally, there are some really stupid scenes to stare open-mouthed at: one character dives into the lake and swims directly under a dead body suspended beneath the surface but completely fails to notice it’s there and later, when running from the killers demands a breather, the fleeing victims decide to sit in the middle of the road and wait. Look, there’s a huge, thick forest to hide in, just inches away!

Weight this, toss it in the lake and pray it never floats topside.

Blurb-of-interest: Kelsey Wedeen was in Detour.

“Pain can be fun.”

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trainTRAIN

2 Stars  2008/18/91m

“You’re in for one hell of a ride.”

Director/Writer: Gideon Raff / Cast: Thora Birch, Gideon Emery, Kavan Reece, Derek Magyar, Gloria Votsis, Konya Ruseva, Valentin Ganev, Todd Jensen, Vladimir Vladiminov.

Body Count: 10

Dire-logue: “Screw you, you un-circumsized little fuck!”

Bored of torture porn? Sick of Hostel and Turistas? Me too! Let’s throw ’em on the next train to Eastern Europe! Oh bugger, American college teen alert…

Train was originally slated to be a remake of Terror Train, with Thora Birch donning Jamie Lee Curtis’ role. Fortunately, the idea was derailed and the film became independent of such comparisons, bar the choo-choo setting. Thora is part of an American college wrestling team on a tour of Europe. In the unspecified country of their most recent match, she and four others sneak out to a party, thus missing their connecting train in the morning.

train4

Their retentive coach is offered a ride on another train, which they merrily skip aboard. Something ain’t right about this loco though, which we soon learn is actually a sort of mobile donor clinic, taking people in need of black market operations out into the country and taking advantage of dopey lost tourists, who get sliced up carefully for some organ harvesting…

The conductor, a Bond-villain type lady doctor and some hulking goons are all in on it, picking off the kids one by one for some eyeball-plucking, spine-severing, penis-chopping and leg-hacking before carrying out the operations in the onboard clinic! Yes, there’ surgery taking place on a rickety ol’ train. We’re later expected to believe that the recipient of an eye-transplant could recover within a day!

train1

Birch’s reluctant girl-wrestler Alex is predictably the last one standing and must try to save the day and herself, while her boyfriend, coaches and pals are cut up whilst still alive, save for the other girl, who is instead ‘given away’ as a bribe to some horny soldiers and, presumably, left in Europe to be repeatedly raped.

Hostel had some gross parts, which made me cringe. Part II upped the ante somewhat. Turistas was tamer, but a bit crap. Train trumps all three in terms of gruesome bloodletting: while the on-screen gore is carried out only against male characters, there were one or two moments where I looked away (…plus I was trying to eat a sandwich) and I actually placed my hands over my eyes at least once! It’s quite sick and pushes the boundaries of acceptable entertainment.

train3

Fortunately, Alex’s revenge on the fiends is quite delicious, as she takes on towering goons and is challenged over her morals! Birch looks disinterested for the most part though, with little to do but sneak around and hide. Her co-stars’ roles pale by contrast as they fulfill their obligations as pieces of meat to be hacked up and defiled in other ways. The set of villains are interesting enough but you can’t help but feel that these films are sponsored by some stay-in-America tourism foundation. Maybe it has a mantra like; “leave our borders and you will DIE!!”

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