Cheese Will Have The Power: Shocker (1989)

Shocker (1989) (AKA "Shocker: No More Mr. Nice Guy")

Rating: ****

Starring: Michael Murphy, Mitch Pileggi, Peter Berg 

First of all, yes. I gave this horrendous movie four stars. It's no joke, this is how much I love this movie and how much I found it entertaining.

Made under a low-budget and shot in a matter of 10 weeks, Wes Craven's oddity of an effort is an attempt to create a new slasher franchise to cash in which, sadly, did not succeed due to the film bombing on the ratings. Of course, this is bound to happen from the wrong audience, but for the right mindset and taste, Shocker was and still is a whole lot of hokey fun!

Jonathan is a football star at a local highschool raised by a foster family, loved by his team mates like a brother, and is in a stable relationship with his girlfriend, Alison. But for some unexplained reason, he suddenly gained the ability to dream and materialize in places where an elusive family-killing TV repair man named Horace Pinker is at, the first among these encounters involving his foster mum and siblings falling victim to Pinker.

Upon waking up, Johnathan is informed by his lieutenant father of the killings; when he tries to explain that he saw the whole thing in a dream, he was understandably scuffed off by his father until he vividly described the murders as well as vital clues to the identity of the killer. Seeing that lead is a lead no matter how crazy it sounds, his father let him tag along during a raid at a local TV repair place where Horace eludes them and kills his way into escaping, now knowing that his identity is jeopardized by Jonathan's sudden gift.

As an attempt to taunt and warn the footballer, Pinker murders Alison, leaving Jonathan completely distraught and hellbent on exacting revenge on him. After another attempt to locate him by dream, Jonathan, along with a few friends and his father's squadron of cops, finally corners Pinker and have him executed via electric chair.

Unfortunately, Pinker had another trick up his sleeve; not only is he crazy, knife-happy and limp on a leg, but he also practices black magic. So before his execution, he made a bargain with the Devil (or a TV demon for all I know) to have him come back as pure sentient electricity, with the ability to surge through bodies into possessing them, travel by air waves, and simply bend reality via TV.

Now with an executed serial slasher stalking and hunting him in bodies that may or may not be possessed, Jonathan is soon forced to brave it all and battle Pinker in the end with wits, channel surfing, and the power of love. I kid you not!

With a weak script, cutout characters that are obviously influenced by his other films (albeit more stereotyped this time around), and a story that's as crazy as a schizophrenic loon on drugs, we can tell Mr. Craven here was on a desperate move to gain something for himself, which reminds me of the same craziness he attempted back in 1985 which resulted to the slasher The Hills Have Eyes Part II. Much like that film, Shocker heavily relies on cheese to entertain the masses and like the aforementioned slasher sequel, this film somehow found a way to make it all fit in the right places and make it work; granted that the acting is a questionable case and the plot is as convoluted as it tries to do a lot of things in a matter of 100 minutes, the film thrives on its own silliness and gave us strangeness involving limp killers somehow overpowering families into massacring them, the love represented in a victim's necklace is enough to weaken and drive out a now demonic serial killer, TV remotes as weapons, or the fact that no one ever finds a rusty old TV Repair van as suspicious, among many things.

The pacing is quick, with the first third being the most slasher-esque in terms of bodycounting, before slowly shifting to a stab-happy sci-fright flick with over-the-top effects and situations that's just simply fun to poke and laugh at. The reek of 80s air is everywhere from bad hair to awesome heavy metal sountrack. (Dudes of Wrath were gods for their song Shocker, which is also this film's opening tune) And then there's Mitch Pileggi as Mr. Pinker himself; good God, for a film with weak writing, Pileggi's crazy performance as Pinker instantly made the character an anti-hero for me! Not as big as Freddy but with the proper story and finance, he could have been!

Perhaps I'm giving Shocker a lot of praise for sentimental value here; I first saw this movie while I was at my second year in college and I was stricken with Dengue. I had this film downloaded in my (late) laptop and I strangely found the film comforting. And just to make sure it wasn't the fever or the drugs talking, I decided to watch it again weeks after I was cured and released, and yet I still find it entertaining. I dunno, perhaps it really is just a matter of taste that gave Shocker an audience; it is not for everyone but I found myself under the wing of those who sees this as a cinematic failure that's work loving and respecting for the effort and this is definitely something I am proud to live with!

Should you be on it for the cheese or just to see how bad/good it is, Shocker certainly needs to be seen to be believed!

Bodycount:
1 male seen murdered
1 female seen murdered
1 male found murdered
1 female and 1 girl murdered offcamera with a knife
1 male killed, later found with throat cut
1 female knifed on the gut
1 male gets a throat cut with a knife
1 male found stabbed and strangled with a chord
1 female knifed to death
1 male executed via electric chair
1 male had his head twisted
1 driver and 1 female immolated in tank explosion
1 male "wears out", dies
1 male shot on the back
1 male found slaughtered
1 male knifed on the chest
1 victim seen murdered
1 female seen murdered
1 child seen murdered
Total: 21
(Note: Due to the unknown state of some of the people Pinker possessed, those that was not given a clear indication if they're dead or not are not included on this list)

With Pinker, TV watches YOU!

The Trick is to Stay Alive: Lady, Stay Dead (1981)

Lady, Stay Dead (Australia, 1981)
Rating: ***
Starring: Chard Hayward, Louise Howitt, Deborah Coulls

It’s funny to think that some films out there are suffering from identity disorder; may it be comedies or dramas, adventure flicks or horror films, there are titles in which they can’t seem to make up their minds to what it really wanted to be. While some producers take the easy way and combine two genres together, some movies like Lady, Stay Dead (1981) struggles to provide the best of each genre can offer and ends up “strangely unique”.

Gordon Mason is a loner who works as the handyman and gardener of a young singer, Marie Colby. Thing is, Gordon is mentally and emotionally unstable, first seen in the film caressing a blow-up doll while listening to Colby’s’s own single. So when the singer verbally abused him too much for tracking mud through her newly cleaned seaside mansion, Gordon snaps and rapes her, all in the delusion that he is doing her a favor. Understandably, Marie isn't too happy about the incident, which confuses Gordon into attacking and drowning her in a fish tank when she goes hysterical on him.

Now with blood on his hands, Gordon tries to hide away the body, killing a concerned neighbor and his dog along the way, but just when he thought he's walking out of this fiasco scot-free, Marie’s sister, Jenny, arrives later that day to house-sit. Immediately smitten, Mason shifts his attention to court Jenny, trapping her inside the house as he mocks and stalks her in every opportunity possible. Jenny now has no choice but to deal with the emotionally dangerous man and try to stay alive.

With a title like Lady, Stay Dead (1981), you wouldn't expect this to be a slasher movie; if anything, I was thinking it'll be a comedic crime thriller under the vein of Weekend at Bernie’s (1989) hearing the title alone. Fairly enough, however, director Terry Bourke chucked in some stalk-and-slash action in the middle portion of the film where Jenny becomes well aware of Mason’s twisted intentions. For the rest of the movie, I saw more grindhouse horror thriller than bodycounting.

Taking note on films like Maniac (1981) and Don't Go to The House (1980), the first portion of the plot appears to focus on Mason's exploits in "courting" his latest victim. At some point, it nearly becomes a psychological battle for sanity as he momentarily pictured Marie's corpse coming to life, but this is dropped in a twist to make way for a clumsy slasher story with Jenny fending herself against a powertool-equipped gardener. It's standard stalk and attack reminiscent of the last third of most slasher films but seeing how Mason's more of a creep rather than a homicidal psycho, the action and the villain himself failed to be all that impressive in this approach.

Eventually, the film shifts back to being a thriller with a shootout scene that seems to place the movie in a hastier pace with an added higher kill count, the latter featuring one of the most unfortunate victims in slasher history. The final product undeniably looks messy, but it at least did make an effort to do something different from the majority of slashers coming out for its time and be exploitative fun all the same time.

By all means, Lady, Stay Dead (1981) isn't necessarily a terrible movie, but it did lack the focus and creativity to perfectly merge its cavalcade of ideas to create a solid story. At first it was a exploitation, then a survival flick, and then it finishes as a cop out movie with a slasher-esque ending, all packed in a measly 90 or so minutes of pure Ozploitation cheese. If you love obscure hammy grindhouse thrillers then Lady, Stay Dead (1981) remains as a welcome option.

Bodycount:
1 female drowned in a fish tank
1 male hacked on the head offscreen with a shovel
1 dog shot
1 male shot with a shotgun, set on fire by a molotov cocktail
1 male killed offcamera
1 male shot to death
Total: 6

A Tune in Murder: Coda (1987)

Coda (Australia, 1987) (AKA "Deadly Possession", "Symphony of Evil")
Rating: ****
Starring: Penny Cook, Arna-Maria Winchester, Liddy Clark

(Wow, took me seven long years to finally see this. The joys of movie hunting!)

Some parts Halloween (1978) with the amateur snooping of Nancy Drew and a bit of Hitchcockian thrills for good measure, this Made-For-TV Australian thriller succeeds at a lot of things that most of its gorier theatrical or video counterparts normally fail in: direction, style, and quality.

When a student from a nearby music academy gets attacked in her apartment and left for dead, a man seen skulking around tries to help her only to be mistaken as the culprit, sparking a brief chase before evading capture. As responding cops swarm the place and manage to drive the girl to a nearby hospital, one Kate, neighbor of the attacked victim, finds herself tangled in the crime when she's brought in for questioning and she recognizes a police sketch of the suspect as her former-husband, Mike.

Mike, of course, claims his innocence after Kate finds him hiding in her apartment. Hoping to clear his own name, he leaves to go to the same hospital the girl is taken to, but finds himself under further blame when someone beats him to it, kills the girl, and lead him to the open arms of the police. Believing that the cops got the wrong man, Kate curiously looks into the case and soon finds herself the next target of the attacker.

Perhaps I should start off with the only flaw of the movie, which would be fair since the rest of Coda (1987) is undeniably great; the film is grounded for realism and devoid of any kind of hamminess, hence it should work pretty well as a thrilling mystery. Sadly, with so little cast to focus on, limited red herrings that aren't that strong, and the clues being too obvious, the whodunit elements didn't do that well.

Thankfully, the direction has us looking into the characters with enough dimensions, fairly paced to give us enough time to both know our might-be victims/suspect and build a brooding sense of suspense which soon escalates into familiar territories. Interesting to note is the fact that the main casts are mostly women, all of whom are portrayed to be more than cattle for the slaughter, which may have something to do with the cast having a reasonable amount of control over their roles.

With the main focus being on the plot and its characters, those who are looking for a heavy killcount would be disappointed though I personally didn't mind this since the story was compelling enough to entertain me and the performances of its casts didn't require the distraction of exploitable murders. In addition, the final third of the film features one of the best cat-and-mouse antics I've seen since the hallway axe murder of Prom Night (1980), involving our lead and villain going through darkened halls and claustrophobic libraries at closed university.

The art and music theme of the story also found its way into production, making great use of classical music to set the mood and enhance situations, as well as some well executed camera and visual work that's honestly simple but fits well nevertheless. A fine example of this would be that one sword murder where we see our killer seemingly hovers down a shadowed hallway, motionless and silent until it raises a sword and goes for the kill; it's a genuinely creepy scene and one that is visually impressive and caters well for slasher fans alike.

There isn't much else to say about Coda (1987); it's a beautiful fun film to watch that didn't resort to nudity, gore, and cheese, something that is a lot to say comparing to most slasher films being released in the late 80s. A must see/own for those who love a simple slasher movie!

Bodycount:
1 female thrown through a window, later had her life support turned off
1 female slashed to death with a sword
1 male found frozen in a freezer
1 male killed offcamera
1 female drowned
Total: 5

Axing Between Planes: The Horror Show (1989)

The Horror Show (1989) (AKA "House III: The Horror Show")

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Lance Henriksen, Brion James, Rita Taggart 

What's so odd about The Horror Show you ask? Everything.

The Horror Show was supposed to be the third entry to the Sean Cunningham's supernatural horror comedy franchise House, which, in this entry, he sat only as a producer and let director James Isaac switch away from the zombies and monsters of the franchise and try what could have been a new slasher opus. However, the use of dreams and a wise-cracking psycho made this film quite comparable to A Nightmare on Elm Street's brand of terror and the matter that Show's plot is noticeably similar to Wes Craven's own slasher movie-on-drugs Shocker (also in 1989) definitely didn't help marking this story well for originality. Then, there's the oh-so-present MPAA disagreeing with the film's juicy gore so a lot of the red stuff has to be cut, further disappointing many fans. (although I'm not sure if the version I watched was the gored up version or not, cuz I was looking at a lot of red stuff) Still, let's see how this Horror Show fare under my thoughts and perhaps find anything else to enjoy about it.

The story is about Detective Lucas McCarthy (the one and only Lance Henriksen) going through a phase where he is haunted by the most horrific capture he'd ever done; that of the infamous meat-cleaver wielding serial killer Max Jenke, shown in gruesome detail through a dream-flashback wherein he slaughtered countless victims and leaving them in varying states of mutilation, decapitation, and half way through a meat grinder, including Lucas' partner and one young hostage that later got her noggin lopped off. 

The good detective did eventually caught the perp and had him locked up where he is sentenced to death via electric chair, but the dreams' haunting nature continue to put Lucas in a position where he nearly sleep-strangled his wife and begin seeing weird shit all around. Thinking that by being there when the con fries would put him in ease, he personally arrives at the execution and watch as Jenke somehow survives the first few moments of being burnt by voltage, giving one last death threat to Lucas before finally dying off.

Now with the killer dead for good, Lucas does his best to move on with his life and it's easier said than done when weirder things start happening after the death, including a demonic turkey dinner, Max showing up in every channel of the TV, surge of electricity emitting maniacal laughter, and hallucinations of are-they-dead-or-not family members.

We soon come to learn that Max somehow harnessed the ability to control his physical being and had converted himself into pure electricity. (or something) Though this does very little to explain how a mass-murdering psycho got granted the power to open his own dimension in the later half of the movie, Lucas, nevertheless, arms himself and prepares to fight the monster one more time.

Though wildly enjoyable as a cheesy hookum of all things weird and supernatural, what The Horror Show lacked was focus on what it wanted to be as it juggles the tone between something serious to that involving talking roasts and transdimensional planes. (AKA the weird shit)

The story is workable, one that is curious if you could look pass the hammy scripting and wild direction. It plays around with the mental state of Henriksen's character even though we are sure that Jenke's behind of all the oddities happening; this being said, most of The Horror Show feels less of a slasher and more of a supernatural horror flick if it wasn't for the villain himself and the blade-related kill count still being present.

Thankfully, the two main casts vehicle the movie to a passable viewing, each giving their best performance for their roles; Henriksen does an awesome job portraying a haunted cop whose desperation for some sense to what's going on with his world left him always on edge and willing to consult anybody for an answer. It's a doable role but as far as troubled heroes go, the movie's signature character, Max Jenke, is what gave it the most entertainment value; played by Brion James of the Bladerunner fame, his presence is a solid tribute to A Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger from the maniacal smugness to the body-horror inspired reality bending powers, and much like the burnt bastard, he spends his time playing with his kills before doing them away. The overacting of his supposed uber-evil does get in the way of making him any more frightening than what he is intended to be, but its cheesy charms did gain this film an audience so I don't think this is much of a real flaw but rather a matter of taste.

The only real issue I see here is that the nature of the reveal on how Jenke ended up being in his near-supernatural state; it just came out of the blue and is a lot less practicable that the simple "deal with the devil" shtick makes more sense. There's also the point that, given the killer's new powers, the plot could had involved more thespians for Jenke to try it on and give us a better looking bodycount. Then again, looking at how much focus this movie is giving on story, this is yet another factor that makes The Horror Show a unique entry to this sub-genre and one that could learn to live with.

Whether you call it House 3 or simply The Horror Show, this oddly campy, story-driven slasher would have been something to be reckoned with but falls short from a better rating due to its lack of punch. The story is good, the acting is good, but the film just doesn't know where to lead it all and what we end up seeing is a rather passable supernatural horror with some fitting cheese. Good, but not great.

Bodycount:
1 female found halfway through a meat grinder
1 male found mutilated
1 male head found in a deep dryer
1 male found with missing arms, bled to death
1 female decapitated with a meat cleaver
1 male hacked to death with a meat cleaver
1 male decapitated with a meat cleaver
1 male shot to death
Total: 8

Something Sciencey and Deadly: Strange Behavior (1981)

Strange Behavior (New Zealand, 1981) (AKA "Dead Kids", Small Town Massacre")

Rating: ****

Starring: Michael Murphy, Louise Fletcher, Dan Shor, Fiona Lewis

At a first glance, it may look like another dead teenager flick, but prioritizing a whodunit story and weird atmosphere over high bodycount and gratuitious exploitation makes this New Zealand production anything but another slasher.

Opening with a random teenager left alone in his house while his parents go out, his momentary freedom to smoke a cig and listen to 80s pop tunes interrupted by a sudden power outage. Making his way to the kitchen, he lights a candle and fools around making shadow puppets, only to discover he's not alone and gets a nasty eye stabbing from an intruding teenager.

Our mesmerized opening killer.

Later that morning, we shift our attention to the Brady family; Pete Brady is a bright student itching to go to college but is short in cash to apply just about anywhere. (and that includes the town's campus) Fortunately for him, his friend Oliver referred him to a local hospital, wherein the staff are looking for willing applicants to participate as human test subjects for their experiments involving some sort of mental exercise. (demonstrated on a chicken being controlled via video recording of a dead professor) Thinking it's the easiest way to make a few hundred bucks, Pete agrees to undergo the sessions.

That night, Pete and Oliver decided to join a costume party to honor their "independence"; one cheesy yet groovy dance sequence later, two teenagers from the gathering left to the woods for a quick make-out, unknown to them that a maniac in a ghoul mask followed them there. A boy was killed and the girl managed to run back to the party, where horrified partygoers caught a glimpse of the man in the mask as he scurries away into hiding. Safe from the crowd, but not from us, the viewers, the killer unmasked himself to reveal a familiar face.

Admin notice: back at prom, me and a date did that cheesy dance in Prom Night (1980).
How I wish we could had tried this hammy sequence instead.

Hearing this, as well as made aware of a missing boy the other night, Pete's father and local sheriff John Brady gets into the case, piecing together all the evidence he could find but finds himself stuck in coming up with any solid lead. In the midst of this, Pete undergoes the experiments and begins to notice odd things happening to his body. It soon ties up to a shocking conclusion, where a town's horrible past returns, leading to a twist that's honestly ingenious, if not overworked.

Many parts medical thriller, whodunit, teen slasher and mad science, Strange Behavior was a fresh, albeit weird take on the formulaic bodycounters of the early 80s, keeping enough of the subgenre to satisfy slasher hounds while catering to other kinds of scares and thrills. Masked killers and brutal knifing was generously provided on the plot but it's focus was obviously more on mystery, with a flow that's paced perfectly to keep us watching in intrigue and interest, enough red herrings to ponder about, and a twist that one wouldn't see coming.

Now if only this was a scarecrow slasher...

Those who are a bit squeamish on body horror would also find some bits here that would keep them cringing; one intense example is a patient getting a syringe full of chemicals into one of their eye sockets, and another involving a someone pissing blood during a date. There's also a gruesome revelation of what happened to one of the earlier victims, which later seen as a human scarecrow that's just unnerving to look at.

Production is fairly professional, which is a lot to say for a movie of this sub-genre; the lush New Zealand country side provides some great visuals and a nice small town vibe, direction had us peeking through solid scares and creep factors, but the things that this movie benefited from are it's characters and casts.

Acting is quite solid, giving the cast of characters enough value to root for or feel for in a relatable way. That is, of course, if you can overlook some funny blurbs, strange things that just appears to be normal to them (cutting toe nails at the kitchen and a father walking into the bathroom while his son showers among a few)  and one scene of them doing a corny choreographed dance routine to Lou Christie’s “Lightning Strikes” during a party. Incidentally, these oddities are one of the few things that made this movie charming; it serves as a nice distraction for us while the plot waddles around with the "why-dunit" mystery.

One time masked sequence? No problem!

Even if it is cheesy weird, I am confident to say Strange Behavior (the film's original title, which I prefer over the bland "Dead Kids" ) is a must own for all true slasher fanatics, though one should keep a heads up as it is closer to that of a giallo-inspired thriller than a film about a mask psycho on a killing spree. Still, one should be open to have a good time and this movie definitely knows how to go with the flow, no matter how strange it gets from beginning to end. Recommended!

Bodycount:
1 male knifed on the eyes
1 male knifed to death
1 male found mutilated
1 female gets a throat cut with a knife
1 male knifed to death
Total: 5

High Tension Reunion: To Sir, With Love (2006)

To Sir, With Love (Seuseung-ui eunhye) (South Korea, 2006) (AKA "Bloody Reunion", "The Teacher")
Rating: ****
Starring: Seong-won Jang, Eung-soo Kim, Yeong-seon Kim

Some people try their hardest not to forget their grade school years as it hold some of the most dearest and curious parts of their lives; your friends, your first game of hide and seek, your first field trip, your first schoolyard scrap, all of which endearing if not a little embarrassing at times given how soft and open our minds were back then.

Unfortunately, there are also those who wish to forget this portion of their past; may it be due to childhood bullying or some events too traumatic to mention, this is the central theme for South Korea's wonderful entry to the slasher cycle of 2006, To Sir, With Love.

A mix of the old slasher bone and torture porn-style gorno, it tells the story of Mrs. Park, a former elementary school teacher now fallen ill, disabled and currently under the care of one of her old students, Mi-Ja.

Seeing that Mrs. Park's conditions aren't getting any better and fearing that she'll die sullen, Mi-Ja plans a reunion to cheer up the ailing teacher, with six old classmates answering the invitation. It all seems fine at first but it is noticeable that the now adult former-pupils are uneasy around Mrs. Park. Through a series of flashbacks, we get to learn why...

When she was still teaching at grade school, Mrs. Park gave birth to a deformed and mentally challenged boy named Young-Win. The shame of raising a freak was too much for her husband, hanging himself in the basement one day while their son watched. The event was bitter enough for Mrs. Park to keep Young-Min locked up in the basement and vent her frustrations out on her class' own misfits, which turns out to be all six of those who gathered to the reunion in the present.

Each with their own personal grudges against their grade school teacher, whom they blame for their current status in life as "losers", they lash out their hatred for her and even got close to murdering her. However, someone in a creepy rabbit mask is out capturing, torturing and murdering the vengeful ex-students one by one. Could it be Young-Min out to protect his mother? Or is it someone else in the group gone utterly mad?

Since this was one of the few slashers I get to see and own during the early years of my collection, To Sir, With Love has a special place on my heart for being a disturbing yet beautiful piece of work; one of the biggest pros that aids this film is that the characters are well acted; each of the cast portraying them takes a deeply layered take on the typical cliched slasher victims, with much gut and persona that it's near believable in a highly dramatic way and it brings out a sense of dread that the story benefited from. Throw this in to a direction well in touch with a very resentful atmosphere and a pacing that broods toward the impending mayhem, then you'll have a slasher that's high on shocks, creepiness and some unexpected twists that keeps the plot as fresh as possible.

Production wise, it is visually stunning, more or less in the sense of premise, photography, and the film's deliriously brutal executions of its characters. The latter earns a high remark from me since I find the kills perfectly blended with the torture porn-style nasties popularized by films like Hostel and the SAW franchise; one fine example would be the killer's first victim, viciously slashed with a box cutter before dragging his dying body to a secret hideout, prying his jaws open with a pair of compasses and then force-feeding him with razor blades and a kettle of boiling water. It's pretty nasty and the killer himself isn't half bad with that creepy bloodstained cardboard rabbit mask.

The only bit that keeps me from giving this movie one more star (or half-a-star) was that the twist reveal leaves one large plot hole and it kinda brings a level of ridiculousness to the story. Not going to reveal much but it resembles the infamous twist from the extreme French slasher High Tension, with a slight more detail on the reveal that involves some child's soiled pants. Thankfully, this didn't effect much of the movie and it even ended it all with a depressing tone.

Tackling the idea of how much a teacher, being a child's second parent, can affect the well-being of the children placed under her responsibility, To Sir, With Love shuffles around being both a gory horror movie and a dramatic psychological thriller. This being mentioned, the movie is just a lot of fun and well-recommended for all slasher fans!

Bodycount:
1 male hangs himself
1 male repeatedly slashed with a box cutter, later force-fed with razors and boiling water
1 female had her eyes stapled open with a stapler, killed
1 male bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat
1 female falls off a cliff
1 male had his eyes thumbed
4 males and 2 females poisoned, later knifed to death
1 female found dead
1 female dropped to a sea side
1 female disappears
Total: 15

Twas: The Night Before Easter (2014)

The Night Before Easter (2014) (AKA "Happy Easter")
Rating: **
Starring: April Sinclair, Emily Chidalek, Alyssa Matusiak

The Night Before Easter (2014) starts off with a couple watching a hilariously cheap slasher movie, only to get their night interrupted when they find out that a madman named Alex Sykes escaped his cell and possibly out for blood. Well, "interrupted" isn't the right word as they were calm enough to think about having sex but, true to any slasher opening, they have to die as Mr. Sykes, somehow, was already in the room with them...

Fourteen years (and one opening credit) later, we now follow a group of 20 somethings gathered in a storage building as one of them plans to tell the rest that she'll be moving to London for her dream job. (and that she still likes one of the guys who, apparently, is dating a snooty rival) Things go off rather fine with the gang deciding to play Hide-and-Seek to pass the time, but it soon dumps down for the bad when characters reveal hidden motives and terrible secrets, and then there's some guy in a cheap bunny suit wielding an axe making mincemeat out of them. Not the kind of hide-and-seeking they got in mind, I bet.

Definitely a throwback to the early 80s slashers, The Night Before Easter (2014) keeps a modest look by strictly following the basic slasher flow piece by piece, though nudity and gratuitous gore are noticeably missing. I will try to keep things all fair and forgiving as, obviously, this is a movie done by people with enough time, dedication, and passion for the sub-genre, despite low on budget and production experience. This being said, I am really impressed by the writing and characterization done as the characters bear enough personality and dimension to have us caring about most of them, or at least stay interested. It's very rare that we get to feel for the casts in a slasher movie nowadays so this is a big approval for my viewing.

Sadly, we have a good half hour focusing on these characters before the killings begin, which would have been all good if it not for a few distractions; as mentioned, since this film was done with a meager budget, the editing and audio make it rather hard to follow some scenes, and the murders have no solid build-up, finishing way too quickly and leaving me feeling cheated that these guys just die off in unimpressive ways after all that waiting. Yes, again, I did point out the budget issue (apparently $4000), but I've seen enough SOV horror flicks to know that money is never a hindrance for a fun kill, and it's just a matter of execution and imagination.

And then there's the killer.

...Chewbacca?

H'okay, how am I gonna put this... He kinda looks like a bad naked impersonation of the late Robin Williams with all his visible body hair dye in white and wearing some bunny eared mask that barely looked rabbit-ish. I'm sorry, but he makes the bloodstained cuddly-bunny suits from films like Bunnyman (2011), Serial Rabbit (2005) and Easter Bunny Bloodbath (2010) look better in comparison.

It all ends with a finale that was a mixed bag for me since, on one hand, it pays a good tribute to one of my favorite slashers ever, but on the other, I care very little at that point since I was already worn out from how cheap the slasher portions were.

In totality, The Night Before Easter (2014) was an interesting project; it has its heart on the right places but, due to the lack of budget, it ended up all over the place in a slight mess. Perhaps with a better editing and some more effort on the kills, I'm darn sure this movie would have been a fine home-made bodycounter.

Bodycount:
1 male knifed on the back (film)
1 male killed (film)
1 male found castrated
1 female killed offcamera
1 female hacked with an axe
1 male gets a thrown buzzsaw to the back
1 female strangled with a length of chain
1 female decapitated with an axe
1 female had her throat cut with a knife
1 female hacked with an axe
1 female hacked on the head with an axe
1 male found with missing eyes
1 male hacked to death with an axe
Total: 13