Murderin' The Mollys: Totally Killer (2023)

Totally Killer (2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt, Charlie Gillespie

So we have time loops ala Groundhog Day (1993) get stabby with Happy Death Day (2017), body swapping ala Freaky Friday (1976) go bloody with Freaky (2020) and Christmastime existential dramedy ala It's a Wonderful Life (1946) hack' n slashin' a massacre with It's A Wonderful Knife (2023). Following this trend of slasherfying pre-existing intellectual properties, Totally Killer  (2023) joins the party with a terror time travel tale that's one part Scream (1996), one part Back To The Future (1985), and maybe a bit of Mean Girls (2004) thrown in there.

The suburban town of Vernon is one with a dark past; 35 years ago, three high school girls were murdered by an unknown assailant, stabbing them sixteen times on their sixteenth birthdays. The madman was never caught, the crime is unsolved after all these years and the victims happen to be the friends of one local mother named Pam (Julie Bowen), who basically raised her daughter Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) armed to the teeth in safety gear so she wouldn't meet a similar fate. The angsty seventeener, however, has grown irritable over her mom's anxious overprotectiveness and opted to see a concert one Halloween night, leaving Pam alone to fend for herself when someone dressed as the "Sweet Sixteen Killer" crashes in and murders her.

Shocked, sorrowful and very regretful for dismissing her mother's fears, Jamie investigates the murder with the help of the town's crime podcaster Chris (Jonathan Potts), who reveals to her a note left by the killer to Pam back in 1987, promising they would return one day to finish the job for good. Also helping her through the grief is her bestfriend Amelia, a super genius whose science fair project is an old photobooth-turned-time machine (!) which she warmly suggests possibly using to travel back in the past and stop the Sweet Sixteen Killer, just for that small chance for Jamie's mom to survive and live on. Fortunately for these girls, they get to see it work! Unfortunately, though, it happened after the Sweet Sixteen Killer swoops in to mangle the heart-to-heart moment, accidentally stabbing the machine which apparently triggers it. 

Caught in the resulting time warp and flung back to 1987, on the eve of the first murder, Jamie navigates through the 80s culture crash in a race against time to stop the victims-to-be from dying at the knife-wielding hands of a psycho, but this is rather a problematic mission when she discovers that her mother is the leader of a bullying clique, who are more or less prone to ticking all the right boxes of being the walking, talking, dying slasher victim stereotypes of drunken beef heads and bitchy prima donnas. 

Interestingly (and probably the film's most creative element), whatever changes Jamie causes in the past in her attempts to stop the murders are felt and noticed by characters in the present, much to some confusion. It's this film's little jab on a popular observed phenomenon known as the Mandela Effect, wherein a group of people collectively misremember facts or events in a consistent manner, and clever details like this is what keeps Totally Killer (2023)'s take on a time travel story fresh and watchable enough to be entertaining. On top of that, this film's approach on its comedy, something I can best describe as a cluster of 'fish-out-of-water via time misplacement' jokes meet low key meta-humor, occasionally lands a good laugh whenever the writing delivers a right amount of snark and smarts, something Kiernan Shipka's crotchety, impassive performance as our teen time traveler help make most of it work. There are occasions, though, where the funnies can get disappointingly predictable on moments that it veers into the usual time travel jabs of generational clash and culture shock. 

Totally Killer (2023)'s comedy-leaning direction also meant that the slasher goods often feel lacking in grandeur. Sure, it is brutal and bloody, and we do get a couple of great murder set-pieces that end with a shocking death or a ironically funny pay off, but there's hardly any variety to the kills and I just couldn't fully get into the villain's design which, perhaps, may have look cool and creepy on concept with the whole snazzy wear juxtaposed by their ghoulish, exaggerated grinning mask, but the resulting product simply looks too clean cut to be intimidating. Still, there's a neat twist to the identity of the killer that I honestly didn't see coming, paired with motives that's one end dreadful, another end silly yet in tune with the movie's overall tone, so it's not an absolute loss.

Production quality is pretty decent, capturing its retro 80s vibe quite nicely with a bopping soundtrack and stylized set work. It has a couple of loose wires and wear as a scifi horror comedy, but what do you expect from a movie where two generations of high schoolers are smart enough to create a working time machine out of a photo booth? (I mean, that kid should be in NASA or something!) Totally Killer (2023) is, for its worth, totally fine so long as you don't take it too seriously! 

Bodycount:

1 female stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 female stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 female stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 male ran through with a scythe

1 female had her throat cut with a hunting knife

1 male stabbed in the head with a hunting knife

1 male disintegrated

Total: 7

Sleazy Night, Deadly Night: XXX-Mas (2023)

XXX-Mas (2023)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Drew Marvick, Felissa Rose, Morrigan Thompson

It's the Christmas season and Santa Claus is winding down in his home before the big day, with his beloved Mrs. Claus serving him milk and cookies as the jolly old man decided to watch his copy of Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1964). However, things aren't right with the tape and what he finds there sends him on a demented spiral of rage and murder, which we see early on when he decided to crash a small Christmas party and ends everybody in attendance.

We then shift our focus to hotshot porno director Johnny Duckett who has assembled a tiny cast and crew to shoot his latest smutty cinematic masterpiece, a full feature Christmas horror porn! (Complete with an end credit scene and a leprechaun for some reason...) His stars, though, doesn't share his enthusiasm or ambition for the sleazy project and would rather just shoot through by it like any other porno job they did before, especially when some of them aren't comfortable with the fact that the film is produced by an accused sexual abuser. 

Soon enough, things would escalate for the bloody and brutal when Santa finds his way to their set, tagging along a deranged meat-munching elf to spread some holiday fear in this not-so-holy night, leaving body parts a-plenty and dismembered all the way!

A silly premise for an indie production, XXX-Mas (2023) works well with the vibes and sensibility of your typical shot-on-video film to deliver the sleazy, cheesy and violent goods, even if it does take a little while to get going and the scripting can be hit-or-miss. I guess in an attempt to build character within the cast, the movie tries its hand on topical dialogue and comedy, but the unfocused acting and rushed writing meant a lot of it disappointingly stumbled. Fortunately, it all pick up in the third act as our killer Santa slices and dices his way into the picture, bringing in frankly the best performance in the flick and a fun dose of manic slasher energy.

And for an estimated $85,000 budget, the practical gore effects here are damn impressive with highlights including a very grisly punch, death by boiling water and a head getting gorily squeezed like an egg. As for the saucy bits, XXX-Mas (2023) undoubtedly dishes out the sexy scenes with both men and women being in multiple stages of undress throughout the movie, though nothing too hardcore as it's mostly played for laughs, In fact, the whole porn shoot premise ties in pretty well to why the massacre is happening to begin with. It's silly, yes, but there's a thin layer of grimness to it which makes this film all the more enjoyable.

Decking the halls with shlock and guts, XXX-Mas (2023) is the gory holiday midnight movie done alright!

Bodycount:

1 male beaten with a hammer

1 male gets a thrown knife to the forehead

1 female strangled with a length of fairy lights

1 male had his head crushed open

1 female decapitated with a snow shovel

1 male punched through the head

1 male and 1 female skewered with a fire poker

1 male had his throat bitten open

1 female stabbed in the gut with a prop candy cane

1 male had his groin bitten off, killed

1 female had her face melted off with boiling water

1 male found with a prop candy cane shoved down his throat

1 female found murdered, method unknown

1 female slaughtered

1 female had her neck snapped

1 male knifed in the head

1 male shot on the head with a shotgun

1 female beaten to death with a hammer (flashback)

Total: 19

The Long Walk: In A Violent nature (2024)

In A Violent nature (Canada, 2024)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love

Advertised as a subverted take on traditional slashers, where we'll be witnessing the bloody massacre through the perspective of an undead monster, In a Violent Nature (2024) undoubtedly delivers on this promise. 

The story is relatively simple: a gold locket gets taken away from the remains of an old fire tower, leading to the resurrection of a long dead-and-buried maniac named Johnny and his long journey through the thick forest under the morning sun to the guiding moon, as he looks for the people who took his precious item. Along the way, he causes murder and mayhem to just about anybody he comes across, may it be loud teens keeping warm near a bonfire or even forest rangers who they once had a past with. 

As an arthouse exercise, In a Violent Nature (2024) mostly did itself right as an experimental approach to your classic backwoods slasher film, in which instead of going through the usual exploits of rowdy teenagers typically found in your bodycounters flicks, the entire movie centers itself on what exactly goes through the days of B-grade lumbering masked maniacs menacing old campgrounds and the surrounding forest. With the exception of a few scenes of teen victims sharing old campfire tales or them opening up old wounds of romantic affairs, narrative is almost non-existent here and there's more going on for aesthetics and gimmick as we're basically tagging along with Johnny's lengthy trudges through dense verdure, interacting with trinkets and tools, as well as observing people from afar before mundanely walking his way to them for a good kill or two. These hikes are often beautifully shot with its vibrant and natural scenery, yet there's an underlying eeriness to it all considering we're walking along the steps of a loon who will slay anyone in a heartbeat, emphasized by the movie's notable lack of score. 

On that note, In a Violent Nature (2024) grandly delivers on the slasher chaos, with Johnny himself being an obvious tribute to Friday The 13th's Jason Voorhees, echoing similarities like his slow mental state and the fact that he supposedly died as a child from a prank-gone-wrong, only to come back slicing and dicing people as a grown adult undead. He's a rather fascinating fella overlooking his affinity for silent strolling as the film isn't shy on giving him some form of personality through body language whenever it has the chance, such as a surprisingly adorable moment where he got distracted by a toy car keychain. Plus, the fella just knows how to dress to impress, sporting a creepy vintage fireman's mask to go along with his signature weapons, a pair of drag hooks and a hatchet! When it comes to the kills, it's a showcase of variety ranging from the tame yet bloody, to the downright gorehound gruesome (most memorable of the bunch being that of a woman who's into yoga, which got a little too twisty), all done in a manner so workaday, it's oddly calmative.

Frankly, the platitudinous direction is what makes In a Violent Nature (2024) a fascinating watch; almost everything about it goes against what makes a slasher film thrilling or scary, and yet it presents an engrossing alternative that's just as disturbing and may be as effective. Yes, it's an approach that's may not do well for those expecting and wanting a more traditional bodycounter set-up and I personally believe the film could have done better if it was fifteen minutes shorter, ditching the odd shift of focus to the rather ineffective final girl of this picture, but the result is still this engrossing practice of uniqueness over what could have been just another slasher in the woods type. Schismatic yet transfixing, this is a movie that definitely rewards the more patient and open among slasher fans, assuring them a fine dine of brutality and other ghoulish delights. See it!

Bodycount:

1 male mutilated offscreen

1 male gets a wood saw pulled through his jaw, decapitated

1 female drowned in a lake

1 female ran through the gut and hacked on the head with drag hooks, contorted

1 male gets a thrown axe to the head

1 male had his head crushed with a rock

1 male decapitated with a log splitter

1 male had his head hacked to a pulp with an axe

Total: 8

Vae Victis: Open Graves (2009)

Open Graves (2009)

Rating: **

Starring: Mike Vogel, Eliza Dushku, Iman Nazemzadeh

While vacationing in Spain, American surfer Jason gets a free antique board game from a creepy dude with stumps for legs. It's called Mamba and the goal of the game is to dice roll your way to the middle of the board, where you drop your token into a model of a snake-headed tower and make a wish. Supposedly, it'll grant said wish true, but for every dice roll that land on an "open grave", players are hindered by a card draw which may contain a cryptic, rhyming message about their fates, thus kicking them out from the game.

So, yes. It's cursed. Very. 

That news comes very late for some of Jason's companions who lost at the game when they decided to try it out for shits and giggles. One gets nibbled and pinched to death by bad CGI crabs. Another gets bitten to death by bad CGI Black Mambas. A girl gets aged to death, while another gets a low-budget Final Destination-style outing. Frankly, it's all very mediocre with a laughable amount of cheese due to how dated the computer effects were for the deaths, creature effects and some oh-so-spooky shots of ghostly apparitions. 

To be fair, Open Graves (2009) has a neat idea, but its direction and execution lack the proper grit and flair to make the story scary or thrilling enough to be above tolerable, leaving us with a monotonous and uninspired letdown of a movie despite all the little things throw in. The second act, for example, practically rips off Wishmaster (1997) with the whole "I'll fix this by wishing to undo everything" shtick, only it's easier thought than done as the game has a terms and conditions to be followed, which further complicate matters, add more minutes to the run time and gave the game more personality than the characters piling up the kill count. By the end of it, the film was simply going nowhere new or exciting, which might be okay if you're just in it for the ham and disappointed laughs, but we can certainly do better than this mess.

Bodycount:

1 female tortured to death

1 male found flayed

1 male falls off a cliff, eaten alive by crabs

1 male bitten to death by venomous snakes

1 female rapidly aged to death

1 female caught in an explosion, burned to death

1 male shot to death

Total: 7

Island of Misfit Boys: Grand Guignol (2022)

Grand Guignol (Japan, 2022)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Rio Komiya, Riku Ichikawa, Rina Koike

The word Grand Guignol pertains to short plays that were popular in 19th century Parisian cabarets for emphasizing violence, horror, and sadism, embracing shock value through illicit subject matters and over-the-top practical effects as entertainment. This seems to be part of the case for director Hashiimoto Hajime's homoerotic slasher Grand Guignol (2022) which does feature a splatterful amount of bloodwork for its murders, as well as a bout of surrealism which makes its basic premise of a typical backwoods horror flick a bit more... odd.

After getting involved in an incident where a student got his face mutilated with a box cutter, Homura Itsuki sees himself transferred over to a boarding school set at a solitary island where only troublesome kids get to attend. All communication to the outside world is cut, the staff running the joint are unnervingly suspicious and there's a study group dedicated to the art of Grand Guignol drama, the strange scenario gets even more uneasy when a new teacher waltzes in and starts making advances to some of the boys there. That, unfortunately, is little compared to the violent figure out prowling the woods, decked in animal skulls and armed with a razor-sharp chain flail. It isn't long before this thing starts to hunt down students, though it seems this hack-and-slash gig may not be the only craziness going around in this island...

Independent J-horror does have the tendency to go overboard on the bloodletting and craziness, something Grand Guignol (2022) can attest to seeing it's basically running on extreme gore, murderous cults, backwoods bodycounting and an abundant amount of homoerotism. If anything, this movie has the vision to be an outlandish queer horror flick and it does succeeds on that at a decent level, albeit on a noticeable budget and a lack of solid direction; as a slasher, the effects are practical yet shoddy, nowhere impressive on a technical sense but delivers greatly on the messy blood and gore. The killer's get-up also leans on the cheap and silly side considering it kinda resembles a suit of confetti decked out with a badass mask consisting of arranged animal skulls, making the maniac look awfully like a walking, stalking piñata from hell!

The homoerotic elements are ever-present with how much the boys here get on with one another, though it's less emphasizing on romance and more on shock factor, especially when it dives into taboo subjects of forced feminization and creepy adults prowling on younger victims. In fact, the horror of Grand Guignol (2022) is more on the intensity of the madness and kills, focusing on nightmare logic, sexualized depravity and macabre violence thinly disguised as the work of dark supernatural forces and the maddened individuals under its command. The end result succeeds in drawing out the explicitness of its overt violence and fetishisms, as well the over-the-top insanity that is this movie's arthouse plotting and tone, pretty much in tune with original Grand Guignol stage plays that inspired it.

An over-the-top mish mash of the sensual and the savage that comes with a rough edge and spotty quality control. Not exactly a good example of queer horror done right, but it win points for just how off-the-wall bonkers it is! 

Bodycount:

1 male slashed to death with a bladed chain flail

1 male repeatedly slashed with a bladed chain flail, decapitated

1 male stabbed through the gut with a sword, gutted

1 male had his skin flayed off with shearing tools, dies from injuries

1 male shot through the mouth with a shotgun

1 male repeatedly bashed with a sledgehammer, neck snapped

1 female bashed on the head with a sledgehammer

1 female dies from a sword impaled through her back

1 male stabbed on the gut with a sword, bashed to death with a sledgehammer

Total: 9

They Don't Need A Reason: The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

Rating: *1/2

Starring: Madelaine Petsch, Ryan Bown, Matus Lajcak

The way I see it, the most important thing to remember about remaking a movie is to tell the story of the original through a different set of eyes. Find the best parts that people love about the source material, keep them and then come up with something familiar yet original around it. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) may have missed a note or two about this.

Couple Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) were driving to Seattle for a job interview when their car broke down, forcing them to stay overnight at an AirBnB. The two talk and cuddle, think about what the future holds for their relationship, kiss, have dinner, all of the sugar you'd expect a happy couple does. The diabetes is soon interrupted by knocks on the door and a figure in the shadows asking for someone named "Tamara". When they answered no one of that name lives there, the figure leaves and everything seems alright. For a while.

When Ryan decided to ride back to town and check up on the garage that's fixing their car, Maya is left alone to chill until she started hearing creepy lullabies being hummed somewhere, as well as getting the gooseflesh after spotting more shadowy figures lurking about. It isn't long then that all the eerie and crazy shit begins to happen upon her and her lover as three masked figures prowl the house, playing a demented game of cat-and-mouse with murder in mind.

Admittedly, The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) does look easy on the eyes in terms of visual quality and production but, sadly, that is all I could say that this movie did right as everything else is a real misfire; for one, the new main couple feels cheap for how thinly they're written, lacking any depth or relatable flaws to help raise the stakes once the masked goons start attacking them. We see them get terrorized and maybe feel a little scared for them, but it just doesn't have a hard enough gut punch to make their predicament distressing. Petsch and Gutierrez did give their all to play their roles with a tad more spark to them, but the effort just wasn't enough to effectively work a thin script and we're basically left with a caricature of a doomed horror movie couple.

As for the slasher attack itself, The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) is more or less a loose, beat for beat retread of the original movie's home invasion assault with minor differences. We see the couple run and the strangers making chase. Ryan finds a weapon only to kill someone by accident. The two then getting split up during the chaos only to be hunted down and brought back to the AirBnB for a recreation of the iconic final scene where the strangers stab them with a knife. The film try spicing things up by setting most of the action out in the woods and have the strangers act more like hunters looking for prey than creeps toying with their victims, but it also made the mistake of building potential suspects by introducing a nearby town full of creepy townies who eye the unmarried couple as if the two are conjoined in the arse. With this, the creep factor is just gone as there's no lingering mystery to who could be behind the masks as we're now provided a small community full of them, killing off the scare tactics of a random house attack and setting the plot back to tired horror trope of unwelcoming small towns.

And that's what's frustrating about The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024); it has the opportunity to try a different angle towards the titular murderous trio and their killing spree, but the film would rather play safe and retell the same movie with nearly nothing new added. It lacks life or dread. It's tired and recycled. The whole thing is just dull. A beautifully shot yet dull backwoods slasher. Hopefully Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, which are supposed to be released either later this year or at the next, would do better.

Bodycount:

1 male hacked to death with an axe

1 male shot on the head with a shotgun

1 male knifed in the gut, bled to death

Total: 3

Do You Love Camping?: KillHer (2022)

KillHer (2022)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: M.C. Huff, Emily Hall, Jenna Z. Alvarez

Yeah, you lot have heard of this song before: a group of ladies drive up to the mountains to camp, only to meet their demises at the hands of a psycho. It's the backwoods slasher and it is pretty much a staple in the horror subgenre for its simplicity. KillHer (2022) could've been another round of your typical "people go to the woods, people get killed" plot and for a while it is. Until it isn't.

Mattie is about to get married to a hunk named Jagger and to celebrate this happy occasion, she and her bestfriend Eddie plan a camp out deep into the mountains with Mattie's two other best buds, Jess and Rae, as a pre-bachelorette party. From here, we can tell the dynamic isn't too peachy fine between these girls as Jess and Rae aren't too fond of Eddie's weird sense of humor, though they're toughening it out for Mattie's sake. This situation gets a little testy, however, when it turns out that Eddie have surprises planned out for the entire camping trip involving Jagger showing up at some point, seeing that he gave her the GPS location of where his camp's at. Mattie loves it, Jess isn't buying it, and Rae's just trying to make the best of the situation. 

Problems arise when, after the girls pitch their tent next to an empty one they assume belongs to Jagger, they're awfully surprised to find it occupied by a burly man named Mr. Rogers instead. The fella is gruff. The fella is big. The fella has a chainsaw and a gun back at his tent and he's not too pleased to be camping next to some loud girls. Night soon falls and the pre-marriage festivities of dancing around the bonfire and discussions of bear-related camping tips would soon pave way to something pretty concerning when a scream is heard, followed by the roar of a chainsaw...

Admittedly, KillHer (2022) isn't a slasher film in the strictest sense; it borrows the set-up of your classic backwoods horror-type, using it as a backdrop to what's practically a mystery thriller toying around with character motives and the plot's overall direction, playing up the tropes to hide where and what exactly the film's building up to. The first half of the movie, in turn, focuses solely on building its premise, who these girls are and what could be going on behind their little camping trip, often at times jumping back and forth to flashbacks that spill a little bit of what went on during offscreen scenes. It can get uneven pacing-wise, but I personally find the casts intriguing despite their flaws and the unconventional build-up to its unraveling plot have all the right twists, turns and revelations to keep me glued on the movie and focused. 

That said, the film would eventually dip into bodycounting elements for its thrills, spills and scares halfway into the run, right about the time our killer finally shows their crazy and the bloody mess that comes along with it, both figuratively and literally: one one end, the reveal as to who the real threat here isn't much of a surprise seeing how much the film works its way around subverting tropes and, in all honesty, the way the killer's characterized prior to the reveal was practically a dead giveaway. On the other hand, now that our villain isn't hiding behind a façade anymore, their delightfully unhinged shenanigans have them murdering in glee and plotting seriously messed-up scenarios for the perfect killing spree, just a real treat for slasher fanatics who love little villains with a bit of personality and mischief. It's a workable display of crazed kookiness, even more so when our killer opted to play with some of their victims by setting them up in traps where they're left to die, all the while continuing to taunt and mock them in their predicament just to further break their spirit. 

The backwoods nightmare would soon reach our lead gal Mattie as she's held at gunpoint and forced to discover the horrid truth about the entire trip, including the unkind fate that fell on her loved ones. This is when KillHer (2022) shifts its gear again and morphs into a cheesy action thriller as those who survive our sly maniac join forces to put a stop to them, arming to the teeth with ammo, combat knives and one mean travel van. The resulting brawl is as cheeky as it is gory and intense, a rather entertaining and oddly cathartic fight that closes on a 'feel good' note that's all but fitting to the tone of this entire fiasco of a camping trip. 

To put it simply, despite its snark and subversions, KillHer (2022) is a stab at the backwoods slasher tropes that's just buzzing with palpable enthusiasm for the subgenre. You can see it in its lively camerawork and witty writing, and too the gory kills and the demented killer responsible for them. It may have gone off its rails, sure, but that's just the fun of it! The craziness in its direction is a welcome approach, all the better to keep slashers fun and fresh! 

Bodycount:

1 female seen beaten dead with a rolling pin

1 male seen murdered in a bathtub with a knife

1 female hacked with a garden claw

1 male had his throat cut with a knife, bludgeoned with a trophy

1 male knifed through the jaw

1 female killed offscreen

1 male stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 male shot to death

1 female stabbed with a hunting knife, gutted with a chainsaw and repeatedly driven over with a car

Total: 9