Tickle Me Simon: Puppet Killer (2019)

Puppet Killer (Canada, 2019)

Rating: ***

Starring: Aleks Paunovic, Lee Majdoub, Lisa Durupt

A slasher with a killer muppet. Right. Normally, I would say 'Now, I've seen everything', but knowing how weird the horror subgenre can get at the most random times, I'm pretty sure there will be weirder shit out there waiting for me to discover. Still, the hell did I just watch with this one?

Ever since he was just a little baby, Jamie knows three things; he's never too young for good movies, his fluffy puppet Simon will always be his bestfriend and his love for his die-hard horror fan mom will be forever, even if cancer decided to take her from him so early from his life. Still, young Jamie tries to keep his love for dear mum alive by continuing a family tradition of watching shlocky B-grade horror flicks every Christmas, something his eventual stepmother finds rather uncomfortable to the point she lost it one night and starts trashing away his memorabilia. Unfortunately for her, someone didn't like this. Someone small. Fluffy. Wielding a deadly kitchen knife.

Flashforward ten years later, we now see Jamie as a high schooler (played by Aleks Paunovi who happens to be in his fifties...) and he's very much convinced his puppet pal Simon may have killed his stepmom. His dad, the ever supportive guy that he is, simply believes his son has quite the imagination and dismisses the claims (Or at least he's trying to), though Jamie's school counselor appears to take the fella's ramblings a little more seriously. Not that she believes him, of course, but she does constantly reminds him to take his meds, fearing something more psychological might be at play here.

Jamie, however, thinks he should get his closure from all of this killer puppet talk in his own terms and decided to do this by drunkenly relaxing this Christmas holiday with his girlfriend and friends (all teenagers played by people in their 40s...) at the old family cabin up in the woods where it all happened. Beers get chugged. Bonfires get razed. Some of Jamie's friends get it on at a jacuzzi. And who else but lil' Simon gets found hidden away in the basement, tucked inside a box of Christmas decors, much to Jamie's uneasiness.

Needless to say, this holly jolly cabin celebration isn't gonna stay jolly for too long as Simon, strangely enough, does turn out to be alive and pretty much homicidal, slashing a mean kill count as he goes after one middle-aged teenager at a time!

So, yeah, this is a movie where teenagers are played by grown men and women, being terrorized by a pink fuzzy puppet who sounds a lot like Elmo from Sesame Street. I think it's safe to say that Puppet Killer (2019) shouldn't be taken seriously at all and, hell, I think its own production knows that! It's a weird take on your typical cabin-in-the-woods hack'n slash, with our lead guy practically portraying an overly enthusiastic man-child and nearly everybody else is a swing on your classic slasher victims from the overly horny couple to the brooding emo kid and his frustrated stoner brother, all done with over-the-top performances that are purposely delivered in egregious tongue-in-cheek! There's a bit of a charm to how bizarre this direction is, frankly, even more so when the film eventually starts its killing spree; Simon simply goes muppet maniac on everyone in the cabin, throwing squeaky voiced one-liner giggles, donning costumes parodying top-of-the-line slasher villains like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, as well as dishing out surprisingly gnarly practical gore and kills for such a goofy little psychopath!

Out of all this craziness, though, what really caught me off guard is how much mood whiplash Puppet Killer (2019) planned for its finale; needless to say, it teased around the idea that all of this could have been the result of a broken psyche and the movie really took its time playing with this notion with Jamie practically under Simon's mercy, reducing him into a sobbing, blabbering mess. It's a sharp contrast to the mostly cheesy, joke-littered satirical horror jab that makes up a bulk of the film and it would have been a daringly grim ending to leave everything at if it wasn't for one final twist, a last minute shot implying something... otherworldly.

There's no doubt Puppet Killer (2019)'s one of the stranger slasher flicks I've ever come across and, as peculiar as it sounds, I sortah dig it! As a dumb hammy horror comedy, it's quirky and energetic, generous in splatter and occasionally creepy, it's a real fun mess that I'm sure will resonate with those who have the taste for the quaint and batty!

Bodycount:

1 female succumbs to cancer

1 female knifed to death

1 male garroted, dismembered with a meat cleaver

1 female drowned in a jacuzzi

1 male shot in the eye with an arrow

1 female gets a thrown machete to the head

1 male gutted with a clawed glove

1 female garroted, later found gutted

1 female had her throat sliced with a knife

Total: 9

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 hot shot 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