Blood Freaks and Spanked Cheeks: Evils of The Night (1985)

Evils of The Night (1985)

Rating: **

Starring: Neville Brand, Aldo Ray, Tina Louise

A group of space aliens resembling voluptuous women in short skirts (and old John Carradine in a silver jogging suit) arrive on Earth to harvest and experiment on the youthful blood of horny teenagers for a way to keep themselves alive, only to encounter dilemmas when it turns out that the nearby town is short on victims due to most of the teens driving off for Spring break, and those they were able to capture often end up dead thanks to the murderous tendencies of their two hired hillbilly goons. (Played by Neville Brand and Aldo Ray)

If this sounds like the plot of one of those drive-in cheapo flicks, or dime store movies often shown in public domain, that ought to show what to expect from this mess of a film, honestly. Evils of The Night (1985) is a cauldron concoction of a cheese-fest combining low brow scifi plotting of very human-looking aliens in skimpy dresses and big hair yakking up technical space jargon and extraterrestrial quips to pass up what this movie considers as an intergalactic threat (of the small scale), with that of a very exploitative swing on your typical backwoods teen slasher, showcasing very spicy sex scenes that lingers long on screen and a victim group consisting of airer-than-airhead teens punctuated with outrageously cheesy dialogue and overly expressive acting. 

It's bad. Like, amazingly bad. So much so that I, frankly, sort of enjoyed this junk of a movie! The unapologetic cheesiness of its direction and production, down to its cheap laser effects and unabashed sleaze just works with the mad science craziness of space doctors with questionable morals roping in a pair of killer gas station hicks to kidnap sex-crazed teenagers for research. They justified this juxtapose with the aliens needing someone dumb enough to be bribed with gold coins to help out with their blood-draining science project, regardless of how uncontrollably brutal they can be, which is the kind of demented writing I could always go for whenever I'm in the mood for an entertainingly dumb movie.

That said, it is still a dumb movie. One with audio work and editing that are patchy, and, too, a lack of any real sympathetic characters as practically all of them are one-note stereotypes of screaming girls and their eye-candy boyfriends. The group of villains flair a tad better as low-rent 'space aliens' and violent townies, hamming up their scenes to ludicrous fancy whenever they appear, something to consider since the story is as thin as a single sheet of paper. Heck, you can honestly tell with the way the story kinda just ends with the operation halting due to the aliens having a deadline for these blood experiments and somehow this includes one more laser death. And speaking of, for a slasher, there really isn't much gore to speak of until the last thirty minutes, so those expecting a slaughterfest may need to test their patience.

It's not going to be everyone's ham and cheese treat. In fact, even if you are hungering for a really feisty cheddar and smoky meat-to-meat minute, Evils of The Night (1985) is still the odd one out for how unconventional it is as both a slasher and a sci-fright flick. But if you don't mind a bit of an obscurity, then is one title you could try seeking out. 

Bodycount:

1 male garroted

1 female dies during an operation

1 male shot dead with a laser

1 male repeatedly beaten with a wooden beam, later dies during an operation

1 male brained with a tire iron

1 female mentioned drowned

1 female beaten to death with a blanket filled with glass containers

1 female disemboweled with a power drill

1 male crushed by an automotive hoist

1 female hacked apart with an axe

1 male shot with a laser, bled to death

Total: 11

Stranger Things Are Abound: Marshmallow (2025)

Marshmallow (2025)

Rating: ***

Starring: Giorgia Whigham, Corbin Bernsen, Pierson Fode

Bullied by neighborhood kids. Suffering from a reoccurring nightmare wherein he's gushing out water from a gut wound like Ole' Faithful. Not to mention witnessing his beloved grandfather croak from a heart attack during a family dinner. Is it any surprise at all that young Morgan is a little too down for a kid his age? 

Hoping to get him out of the doom and gloom, his parents have him packing up for a one-of-a-kind summer adventure at Camp Almar where he, unfortunately, suffers from further bullying not just from a couple of troublesome kids, but also from the more aggressive counselors. As a silver lining, though, he did befriend a small group of nerdy chumps who, in more than one occasion, stood by him. But will this newfound friendship be enough to keep Morgan safe from what's coming to the woods one night?

Camp Almar happens to have its own boogeyman, you see; legend says that a figure known as The Doctor used to bring his wife and kids around these parts to supposedly relax in the cabins, but the fella had a suspicious habit of skulking around the basement at night. His wife soon grew curious about this and followed him down there once, only to horrifically discover that her husband has been sewing people together, creating monstrous freaks. (Here's hoping nothing like The Human Centipede (2009)). To keep his secret hidden, as well as continue doing the mad doctor's deeds, he trapped his own wife and children down the very same basement and sew their limbs together so they can never leave.

Now, it appears this Doctor is roaming the woods once more and Morgan even spots the sickened science man emerging from one of the cabins. His terrified claims, however, are dismissed as nothing more than nightmares, with one friendly counselor even admitting that the story was made up to keep children from sneaking off after lights out. It's not too long, of course, before these doubters are proven wrong when The Doctor, sporting a surgeon's garb and a head lamp, armed with a powerful electric taser, starts an onslaught of attacks at the doomed camp.

Calling Marshmallow (2025) a slasher can be a real stretch; yes, we do have the staple of horny teen counselors boinking their brains out here and there, as well as the obligatory campfire tale featuring a humanoid hulk who would later turn up in the flesh to siege the camp with violence, but there's more of a coming-of-age story here as the plot focuses strongly on the troubles of one forlorn kid and how he deals with them. For a decent while, we navigate through Morgan's day to day at Camp Almar as he tries to survive the anxieties of being harassed by arseholes and the awkward socializing pressure within peers, only occasionally dipping into horror territory via unnerving nightmares. It isn't until we get to the expected twist that The Doctor, or at least someone dressed up like him, is operating inside one of the cabins that the slasher lunacies take effect, sending the kids (and the entire movie) into chaos as the madman finally goes on a spree, targeting anyone on sight. 

Interestingly, Marshmallow (2025) opted to keep the exploitative elements of its slasher attacks to an almost non-existent minimal, with The Doctor, instead of hacking and slashing everyone into sloppy pieces, just shocks their victims unconscious with their taser. The reason for this is where the movie's plot twist comes in and, without spoiling much, it does dive into the fantastical and amazing, which strays the film further away from being a genuine bodycounter, and heads a tad more towards a very emotional and intense feature-length episode of Goosebumps. This, admittedly, may divide those expecting the usual affair of lopped off limbs and flayed faces, the norms of a good slasher movie, but the way the plot took the elements of a backwoods stalk 'n slash and make it their own is admirable in its creativity and imagination. Even more so when its somberness, oddness and even warmth is made effective thanks to the likeable and relatable performances of its young talents.

 

Not the strictest slasher in terms of paint-by-number storytelling and expectations, nor is it the splashiest and kill count heavy, but there is still value to be found here in Marshmallow (2025) with its lush camera work and expressive editing. A real quality work that pushes the boundaries of your typical slasher story, I say try it out! 

Bodycount:

1 elderly male suffers a heart seizure

1 boy drowned (flashback)

1 female seen floating on a lake slaughtered

1 male killed with a knife

Total: 4

Me Hoy Minoy!: Shiver Me Timbers (2025)

Shiver Me Timbers (United Kingdom, 2025)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Murdo Adams, Stephen Corrall, Paul Dewdney

Popeye The Slayer Man? Popeye's Revenge? And now, Shiver Me Timbers?! It looks like 2025 is going to be the year of Popeye slashers thanks to the old cartoon sea dog entering public domain and while I am not totally sure if I'm on board with this trend of vilifying heroic ole' Popeye The Sailor Man as a slasher monster, so long as the oddity of it all keeps it entertaining, I guess.

And odd is exactly the word for this one; taking place in 1986, siblings Ollie and Castor Oyl tag along their friends to camp out at a Northern Californian backwoods and watch the meteor shower accompanying Halley's comet, as well as the occasional booze chugging, weed smoking and premarital sexy time! In between all of this casualness, they nearly run over an old sailor guy who's out there to fish and, too, stop a pair of violent punks from beating up a poor vagrant who, in turn, doomsays that the comet is Evil!!!

True enough, a teeny-tiny piece of a meteor happens to float into the aforementioned sailor guy's pipe, which he thought nothing of and proceeds to smoke it. Little did he know, huffing and puffing the space rock has otherworldly consequences, mainly being mutated into a brawny monster man with a cartoonishly deformed face, with nothing but brutal murder in mind.

That said, guess who this mutant Popeye just happens to stumble upon no soon after?

With an obvious low budget and a firm tongue pressed in a cheek, Shiver me Timbers (2025) practically embraced the absurdity of making a slasher movie out of Popeye the Sailor Man, throwing in a weird premise involving deadly meteor showers, excessively splattery kills and one of the funniest looking Popeye killer so far, dubbed 'Monster Popeye", into a melting pot full of bad cheese! Granted that the shoestring production can get really distracting with all the bargain bin visuals populated by laughably bad computer graphics and store-bought practical effects, not to mention the caricature-quality character writing and acting, as well as the numerous sloppy editing, that's kinda the fun point of this movie. It's so bad, it's sort of respectable for how silly it can get! 

Shiver Me Timbers (2025) never feels like the kind of movie that'll detail why a meteor fragment caused one old sailor to hulk-out into a killer juggernaut, or go deep into Ollie's dilemma about leaving for college. No, it's the kind where a mutant man rips off a fat bloke's head while the fella uses an outhouse, and then follow the murder up with the head living long enough to horribly witness his killer pop a squat down on his freshly decapitated neck stump. Or have a finale that's greatly inspired by Evil Dead II (1987) as Ollie finds a giant gas-powered buzzsaw constructed by an crazy wheelchair-bound coot and do battle with it against a savage sailor man who, at that point, starts uttering Popeye quotes. It's the kind of movie that, honestly, isn't going to win a big crowd, but will sit well for those who wouldn't mind wasting a good hour and ten-ish minutes on a juvenile slasher littered with trashy charms and nasty kills just for the giggles!

In all honesty, the fact that we have a killer Popeye as a villain for a story that has barely anything to do with the cartoons is pretty much telling that Shiver Me Timbers (2025) is meant to be a joke. How well you take this joke, though, may depend on your tolerance for bad movies. Really bad movies. What say you, sailor?

Bodycount:

1 male had his head pulverized with a punch

1 male had his head torn off

1 male skewered through the arse with a baseball bat, exits to mouth

1 female seen decapitated

1 female gets a meteorite through the head

1 male found dismembered

1 male dunked inside a barrel of toxic waste, melted

1 male beaten to death with a wooden plank

1 male stomped on the head

1 male nearly sliced in half by an oversized gas-powered buzzsaw (?)

Total: 10 (?)

A Sailor Man Disgustipated: Popeye The Slayer Man (2025) and Popeye's Revenge (2025) Double Bill Review

Very much like the case of Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey (2023), beloved spinach-eating, bad guy-bopping Popeye The Sailor Man joins the troublesome train of childhood characters getting reformed into brutal killers once he entered public domain in 2025, resulting to movies like Popeye The Slayer Man (2025) and Popeye's Revenge (2025)! Now, as a kid who grew up watching the sailor beat away villains and saving his dame, Olive Oyl, time and time again (Oh, those cherished Monday nights!), seeing him turned into a massacring monster should've got me feeling disgustipated, but as a hardcore slasher fan, I just got curious.

So curious, in fact, I watched these two back to back! Was I crazy to do that? Of course! But I had a warm cheeseburger and a pack of fresh onion rings that evening, so why not pair those with a couple of dumb movies? 

~~~

Popeye The Slayer Man (2025)
Rating: ***
Starring: Jason Robert Stephens, Sarah Nicklin, Angela Relucio

Blow me down. I actually like this one!

University student Dexter is doing a video documentary about a local town legend known as the "Sailor Man", who apparently haunts the abandoned and soon-to-be demolished Anchor Bay spinach cannery. He's joined by his bestfriend Lisa, her boyfriend Seth, their friend Katie, and a mysterious newcomer named Olivia who's deeply interested about the urban legend. The gang plans on filming around the factory later that night for quality shots, as well as do a bit of junior investigation around what exactly led to the place shutting down two decades ago. While all of this is happening, Katie's abusive boyfriend and his cronies are convinced she's cheating, so they start stalking the place to confront her.

Unbeknownst to all of these hapless souls, the Sailor Man is real; with his deformed face and equally misshapen, overly muscular arms, he stomps around the factory to crush some heads and tear off a few limbs. Particularly of those who dare enter his territory...

Popeye The Slayer Man (2025) is what it is, a cheesed-up slasher with a ridiculous premise, one that actually brought some good material to poke fun at; while the characters are your trope-types ranging from the nerdy protagonist and his cool girl love interest, to the lovey-dovey couple and despicable douchebags that are just in it for the kill count, they're set around a story that's basic yet workably outrageous, centering on bad spinach cover-ups and a mutated man-monster with distinctive brutality. It walks a fine line between being a satire of the Popeye franchise with its name drops and visual Easter eggs (I guess that guy will have to pay another food joint Tuesday for a cheeseburger today), and a murder-focused B-grade bodycounter that generously delivers splashy kills and chunky gore, the resulting product being this odd yet entertaining ham of a movie that can get predictable with its direction, but makes up for it with a few laughs and loads of the red stuff. Loads.

At times, the low budget does show whenever we get a good look at our killer Popeye up-close, the rubbery texture of the practical effects done for his face and tumorous arms visibly obvious. Due to this, it's sometimes hard to feel scared for our characters whenever the Sailor Man is out getting them, though we do have some expressive lightning here and there that definitely gave him an intimidating presence, as silly as he looks with his caricature face, bulbous arms and his strangely prim sailor uniform. (Like, he's been hiding in that dusty spinach factory for years, how the heck is that uniform not worn out?) Plus, he has lore. The movie actually took the time to build a silly lore behind this monster, one involving unsanitary canned vegetables, whistleblowers and a long lost swee'pea that, somehow, makes him sympathetic, even! I have to give the movie points for that!

To simply put it, Popeye The Slayer Man (2025) is a movie not meant for serious eyes, but for those who love a bad slasher! Cheesy to the core, too silly to ignore, pop this Popeye in with hot popcorn and anchors away!

Bodycount:

1 male disemboweled

1 male had his head crushed open, brain spilled out

1 female killed offscreen

1 male had his head stomped

1 female had her scalp torn off, crushed in a hydraulic press

1 male had his eyes thumbed, head twisted

1 male had his neck crushed with an anchor, decapitated

1 male impaled by dropped steel rods

1 female falls unto steel rods, impaled

1 male beaten to death with his own torn arm

1 male had his head crushed 

Total: 11

~~~~

Popeye's Revenge (United Kingdom, 2025)
Rating: *1/2

Starring: Emily Mogilner, Connor Powles, Danielle Ronald

From ITN Studios, who produced the infamous Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey franchise, comes this darkly tale of a deformed boy who drowned in a lake, now haunting the woods as a supernatural undead hulk, hellbent on murdering he comes across. 

Yeah. Hadn't heard of that before. Totally original. (If I had a nickle...)

Popeye's Revenge (2025) starts with an animated narration about a boy named Johnny (Nicknamed "Popeye"), who was born with a cartoonish chin, even more cartoonish forearms, and immense strength. Because of his odd appearance, he's constantly bullied at school to the point he eventually snaps one day, strangling another kid dead. Horrified by this, Johnny's parents hide away him in a basement until this whole thing blows over, his only companion a mysterious pen pal who passes him notes through a secret door. It isn't long before the angry mob find out where the boy is hidden and they torch down the house, killing Johnny's family and him barely escaping the blaze, only to seemingly drown in a nearby lake. Now, it is said that Johnny's spirit lives within the lake's fog and whenever it rolls in, it means nothing more than the arrival of a vengeful burnt brute. (Dressed as a sailor)

Cut to the present and we learn that Johnny's old home was rebuilt mysteriously over the years, and a young adult Tara has inherited it after her gramma passed away. Hoping to turn it into a haunted attraction to help her folks with their money problems, she invites her friends over to get the place cleaned up, unaware that the foggy presence of "Popeye" and a mysterious accomplice has set their eyes on hunting and ending them the moment they arrive.

As you can tell, Popeye's Revenge (2025) takes a different stab on ole' Popeye The Sailor Man, one that's barely Popeye at all. There's little to no reference to the cartoon source material and, instead, simply have its killer dress up as a half-burnt sailor (in a lake) and beef up his arms a bit. In fact, take all the Popeye stuff away and just make Johnny a random vengeful revenant cursed with deformity, you'd still have the same picture show! Sadly, the story it chooses to tell is barely showcasing anything new, with the killer's origins, for one, a hodge-podge of Friday The 13th's Jason Voorhees, A Nightmare on Elm Street's Fred Krueger and even a bit of the undead ghosts killers from John Carpenter's The Fog (1980). The plot dearly tries to make something unique out of this monstrosity, but its supposed supernatural angle is handled so poorly, it's practically nonexistent and pointless, leaving us with nothing more than another killer-in-the-backwoods dead teenager movie littered with boring and unlikable youngsters. 

If there's anything to praise here, it would be the fact that Popeye's Revenge (2025) has some decent camera work here and there, its sizeable kills are never dry of blood (Though some of the props used are obviously Halloween decors, just look how stiff that freshly torn spine is!), and its "Popeye slasher" looks intimidating given that you ignore the silly matter that he's wearing a cartoon sailor's uniform in the middle of the damn woods for some reason. (In fact, why was he wearing a sailor's uniform when he was still alive?) It has that faint whiff of cheese, sure, but it doesn't really feel like it's openly approaching its silliness that much, focusing more on straight shlock that partially works.

In the end, uninspired plotting and clumsy execution is the undoing of Popeye's Revenge (2025), and no amount of splatter and slaughter can save itself from being a tired effort. That's all I can stands, an' I can stands no more! 

Bodycount:

1 boy strangled until his eyes popped off (flashback)

1 male and 1 female burned to death (flashback)

1 boy caught on fire, drowned in a lake (flashback)

1 female hacked with an anchor, head stomped

1 female punched through the chest

1 male had his head crushed

1 male garroted to death

1 female had her throat crushed with an anchor, drowned in a jacuzzi

1 male gets an anchor to the groin, spine and head torn off

1 male shoved eye-first to a broken plank

1 female shredded through with a riding lawnmower

1 female strangled with a length of chain until her eyes popped off

1 female caught in an exploding car

1 male knifed to death

1 female set on fire

1 female had her neck broken

Total: 17

Livin' in Your Precious Memory: Time Cut (2024)

Time Cut (2024)

Rating: ***

Starring: Madison Bailey, Antonia Gentry, Michael Shanks

Ray Bradbury's classic science fiction short A Sound of Thunder basically introduced to us one of the basics of time travel physics, in which the smallest alterations to the distant past could snowball into catastrophic changes in history. It's a fascinating idea, one that is explored and exploited in media through various angles from the adventurous (the Back To The Future trilogy), to the hilarious (the Time and Punishment segment from The Simpson's Treehouse of Horror V episode), to the grim. (Spain's time travel 'slasher', Timecrimes (2007)) Netflix's Time Cut (2024) seems to be another horror jab at the time travel concept, one that's a tad more in touch with its emotional side.

Living in the broken town of Sweetly, under the roof of a pair of overprotective parents haunted by a tragedy, Lucy Field (Madison Bailey) longs for nothing more than to leave the place and seek a better life for herself. One that isn't under the constant shadow of her late sister, Summer (Antonia Gentry), who she never met being one of the four victims of an uncaught serial killer dubbed 'The Sweetly Slasher'.

During one of these days wherein she's tagged along by her family to the spot of Summer's brutal murder to pay their respect, Lucy wanders around and finds a mysterious machine hidden inside a nearby dilapidated building. She soon discovers this is a time machine and, after approaching it, got sent back to the year 2003, days before the Sweetly Slasher's reign of terror, practically giving Lucy the chance to save Summer and, maybe, anybody else who will be murdered. Though at what cost?

Admittedly, the writing and acting for Time Cut (2024) is what kept me glued to the story as I can't help but feel invested to this time travel dilemma; there's a sense of weight to how it presents the catastrophic drawbacks of tinkering with the flow of time and reality, especially once Lucy learns that by saving her sister, she might cease to exist as their parents will not have a reason to want another child. I love how this paradoxical universe-manipulation is used to build conflict within the plot and its characters as arguments concerning the consequences of bending a destined path often clashes with one's moral duty to help, especially if it comes with the advantage to chance a better outcome. This leaves us with a set of main characters that not only feels smarter than your typical slasher party of mincemeat victims, but also has a bit of heart to them, even more so when the story takes its time to focus on the sisterly bond between the two Field girls as Lucy begins to know Summer and learn why she is so beloved, all the while Summer is given the opportunity through Lucy to be more herself as she opens up her own insecurities and uncertainties. Bailey and Gentry simply nailed their roles and I just can't help but feel fine and cozy whenever their characters share their heart-to-hearts.

Now, this is where the film does meet its drawback; with Time Cut (2024) putting more effort to its teen drama, the slasher elements really took a backseat to the point that it's barely felt; Yes, we do get a neat opening act where Summer gets hunted and killed by a knife and scythe-wielding masked maniac. Yes, we also got a good enough last act where the teens form a trap to stop the Sweetly Slasher, resulting to a twist reveal that isn't too shocking for me, but still is cleverly implemented otherwise. Hell, we even got a decent mall murder spree with savage kills and a nice chase set-up at a small town museum, but these are all far in between and edited kinda clunkily. It's quite a shame, really, as the movie does have a simplistic yet workable villain who isn't shy on showcasing a bit of brutality, but the teen scifi soap appears to be the greater focus here, so the good lot of you hoping for a steady stream of massacred victims may find this disappointing.

Still, Time Cut (2024) is an alright enough movie on my book; not particularly a shining example of a time travel slasher done right, but as a sugary teen horror drama with a bit of heart and a bit of slaughter, it's watchable if you're not asking for much. But if you are in the mood for something with more teeth and cheek, well, there's always Totally Killer (2023)...

Bodycount:

1 female slashed with a scythe, killed offscreen

1 male stabbed in the neck with a broken DVD disc

1 female brained to death against an escalator

1 male gets a hunting knife to the gut

1 male found death from a throat cut

1 male stabbed in the chest with a hunting knife

Total: 6

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

This is The Whack of Undertaker Zach: The Embalmer (1996)

The Embalmer (1996)

Rating: **

Starring: Jennifer T. Kelly, Kenneth E. Mullen, Myron Creek

Tell you a story about Undertaker Zach.

He killed his wife with a whack, whack, whack!

His daughter started cryin’ ’cause her mama was dead;

He shut her up by choppin’ off her head.

Life at home isn't good for Chiffon (real name Laura), not with her folks practically making a slave out of her, ordering her to do laundry, fetch beer and change TV channels using the dial before getting angry at her for blocking the damn screen. One night, though, this troubling sight got out of hand and next thing we see is that Chiffon's kicked out from her own house. Distressed, she calls her boyfriend Duane to pick her up after explaining what happened, who in turn calls his bud Archie to help them out as a favor and the guy tagged along his girlfriend Cindi because why the hell not? The gang basically decided to run away from their crappy lives that evening but, after running a red light, they got a little trouble with the law and got chased into hiding inside an abandoned house's garage. 

The stunt, unfortunately, killed the car's battery and the teens find out that not only did they lock themselves in by accident, but the house also once belonged to Dr. Zachary Harbotswood, AKA Undertaker Zach, a local urban legend who's known to have murdered his wife and daughter during a psychotic episode. Chiffon doesn't like this fact at all seeing she used to have nightmares about this place as a kid, but with no other plan at hand on how they'll get out of the house, the gang opted to stay put and just deal with the situation until they figure something out.

Badly acted melodrama here, a tame sex scene there, maybe even throw in a last minute nightmare sequence involving big snakes (both literally and figuratively), the foursome eventually encounters Undertaker Zach in the flesh, as well as a nasty little secret hidden down in the basement...

In a way, it's not hard to picture why this low-budget regional urban horror is so below the radar as instead of your typical bodycounter plot of murdered horny teens and angry maniacs, The Embalmer (1996) dragged its focus more on the somber schmaltz going on with our lead girl life, which frankly would have worked with the genuinely dark and uneasy issues tackled like trauma, child abuse and sexual assault, if only the tone and direction were anywhere as competent. It's simply difficult to buy into the seriousness of the subjects when most of the casts act their parts and deliver their lines like your everyday B-grade horror fodders, which can be either hilarious or bothersome, though I will give actress Jennifer T. Kelly for putting more effort in her role as the troubled main gal, Chiffon. Couple these with the usual talk of the killer's lore and sexy times under the sheets, and the film essentially yapped its way through a really clumsy and sloppy midsection.

Thankfully, the last twenty-some minutes picked up greatly as this is where the slasher elements kick in with a few good gore effects given the budget and, too, a fairly decent twist reveal that nicely leads to a surprisingly effective and satisfying conclusion that I didn't entirely see coming. It's a good enough take on the teen slasher set-up, one that kinda gives The Embalmer (1996) the potential to be a tolerable watch given, that is, you could overlook the distracting low cost production and the slow lumpy road. All in all, it's nowhere near being a real gem of a find, but it is an adequately interesting time waster should you ever need one. 

Bodycount:

1 female slaughtered to death with a scalpel

1 girl hacked to death with a meat cleaver

1 male castrated with a knife, brained to death with a hammer

1 female stabbed to death with a scalpel

1 male had his throat cut with a scalpel

1 male and 1 female killed offscreen with a knife

Total: 7

Winter Wonder Alien Massacre: The Visitor (2020 Novella)

The Visitor

Author: Sergio Gomez

Publication Year: 2020

Chapters: 20

Rating: ***

In this little tale of holiday horrors, we take a step into a familiar set-up of strangers being brought together at a single place to take shelter from nature's wrath, only to discover someone or something lurking around is out to kill them. 

The Visitor starts the pages at a diner during Christmas Eve where its owner Sal, regulars Kaito and Ichiko Takahasi, and traveling poet Moshe Janovsky have been keeping each other company as Indiana's worst snowstorm covers the road in inches of thick snow. They're soon joined by Xavier and his Collie, Norman, who just survived an accident that had their car crashing at a barricade, as well as truck driver Santiago Sanchez whose rig couldn't handle the now-slippery road. With hot food and drinks to go around, a generator keeping everyone warm and a football game playing on the TV, the group make the best out of their predicament by talking about mundane things and share a little bit about themselves. Until, that is, a lone tree branch outside snapped into falling unto a power pole and taking the lines with it, sending the diner into pitch darkness and shivering cold.

And it is around this time that the group would soon know that there is another visitor joining them. A hunter and its hound out to stalk and prey on a few specimens that just happen to be stranded inside a diner...

As slasher story, Sergio Gomez done an equitable enough job of keeping his novella a fun and breezy read by keeping the story easy to digest and with the right amount of popcorn entertainment as any good bodycount horror should be. It's basically your standard cat-and-mouse hunt, straight to the point towards its thrills and kills once the titular visitor starts to make their rounds on killing these innocent people, only the catch here is that our killer is an alien, down to the space suit and helmet, armed with a space rifle to go along its knife and even tagged along its own tamed creature which is supposed to be a hound of sorts. Even if this is far from anything new (Without Warning (1980), Predator (1987) and Almost Human (2013), for example), this is still an intriguing turn for anyone wanting more than just another average escaped loonie terrorizing people in their slasher stories, though I do wished the author gave us a little more detail as to the motive behind this thing's hunt as the story only went as far as telling us what it does with the bodies, but not what for.

The book did fairly with its character introductions and how it crafted their little predicament with the unfavorable weather, vividly describing the sheer coldness and unforgiving barrage of snowfall with brooding wordplay which adds to the intensity and atmosphere of the eventual attacks. Not much in terms of developing its casts seeing the length of the story, though Gomez did pen the kills and the ensuing carnage descriptive enough to vividly visualize the stalk and stab/shoot action and whatever gruesome gore and horrors that go with it, thus maintaining itself to be an engaging read on a good level. 

Though, again, it doesn't offer anything new to the slasher subgenre, The Visitor is a fun read for anyone who wants a quick and easy horror short to indulge in, one that delivers cold chills and classic kills with a simple scifi aftertaste!

Bodycount: 6 

Notable Kill: A gnarly laser shot to the head courtesy of a space rifle. Apart from that, we also got poor fella who got their head bitten off by a large critter!

Just a Weird Case of Prehysteria: The Stoneman (2002)

The Stoneman (2002)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Pat Morita, Christopher Atkins, Robin Riker

Take the plot of, let's say, The Giant From The Unknown (1958), have it directed with the same level of cheese and ham as a cheapo drive-in shlock like Eegah (1962), chuck in a bit of slasher mayhem within that troglodyte-centered mess and you'll get The Stoneman (2002)! For better or worse... 

Narrated by one Professor Fitzgerald (director Ewing Miles Brown, who will continue to pop up now and then to annoyingly and unnecessarily spoon-feed us what's happening as if we couldn't figure it out on our own), it all started at the heart of a safari where a native finds a perfectly preserved body of a huge humanoid creature in a bog. Dr. Stevens (The late Pat Morita) is then notified of the discovery and he soon have the remains shipped to the US where he and his colleague Dr. Weston (Robin Riker), along with an excited university journalist named Kip (Christopher Atkins), awe at the find once it arrives. A Professor Milano (Bernie Kopell) isn't buying the authenticity of the body, however, though Stevens is confident that what they have here is a genuine troglodyte, so much so that he already planned to have the find showcased to the press.

That is until the body suddenly springs back to life and murders one of the university staff some time after everyone left for the night. 

It isn't long before the cops are called to investigate the crime scene and detective lieutenant Hill (Ron Masak) suspects the old-smash-and-grab, just with a mummified cave man stolen and an additional fresh dead body on the side. But Dr. Stevens believes something else might be going on here, especially when he took a good look at the murder victim's neck and notices the rather large bite marks. As more victims start falling prey to the stone axe-wielding fella, Stevens, along with Weston and Kip, set out to find the Stoneman and capture him back (for science!), all the while attempting their best to convince the investigating officials that what they're dealing with in this recent string of murders is no ordinary man. Will they succeed or will there be more victims to be hacked to death with a deadly stone axe?

I really shouldn't be enjoying this disaster of a movie given how questionable its entire production is; the acting reeks high on underacted/overacted cheddar and the writing is hammed up with an entire pig winking at us with its tongue pressed firmly in its cheek! The effects are laughably cheap (yes, that's, uh, that's definitely a stone axe our creature is wielding. Definitely not a plastic prop...), so much odd direction is put into the plot that it's near parodic and, furthermore, it's clunkily pieced together as the picture and audio quality dips once in a while. One moment the pic and sound is bearable enough to watch, next thing you know the darn thing is fuzzy and sounds like it was recorded in someone's backyard! (Also, I think one of the scenes was ripped straight from a test footage as a portion of the damn timecode is visible!) And yet, here I am enjoying the ever-loving crap out of The Stoneman (2002)!

The whole film is practically a love letter to 50s/60s Z-grade drive-in flicks, where corny characters step up to save the day from a threat so outlandish, it's spectacularly terrible yet laughably fun. The Stoneman (2002) practically nails the tone and sway of these movies, down to the silly banters between our unlikely yet likeable heroes consisting of two doctors, a snarky journalist and one disbelieving yet well-meaning detective, as well as the entertainingly crazy murder spree of our titular killer caveman who proceeds to unga-bunga-bash people apart with his stone axe while said people dramatically screams in terror til' their dying breath or, during one hilarious fiasco, be yelled at by an angry neighbor for being too noisy! The caveman is played by a sizeable fella named Steve Henneberry, looking like your typical cartoonish depiction of a prehistoric man donned in animal fur, only with a more pronounced brow, distinguishably huge nose and overly large canines, doing a fine enough job working the Neanderthal maniac gig with a singular motive of hunting at nightfall. Not a lot of extreme blood and gore offered here, though, but with set pieces like the Stoneman casually entering and attacking a biker bar just for the kick of it, or go toe-to-toe against a woman armed with pepper spray, slow-mo'd for phenomenal effect, I say the film done more than enough to make up for its lack of genuine horror and be an amusing piece of bad filmmaking!

As clumsy as The Stoneman (2002) is in terms of quality production, it is still as an obscure trash masterpiece that deserves a good watch should you find yourself in the mood for low brow-levels of celluloid craft. A fun throwback of yesteryear's weird yet wonderful cinema sillies! 

Bodycount:

1 male hacked to death with a stone axe

1 female slashed across the neck with a stone axe, hacked to death

1 male strangled, later found with a bitten neck

1 male hacked to death with a stone axe

1 male strangled, later found with a bitten neck

1 female hacked on the face with a stone axe

1 female strangled to death

1 male gets a thrown stone axe to the chest

1 male falls off a cliff

Total: 9

A Wolf On The Prowl: Project Wolf Hunting (2023)

Project Wolf Hunting (Neugdaesanyang) (South Korea, 2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Seo In-Guk, Dong-Yoon Jang and Jung So-Min

And here I thought Ricky-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991) is the silliest, goriest action horror thriller I'll ever lay eyes on... 

After a fiasco back in 2017 in which a suicide bomber blew himself up and killed many at a publicly announced prison transport flight, the higher ups involved with an extradition deal between South Korea and the Philippines opted to try a different mode of transportation when it comes to transferring dangerous Korean criminals captured in the Philippines back to their country. This time, Frontier Titan, a seemingly normal cargo ship, will be used to escort an assorted batch of ruthless fugitives from Manila to Busan by sea, a three-day mission headed by hardened "fist-to-your-face" cop Seok-woo (Park Ho-san) and kept in check by an army of fellow police officers.

What these law enforcers didn't know, though, is that one of the inmates, vile murderer and rapist Jong-doo (Seo In-guk), arranged a job with his vicious underlings where they'll infiltrate Titan disguised as crewmates and smuggle in some high caliber weapons. It isn't too long then before the bloodshed begins as the criminals are freed and start torturing and massacring as many cops as they could, all the while the remaining law enforcers who quickly learn of the grim situation fight back in hopes of still turning the tide to their favor.

Now all of this is just the first hour of this two hour long action horror epic and it's pretty much a gorier and sea-bound version of Con Air (1997) as a transport mission becomes a bloody war between heartless criminals and law abiding officers, with the former quickly taking the advantage of them outnumbering their captors, as well as mostly having the element of surprise and a well-planned sabotage working on their benefit. Gunfire of varying calibers are exchanged, heads are brained with nailguns and bolt cutters, brutal stabbings, hatchet hackings, it's all a visceral show of unrelenting violence leading up to what could have been a climactic showdown as Jong-doo's army of miscreants would come face to face with what remains of seasoned cop Seok-woo's forces, but this is when the horror elements of Project Wolf Hunting (2023) comes into play.

You see, the whole escort mission is also being closely monitored by a shady organization who also arranged the Titan to carry a top secret cargo: an ancient bioweapon that was once a man, created all the way back in World War II when the Japanese army was experimenting with the creation of super soldiers. Codenamed "Alpha", this monster just has to pick that day to wake up from his drug-induced sedation and we're quickly treated to one heck of a killing spree as Alpha single handedly obliterated nearly all of the cops and criminals gathered in a brawl out. And by obliterated, I'm talking about people getting kicked across boiler rooms and bursting into bloody messes upon impact, limbs getting torn off to beat their owners dead, lots of throat rippings, chest stompings, head pulpings, it's everything one could have wished Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) was, especially once Alpha brutally dispatched our supposed "main bad" of the film and starts prowling the ship for remaining victims to beat down dead, all the while those who survived the killing spree so far have to stick together and figure out how to stop an undead bioweapon enhanced with the strength of five men, Predator (1987)-esque "thermovision" and the cunningness of a wolf.

From a criminal escort-gone-wrong gig to a ship-set scifi slasher, all done with a splatter film treatment of practical effects, 2.5 tons worth of fake blood and very little CGI, it is within these two acts that Project Wolf Hunting (2023) shines its bloody best as an exploitation piece where violence is the name of the game and deliver it does. Almost every minute of the film is dedicated to gore and splatter with every layout of the ship is used for the carnage and everyone and everything bound to be covered in blood and grue. It's honestly an outrageous feat of adrenaline infused, hardcore ultraviolence that mostly makes up for the film's less than noteworthy protagonists, lack of genuine scares and simple plotting, so those wanting to see a fulfilling character development out of its cavalcade of casts or a decent amount of scare factor might need to look elsewhere, but for those who find bliss in mindless entertainment centered on intense action and brutal slayings, this film is a thing of beauty.

The real big flaw of Project Wolf Hunting (2023), frankly, lies in its last act; without spoiling much, it introduced more enhanced superhumans into the plot, almost all the characters we've been following throughout the bloody affair are simply unceremoniously killed off and the film completely shifts its gear to a scifi action thriller route as bioweapons duke it out with fists, knives and gunfire ala Resident Evil movie sequel starring Milla Jovovich. In any other film, this would have been an okay turn but, after all of that build-up wherein normal humans struggle and fight to survive against an enemy that's seemingly impossible to stop, switching its focus to superpowered characters with personal vendettas and agendas simply doesn't have the same cathartic gut punch and, honestly, it wasted a great opportunity to bring a satisfyingly fulfilling final act to the table. Instead, all we get is multiple bite-sized flashbacks worth of info dump, an underwhelming villain and a so-so tragic hero beating the lights out of one another, leaving us in the end with a groaner of a twist reveal/cliffhanger combo doubling as sequel bait. It's all too overly ambitious, if I say so myself.

Still, as flawed as the finale was, I strongly recommend Project Wolf Hunting (2023) to anyone with a taste for action horror hybrids, especially ones that come with B-movie grade craziness and geysers of blood to satisfy the inner gorehound! A nonstop thrill ride of (literal) bloody proportions, tailor made for long nights of exploitation cinema and splatter movie runs!

Bodycount:

1 male killed in suicide bombing

7 victims killed in suicide bombing

1 male knifed in the neck (flashback)

1 male seen murdered (flashback)

1 male seen murdered (flashback)

1 male brained with a nailgun

1 male shot on the head with a nailgun, beaten to death

1 male stabbed to death with a switchblade

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male bashed on the head with boltcutters

1 male throat cut with a switchblade, stabbed to death

1 male repeatedly beaten with steel cuffs, hunting knife buried into his chest

1 male stabbed in the jaw with a hunting knife

1 male shot to death

2 males shot to death

1 female seen dead from knife wound (flashback)

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male stabbed in the neck with a hunting knife

1 male hacked to death with a hatchet

1 male shot to death

1 male shot on the head

1 male shot to death

1 male kicked across a room, crushed on impact

1 male had his throat cut with  knife

1 male had his throat ripped off

1 male stomped on the back

1 male punched to death

2 males had their throats crushed

1 male scalp torn off, stomped on the chest

1 male elbowed, brained against a gas tank

2 males shot to death

1 male had his face pulped with a punch

1 male shot to death

1 male bashed headless with a sledgehammer

1 male had his head crushed

1 male found with a ripped throat

1 male killed offscreen

1 female had her throat ripped off

1 male had his head stepped on, crushed

1 male punched across a room, head bashed against a table

1 female slashed across the face with a hunting knife, bled to death

1 male had his legs sliced in half with a hunting knife, chest stomped on

1 female pinned to a wall with a hunting knife to the neck

1 male had his chest punched open

1 male beaten to death with his own severed arm

1 male had his throat crushed (flashback)

1 female brained against a table (flashback)

1 female bashed with a skull (flashback)

1 male bashed with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained to death with a skull (flashback)

1 male brained with a skull (flashback)

1 male shot on the head (flashback)

1 male repeatedly stomped on, killed in elevator crash

1 male kicked on the head, neck broken

1 female shot on the head

1 female shot to death

1 male had his neck broken

1 male shot on the head

1 male expires from an experiment (flashback)

A number of victims seen dead from experiments (flashback)

1 male pushed unto a steel pipe, neck impaled (flashback)

1 male gutted offcamera

1 male crushed with a metal door

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male knifed in the neck

1 male brained to death with a rifle

1 male beaten to death

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male shot to death

1 male had his throat cut with a hunting knife

1 male stabbed and slashed to death with a hunting knife

Total: 87+

Christmas is Terminated: Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)

Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Riley Dandy, Sam Delich and Jonah Ray

Do you see yourself as that one person who needs blood and carnage to balance out all the cutesy and saccharine sweet feel-good mushiness from sentimental holiday movies filling up your cable channels and streaming services every Winter season? Well, fortunately for your freaky arse, director Joe Begos of the scifi slasher Almost Human (2013) and bloody siege thriller VFW (2019) is bringing holiday fears with a good ole' slasher that's crass in class, proud to be loud and jolly to be bloody!

All Tori (Riley Dandy) wanted to do after working her Christmas Eve shift at a record store is score a good time with some dude she met at Tinder. But after finding out that the guy is married with kids and is living with his parents, she decided to ditch the lame shmuck and instead accepts her friend and colleague Robbie's (Sam Delich) invitation to hang out and paint the town red. After stopping by to visit some buddies working at a toy store and getting piss-assed drunk at a bar, the two soon made their way to Tori's house for steamy sex and obnoxiously loud conversations about each other's taste for records and horror sequels, unaware that a life-sized animatronic Santa called "RoboSanta+" suddenly have gone haywire and, channeling its inner circuitry as an intended military-grade killer robot, starts murdering off any people it comes across as it makes its way to end Tori.

One half killer Santa slasher, one half festive Terminator (1984) knock-off, Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) has the makings to be an outrageous exploitation throwback breathing some variety to yet another axe-wielding Santa trope and it succeeds in this with its on-the-nose yet unapologetically manic execution, delivering a rather wild yet worthwhile B-grade holiday horror flick that's as entertaining as it is clunky at parts. 

The first thirty minutes can be a chore to sit through, being a crude hangout story following two adults acting like unsupervised teenagers with their hooting and hollering, drug snorting and beer guzzling. It is annoyingly immature, wearying and foul at its worst, as there's only so much swear-littered dialogue and grating blunderings one could take before the charm of it all is lost, but I will be lying if I didn't say I got some chuckles out of it (especially around their riled-up talk about horror sequels. Glad to see that mess Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) still has its fans) and I have to give praises to the actors for doing a swell job delivering a genuine feel to their roles. Things eventually got better once RoboSanta+ finally lumbers their way to Tori's residence, stopping by and breaking into a neighboring house first for a grimly effective home invasion-cum-family massacre before forcing their way to Tori's and everyone gets an axe blow or two to places that definitely hurt.

The kills here are gloriously practical and rubbery yet gory, a lovely throwback to 70s and 80s slashers, much like the film's grainy visuals and candy-colored lightning, as well as its retrowave synth score. The killer robot Santa itself is a decent take on a popular holiday horror staple, bearing a passable explanation for its durability and strength, and too has thrown enough hints here and there as to why exactly it's splitting people in halves with an axe, but still leaving enough to the viewer's imagination regarding its specific interest on hunting down Tori. I do love the fact that it started out looking so much like your average Saint Nick with a murderous streak before gradually getting more and more damaged the further it struggles to end our final girl, revealing the flashy machinations inside it with some goofy but otherwise fitting make-up effects. 

And by struggle, I mean struggle! The final face-off is where the whole Terminator gig kicks in, running through the last third of the film and it's every way as harebrained as it is badass. It came to a point where our robot Santa is nothing but a metal endoskeleton with sparks and wires hanging out damaged and yet it still manages to be quite a challenge to put down as the menace survives every form of abuse Tori inflicts at it. This is where our lead turns from a screechy party girl to a gore-drenched heroine and I gotta say that the endless barrage of attacks from the mecha-maniac is only as good as the trappings and counter attacks its intended victim hurl back against it and this last act certainly delivers on that department, so long as you don't mind it dragging on a bit with all the robo fake-outs.

Without a doubt a slasher film for the undemanding, Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) may suffer from a couple of clods in its writing, but as a straightforward bodycounter made to be entertainingly ridiculous and gruesomely bloody, I say it has done its best! If you get to switch off that big melon resting between your shoulders, feel free to see it as it can be a good watch. Just, maybe, prepare some booze and ready your finger towards the flashforward button... 

Bodycount:

1 male split in half with an axe

1 female repeatedly beaten against a glass counter

1 male gets a thrown axe to the back, head stomped

1 female hacked on the face with an axe

1 boy hacked with an axe

1 female had her neck broken

1 male killed offscreen with an axe

1 male had his head cleaved with an axe

1 male hacked on the head with an axe

1 male has his head blown off with a shotgun

1 male killed offcamera, mangled body hurled and seen

1 male shot on the head with a shotgun

Total: 12