Psychometric Situations: Departing Seniors (2023)

Departing Seniors (2023)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Ignacio Diaz-Silverio, Yani Gellman, Ireon Roach

Tired of being on the receiving end of homophobic bullying, Javier (Ignacio Diaz-Silverio) wanted nothing more right now than just to graduate out of Springhurst High and move on with his life. Until then, he soldiers through the final days of high school, finding comfort from his spunky bestfriend Bianca (Ireon Roach) and a sympathetic English teacher Mr. Arda (Yani Gellman), as well as on the graceful chance of finally hanging out with new student he's been crushing on, William (Ryan Foreman). 

Javier's would-be fling, however, gets exploited by the bullying ringleaders, star student Ginny (Maisie Merlock) and her meathead jock boyfriend Trevor (Cameron Scott Roberts), faking an invite to lure Javier out to another round of harassment afterschool. Finally having enough, Javier lashes back and outs another bullying jock, Brad (Sasha Kuznetsov), as a closeted gay, bringing up romantic flairs that's been happening between them behind everyone's back. Outraged, the jocks chase Javier and accidentally knocks him unconscious after he get thrown down a flight of stairs.

Waking up later in a hospital, Javier discovers, much to his shock and initial horror, that he can now randomly see glimpses of the past or future of whoever he touches, or by touching objects that belong to them. Unsure what to make of this at first, Javier quickly learns that he may need to use his new clairvoyant abilities to save the very people that tormented him when a prowler in a stylized Greek theatre mask starts snuffing out the bullies, staging them as suicides. Can Javier convince his aggressors of the dangers in time? Or will they all fall victim to the blade of this mysterious killer?

Visions in slasher films isn't exactly a new party trick given the likes of Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), Fear (1990) or even the Final Destination movies already tormenting clairvoyants with killings to come, courtesy of a vicious murderer. Departing Seniors (2024) practically follows the same beat with Javier and Bianca racing against time to stop these deaths from happening and hopefully put an end to the killer's terror, only there's more happening around the slayings than the actual slayings itself. 

While Javier's ability to see visions is often given a comedic pass, with characters quirkily citing similar instances from various movies and TV plots, it also becomes a catalyst to the film's warmly emotional moments as it taps into the more vulnerable sides of the people surrounding Javier, this including his bullies who, through psychic foreshadowings and flashbacks, turns out to be surprisingly sympathetic despite their horrible behavior, having to deal with their own plights of insecurities and personal dilemmas which they hide behind an intimidating front. We get to see them mourn their losses and even try to better themselves, building a refreshingly solid cast to be cathartically killed off, but with the bulk of the plot centering on the drama, as well as the mystery behind who's doing away the bullies, Departing Seniors (2023) is light on the kill count and even lighter on the blood shed as the killer prefers to stage the murders as suicides to cover their tracks.

The film makes a good effort on twisting suspicions around with clever misdirection and plausible red herrings to keep the whodunnit angle fun and engaging, though with the casts so little, it's not too hard to eventually figure out who the culprit is. Even more so their motive behind the killings given the film's stance concerning bullying. The climactic confrontation is hammed-up, to say the least, with the killer breaking into angry monologues and one of the victims taking a little longer to realize how deep into trouble they are, going as far as chastising the villain for their threatening behavior. It's a passable finale with a few good fights and one that ends with the killer being arrested rather than killed, something you don't often see in a teen slasher.

It may not have the messiest bodycount, nor much of an exploitative edge, Departing Seniors (2023) still works as a slasher drama with a fun cast, a crisp production quality and the right amount of heartbreak and blood spill. Recommended for warm murder mystery afternoons!

Bodycount:

1 male had his wrists slashed with a hunting knife, drowned in a pool

1 male hanged with a fire hose

1 male beaten against a steering wheel, pushed off a building

Total: 3

A Slay Belle In Toymaker Hell: Carnage For Christmas (2024)

Carnage For Christmas (Australia, 2024)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Jeremy Moineau, Chris Asimos, Dominique Booth

As someone who's been subjecting oneself to slasher horror for some good decades or so, I've seen a lot of unusual jabs on the bodycounter sub-genre, may it be plot-wise or execution. One moment you're watching an angry snowman end someone by repeatedly bashing them with Christmas ornaments, or trapped teens get hunted down inside a mall by robots armed with lasers; next you're watching a murder mystery unfold ala gimmicky split screens, or follow the steps of a backwoods maniac as they hike through a dense forest looking for people to kill with little to no dialogue uttered. Cinema is a strange landscape, and horror movies will always be a part of its strangeness. 

And yet, here I am at a lost on what to make of this holiday stab-a-thon.

Returning to her hometown of Purdan for the first time after coming out of the closet and legging it from there when she was just 16 years old, true crime podcaster Lola (Jeremy Moineau) expects nothing but small town backwardness and transphobic insults from its residents upon her arrival. What she didn't see coming, though, is a bit of a warm welcome from a few good folks looking forward on meeting her, either fans of her podcast or queer like her. There's also the fact that Lola is a little of a local celebrity for solving an unsolved crime back when she was just a kid while partaking on a coming-of-age dare. One that involves an old house where, allegedly, a toymaker killed his entire family back in the 1930s. 

However, much to her and the town's horror, it appears the Toymaker, or likely someone insane enough to take on the role, has started a killing spree seemingly targeting people around Lola's circle. The police, either out of sheer homophobia or incompetence (or both), quickly dismisses these killings as "botched robberies" or simply "missing people". But not for Lola. No, she knows something is up when the cops are ignoring the fact that this is more than a simple crime case when the evidence is all over it, and she's going to use her skills and experience as a true crime podcaster to uncover the truth and stop the murderer before more lives are taken!

By all means, Carnage for Christmas (2024) has a good story to tell, one that feels like a fun rainy afternoon murder mystery you could cuddle up to with a hot drink, only queer-friendly and, well, gory given it's about a brain-bashing brute in a dirty Santa suit and mask. The plot is engagingly complex with red herrings and twisty turns, as well as a few good humor tossed around to lighten up a few moments. All of it driven by a tough and sassy amateur sleuth who takes no nonsense from sloppy cops and transphobic yokels, quick to think on her feet and surrounded by a small yet likable enough cast of side characters willing to help out so long as they don't fall victim to the Toymaker first. It's misadventures and shocking surprises around for this small town whodunnit, though it's executed in a rather "venturesome" manner that's distracting at its worst. 

 

While the mystery has a decent weight to it, there are moments where it gets a bit much with the details and characters, plenty of them popping up only to do nothing but be on the back burner until the story finds the appropriate time to bring them up again. The movie's untrammeled editing is also a cavalcade of overdone stylization, too hammed up and brashly experimental that it often feels out of place against the movie's film's more serious notes. The writing can be too on the nose on occasion, nearing cheeky, and the kills are, sadly, lackluster despite the attempts to make them feel or look gnarly. There's a "blood eagle" corpse that does look nice and I do like the one murder involving a hand-crank drill for the novelty of the weapon, but the rest were done with these store bought props, awkward graphics and CG blood effects that they're awfully frustrating to look at.   

And then there's the finale; what could have been your simple brawl between an unmasked maniac and the final girl starts with our podcaster pretty much explaining how she figured out the killer's motive and what led them to this path of murdering and mayhem, all the while trying to avoid being detected by crawling around and rolling behind tables and boxes while the maniac stalks around an empty bar. They fight with B-grade choreography and it seems the killer was about to get the upper hand, until a pair of fake boobs knocks them unconscious and, well, gets tazed to the point of defecating. I shit you not. (pun intended) 

It's this overly manic execution and mismatched comedic tone that just doesn't work for me; I like the lead gal, the urban myth that goes along with the masked slasher and, too, the reveal made regarding the killer's modus operandi, but a more consistent flow and direction would have made me like this movie a bit more. Perhaps the movie could have benefitted from a tweak or two in its direction, but the resulting product is still unique enough to standout among murder mystery slashers and queer horror, not to mention decently passable for a modern Ozploitation indie work. Feel free to see Carnage for Christmas (2024) for your fix of yuletide nightmares, just don't expect to take it too seriously...

Bodycount:

1 male gutted with a switchblade (story)

1 female brained to death with a hammer

1 female brained with a hammer, later found disemboweled

1 female jabbed in the neck with a breast drill

1 male brained with a hammer, scalp pried open

Total: 5

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

Severe Smut: Exploited (2022)

Exploited (2022)

Rating: ***1/2

Starring: Jordan Ver Hoeve, Andrew Matthew Welch, Makenzie Vega

On his first day at Starling University, freshman Brian (Jordan Ver Hoeve) gets assigned a shared room with another student named Jeremy (Andrew Matthew Welch) and is given a USB stick with orientation details. Later that night, after attending a campus party with Jeremy, along with Jeremy's girlfriend Lexi (Makenzie Vega) and her roommate Janelle (Hannah Rose May) for some boozy fun, Brian opted to end the evening getting his laptop ready for college use, but accidentally mixes up his USB with another identical one he found in the room. One that contains a hidden folder full of cam footages by a student who engages in kinks via video streams. Being queer, Brian is first enticed to see the collection of smut, but after the last video from the bunch have the student seemingly beaten dead by someone in a gimp mask before the footage corrupts, he's nothing short of shocked and disturbed.

Deciding to solve the mystery himself, Brian tags along his computer whiz brother to try and recover the last file to see how the attack really ended, as well as possibly uncover the identity of the gimp. As he goes deeper into the dive, though, it is made clear that whoever was responsible for the attack doesn't want him or anybody else sticking their noses where they don't belong and they're doing everything they can to stop their little snooping, from exploiting secretly recorded footages to turn them against each other, to straight out physical assaults with a mean taser.

An erotic thriller with slasher flick tendencies, Exploited (2022) focuses more on intriguing its audience with the dupable mystery behind a series of smut videos and, too, exploring the drama revolving around the sexual exploits of our characters rather than racking up a kill count. The approach works well enough as the mystery itself is well-grounded and nifty with its twists and red herrings, with most of the players involved in the psycho-sexual conundrum engagingly portrayed thus making their circumstances with the dangerous gimp all the more enthralling to watch. I do have to say that it isn't too hard to figure out who's behind the gimp mask once all the cards are laid out and the film does end rather underwhelmingly with a cliffhanger following its mid-tier reveal, though this does little to dent the strong exploitative factor of the movie, not with its seedy scenes of  homoerotic blackmail and unsettling sexual assaults acting as the story's solid source of shock value. 

With nobody really biting the big one until the climax and, even then, the bodycount runs a little short in the numbers and variety, the slasher elements mostly fall on the nature of the gimp's stalking and attacks. It's frankly practical intimidation-wise, especially when the fella shows how manipulative they can be behind text messages and chatrooms and, whenever they need to resort to physical violence, they can very much go brutal without necessarily killing a victim. It's all well said and done, though I do wish they could've at least throw in an extra body or two just to keep everyone on their toes, further showing how bad of a threat the villain is.

By the end, Exploited (2022) is an engaging thriller that daringly went into the sleazier side of the subgenre and I'm very much glad it did. It's undoubtedly not for everyone, though the less priggish may find its unconventional shot on the typical slasher chills and spills entertaining, especially when it lives up to a good enough whodunnit in the midst of all the smut and drama! 

Bodycount:

1 female shot on the gut with a shotgun

1 female brained with a rock

1 male shot with a shotgun

Total: 3

Grit and Split: Slice (2009)

Slice (Cheun) (Thailand, 2009)

Rating: ****

Starring: Arak Amornsupasiri, Sonthaya Chitmanee, Jessica Pasaphan

Raw, intense and exploitative. Everything I can ask for from an Asian slasher murder mystery.

The scene begins with a convict being interviewed by the prison psychologist concerning his recurring dreams about a red suit case that's big enough to stuff a body inside. This is interjected back and forth by what appears to be a figure in a red rain slicker prowling an American man staying at a hotel where we see him creepily feeding a naked Thai boy on a leash. We can pretty much tell what kind of scum this fella is and the figure in red knows this as well, thus the next thing we see is the man getting knifed to death, his body dismembered and stuffed in a single red suitcase which is later found near a beach.

This, as it seems, is an ongoing case of serial killings happening around the city as men in high position and power are getting targeted and murdered, soon to be later found in pieces and stuffed inside red suit cases, as well as revealed to be sexual deviants. Things get awry when the killer strikes once more, this time crashing an orgy held by the city's prime minister's son and, in a rather spectacular display of sleaze and chaos, goes on a shooting spree on all of the fornicators before taking the prime minister's son and butchering him elsewhere, his lingerie-clad body later seen castrated and draped over a billboard.

Outraged by both the death of his son and the scandal the massacre has caused, not to mention the lack of development from this entire investigation, the politician gives the city police an ultimatum to solve it in 15 days. Feeling the pressure of all of this, chief of police Papa Chin (Chatchai Plenpanich) has no choice but to turn to a man he's really hoping not to bother with, a former cop-turned-prison "cleaner" named Tai (Arak Amornsupasiri), who also happens to be the convict who's having the red suitcase dreams. It seems Chin and Tai has some history together and a lot of dirt between them, though Tai is mostly willing to help out as he suspects the killer might be Nut, a childhood friend back from his home town who he hadn't thought of for a very long while now.

This is when Slice (2009) delves into lengthy flashbacks ala Slumdog Millionaire (2008) (only horrifically more troubling to watch) and for a good dose of the movie, we get to see what went down with Tai and Nut; with a drunkard for a father and a prostitute for a mother, Nut lived a hellish childhood life of constant abuse and bullying from a gang of boys targeting him for his effeminate personality and his constant seizures attacks. Young Tai, taking pity, decided to befriend the lonesome child and, for most parts, it's a rather happy friendship until the bullies caught wind of the two hanging out and they decided to up the ante of their harassments, practically going criminal as one scene have them raping Nut with a toy boat. The horror of it all worsens when Nut starts getting assaulted by his teachers and even his own father, but Tai eventually comes in to try rescue his friend from all of this, but an incident involving Nut's father getting stabbed to death forces the two boys to leg it to the city and attempt a sense of normalcy working cheap labor as they go in hiding.

However, even in this new living arrangement, Nut couldn't escape his horrible fate as, no soon after, a group of sex traffickers have taken an interest on the boys. Tai continues to try fending them all off, but the exhaustion of looking after Nut eventually gets the better of the boy and when given the opportunity to pawn off Nut to save his own skin, Tai guiltily agrees to the deal... 

Cutting back to present day and Tai is piecing together everything that happened to Nut after he was taken. This leads to a familiar yet still shocking revelation that spells more victims to the slaughter and genuine heartbreaks for everyone who matters.

Structure-wise, Slice (2009) has less in common with the typical kill-in-every-fifteen minutes slasher flair and more with investigative serial killer thrillers like The Silence of The Lambs (1991) and SE7EN (1995), as well as coming-of-age dramas like Stand By Me (1985) albeit uncomfortably darker. The murder horror elements were practically used here to jumpstart the plot and the film did this spectacularly by treating us with a giallo-inspired Grand Guignol of knife violence and shoot-out massacres perpetrated by a figure in striking red, stylized with chaotic video effects, unnatural lighting, colored tinting and eerie camera work. The direction eventually makes its way to the real meat of the story, the childhood life of our lead, wherein the movie dives into a depth that deals greatly with betrayals, heartbreak and the unrelenting nature of abject cruelty and hate in which anybody regardless of age, gender and status can fall into should the fates decide it to be. It can get pretty heavy, especially when it sickeningly juxtaposes small idyllic town life of simple games and school days with horrifying scenes and implications of severe bullying and sexual abuse, but it is briskly paced so it doesn't drag itself down with the weight of the drama and instills a sense of urgency in its mystery.

The final twist in the movie more or less sets everything back to slasher horror grounds as the killer gets revealed and starts one last murder spree, leading to a couple of gruesomely splashy deaths and a few deserving victims getting what's coming to them. The reveal here is nothing new, though its execution is where it made its worth as after the bloodsoaked rampage, it found a way to slow down and have a truly melancholic moment between our protagonist and the killer before ultimately topping it off with an ending where no one really wins. It's simplistic and well-acted, allowing the tragedy of the situation to sink in and feel its weight without any exploitative distractions cluttering it. 

If there are any flaws I can scratch out of this movie, it would be that the slasher scenes often bring out the cheesier side of Slice (2009) as the idea of a killer in a red cloak gets rather silly when this fella can easily stroll down building units, busy streets and private orgies without anyone ever batting an eye on the suspicious sight. It's baffling and sets a few of the the murder set-pieces a tad too convenient, though it does little to none to dent the overall spectacle of the movie's more visceral elements.

Browbeaten and devastating, yet bearing a sense of heart in the midst of its grime and barbarism, the film is a true work of exploitation cinema that doesn’t hold back with its taboo subjects and exploitative carnage to give us one heck of a ride. If you think you have the stomach for an upsettingly bogging yet intriguing murder mystery, then dare to see it! 

Bodycount:

1 male stabbed to death with a knife, later found dismembered

1 male had his throat cut with a disposable razor

1 male castrated with a knife, later found dismembered

1 male shot on the head

1 male shot on the back

1 male shot

1 male shot on the head

1 female shot

1 male shot with a shotgun

1 females shot with a shotgun

1 victim had their leg shot with a shotgun, killed

1 male shot with a shotgun

1 female had her arm shot off with a shotgun, killed

1 male had his head blown off with a shotgun

1 male found castrated, body hung over a billboard

3 males shot dead (flashback)

1 male shot (flashback)

1 male stabbed to death with a knife (flashback)

1 elderly female dies of old age offcamera

1 male had his throat cut with a razor

1 male stabbed to death with a razor

1 male had his neck cut with a razor, castrated

1 male repeatedly shot, stabbed to death with a razor

1 female shot on the head

Total: 26

Deep In The Woods, A Woman Hunts: What Keeps You Alive (2018)

What Keeps You Alive (2018)
Rating: ***1/2
Starring: Hannah Emily Anderson, Brittany Allen and Martha MacIsaac

Celebrating their first anniversary, married lesbian couple Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson) and Jules (Brittany Allen) head to a remote cabin in the woods to do all your typical backwoods fodder like hunting, fishing, and love-making near a warm, roaring fire. Their stay is far from honey glows and blissfulness, however, when Jackie's old friend suddenly stopped by one night and addresses her by a different name, much to Jules' confusion and now growing suspicions.

It isn't long before it dawns on Jules that the woman she married wasn't entirely open about her life and a long, painfully strenuous and deadly nightmare awaits her as Jackie pushed her off a cliff one day. A nightmare that will only gets worse the moment she survives the fall...

While it is evident the people behind What Keeps You Alive (2018) were aiming to do a modern-psycho thriller, the film does generously borrow a lot of tropes and elements from backwoods slashers for its more horror-oriented moments. The plentiful stalk-and-chase sequences all over the woods echo the likes of your classic forest-set bodycounter climax, building up tension and intrigue as the plot further marches onward to venomous betrayals and psychopathic twists while maintaining a very basic yet stylized survival story in its core.

What makes this all work for me is that once the reveal is made, the fact that the villainess here is simply bad because she is bad, detached from any feeling of compassion and is simply malicious, is all the reason the film needed to keep going. She is a threat that one needed to survive against and escape from and nothing else, a simplicity that feels genuinely terrifying and thankfully didn't resort to cheapening the dynamics between her and their wife being queer as a cause or a tool for the killer's evil, a trope you normally get as a mean to punish or be the cause of one to turn knife-stabbing mad in a horror story.  Everyone is simply a bear or a deer for her to hunt and this makes her the kind of driving force that keeps survival horror all that interesting, thrilling and fun.

Of course, What Keeps You Alive (2018) is far being flawless when one would consider the still numerous horror clichés thrown here and there, such as the number of times Jules could've escaped and not risk a deadly confrontation with her captor, or the real life inconsistencies and plot conveniences the writing suffers from. The quieter moments certainly have their shining moments of emotional baggage and development, but the horror side of the film is undoubtedly cheesed up on occasions, fortunately not enough to lessen the impact of its stronger, nerve-wrecking suspense scenes and the few yet brutal killings.

As it is for most backwoods horror films, What Keeps You Alive (2018) is simply gorgeous with its scenic mountainous backwoods and ever-going lake. The camerawork done for these shots greatly foreshadows how eminently isolated the whole place can get, thus the uselessness of getting any help soon or at all even, which adds to the strengths of the film's survival horror aspect. All in all, this is a solid survival thriller in its simplest and earnest, and sometimes that's all you need to have a fairly decent good time. A guaranteed watch!

Bodycount:

1 male had his throat cut with a hunting knife

1 female stabbed to death with a hunting knife

1 female injected with tainted insulin, suffers a fatal stroke

Total: 3

Slasher Switcheroo Friday!: Freaky (2020)

Freaky (2020)

Rating: ****
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Celeste O'Connor

“You’re Black! I’m gay! We are so dead!”

- The last words of Joshua to his friend as the killer catches up on them.

...Or is it?

In the small town of Blissfield, four teenagers are just hanging around at a rich friend's mansion, boozing it up while chatting about a local boogeyman legend known as The Blissfield Butcher who's said to be infamous for slaughtering teens during the annual Homecoming. As you would've guessed, the legend turns out to be real when the Butcher (Vince Vaughn) suddenly arrives and makes easy pickings out these hapless teens, even finding the time to steal an ancient dagger out of the mansion's collection of strange artifacts. 

Cut to the following morning, we see our protagonist Millie (Kathryn Newton) preparing for another day in high school while mending herself from your atypical teenage insecurities and drama; she just lost her father a year ago which had her older sister distracting herself with cop work, all the while their mother tries to dull the loss by drinking and being overly clingy with her kids. Fortunately for Millie, she has a pair of fantastic friends by her side, Joshua (Misha Osherovich) and Nyla (Celeste O’Connor), both very much as supportive as they are aware of their friend's need to let go of the grief.

Things get messed up further for our humble heroine, however, as apart from the usual bullying classmates and asshole teachers, she now finds herself targeted and hunted by the Blissfield Butcher later that evening after trying out as a school mascot. Soon, The Butcher catches up to Millie and stabs her with his new dagger, unaware to the both of them that the weapon does more than just look exotic; as it turns out, the ancient blade has the ability to exchange the consciousness (Or spirit. Or whatever you wanna call it) of the stabber and the stabbee with one another, basically switching bodies. With Millie now in The Butcher's body the morning after, she must find a way to convince her friends into helping, not draw attention to herself (Aaron Rodgers to the rescue!) and figure out how a 6-foot male body works, all in order to stop The Butcher in his continuing killing spree within 24 hours or else the change becomes permanent!

Curiously, this isn't the first time the slasher sub-genre stabbed at the body-swap approach; New Zealand's The Ferryman all the way back from 2007 has a tourist cruise en route to Fiji getting picked off by a murderous stranger with body-swapping abilities, and then in 2013 with Japan teaming up with the US of A to produce It's a Beautiful Day, where homicidal racists target a group of Asian vacationers, only for one of the killers and one of the victims to switch bodies for no apparent reason. While as interesting as these titles are in their attempts to do the slasher formula a tad differently through a fantastical premise, Freaky (2020) did its body-swap angle with a bit more heart and fun to it, embracing the silliness of the idea and just roll with it one messy kill and one hilarious line at a time. 

From filmmaker Christopher Landon, who gave us the amazing Happy Death Day (2017) and its equally awesome sequel Happy Death Day 2U (2019), Freaky (2020) is a simple, loving throwback to weird teen comedies, with a gruesome side of gory slasher mayhem seen as early as the opening massacre and its homages to Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter (1984) and even Sorority Row (2009). The central plot is basically hijinks upon hijinks of Millie, her friends and, eventually, her crush Booker (Uriah Shelton) trying to stop and capture The Butcher, as well as getting back the magical dagger that started the switch, all done with a satisfying range of comedy and commentary filled with sweet sharp writing, balanced hammy acting and subtle slapstick. With this, Vince Vaughn (who I hadn't seen in a slasher movie since Psycho (1998)) plays his young teen girl persona with much relaxed feminine wile that's cheesed up for the laughs, an enjoyable treat of a performance that would have completely stolen the show if it wasn't for Kathryn Newton doing her awesome take as an icy cold killing machine.

Apart from its wholesome slice of comedy, Landon and writer Michael Kennedy also took the time to slow down to develop its characters and aim for the feels, giving us a few warm moments where either Millie or her family express their insecurities and troubles either knowingly or unknowingly to one another. Of course, this doesn't stray Freaky (2020) away from its slasher nature too way off and we're definitely still treated with a pure NC-17 rating massacre that's untamed in its violence and relentless in its gore. Best among these kills include set-ups involving a nasty take on a wine bottle, a freezing death that could rival Jason X (2001)'s infamous "faceless Adrianne" kill and a table saw bisection in shop class, most of them satisfyingly committed upon hated characters that are begging to be dismembered, keeping the stakes predictable but aimed high on the splatter factor for how practical it all is. I also love the fact that we never really have a solid backstory behind the Butcher as even the characters are unsure what year he started his killings; he is simply just there to terrorize and be nasty to people, taking glee from taking lives.

All in all, one can easily overlook Freaky (2020)'s clichés and plot holes for its modest grade entertainment. As for any body-switch story to work, it depends to how much the swapped characters sell their personality despite being in the wrong body and this film achieves this in a way that doesn't deviate much from the note and wonderfully blends in the 80s slasher frame with a young adult coming-of-age fantasy comedy with elements of loss and reinventing. Again, the plot isn't anything new, but its feel-good vibe and dreadful karmic demises meant, more than anything else, Freaky (2020) is in it for the horror-comedy fun! See it and enjoy it!

Bodycount:

1 male gets a wine bottle shoved and shattered into his throat

1 female had her head repeatedly crushed with a toilet seat lid

1 male gets a broken tennis racket stabbed into his temples

1 female impaled through a spear

1 female frozen solid inside a locked cryotherapy tank, shattered

1 male stabbed in the neck with a screwdriver, bisected through a table saw

1 male had his throat slashed with a broken vodka bottle

1 male eviscerated with a chainsaw

1 male found decapitated with a chainsaw

1 male hacked in an eye with a meat hook

1 male gets a broken table leg stabbed and kicked through his chest

Total: 11

Trailer Crud of Terror: Dolly Deadly (2016)

Dolly Deadly (2016)
Rating: **
Starring: Justin Moore, Kimberly West-Carroll, Jay Sosnicki

What if we take the first half of Rob Zombie's Halloween (2007), stretch that into a feature film at the cost of as little funds as possible and focus more on the trailer trash life? Most of us would likely fear the results but here it is, Dolly Deadly (2016). Yeah.

We open this hicksploitation for the modern age with a chain smoking single mom trying out a new hair dye, not knowing that the chemicals in it are so tainted, it eats through scalp and skull until brain matter gushes out. The end result is a dead mother and a newly orphaned baby boy crying his eyes out.  

Flash forward a couple of years later, Benji is now a preteen boy living with his trashy grandma and her freeloading boyfriend. His only friends are his mom's dolls who are alive in his imagination but this, of course, doesn't sit well for the rest of the neighborhood so lil' Benji is seen as a freak. Harassed and abused, it isn't long before his sanity starts slipping and he wants bloody retribution against those who crossed him. 

To be fair, as an indie production, Dolly Deadly has a lot of spirit in the sense that the people working around it really went all out with what they can use and do with a budget worth two potatoes and the result is admirable. The cinematography done for Benji's dream and imagination sequences, for one, works with their dark bubblegum color schemes and partial animation done in stop-motion which adds to the creepiness and craziness of the boy's slowly unhinging perspective. The plot doesn't dwell any deeper than a ticking timebomb of emotion and psychological abuse until the fantastically violent last act which sort of delivers, but I still really couldn't bring myself to give this anything higher than a lukewarm pat on the back due to its drawbacks.

The predictability of a lot of its scenes meant sitting through them can be a chore, especially when the acting involved dips down from mediocre to crass which the film does from time to time. In fact, with a large bulk of the film focusing greatly on Benji shouldering the weight of his trashy life, the pacing really dragged itself around the boy's suffering at the hands and tongues of his tormentors, thus perfecting the image of a dysfunctional childhood life a tad too well that it gets banally offbeat way longer than it needed to be and it's barely enjoyable. Add the matter that the amateur editing and obvious low budget can get very distracting when it actually hits you in the face and you got here a tired, tedious and overblown slow burn act that aims high, only to hit it a few steps down midway.

Now, the last act wherein Benji finally starts his murderous streak does earn some points for its hamminess as literal doll parts become lethal murder weapons, apparently strong enough to pierce through skin and flesh, or be used as a bludgeon to break open a hapless victim like a piñata. All of this committed by an eight-year old slasher boy in a drag and a papermache mask and, my gods, I'm loving it until the movie settles with a low murder count, thus leaving me with an unsatisfied taste in my mouth after sitting through all of that build-up.

If any of this dive down to low-budget psychological craft sounds like a keeper in your eyes then you definitely should try it out. Dolly Deadly (2016), again, has heart and effort in it, just not the kind that caters to my taste of revenge-fueled slashing, art house horrors or murderous kids. I'll leave all of that to good titles like The Children (2008) or Mikey (1992) while the rest of the world experience the effort that is this movie.

Bodycount:
1 female got her scalp melted off and explode from a botched bottle of hair dye
1 female stabbed to death with swords (dream)
1 boy bludgeoned to death with a doll
1 male had his gut stabbed open with doll parts
1 female poisoned, face melted off with tainted face cream
1 female seen strangled with a belt
Total: 6

Pridesploitation!: Make a Wish (2002), Killer Unicorn (2018) and Into The Dark: Midnight Kiss (2019) Triple Bill Review

As of writing this, it's June again and for our queer brothers and sisters, that means its pride month! And what better way to celebrate this time of openness and love beyond boundaries than some slasher flicks aimed for gay audiences? 

(Well, that or take your partner out for a romantic day out. Maybe cook dinner together. Play Twister. Pretty much anything else if you want to be more productive...)

Here be three hand-picked titles in which bodycounting and homosexuality get to be salty-sweet bedfellows, treating us to a birthday camp gone wrong, a vengeful fellow dressed as a rainbow maned fantasy creature, and a stalk n' stab shindig caused by a New Years game. Can these slashers be worth a gay old time? Or do they deserve the bottomless bottom of shame? Let's find out starting with:

Make a Wish (2002)

Rating: **1/2

Starring: Moynan King, Hollace Starr, Virginia Baeta

The premise is as basic as it comes with a group of friends getting together in a forest reserve to celebrate a birthday. Susan, our butch celebrant, holds this annually with her gal pals of lesbian cliches, consisting of hardcore vegan Chloe, tomboy Monica, formerly queer Linda, Dawn who's into mantras and candles, and newcomer Andrea, Monica’s new girlfriend. 

Trouble rears it ugly head early on when Linda's aggressively possessive boyfriend arrives to confront Susan before the rest got there, almost getting into a scuffle until a redneck hunter intervenes and threatens him away. (For now) The hunter, in turn, takes a liking to Susan despite her showing little interest for a male fling, lumbering away only after she puts her foot down and shoos him away. (Also for now)

As tents get set and nearby lakes get swam on, the girls start to get a bit heated in more ways than one as, if they're not busy snuggling with one another, drama stirs on who dumps who and for what reason. It isn't long before night falls and while the gang tries their best to make the most out of the slowly intensifying state of their love life and friendship, there's a psycho on the loose killing people at random and setting up traps. 

It isn't hard to hide Make a Wish's minuscule budget looking at the mostly static hand-held video quality, nearly wooden acting and the lack of special effects. In fact, as a slasher, Wish is very light on the blood work, thrills or even scares, with the groundwork greatly focusing on the melodrama surrounding our group's relationship with one another and their former swing with the birthday gal, Susan. Scripting on this case is dead centered on developing the girls as far as the pen can go, but it couldn't really gotten that far with cheesy banter and lackluster wittiness tainting its direction, leaving the movie hobbling forward with one-dimensional lesbian stereotypes spewing hammy gay in-jokes clutched on its wheels, which may or may not work well depending on how one could take the humor.

If anything, Make a Wish is simply an okay backwoods bodycounter for what it is; essentially progressive for its lesbian-centric cast, it doesn’t force anything of the girl's gender orientation and preferences and they simply act like regular horror film fodders. There are some T&A of the girl-on-girl nature, but it's very tame, hardly exploitative. It all goes on full ante in the last act, making way to a reveal in the finale that I honestly didn't see coming both for the twist and the nature of how it ended.

The hunted-lesbians-in-the-backwoods plot will eventually get revisited and, on my opinion, improved upon in 2018's stoner slasher 4/20 Massacre, a film that pits another gang of likable girls against what appears to be a Big Foot-like creature with a thing for weed. Until then, Make a Wish (2002) swings an okay gay themed stalk-and-stab jab, just not enough to actually consider itself a must have. Makes an good rental for a single night, though!

Bodycount:

1 female strangled with a crowbar

1 female had her neck cut with a hunting knife

1 male had his chest burnt off with a blowtorch

1 female shot and pinned to a tree with a crossbow

1 female stabbed to death with a tent spike

1 female drowned

1 male shot repeatedly

1 male hit off a cliff with a car

Total: 8

~~~

Killer Unicorn (2018)

Rating: *1/2

Starring: Dennis Budesheim, Alejandro La Rosa, Markus Kelle 

A nameless fellow remembers that one time nearly a year ago, when a group of drag queens left him for dead after beating him for almost raping one of their friends. Now donning nothing but a pair of hot pants and a giant unicorn mask, he embarks to hunt them down one by one in revenge.

As a slasher-comedy,  Killer Unicorn is very high on camp, quite fitting considering a large deal of the cast here are made up of drag queens in all of their heavy make-up and flamboyant glory. That being said, the film basically dims down the story to your typical revenge-driven stalker-type, only the victims involved are walking gay stereotypes and it's kinda hard to follow through a plot wherein almost everybody couldn't be taken seriously, let alone for an hour and fourteen minutes.

Pretty much anyone you will encounter in this movie are sex-starved and/or so self obsessed and you can only have so much of that sleaze and ham until it gets uninteresting and boring, borderline unlikable and annoying. The only highlight I can see here is that the titular Killer Unicorn does look interesting, a campier take on the topless Satan figure stalking hot boys in Hellbent (2004) if you will. We do get an ample slice of good gore, as well as some gross-out deaths like an acid enema and one guy drowning on force-fed urine, but apart from that, Killer Unicorn (2018) just doesn't cut right enough for me.

Bodycount:

1 male had their throat cut with a knife

1 male found decapitated

1 male stabbed in the eye

1 male gets sodomized with acid-filled enema, guts spill open

1 male choked on force-fed urine

1 male snorted tainted drugs

1 male had an arm cut off with a knife, killed

1 male strangled with a severed arm

1 male set ablaze

1 male slashed with a knife

1 male bludgeoned with death with a lead pipe

1 male knifed to death

1 male axed on the neck

Total: 13

~~~

Midnight Kiss (Into The Dark Episode 4/Season 2 (2019))

Rating: ***

Starring: Scott Evans, Adam Faison, Lukas Gage 

A joint effort between horror movie company Blumhouse's television branch and video-on-demand subscription service Hulu, Into The Dark is a monthly horror anthology web series where each episode is a feature length film inspired by a holiday from the month it is released. For their second season, December 2019 gets a second episode helping at the near end of the month with a slasher set around New Year and hot gay men.

Longtime best friends and former lovers Joel (Scott Evans) and Cameron (Augustus Prew), along with Joel's fiance Logan (Lukas Gage) and their wing woman Hannah (Ayden Mayeri), head to Palm Springs to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Staying in Joel's isolated family estate and with plans on clubbing til' midnight, the gang invites Logan for a game of Midnight Kiss, where the rule is to hookup with a stranger, bring them home and get freaky until the next morning, which by then they can choose whether to depart with no strings attached. It's mostly fun, games and smooches until someone in a gimp mask and leather suit shows up, targeting the group and taking their sweet time to thin their numbers down. 

The general plotting of Midnight Kiss can be narrowed down to it being small parts holiday bodycounter and greater parts gay drama, thus lacking a higher kill count and sturdily focusing more on developing its casts for a good helping of melodramatics. We see and hear about these boys' relationships and how it have strained over the years between them through a generous portion of dialogue, a fact that would normally put me off in a slasher movie if it wasn't for the layers of intriguing history these characters have.

The writing for this movie crafted the characters as organic as possible past all the shower butt shots and male-on-male snuggling, their plight and insecurities from implied controlling partners and pressured relations made worthwhile investing our time to for how human these characters can be. It isn't until the last act wherein the horror elements kick into full gear and by then, it's no short of being the typical stalk-and-prowl with a reveal that only half worked because of the glaringly obvious red herring.

As a slasher, it's serviceable enough despite the, again, low death toll and from what we got on the effects department, half of them were generous with the bloodletting, one of which a nastier spin on classic wine bottle murders. The only drawback here is the motive of the killer which boils down to a mix of jealous rage and scarred ego and, coming from a guy who dons an imposing BDSM leather suit, it's unimpressive and pathetic to say it lightly.

A production sleek in sharp colors, fresh camera shots and some awesome techno scores, Midnight Kiss (2019) may have its slow bits and overly talky sessions, but the overall end product is still something to admire, at least as a plot-focused horror/thriller. Its heart and mind is in the right place, next to a sharpened knife that's ready to surprise open horror fans with a bittersweet script and a fair run of blood. 

Bodycount:

1 male had his throat cut with a knife

1 male gets a broken wine bottle shoved down his throat

1 male smothered with fabric

1 male stabbed in the eye with a syringe, shot

Total: 4

The Crass Convert of Sister Sarah: Helgerån (1988)

Helgerån (Sacrilege) (Sweden, 1988)
Rating: **1/2
Starring: Robbin Banx, Amy Brentano, Dan Erickson

So here's something of a rarity for you lot; a late 80s slasher that's one part religious drama, hailing all the way from Sweden, an hour and fifty-five minutes long (?!) and directed by sexploitation genre innovator Joseph W. Sarno. Classy~

It starts with a couple in bed at a cottage somewhere in the mountains, no doubt well rested from a night of copulating. The woman, wanting to freshen up a little, steps out to a nearby river, only to hear something following her into the woods. Thinking its her boyfriend, she yells at it to quit screwing around, but what she didn't expect is to be responded with a sharp sickle through her neck, decapitating her before the killer lifts her head for a title card!

The scene then shifts to a dark and stormy night, as members of a Christian community hold a mass and get an unexpected visitor in the form of a rain-drenched woman named Sarah, claiming to be the daughter of one of their late members. This momentarily puts the head ministers of the commune on edge as her family was considered personae non gratae due to them committing acts against their devotion, but seeing Sarah's eagerness to be a part of their cause and save her sister, Gudrun, who they believe is possessed by evil, they let her stay and be taught the ways of Christ as any good Christian cult would.

In the midst of this, George, a journalist, is sent to infiltrate the cult for some juicy articles, but ends up being toured around by Sarah and the two blossom into a relationship that's closely kept an eye by their church. As a way for Sarah to do her part for the community, she and some adults are to hold a retreat in the mountains for a small gaggle of children, the very same mountains where a sickle-wielding maniac is lopping off heads.

And lop heads they do, but only after the movie lumbered about fifty or so minutes from the first rolling head on the dirt we've seen in the opening. By that time, the film eventually recalls its slasher half, complete with sect members getting frisky with one another while cheating on their spouses, and Sarah starting to show a bit of unhinging as she starts blabbering about her sister and being summoned into the woods to pray for her safety. You can smell the red herrings from here on, played up to high cheese as evil twins and lesbian longings are thrown in to the crazy plot. (And seeing the movie still has another approximate hour to go at that mark, the writers really took all their time to milk it.)

There's a strong focus on Christian dramatics in the entirety of Helgerån (1988), as TV soap-quality banter barely veers away from Sarah's possible need of professional help and how that clashes with the commune's belief of spiritual salvation. The bloody violence, tongue-in-cheek acting and exploitative suggestiveness, though, are still present to knock it back to cheesy slasher territories, but the result is nowhere that great with low count kills lacking creativity (all beheadings, albeit some do try to be exciting by decapitating victims by the mouth, or having their hands cleaved off, too) and the story is at a lost for a more exciting finale. (Or any resolution, to be frank)

Still, the film's pairing of over-the-top try-hard religious plotting with cluttered tone and acting is just too unintentionally entertaining to dismiss this film completely, so I wouldn't say this is a total fluke. Its may lack quality production-wise from lighting and editing to special effects, I do find some of its concepts and set-pieces to be interesting enough to encourage a bit more patience from me to power through until the end, down to the cheesy final lines.

Not everyone would get it, nor appreciate it, so I can't really recommend this willy nilly, but if you think you can withstand nearly two hours of cheese for some beheadings and convent boobs, then brave on, fool. Brave on.

Bodycount:
1 female decapitated with a sickle
1 male decapitated with a sickle
1 female had her head and hands sliced off with a sickle
1 male decapitated with a sickle
1 female decapitated by the mouth with a sickle
1 female head found impaled on a stake
Total: 6